Realizing they were facing a suicide mission, flight 93 passengers fought for control of the plane. He was among the highest-scoring students; by his senior year, he was admitted to an exclusive architecture program. . But Atta's night before 9-11 which he spent in Portland, Main -- is a mystery that has puzzled terrorism experts for five years. But more likely it is that the origination of his flight in Newark, delayed on the ground for 40 minutes, that made his flight more vulnerable. Financial records and bank video show Atta and Al-Omari made two ATM withdrawals in Portland, and the men were reportedly spotted at an area Wal-Mart, as well as in the parking lot of a Pizza Hut restaurant. He researched the history of the urban landscape in relation to the general theme of conflict between Arab and modern civilization. On June 28, Atta arrived at McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas to meet with the three other pilots. On the morning of September 11, 2001, 46 minutes into United Airlines Flight 93, a nonstop flight from Newark, New Jersey to San Francisco, four hijackers took control of the Boeing 757-222. [37] Atta was anti-Semitic, believing that Jews controlled the world's media, financial, and political institutions from New York City. [30], By mid-1998, Atta was no longer eligible for university housing in Centrumshaus. Although estimates range from 18 "Might have just been doing surveillance detection just to see if somebody might have been following him up in that area, Drumhiller said. In mid-1998, Atta worked alongside Shehhi, bin al-Shibh, and Belfas, at a warehouse, packing computers in crates for shipping. He believed that the drab and impersonal apartment blocks, built in the 60s and 70s, ruined the beauty of old neighborhoods and robbed their people of privacy and dignity. [73][74] After bin al-Shibh returned to Germany on July 16, 2001, Atta had three more days in Spain. [31][32] Further, after the Egyptian government had imprisoned droves of political activists, he knew better than to trust it not to target him too, with his social and political beliefs being such as they were. We went through the logs of ferries leaving Maine, and we went through the logs of airlines and anything associated with potential for a terrorist cell to support Atta. [45], After leaving Plankontor in the summer of 1997, Atta disappeared again and did not return until 1998. They also discussed the personal difficulties Atta was having with fellow hijacker Ziad Jarrah. "[98], In the months following the September 11 attacks, officials at the Czech Interior Ministry asserted that Atta made a trip to Prague on April 8, 2001, to meet with an Iraqi intelligence agent named Ahmed Khalil Ibrahim Samir al-Ani. Atta and Shehhi then moved into a small house nearby in Nokomis where they stayed for six months. Practicing for his assignment, Ziad Jarrah took a check ride at Airborne Systems Flight School in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, on August 17. Atta was believed to have used a payphone at the airport to phone a number "linked to al-Qaeda" after Qahtani was denied entry.[78]. [55], A video surfaced in October 2006. Make sure you know all aspects of the plan well, and expect the response, or a . They learned of a massive terrorist attack underway, concluding that they had to take action to down the plane: it was not being hijacked to land and for demands to be made. Atta was seated in business class, in seat 8D. [71] On July 8, Atta was recorded on surveillance video when he withdrew 1700 Swiss francs from an ATM. ''They said I'd hear back from them, which I never did.''. The 33-year-old grew up in a strict household in Egypt where he was made to study hard. They had problems following instructions and were both very upset when they failed their Stage 1 exam at Jones Aviation. "[113] In turn, political scientist Robert Pape has claimed that Atta was motivated by his commitment to the political cause, that he was psychologically normal, and that he was "not readily characterized as depressed, not unable to enjoy life, not detached from friends and society. On November 29, 1999, Mohamed Atta boarded Turkish Airlines Flight TK1662 from Hamburg to Istanbul, where he changed to flight TK1056 to Karachi, Pakistan. The couple explained at dinner that they ran an exchange program and invited Atta to continue his studies in Germany; they also offered him room and board at their home in the city. A spokesman for the F.A.A. Mohammed Atta sat in seat 8D in Business Class. Several clues have been found to link their stay in Spain to Syrian-born Imad Eddin Barakat Yarkas (Abu Dahdah), and Amer el Azizi, a Moroccan in Spain. [7] In Germany, he registered his name as "Mohamed el-Amir Awad el-Sayed Atta", and went by the name Mohamed el-Amir at the Hamburg University of Technology. He stayed there until 1998. Then at 8:50pm, he checked into the Hotel Diana Cazadora in Barajas, a town near the airport. LA Times Archives, Tracking the Flights Hijacked on 9/11, Last edited on 21 February 2023, at 21:12, [mmmd elmi wd essj.jed t], Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening System, "On Path to the U.S. Statements entered at . Tuohey was the ticket agent at the Portland International Jetport who handed two of the terrorists - Mohamed Atta and Abdulaziz al-Omari - their boarding passes for an early morning flight to . [77] On July 19, Atta returned to the United States, flying on Delta Air Lines from Madrid to Fort Lauderdale, via Atlanta. He held interviews with the German news magazine Bild am Sonntag in late 2002, saying his son was alive and hiding in fear for his life, and that American Christians were responsible for the attacks. [112], There are multiple, conflicting explanations for Atta's behavior and motivation. Twenty-three minutes later, Atta flew that plane into the North Tower of the World Trade Center. The plane is piloted by plot leader Mohamed Atta. Bin al-Shibh later explained that they believed it would contribute to operational security for Atta to fly out of Prague instead of Hamburg, where he traveled from previously. [26] While in Syria, he met Amal, a young Palestinian woman who worked for a planning bureau in the city. [12], When Atta was ten, his family moved to the Cairo neighborhood of Abdeen, situated near the city center. Passengers must leave the secured area, go outdoors, cross a covered roadway, and enter another building before going through security once again. On Sept. 12, 2001, investigators combed over the field near Shanksville, Pa., where United Flight 93 crashed a day earlier. Skies, Plot Leader Met bin Laden", "Video of 9/11 ringleader Mohammed Atta posted by British news site", "FBI Informant Says Agents Missed Chance to Stop 9/11 Ringleader Mohammed Atta", "Flight Path Study American Airlines Flight 11", "Personal Stories Who Were They? It turned out one of his accomplices, Mohamed Atta-- thought to be the ringleader of the entire four-jet attack that demolished the twin towers and part of the Pentagon-- stayed in the cheap Econo . [99] Intelligence officials have concluded that such a meeting did not occur. Footage shows the five hijackers who flew American Flight 77 into the Pentagon progressing through security checks at Washington's Dulles International Airport. They instead traveled to Afghanistan over a two-week period in late November. There, Mr. Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi, another man the F.B.I. . Readers may recall the shaving custom from the media coverage of 9/11. Wail's ticket was purchased over the phone with a debit card. Having little else to do, he mostly studied at home and easily excelled in school. On July 7, 2001, Atta flew on Swissair Flight 117 from Miami to Zrich, where he had a stopover. Following the real Mohamad Atta and his crash into the World Trade Center, his ghost, like ashes left at Ground Zero, has arisen and entered the public consciousness again. In April, he was ticketed in South Florida for driving without a license. By the time it took off, Mohammed Atta was just four minutes away from hitting the North Tower of the World Trade Center. [97] After 9/11, there also were reports stating that Mohamed Atta had attended International Officers School at Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Alabama. The second chapter showed Atta and Ziad Jarrah reading their wills together ten days later on January 18. [73] The absence of other hotel stays, signed receipts or credit card stubs has led investigators to believe that the men may have met in a safe house provided by other al-Qaeda operatives in Spain. Mr. Pursell said that because the airport was secured, the two men could not have simply left undetected. Atta flew Flight 11 into the North Tower of the World Trade Center. the suspected ringleader of the Sept. 11 hijackings and the pilot of the first plane to crash into the World Trade Center, was a homosexual. ''They were more concerned about being reimbursed for their rental car,'' he recalled. [3] After they arrived, they were selected by Al Qaeda leader Mohammed Atef as suitable candidates for the "planes operation" plot. Bin al-Shibh was worried that Jarrah might even abandon the plan. This claim has been disputed; Terry McDermott has argued that it is unusual for someone to go on pilgrimage so soon after the first time and to spend three months there (more than Hajj requires). Newsweek is reconstructing the road to 9/11 as it was constructed 20 years ago, day by day. They were among the first to enter the U.S. in May and . [115], Mohamed Mohamed el-Amir Awad el-Sayed Atta, Mohamed Atta's first announcement, heard by ATC at 08:23, Mohamed Atta's second announcement at 08:33, sfn error: no target: CITEREFWright2006 (. The 9/11 Commission Report speculated that the now-convicted terrorist conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui was being trained as a possible replacement for Jarrah. The incident, which occurred on a busy travel day at the country's ninth-busiest passenger airport, is especially notable because of how close it brought the two men to official scrutiny. Just after 9:03 a.m., United 175 crashed into the World Trade Center's South Tower. Flight controllers, according to airport records, guided the waiting passenger airliners around the stalled aircraft until it was towed away 35 minutes later. Political psychologist Jerrold Post has suggested that Atta and his fellow hijackers were just following orders from al-Qaeda leadership, "and whatever their destructive, charismatic leader Osama bin Laden said was the right thing to do for the sake of the cause was what they would do. "[15] For his thesis, Atta concentrated on the ancient Syrian city of Aleppo. Both enrolled at Jones Aviation in Sarasota and took training there for a brief time. The next winter, they moved into an apartment at Marienstrasse 54 in the borough of Harburg, near the Hamburg University of Technology,[50] at which they enrolled. On August 26, Saudi brothers Waleed and Wail al-Shehri also purchased tickets for the same flight. "This begs the question of why the pilots had not punched in the hijack code of 7500, also known as Squawking, if things were happening on the plane before the hijackers gained entry to the . [8] In mid-1995, he stayed for three months in Cairo, on a grant from the Carl Duisberg Society, along with fellow students Volker Hauth and Ralph Bodenstein.
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