His mother, Bouthayna Mohamed Mustapha Sheraqi, came from a wealthy farming and trading family and was also educated. On December 29 and 30, Atta and Marwan went to the Opa-locka Airport where they practiced on a Boeing 727 simulator, and they obtained Boeing 767 simulator training from Pan Am International on December 31. By the time it took off, Mohammed Atta was just four minutes away from hitting the North Tower of the World Trade Center. [3] Immediately after returning to Germany, Atta, al-Shehhi, and Jarrah reported their passports stolen, possibly to discard travel visas to Afghanistan. About a minute later, he turned the plane southbound, on a course pointed in the direction of New York City. During the meeting, Atta and bin al-Shibh also decided on the targets to be hit, ruling out a strike on a nuclear plant. Bin Laden also asked that other operatives not be informed of the specific data until the last minute. In June 2000, Atta, Ziad Jarrah and Marwan al-Shehhi arrived in the United States to learn how to pilot planes, obtaining instrument ratings in November. It had been overlooked that there would still be a security screen to pass in Boston because of this distinct detail of the terminal's arrangement. TERRORIST: Mohammed Atta's mum claims her son is still alive and in Guantanamo Bay . . Mohamed Atta is believed to have been the pilot of the first plane that crashed into the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. . "There's a real question there because he took a tremendous risk in going to Portland the night before and then having to catch a commuter flight to Boston, said Roger Cressey, who was director of transnational threats for President Bush's National Security Council. Bouthayna and Mohamed married when she was 14, via an arranged marriage. Days later, Shehhi, Jarrah and Atta ended up in Venice, Florida. Instead, he went to Central Office & Travel in Pompano Beach to purchase a ticket for a flight to Newark, leaving on the evening of August 7 and schedule to return in the evening on August 9. ''They said I'd hear back from them, which I never did.''. The Egyptian Mohamed Atta arrived at the Florenc bus terminal in Prague, from Germany, on June 2, 2000. Shower. Undated photos of suspected hijackers of United Airlines flight #93 that crashed in rural Pennsylvania, released by the FBI September 27, 2001 in Washington, DC. Atta and the other Hamburg cell members were recruited by bin Laden and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed for a "planes operation" in the United States. He moved into a nearby apartment in the Wilhelmsburg district, where he lived with Said Bahaji and Ramzi bin al-Shibh. [9][44] This was the same day that Israel, much to the outrage of Atta, attacked Lebanon in Operation Grapes of Wrath; signing the will "offering his life" was his response. The Web . Ringleader Mohammed Atta and at least four of the other 19 hijackers made six visits to Las Vegas between late May and mid-August of 2001. We will examine that 9/11 mystery in our next report. He would soon post a note forbidding pilots from flying into Miami International. "[15] For his thesis, Atta concentrated on the ancient Syrian city of Aleppo. My name is Mohamed Atta. A spokesman for the F.A.A. After six months, they asked him to leave.[20][21][22]. During that period, his roommates grew annoyed with him. ''Whatever came of that, I don't know,'' said Dan Pursell, who was then the chief instructor at Huffman Aviation in Venice, Fla., the flight school where Mr. Atta and Mr. Shehhi earned their pilot's licenses and had rented the Piper Cherokee that day. Investigators believe the call was to confirm the attacks were ready to begin. It was here that the Hamburg cell developed and acted more as a group. Here's some background information about the 19 hijackers of September 11, 2001.. Timeline September 11, 2001 - Nineteen men hijack four commercial airlines loaded with fuel for cross country . In the spring of 2000, Atta entered the United States and enrolled in an aviation school in Venice, Fla. On Sept. 10, 2001, Atta picked up another 9/11 terrorist, Abdul-Azzia Al-Omari, at the Milner Hotel in Boston. According to Bryant, Atta wanted to finance the purchase of a crop-duster. [8] He then worked for several months at the Urban Development Center in Cairo, where he joined various building projects and dispatched diverse architectural tasks. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, mastermind of the 9/11 plot says they began talking about the "planes operation" in 1995. The luggage included a copy of Atta's will, written in Arabic, as well as a list of instructions, called "The Last Night". Then at 8:50pm, he checked into the Hotel Diana Cazadora in Barajas, a town near the airport. Atta stayed in Cairo awhile with his family after Hauth and Bodenstein flew back to Germany. The second chapter showed Atta and Ziad Jarrah reading their wills together ten days later on January 18. [16], On August 4, Atta is believed to have been at Orlando International Airport waiting to pick up suspected "20th Hijacker" Mohammed al-Qahtani from Dubai, who ended up being held by immigration as "suspicious." He spent two nights in Salou at the beachside Casablanca Playa Hotel, then spent the last two nights at the Hotel Residencia Montsant. Report Suggest Cover-Up of 9/11 Findings", "Father Denies 'Gentle Son' Could Hijack Any Jetliner", "Father insists alleged leader of attack on WTC is still alive", "He Never Even Had a Kite" Mohamed Atta's father talks about his son, the alleged hijacker, " 11 ", New video shows 9/11 hijackers Mohammed Atta, Ziad Jarrah at Al-Qaida meeting., Interviews with those who interacted with Atta prior to 9/11, October 2001 interview with Dittmar Machule, "MUGSHOTS: Mohammed Atta - Soldier of Terror", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mohamed_Atta&oldid=1140797922, Four Corners, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, broadcast November 12, 2001, Documentary series from Court TV (now TruTV), This page was last edited on 21 February 2023, at 21:12. Mr. Pursell said that because the airport was secured, the two men could not have simply left undetected. Phillpott said that Shaffer was "relying on my recollection 100 percent," and the Defense Department Inspector General's report indicated that Philpott "may have exaggerated knowing Atta's identity because he supported using Able Danger's techniques to fight terrorism. He was the only pilot who was married, to a German national of Turkish descent. [30], By mid-1998, Atta was no longer eligible for university housing in Centrumshaus. . [38] The instructions in his last will and testament reflect both Sunni funeral practices along with some more puritanical demands from Salafism, including asking people not "to weep and cry" and to generally refrain from showing emotion. Mohamed Mohamed el-Amir Awad el-Sayed Atta (/t/ AT-ah; Arabic: [mmmd elmi wd essj.jed t]; September 1, 1968 September 11, 2001) was an Egyptian hijacker and the ringleader of the September 11 attacks in 2001 in which four United States airliners were commandeered with the intention of destroying specific civilian, military, and governmental targets. On April 16, Atta was given a citation for not having a valid driver's license, and he began steps to get the license. The remains of the 9/11 killers are now held in deep freeze. There was some confusion regarding who Mohamed Atta was, and cases of mistaken identity. Mr. Pursell described the incident at the Miami airport as a nuisance more than a serious violation, an assessment shared by many others in general aviation. Initially, Mohamed Atta's identity was confused with that of a native Jordanian, Mahmoud Mahmoud Atta, who bombed an Israeli bus in the West Bank in 1986, killing one and severely injuring three. There hasn't been a successful attack against commercial aviation in the U.S. in the 20 years since 9/11, and outside experts agree that while there is still room for improvement, the TSA has been . He had made no progress on his thesis. "[105][106], Five witnesses who had worked on Able Danger and had been questioned by the Defense Department's Inspector General later told investigative journalists that their statements to the IG were distorted by investigators in the final IG's report, or the report omitted essential information that they had provided. [32] Atta Sr. rejected media reports that stated his son was drinking wildly, and instead described his son as a quiet boy uninvolved with politics, shy and devoted to studying architecture. [8], Atta was born on September 1, 1968, in Kafr el-Sheikh, located in the Nile Delta region of Egypt (then a part of the United Arab Republic). According to The Sunday Times, "American and German investigators have struggled to find evidence of Atta's whereabouts in January 2000 after he disappeared from Hamburg. ''They were more concerned about being reimbursed for their rental car,'' he recalled. A Pakistani businessman named Mohammed Atta had come to Prague from Saudi Arabia on May 31, 2000, with this second Atta possibly contributing to the confusion. Mohamed Atta, 33, Egypt Atta was quickly identified as the ringleader of the 9/11 attacks. The first chapter of the video showed bin Laden at Tarnak Farms on January 8, 2000. ''A guy said, 'Hey, some of your pilots are down here and they left the plane on the causeway,' '' Mr. Kraus recalled. The third hijacked plane, American Airlines Flight 77, a Boeing 757 that took off from Dulles Airport . Of the four hijacker pilots, Jarrah was the most westernized, coming from a Lebanese secular background and Christian schooling before moving to Germany for university studies. Each day a new story will be published here. [57], On March 22, 2000, Atta was still in Germany when he sent an e-mail to the Academy of Lakeland in Florida. Mohamed Atta had varied his name on documents, also using "Mehan Atta", "Mohammad El Amir", "Muhammad Atta", "Mohamed El Sayed", "Mohamed Elsayed", "Muhammad al-Amir", "Awag Al Sayyid Atta", and "Awad Al Sayad". He was therefore treated favorably and not scrutinized. Dale Kraus, then the general manager at Huffman, recalled a telephone call that came within minutes of the incident in Miami from an irritated official in the flight tower. Abdulaziz al Omari (22), Saudi Arabia - Airport security guard. For an optimal experience visit our site on another browser. An airport incident report indicates that the Piper Cherokee stalled at 5:45 p.m. and was removed from the taxiway by 6:20 p.m. [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. Having little else to do, he mostly studied at home and easily excelled in school. Throughout the summer, Atta met with Nawaf al-Hazmi to discuss the status of the operation on a monthly basis. Former Metro Sheriff Jerry Keller recounts the time 9/11 terrorists spent in Las Vegas. As his father insisted that he go abroad for graduate studies, Atta, to this end, entered a German-language program at the Goethe Institute in Cairo. Mohamed Atta accepted and was in Germany two weeks later, in July. On September 11 we'll live tweet the events of the day, minute by minute, starting at 4:45 a.m. EST, @RoadTo911. "[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. [80] [81], On September 10, 2001, Atta picked up al-Omari from the Milner Hotel in Boston, Massachusetts, and the two drove their rented Nissan Altima to a Comfort Inn in South Portland, Maine. 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. [100][101][102], In 2005, Army Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer and Congressman Curt Weldon alleged that the Defense Department data mining project, Able Danger, produced a chart that identified Atta, along with Nawaf al-Hazmi, Khalid al-Mihdhar, and Marwan al-Shehhi, as members of a Brooklyn-based al-Qaeda cell in early 2000. Mr. Kraus noted that the two men had been trained on smaller, ''uncontrolled'' airports that operate without flight towers. At 8:25 . He mentioned Osama bin Laden and said "this man would someday be known as the world's greatest leader." [51] They met three or four times a week to discuss their anti-American feelings and to plot possible attacks. Atta graduated from Cairo University with marks insufficient for the graduate program. Mohamed Atta, one of the key organizers among the 19 hijackers who carried out the Sept. 11 attacks, left behind a five-page handwritten document in Arabic that includes Islamic prayers . Many al-Qaeda members lived in this apartment at various times, including hijacker Marwan al-Shehhi, Zakariya Essabar, and others. Said Bahaji, a German citizen, was a close friend of Mohammed Atta, the hijacker in control of American Airlines Flight 11 which was the first plane to strike the World Trade Center. During his time in the United States, Jarrah left five times to visit his wife in Germany and he constantly communicated with her, both over the phone and in email. On June 28, Atta arrived at McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas to meet with the three other pilots. [91] The angle at which Atta crashed into the North Tower severed all means of escape from Floor 92 or higher, ensuring that no one on those floors was able to make it out alive before the building collapsed 102 minutes later at 10:28 A.M.[92], Because the flight from Portland to Boston had been delayed,[93] his bags did not make it onto Flight 11. refused to comment on whether any official investigation had ever been started against the two men, citing the criminal investigation into the hijackings. The next day, he received a five-year B-1/B-2 (tourist/business) visa from the United States embassy in Berlin. Atta phoned his graduate advisor, Machule, and mentioned family problems at home, saying, "Please understand, I don't want to talk about this. [58], On May 17, Atta applied for a United States visa. [43], On April 11, 1996, Atta signed his last will and testament at the mosque, officially declaring his Muslim beliefs and giving 18 instructions regarding his burial. When they later returned to Huffman, Mr. Pursell said, they were reprimanded. Mohammed Atta, 33, and Marwan al-Shehhi, 23, piloted the planes that hit the World Trade Center, the North and South Towers, respectively. [9] He was known as Abd al-Rahman al-Misri by al-Qaeda. That night and twice the next morning, he called Bashar Ahmad Ali Musleh, a Jordanian student in Hamburg who served as a liaison for bin al-Shibh. "He said he was an engineer and he wanted to build a chemical . At 2:12 p.m. on August 25, Mohammed Atta logged into his . If you try to make any moves you'll endanger yourself and the airplane. Dekkers has written a book, "Guilty By Association," about his experience with Mohamed Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi, the two hijackers whose act of terrorism left nearly 3,000 people dead. American Airlines Flight 11: Mohamed Atta, Egypt (33) - Tactical leader of 9/11 plot and pilot. Evidently, he tried to deliver a message instructing the passengers and crew to stay put over the cabin's PA system, but pressed the wrong switch and thereby tipped off ATC that the flight had been hijacked. He was the hijacker-pilot of American Airlines Flight 11 which he crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center as part of the coordinated attacks. Atta disappeared from Germany for periods of time, embarking on the hajj in 1995 but also meeting Osama bin Laden and other top al-Qaeda leaders in Afghanistan from late-1999 to early-2000. [103] Shaffer largely based his allegations on the recollections of Navy Captain, Scott Phillpott,[104] who later recanted his recollection, telling investigators that he was "convinced that Atta was not on the chart that we had." [69], On June 27, Atta flew from Fort Lauderdale to Boston, Massachusetts, where he spent a day, and then continued to San Francisco for a short time, and from there to Las Vegas. He shopped for flights from Washington Dulles International Airport to Los Angeles and from Boston to Los Angeles, all departing around 8:00 a.m. on the morning of September 11. 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.