[71] On July 8, Atta was recorded on surveillance video when he withdrew 1700 Swiss francs from an ATM. [25] The invitation had been for a three-day visit, but Atta ended up staying several weeks that August, only to visit Aleppo yet again that December. On July 7, 2001, Atta flew on Swissair Flight 117 from Miami to Zrich, where he had a stopover. He failed to show up for court and a bench warrant was issued for his arrest. ", "Staff Report "We Have Some Planes": The Four Flights a Chronology", National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, "The Aviation Security System and the 9/11 Attacks Staff Statement No. They were on a suicide flight. Something is not right. [73], On the morning of July 9, Mohamed Atta rented a silver Hyundai Accent, which he booked from SIXT Rent-A-Car for July 9 to 16, and later extended to the 19th. [86][89] The plane's transponder was switched off at 8:21a.m. At 8:24:38a.m., a voice believed to be Atta's was heard by air traffic controllers, saying: "We have some planes. On the way, Atta stopped in Reus to pick up Ramzi bin al-Shibh at the airport. [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. Mohammed Atta, (born September 1, 1968, Kafr al-Shaykh, Egyptdied September 11, 2001, New York, New York, U.S.), Egyptian militant Islamist and al-Qaeda operative who helped plot and lead the September 11 attacks. The next day, he received a five-year B-1/B-2 (tourist/business) visa from the United States embassy in Berlin. That raises a larger issue, and that is: At any point did anybody in the U.S. knowingly help any of the 19 terrorists prepare for the attack? 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta, who is thought to have flown American Airlines Flight 11 into the North Tower of the World Trade Center AP "I said, specifically, 'These two clowns are up to . Flight controllers, according to airport records, guided the waiting passenger airliners around the stalled aircraft until it was towed away 35 minutes later. The night before, Atta went to Portland, Maine, a trip that has mystified terrorism experts for five years. By the time it took off, Mohammed Atta was just four minutes away from hitting the North Tower of the World Trade Center. [108], Atta's father, Mohamed el-Amir Awad el-Sayed Atta, a retired lawyer in Egypt, vehemently rejected allegations his son was involved in the September 11 attacks, and instead accused the Mossad and the United States government of having a hand in framing his son. In mid-1998, Atta worked alongside Shehhi, bin al-Shibh, and Belfas, at a warehouse, packing computers in crates for shipping. During that time Atta flew out of Briscoe Field in Lawrenceville with a pilot, and Atta and either the pilot or Shehhi flew around the Atlanta area. But Atta's night before 9-11 - which he spent in Portland, Main -- is a mystery that has puzzled terrorism experts for five years. We hate America and all that it stands for. [13][14] In 1985, Atta enrolled at Cairo University and focused his studies on engineering. This document is divided into three sections; the first is a fifteen point list providing detailed instructions for the last night of a martyr's life, the second gives instructions for travelling to the plane and the third from the time between boarding the plane and martyrdom. On 12 April 1986, Mahmoud Mahmoud Atta . American Airlines Flight 11 was hijacked by five al Qaeda terrorists led by Mohamed Atta and was deliberately crashed into the North Tower (on the right) of the World Trade Center at 8:46am local . The 9/11 Commission obtained details about the meeting, based on interrogations of bin al-Shibh in the weeks after his arrest in September 2002. Kersten said in an interview at the agency's headquarters in Wiesbaden that Atta was in Afghanistan from late 1999 until early 2000,[53][54] and that there was evidence that Atta met with Osama bin Laden there. 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. . 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. The family had few relatives on the father's side and kept their distance from Bouthayna's family. Atta flew Flight 11 into the North Tower of the World Trade Center. [15][17], Atta also got engaged to a woman lined up by his father and her family in Cairo, at late 1999, after coming back from Germany the same year. "[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. Mr. Pursell, meanwhile, said the two men never explained why they chose to fly to Miami or apologized for the costs incurred by the school. They had never been pictured together before. At the Hamburg University of Technology, Atta studied under the guidance of the department chair, Dittmar Machule, who specialized in the Middle East. They drove to Cambrils, where they spent a night at the Hotel Monica. He mentioned Al Qaeda and said the organization "could use memberships from Americans". "[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. "[46][47] At the winter break in 1997, Atta left and did not return to Hamburg for three months. ''They were more concerned about being reimbursed for their rental car,'' he recalled. "[15] For his thesis, Atta concentrated on the ancient Syrian city of Aleppo. There, Atta and bin al-Shibh held a meeting to complete the planning of the attacks. Atta took control of the plane and crashed it into the North Tower of the World Trade Center at 8:46a.m.[6] The crash led to the collapse of the skyscraper and the deaths of more than 1,600 people. [65], According to official reports, Atta flew from Prague to Newark International Airport, arriving on June 3, 2000. Mohammed Atta, a convicted terrorist released by Israel at the insistence of the U.S., participated in the 9/11 terrorist attacks. [16] Also in 1990, Atta's family moved into the eleventh floor of an apartment building in the Egyptian city of Giza. There, Mr. Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi, another man the F.B.I. On August 6, Atta and Shehhi rented a white, four-door 1995 Ford Escort from Warrick's Rent-A-Car, which was returned on August 13. In the Czech Republic, some intelligence officials say the source of the purported meeting was an Arab informant who approached the Czech intelligence service with his sighting of Atta only after Atta's photograph had appeared in newspapers all over the world. They may have helped arrange and host the meeting in Tarragona. [16] When Atta and Shehhi arrived in Florida, they initially stayed with Huffman's bookkeeper and his wife in a spare room of their house. He said they wanted advice on trying to restart the plane. Mr. Pursell, meanwhile, had already gotten a cellphone call from Mr. Atta and Mr. Shehhi. The FBI found a 9/11 hijacker's airplane ticket floating to the ground only moments after the north tower collapsed. He also began teaching classes both at Al-Quds and at a Turkish mosque near the Harburg district. Atta graduated from Cairo University with marks insufficient for the graduate program. They instead traveled to Afghanistan over a two-week period in late November. Twelve minutes later, at 8:46:40a.m., Atta crashed the plane into the North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York City. ''Tower seemed to have no trouble taxiing around it at a busy time,'' the handwritten report reads. [72] After the stopover in Zrich, he arrived in Madrid at 4:45pm on Swissair Flight 656, and spent several hours at the airport. The 33-year-old grew up in a strict household in Egypt where he was made to study hard. FBI investigators have officially concluded that 11 of the 19 terrorists who hijacked the aircraft on 11 September did not know they were on a suicide mission, Whitehall . [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. Mr. Pursell said that because the airport was secured, the two men could not have simply left undetected. There was some confusion regarding who Mohamed Atta was, and cases of mistaken identity. 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. Atta was directly responsible for the deaths of more than 1,600 people during the attacks. On April 3, Atta and Shehhi rented a postal box in Virginia Beach, Virginia. One of them came on Dec. 26 at Miami International Airport. Volker Hauth, who was traveling with Atta, described Amal as "attractive and self-confident. [86] In Portland, Mohamed Atta was selected by the Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening System (CAPPS), which required his checked bags to undergo extra screening for explosives but involved no extra screening at the passenger security checkpoint. In-laws characterized the father of Atta as "austere, strict, and private," and neighbors viewed the family as reclusive. He stayed there until 1998. Days later, Shehhi, Jarrah and Atta ended up in Venice, Florida. The third hijacked plane, American Airlines Flight 77, a Boeing 757 that took off from Dulles Airport . Bin Laden was concerned about having so many operatives in the United States. On September 11 we'll live tweet the events of the day, minute by minute, starting at 4:45 a.m. EST, @RoadTo911. Timeline September 11, 2001. If you try to make any moves you'll endanger yourself and the airplane. By the time it took off, Mohammed Atta was just four minutes away from hitting the North Tower of the World Trade Center. My name is Mohamed Atta. [51] They met three or four times a week to discuss their anti-American feelings and to plot possible attacks. And so, we still don't know what he was doing there.". [11] Atta was the only son; he had two older sisters who are both well-educated and successful in their careers one as a medical doctor and the other as a professor. Atta grew up in Egypt and studied urban planning in Germany. Spanish investigators have said that Marwan al-Shehhi and two others later joined the meeting. After Jarrah's team hijacked Flight 93, flight attendants and passengers started making phone calls from the back of the plane. [3][56] On his return journey, Atta left Karachi on February 24, 2000, by flight TK1057 to Istanbul where he changed to flight TK1661 to Hamburg. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. A spokesman for the F.A.A. Abdulaziz al Omari (22), Saudi Arabia - Airport security guard. [88] At 6:45a.m., while at the Boston airport, Atta took a call from Flight 175 hijacker Marwan al-Shehhi. Atta sent 5060 similar e-mails to other flight training schools in the United States. . They also discussed the personal difficulties Atta was having with fellow hijacker Ziad Jarrah. The reservation was not used and canceled on August 9 with the reason "Family Medical Emergency".