9/11 Special: Part 3 - Flight school
This is part 3 of The Four Planes, a 4-part series that pieces together the events that led to the 9/11 attacks. Today’s story revisits the final stages of the planning for what Al Qaeda referred to as the “planes operation”. With hindsight, it’s hard to believe that a group of 19 people spent almost two years elaborately plotting and scheming right under American noses without detection.
Please grab a cup of coffee and enjoy today’s edition. ☕️
If you want to get up to speed (recommended but not needed to follow today’s story), here are the previous articles:
“Centralization of decision and decentralization of execution”. That’s how Al Qaeda ran its operations. Although the organisation’s leaders decided on the targets, recruited the team and arranged the funds, the soldiers were in charge of the when and how of carrying out the attacks. Khalid Sheik Mohammed (KSM) co-ordinated the operation and split it into two teams: the Hamburg group and the Saudi group, consisting of Khaled al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi, the two Saudis handpicked by bin Laden.
Khaled al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi
Hazmi and Midhar arrived in California on 15 January 2000 after travelling through Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok. Shockingly, both men were under CIA surveillance for their suspected affiliation to known terrorist organizations but breezed through the U.S. borders as the CIA had not mentioned these suspicions to consular authorities.
Bin Laden selected these men due to their devotion, service history, and ability to obtain U.S. visas. But they were unfamiliar with the West and spoke little to no English, so before they could commence with pilot training, they had to take English-language classes.
The Hamburg arrivals
After meeting with bin Laden in Afghanistan, all four men from Hamburg applied for new passports to eliminate evidence of their previous travels to Pakistan. They all claimed that their passports had been lost. Atta, Jarrah and al Shehhi easily obtained their U.S. visas, but despite four attempts, Binalshibh’s applications were all rejected. Similar to the experience of other men from Yemen, authorities feared that he was a potential economic migrant. Although this marked the end of the road for Binalshibh’s pilot training ambitions, he took on a new role in the planes operation as the key contact between the would-be pilots, KSM and the rest of the Al Qaeda hierarchy.
The remaining three men arrived at Newark airport in the U.S. in May and June 2000. Al Shehhi and Atta met up in New York as they had not settled on where they would obtain their flight training. Jarrah made his way straight to Venice, Florida, where he immediately began a private pilot program at the Florida Flight Training Center (FFTC).
Atta and al Shehhi also eventually made their way down to Venice, where they enrolled in the Accelerated Pilot Program at Huffman Aviation. The men paid for the expensive training mostly using funds transferred through Dubai by KSM’s nephew, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali. By the end of July, both Atta and al Shehhi took solo flights, and by mid-August, they had passed the private pilot airman test. At the same time, Jarrah obtained a single-engine private pilot certificate at FTCC. By December, Atta and Shehhi passed their commercial pilot tests, and by the end of the year, all three men began training to fly large jets on flight simulators. The Hamburg men were committed students and wasted little time.
Back west in California however, Hazmi and Mihdhar’s efforts were not running as smoothly. Being less capable students, their English studies were progressing at a snail’s pace, which in turn posed a major obstacle in their pilot’s training. One flight instructor recounted that Hazmi and Mihdhar were poor students and found it odd that they took no interest in takeoffs or landings. Both men realised that their efforts were futile and gave up their flight training only a few months in. But KSM had identified a backup pilot.
Hani Hanjour: The fourth pilot
In the spring of 2000, Hani Hanjour, a Saudi national, arrived at one of the Al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan. Hanjour had trained as a pilot in the U.S., where he obtained a commercial pilot’s licence. But when Hanjour returned to Saudi Arabia, he could not find work at any of the regional Middle East carriers. Depressed, devoutly religious and without purpose, circumstance nudged him to the camps of Afghanistan to join the ranks of similar young men. Word of his arrival made it KSM, who was on the lookout for a replacement pilot. Hanjour was a perfect candidate, and KSM was quick to dispatch him to the U.S..
Travelling through Dubai, Hanjour arrived in California on 8 December 2000, where he joined Hazmi and Midhar. The men made their way to Arizona, where Hanjour began refresher training at Arizona Aviation, and by early 2001 he was also training on a Boeing 737 simulator.
With most of their flight training completed, in the early summer of 2001, all of the prospective 9/11 pilots started taking flights as passengers on cross-country commercial airlines to familiarise themselves with what they could expect on the day of the attacks. They travelled first class and on the same types of aircraft they would pilot on September 11.
The pilots couldn’t carry out the attacks alone and required help. The plan was that each pilot would be supported by three or four men (aka “muscle hijackers”) to storm the cockpits and control the passengers. Excluding Hazmi and Midhar, there were 13 muscle hijackers and all but one (from the UAE) descended from Saudi Arabia.
Bin Laden handpicked the men. They were all between the ages of 20 and 28, and most were unemployed with only a high school education. Bin Laden didn’t want experienced soldiers; he wanted men with clean records who could travel without raising suspicion. Above all, he needed men willing to die as martyrs.
Once selected, the men were sent to training camps overseen by KSM. They were trained to use firearms, weapons and explosives, and how to conduct hijackings and disarm air marshals. To prepare the men to use knives during the hijackings, they were trained to butcher sheep and camels with knives. Despite their commitment and training, bin Ladin had ordered that they be kept in the dark about the date and details of the operation until the last possible moment.
After completing the training, they all flew to the U.S. via Dubai, where KSM’s cousin, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, again assisted with cash, credit cards, bank accounts and bookings. Travelling in pairs, the muscle hijackers arrived in America between April and June 2001, taken in by Atta and the other pilots.
Jarrah maintained the most contact with his family, who knew that he was attending flight school in America. Obviously, they didn’t know what he was really up to. During his time in the U.S., he returned to Germany numerous times to visit his wife, Sengün. She even visited him once in Florida and accompanied him to a flight training session. He also visited his sickly father in Beirut. The extent of Jarra’s family interactions caused Atta much dissatisfaction.
Atta's parents were aware that he was in the United States, but he had duped them into believing that he was studying towards a PhD in urban planning. Shehhi's family had no idea where he was or what he was doing. At one point, they grew so anxious about his whereabouts that they reported him missing with Hamburg’s police. But when Shehhi learned of this, he contacted his family, reassuring them that he was still living and studying in Hamburg.
Atta’s trip to Spain
Fearing possible surveillance of their communications, important messages were delivered by courier or in-person meetings. So on 8 July 2001, Atta flew to Spain to meet with Binalshibh. The meeting's purpose was to send a status update from Atta to the Afghan command.
Binalshibh communicated to Atta that bin Laden worried about the number of operatives in the U.S. and wanted the attacks to be carried out as soon as possible. Bin Laden put similar pressure on KSM to expedite things, but KSM backed Atta, who insisted that the team wouldn’t launch the attack before they were ready. Atta told Binalshibh that the targets had been researched and assigned to respective pilots. Atta and Shehhi would hit the World Trade Center, Hanjour the Pentagon and Jarrah, the Capitol. If a pilot failed to reach his designated target, he was to crash the plane. Bin Laden insisted on striking the White House rather than the Capitol, but Atta resisted, arguing that it was too difficult a target. Atta suggested instead that the attacks should occur after the first week in September when Congress reconvened - making the members of Congress targets themselves.
During the meeting, Atta also explained how the team would execute the attacks. Atta recounted how easy it was for him, Jarrah and Shehhi to carry box cutters onto their reconnaissance flights. The plan was to target long haul cross country flights as they would be full of fuel. The teams would attack the cockpit 10-15 minutes after takeoff. Atta had little concern about being able to breach the cockpit doors.
The final days
By the summer of 2001, almost everything was in place. The training was mostly completed, and the waiting game began. They ate mostly at Middle Eastern restaurants, went to the mall and changed residences every month or so. The muscle hijackers settled in dingy flats and hotels on the outskirts of suburbia and frequented gyms regularly. The pilots took frequent practice flights on small rented planes. They purchased all 19 flight tickets between August 25 and September 5, and in the days leading up to the attacks, the teams relocated to motels and hotels in or around Washington, New Jersey, and Boston.
To satisfy their desires one last time, some of the hijackers hired prostitutes, rented pornography and visited go-go bars. Atta made his last call to his father on 9 September and spent the evening of September 10 shopping at Walmart and eating at a Pizza Hut. On his final day, Jarrah posted a letter to his beloved Sengün, who was oblivious about what was about to happen. He placed it in a package along with his pilot’s license, his pilot logbook, and a postcard showing a photo of a beach. In a mix of German and Arabic, Jarrah wrote:
“Hello my dear Aysel
My love, my life. My beloved lady, my heart. You are my life….I love you and I will always love you, until eternity. I don’t want you to get sad I live somewhere else where you can’t see me and can’t hear me, but I will see you and I will know how you are. And I will wait for you until you come to me… I am guilty of giving you hope about marriage, wedding, children and family. And many other things. I am what you wish for, but it’s sad you must wait until we come back together.
I did not escape from you, but I did what I was supposed to. You should be very proud of me. It’s an honor, and you will see the results, and everybody will be happy...
And I thank you and I say sorry for the very nice, tough five years, which you spent with me. Your patience has a price…God willing, I am your prince and I will pick you up. See you again!!
Your man always
Ziad Jarrah”
The next day, 19 men waged war against the most powerful nation on earth in its own backyard.
Please tune in next week for the final instalment of this series as I recount the events that occurred on each of the four planes on that fateful day in September.
Sources:
I compiled this story from multiple sources, but I relied mostly on these. If you’d like to read more about 9/11, they are all highly recommended.
Perfect Soldiers: The 9/11 Hijackers: Who They Were, Why They Did It by Terry McDermott
The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda's Road to 9/11 by Lawrence Wright
Fall and Rise: The Story of 9/11 by Mitchell Zuckoff
The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (2004)
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