Did Flight 77 really crash into the Pentagon?

intro • official claim • timeline • drills • undamaged lawn • generator oddity • building damage • inside damage • suspicious debris • crash videos
 alleged hijackers • unusual passengers • pentagon fatalities • conflicting witnesses • debunking sites • theories • performance report • links

The alleged hijackers...

Last updated:  07/08/2010

Could Hani Hanjour really have flown a Boeing 757 and was he even on the plane?

"His name was not on the American Airlines manifest for the flight because he may not have had a ticket."

"Hanjour, the only suspect on Flight 77 the FBI listed as a pilot." -NewsDay (09/23/01)

 Two alleged Flight 77 hijackers reported alive!

► "Barely over 5 feet tall, skinny and boyish, Hanjour displayed a temperament and actions that were out of sync with those of his fellow pilots in several ways.  He was the only alleged pilot who does not appear to have been part of an al-Qaida cell in Europe." -Cape Cod Times (10/21/01)

► Hani Hanjour, pilot and group leader
Age: 29.
Nationality: Saudi.
"Hanjour led the terrorist group based in San Diego. His only Florida contact came in 1996 when he stayed with friends of his brother in Miramar. In the weeks before Sept. 11, he met twice with Mohamed Atta in Las Vegas. The FBI now believes those sessions at a discount motel were crucial in planning the attacks. Hanjour took flying lessons in Scottsdale, Ariz., where his instructors said his skills were poor. Investigators say that could be the reason Flight 77, with Hanjour at the controls, began to jerk." - St. Petersburg Times ('02)

► "School officials confirmed that Hanjour received three months of instruction during 1996 and 1997 and had put down a deposit for additional training in 1997, but did not attend those classes."
"The Federal Aviation Administration's directory shows that Hanjour was licensed as a commercial pilot for single-engine aircraft in Taife, Saudi Arabia. CRM provides instruction in larger commercial jets, training that could have been used by a terrorist to guide a Boeing 757 on a kamikaze attack."
"The bureau identified Hanjour as the only pilot among the five suspects aboard American Airlines Flight 77..."
"Although Hanjour left a paper trail from Phoenix to Tucson to Florida to the Middle East, his life seems to have been ghostly. No close friends or acquaintances have surfaced, and Valley Muslim leaders said they have never heard of him." -The Arizona Republic

► "A paid FBI informant told ABCNEWS that three years before Sept. 11, he began providing the FBI with information about a young Saudi who later flew a hijacked passenger plane into the Pentagon.
Aukai Collins, the informant, said he worked for the FBI for four years in Phoenix, monitoring the Arab and Islamic communities there. Hani Hanjour was the hijacker Collins claimed to have told the FBI about while Hanjour was in flight training in Phoenix.
Twenty hours after ABCNEWS first requested a response, the FBI issued an "emphatic denial" that Collins had told the agency anything about Hanjour, though FBI sources acknowledged that Collins had worked for them.
Collins said the FBI knew Hanjour lived in Phoenix, knew his exact address, his phone number and even what car he drove. "They knew everything about the guy," said Collins.
Once in Phoenix, in 1996, the FBI asked Collins to focus on a group of young Arab men, many of whom were taking flying lessons, including Hanjour, Collins said.
"They drank alcohol, messed around with girls and stuff like that," Collins told ABCNEWS. "They all lived in an apartment together, Hani and the others."
The FBI in Phoenix either failed to monitor Hanjour's communications or Hanjour himself practiced extraordinary skill in hiding his intentions — because the FBI never regarded him as a threat.
"I can't figure it out either," said Collins, "how they went from their back yard to flying airplanes into buildings."
Congress cannot figure it out either, as it continues to demand answers from the FBI." -ABC (5/24/02)

► "QUESTION: What can you tell us about flight training that any of the hijackers had received? Did they receive any training here in the United States?
ASHCROFT: It is our belief and the evidence indicates that flight training was received in the United States and that their capacity to operate the aircraft was substantial.
It's very clear that these orchestrated coordinated assaults on our country were well-conducted and conducted in a technically proficient way. It is not that easy to land these kinds of aircraft at very specific locations with accuracy or to direct them with the kind of accuracy, which was deadly in this case." - Global Security (9/14/01)

Look how low the Pentagon is to the ground. Do you think you could kamikaze a Boeing 757 into any side of this building with never having flown this plane before?

(Photo source:  defenselink.mil)

Excerpts from an interview with Dr. Duong Nguyen, COL, MC (retired), who was a physician at the Rader Army Health Clinic, Ft. Myer, VA.
"My first reaction was horrible, how the terrorists can do that, they could not do it alone; a jumbo jet cannot be handled by a lonely suicide bomber-like kamikaze." - Soldiers to the Rescue/Responding in the Pentagon [HTML]

How experts and officials described the way Flight 77 was flown into the Pentagon...

► On Flight 77: 'Our Plane Is Being Hijacked'

"But just as the plane seemed to be on a suicide mission into the White House, the unidentified pilot executed a pivot so tight that it reminded observers of a fighter jet maneuver."
"Aviation sources said the plane was flown with extraordinary skill, making it highly likely that a trained pilot was at the helm, possibly one of the hijackers." -Washington Post (9/12/01)

► ‘Get These Planes on the Ground’, Air Traffic Controllers Recall Sept. 11

"The speed, the maneuverability, the way that he turned, we all thought in the radar room, all of us experienced air traffic controllers, that that was a military plane," says O'Brien. "You don't fly a 757 in that manner. It's unsafe."
"And it went six, five, four. And I had it in my mouth to say, three, and all of a sudden the plane turned away. In the room, it was almost a sense of relief. This must be a fighter. This must be one of our guys sent in, scrambled to patrol our capital, and to protect our president, and we sat back in our chairs and breathed for just a second," says O'Brien.
But the plane continued to turn right until it had made a 360-degree maneuver." - ABC (10/24/01) [Wayback Machine]

(Photo source:  aeronautics.ru)

► "Q: How could terrorists fly these? Were they trained?
A: Whoever flew at least three of the death planes seemed very skilled. Investigators are impressed that they were schooled enough to turn off flight transponders -- which provide tower control with flight ID, altitude and location. Investigators are particularly impressed with the pilot who slammed into the Pentagon and, just before impact, performed a tightly banked 270-degree turn at low altitude with almost military precision." -Detroit News (9/13/01)

► Primary Target

"New radar evidence obtained by CBS News strongly suggests that the hijacked jetliner which crashed into the Pentagon hit its intended target."
"But the jet, flying at more than 400 mph, was too fast and too high when it neared the Pentagon at 9:35. The hijacker-pilots were then forced to execute a difficult high-speed descending turn."
"Radar shows Flight 77 did a downward spiral, turning almost a complete circle and dropping the last 7,000 feet in two-and-a-half minutes."
"The steep turn was so smooth, the sources say, it's clear there was no fight for control going on. And the complex maneuver suggests the hijackers had better flying skills than many investigators first believed." -CBS (9/21/01)

► Three-star general may be among Pentagon dead

"There wasn't anything in the air, except for one airplane, and it looked like it was loitering over Georgetown, in a high, left-hand bank," he said. "That may have been the plane. I have never seen one on that (flight) pattern." -CNN (9/13/01)

(AA 77 flight path.  Click map for hi-res.  Source:  gwu.edu)

► Hijackers 'knew what they were doing'

"To pull off the coordinated aerial attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon on Tuesday, the hijackers must have been extremely knowledgeable and capable aviators, a flight expert said.
By seizing four planes, diverting them from scheduled flight paths and managing to crash two into the twin towers of the World Trade Center and a third into the Pentagon, they must have had plenty of skill and training.
It was not known how the hijackers slipped through airport security checkpoints with their weapons.
There are no indications that any of the airline crews activated a four-digit code alerting ground controllers that a hijacking was in progress." -CNN (9/12/01)

► "I was convinced it was a missile. It came in so fast it sounded nothing like an airplane," said Lou Rains -Space News

► "It just was amazingly precise," Daryl Donley, another commuter, said of the plane's impact. "It completely disappeared into the Pentagon." -News Journal (9/12/01)

► ''The plane came in at an incredibly steep angle with incredibly high speed,'' said Rick Renzi. -Pittsburg 11 News  (Photo source:  boeing.com)

 How Hani Hanjour's flight instructors described his piloting abilities...

► A Trainee Noted for Incompetence

"Mr. Hanjour, who investigators contend piloted the airliner that crashed into the Pentagon, was reported to the aviation agency in February 2001 after instructors at his flight school in Phoenix had found his piloting skills so shoddy and his grasp of English so inadequate that they questioned whether his pilot's license was genuine.

Ms. Ladner said the Phoenix staff never suspected that Mr. Hanjour was a hijacker but feared that his skills were so weak that he could pose a safety hazard if he flew a commercial airliner.

Staff members characterized Mr. Hanjour as polite, meek and very quiet. But most of all, the former employee said, they considered him a very bad pilot.
"I'm still to this day amazed that he could have flown into the Pentagon," the former employee said. "He could not fly at all." -New York Times (5/04/02)

► FAA Was Alerted To Sept. 11 Hijacker

"Months before Hani Hanjour is believed to have flown an American Airlines jet into the Pentagon, managers at an Arizona flight school reported him at least five times to the FAA.
They reported him not because they feared he was a terrorist, but because his English and flying skills were so bad...they didn't think he should keep his pilot's license.
"I couldn't believe he had a commercial license of any kind with the skills that he had." Peggy Chevrette, Arizona flight school manager." -CBS News (5/10/02)

► Tracing Trail Of Hijackers

"The hijacker believed to have steered American Airlines Flight 77 on its fatal path toward the Pentagon recently honed his rusty flying skills at a small Maryland airport, and more than a year ago sought training at a flight school in Arizona.

At Freeway Airport in Bowie, Md., 20 miles west of Washington, flight instructor Sheri Baxter instantly recognized the name of alleged hijacker Hani Hanjour when the FBI released a list of 19 suspects in the four hijackings. Hanjour, the only suspect on Flight 77 the FBI listed as a pilot, had come to the airport one month earlier seeking to rent a small plane.
However, when Baxter and fellow instructor Ben Conner took the slender, soft-spoken Hanjour on three test runs during the second week of August, they found he had trouble controlling and landing the single-engine Cessna 172. Even though Hanjour showed a federal pilot's license and a log book cataloging 600 hours of flying experience, chief flight instructor Marcel Bernard declined to rent him a plane without more lessons.

In the spring of 2000, Hanjour had asked to enroll in the CRM Airline Training Center in Scottsdale, Ariz., for advanced training, said the center's attorney, Gerald Chilton Jr. Hanjour had attended the school for three months in late 1996 and again in December 1997 but never finished coursework for a license to fly a single-engine aircraft, Chilton said.
When Hanjour reapplied to the center last year, "We declined to provide training to him because we didn't think he was a good enough student when he was there in 1996 and 1997," Chilton said." - Newsday (09/23/01)

► Hanjour an unlikely terrorist

"Even as he pursued the flight training he would need for his final act, instructors found him withdrawn, slow to pick up a feel for the cockpit.
Over five years, Hanjour hopscotched among flight schools and airplane rental companies, but his instructors regarded him as a poor student, even in the weeks before the attacks.
Federal Aviation Administration records show he obtained a commercial pilot's license in April 1999, but how and where he did so remains a lingering question that FAA officials refuse to discuss. His limited flying abilities do afford an insight into one feature of the attacks: The conspiracy apparently did not include a surplus of skilled pilots.
"He had only the barest understanding what the instruments were there to do."
During three months of instruction in late 1996, Duncan K.M. Hastie, CRM's owner, found Hanjour a "weak student" who "was wasting our resources."
"The impression I got is he came and, like a lot of guys, got overwhelmed with the instruments." He used the simulator perhaps three or four more times, Fults said, then "disappeared like a fog."
Instructors once again questioned his competence. After three sessions in a single-engine plane, the school decided Hanjour was not ready to rent a plane by himself." - Cape Cod Times (10/12/02)

(Photo source:  airliners.net)

► Terror warnings: Who knew what when?

"Instructors at a flying school in Phoenix, Arizona express concern to Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) officials about the poor English and limited flying skills of one of their students, Hani Hanjour.
They believe his pilot's license may be fraudulent.
The FAA finds it is genuine - but school administrators tell Mr. Hanjour he will not qualify for an advanced certificate." -BBC (5/17/02)

► "Instructors at the school told Bernard that after three times in the air, they still felt he was unable to fly solo and that Hanjour seemed disappointed.
Published reports said Hanjour obtained his pilot's license in April 1999, but it expired six months later because he did not complete a required medical exam. He also was trained for a few months at a private school in Scottsdale, Ariz., in 1996, but did not finish the course because instructors felt he was not capable.
Hanjour had 600 hours listed in his log book, Bernard said, and instructors were surprised he was not able to fly better with the amount of experience he had." -Prince George's Journal (9/18/01)

► Hijackers used brains, muscle and practice

"That plane, apparently piloted by Hanjour, began to jerk wildly in the air. There was perhaps a struggle with the pilots, but investigators believe it was more likely a result of Hanjour's poor skills -- his flying school teachers would later say he had been a sorry student." -St. Petersburg Times (11/01/02)

Is it really believable that Hani Hanjour could have flown a 100 ton Boeing 757 like a jetfighter ace on 9/11 when one month early he was unable to rent a single-engine Cessna 172 because he had trouble controlling and landing during a flight test?

► Tracing Trail Of Hijackers

"Before they were hijackers, they were suburbanites.
They roomed together in a motel, worked out together at a gym, and one even visited an adult bookstore in the Washington suburbs in the weeks before smashing a plane into the Pentagon on Sept. 11. The hijacker believed to have steered American Airlines Flight 77 on its fatal path toward the Pentagon recently honed his rusty flying skills at a small Maryland airport, and more than a year ago sought training at a flight school in Arizona.
At Freeway Airport in Bowie, Md., 20 miles west of Washington, flight instructor Sheri Baxter instantly recognized the name of alleged hijacker Hani Hanjour when the FBI released a list of 19 suspects in the four hijackings. Hanjour, the only suspect on Flight 77 the FBI listed as a pilot, had come to the airport one month earlier seeking to rent a small plane.
However, when Baxter and fellow instructor Ben Conner took the slender, soft-spoken Hanjour on three test runs during the second week of August, they found he had trouble controlling and landing the single-engine Cessna 172. Even though Hanjour showed a federal pilot's license and a log book cataloging 600 hours of flying experience, chief flight instructor Marcel Bernard declined to rent him a plane without more lessons.
In the spring of 2000, Hanjour had asked to enroll in the CRM Airline Training Center in Scottsdale, Ariz., for advanced training, said the center's attorney, Gerald Chilton Jr. Hanjour had attended the school for three months in late 1996 and again in December 1997 but never finished coursework for a license to fly a single-engine aircraft, Chilton said.
When Hanjour reapplied to the center last year, "We declined to provide training to him because we didn't think he was a good enough student when he was there in 1996 and 1997," Chilton said.
The only thing that seemed odd about Hanjour, who paid the $400 flying bill in cash, was his address: a motel in Laurel.
At the Valencia Motel on a hardscrabble stretch of Route 1 in Laurel, long-term residents say they know each other well. The five men who stayed in Room 343, a two-room suite, in early September, were an exception, they said. The men drove an old four-door Toyota with California license plates and said nothing.
"They kept way to themselves," said Charmain Mungo, who lives in Room 342 and said she identified Hanjour and Majed Moqed, another suspected Flight 77 hijacker, from an FBI photo.
Moqed apparently visited a nearby adult video store three times between late-July and mid-August, said the store manager, who would not give his name but said he picked Moqed out "immediately" when the FBI showed him the surveillance photo among seven or eight other photos.
"He was extremely uncomfortable," said the manager, who recalled paying attention to Moqed because he wondered whether the man was studying the store for a possible robbery. Moqed visited three times, always between 10:30 p.m. and 1:30 a.m., the manager said, adding that he looked at magazines and movies but didn't buy anything." - Newsday (09/23/01)

 The alleged hijackers of Flight 77...

5) Hani Hanjour - [nationality unknown]

-Possible resident of Phoenix, Arizona, and San Diego, California

-Alias: Hani Saleh Hanjour; Hani Saleh; Hani Hanjour, Hani Saleh H. Hanjour

He was on American Airlines Flight 77, which left Washington, D.C., at 8:10 a.m. and crashed into the Pentagon at 9:39 a.m. Hanjour may have lived in Phoenix, Ariz., and San Diego, Calif. Federal Aviation Administration records show a Hani Hanjour as receiving a commercial pilot's license in 1999 and listing a post office box in Saudi Arabia as his address.

1) Khalid al Mihdhar* - Possible Saudi national

*These two people have been used for Khalid Almihdhar.

-Possible resident of San Diego, California, and New York

-Alias: Sannan Al-Makki; Khalid Bin Muhammad; 'Addallah Al-Mihdhar; Khalid Mohammad Al-Saqaf

Al-Midhar may have lived in Los Angeles and New York. He had a B-1 Visa that covered business-related travel and was good for up to a year, and an expired B-2 Visa, a travel visa, good for up to a year.

Reported alive - "And there are suggestions that another suspect, Khalid Al Midhar, may also be alive." -BBC (09/23/01)

"But Saudis are closing ranks against the evidence in the U.S. attack, and their growing sense of denial has only been fueled by the early misidentification of several suspects.
While the FBI's confusion over Arabic names and identities was largely ignored in the American press, each blunder has made huge news in Saudi Arabia, casting doubt on U.S. intentions and convincing many Saudis that their country has been slandered.
"I want to think all this is a mistake," said a bewildered Khalid al-Mihammadi, 24, a computer programmer from Mecca who was named wrongfully in an early list of hijackers released by the U.S. Justice Department. "We are America's friends, and they do this to us. It isn't fair."
Al-Mihammadi, who spent nine months studying English in the U.S., said he was watching television at home when shaken friends saw his photograph on the news and began to call to see if he was still alive." -Chicago Tribune (10/04/01)

"The FBI said it was reviewing the information about those on board the flights and that "the possibility that some of the identities are in question is being actively pursued".
The confusion has added to the problems of investigators. They have discovered that one of the men arrested, Badr Mohammed Hamzi, a radiologist from San Antonio, Texas, regularly used the name Khalid Al-Midhar, who has been named as another of the hijackers." -Guardian (09/21/01)

"It's no secret the FBI let at least two 9-11 hijackers—Hazmi and Mihdhar—slip through its fingers when they landed in California in 2000 and proceeded to live openly under their own names in San Diego before moving into position for the attack. What makes the situation especially ludicrous is that one of these hijackers rented a room from a San Diego landlord who was an FBI informant on the Muslim community.
That's bad enough. But after 9-11, when the Joint Congressional Intelligence Committee found out what had been going on, the FBI refused to allow the informant to be interviewed by the committee staff or to testify." -Village Voice (06/14/05)

2) Majed Moqed - Possible Saudi national

-Alias: Majed M.GH Moqed; Majed Moqed, Majed Mashaan Moqed

"Sept. 13, 2001. A “Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Student Identity Card” was found in the rubble at the Pentagon with Moqed’s name on it. Forensic examination indicated that it may have been fraudulent." - Monograph on 9/11 and Terrorist Travel, Chp 2 - 9/11 Commission

"Authorities have alleged in court documents that he was one of a number of suspects who obtained a phony identity card in Virginia on Aug. 2 by falsely claiming to be a resident. Witnesses placed Moqed and other suspected hijackers in Maryland between Sept. 2 and 6, where they were seen working out at a gym in Greenbelt. Moqed also was seen in two stores in Maryland's Washington suburbs looking over adult videos and books, although employees say he made no purchases." -MSNBC
 

3) Nawaf Alhazmi - Possible Saudi national

-Possible resident of Fort Lee, New Jersey; Wayne, New Jersey; San Diego, California

-Alias: Nawaf Al-Hazmi; Nawaf Al Hazmi; Nawaf M.S. Al Hazmi

"PE00102 - Partial ID card reading ALHAZMI from the Pentagon crash site" - uscourts.gov

4) Salem Alhazmi - Possible Saudi national

-Possible resident of Fort Lee, New Jersey; Wayne, New Jersey

Reported alive - "FBI Director Robert Mueller acknowledged Thursday that investigators may not know the true identities of some of the 19 suspected airplane hijackers from last week's suicide attacks.
* Salem Alhamzi, a name used by one of the suspected hijackers on American Airlines Flight 77, the plane that crashed into the Pentagon.
A man with the same name works for the Saudi Royal Commission in the Saudi city of Yanbu." -LA Times (09/21/01)

"The FBI acknowledged yesterday that some of the terrorists involved in the attacks last week were using false identities, as it emerged that at least two men had been wrongly implicated.
After analysis of the passenger lists of the four hijacked flights and other immigration documents, investigators identified Salem Al-Hazmi and Abdulaziz Al-Omari as two of the terrorists.
The real Salem Al-Hazmi, however, is alive and indignant in Saudi Arabia, and not one of the people who perished in the American Airlines flight that crashed on the Pentagon. He works at a government-owned petroleum and chemical plant in the city of Yanbu.
He said yesterday he had not left Saudi Arabia for two years, but that his passport had been stolen by a pickpocket in Cairo three years ago.
Both men have offered to fly to the US to prove their innocence.
"The Salem Al-Hamzi we have is 26 years old and has never been to the United States," Gaafar Allagany told the Washington Post. "He has said he is willing to come to the United States if anyone wants to see him." -Guardian (09/21/01)

Bio's and photos from the FBI and Boston Globe.

See also "Tracking the 19 Hijackers" for more info about the 9/11 hijackers.

Could these five* alleged hijackers have hijacked Flight 77 with 59 passengers on board using only knifes and box cutters?

(*Remember, if one of these alleged hijackers is flying the plane, that means only four of them would be holding off the 59 passengers.)

"A former high-level intelligence official told me, 'Whatever trail was left was left deliberately—for the F.B.I. to chase.'"

"Two hijackers who crashed a plane into the Pentagon during Tuesday's terrorist attacks in New York and outside Washington bought their airline tickets at Baltimore-Washington International Airport, according to published reports.
FBI information sent to German police officials - obtained by the German magazine Der Spiegel and provided to The New York Times - revealed details about the hijackers.
Khalid Al-Midhar booked a reservation on the American Airlines Web site, using his frequent-flier number, which he established the day before, according to FBI documents. He paid cash for the ticket on Sept. 5 at BWI, the Times reported.
Majed Moqed ordered his ticket through the same frequent-flier number, also paying cash for his ticket at BWI, the newspaper said."
-Prince George's Journal (9/18/02)

"Nawaf Alhazmi, believed to be from Saudi Arabia, is the other hijacker on the terrorist watch list before the attacks. A car registered to Alhazmi was found at Dulles International Airport the day after the attacks. It contained a cashier's check made out to a flight school in Phoenix; four drawings of the cockpit of a 757 jet; a box-cutter-type knife; and maps of Washington and New York. One map had a telephone number that led police to Mohamed Abdi, who is being held without bond in Alexandria, Virginia, as a material witness." -BBC (9/28/01)

"Osama bin Laden names some of the Sept. 11 hijackers and commends them to Allah, according to a more thorough translation by one of the experts hired by the government to review a videotape of the suspected terrorist.
A more leisurely review of the tape released by the government last week came up with "a whole bunch of names," translator George Michael said Thursday in an interview with The Associated Press. He would identify only three: Nawaq Alhamzi, Salem Alhamzi and Wail Alshehri.
Alshehri was on American Airlines flight 11, one of the planes that hit the Twin Towers at the World Trade Center in New York; Alhamzi and Alhamzi were on American Airlines flight 77, which hit the Pentagon." -CBS (12/20/01)

Did Khalid Almihdhar fly Flight 77?

"For the two would-be suicide hijackers, the flying lessons didn't get off to a great start.
With their limited English, they seemed unable to follow instructions. Their knowledge of aviation was so sketchy that when asked to draw a plane, one man got the wings backward. And when one student attempted a landing in a single-engine Cessna, the other became frightened and began loudly praying to Allah.
Their instructor at a San Diego flight school flunked them, and later described the men as "Dumb and Dumber."
Then again, Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi never needed to develop any skill in landing planes. They just needed to learn how to crash them into buildings - a goal they achieved Sept. 11 when American Airlines Flight 77 plowed into the Pentagon.
In fact, the FBI was looking for Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi, who appeared to have spent most of the past two years together in the United States.
Investigators aren't even entirely sure that Almihdhar and Alhazmi are the men's real names - or that several people weren't using those names as aliases. They have used several spellings for both Almihdhar and Alhazmi since the attacks, and some newspapers and television stations briefly mixed up Almihdhar with Khalid al-Mihmadi, a Saudi exchange student who lived in Daytona Beach until last May.
Occasionally their paths crossed with Hanjour, who later joined them on Flight 77.
Almihdhar and Alhazmi also paid $3,000 cash for a 1988 Toyota Corolla, registering it under a false address but scrupulously following the law on emissions testing.
A day after the Sept. 11 attacks, the FBI towed a car matching the same description from Dulles International Airport in Washington. The car, registered to Nawaf Alhazmi, contained a list of instructions for the hijackers, telling them to "strike as the heroes would strike ... and then you will know all the heavens are decorated in the best way to meet you."
In Washington: The five Flight 77 suspects bought weeklong gym memberships in the Beltway area in August - much like their compatriots in south Palm Beach County. They got driver's licenses in Virginia using fake addresses, taking advantage of that state's lax laws on what proof of identity is required.
On Sept. 11, either Almihdhar or Hanjour may have piloted the hijacked jetliner into the Pentagon, according to investigators quoted in conflicting news accounts. Some accounts say Almihdhar was the one who gave the passengers a chilling message around 9:30 a.m.: Phone home, because you are all about to die.
The FBI has given no age for Almihdhar and Alhazmi but says they may be Saudi nationals. Alhazmi may have trained at camps Afghan camps tied to al-Qaeda, according to investigators quoted in news reports. The reports don't say when the training occurred.
The FBI began looking for both Almihdhar and Alhazmi Aug. 23. But the FBI office in San Diego, where the two had spent so much time the year before, didn't get the word until two days after the bombing.
Investigators say Almihdhar and Alhazmi first entered the United States through Los Angeles International Airport in late 1999 or early 2000. On immigration papers, they listed their intended address as a Sheraton hotel in LA.
Shaikh said he and the pair prayed together five times a day, but they shared little conversation because of the men's difficulties with English. They paid rent, although he offered to let them stay for free, and didn't express any hatred of the United States.
"They were nice, but not what you call extroverted people," Shaikh told the San Diego Union-Tribune.
The pair took a half-dozen flight classes at Sorbi's Flying Club nearby, but chief flight instructor Rick Garza has said their poor English skills disqualified them. Garza said Almihdhar and Alhazmi started out wanting to fly Boeing jet aircraft, but he steered them to Cessnas instead.
"I told the FBI they seemed like 'Dumb and Dumber,' " Garza told the Union-Tribune.
In August, the pair got state identification cards from the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles in Springfield, southwest of Washington, D.C. So did the rest of the Flight 77 suspects, along with Abdulaziz Alomari and Ahmed Alghamdi, who rode separate planes that struck the World Trade Center, as well as Ziad Jarrah, whose hijacked flight crashed in Pennsylvania.
Federal investigators say Almihdhar and another Flight 77 suspect, Hanjour, drove to a northern Virginia convenience store and paid $100 to Luis Martinez-Flores, an illegal alien from El Salvador, to sign a document falsely certifying the men's address. They in turn signed documents allowing some of the other terrorists to get their licenses.
On Sept. 5, Almihdhar and Moqed bought their airline tickets with cash at Baltimore-Washington International Airport. They had booked the tickets on the American Airlines web site. Almihdhar used a Daytona Beach address and a frequent-flier number he had established the day before. Almihdhar had seat 12 B, Moqed the window seat beside him.
Despite their presence on the terrorist watch list, Almihdhar and Alhazmi raised no alarms when they arrived at Dulles before the scheduled 8:10 a.m. departure Sept. 11. They and their three cohorts entered through Gate D26.
Eight days after the planes went down, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. distributed a "special alert" to its member banks asking for information about 21 "alleged suspects" in the attacks. The list said "Al-Midhar, Khalid Alive," raising the possibility that the real Almihdhar never died on the plane. But one Justice Department official called the listing a "typo." -Cox News (10/21/01) [Reprinted at:  billstclair.com]

Did Nawaf Alhazmi fly Flight 77?

Why did it take so long for the release of the Dulles Airport security video that shows only four of the five alleged Flight 77 hijackers and why aren't any of the photos time stamped?

CBS Video Link (Look in Video section)

Why does the media identify two different people as Hani Hanjour in the Dulles security video?

Obviously the stocky man on the left dressed in all black is not Hanjour.  The man in the right photo from an MSNBC clip looks more like the real Hanjour with his thin build and receding hairline although it has not been confirmed that this person is him.  Oddly enough in the MSNBC article, notice they identify Hanjour with wearing the clothes that that gentleman in the left photo is wearing (short-sleeved shirt).  Also, who is the gentleman in the left photo and why hasn't he complained to the media that they misidentified him as one of the alleged 9/11 hijackers?  Finally, notice that these clips were taken from two different surveillance cameras and neither of them have timestamps.

Hijacker Hani Hanjour, center foreground, believed to have piloted American Airlines Flight 77 when it crashed into the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001, is shown on surveillance video passing through the security checkpoint at Dulles International Airport Sept. 11, 2001 in this image taken from a surveillance video and obtained by the Associated Press. Hanjour sent two carry-on bags through the X-ray machine and passed through a metal detector without alarm. (AP Photo/APTN)

Sept. 11 panel criticizes Dulles security screeners

"Only Hani Hanjour, believed to have been the hijacker who piloted Flight 77, passed through Dulles security that morning without being subjected to a secondary security check, according to the video.
Moments after Hanjour passed alone through the security checkpoint, wearing dark slacks and a short-sleeved shirt, the final two hijackers, the al-Hazmi brothers, both wearing slacks and Oxford shirts, walked through the checkpoint." - MSNBC (07/22/04) (Click photo for hi-res.  Video clip taken from here.)

An ATM surveillance photo shows suspected hijackers Hani Hanjour, left, and Majed Moqed. The timestamp reads:  09-05-01.

(Photo source:  latimes.com, 09/27/01)

Notice the Government's preliminary estimate of the number of alleged hijackers on Flight 77 was only four, not five, and only four alleged hijackers are shown on the Dulles security video above...

"ASHCROFT: Last but not least, the total number of hijackers, to our best estimate and our best knowledge given the information at this time, on the four planes that crashed was at least 18. Unless contradicted by evidence, which we wouldn't anticipate, two planes had five hijackers and two other planes had four hijackers each.
QUESTION: About the hijackers, were they ticketed passengers? If not, do you know how they got on the planes?
FBI DIRECTOR ROBERT MUELLER: Yes, they were ticketed passengers.
QUESTION: How many...are you looking at? How many hijackers and associates do you have?
ASHCROFT: Well, obviously, I've just announced that there are 18 hijackers
MUELLER: On the American Airlines, number 11, flight out of Boston, going to LA, there were five, we believe. Our preliminary investigation indicates that five of the passengers were involved in the hijacking on that plane. United Airlines 175, also out of Boston to LA, our preliminary investigation indicates that there were five hijackers on that plane.
On United Airlines 93, Newark to San Francisco, four hijackers. And American Airlines 77, Dulles to Los Angeles, four hijackers. That is our preliminary. The results of our preliminary investigation, the investigation is continuing. That is our best view at this time as to the numbers and the planes they were on.
QUESTION: Could you clarify for us, please, on what you've been able to verify and document concerning the flight path of the 77 into the Pentagon? Did it go over Washington, D.C., first?
MUELLER: I really can't comment on what we have with regard to that particular flight."  -Global Security (9/14/01)

"The other two planes – United Flight 93 from Newark, N.J., and American Airlines Flight 77 from Dulles International Airport, which hit the Pentagon – were hijacked by four terrorists each, Mueller said.
Justice officials have said at least one hijacker on each plane received flight training in the United States." -Washington Post (09/14/01)

Notice the Government's preliminary estimate of the number of alleged hijackers on Flight 77 was only four, not five, and only four alleged hijackers are shown on the Dulles security video above...

"American Airlines has released the names of some of the people who died on its flights in the terror attacks on New York and Washington.
The airline has honoured the requests of those families who have asked that their loved ones' names not be included.
Additional names will be released as passengers' relatives are notified.
Flight 77, a Boeing 757 aircraft, was en route to Los Angeles from Washington Dulles.
Passengers on Flight 77 were: Paul Ambrose, Yemen Betru, M J Booth, Bernard Brown, Suzanne Calley, William Caswell, Sarah Clark, Asia Cotton, James Debeuneure, Rodney Dickens, Eddie Dillard, Charles Droz, Barbara Edwards, Charles Falkenberg, Zoe Falkenberg, Dana Falkenberg, James Ferguson, Budd Flagg, Dee Flagg, Richard Gabriel, Ian Gray, Stanley Hall, Bryan Jack, Steve Jacoby, Ann Judge, Chandler Keller, Yvonne Kennedy, Norma Khan, Karen Kincaid, Norma Langsteuerle, Dong Lee, Dora Menchaca, Chris Newton, Barbara Olson, Ruben Ornedo, Lisa Raines, Todd Reuben, John Sammartino, Diane Simmons, George Simmons, Mari Rae Sopper, Robert Speisman, Leonard Taylor, Sandra Teague, Leslie Whittington, John Yamnick, Vicki Yancey, Shuyin Yang, Yuguag Zheng.
Flight Crew for Flight 77 were: Captain Charles Burlingame, First Officer David Charlebois; Flight Attendants Michele Heidenberger, Jennifer Lewis, Kenneth Lewis, Renee May." - TCM Breaking News (9/12/01)

Autopsy:  No Arabs on Flight 77, By Thomas R. Olmsted, M.D

"I am an ex Naval line officer and a psychiatrist in private practice in New Orleans, a Christian and homeschool dad. It troubled me a great deal that we rushed off to war on the flimsiest of evidence. I considered various ways to provide a smoking gun of who and why Sept 11th happened. Astute observers noticed right away that there were no Arabic sounding names on any of the flight manifests of the planes that “crashed” on that day.
A list of names on a piece of paper is not evidence, but an autopsy by a pathologist, is. I undertook by FOIA request, to obtain that autopsy list and you are invited to view it below. Guess what? Still no Arabs on the list. It is my opinion that the monsters who planned this crime made a mistake by not including Arabic names on the original list to make the ruse seem more believable." -Sierra Times (07/06/03)

(See also:  No Arabs on Flight 77:  Part II -The Passengers, By Thomas R Olmsted, M.D.)

Isn't it a little too bizarre that the five alleged Flight 77 hijackers lived right next door to the NSA?

"A few miles out of Washington, on Route 1 to Baltimore, lies an inconspicuous military installation called Fort Meade.
And yet it contains the largest mass of secrets in the world.
It is home to the National Security Agency (NSA), the least visible but most powerful spy agency in America's armoury.
The NSA's job is to eavesdrop on the world's phone calls and emails, but do not try to phone them.
The NSA website does not list a phone number. You do not contact them. They listen to you.
Though invisible on the map, 38,000 people work at the agency every day, more than the CIA and FBI put together - every one of them sworn to a lifetime of secrecy.
When Osama bin Laden first moved to Afghanistan, the NSA listened in to every phone call he made on his satellite phone.
In fact, one of the most bizarre ironies of all this is that five of the hijackers lived in a motel right outside the gates of the NSA.
Early on the morning of 11 September, when Hani Hanjour and his four accomplices left the Valencia Motel on US route 1 on their way to Washington's Dulles airport, they joined the stream of NSA employees heading to work.
Three hours later, they had turned flight 77 around and slammed it into the Pentagon." -BBC (6/08/02)

How did they all pass airport security and get on the plane with knifes and box cutters?

Airports Screened Nine of Sept. 11 Hijackers, Officials Say

"Nine of the hijackers who commandeered jetliners on Sept. 11 were selected for special security screenings that morning, including two who were singled out because of irregularities in their identification documents, U.S. officials said this week.
Six were chosen for extra scrutiny by a computerized screening system, prompting a sweep of their checked baggage for explosives or unauthorized weapons, authorities said. The ninth was listed on ticket documents as traveling with one of the hijackers with questionable identification.
Law enforcement and aviation officials declined to provide further details about the security screenings, including which of the hijackers were chosen and what flights they were on.
Authorities also said they could not say if any of the nine were interrogated in any way before being allowed to board their flights, or if screeners noticed the box-cutting knives used in the attacks. Such knives were allowed on airplanes before Sept. 11." -Washington Post (3/02/02)

FAA: Nine hijackers singled out for screenings

"Transportation authorities singled out nine of the 19 hijackers in the September 11 attacks for special security screenings before they boarded their flights that morning, a Federal Aviation Administration spokesman said Saturday.
Under the enhanced precautions, airport security screened the hijackers' checked bags for weapons and explosives -- a measure that was not mandated for most passengers last fall.
At the time of the attacks, the box-cutting knives the hijackers used to take control of the planes would have been allowed to be taken onto the aircraft.
According to the Washington Post, which first reported the story Saturday, a computerized screening system chose six of the hijackers for the tightened security measures.
Two others were selected because of irregularities in their identification documents, U.S. officials told the Post.
The ninth hijacker was listed in travel documents as traveling with one of the men singled out because of his identification, the Post reported.
Law enforcement and aviation officials refused to discuss other aspects of the screening, including which hijackers were selected, whether they were interrogated or whether the knives were discovered at security checkpoints, according to the Post." -CNN (3/02/02)

Why is Hani Hanjour the only terrorist listed to not have a passenger number or seat assignment number, if he didn't have a ticket how was he able to get on the plane, and why did the first reports on the Flight 77 hijacker names list a "Mosear Caned" instead of Hanjour?

Hijacking Suspects -ABC (9/15/01)

Aboard American Airlines Flight 77, which took off from Washington Dulles Airport for Los Angeles and crashed into the Pentagon.

Alhamzi, Nawaq — Passenger No. 12
Almidhar, Khalid — Passenger No. 20, Seat 12B
Alhamzi, Salem — Passenger No. 13, Seat 5F
Moqed, Majed — Passenger No. 19, Seat 12A
Hanjour, Hani

Aboard United Airlines Flight 93, which departed Newark, N.J., for San Francisco and crashed outside of Shanksville, Pa.:

Alghamdi, Saeed — Passenger No. 2
Alhaznawi, Ahmed — Passenger No. 3
Alnami, Ahmed — Passenger No. 4
Jarrahi, Ziad — Passenger No. 26

Aboard American Airlines Flight 11, which crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center after taking off from Boston's Logan International Airport en route for Los Angeles:

Alshehri, Wail — Passenger No. 1, Seat 2A
Alshehri, Waleed — Passenger No. 2, Seat 2B
Alomari, Abdulaziz — Passenger No. 14, Seat 8G
Al Suqami, Satam — Passenger No. 20, Seat 10B
Atta, Mohamed — Seat 8D

Aboard United Airlines Flight 175, which left Boston for Los Angeles but crashed into the South Tower of the Word Trade Center:

Alghamdi, Ahmed — Passenger No. 2
Alghamdi, Hamza — Passenger No. 3
Al-Shehhi, Marwan — Passenger No. 4
Alshehri, Mohald — Passenger No. 5
Ahmed, Fayez — Passenger No. 6

What physical proof is there that the five alleged Arab hijackers were on board this plane?

► "The remains of five people killed in the terrorist attack on the Pentagon were damaged beyond identification in the massive explosion and fire after a hijacked airliner crashed into the building's west side, officials said.
Investigators have identified remains of 184 people who were aboard American Airlines Flight 77 or inside the Pentagon, including those of the five hijackers, but they say it is impossible to match what is left with the five missing people.
A team of more than 100 workers at a military morgue at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware used several methods to identify remains but primarily relied on DNA testing and dental records. They formally ended their effort Friday after concluding that some remains were too badly burned to identify.
The fifth unidentified victim was a passenger on the hijacked plane. A spokesman for the FBI declined to disclose the name of the victim.
All 64 people aboard the hijacked plane, including six crew members and the five hijackers, were also killed.
Military officials said they had been preparing families for some time for the possibility that there might not be any remains of some victims.
The remains of the five hijackers have been identified through a process of exclusion, as they did not match DNA samples contributed by family members of all 183 victims who died at the site.
The hijackers' remains will be turned over to the FBI and held as evidence, FBI spokesman Chris Murray said. After the investigation is concluded, the State Department will decide what is to be done with the remains." -Washington Post (11/21/01); -Arlington National Cemetary (11/21/01)

► "Dover Air Force Base morticians have isolated the remains they think are the five hijackers in the Pentagon attack and will keep them as evidence for the FBI, a base spokesman said Friday.
Genetic information from the five does not match any DNA samples on file at the Pentagon or obtained from family members of the crash victims, he said.
Unlike those victims, the institute has no DNA samples from the hijackers' relatives to compare with DNA drawn from the remains. This has prohibited them from putting names to the remains.
The remains were flown to Dover from the crash scene in the days following the attack.
Maj. Jon Anderson said the hijackers' remains were identified through a process of elimination." -News Journal (12/15/2001)

► "What some experts have called "the most comprehensive forensic investigation in U.S. history" ended Nov. 16 with the identification of 184 of the 189 who died in the terrorist attack on the Pentagon.
Many of the casualties were badly burned and difficult to identify, an official said. Of the 189 killed, 125 worked at the Pentagon and 64 were passengers on American Airlines Flight 77. Only one of those who died made it to the hospital. The rest were killed on site, and for some, only pieces of tissue could be found.
A board-certified epidemiologist managed the tracking system for data collected during the autopsy process, and tissue samples were collected for DNA identification and further toxicology studies.
Teams of forensic scientists, under the direction of Demris Lee, technical leader of the Nuclear DNA Section, took over the difficult chore of generating a DNA profile of the victims. Their work included not only the Pentagon crash victims, but the victims of the Somerset County crash as well." -DC Military (11/30/01)

► "Unidentifiable remains of victims of the September 11, 2001, attack on the Pentagon will be buried in Arlington National Cemetery, the military said Friday.
The September 12, 2002, ceremony will hold special significance for families of five people whose remains have never been identified, said Colonel Jody Draves, a spokeswoman for the Military District of Washington, which oversees the cemetery.
The Pentagon attack killed 189 people: 125 in the Pentagon and 64 aboard American Airlines Flight 77. Remains of the five hijackers on the flight have been separated from those of the victims.
The five victims whose remains have not been identified include: Retired Army Colonel Ronald Golinski, a civilian Pentagon worker; Navy ET1 Ronald Henanway; Rhonda Rasmussen, a civilian worker for the Army; Jack T. Lynch, a civilian worker for the Navy; Dana Falkenberg, a passenger on Flight 77" -Arlington National Cemetery (08/16/02)

► "Among the human remains painstakingly sorted from the Pentagon and Pennsylvania crash sites of Sept. 11 are those of nine of the hijackers.
The FBI has held them for months, and no one seems to know what should be done with them. It's a politically and emotionally charged question for the government, which eventually must decide how to dispose of some of the most despised men in American history. 
In contrast, the remains of all 40 victims in the Pennsylvania crash and all but five of the 184 victims at the Pentagon site were identified months ago.
Little attention has been paid to the terrorists' remains found mingled with those of the Pennsylvania and Pentagon victims.
Four sets of remains in Pennsylvania and five at the Pentagon were grouped together as the hijackers - but not identified by name - through a process of elimination.
Families of the airplanes' passengers and crews and those who died within the Pentagon provided DNA samples, typically on toothbrushes or hairbrushes, to aid with identification. The remains that didn't match any of the samples were ruled to be the terrorists, said Chris Kelly, spokesman for the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, which did the DNA work. The nine sets of remains matched the number of hijackers believed to be on the two planes.
Without reference samples from the hijackers' personal effects or from their immediate families to compare with the recovered DNA, the remains could not be matched to individuals.
With the one-year anniversary approaching, State Department officials say they have received no requests for the remains. The department would be responsible for handling such a request from any government seeking the return of a citizen's body.
Officials have said that all but one of the nine hijackers recovered had connections to Saudi Arabia. The other was Lebanese.
Officials at the Saudi Embassy in Washington did not respond to requests for comment.
In more typical cases, foreign families also could contact local authorities. But the hijackers' remains are under the control of the FBI.
“To the best of my knowledge, there haven't been any friends or family members to try to claim the remains of these people,” said Jeff Killeen, spokesman for the FBI field office in Pittsburgh. “They are in the custody of the FBI in Washington. They have not been released.” -CBS/AP (08/17/02)

Is it just a coincidence that the same medical examiners that identified the passenger's remains from Flight 77 were the same that helped identified the remains of the passengers of Flight 93, the other plane that left no trace of itself where it was said to have crashed?

"While identification information on military personnel is stored and centrally available, information on the 64 civilians on Flight 77 took weeks to arrive. By November 16, 2001, all but five sets of remains had been identified prior to mortuary specialists taking care of them before release to next-of-kin. “Because of the combined effort of all three services and the FBI” the process worked quickly. It was “the most comprehensive forensic investigation in U.S. history.”
Personnel from the AFME [Armed Forces Medical Examiner] supported, including acting as team leader, the identification of remains from United Airlines Flight 93 that crashed in Somerset, PA. All but one of the passengers and crew were identified. Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory personnel were crucial in identifying victims." - Soldiers to the Rescue/Armed Forces Medical Examiner

More in depth info about Hani Hanjour...

A Trainee Noted for Incompetence

"Although the authorities say none of the 19 hijackers on Sept. 11 were tied to an F.B.I. intelligence alert issued by an agent in Arizona two months earlier, one hijacker, Hani Hanjour, had come to the Federal Aviation Administration's attention earlier last year, when he trained in Phoenix.
Mr. Hanjour, who investigators contend piloted the airliner that crashed into the Pentagon, was reported to the aviation agency in February 2001 after instructors at his flight school in Phoenix had found his piloting skills so shoddy and his grasp of English so inadequate that they questioned whether his pilot's license was genuine.
Records show a Hani Hanjour obtained a license in 1999 in Scottsdale, Ariz. Previous and sometimes contradictory reports said he failed in 1996 and 1997 to obtain a license at other schools.
"The staff thought he was a very nice guy, but they didn't think his English was up to level," said Marilyn Ladner, a vice president at the Pan Am International Flight Academy, which operated the center in Phoenix. Ms. Ladner said that the F.A.A. examined Mr. Hanjour's credentials and found them legitimate and that an inspector, by coincidence, attended a class with Mr. Hanjour. The inspector also offered to find an interpreter to help Mr. Hanjour, she said.
"He ended up observing Hani in class," Ms. Ladner added, "though that was not his original reason for being there."
Company officials briefed members of Congress about the case, including Representative James L. Oberstar, Democrat of Minnesota, who made public some of its general details in December.
The aviation agency did not return a call for comment.
Pan Am International, one of the largest pilot schools in the nation, also operated the flight school in Eagan, Minn., near Minneapolis, where the instructors' suspicions led to the arrest of Zacarias Moussaoui, the man whom the authorities have said was intended to be the 20th hijacker.
Ms. Ladner said the Phoenix staff never suspected that Mr. Hanjour was a hijacker but feared that his skills were so weak that he could pose a safety hazard if he flew a commercial airliner.
"There was no suspicion as far as evildoing," Ms. Ladner said. "It was more of a very typical instructional concern that 'you really shouldn't be in the air.' "
A former employee of the school said that the staff initially made good-faith efforts to help Mr. Hanjour and that he received individual instruction for a few days. But he was a poor student. On one written problem that usually takes 20 minutes to complete, Mr. Hanjour took three hours, the former employee said, and he answered incorrectly.
Ultimately, administrators at the school told Mr. Hanjour that he would not qualify for the advanced certificate. But the ex-employee said Mr. Hanjour continued to pay to train on a simulator for Boeing 737 jets. "He didn't care about the fact that he couldn't get through the course," the ex-employee said.
Staff members characterized Mr. Hanjour as polite, meek and very quiet. But most of all, the former employee said, they considered him a very bad pilot.
"I'm still to this day amazed that he could have flown into the Pentagon," the former employee said. "He could not fly at all." - NY Times (05/04/02)

► FAA Was Alerted To Sept. 11 Hijacker

"Months before Hani Hanjour is believed to have flown an American Airlines jet into the Pentagon, managers at an Arizona flight school reported him at least five times to the FAA, reports CBS News Correspondent Vince Gonzales.
They reported him not because they feared he was a terrorist, but because his English and flying skills were so bad, they told the Associated Press, they didn't think he should keep his pilot's license.
"I couldn't believe he had a commercial license of any kind with the skills that he had," said Peggy Chevrette, the manager for the now-defunct JetTech flight school in Phoenix.
Reacting to the alert in January 2001, an FAA inspector checked to ensure Hanjour's 1999 license was legitimate and even sat next to him in one of the Arizona classes.
But he didn't tell the FBI or take action to rescind Hanjour's license, FAA officials said.
"There was nothing about the pilot's actions to signal criminal intent at the time or that would have caused us to alert law enforcement," FAA spokeswoman Laura Brown said.
But one official said the inspector, John Anthony, did not suggest a translator and "did not observe any serious issue" with Hanjour's English, even though University of Arizona records show he failed his English classes with a 0.26 grade point average. Other Arizona flight schools he attended also questioned his abilities.
"He didn't do his homework, didn't attend on time and he would sort of come and go," said Duncan Hastie of Cockpit Resource Management.
Marilyn Ladner, the vice president of Pan Am Flight Academy in Miami – the company that owned JetTech before it closed in the aftermath of Sept. 11 – told CBS News, "We did everything we were supposed to do," in reporting Hanjour.
Hanjour attended flight schools with two other Pentagon hijackers. And in July last year, an Arizona FBI agent alerted Washington that a large number of Middle Eastern men were taking flying lessons, but he was ignored.
Attorney General John Ashcroft said Friday he didn't know there had been a red flag raised about Hanjour. "I'd be pleased to include information like this in our investigation, but it's not something with which I'm familiar."
Chevrette said Hanjour's English was so poor that it took him five hours to complete a section of a mock pilot's oral exam that is supposed to last just a couple of hours.
Chevrette said she contacted Anthony again when Hanjour began ground training for Boeing 737 jetliners and it became clear he didn't have the skills for the commercial pilot's license.
"I don't truly believe he should have had it and I questioned that," she said.
FBI agents have questioned and administered a lie detector test to one of Hanjour's instructors in Arizona who was an Arab American and had signed off on Hanjour's flight instruction credentials before he got his pilot's license.
That instructor said he told agents that Hanjour was "a very average pilot, maybe struggling a little bit." The instructor added, "Maybe his English wasn't very good." -CBS News (5/10/02)

"Marcel Bernard, the chief flight instructor at the airport, said a man named Hani Hanjour went into the air in a Cessna 172 with instructors from the airport three times beginning the second week of August and had hoped to rent a plane from the airport.
According to published reports, law enforcement sources say Hanjour, in his mid-twenties, is suspected of crashing American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon.
Hanjour had his pilot's license, said Bernard, but needed what is called a ``check-out" done by the airport to gauge a pilot's skills before he or she is able to rent a plane at Freeway Airport, which runs parallel with Route 50.
Instructors at the school told Bernard that after three times in the air, they still felt he was unable to fly solo and that Hanjour seemed disappointed.
Published reports said Hanjour obtained his pilot's license in April 1999, but it expired six months later because he did not complete a required medical exam. He also was trained for a few months at a private school in Scottsdale, Ariz., in 1996, but did not finish the course because instructors felt he was not capable.
Hanjour had 600 hours listed in his log book, Bernard said, and instructors were surprised he was not able to fly better with the amount of experience he had."  -Prince George's Journal (9/18/01)

Hanjour an unlikely terrorist

"Of the four men believed to have been the pilots in the hijacking conspiracy that claimed nearly 5,000 lives, Hani Hanjour stands out as the most unlikely - certainly, the most enigmatic - terrorist. Even as he pursued the flight training he would need for his final act, instructors found him withdrawn, slow to pick up a feel for the cockpit.
Even today, his family cannot fathom his alleged role in the plot.  "We are in shock," his eldest brother, Abulrahman Hanjour, said. "We thought that he liked the USA. ... I would think he would give his life to save lives, not to do this."
Barely over 5 feet tall, skinny and boyish, Hanjour displayed a temperament and actions that were out of sync with those of his fellow pilots in several ways.  He was the only alleged pilot who does not appear to have been part of an al-Qaida cell in Europe.
Over five years, Hanjour hopscotched among flight schools and airplane rental companies, but his instructors regarded him as a poor student, even in the weeks before the attacks.
Federal Aviation Administration records show he obtained a commercial pilot's license in April 1999, but how and where he did so remains a lingering question that FAA officials refuse to discuss. His limited flying abilities do afford an insight into one feature of the attacks: The conspiracy apparently did not include a surplus of skilled pilots.
"He had only the barest understanding what the instruments were there to do."
Hanjour's precise path from family farm to terrorist plot remains obscured.
Susan Khalil remembers him as socially inept, with poor English and "really bad hygiene. I had to have my husband get after him about bathing and changing his clothes." Khalil noticed a greenish film on Hanjour's teeth after a few weeks; he had been too timid to ask for a toothbrush.
During three months of instruction in late 1996, Duncan K.M. Hastie, CRM's owner, found Hanjour a "weak student" who "was wasting our resources."
"The impression I got is he came and, like a lot of guys, got overwhelmed with the instruments." He used the simulator perhaps three or four more times, Fults said, then "disappeared like a fog."
Instructors once again questioned his competence. After three sessions in a single-engine plane, the school decided Hanjour was not ready to rent a plane by himself." - Cape Cod Times (10/12/02)

Hanjour a Study in Paradox
Suspect's Brother: 'We Thought He Liked the USA'

"Of the four men believed to have been the pilots in the hijacking conspiracy that claimed nearly 5,000 lives, Hani Hanjour stands out as the most unlikely -- certainly, the most enigmatic -- terrorist.
He was so unambitious that, as a teenager in Saudi Arabia, he thought of dropping out of high school to become a flight attendant. Short and slight, he was so shy that, as a houseguest of family friends in Florida, he would not confess that he had forgotten a toothbrush. Even as he pursued the flight training he would need for his final act, instructors found him withdrawn, slow to pick up a feel for the cockpit.
Hanjour, 29, shared the piety of Islamic extremists. The most religious among seven children, he prayed and attended mosque regularly at home and in the United States. But his seemed an inward devotion, not an overtly political zeal.
Even today, his family cannot fathom his alleged role in the plot. They recognized his photograph as the person who investigators say crashed American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon on Sept. 11.
"We are in shock," his eldest brother, Abulrahman Hanjour, said in a recent telephone interview from Saudi Arabia. "We thought that he liked the USA. . . . I would think he would give his life to save lives, not to do this."
A month after the attacks, only one of the 19 suspected hijackers has come into focus. Mohamed Atta, most likely the leader of the plot, is clearly etched in the public mind as an intense, arrogant man who became an Islamic radical while a university student in Germany.
Now, an image of Hani Hanjour is emerging as well, from public records and interviews with his brother and people who encountered him in the United States over more than a decade.
Hanjour's meek, introverted manner fits a recurrent pattern in the al Qaeda network of unsophisticated young men being recruited as helpers in terrorist attacks. FBI agents have told people they have interviewed about Hanjour that he "fit the personality to be manipulated and brainwashed."
Yet on the morning of Sept. 11, investigators have said, Hanjour was not one of the foot soldiers brought into the conspiracy merely to cow passengers in the cabin of the Boeing 757 as it streaked from Dulles International Airport toward Washington and the Pentagon.
He was in the cockpit.
Barely over 5 feet tall, skinny and boyish, Hanjour displayed a temperament and actions that were out of sync with those of his fellow pilots in several ways. Hanjour first arrived in the United States years before the others, and was one of just two suspected hijackers who held a student visa. He was the only alleged pilot who does not appear to have been part of an al Qaeda cell in Europe.
And while the three other suspected pilots -- Atta, Marwan Al-Shehhi and Ziad Jarrah -- had lived together in Hamburg, Germany, it remains unclear when and where Hanjour was folded into the plot.
In comparison to the more brazen Atta, who appears ubiquitous in the conspiracy, Hanjour casts a pale figure. For about a year in the late 1990s, Jose Salazar lived next door to the house Hanjour rented with a few other Middle Eastern men in Scottsdale, Ariz. Salazar remembers his neighbor as utterly unfriendly. One day, Salazar tossed a ball with his brother-in-law that rolled straight into Hanjour's path as he walked into his house. Hanjour did not even look up.
Over five years, Hanjour hopscotched among flight schools and airplane rental companies, but his instructors regarded him as a poor student, even in the weeks before the attacks.
Federal Aviation Administration records show he obtained a commercial pilot's license in April 1999, but how and where he did so remains a lingering question that FAA officials refuse to discuss. His limited flying abilities do afford an insight into one feature of the attacks: The conspiracy apparently did not include a surplus of skilled pilots.
Wes Fults, the former manager of the flight simulator at Sawyer School of Aviation in Phoenix, gave Hanjour a one-hour orientation lesson when he arrived as a new member of the school's "sim club" in 1998. "Mr. Hanjour was, if not dour, to some degree furtive. He never looked happy," Fults recalled. "He had only the barest understanding what the instruments were there to do."
Hanjour grew up in Taif, a popular resort city of 400,000 in a mountainous Saudi region. His father worked in a food-supply business. The middle child of seven, Hanjour was quiet, an average student with modest goals.
In an interview from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, Abulrahman Hanjour recalled worrying about his brother's desire to become a flight attendant without a high school degree. He persuaded him to aim higher.
More religious than anyone else in the family, Hani Hanjour regularly visited the mosque near his family's home. But if he was involved in radical groups -- at home, in the United States or anywhere else -- no one in the family knew of it, his brother said.
It was Abulrahman Hanjour, 11 years older and far more worldly, who in 1990 gave Hanjour his first experience of America. Traveling frequently to the United States as part of his business exporting used American cars to Saudi Arabia, Abulrahman had stayed a few years earlier in Tucson, where some of his Saudi friends were University of Arizona students.
He signed up his younger brother for an eight-week English course at the university, and rented him a room nearby, taking care to choose a place near a mosque.
Hanjour's first stay in the United States was brief. After three months in Arizona, his brother said, he went home. For the next five years, he managed his family's lemon and date farm near Taif. He sometimes did common labor, at times filling water into irrigation tanks.
He did not, his brother believes, travel abroad during that period. He worked on what had been his grandfather's farm during the day and slept at his parents' house at night.
Hanjour's precise path from family farm to terrorist plot remains obscured. But by early 1996, he somehow had developed a desire to learn to fly in the United States.
It was a period when other members of the al Qaeda network were becoming pilots. Two years earlier, the Armed Islamic Group, which would fuse with al Qaeda, hijacked an Air France plane in Algeria with the intention of crashing it into the Eiffel Tower. They were stopped by French special forces at the Marseilles airport.
For his second trip to the United States, Hanjour's path was, once again, prepared by his brother. Abulrahman Hanjour placed a call from Saudi Arabia to Miramar, Fla., to ask a couple he had known from Tucson whether they would be willing to put him up.
Hani Hanjour stayed with Susan and Adnan Khalil for about a month during the spring of 1996 before beginning a series of unsuccessful stints at flight schools out west. Susan Khalil remembers him as socially inept, with poor English and "really bad hygiene. I had to have my husband get after him about bathing and changing his clothes." Khalil noticed a greenish film on Hanjour's teeth after a few weeks; he had been too timid to ask for a toothbrush.
He prayed frequently, at their home and at a nearby mosque. Susan Khalil was struck by how different he was from his older brother, who liked parties and drinking.
Hanjour moved from Florida to northern California, where he lived from late April to early September, said Andrew Black, a spokesman for the FBI's San Francisco office. For most of that time, he studied in an intensive English program at the ELS Language Centers on the campus of Holy Names College in Oakland, said Mike Palm, a spokesman for the school.
The school arranged for Hanjour to live with a host family. FBI officials who have interviewed that family and others who knew Hanjour in Oakland say he is remembered as a "quiet, introverted individual."
While in Oakland, he enrolled at the Sierra Academy of Aeronautics. He attended a 30-minute class on Sept. 8 and never came back. Dan Shaffer, the academy's vice president for flight operations, speculated that Hanjour was intimidated by the school's two-year training regimen and $35,000 price tag.
The next month, he turned up in Arizona, a magnet for aspiring pilots because of its clear weather and relatively affordable flight schools. Hanjour paid $3,800 by check and $1,000 in cash for lessons at CRM Flight Cockpit Resource Management in Scottsdale.
During three months of instruction in late 1996, Duncan K. M. Hastie, CRM's owner, found Hanjour a "weak student" who "was wasting our resources." Hanjour left, then returned in December 1997 -- a year later -- and stayed only a few weeks.
Over the next three years, Hanjour called Hastie about twice a year, asking to come back for more instruction.
"I would recognize his voice," Hastie said. "He was always talking about wanting more training. Yes, he wanted to be an airline pilot. That was his stated goal. That's why I didn't allow him to come back. I thought, 'You're never going to make it.' "
The last time Hanjour called, sometime last year, he was asking to train on a Boeing 757, the kind of aircraft he is believed to have crashed into the Pentagon.
Rebuffed by Hastie, Hanjour went elsewhere. In 1998, he joined the simulator club at Sawyer, a small Phoenix school known locally as a flight school of last resort. "It was a commonly held truth that, if you failed anywhere else, go to Sawyer Aviation. They had good instructors," said Fults, the former simulator manager there.
Sawyer's simulator is in a closet-sized room that students and pilots alike use to practice the basics of instrument flight. Fults remembers Hanjour as "a neophyte. . . . The impression I got is he came and, like a lot of guys, got overwhelmed with the instruments." He used the simulator perhaps three or four more times, Fults said, then "disappeared like a fog."
As he had been at CRM, Hanjour was alone as he trained that year at Sawyer. But in a sequence of events that is intriguing in retrospect, Hanjour missed by less than a month another Middle Eastern man who joined Sawyer's simulator club. Lotfi Raissi never mentioned Hanjour, Fults said. Raissi often came in with three or four Arabic men, who crammed into the simulator and seemed to be his protégés. Fults, who left Sawyer early last year, is unsure who the men were, but says Hanjour was not one of them.
Today, Raissi is being held in London on a U.S. extradition warrant, accused of training Hanjour and three other hijackers. British prosecutors have said that Raissi and Hanjour attended the same flight schools and that a computer seized in Raissi's apartment in England contained a video clip of the two men. During the past two summers, they were together at the Sawyer simulator, according to various employees who worked there after Fults had left.
Hanjour's training at CRM also overlapped with that of another man who investigators are looking at closely: Faisal M. Al Salmi. A federal indictment unsealed Friday in Arizona alleges that Al Salmi spoke with Hanjour several times and subsequently lied to investigators. But the indictment does not accuse Al Salmi of a role in the plot.
That plot was in high gear by the second week of August, when Hanjour arrived in the Washington area for what appears to have been his final preparation -- this time, at Freeway Airport in Bowie. Instructors once again questioned his competence. After three sessions in a single-engine plane, the school decided Hanjour was not ready to rent a plane by himself.
Exactly how much time Hanjour spent in the United States between 1996 and this year remains hazy.
Unlike Atta, who is remembered vividly by many who encountered him for his boorishness -- his haggling over prices, his sullen attitude toward women -- Hanjour left a faint impression.
His known activity was mundane: He rented several cars in New Jersey starting last July, visited Las Vegas at least once over the summer while other conspirators may have been there and bought a week's gym membership in Greenbelt with the four other suspected terrorists who would board the Dulles flight less than two weeks later.
For at least part of last year, Hanjour appears to have been in Saudi Arabia, because it was there that he obtained a student visa to take another English course. He applied in September 2000 for another four-week course at the same Oakland language school he attended four years earlier.
He did not show up, and the school contacted its representative in Saudi Arabia who had handled his application, according to Palm, the school spokesman. Palm said the Saudi person did not know Hanjour's intention, and the school decided he was among the 10 percent of its students who fail to appear.
INS documents say that Hanjour entered the United States last December, a month after the class began.
According to his brother, Hanjour was last in touch with his family early last spring. He told his mother he was calling from a pay phone in the United Arab Emirates, where his family believed he had gone in 1999 to find a pilot's job.
That phone call appears to have been placed about the same time that Hanjour was in Paterson, N.J., shopping for an apartment with a younger man who would, months later, allegedly board the plane with Hanjour and force it into the Pentagon.
During that final conversation, Hanjour told his family he would telephone again when he had his own phone number. He might, he said, come home for a visit in about a month. But the man who so often seemed to fade in and out once again didn't appear." -Washington Post (10/15/01)

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Killtown • Flight 77

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