Hijackers


The Hijacking

American Airlines flight 11 is crashed into the north side of the northern
tower of the World Trade Center at 8:46 AM EDT (Accounts of the attack have
given times that range from 8:45 to 8:48 AM EDT). A member of the flight
crew pressed a switch that permitted air traffic controllers to overhear at
8:28 AM EDT: "Don't do anything foolish. You are not going to get hurt. We
have more planes. We have other planes."

A passenger on United Airlines flight 175, Peter Hanson, called his father
from the plane reporting that hijackers were stabbing flight attendants in
order to force the crew to open the cockpit doors. At 9:03 AM EDT, the plane
is crashed into the south side of the southern tower of the World Trade
Center.

On American Airlines flight 77, Barbara K. Olson called her husband, United
States Solicitor General Theodore Olson at the Justice Department at 9:25
from the plane to tell him about the hijacking and to report that the
passengers and pilots were held in the back of the plane. It is crashed into
the western side of The Pentagon at 9:37 AM EDT, starting a violent fire.

On United Airlines flight 93, a passenger reached officials on his cell
phone from the plane's rest room, repeatedly saying that the plane was
hijacked and that the call was not a hoax. Passengers speaking on cell
phones had learned about the World Trade Center crashes and were planning on
resisting the hijackers. One passenger told his wife that one person had
already been stabbed to death by the hijackers. There is speculation that
the passengers' resistance led to the plane crashing before it reached its
intended target. At 10:10 AM EDT (other accounts say 10:03 AM EDT and 10:06
AM EDT), the plane crashed southeast of Pittsburgh , near Shanksville in
Somerset county, Pennsylvania.


The Hijackers

There were 19 hijackers in all; five on three of the flights, four on one.

U.S. authorities believe that the hijackers were in two groups--six core
organizers, who included the four pilots and two others, and the remaining
13, who came to the United States later, in pairs in the spring and summer
of 2001 via the UAE.

The six organizers were the pilots--Mohammed Atta, Marwan Alshehhi, Ziad
Jarrah, and Hani Hanjour--and Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi.

Several of the terrorist hijackers appeared to be traveling with false
passports, assuming the identities of other people. Saudis Saeed Alghamdi,
Abdulaziz Alomari, and Waleed M. Alshehri, whose photographs have appeared
on CNN and other media outlets, have spoken to Saudi newspapers since the
attack.

Their profiles do not seem to match that of past suicide terrorists (young,
poor, uneducated and indoctrinated): many were in their late twenties and
thirties, most with college educations, and had lived for prolonged periods
of time in western countries. 15 came from Saudi Arabia. The remaining four
came from Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Lebanon.

There have been variations in the spelling of the names of the alleged
hijackers in differing accounts of the attacks- one good example being the
Alshehris from Flight 11. This is because there is no one correct way of
translating from Arabic script to English letters.

Network Map of how hijackers were connected to each other and color-coded by
their flight.

The hijackers aboard American Airlines flight 11 used the names

   * Waleed Alshehri
   * Wail M. Alshehri
   * Mohammad Atta
   * Abdulaziz Alomari
   * Satam Al Suqami

Mohammad Atta is believed to have flown Flight 11 into the North Tower.

Aboard United Airlines flight 175 the hijackers used the names

   * Marwan Alshehhi
   * Fayez Banihammad
   * Mohald Alshehri
   * Hamza Al Ghamdi
   * Ahmed Al Ghamdi

Marwan Alshehhi is believed to have flown Flight 175 into the South Tower.

The hijackers aboard American Airlines flight 77 used the names

   * Khalid al-Mihdhar
   * Majed Moqued
   * Nawaf al-Hazmi
   * Salem Al Hazmi
   * Hani Hanjour

Hani Hanjour is believed to have flown Flight 77 into the Pentagon.

The hijackers aboard United Airlines flight 93 used the names

   * Ahmed Al Haznawi
   * Ahmed Alnami
   * Ziad Jarrah
   * Saeed Alghamdi

Ziad Jarrah is believed to have been at the controls when Flight 93 crashed
in Pennsylvania.