From today's Boston Globe:
By Kevin Cullen and Matthew Brelis, Globe Staff, 9/13/2001
Three men who were trained as pilots have emerged as the central figures in the hijacking of two Boston-to-Los Angeles flights that were deliberately crashed into the World Trade Center towers.
The trio are among a dozen men with Arabic surnames who were the focus yesterday of the massive investigation here trying to determine who commandeered the two Boeing
767s that formed half of the biggest terrorist attack ever against Americans.
Sources close to the investigation said that investigators had recovered from a car
rented by a suspected hijacker a so-called ''ramp pass,'' which gives the holder access to restricted areas at Logan Airport. Evidence also suggests the rental car was used to case the airport during the week leading up to the attack.
As investigators retraced the steps of the men, using an extensive list of Visa credit
card receipts, evidence pointing to the plot having its roots in the Middle East was piling up.
The names of the 12 men with Arabic surnames were not on a passenger list made public yesterday by American Airlines and United Air Lines, whose planes were hijacked Tuesday morning. But The Boston Globe obtained the complete list, and law
enforcement sources confirmed that they were focusing on up to a dozen of the Arabic men as they piece together how the two Boston flights were hijacked.
One of the suspects, Mohamed Atta, 33, is a Saudi national who trained as an airline
pilot. The other two, Waleed Alshehri and Marwan Alshehri, are believed to be brothers
from the United Arab Emirates, and are also trained to fly heavy commercial aircraft like the ones that were commandeered and flown into the World Trade Center towers in New York.
Both Atta, who attended a flight school in Florida last year, and Waleed Alshehri
received training that would have made them capable of flying American Airlines Flight
11 into the first of the two towers that later collapsed, killing what officials assume will be thousands of office workers and hundreds of their would-be rescuers.
Marwan Alshehri, who attended flight school with Atta, was capable of flying United Air
Lines Flight 175 into one of the towers, investigators believe.
Atta caught Flight 11 off a connecting flight from Portland, Maine. Two bags with Atta's name tags were on the Portland flight, but did not get transferred in time to be loaded on the Los Angeles-bound flight that left Logan Airport at 7:59 a.m., about 45 minutes before it smashed into the World Trade Center tower.
Acccording to the manifest, Atta was assigned seat 8D in business class on Flight 11, directly across the aisle from Hollywood producer David Angell and his wife, Lynn, who were in seats 8A and 8B respectively. Seated next to Atta in seat 8G was Abdul
Alomari. The two remaining seats in Row 8, H and J, were unassigned.
The passenger list for Flight 175 shows that Marwan Alshehri got on the plane that left
Boston and slammed into one of the Manhattan skyscrapers 15 minutes after Flight 11.
A Florida man, Charles Voss, yesterday said that Atta and a man whom he knew only as Marwan had stayed at his home last year while they obtained flight training at a
Florida flight school. Voss, who used to work at Huffman Aviation in Venice, Fla., told the Associated Press that the FBI agents who interviewed him Tuesday told him that the two men who stayed at his home were involved in the hijackings. Azzan Ali, a
student at Huffman Aviation, said that Marwan Alshehri had stayed with Voss.
Voss said the FBI told him that the two men who had stayed with him last year had been traced to a car found at Logan Airport. Law enforcement sources told the Globe that authorities had recovered from the car a a
ramp pass issued by the Massachusetts Port Authority.
Waleed Alshehri also held a commercial pilot's license and was rated to fly large, multi-engine aircraft.
On Tuesday night, Massachusetts State Police detectives and the FBI seized a Mitsubishi sedan that a Hampden County law enforcement
official said one of the suspected hijackers rented in Springfield and that was parked in a Logan Airport parking lot. When they reviewed videotape of the parking lot's surveillance camera, investigators found
that the car had entered the lot up to five times between last Wednesday and Tuesday, according to sources. Those sources said the constant presence of the car over the last week suggested that the terrorists had
scouted the airport, or performed dry runs for the daring attack.
Sources familiar with the investigation said the ramp pass, found in the Mitsubishi sedan, gives holders access to restricted parts of the airport.
Sources said at least five one-way tickets for the United flight and at least two similar tickets for the American flight were purchased at the last minute by suspected hijackers. The sources said at least four of the tickets were purchased with the same Visa card.
One state official who spoke on condition of anonymity expressed deep regret that airline officials did not react more cautiously regarding the ticket purchases.
''That is something that should jump out at you,'' said the state official. ''One-way ticket, purchased by Arabic gentlemen; that should have been red-flagged.''
One source said the car had been parked at least ''four to five'' times at Logan since Sept. 5.
Meanwhile, authorities in Florida were investigating the possibility that two suspected terrorists, including Waleed Alshehri, prepared for the attacks on New York and Washington while at Embry-Riddle Aeronautics University in Daytona Beach - one as a student and one while working as
an instructor.
In a statement yesterday, university officials said they are cooperating with the FBI and other investigative agencies and would provide no further information.
But the Globe found Waleed Alshehri's name on a list of 1997 Embry graduates. The FBI Tuesday evening searched a Daytona Beach
apartment where Alshehri lived during the time he is believed to have attended Embry.
The Globe reported yesterday that inside the suitcase belonging to Atta, investigators found a Saudi passport, an international driver's license, a videotape on how to fly a Boeing 757 and 747, and ''some kind of
religious cassette tape.'' Atta has previously held an Egyptian driver's
license.
State Police and the FBI spent much of yesterday searching a unit of the Park Inn off Route 9 in Chestnut Hill, where at least two of the hijackers were believed to have stayed the night before the attack. At noon, more than a dozen law enforcement vehicles parked behind the hotel, and officers, some clad in bullet-proof vests and bearing shields, assembled on the third floor of the inn.
The unit of the inn, formerly the Susse Chalet, is under renovation and only a few rooms were occupied, according to one of its managers.
FBI investigators spent about 15 hours in Room 432 of the inn yesterday, painstakingly analyzing and removing evidence, including a recliner as well as several boxes and bags of material. The operation started at 6
a.m., according to other guests at the inn, who returned last night to find they were being moved to other buildings in the complex.
All the guests were moved out of the building except Michael Arnold, of Nantucket, who was staying in the room next to 432 and was allowed to go in and shave last evening.
Arnold had noticed the two men staying in the room next to his, where he said the FBI told him they found a flight schedule and a train schedule. But he said he had not noticed anything unusual about the men.