In this series, Newsweek describes the path of 9/11, as it happened 20 years ago, day after day.
Hani Hanjour used the computer for over an hour at Kinko’s in University Park, Maryland August 10, Research flights and communicate with relatives and friends in Saudi Arabia. The Saudi national checked into the nearby University Park Motel on August 6 and traveled with one of his muscular men. On the 9th, he checked with the flight instructor at the highway airport in Bowie, Maryland.
The Saudi citizen Hani Hanjour was the last pilot to arrive in the United States and the only Saudi among the four pilots. He first came to the United States in October 1991 and attended the English language school in Tucson. In 1996, he returned for flight training, completed language training in Oakland, California, and then moved to Arizona, where he obtained a pilot’s license in 1999. Hanjour returned to Saudi Arabia but was unable to find a job on any commercial airline.
After failing to find a job in late 1999 (or this is the story), Hanjour traveled to Afghanistan to join al-Qaeda. His pilot and English language skills and his Saudi citizenship were immediately determined, and he was asked to work with three other pilots to prepare for aircraft operations and the 9/11 attacks. (The planned fourth pilot, Ramzi Bin al-Shibh, is a Yemeni national and a member of the Hamburg Quadruple. After many attempts, he failed to obtain a U.S. visa.)
The other three arrived in the United States in June 2000. In December, Hanjour arrived at Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport and continued on to San Diego, where he picked up Nawaf al-Hazmi-Michal, a muscular orphan abandoned by Khalid al. The two drove to Mesa, Arizona, where Hanjour took a flight course to renew his certification and practiced handling the control of large commercial airliners. He then conducted simulator training at Arizona Airlines and Pan American International Jet Technology.
Susan Walsh/AFP via Getty Images
His certification was updated, and in April 2001, Hanjour and al-Hazmi moved to Northern Virginia, then to New Jersey, and finally to Maryland. At each location, Hanjour continued to conduct flight training. By August 10, he knew that his flight would depart from Dulles International Airport. Hanjour has taken multiple flights in the Washington, DC metropolitan area and is familiar with the airspace-this is the only pilot in the team to do so.
Hanjour will continue to fly AA Flight 77 at high speed and strike at treetop level Pentagon Built at a challenging angle, it was actually on the ground at the time of impact. The flying skills he demonstrated in doing so were impressive, but after 9/11, many news media reported that he was a bad pilot and failed in flight training.
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