9/11/01

I was at a party for one of my kid's friends the other day and was chatting up a guy, who retired after 25 years as a mechanic at United. He was at Logan on September 11, 2001, but he said that his two best friends were assigned to United 175. He said that he knew one of the stewardesses on the plane.

My own personal story is boring. I had already completed Summer School and Fall classes had not started yet, so I was at my parents' house. I was asleep until after the South Tower fell. I spent most of the day watching events unfold.

My wife was actually in New York over the summer in 2001, which is scary, because Osama Bin Laden originally wanted the attacks to occur on June 26th to coincide with Ariel Sharon's visit to the United States. But the final hijacker, Khalid al-Mihdhar, would not even arrive until July 4, 2001 (a 20th hijacker arrived in Orlando in August 2001 but was denied entry, which is why the Flight 93 hijackers were one hijacker short), and everything else was not really all in place until the end of August.

21 years ago today was the suicide bombing of the U.S.S. Cole. Two suicide bombers killed 17 sailors, who were lining up for lunch in the galley. Khalid al-Mihdhar is believed to have been "one of the key planners of the attack." Despite the fact that the CIA believed that Khalid al-Mihdhar was a member of al-Qaeda, this fact was not provided to the State Department until August 23, 2001, and was never provided to the FAA. The CIA placed Khalid al-Mihdhar on a terrorist watchlist on August 21, 2001. The FBI criminal division wanted to assist the FBI intelligence investigation with their investigation. This request was denied thanks to the Wall that Janet Reno had erected in 1995 between the two FBI divisions. An agent at the FBI criminal division sent an email to FBI headquarters saying, "[ S ]omeday someone will die, and the public will not understand why we were not more effective and throwing every resource we had at certain 'problems.'" The FBI intelligence division gave the case to Robert Fuller, a low level agent in New York, who was conducting his first solo counter-terrorism investigation. Fuller did not contact the FBI Financial Review Group or the Treasury Department to pull financial records.

At the end of August, New York's FBI intelligence division was tied up with a the Patrick Dolan Critton case. Critton was an African-American Communist, who had hijacked a Canadian plane in 1971 and flew it to Cuba. Realizing that Cuba was stupid, he eventually fled the country to Africa and returned to New York in 1993. In March 2001, the Canadians discovered that Critton may be living in New York, and he was eventually arrested, on September 10, 2001. Critton's arrest made the front page of the September 11, 2001 New York Times.

Fuller contacted all Marriott's in New York, including 3 World Trade Center, which was about to be destroyed, but none of the Marriotts had ever heard of Khalid al-Mihdhar. Fuller then contacted all of the Sheratons in Los Angeles, Lufthansa and United Airlines on September 11, 2001. Unfortunately, Khalid al-Mihdhar was on American Airlines Flight 77, a plane that would ultimately be hijacked and piloted by Hani Hanjour.

10 years earlier, Hanjour applied and was accepted to attend the University of Arizona. He attended the University of Arizona until just after Christmas. He left Arizona at the beginning of February in 1992. He spent most of the next four years as the manager of date and lemon orchards in Saudi Arabia.

Hanjour returned in 1996 to take more than three months of English classes at Holy Names College in Oakland in 1996. He attended three on-the-ground flight classes in Oakland before beginning to learn to fly in earnest at the Scottsdale Airport. He began his training at Scottsdale Airport in 1996, left the country for more than a year and then returned in 1997 to begin training again at Scottsdale Airport. Hanjour then moved on to train at Chandler, Mesa and Phoenix, including flying at least once to California. Hanjour received his commercial pilot license on April 15, 1999.

Unable to get a job at Saudi Arabia Airlines or to get additional training in Saudi Arabia, Hanjour told his family that he was going to the United Arab Emirates but wound up in Afghanistan, where Hanjour was identified as a pilot. Hanjour was sent to Pakistan for training with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (often referred to as "KSM"), the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks. KSM also was Ramzi Yousef's uncle. Yousef had masterminded the first WTC attack in 1993, lighting the fuse on the bomb himself.

Hanjour applied to take more classes at Holy Names College and was accepted to do so. He got a visa for that purpose, but he never showed up for any classes. Hanjour's commercial pilot license had lapsed in 1999, so, instead, Hanjour took almost eight weeks of flight classes, in order to renew his commercial pilot license. Getting his commercial pilot license allowed Hanjour to begin training on Boeing jets. Hanjour spent more than six weeks training on jets before moving to Virginia.

From May-August, Hanjour rented an apartment in Paterson, New Jersey and began training at multiple airports in New Jersey from May-July, once flying next to Manhattan Island and once flying to Maryland.

On August 2, 2001, Hanjour and five other hijackers were able to use documents that they received from three Salvadoran immigrants (one legal and two illegal), in order to get Virginia identification cards. That identification card allowed Hanjour to fly from Dulles to Los Angeles on August 13, 2001. He then continued on to Las Vegas to meet Mohamed Atta, who piloted Flight 11 into the North Tower. After returning, Hanjour spent the next 11 days flying out of Maryland. By August 17, 2001, Hanjour had logged at least 600 hours of flight time. Hanjour had completed his flight training for the attacks by August 27, 2001.

On August 29, 2001, Hanjour used the information from the three Salvadoran immigrants in order to get Ziad Jarrah (the Flight 93 pilot) a Virginia driver's license. Jarrah was pulled over for speeding on September 9, 2001, and presented that same Virginia driver's license to the officer. On August 31, 2001, Hanjour was in New Jersey emptying out his apartment in Paterson. On that same day, Hanjour purchased his first class ticket on Flight 77 in Totowa for $1,842 in cash. Hanjour spent the first 9+ days of September in Maryland before moving to Virginia the final night near Dulles.

On September 11th, the Flight 77 terrorists went to Dulles and made it through security. Once airborne, the hijackers were able to enter the cockpit and hijack the flight.

Unlike Flight 175, Hanjour successfully turned off the transponder. Additionally, unlike Atta and Jarrah, Hanjour did not accidentally make any transmissions to the air traffic controllers.

Hanjour deviated from the flight path right before turning off the transponder. This made the Indianapolis air traffic controller in charge of the flight (who was not in contact with the Boston or New York air traffic controllers) believe that the flight had crashed. That air traffic controller poured resources into Kentucky to search for Flight 77. This turn of events allowed Flight 77 to enter Washington airspace without advance warning. Hanjour almost overshot the Pentagon, which had the people on radar concerned that it was going to hit another target.  Hanjour went into a controlled circular clockwise dive, which made people watching the radar relieved, as it appeared that Flight 77 was coming in to land at Reagan.  Instead, Hanjour completed the clockwise circular dive and straightened up into the Pentagon.  Hanjour hit five light poles in route, including accidentally putting one light pole into one of his engines but was able to pilot Flight 77 into the bottom three floors of Pentagon, creating a huge fireball, which caused damage into the outermost three rings of the Pentagon.  The front end of the plane almost was able to breach a fourth ring but stopped just short.

Fortunately, the portion of the Pentagon that Hanjour hit was being renovated, so it was about 1/6 as full as it normally would be on a typical day. Additionally, the renovations were almost completed. The renovation involved reinforcing the building with a bunch of metal to enable it to withstand a bomb like at the Kenyan and Tanzanian Embassies. This reinforcement is often cited as the primary reason that only three rings were damaged and that everyone on the fourth and fifth floors above the impact site were able to get to safety before that section collapsed. In total 59 civilians were killed on board Flight 77, 70 civilians were killed at the Pentagon and 33 Navy sailors and 22 Army soldiers were killed.

I spent September 11, 2021, the 20th anniversary of September 11th, in and around the Scottsdale Airport, which is where Hani Hanjour, the first of the hijackers to enter the United States, began to learn to fly. I was where it basically all began. I spent much of the day just watching planes lining up and landing, mulling over the last 30 years.