The Egyptian Mohamed Atta arrived at the Florenc bus terminal in Prague, from Germany, on June 2, 2000. Records on Atta's cellphone indicated that he phoned the Moroccan embassy in Washington on January 2, just before Shehhi flew to the country. . [64] Law-enforcement officials said Bryant passed a lie-detector exam. Atta disappeared from Germany for periods of time, embarking on the hajj in 1995 but also meeting Osama bin Laden and other top al-Qaeda leaders in Afghanistan from late-1999 to early-2000. Ramzi bin al-Shibh is also identified in the video. Anyone can read what you share. Given the vagaries of traveling on the East Coast, (it was a) tremendous risk to take. An airport incident report indicates that the Piper Cherokee stalled at 5:45 p.m. and was removed from the taxiway by 6:20 p.m. Now, we are living in Germany since a while for study purposes. Mohamed Atta", "In Egypt, some see war on terror as a war on Islam", "Interview with Professor Dittmar Machule", "Four Corners Ralph Bodenstein interview", "Will Gives a Window into Suspect's Mind", "Germans Lay Out Early Qaeda Ties to 9/11 Hijackers", "Video showing Atta, bin Laden is unearthed", "Zacarias Moussauoi v. the United States (trial testimony)", "Transcript of Johnelle Bryant Interview", "Hijacker tried to get U.S. loan to buy plane", "Algerian accused in Britain of training hijackers", "Atta recibi en Tarragona joyas para que los miembros del 'comando' del 11-S se hiciesen pasar por ricos saudes", "War Without Borders The Madrid Bombing", "Search for Sept. 11 Suspect Focuses on a Visit to Spain", "Sept. 11 hijacker raised suspicions at border", Document links al Qaeda paymaster, 9/11 plotter, "NewsMine.org hijackers traced to huffman aviation.txt", "While America Slept: The True Story of 9/11", "A Mundane Itinerary on the Eve of Terror", "9/11 mystery: What was Atta doing on 9/10? In this field, we haven't yet any knowledge but we are ready to undergo an intensive training program (up to ATP and eventually higher)." The date for the planes operation is set. Twelve minutes later, at 8:46:40a.m., Atta crashed the plane into the North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York City. After Jarrah's team hijacked Flight 93, flight attendants and passengers started making phone calls from the back of the plane. In the summer of 2001, Mohamed Atta, the operational leader of the 9/11 conspiracy, drove another conspirator, Ziah Jarrah, to Miami's main airport so that Mr. Jarrah could fly to Germany to visit . [49] The Hamburg group did not stay in Wilhelmsburg for long. They drove a rented Nissan to Portland, Maine, and arrived at the Comfort Inn Hotel at 5:43 p.m. At the time, Tyler Drumhiller was a top official at the CIA, responsible for all European Operations. On 12 April 1986, Mahmoud Mahmoud Atta . Dekkers has written a book, "Guilty By Association," about his experience with Mohamed Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi, the two hijackers whose act of terrorism left nearly 3,000 people dead. The day has now come for us to carry out our plan. Once Atta's commuter flight landed in Boston, phone records show he took a call from another 9/11 hijacker, Marwan Al-Shehi. [59] After obtaining his visa, Atta took a bus on June 2 from Hamburg to Prague where he stayed overnight before traveling on to the United States the next day. [79], On August 23, Atta's driver license was revoked in absentia after he failed to show up in traffic court to answer the earlier citation for driving without a license. One of them came on Dec. 26 at Miami International Airport. On July 7, 2001, Atta flew on Swissair Flight 117 from Miami to Zrich, where he had a stopover. Mohamed Atta Flight Record. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, mastermind of the 9/11 plot says they began talking about the "planes operation" in 1995. Atta purchased cockpit videos for Boeing 747-200, Boeing 757-200, Airbus A320 and Boeing 767-300ER models via mail-order from Sporty's Pilot Shop in Batavia, Ohio, in November and December 2000.[16]. On December 26, Atta and Shehhi needed a tow for their rented Piper Cherokee on a taxiway of Miami International Airport after the engine shut down. Mohamed Atta's Story. Practicing for his assignment, Ziad Jarrah took a check ride at Airborne Systems Flight School in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, on August 17. "[113] In turn, political scientist Robert Pape has claimed that Atta was motivated by his commitment to the political cause, that he was psychologically normal, and that he was "not readily characterized as depressed, not unable to enjoy life, not detached from friends and society. When they later returned to Huffman, Mr. Pursell said, they were reprimanded. And so, we still don't know what he was doing there.". An employee at Huffman confirmed that the flight school did send the agency the plane's maintenance records. [15][17], Atta also got engaged to a woman lined up by his father and her family in Cairo, at late 1999, after coming back from Germany the same year. ; Azrbaycanca; Catal; etina; Dansk; Deutsch; Espaol; ; Franais; ; Hausa; Bahasa Indonesia; Italiano; . He rented a Chevrolet Malibu from an Alamo Rent A Car agency. Ringleader Mohammed Atta and at least four of the other 19 hijackers made six visits to Las Vegas between late May and mid-August of 2001. "They conformed to all the guidelines of checking in." The only problem, Tuohey said, came when he told Atta that, after arriving in Boston, Atta and Omari would have to check in once again before transferring to American Airlines Flight 11. They lived in the area for several months. [16] Atta traveled twice to Las Vegas on "surveillance flights" rehearsing how the 9/11 attacks would be carried out. After Atta's transmission, Boston Center concludes that Flight 11 has been hijacked and alerts other control centers. They were all well-educated, had experience of living in western society, along with some English skills, and would be able to obtain visas. WASHINGTON - The tape of Betty Ong's voice yesterday, alive and urgent yet amazingly calm, describing through the background buzz how a group of hijackers had stabbed two . Bin Laden also asked that other operatives not be informed of the specific data until the last minute. On the way, they were seen getting gasoline at an Exxon gas station and visited the Longfellow House in Portland that afternoon;[82] they arrived at the hotel at 5:43p.m. and spent the night in Room 233. "[114] By contrast, criminal justice professor, Adam Lankford, has found evidence that indicated Atta was suicidal, and that his struggles with social isolation, depression, guilt, shame, hopelessness, and rage were extraordinarily similar to the struggles of those who commit conventional suicide and murder-suicide. [108], Atta's father, Mohamed el-Amir Awad el-Sayed Atta, a retired lawyer in Egypt, vehemently rejected allegations his son was involved in the September 11 attacks, and instead accused the Mossad and the United States government of having a hand in framing his son. Waleed purchased his ticket online with his debit card. We will high-jack airliners and crash them into specific targets. [25] The invitation had been for a three-day visit, but Atta ended up staying several weeks that August, only to visit Aleppo yet again that December. Volker Hauth, who was traveling with Atta, described Amal as "attractive and self-confident. A voice believed to be that of al Qaeda hijack leader Mohamed Atta urged passengers to . Days later, Shehhi, Jarrah and Atta ended up in Venice, Florida. On August 6, Atta and Shehhi rented a white, four-door 1995 Ford Escort from Warrick's Rent-A-Car, which was returned on August 13. Shave excess hair from the body and wear cologne. [91] The angle at which Atta crashed into the North Tower severed all means of escape from Floor 92 or higher, ensuring that no one on those floors was able to make it out alive before the building collapsed 102 minutes later at 10:28 A.M.[92], Because the flight from Portland to Boston had been delayed,[93] his bags did not make it onto Flight 11. In the end though, those international calls and Emails open a window to the falsehood of greater authority to intercept communications. [103] Shaffer largely based his allegations on the recollections of Navy Captain, Scott Phillpott,[104] who later recanted his recollection, telling investigators that he was "convinced that Atta was not on the chart that we had." Shave excess hair from the body and wear cologne. Mr. Pursell said that because the airport was secured, the two men could not have simply left undetected. Mr. Kraus noted that the two men had been trained on smaller, ''uncontrolled'' airports that operate without flight towers. If you try to make any moves you'll endanger yourself and the airplane. He was therefore treated favorably and not scrutinized. During that period, his roommates grew annoyed with him. One theory suggests that Mohamed Atta and the other pilots who led the hijacking teams were here planning the Sept. 11 attacks in New York and Washington, D.C. A secret police intelligence report . Plane Crash. Jan 28, 2004 at 3:00 am. Initially, Mohamed Atta's identity was confused with that of a native Jordanian, Mahmoud Mahmoud Atta, who bombed an Israeli bus in the West Bank in 1986, killing one and severely injuring three. [32] Atta Sr. rejected media reports that stated his son was drinking wildly, and instead described his son as a quiet boy uninvolved with politics, shy and devoted to studying architecture. Tuohey was the ticket agent at the Portland International Jetport who handed two of the terrorists - Mohamed Atta and Abdulaziz al-Omari - their boarding passes for an early morning flight to . This encounter took place "around the third week of April to the third week of May of 2000", before Atta's official entry date into the United States (see below). In August 2001, Atta traveled as a passenger on several "surveillance" flights, to establish in detail how the attacks could be carried out. (Photo By U.S. Navy/Getty Images). [86] In Portland, Mohamed Atta was selected by the Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening System (CAPPS), which required his checked bags to undergo extra screening for explosives but involved no extra screening at the passenger security checkpoint. We hate America and all that it stands for. Flesh or bone from 13 of the 19 Al Qaeda terrorists who flew passenger jets into . He said he later called Signature to arrange to retrieve the airplane and was told that they did pass through the company's offices, at least briefly, before renting a car to return to Venice. [99] Intelligence officials have concluded that such a meeting did not occur. [6] Atta was not heard from again for nine minutes until 8:33:59, when he was heard to say: "Nobody move, please. THE LAST NIGHT. The hijacked airliner came down . On June 28, Atta arrived at McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas to meet with the three other pilots. He left Prague the next day, flying on Czech Airlines to Newark, New Jersey, U.S. There, Mr. Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi, another man the F.B.I. September 9, 2021 at 12:30 p.m. EDT. Ramzi bin al-Shibh was also there, teaching occasional classes, and became Atta's friend. Turning toward New York. [110] In an interview on September 24, 2001, Atta Sr. stated, "My son is gone. [76], During the meetings in Spain, Atta and bin al-Shibh had coordinated the details of the attacks. Protection against purely domestic hijackers primarily was lodged with check-in personnel at the airport counter, then with security screeners, and finally with attendants at the gate. Several clues have been found to link their stay in Spain to Syrian-born Imad Eddin Barakat Yarkas (Abu Dahdah), and Amer el Azizi, a Moroccan in Spain. The two had arrived in the United States from Saudi Arabia in April 2001 and joined Atta's team. The couple explained at dinner that they ran an exchange program and invited Atta to continue his studies in Germany; they also offered him room and board at their home in the city. At the Hamburg University of Technology, Atta studied under the guidance of the department chair, Dittmar Machule, who specialized in the Middle East. While in South Portland, they were seen making two ATM withdrawals and stopping at Wal-Mart. He had made no progress on his thesis. Mr. Pursell, meanwhile, said the two men never explained why they chose to fly to Miami or apologized for the costs incurred by the school. Atta was directly responsible for the deaths of more than 1,600 people during the attacks. [24] Atta was averse to modern development. The family had few relatives on the father's side and kept their distance from Bouthayna's family. The 30million CSI-style probe has taken seven years. "It is possible that he calculated that security would be less stringent in Portland, Maine, than it would be in Boston, said terrorism expert Steve Emerson. Newsweek is reconstructing the road to 9/11 as it was constructed 20 years ago, day by day. [58], On May 17, Atta applied for a United States visa. He also said he assumed that they had taxied the plane back to the hangar; he was not aware, he said, that they apparently abandoned the plane and walked away. American Airlines Flight 11 was hijacked by five al Qaeda terrorists led by Mohamed Atta and was deliberately crashed into the North Tower (on the right) of the World Trade Center at 8:46am local . refused to comment on whether any official investigation had ever been started against the two men, citing the criminal investigation into the hijackings. The 9/11 Commission obtained details about the meeting, based on interrogations of bin al-Shibh in the weeks after his arrest in September 2002. 8:24 am - Hijacker Mohammed Atta makes the first of two accidental transmissions from Flight 11 to ground control (apparently in an attempt to communicate with the plane's cabin). Some, like the 9/11 plot's ringleader, Mohamed Atta, flew in from Florida, checking into a motel in Wayne for a few days and then leaving and then returning days . The timing of the Afghanistan training was outlined on August 23, 2002, by a senior investigator. Atta flew Flight 11 into the North Tower of the World Trade Center. On September 11 we'll live tweet the events of the day, minute by minute, starting at 4:45 a.m. EST, @RoadTo911. Drumhiller said it could have been "to make the final arrangements, to sort of close out everything they were doing to wrap up their time in the states.". Skies, Plot Leader Met bin Laden", "Video of 9/11 ringleader Mohammed Atta posted by British news site", "FBI Informant Says Agents Missed Chance to Stop 9/11 Ringleader Mohammed Atta", "Flight Path Study American Airlines Flight 11", "Personal Stories Who Were They? That raises a larger issue, and that is: At any point did anybody in the U.S. knowingly help any of the 19 terrorists prepare for the attack? - United Airlines Flight 175 (traveling from Boston to Los Angeles) strikes the South Tower of the World Trade Center . He shopped for flights from Washington Dulles International Airport to Los Angeles and from Boston to Los Angeles, all departing around 8:00 a.m. on the morning of September 11. 17--Former federal terrorism investigators say a piece of luggage hastily checked in at the Portland, Maine, airport by a World Trade Center hijacker on the morning of Sept. 11 provided the . ''Any time the tower calls, they are not in the best of moods.''. As the five-year anniversary of 9/11 approaches, major questions about the terrorist attacks remain unanswered. But Atta's night before 9-11 which he spent in Portland, Main -- is a mystery that has puzzled terrorism experts for five years. There seem to be two primary reasons for his choosing that particular day: that it fell after Labor Day when most Americans (and the George W. Bush administration) would be back at work, maximizing the impact in terms of killing people; and that it was a Tuesday when air travel was easier and the planes less full (that is, fewer hostile passengers to deal with). [55], A video surfaced in October 2006. On Oct. 6, 2021, a new episode of the "Your Mom's House" podcast was released . [112], There are multiple, conflicting explanations for Atta's behavior and motivation. [23] He kept to himself to such an extent that he would often react to simple greetings with silence. [16][60] On July 6, 2000, Atta, Jarrah and Shehhi enrolled at Huffman Aviation in Venice, where they entered the Accelerated Pilot Program. ", "Staff Report "We Have Some Planes": The Four Flights a Chronology", National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, "The Aviation Security System and the 9/11 Attacks Staff Statement No. Throughout the summer, Atta met with Nawaf al-Hazmi to discuss the status of the operation on a monthly basis. A ticket staffer at Portland Airport reported becoming uneasy with the anger of Atta upon being told of the additional screening requirements in Boston, but that he did not act on his suspicions after becoming concerned that he was racially profiling Atta. 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta, who is thought to have flown American Airlines Flight 11 into the North Tower of the World Trade Center AP "I said, specifically, 'These two clowns are up to . His nascent infatuation with her, begrudgingly realised, was the closest thing Atta knew to romance. He seldom bathed, and they could not bear his "complete, almost aggressive insularity". His mother, Bouthayna Mohamed Mustapha Sheraqi, came from a wealthy farming and trading family and was also educated. [115], Mohamed Mohamed el-Amir Awad el-Sayed Atta, Mohamed Atta's first announcement, heard by ATC at 08:23, Mohamed Atta's second announcement at 08:33, sfn error: no target: CITEREFWright2006 (. A huge search operation is underway to try and find any survivors from the horror plane crash in Nepal, but officials have said that the chances of finding any . [45], After leaving Plankontor in the summer of 1997, Atta disappeared again and did not return until 1998. Al-Omari chose 8G and al-Suqami chose 10B in Business Class. '', See the article in its original context from. Atta confirmed that all the muscle hijackers had arrived in the United States, without any problems, but said that he needed five to six more weeks to work out details. [19] In 1992, his father had overheard a German couple who were visiting Egypt's capital. [16] Atta and Shehhi established accounts at SunTrust Bank and received wire transfers from Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's nephew in the United Arab Emirates. They board a commuter flight to Boston Logan International Airport, they then board American Airlines Flight 11.. 7:59 AM - Flight 11 takes off from Boston, headed for Los Angeles, California. He provided the first official confirmation that Atta and two other pilots had been in Afghanistan, and he also provided the first dates of the training. [38] The instructions in his last will and testament reflect both Sunni funeral practices along with some more puritanical demands from Salafism, including asking people not "to weep and cry" and to generally refrain from showing emotion. THE LAST NIGHT. USDA loan officer Johnelle Bryant said Atta visited her office and inquired about a loan to buy a plane. Hardball takes a look at the top mysteries surrounding the deadliest terror attack on American soil starting with the activities al-Qaida ring leader Mohammed Atta on the evening of Sept. 10, 2001. He spent two nights in Salou at the beachside Casablanca Playa Hotel, then spent the last two nights at the Hotel Residencia Montsant. He had vacationed often as a child (and would continue to take vacations with his wife while he was in the United States) and was the best English speaker and student of the four. The hijacking began 15 minutes into the flight at around 8:14 a.m., when beverage service would be starting. Follow the Newsweek live tweet of September 11, 2001 (based upon the new book On That Day) starting at 4:45 a.m. EST @Roadto911. Then at 8:50pm, he checked into the Hotel Diana Cazadora in Barajas, a town near the airport. He was among the highest-scoring students; by his senior year, he was admitted to an exclusive architecture program. Other hijackers traveled to Las Vegas at different times in the summer of 2001. In this series, Newsweek maps the road to 9/11 as it happened 20 years ago, day by day. He held interviews with the German news magazine Bild am Sonntag in late 2002, saying his son was alive and hiding in fear for his life, and that American Christians were responsible for the attacks. It turned out one of his accomplices, Mohamed Atta-- thought to be the ringleader of the entire four-jet attack that demolished the twin towers and part of the Pentagon-- stayed in the cheap Econo . He mentioned Al Qaeda and said the organization "could use memberships from Americans". He is now with God. that best enable air traffic controllers to follow a plane's path. The report suggests that incident was an inconvenience but did not result in major delays. [48] When he returned in spring 1998, after disappearing for several months, he had grown a thick long beard, and "seemed more serious and aloof" than before to those who knew him. A NATION CHALLENGED: THE SUSPECTS; Mohamed Atta in Close Call In Incident at Miami Airport, https://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/17/us/nation-challenged-suspects-mohamed-atta-close-call-incident-miami-airport.html. A passenger revolt kept Flight 93 from hitting the Capitol. Nepal plane crash victim shared tragic online post moments before 68 passengers died. He lived in Hamburg in the 1990's and is now believed to have trained at an Al-Qaida camp in Afghanistan in 1999. Just stay quiet." And we came up empty.". [94], On October 1, 2006, The Sunday Times released a video it had obtained "through a previously tested channel", purporting to show Mohamed Atta and Ziad Jarrah recording a martyrdom message six months earlier at a training camp in Afghanistan. But with more than 200,000 warrants pending on minor offenses in Broward County, he was never picked up. Lip readers have failed to decipher it. ''I told them to forget it. [26] While in Syria, he met Amal, a young Palestinian woman who worked for a planning bureau in the city. TERRORIST: Mohammed Atta's mum claims her son is still alive and in Guantanamo Bay . Instead, he went to Central Office & Travel in Pompano Beach to purchase a ticket for a flight to Newark, leaving on the evening of August 7 and schedule to return in the evening on August 9. LA Times Archives, Tracking the Flights Hijacked on 9/11, Last edited on 21 February 2023, at 21:12, [mmmd elmi wd essj.jed t], Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening System, "On Path to the U.S. "These guys looked like they might have been on business travel," Tuohey said. Former Metro Sheriff Jerry Keller recounts the time 9/11 terrorists spent in Las Vegas. [80] [81], On September 10, 2001, Atta picked up al-Omari from the Milner Hotel in Boston, Massachusetts, and the two drove their rented Nissan Altima to a Comfort Inn in South Portland, Maine. Passengers must leave the secured area, go outdoors, cross a covered roadway, and enter another building before going through security once again. There, Atta and bin al-Shibh held a meeting to complete the planning of the attacks. Bin al-Shibh explained that he passed along instructions from Osama bin Laden, including his desire for the attacks to be carried out as soon as possible. The two other "muscle men," intended to take over the plane, were also Saudi citizens: Abdulaziz al-Omari (A. al-Omari on the flight manifest) and Satam al-Suqami. Atta took control of the plane and crashed it into the North Tower of the World Trade Center at 8:46a.m.[6] The crash led to the collapse of the skyscraper and the deaths of more than 1,600 people. [16] Also in 1990, Atta's family moved into the eleventh floor of an apartment building in the Egyptian city of Giza. [31][32] Further, after the Egyptian government had imprisoned droves of political activists, he knew better than to trust it not to target him too, with his social and political beliefs being such as they were. At this time, the pilots stopped responding to air traffic control, and the aircraft began deviating from the planned route. The luggage included a copy of Atta's will, written in Arabic, as well as a list of instructions, called "The Last Night". [7] In Germany, he registered his name as "Mohamed el-Amir Awad el-Sayed Atta", and went by the name Mohamed el-Amir at the Hamburg University of Technology. Atta earned his private pilot certificate in September, and then he and Shehhi decided to switch flight schools. Some say it was the makeup of Jarrah's team, that he had only three instead of four muscle men (because the 20th hijacker and his fourth was denied entry into the U.S.). [3][56] On his return journey, Atta left Karachi on February 24, 2000, by flight TK1057 to Istanbul where he changed to flight TK1661 to Hamburg. Ong provided information about lack of communication with the cockpit, lack of access to the cockpit, and passenger injuries. Dale Kraus, then the general manager at Huffman, recalled a telephone call that came within minutes of the incident in Miami from an irritated official in the flight tower. . In mid-1998, Atta worked alongside Shehhi, bin al-Shibh, and Belfas, at a warehouse, packing computers in crates for shipping. They instead traveled to Afghanistan over a two-week period in late November. Atta's bags were later recovered in Logan International Airport, and they contained airline uniforms, flight manuals, and other items. The same day, he booked a one-way first-class ticket via the Internet on America West Flight 244 from Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport to Las Vegas. Mohamed Atta is believed to have been the pilot of the first plane that crashed into the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. . [8], Atta was born on September 1, 1968, in Kafr el-Sheikh, located in the Nile Delta region of Egypt (then a part of the United Arab Republic). In January, after flying from Miami to Madrid, he was allowed to re-enter the United States despite overstaying his previous visa. Months later both he and Jarrah enrolled at flying schools in America. Atta, an Egyptian, and Omari, a Saudi, held $2,400 first-class tickets to fly from Portland to Boston to Los Angeles. [9][44] This was the same day that Israel, much to the outrage of Atta, attacked Lebanon in Operation Grapes of Wrath; signing the will "offering his life" was his response. Ziad Jarrah should demonstrate that intelligence collection needs to be a holistic endeavor and is highly complicated. In this series, Newsweek maps the road to 9/11 as it happened 20 years ago, day by day. If any of the hijackers could not reach their intended targets, Atta said, they were to crash the plane. "[98], In the months following the September 11 attacks, officials at the Czech Interior Ministry asserted that Atta made a trip to Prague on April 8, 2001, to meet with an Iraqi intelligence agent named Ahmed Khalil Ibrahim Samir al-Ani. He stayed there until 1998. On April 11, Atta and Shehhi rented an apartment at 10001 Atlantic Blvd, Apt. "He said he was an engineer and he wanted to build a chemical . The men who planned and carried out the Sept. 11 suicide hijackings staked out the White House before deciding that their targets should be the Pentagon, the World Trade Center and the U.S . They learned of a massive terrorist attack underway, concluding that they had to take action to down the plane: it was not being hijacked to land and for demands to be made. [34] His friends in Germany described him as an intelligent man in whom religious convictions and political motives held equal sway. In Hamburg, Atta became involved with the al-Quds Mosque, where he met Marwan al-Shehhi, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, and Ziad Jarrah, together forming the Hamburg cell. They may have helped arrange and host the meeting in Tarragona. [38] These beliefs were even stronger during Operation Infinite Reach, which he believed that Monica Lewinsky was a Jewish agent influencing Bill Clinton against aiding Palestine, which would later play a key role in creating the Hamburg Cell. Something is not right. Bin Laden sent them to see Atef to get a general overview of the mission, and then they were sent to Karachi to see Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to go over specifics. He said that he went on pilgrimage to Mecca again, just 18 months after his first time. Mr. Kraus said Mr. Atta and Mr. Shehhi told him they had not been aware that they needed to radio the tower for instructions. At 8:25 .