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soon followed.The Hazmi brothers, sitting in 5E and 5F, joined Hanjour in the
first-class cabin.
17
Newark: United 93.
Between 7:03 and 7:39, Saeed al Ghamdi, Ahmed al
Nami, Ahmad al Haznawi, and Ziad Jarrah checked in at the United Airlines
ticket counter for Flight 93, going to Los Angeles.Two checked bags; two did
not. Haznawi was selected by CAPPS. His checked bag was screened for explo-
sives and then loaded on the plane.
18
The four men passed through the security checkpoint, owned by United
Airlines and operated under contract by Argenbright Security. Like the check-
points in Boston, it lacked closed-circuit television surveillance so there is no
documentary evidence to indicate when the hijackers passed through the
checkpoint, what alarms may have been triggered, or what security procedures
were administered.The FAA interviewed the screeners later; none recalled any-
thing unusual or suspicious.
19
The four men boarded the plane between 7:39 and 7:48. All four had seats
in the first-class cabin; their plane had no business-class section. Jarrah was in
seat 1B, closest to the cockpit; Nami was in 3C, Ghamdi in 3D, and Haznawi
in 6B.
20
The 19 men were aboard four transcontinental flights.
21
They were plan-
ning to hijack these planes and turn them into large guided missiles, loaded
with up to 11,400 gallons of jet fuel. By 8:00
A
.
M
. on the morning of Tuesday,
September 11, 2001, they had defeated all the security layers that America's civil
aviation security system then had in place to prevent a hijacking.
The Hijacking of American 11
American Airlines Flight 11 provided nonstop service from Boston to Los
Angeles. On September 11, Captain John Ogonowski and First Officer
Thomas McGuinness piloted the Boeing 767. It carried its full capacity of nine
flight attendants. Eighty-one passengers boarded the flight with them (includ-
ing the five terrorists).
22
The plane took off at 7:59. Just before 8:14, it had climbed to 26,000 feet,
not quite its initial assigned cruising altitude of 29,000 feet.All communications
and flight profile data were normal. About this time the "Fasten Seatbelt" sign
would usually have been turned off and the flight attendants would have begun
preparing for cabin service.
23
At that same time, American 11 had its last routine communication with
the ground when it acknowledged navigational instructions from the FAA's
air traffic control (ATC) center in Boston. Sixteen seconds after that transmis-
sion,ATC instructed the aircraft's pilots to climb to 35,000 feet.That message
and all subsequent attempts to contact the flight were not acknowledged.
From this and other evidence, we believe the hijacking began at 8:14 or
shortly thereafter.
24
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