The Missing 9/11 Hijacker

Adam Fitzgerald
8 min readOct 25, 2019

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August 30th 2001, Ziad Jarrah accesses his email account, and then purchases one first class ticket from Newark Airport to San Francisco International. The flight, United Airlines Flight 93, was to depart the gate at Newark at 8:00am Tuesday September 11th. The name on the reservation was Ziad Samir Jarrah, it cost him $1,621.50 cents to sit in 1B, it was an aisle seat just feet away from the cockpit. According to the Ziad Jarrah timeline used in the Zacarias Moussaoui trial in 2006, it is not known at what location or city Jarrah used the internet where he purchased the ticket for himself, but its believed to be either in Maryland or Virginia. Just a day earlier he had obtained a Virginia state identification card at the DMV in Springfield, Maryland.

This was most likely used to help him get the plane ticket for United Airlines Flight 93. By this time, Jarrah’s family in Lebanon are worried about their “prodigal” son, the one who grew up in the affluent city of Beirut where he went to the prestigious French Lycée, Collège de la Sagesse a school which had a Christian student majority. One of the instructors there, Mohammed Ibrahim Osman, described Ziad as a below-average student who was anything but a devout Muslim. “He didn’t even pray,” Osman said. Ziad’s father, Samir Jarrah, knew his son from an early age wished to become a pilot. Samir thought otherwise and neglect to entertain the idea. Saying, “I only have one son and I was afraid that he would crash.”

http://www.vaed.uscourts.gov/notablecases/moussaoui/exhibits/prosecution/OG00020-03.pdf

Later on August 30th, Ziad Jarrah would board a plane from Baltimore, Maryland to Miami, Florida. When he landed, Jarrah traveled to Lauderdale by the Sea, Florida where he terminated his former residence there located at 4641 Bougainvilla Drive. Afterwards Jarrah took out $100 dollars from an ATM. he then met with Ahmed al-Haznawi, fellow Flight 93 hijacker, and both men rented rooms at the Mona Lisa Apartments til September 7th. It was reported by the FBI after the 9/11 attacks that in this apartment that both men stayed in (and the only time where Jarrah actually stayed with anyone involved in the 9/11 attacks), they found that Jarrah had set up a full-size, cardboard replica of a Boeing airliner in which there were three panels in all of the cockpit of the plane they imagined boarding.

On September 5th, evening hour, Jarrah and al-Haznawi both paid cash to purchase two one way tickets to Newark Airport. On September 7th, Jarrah and al-Haznawi flew from Fort Lauderdale to Newark, landing approximately 3:00pm. It was here that Jarrah would rent a Mitsubishi Galant at a Budget and then both men checked into separate rooms at the Marriott Hotel in the airports location Jarrah stayed in room 466, al-Haznawi at room 468. On September 9th. Ziad Jarrah would then drive on Interstate 95 towards Maryland. He was pulled over for speeding over the 45mph limit by Maryland State Trooper, Joseph Catalano. Catalano’s dashboard camera would film the chance meeting, Catalano would issue a speeding ticket, Jarrah was going over 90mph. Jarrah would call his father,Samir and his mother, Nafisa, later in the afternoon.

He told them he intended to see them on September 22 for his cousin’s wedding and thanked them for sending him money, This was the final time they would hear from Ziad Jarrah. mater that evening, Ziad Jarrah and Ahmed al-Haznawi would check out of the Marriott Hotel, and reside at the Days Inn Motel in Newark. This time, Ziad Jarrah again would pay for his own room separately to stay in, while Ahmed al-Haznawi, Ahmed al-Nami and Saeed al-Ghamdi would stay in another room at the motel. On September 10th, Ziad Jarrah and Ahmed al-Nami would travel to Springfield, New Jersey to use a computer at Kinko’s. They stayed here for 58 minutes. They paid for the computer using al-Nami’s credit card.

Jarrah spent his final evening writing a letter to his girlfriend, Aysel Şengün, with whom he had made marriage plans a year prior. This letter is widely interpreted as a “suicide note”. The letter did not reach Şengün, she had entered witness protection shortly after the attacks and her apartment was unattended. The letter was returned to the United States by the postal services, where it was discovered and delivered to the FBI, due in part to a misspelling of Senguin’s address.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/nov/18/terrorism.september111

September 11th 2001….According to the FBI timeline of events, Ziad Jarrah arrived at Newark Airport parking lot at 7:01am. The FbI contends that Ziad Jarrah made one final phone call, which is disputed as to the location. Some accounts will say Jarrah makes this call from his hotel, the Days Inn in Newark. Other accounts will claim he makes it from a payphone at Newark Airport, although he does not actually check in at the airport until later on, at 7:39 a.m. Senguen will later recount:

“He was very brief. He said he loved me three times. I asked what was up. He hung up shortly afterwards.… It was so short and rather strange him saying that repeatedly.”

According to the 9/11 Commission, 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 explosives and then loaded on the plane. Everything from here on til the boarding is not documented by ether video or eyewitness testimony as to who boarded where or if they did at all. At 8:01am United Airlines Flight 93 pushes back from Gate A17 after a 15 minute delay. It remained delayed on the ground until 8:42am because of heavy airport congestion.

At 8:43am Air Traffic Control at Newark cleared the plane for takeoff. At 9:02am United Airlines Flight 93 is instructed to climb by the New York Air Route Traffic Control Center to its assigned/cruising altitude of 35,000 feet. Meanwhile the attacks in New York and Washington were commencing, and an ACARS message was sent from Ed Ballinger, United Airlines dispatcher, to United Airlines pilot Captain Jason Dahl, at 9:22am. The message sent to Dahl was the following “Beware any cockpit intrusion — two a/c [aircraft] hit World Trade Center”. Dahl received it, and sent back “Ed, confirm latest mssg plz — Jason”. At 9:28am, First Officer LeRoy Homer managed to transmit to the ground, shouting, Mayday! Mayday! Get out!” Air Traffic Controllers heard the harrowing transmission, trying to get in touch with the crew, they heard another transmission shortly afterwards….again it was LeRoy Homer, “Mayday! Mayday! Get out of here! Mayday! Get out of here!”

https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2011/08/29/im_thinking_about_it_all_the_time_says_canadian_wife_of_flight_93_pilot.html

According to the 9/11 Commission, Ziad Jarrah was now piloting United Airlines Flight 93. It was here he tried to announce to the passengers but instead it went to ATC in Cleveland, the Cockpit Voice Recorder which started to record everything in the cockpit at 9:31am heard the following, which was supposedly made by Jarrah. “ “Ladies and gentlemen: here the captain. Please sit down, keep remaining seating. We have a bomb on board. So sit.” ATC controllers tried desperately to contact crew at Flight 93, to no avail.

Jason Dahl’s wife, Sandy Dahl, listening to the cockpit voice recorder, commented that Jarrah “was fussing at my husband…he was speaking in English, and he spoke Arabic anytime he was talking with the other hijackers. At about this time the passenger were now under the obvious impression the flight was hijacked. According to one call made by flight attendant, Sandra Bradshaw to her husband Phil, stated that there were “three dark skinned males, all wearing red bandanas”. She described the one hijacker sitting in first class as a “little short guy”, while the other two were sitting in the back of the plane. All 3 men had knives only, not box-cutters as reported on the other 3 flights.

Meanwhile other calls were made by passengers as well. Tom Burnett made several phone calls to his wife claiming that one of the hijackers exclaimed they were going to crash the plane into the Capitol building. Mark Bingham called his mother, he exclaimed there were 3 hijackers on board. Jeremy Glick called his wife while stating the plane was hijacked by three dark-skinned men who looked “Iranian”, wearing red bandanna and wielding knives. CeeCee Lyles called her husband but he was not home, her message however was left on a recording device….she exclaimed the plane was hijacked by three men.

Todd Beamer called his wife but couldn’t get through, he was rerouted to GTE phone operator Lisa D. Jefferson, who relayed the message that the plane was hijacked by 3 men, one who claimed to have a bomb. At 9:57am the passengers decided to revolt, the call to Jefferson was the only call which lasted and she heard the commotion. Meanwhile according to what was recorded in the cockpit VCR, the person sitting next to the pilot was heard saying “Saeed, up down, up down”. The plane then made abrupt moves left and right, up and down. This was to throw off the passengers using the food tray as a battering ram to get inside the cockpit.

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Flight_93_Cockpit_Transcript

According to the 9/11 Commission, at 10:03am, Flight 93 crashed near Indian Lake in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. The plane crashed into a field near a reclaimed strip mine known as the Diamond T. Mine. Investigators over the next 48 hours would find minimal parts of the plane and small fragments of human remains which were given a through check by Somerset County coroner, Wallace Miller. Miller would recover approximately 600 pounds of human remains, all 44, 44 death certificates given to the families of those whom perished on board, except the families of the 4 hijackers. However the case may be after the 9/11 Commission and the PENNTBOM FBI investigation showed that there were 4 hijackers on board Flight 93…however, those on board the plane all stated there were only 3……with the cockpit voice recording suggesting a “Saaed” was behind the controls of the plane. Leaving some 9/11 researchers who are aware of this anomaly to question…where is Ziad Jarrah?

In July 2008, a local Lebanese school administrator is arrested by Lebanese authorities. Ali-al-Jarrah is an uncle to Ziad Jarrah, and while he was questioned, it is configured that Ali had been working as clandestine spy for Israel over the last 25 years. He is said to have been paid at least $300,000 over the years by Israel. Ali’s brother Yusuf al-Jarrah is said to have helped him spy, but few details of his case have been reported. Meanwhile it is found out that another relative to Ziad Jarrah, Assem al-Jarrah had also been a long time spy for at least three governments, including Israel, starting as far back as 1983.

It is unclear how exactly close Assem was to Ziad Jarrah, but his business card was found in the wreckage of Flight 93 while the smoke was still billowing from the ground in Somerset County. Incidentally it is Assem al-Jarrah who is the only family member who implicates Ziad Jarrah as being involved with the 9/11 terrorist attacks, other family members, including his distraught father Samir, claim that Ziad Jarrah was never this “fanatical Muslim” the media or Assem describes him as….even German authorities would later exclaim that Jarrah was never in connection with members of the Hamburg Cell in Germany. “The only information we have connecting the three Hamburg suspects (Ziad Jarrah, Marwan al-Shehhi & Mohamed Atta) is the FBI’s assertion that there is a connection,” said a high-ranking police source involved in the investigation, apparently unaware of the wedding photo. “We have come across absolutely no evidence of our own.”

https://www.chicagotribune.com/nation-world/sns-worldtrade-jarrah-lat-story.html

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Adam Fitzgerald

Geo-political scientist/researcher into the events of September 11th 2001.