Hani Hanjour

Hani Hanjour first arrived in the United States in 1991 to study English, staying less than two months before returning to Saudi Arabia. He came back in 1996 and began taking flying lessons in Florida and Arizona, earning his commercial pilot certificate in 1999. He returned to Saudi Arabia hoping to work as a commercial pilot but was rejected by civil aviation school in Jeddah. In late 1999 he told his family he was going to the United Arab Emirates for work - Osama bin Laden or Mohammed Atef had instead identified him at an Afghanistan training camp as a trained pilot and selected him for the September 11 attacks. He reentered the U.S. in December 2000, moved between Arizona, Virginia, and New Jersey for additional flight training, then checked into a motel in Laurel, Maryland, on September 2, 2001. Nine days later he and his team took control of Flight 77 and he flew it into the Pentagon.