Posted on 11/06/2001 8:34:26 PM PST by Freedom of Speech Wins
Wednesday November 07 12:22 AM EST
Team 4: Fifth Flight 93 Hijacker Could Be In Jail The crash of United Flight 93 into a Somerset County field differed from the other three hijackings on Sept. 11.
Flight 93 was the only jet not to hit its intended target, and it carried four hijackers, not five as on the other doomed flights.
Federal authorities reportedly believe there was supposed to be another terrorist on board Flight 93.
Who is he? Where is he? The following is Team 4 investigator Jim Parsons' report:
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You've seen the faces of most of the 19 terrorists who hijacked four planes on Sept. 11.
Federal officials say Zacarias Maoussauoi may have been the 20th terrorist.
Federal officials as high up as Vice President Dick Cheney (news - web sites) said they believe Moussaoui was an intended member of the suicide hijacking teams, and that his absence may have been the reason why only four terrorists took over United Flight 93 instead of the five on board the other hijacked jetliners.
Moussaoui never got the chance to take part in the terrorist plot, because on Sept. 11, he was sitting in a cell at the Sherburne County jail in Minnesota.
One month earlier in Eagan, Minn., federal agents picked up Moussaoui on an immigration charge when he tried to get training on a flight simulator.
His instructor grew suspicious about his intentions because Moussaoui was interested in training on how to fly large jets, but not on takeoffs or landings.
Only after the attacks and his arrest did the FBI (news - web sites) learn that Moussaoui is believed to be part of Osama bin Laden (news - web sites)'s terrorist network.
Before he was jailed, Moussaoui placed a phone call to Hamburg, Germany, and spoke with the former roommate of Mohammad Atta, the suspected leader of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Atta also paid a visit last year to the Airman Flight Training School in Norman, Okla., where Moussaoui earned his student pilot permit.
An employee at the school barely remembers Atta and an accomplice.
"Usually, a student will ask typical questions like, 'How long does the course take?', 'When can I start?', 'What does it cost?', 'What kind of airplanes do you fly?'" said Shirley Franklin of the Airman Flight School. "The kinds of questions they asked probably didn't draw any attention to themselves other than that."
But Moussaoui drew attention when he left the Airman School in Oklahoma and showed up at the Pan American flight simulator school in Minnesota.
Instructors say they noticed immediately his lack of knowledge of large commercial jets and the fact that he had failed to obtain his private pilot's license. When federal agents seized the computer in Moussaoui's Norman, Okla., house, they found files on jetliners and crop-dusters.
Moussaoui has refused to answer any questions since he was arrested on immigrations charges. He's now being held as a material witness in the Sept. 11 attacks and is behind bars at a federal prison in lower Manhattan -- not far from where the World Trade Center twin towers once stood.
His instructor grew suspicious about his intentions because Moussaoui was interested in training on how to fly large jets, but not on takeoffs or landings.
Hmmm.
His instructor grew suspicious about his intentions because Moussaoui was interested in training on how to fly large jets, but not on takeoffs or landings.
Hmmm. Interesting.
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