"Woman reflects on seeing Atta at Logan"

Wednesday, May 29, 2002

Woman reflects on seeing Atta at Logan 
By Jennifer Rosinski and Joe Dwinell 
The Boston (MA) Herald


A Sudbury woman still haunted by the image of a "defiant" Mohammed Atta
casing Logan Airport two days before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks,
said it's about time the FBI traces the hijacker's every step. 

"It's amazing no one has ever talked to me," said Janice Shineman of
Sudbury, who says Atta's piercing glare is "forever imprinted" in her
mind.

"I think (the FBI) has to understand more of the scenario ... see if
others are involved," Shineman said.

Her comments come as the FBI now suspects the hijackers took about a
dozen test runs before launching their devastating Sept. 11 attacks.

FBI agents have some testimony that Atta and his accomplices may have
taken pictures of airline cockpits, and surveyed the security at airport
boarding gates, said law enforcement officials, speaking to the
Associated Press on the condition of anonymity.

Shineman, a marketing manager with Hewlett-Packard in Marlborough, said
the FBI is on to something she has steadfastly held true to since
September.

"I'm absolutely right" about seeing Atta at the airport, she said.
"There's nothing hazy about it."

Shineman said she watched a fierce-looking Atta at Logan on the morning
of Sept. 9 take copious notes on a note card "in what looked like
Arabic." He would place his notes into a red envelope, she added.

He caught her attention both for his unusual attire - a purple Martha's
Vineyard T-shirt and black-and-pink flowered gym pants - and for his
probing gaze.

"I remember telling my limo driver, 'That man has no business here,' "
said Shineman, who first spotted who she believes was Atta as she
stepped out of her limousine at the American Airlines gate the morning
of her flight to California.

Atta, she said, was directly in front of her watching her every step.

The Sudbury businesswoman said Atta then spent a lot of time stalking
the terminal where American Airlines Flight 11 was boarding. "I thought
he had an attitude," she said.

Two days later, Flight 11 was the first jet to strike the World Trade
Center. There were 11 crew members and 81 passengers on board, including
five hijackers led by Atta, believed to be at the controls of the doomed
plane.

Shineman said the man she is convinced was Atta scowled at her and
marched around Logan like a man on a mission.

"He had no briefcase, no luggage and he walked very erect, very
arrogantly," she said. "He was defiant."

Looking back, Shineman remembers vowing to herself to walk off the plane
if Atta came on board.

"I wish I would have called the FBI right away," she added.

The Sudbury woman did ultimately call the Boston office of the FBI as
she witnessed the World Trade Center towers collapse from her hotel room
in California on the morning of Sept. 11. It was the only time she
talked to any agent from the bureau.

"I've felt sympathy for President Bush," Shineman said of the criticism
of the administration for not catching onto clues of the impending
carnage. "If you want to blame it on anybody, blame it on me. I didn't
connect the dots."

But, she admitted, others also did not put the pieces of the terrorist
puzzle together in time. Although she feels "vindicated," it is of
little solace considering the lives lost on Sept. 11. "It's sad," she
said of all the clues that were missed.

"People were not suspicious before 9-11," she said.

Shineman said she now sizes up fellow passengers before climbing aboard
a plane.

"I stand away from everyone on the plane and eyeball them all," she
said.

According to the Associated Press, the effort to reconstruct the
hijackers' preparations - which went well beyond attending flight
schools - is likely to manifest itself in the trial of Zacarias
Moussaoui this fall as prosecutors present evidence of the calculating
nature of the hijackers he is accused of conspiring with, officials
said.

The hijackers, particularly the half-dozen believed to be the leaders,
took numerous flights between late 1999 and their deaths in 2001. Atta
traveled to Europe in spring 2001. Several of the hijackers met in Las
Vegas. Others traveled between flight schools.

But FBI agents have zeroed in on about a dozen flights last year in
which they suspect the hijacking ringleaders took test runs, the
officials said.

In nearly all the suspected trial flights, the future hijackers used
their real names.

Some of the suspected test flights followed the same coast-to-coast
routes scheduled for the four planes hijacked on Sept. 11, but not the
same flight numbers or airlines, officials said. Most were aboard
American Airlines or United Airlines jets, the officials said.

The FBI believes "they clearly were interested in transcontinental
flights with lots of fuel, which would make the planes weapons of mass
destruction," according to one airline industry official familiar with
the passenger manifests turned over to investigators.

The agents have some testimony from flight attendants or passengers who
recall men looking like the hijackers who took pictures of the cockpit
aboard flights or appeared to take notes as early as last January,
according to law enforcement and airline industry officials.

One pilot interviewed by the FBI, who spoke only on condition of
anonymity, said agents told him the hijackers "did dry runs. At least
the pilots went on board airplanes and took notes and watched movements
of crews to see what the procedures were," the pilot said.


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