CAA: GA News, "Hijackers took practice flights at suburban Atlanta airport"

["Stephen Irwin" <stepheni@xxxxxxxxx>]

Wednesday, September 26, 2001

Hijackers took practice flights at suburban Atlanta airport
>From Art Harris
Cable News Network


ATLANTA (CNN) --Half a year before terrorists crashed two jetliners into
New York's World Trade Center, two men identified as among the hijackers
rented a single engine Piper Cherokee Warrior at a small suburban
Atlanta airport and took off for a one-hour "checkout" flight with an
instructor.

"They were well-dressed, polite and friendly," said Advanced Aviation
flight school owner Bruce Buell, in an interview with CNN. "Just regular
people like everyone else. We had no reason to believe anything was
wrong."

Sources close to the investigation say flight school records list
Mohamed Atta and sidekick Marwan Al-Shehhi, both named on the FBI list
of terrorists aboard the planes that on Sept. 11 were flown into the
World Trade Center. Atta is thought to be a leader and organizer of the
hijacking plot, al-Shehhi was a fellow student and apartment roommate.

Both had instrument ratings and were qualified to fly twin-engine
planes. Each had to show his commercial pilot's license at Briscoe
Field, an Atlanta suburban airport. A source said Atta used a credit
card to rent the planes, $69 an hour, plus $32 an hour for an instructor
the first time in late February.

Their names and FAA license numbers were entered in the school computer
by a flight dispatcher. Each man flew a leg with the instructor. When
they returned later to rent another plane, they were able to fly
together since they had already qualified.

Two days after the suicide attacks, the dispatcher, Chrissy Ross, was
watching hijack suspects' names on television and recognized one.

"I was in shock. I didn't know what to do," she said.

The next day, at work, she checked the computer and it was one of the
suspects. Then she found the second suspect in the records. She phoned a
friend's father and asked what to do, then called the FBI. Two hours
later, agents arrived and seized all records.

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