Portland International Airport

Question:

There is cogent trail of evidence linking Mohamed Atta to the aerial attack on the World Trade Center. Where does Atta's trail end?

Answer

The trail ends at 5:58 AM on September 11th at Portland International Airport in Maine. He is photographed by a security camera there with an unidentified man using an identity that was reported stolen six years earlier in Denver by Abdulaziz Alomari.

The chronology: On August 28, 2001, Atta booked a ticket in Flight 11 over the Internet. On about September 10th he proceeded to Boston, met the unidentified man using the "Alomari" credentials, rented a Nissan Altima car. They then drove to Portland, Maine, where at 5:43 PM, they checked into the Comfort Inn. That evening, ATTA was photographed by security cameras wearing a half dark, half light colored shirt with light colored slacks at a ATM machine, a Wal-Mart and a gas station. On September 11th, on 5:33 am, they checked out of the Comfort Inn, and, 7 minutes later, parked the rental car at the airport. At 5:43 am, they were at the US Airway desk, which services the Colgan Air flights between Portland and Boston, where Atta checked a bag containing his will, videos of the interiors of Boeing airliners and a flight computer. At 5:45 am, he walked past the airport security camera, which is the last time he was seen.

The Colgan commuter plane departed for Boston at 6 am. No one aboard the plane recalled seeing Atta. None of the security cameras at Logan Airport photographed Atta. The first-class ticket that Atta had purchased on American Airlines Flight 11 was used to board the plane, and a ticket agent reportedly recalled questioning an Arab man, who claimed not to speak English but there was no visual identification of that passenger.

After Flight 11 crashed, the bag Atta left in Portland was retrieved by the FBI. Since no trace of Atta was found, the claim by Atta's father that he had spoken to Atta after the crash was discounted as erroneous, and the FBI theorized that Atta, after going to Portland for unknown reasons, had returned to Boston to commit suicide aboard flight 11.