Hani Hanjour

Hani Hanjour
هاني حنجور
Undated photo of Hanjour
Born	Hani Salih Hasan Hanjour (1972-08-30)30 August 1972 Taif, Saudi Arabia
Died	11 September 2001(2001-09-11) (aged 29) Arlington County, Virginia, U.S. on board American Airlines Flight 77
Cause of death	Suicide by plane crash (9/11 attacks)
Nationality	Saudi Arabian
Education	University of Arizona
Alma mater	University of Arizona
Known for	Hijacker-pilot of American Airlines Flight 77 (as part of the 9/11 attacks)
Allegiance	al-Qaeda
Motive	Islamism
Partner(s)	Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar
Details
Victims	294
Date	September 11, 2001 9:37:46 a.m.
Country	United States
State(s)	Virginia
Killed	188
Injured	106
Weapons	Boeing 757-223

Hani Salih Hasan Hanjour (Arabic: هاني صالح حسن حنجور, romanized: Hānī Ṣāliḥ Ḥasan Ḥanjūr; 30 August 1972 – 11 September 2001) was a Saudi Arabian terrorist who was the hijacker-pilot of American Airlines Flight 77, crashing the plane into the Pentagon as part of the 9/11 attacks in 2001.

Hanjour first went to the United States in 1991, enrolling at the University of Arizona, where he studied English for a few months before returning to Saudi Arabia early the next year. He returned to the United States in 1996, studying English in California before he began taking flying lessons in Florida and then Arizona.^[1][2] He received his commercial pilot certificate in 1999, and went back to his native Saudi Arabia to find a job as a commercial pilot. Hanjour applied to civil aviation school in Jeddah, but was turned down. Hanjour left his family in late 1999, telling them that he would be traveling to the United Arab Emirates to find work. According to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Osama bin Laden or Mohammed Atef identified Hanjour at an Afghanistan training camp as a trained pilot and selected him to participate in the 11 September attacks.^{[citation needed]}

Hanjour arrived in the United States again in December 2000. He joined up with Nawaf al-Hazmi in San Diego. They immediately left for Arizona, where Hanjour engaged in refresher pilot training. In April 2001, they relocated to Falls Church, Virginia and then Paterson, New Jersey in late May where Hanjour took additional flight training.

Hanjour returned to the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area on 2 September 2001, checking into a motel in Laurel, Maryland.^[3] On 11 September, Hanjour boarded American Airlines Flight 77, took control of the aircraft after his team of hijackers helped subdue the pilots, passengers, and crew, and flew the plane into the Pentagon as part of the 11 September attacks. The crash killed all 64 passengers on board the aircraft and 125 people in the Pentagon.

While in Florida and Arizona, Hanjour befriended and trained with Rayed Mohammed Abdullah Ali, a fellow Saudi Arabian who emigrated to Manawatū-Whanganui in 2006 to train as a pilot. He was deported from his Palmerston North home after his links to Hanjour were exposed.^{[4][relevant? – discuss]}