# Ziad Jarrah

Ziad Samir Jarrah (11 May 1975 – 11 September 2001) was a Lebanese who was one of the four terrorist hijackers of United Airlines Flight 93, which crashed into a rural area near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, as part of the September 11 attacks.
After a wealthy upbringing, Jarrah moved to Germany in 1996. He became involved in the planning of the 9/11 attacks while attending Hamburg University of Applied Sciences (HAW) in the late 1990s, meeting Mohamed Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi and Ramzi bin al-Shibh, forming what is now known as the Hamburg cell. Jarrah was recruited by Osama bin Laden for the attacks in 1999. He was reportedly the only hijacker who had any apprehensions about carrying out the attacks.
Jarrah arrived in the United States in June 2000. He trained at Huffman Aviation together with Atta and Al-Shehhi with their flight instructor Rudi Dekkers from June 2000 to January 2001, after relocating to Florida from New Jersey. On 7 September 2001, Jarrah flew from Fort Lauderdale to Newark. Four days later, he boarded United Airlines Flight 93, and took over the aircraft along Saeed al-Ghamdi, Ahmed al-Nami and Ahmed al-Haznawi. Although they made an attempt to crash the plane into either the United States Capitol or the White House, their plans were thwarted when the passengers revolted against the hijackers, forcing Jarrah to crash the plane rather than cede control.

## Early life and education

Ziad Samir al-Jarrah was born on 11 May 1975 in Beirut, Lebanon to a wealthy and secular Muslim family. He was brought up in a working class quarter of the city, Tariq al-Jadida, and received his primary and secondary education from schools in that area. His father, Samir Jarrah, worked as a social service inspector for the Lebanese government and his mother taught at an elementary school. His parents were nominally Sunni Muslim, although they lived a secular lifestyle. In his childhood, he had always wanted to fly planes, but his family discouraged this. "I stopped him from being a pilot," his father told the Wall Street Journal a week after the attacks. "I only have one son and I was afraid that he would crash."
From 1995 to 1996, while Jarrah was still living in Yemen, according to his family, somebody of the same name rented an apartment in Brooklyn, New York. The landlords claimed it was the same Jarrah as in the FBI photographs.
In the spring of 1996, Jarrah moved to Germany with his cousin, Salim. They were there to take a certificate course in German at the University of Greifswald, which was required of foreigners studying in Germany who do not speak the language. While sharing an apartment with his cousin, he reportedly attended discos and beach parties, and his attendance at the mosque fell off. He met Aysel Şengün, a German-born woman of Turkish ancestry studying dentistry, and the two became good friends. They dated on and off for the remainder of his life and lived together briefly, which vexed his more religious friends.
In September 1997, Jarrah left Greifswald and instead began studying aerospace engineering at the Fachhochschule (University of Applied Sciences) in Hamburg, while working at a Volkswagen paint shop in nearby Wolfsburg. While in Hamburg, he rented an apartment from Rosemarie Canel, who would paint a portrait of him that he would bring back as a gift for his mother that December.
The 9/11 Commission Report states that Jarrah was a member of the Hamburg cell, along with Mohamed Atta and the others. He did not live with any of the others, however, and can be confirmed to have met with any of them in Hamburg only on a single occasion: that of Said Bahaji's wedding at the al-Quds Mosque in October 1999.

## Training in Afghanistan

In late 1999, Jarrah, Mohamed Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi, Said Bahaji, and Ramzi bin al-Shibh decided to travel to Chechnya to fight Russian soldiers in the Second Chechen War. Khalid al-Masri and Mohamedou Ould Slahi convinced them at the last minute to travel instead to Afghanistan to meet with Osama bin Laden and train for terrorist attacks. Jarrah was given the kunya (teknonym) Abū Ṭāriq ("father of Tariq") likely in honor of Tariq ibn Ziyad, the commander who led the Muslim conquest of Spain.
They were told they were on a highly secret mission and were instructed to return to Germany after the operation and enroll in flight school. In October 1999, Jarrah was filmed at Said Bahaji's wedding with other 9/11 hijackers, including al-Shehhi.
In 2006, a video surfaced showing Jarrah, still bearded, reading his will in January 2000 along with Mohamed Atta. Not long after this, Jarrah shaved his beard and began to act in a more secular way, according to Şengün. Many of the future hijackers attempted to hide their radicalism and blend in with the population. To hide his travels to Afghanistan (which may have concerned security officials at international airports) Jarrah reported his passport stolen in February 2000 and received a blank duplicate, just as hijackers Atta and Shehhi had done the previous month.
Jarrah dropped out of the Fachhochschule and began looking at flight schools. He claimed that this was to fulfill his childhood dream of being a pilot. After looking in several countries, he decided that none of the flight schools in Europe were adequate. On the advice of a childhood friend, he prepared to move to the United States.

## In the United States

Jarrah apparently entered the United States on seven occasions, more than any other hijacker. On 25 May 2000, he applied for and received a five-year US B-1/B-2 (tourist/business) visa in Berlin. On 27 June 2000, he went to the US for the first time, arriving at Newark International Airport. He then traveled to Florida together with al-Shehhi and Atta, where the three men enrolled full-time at Huffman Aviation, in Venice. Jarrah did not apply for a change in his status, from a tourist visa to a student visa, thus violating his immigration status.
Jarrah was enrolled in flight school for six months, from June 2000 to 15 January 2001. At the flight school, many of his classmates remember him fondly, describing him as kind and trustworthy, and remember him drinking beer occasionally. Jarrah was unique among the hijackers in that he did not live with any other hijackers, but rather with a German student named Thorsten Biermann. Biermann did not observe Jarrah acting particularly religiously or overtly politically. Jarrah occasionally flew back to Germany to visit Aysel Şengün (alternate spelling Aysel Senguen), his Turkish-German girlfriend, and called or e-mailed her nearly every day.
Rudi Dekkers, a Dutchman and the flight instructor of Huffman Aviation (died in 2024), was interviewed after the attacks in 2001 by authorities. According to Dekkers, both Jarrah and al-Shehhi were good students, unlike Atta, who misbehaved and refused to follow instructions. Dekkers told Atta that he was going to kick him out of the school if his behavior did not change, and as a response, Atta's behavior began to improve. Dekkers also said that he went with al-Shehhi and Jarrah to a bar in Sarasota, Florida named Shamrock Pub after one of their flight lessons. At the bar, they talked to Dekkers about their plans after getting their pilot licenses, and Jarrah said to Dekkers "I got a job lined up and we are planning to become pilots."
Jarrah had obtained his license to fly small aircraft in August 2000, and began training to fly large jets later that year. He flew to Beirut to visit his family, and then to Germany to visit his girlfriend, Şengün. He brought her back to the United States for a ten-day visit, and she even attended a flight school session with him. In late January 2001, he again flew to Beirut to visit his father, who was ill, and then to Germany to visit his girlfriend. He returned to the United States once again in late February. His behavior was markedly different from the other hijackers, who broke off all familial and romantic relations.
On his way back to the US, he passed through the United Arab Emirates, according to that country's officials, where he was initially reported as having been interviewed by authorities on 30 January 2001, at the request of the CIA. He allegedly admitted to having been to Afghanistan and Pakistan, although the CIA has since denied the claim and the 9/11 Commission Report does not mention it. The Florida flight school where Jarrah had been studying also said he was in school there until 15 January 2001.
On 6 May, Jarrah registered for a two-month membership at the US1 Fitness Center, a gym in Dania Beach, Florida—he would later renew his membership for two more months, and eventually had lessons in close-quarters combat. It is believed that sometime in that month, Ahmed al-Haznawi, who arrived on June 8, moved in with Jarrah. Jarrah rented a new apartment in Lauderdale-by-the-Sea after both men gave the landlord photocopies of their German passports, which he later turned over to the FBI.
On 25 June, Jarrah took Haznawi to Holy Cross Hospital in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on the advice of his landlord. Haznawi was treated by Dr. Christos Tsonas, who gave him antibiotics for a cut on his left calf. While he told staff that he had bumped into a suitcase, the media briefly reported it as a sign of cutaneous anthrax, hoping to show a link to the 2001 anthrax attacks, although the FBI later addressed the rumors, stating that "exhaustive testing did not support that anthrax was present anywhere the hijackers had been."
In mid-July 2001, some of the hijackers and members of the Hamburg cell gathered near Salou, Spain, for a period of a few days up to a couple of weeks. There seemed to be tension between Jarrah and Atta about the plot in its late stages. Atta had complained to Ramzi bin al-Shibh about his difficulty in getting through to Jarrah and his fear that Jarrah might withdraw from the plot completely. On 25 July, Jarrah flew to Germany on a one-way ticket and again met with his girlfriend, the last time she saw him (though they would talk by telephone at least once more). Later, he met with bin al-Shibh who convinced Jarrah to go through with the operation. Jarrah arrived back in the United States on 5 August, though other sources indicate that he took his pilot's test on 2 August, having missed his sister's wedding to do so. On 27 August, he checked into the Pin-Del Motel in Laurel, Maryland, only a mile away from the Valencia Motel, where four other hijackers were staying. On 7 September 2001, all four of the Flight 93 hijackers flew from Fort Lauderdale to Newark International Airport aboard Spirit Airlines.
In the early morning hours of 9 September 2001, Jarrah was pulled over for speeding in Maryland and received a ticket. Jarrah phoned his parents later that day, mentioning that he had received the money order they had sent five days earlier. He told them he intended to see them on 22 September for his cousin's wedding.
On 10 September, Jarrah spent his final evening writing a letter to Şengün, with whom he had made marriage plans. This letter is widely interpreted as a suicide note. The letter did not reach Şengün; she had entered witness protection shortly after the attacks and her apartment was unattended. The letter was returned to the United States by the German postal service, where it was discovered and delivered to the FBI. The note contained the phrases "I did what I had to" and "It is a great honour and you will see the result, and everyone will be celebrating."
According to one source, Jarrah had set up a large mock cockpit made of cardboard boxes in his apartment just before the attacks.

## 9/11 attacks

On 11 September 2001, Jarrah called his girlfriend Aysel Şengün from his hotel room, repeating the words "I love you" over and over. At 5:01 AM in Newark, Jarrah placed a phone call to United Airlines Flight 175 hijacker pilot Marwan al-Shehhi in Boston; the pair spoke for less than a minute, likely to confirm that the plan for the attacks was ready to proceed. While Jarrah made a similar call to American Airlines Flight 11 hijacker pilot Mohamed Atta, this did not occur between Jarrah and American Airlines Flight 77 hijacker pilot Hani Hanjour. Jarrah, Saeed al-Ghamdi, Ahmed al-Nami and Ahmed al-Haznawi boarded United Airlines Flight 93 from Newark International Airport at gate A17 without incident, and sat in first-class seats near the cockpit. Due to a delay, the plane took off at 8:42, four minutes before American Airlines Flight 11 crashed into the World Trade Center. The pilot and crew were notified of the first two hijackings that day, and were told to be on alert. Within minutes, around 9:28 a.m., Flight 93 was hijacked as well. The 9/11 Commission stated that Jarrah was the pilot.
Jarrah's voice was heard by air traffic control speaking with a halting command of accented English and breathing and panting heavily, apparently from exertion, perhaps from a struggle, "Ladies and gentlemen: here the captain. Please sit down, keep remaining seating. We have a bomb on board. So sit." At 09:32:08, the sound of breaking glass was heard as Jarrah, agitated, shouted in English, "Don't move! Shut up. Come on, come. Shut up! Don't move! Stop! Sit, sit, sit down! Stop!", while a wounded man, believed to be a pilot, was heard moaning, along with the sounds of a seat being adjusted. Jarrah continued shouting, "Sit, sit, sit down! Sit down!" Another hijacker chimed in at 9:32:54 in English: "Stop!" At 9:33:09, the wounded man pleaded, "No more," as a hijacker simultaneously ordered, "Sit down!" In Arabic, a hijacker said, "That's it, that's it, that's it", then switched to English: "Down, down!" Jarrah shouted, "Shut up!" At 9:33:34 a.m., after several clicking noises, a hijacker recited the Basmala. Then someone said, "Finish, no more. No more!" A hijacker shouted, "Stop, stop, stop, stop!" The man pleaded, "No! No, no, no, no!" He repeated this four more times. A hijacker ordered, "Down! Go ahead, lie down. Lie down! Down. Down. Down!" The hijackers' orders of "Down, down, down!" and the desperate pleas of "No more...no more", continued, until at 09:34:27, a woman, thought to be first-class flight attendant Debbie Welsh, is heard being held captive in the background and is heard pleading, "Please, please, please..." A hijacker shouted, "Down!" The woman pleaded, "Please, please, don't hurt me." The hijacker said, "Down!" and again the man said "No more." The woman cried out, "Oh, God!" A hijacker again repeated, "Down, down, down!" and Jarrah said, "Sit down!" Another hijacker (or possibly the same) said "Shut up!" At 09:34:38, the sounds of a warning bell indicated Jarrah was trying to disconnect the autopilot to change the plane's destination. A knock on the cockpit door by another hijacker was answered by Jarrah saying in Arabic, "One moment, one moment." At 09:35:03, the shouting continued: the man said, "No more." Then, Jarrah shouted, "Down, down, down!" As Jarrah instructed the autopilot to turn the plane and head east at 09:35:09, the man begged, "No,no,no,no,no,no..." Jarrah said, "Sit down, sit down, sit down! Down!" The other hijacker confusingly said, "What's this?" in Arabic. Jarrah, still talking in English said, "Sit down! Sit down! You know, sit down!" The woman spoke again at 9:35:24 apparently asking the wounded man, "Are you talking to me?" A hijacker shouted, "Down, down, down, down!" and ten seconds later, the woman pleaded for her life, "I don't want to die!" A hijacker again said, "No, no. Down, Down!" The woman repeated, "I don't want to die. I don't want to die." The man said "No" twice more while the hijacker again said "Down" six more times. The woman begged again, "No, no please." The "sound of a snap" reverberated in the cockpit as the woman sobbed "No!", and her crying continued as she was heard to struggle with the hijackers for less than a minute before being killed or otherwise silenced. At 09:37:06, Jarrah said in Arabic, "That's it. Go back," then in English, "Back." He said "That's it!" in Arabic again, then in English again to the man, "Sit down!" At 09:37:36, the other hijacker said in Arabic, "Everything is fine. I finished."At 9:39 a.m., Jarrah in a much calmer voice, announced over the radio, "This is the captain. Would like you all to remain seated. There is a bomb on board and we are going back to the airport, and to have our demands, so please remain quiet." Flight 93 continued to descend more than 20,000 feet from a peak of 40,700 feet between 9:39 and 9:45 a.m. The plane finally stabilized by 9:46 a.m. before Jarrah, apparently worried that they were losing altitude too quickly, jerked the plane's nose upward, than began another more gradual descent. At 9:45 a.m., with the plane's descent to eastward continuing, a hijacker discussed with Jarrah on whether to open the cockpit door to the other two hijackers. The hijacker said, "How about we let them in? We let the guys in now." Jarrah responded, "Okay." The hijacker asked again, "Should we let the guys in?" Jarrah answered, "Inform them, and tell him to talk to the pilot; bring the pilot back", suggesting one of the United pilots were possibly still alive. At 09:45;57, Jarrah whispered the Shahada.
At least two of the cellphone calls made by passengers indicate that all the hijackers they saw were wearing red bandanas, and indicated that one of the men, believed to be either al-Haznawi or al-Nami, had a box tied around his torso, and claimed there was a bomb inside. Passengers on the plane had learned the fates of the other hijacked planes through telephone calls; a group decided to act, to retake the plane. At 9:53 a.m., the hijackers in the cockpit, having either overheard or sensed that the passengers were preparing a revolt, suggested using the plane's fire axe, to intimidate the passengers and blunt a counterattack. "The best thing: The guys will go in, [you] lift up the [unintelligible word], and they put the ax into it. So, everyone will be scared." After some confusion among his collaborators, a hijacker explained that should hold up the axe to the peephole of the cockpit door, "Let him look through the window. Let him look through the window." A passenger uprising began at 9:57. Analysis of the plane's cockpit recording by the United States investigators showed a group of passengers tried to break into the cockpit. The hijackers in the cockpit became aware of the revolt at 09:57:55, when they heard sounds of fighting and yells from the cabin, Jarrah exclaiming, "Is there something? A fight?" Another hijacker shouted "Yeah!" in repsonse. Apparently, a third hijacker fled from the first-class section and shut himself in the cockpit. Sounds of a fight and a man's screams reverberated off the plane's cabin walls. Jarrah yelled in Arabic, "Let's go guys!" and recited the takbir twice, pausing to say, "Oh, guys!" and recited the takbir again. Jarrah began to roll the airplane left and right to knock the passengers off balance, causing the plane to rock it wings. As a result, the plane left its Washington, D.C. course. The struggle outside the cockpit continued with grunts and yells. At 09:58:44, Jarrah yelled, "Oh Allah! Oh Allah! Oh, the most gracious!" Eight seconds later, a hijacker outside the cockpit, shouted "Stay back!" in English, but the passengers continued their assault and at 09:58:55, a passenger, most likely Burnett, shouted "In the cockpit! In the cockpit!" A flustered Jarrah yelled at another hijacker in the cockpit to hold against the door at 09:58:57, "They want to get in here! Hold [the door], hold from the inside! Hold from the inside! Hold!" Jarrah wagged the plane's wings more sharply, but to no avail. A hijacker outside the cockpit shouted, "Sit down!" and repeated this two times. At 09:59:18, Jarrah, realizing how many passengers were taking part, exclaimed "What? There are some guys. All those guys." A passenger yelled "Let's get them!" at 09:59:20, as again the hijacker outside the cockpit said, "Sit down!" A passenger shouted, "Get ’em! Get ’em! C’mon! C’mon!" The fight continued, as Jarrah and a hijacker exclaimed "what?!" several times over the noise. The other hijacker in the cockpit said, "Trust in Allah, and in Him." The hijacker outside the cockpit insisted, "Sit down.", but a violent struggle ensured and the hijacker was heard screaming. Jarrah changed tactics at 09:59:52 and began pitching the nose of the airplane up and down. Jarrah stabilized the plane at 10:00:03. At 10:00:06 a.m., the hijackers in the cockpit realized they would never reach their target. Discouraged, a hijacker said in Arabic, "There is nothing." Jarrah asked, "Is that it? Shall we finish it off?" Another hijacker (or possibly the same) responded, "No. Not yet. When they all come, we finish it off," before distressedly saying, "There is nothing!" The voice recorder recorded the sound of the passengers using the food cart as a battering ram against the cockpit door. At 10:00:22, Jarrah exclaimed, "Oh Allah! Oh Allah! Oh gracious!" At 10:00:37, Jarrah repeatedly pitched the plane's nose up and down, and instructed a hijacker to help him with the controls, switching between Arabic and English, he commanded: "Up, down. Up, down, in the cockpit." He then addressed Ghamdi by name, "Up, down. Saeed, up, down!" Jarrah ceased the violent maneuvers at 10:01:00 and recited the takbir twice. He then asked another hijacker, "Is that it? I mean, shall we put it down?" The other hijacker responded, "Yes, put it in it, and pull it down." At 10:01:11, Jarrah yelled for Ghamdi to cut off oxygen to the cabin, "Saeed! Cut off the oxygen! Cut off the oxygen! Cut off the oxygen! Cut off the oxygen!". The passengers continued their assault as Jarrah called out "Up, down. Up, down". A hijacker called out confused, "What?" and Jarrah repeated, "Up, down." At 10:02:17, a male passenger said, "Turn it up!" A hijacker, possibly Ghamdi, yelled, "Down! Down! Pull it down! Pull it down!" His cries were drowned by a passenger who said, "Down. Push, push, push, push, push." At 10:02:33, Jarrah shouted "Hey! Hey!" and screamed in Arabic, "Give it to me! Give it to me! Give it to me! Give it to me! Give it to me! Give it to me! Give it to me! Give it to me!", possibly referring to the plane's yoke. At 10:03:02, amidst screams and shouts, a hijacker, possibly Ghamdi, began shouting the takbir, his cries drowned out by a passenger shouting "No!" The last sound was the hijacker whispering the takbir, when the plane crashed, crashed just outside of Shanksville, Pennsylvania, at 10:03:11, 125 miles (200 km) from Washington, D.C. All aboard died instantly. The National Transportation Safety Board reported that the flight impacted at 563 mph (906 km/h; 252 m/s; 489 kn).
After 11 September, Jarrah's girlfriend, Şengün, filed a missing person report in Bochum. Jarrah became a suspect as FBI agents found a "Ziad Jarrahi" in the flight manifest (the additional i at the end a possible misspelling).

## Mistaken identity claims

There have been claims that Jarrah was not a hijacker but rather an innocent passenger or that he was not present on the plane and his identity was stolen. It has been pointed out that his behavior deviated from the profile presented by the other hijackers and that the passengers reported three and not four hijackers. However, the October 2006 emergence of a video shot on 18 January 2000, showing Jarrah recording his will alongside Mohamed Atta has cast heavy doubt on such claims.
Shortly after the 11 September attacks, family and friends claimed that Jarrah did not exhibit the same "smoldering political resentments" or "cultural conservatism" as Mohamed Atta and the other hijackers. Although his family was Sunni Muslim, Jarrah was not raised with a background of religious conviction and did not hold to an obviously conservative lifestyle. Personnel at the flight school Jarrah attended described him as "a normal person". Jarrah called his family two days, and his girlfriend Aysel Şengün three hours, before boarding United Airlines Flight 93; Şengün described the conversation as "pleasant" and "normal". She also claimed that he never mentioned any names of the other hijackers. In his call two days before the attack, Jarrah told his family he would be coming home for a cousin's wedding. "It makes no sense," his uncle Jamal claimed. "He said he had even bought a new suit for the occasion." Jarrah's family in Lebanon claimed in September 2001 that he was an innocent passenger on the plane. His uncle, Jamal Jarrah, is currently a deputy in the Lebanese parliament and was appointed minister on 18 December 2016, and a member of the Future Movement, a pro-Saudi Arabian political party led by Saad Hariri. On 2 January 2012, in a televised interview on Future TV, MP Jarrah denied his nephew's involvement in the 9/11 attacks, alluding to a conspiracy.
On 23 October 2001, John Ashcroft claimed that Jarrah had shared a Hamburg apartment with Mohamed Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi, though German authorities that same day told the Los Angeles Times that they had no evidence that any of Jarrah's three apartments in Hamburg had been connected with the other hijackers. One high-ranking German police official stated, "The only information we have connecting the three Hamburg suspects is the FBI's assertion that there is a connection." In October 2006, however, a video surfaced showing Atta and Jarrah together in Afghanistan, clearly connecting Jarrah to the members of the Hamburg cell.
The 9/11 Commission concluded without qualification that Jarrah was a hijacker on the plane when it crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
In October 2006, an al-Qaeda video was released showing Jarrah and Mohamed Atta recording their wills in January 2000 in Osama bin Laden's Tarnak Farms base near Kandahar, Afghanistan.

## In popular culture

* Jarrah is portrayed by French-Lebanese actor Karim Saleh in the film The Hamburg Cell (2004), Iranian-American actor Pej Vahdat in the Television film The Flight That Fought Back (2005), Iranian-American actor Dominic Rains in the television film Flight 93 (2006), and Egyptian-British actor Khalid Abdalla in the award-winning film United 93 (2006). The 2021 German-French film Copilot (German title: Die Welt Wird Eine Andere Sein, Lit. trans. The World Will Be Different) is based on Jarrah's relationship with Aysel Şengün, prior to the attack. Portrayed by Lebanese actor Roger Azar, Jarrah is renamed as Saeed Awaad to distance the film from being a docudrama. It was an official Panorama entry at the 71st Berlin International Film Festival, and was theatrically released on the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.
* The 2016 album Media in the Service of Terror by the industrial techno act Vatican Shadow opens with the track 'Ziad Jarrah Studied Mathematics'.