Newsday (Suffolk Edition) from Melville, New York • 43

Jab a- s-r A43 I Tracing Trail Of Hijackers HIJACKERS from A2 ing attention to Moqed because he wandered whether the man was studying the store for a possible robbery Moqed visited three times always between 10:30 jun and 1:30 a the manager said adding that he looked at magazines and movies but didn't buy anything When Moqed Hanjour and the three other suspected hijackers Khalid al-Midhar Nawaq Alhamzi and Salem Alhamzi used weight marhinaa at a Gym in a near-' by shopping mall seemed not to really know what they were said regional manager Spero Courtis Three of the men bought (30 onewedc passes an Sept 2 paying from a large wad of cash Tney came in three or four times that week once with Moqed mid Haqjour who paid (10 for daily passes All of the men signed the register which the FBI took Sept 14 Courtis said nard declined to rent him a plane without more lessons In the spring of 2000 Hanjour had asked to enroll in the CRM Airline Training Center in Scottsdale Ariz for advanced training said the center's attorney Gerald Chilton Jr Haqjour had attended the school for three months in late 1996 and again in December 1997 but never finished coursework for a license to fly a single-engine aircraft Chilton said When Hanjour reapplied to the center last year declined to provide training to him because we didn't think he was a good enough student when he was there in 1996 and Chilton said Haiy'our apparently went to the center after living Hollywood Fla in early 1996 with a couple who knew his older brother Susan Khalil said she recognized Hanjour in photos the FBI recently showed her and recalled him as with poor hy- WltMl HA when he APFhota Search and recovery workers walk out of the damaged Pentagon on Wndneeday with her family for two months in 1996 Despite Han- jour's poor reviews he did hai have some PRINCE Ken Susko a Long Island-based aviation consultant and former Navy flight engineer said aircraft should be modified so that if the transponder is turned off in the cockpit a signal is generated to the controllers should trigger a signal and then you could have a keyword or phrase to ask if a hijacking is in shutdown Hie total would be higher when takeoffs from smaller airports are considered Shumann the FAA spokesman said he didn't know if there had been any discussion in the agency of whether the airspace should have been closed more quickly there have been such discussions we would not be commenting on those discussions he said like that are part of the investigation into what happened how quickly did we the government Susko said "They might have been able to prevent the attack if MILES- visited In weeks before the attacks and Pin-Del motels In Laurel Md that safety feature was on it no big engineering feat to do The transponder issue came up briefly at a congressional hearing last week Transportation Secretary Nor- man Mineta told legislators that the FAA would be willing to examine the question but the matter was not discussed in detail During the confusing first hour of The Vulnerable Capital By the time employees inside the Pentagon realized they were the terror as said Freeway Airport no doubt in my mind that once that hijacked jet Et going he could ve pointed that plane at a building and hit he said The only thing that seemed oda about Hanjour who paid the (400 flying bill in cash was his address: a motel in Laurel At the Valencia Motel on a hard-Bcrabble stretch of Route 1 in Laurel long-term residents say they know each other welL The five men who stayed in Room 343 a two-room suite in early September were an exception they said The men drove an old four-door Toyota with California license plates and aidnothing way to Sites hijackers Valencia Gold's Freeway Mitchellville Gym in Green be It Md next target it was already over ofFlijght 77 slamming into The sound i Aviation Flight Training Center in Md the Sept 11 emergency Mineta had to cope with the unprecedented decision of whether to shut down takeoffs from the airports to stop more planes that might have hijackers aboard from getting into the air It was a decision with a big price tag enuy Airlines frequently complain about temporary shutdowns for weather or congestion called because if planes aren't flying the airlines aren't making money The 10 largest airlines alone spend close to $250 million a day and a majority of those costs continue even if the building a deafening crash to those nearby a dull thump elsewhere in the massive structure was their first alert There had been no warning broadcast inside the building that a plane might be approaching and no orders given to evacuate even though the FAA had notified air defense commanders that a hijacked airliner was handing toward Washington 13 minutes before it hit the Pentagon Even the clear sign of a terrorist attack on US soil the second plane slamming into the World Trade Center 35 minutes before one hit the Pentagon barely elevated the state of readiness inside the nation's military headquarters leaving many of the 20000 workers still sitting at their desks when the plane' struck Some told Newsday they heard the crash but didn't know the plane had hit the Pentagon until they saw it on TV To many Americans it probably who lives in identified rnintluw from an At the Pin-Del hotel in Laurel owner Suresh Patel gave the FBI a registration card showing that Nawaq Alhamzi spent the night of Sept 1 in Room 7 a dank (43-a-night setup with a TV bolted to the ceiling and two queen-sized beds The registration card shows that as identification Alhamzi gave a New York State driver license listing 161 Lexington Ave in Manhattan as his address The building is a hotel whose records show he never stayed there The New York State Department of Motor Vehicles said it had issued no license to someone with that name was very said wife Indira recalling that Alhamzi arrived late and left early I said he said 'OK Staff correspondent Monte aid i Room 342 and Haqjour and Majed suspected Flight 77 FBI photo Moqed apparently visited a nearby adult video store three times between late-July and mid-August said the store manager who would not give theplanes are grounded The FAA responded by closing airports completely or si his name but said he picked Moqed out when the FBI in a series of stages and did not ban all takeoffs across the country until 9:26 24 minutes after the second im- pact at the World Trade Center Air traffic data for major airports ex- amined by Nowaday suggest that at least several hundred additional planes entered the airspace during the crisis before the nationwide showed him the surveillance photo among seven or eight other photos was extremely aid the manager who recalled pay- contributed to this Young in story See PENTAGON on A44.