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9/11 hijackers practiced here

One night in early 2001, a plane was spotted illegally landing and taking off at the tiny Clearwater Airpark. The pilots: Mohamed Atta, far left, and Marwan al-Shehhi. A complaint did not go far.

By AARON SHAROCKMAN
Published March 31, 2006

[Times photo: Douglas R. Clifford]

Officials cannot say why the Sept. 11 hijackers picked the 3,300-foot-long runway at the Clearwater Airpark, which is in the middle of the city and can be difficult to see at night. A Venice school rented planes to the two.

	[Times photo: Brian Cassella]
	Dan Pursell, who dealt with Atta at the Venice Airport, says Atta and al-Shehhi practiced in nighttime conditions in Clearwater and drew the attention of a Clearwater police aide who worked as a night watchman.
	Mohamed Atta
	Marwan al-Shehhi

CLEARWATER - Mohamed Atta and a second Sept. 11 hijacker who piloted planes into the World Trade Center practiced takeoffs and landings at a tiny Clearwater airstrip after it closed for the night, said a flight instructor who later confronted the men.

Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi landed a single-engine plane at least twice at the Clearwater Airpark one night in January or February 2001, according to Daniel Pursell, chief instructor for a Venice flight school that rented planes to the pair.

The two men, likely sharing controls, practiced in nighttime conditions for 30 minutes or more, eventually drawing the attention of a Clearwater police aide who worked as a night watchman and copied the plane's information, Pursell told the St. Petersburg Times.

Why the two men chose the small Clearwater airpark 75 miles north of Venice remains a mystery.

The incident, however, is another example of how closer scrutiny of Atta and the other Sept. 11 hijackers might have averted the 2001 disasters.

"What were we supposed to think?" said Pursell, 47. "At that time, no one had a clue."

After the landing, the police aide left a voice message with the Venice flight school, Huffman Aviation, complaining about the incident, Pursell said.

Neither the FBI nor the Federal Aviation Administration ever was notified about the incident, officials from both agencies said.

Clearwater police and city officials on Thursday said they did not know it took place, and city logs have no record of the illegal landings.

Pursell and another flight instructor at Huffman, Thierry Leklou, spoke with Atta and al-Shehhi about the Clearwater flight when they returned to Venice the next morning.

The exchange was "really brief," Pursell said.

He recalled that the same two had flown an airplane into Miami International Airport a month earlier and, when it broke down, they abandoned it in the middle of a runway.

"Hey, we got a phone call, you've been identified in Clearwater," Pursell remembers telling Atta and al-Shehhi. "This is like, the last straw. If that happens again, we're going to have to look at this a little harder."

Atta, who initially was defensive, said he understood, Pursell said.

"It wasn't a big problem," said Leklou, 45.

The account, now five years old, surfaced publicly for the first time during Pursell's testimony at the trial of al-Qaida conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui in Virginia U.S. district court.

Jurors are deliberating in the death penalty trial of Moussaoui, the lone Sept. 11 conspirator to face trial. The reason the Clearwater flight is only now becoming known, Pursell says, is because it was overshadowed by other Florida incidents involving the two men.

Besides the blocked runway in Miami, Atta overstayed his previous visa but was allowed to re-enter the United States in January. And in April, he was ticketed in Florida for driving without a license.

Clearwater "was kind of after the fact," said Pursell, who has been interviewed by the FBI and the U.S. Department of Justice. "Oh yeah, by the way, they did this."

Police said no incident reports were filed that matched Pursell's description of events to federal prosecutors.

Bill Morris, the city's airport director, said a police aide would typically have recorded the plane information in the log, rather than make a call to Huffman Aviation.

The aide also would have called for police backup.

Four aides worked during the night in January and February 2001. Attempts to reach three of them failed. A fourth, now a patrol deputy with the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office, did not recall an incident matching Pursell's description.

"They've logged hubcaps missing from cars," Morris said. "I'm very confident our police aides documented things that happened."

Many questions surround the flight, including whether the men got out of the plane at any point and how many times they landed.

Officials also cannot say why the men would pick the 3,300-foot-long runway at the Clearwater Airpark, where they were coming from or where they were headed to.

The airpark, with one lighted runway, is in the middle of the city and can be difficult to see at night, Pursell said.

Planes are not allowed to take off an hour after sunset or land after 9 p.m., a rule known to most pilots, Morris and Pursell said.

And planes that land after 9 p.m. should be grounded until the next morning, said David King, who runs the company that manages the airport for Clearwater.

"I don't know what happened," King said.

Atta and al-Shehhi would rent a plane from Huffman and be gone for days at a time, Pursell said. They could fly to 20 airports across the state and never be noticed. It was all part of a standard routine, available to anyone.

The two men left Huffman shortly after the Clearwater flight, though they remained in Florida for much of the next six or seven months before the attacks.

Atta and al-Shehhi were "night and day" different, Pursell said.

Al-Shehhi, who crashed into the second World Trade Center tower, was pleasant and polite, said Pursell and Huffman office manager Susan Hall.

Atta, who is believed to be a leader in the attacks, was aggressive and often agitated. He complained about the bill, or which airplane he was allowed to fly, or if schedules were delayed.

Hall even called him "the little terrorist" to co-workers.

"He just - he had that aura about him," she told jurors in the Moussaoui case. "I just didn't like the aura he gave off."

Staff researcher Angie Drobnic Holan contributed to this report. Aaron Sharockman can be reached at 727 445-4160 or asharockman@sptimes.com

[Last modified March 31, 2006, 01:35:47]