Investigation into atrocity focuses on Boston and Florida
Barbara Olson was planning to fly from Washington, DC to Los Angeles on Monday. But Tuesday was her husband's birthday and she wanted to celebrate with him Monday evening. So she decided to postpone her flight for a day.
Ms Olson and her husband were well known in the US, at least in political circles. With her long blond hair and verbal gift for slamming liberal politicians, the former federal prosecutor had become a regular on the television talk show circuit, particularly on CNN's Larry King show. She also authored a critical book on Hillary Rodham Clinton. Her husband, Mr Theodore Olson, was a well-known lawyer who helped President Bush get elected. Today is he is Solicitor General of the US.
Tuesday morning Ms Olson was up at the crack of dawn as she hurried to catch American Airlines Flight 77 that left Washington DC's Dulles Airport at 8:10 a.m.
A little over an hour later, Ms Olson used her mobile phone to call her husband in his office at the US Justice Department "We are being hijacked," she said. The line went dead, but she called again.
She described how the hijackers had used knives and box-cutters to hijack the plane. She described how they had herded the flight crew and passengers into the rear of the plane. She was, by all accounts, calm. But she also sought advice from her husband.
"What do I tell the pilot to do?" she asked him. The line went dead.
By then, of course, after 9 a.m., Mr Olson already knew about the two aircraft that had crashed into the World Trade Centre in New York. But like everyone else, he did not know exactly what was going on. He also did not know that other husbands, wives and parents had received similar phone calls.
Mr Peter Hanson was a businessman who was flying from Boston with his wife and two children. Mr Lee Hanson, Peter's father, lives in Easton, Connecticut. Shortly before 9 a.m. he received two mobile phone calls from his son. Mr Hanson told authorities Peter had called twice in short calls that cut off.
In the first call, Peter said a flight attendant had been stabbed. In the second, he said his plane was going down. That plane crashed into the World Trade Centre at 8:45 a.m.
"He called to his parents' home, and so in that way they were so together in that moment," the Rev Bonnie Bardot told a memorial service held on Tuesday night in Easton.
A flight attendant aboard the second jetliner that struck the World Trade Centre managed to call an emergency number from the back of the aircraft, American Airlines said.
The woman reported her fellow attendants had been stabbed, the cabin had been taken over and they were going down in New York. That plane crashed into the World Trade Centre at 9:03 a.m.
Ms Alice Hoglan lives in San Francisco. She told KTVU-TV that her son, Mr Mark Bingham (31), called her from aboard United Airlines Flight 93 that left Newark Airport en route to San Francisco.
"We've been taken over. There are three men that say they have a bomb," Ms Hoglan quoted her son as saying.
That plane crashed at 10 a.m. some 80 miles south-west of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. There are reports that it was headed to the presidential retreat in Camp David, Maryland.
By 10 a.m., when the plane went down in Pennsylvania, most people knew what was going on. The fact that the US was the target of an orchestrated full-scale terrorist attack was made clear - as if there might have been any doubt after New York - when a plane smashed into the Pentagon. Mr Olson soon learned that his wife had been aboard that plane.
Last night, the White House said it initially targeted the White House and the presidential jet, Air Force One. But, at the last minute, it veered instead towards the Pentagon.
As the planes, some of whose pilots are believed to have been trained in the US, were crashing on the east coast, all flights in the US were halted and ordered to land at the nearest airport.
A man aboard one of those flights listened to the news as he got off the plane and learned that that two of the planes had origin ated in Boston. He had boarded in Boston also, and he recalled getting into an altercation with several Arab men in a parking lot structure as they were getting into a Mitsubishi rental car.
He called police and described what he knew.
From that call, authorities were led to a rental car left at Logan Airport in Boston. Inside they found a Koran, a video on how to fly a commercial airliner, and flight instruction materials in Arabic.
At least five Arab men have been identified as suspects, and the investigation appears to be focused on Florida and Boston. Two of the men, whose passports were traced to the United Arab Emirates, were brothers, one of whom was a trained pilot, a source told the Boston Herald.
At least two other suspects flew to Logan yesterday from Portland, Maine, where authorities believe they had travelled after crossing over from Canada.
The FBI interviewed a Venice, Florida couple about two men who stayed at their house for a week in July 2000 while the men were taking small-plane flight training at Venice Municipal Airport.
FBI agents "informed me that there were two individuals that were students at Huffman Aviation. My employer and (the) FBI told me they were involved in yesterday's tragedy", said Mr Charlie Voss, who was interviewed with his wife, Ms Drew Voss, at their home by a Florida newspaper.
The couple accepted the two men as house guests as a favor to the company, Mr Voss said. The men, who stayed just a few days, trained at the airport and came to the house to sleep, he said.
The FBI was also seeking search warrants in Broward County in southern Florida and Daytona Beach in central Florida. A car was towed by authorities at one of those locations.
The government believes the hijackers were trained pilots and that three to five were aboard each of four airliners that crashed Tuesday in the worst terrorist attack ever in the United States, said Justice Department spokeswoman Ms Mindy Tucker. She said the conclusion was based on information gathered from the phone calls made by passengers on the planes.
"It appears from what we know that the hijackers were skilled pilots," said Ms Tucker.
A flight manifest from one of the flights included the name of a suspected supporter of Mr Osama bin Laden.
And US intelligence intercepted communications between supporters of Mr bin Laden, discussing Tuesday's attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York and the Pentagon, Senator Orrin Hatch told the Associated Press.
"They have an intercept of some information that included people associated with Osama bin Laden who acknowledged a couple of targets were hit," Mr Hatch said.
Law enforcement officials told AP that early evidence suggested the attackers may have studied how to operate large aircraft and targeted transcontinental flights with large fuel supplies to ensure spectacular explosions - and maximum destruction.
The farewell phone calls from passengers and at least one flight attendant on the four targeted flights described a similar pattern: hijackers working in groups of three to five, wielding knives, in some cases stabbing flight crews as they took control of the cockpit and forced the planes toward their targets.
As the US mourned, attention focused more on Boston and Florida and the attempt to find the men responsible for this day of infamy.