St Petersburg Times - 9/11 hijackers practiced here

[DoYouEverWonder]

March 30, 2006

CLEARWATER - Mohammed Atta and a second 9/11 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 9/11 hijackers might have averted the 2001 disasters.

http://www.sptimes.com/2006/03/30/Northpinellas/911_hijackers_practic.shtml

This is new information that has surfaced publicly for the first time during Pursell's testimony at the trial of Al Qaeda conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui in Virginia U.S. district court.

[NorthernSun]

1. SunCruz

Maybe they will finally get around to Atta's visits to Abramoff's casino ship. MSM seems scared to death of these stories.

[DURHAM D]

2. I am confused - did Atta have his pilot's license ? n/t

[leesa]

3. Aren't these the flight school records Jeb smuggled out after 9-11?

Secret flight and lo and behold, those pesky flight school records are gone.

[NorthernSun]

4. CIA?

Wasn't Venice airport where 'Air America" was headquartered during Vietnam 'police action'? Maybe they have the records.

[DoYouEverWonder]

8. No, those records were from Huffman Aviation

a flight school at the Venice Airport.

This story is about them landing at night twice at Clearwater Airpark which was illegal.

[seemslikeadream]

5. Interview with Daniel Hopsicker - Catching up with the Boys in Florida

http://www.wfmu.org/playlists/DX


http://ftrsummary.blogspot.com/2006/03/ftr-542-interview-with-daniel_16.html

4. Noting some of the evidentiary tributaries running between Daniel’s books and his ground-breaking investigative pieces, Mr. Emory mentions that Atta and company visited one of the SunCruz casino boats on September 11th of 2001. (SunCruz was owned by the late Gus Boulis, a friend of the elder George Bush who was murdered gangland-style in February of 2001.) Daniel mentioned that there appear to have been at least four trips to SunCruz boats by Atta and company, perhaps to launder money. (For more about the Boulis murder and the takeover of SunCruz by GOP bigwig Jack Abramoff, see—among other programs—FTR#516.)

[Lostnote06]

6. The character of a nation is at stake in many regards......

..........this imfo has floated around for many yrs and the drip drip drip eventually becomes splash splash splash

[PVK]

7. Clearwater is where the Sciavos lived too.

Kind of weird.

[Opusnone]

9. Clearwater is also a BIG puddle of Scientology

Coincidence.