February 19-20, 2001: 9/11 Hijackers Atta and Alshehhi Make Unexplained Trip to Virginia

Mohamed Atta and Marwan Alshehhi make a brief trip to Virginia Beach, where they cash a check for $4,000 and rent a mailbox. Newsweek will later report that federal investigators believe Mohamed Atta visits Norfolk, Virginia, site of a huge US Navy base, at this time, stating, “The Feds believe that Atta was scoping out an aircraft carrier as a target.” However, the 9/11 Commission will comment, “We have found no explanation for these travels.” [Newsweek, 9/24/2001; Newsweek, 10/29/2001; 9/11 Commission, 6/16/2004, pp. 7; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 229, 523; US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006 ] Atta and Alshehhi will return to Virginia Beach a few weeks later (see April 3-4, 2001 and around). The address of a Virginia post office box used by the future hijackers will be found in a raid on an al-Qaeda safe house in Pakistan in 2002, but details beyond this are unknown (see May 16, 2002). [9/11 Commission, 12/4/2003 ]