VENICE, Fla. (WFTS) — Records show 12 of the 19 September 11 hijackers lived in or passed through Florida in the months before the attacks, quietly blending into communities on both the state's east and west coasts while preparing to carry out the worst terrorist attack on American soil.
WATCH: How 9/11 hijackers used Florida to blend in and train before the attacks
Twenty-five years later, investigators and journalists who have spent years examining those connections say the full picture of what happened in Florida before September 11, 2001, is still coming into focus.
A transient state where strangers went unnoticed
Dan Christensen, founder of the Florida Bulldog investigative news website in Ft. Lauderdale, has been investigating Florida's connections to the 9/11 attacks since they happened.
He says the state's character made it an ideal place for the hijackers to operate.
"It wasn't just Florida, but Florida is also a place where it's very transient, and people can come here and they won't seem as if they're out of place," Christensen said.
Christensen says the hijackers' presence in his own neighborhood was later confirmed.
"The hijackers used to drive up and down the street here where I live," Christensen said.
Ringleader arrives in Sarasota County
In May 2000, ringleader Mohamed Atta received a tourist visa from the U.S. Embassy in Germany.
He turned up in Sarasota County by July of that year — 14 months before the attacks.
Records show he and other hijackers bought cars and obtained Florida driver's licenses.
"It was well-established that they had been in the area because they had been taking pilot training at the airport in Venice," Christensen said.
Learning to fly at Venice Airport
Two future hijackers — including Atta, whom authorities considered the leader of the group — learned to fly at a flight school called Huffman Aviation, a small private flight school located at Venice Airport that had 12 small prop planes at the time.
Atta and Marwan Alshehhi arrived at the school carrying a briefcase filled with $20,000 in cash.
The two enrolled in an expedited flight program and flew nearly every day, according to then-Huffman Aviation owner Rudi Dekkers, who was interviewed shortly after the attacks.
"There was nothing we could have seen that they were terrorists. I wish, 'cause then I could have stopped it," Dekkers said.
The flight school closed a year after the attacks.
Dekkers wrote a book, which had few sales.
He passed away in 2024.
Renting rooms across the street from the flight school
The hijackers rented rooms in a small house near the flight school, owned by another Huffman Aviation employee, Charles Voss.
Neighbors said the men were quiet and kept to themselves.
"When they first arrived, they had no place to stay. They pretty much popped in, as I recall, unannounced," Voss said.
After the attacks, FBI agents searched the home.
Voss and his wife told authorities and members of the media that they were completely unaware of the hijackers' plot.
Training at Florida gyms and recording a rap song
In the days that followed the attacks, other missed clues of impending trouble emerged that had not been recognized at the time.
Hijackers trained at Florida gyms, bulking up and learning combat techniques, including knife-fighting, in preparation to overpower passengers and crew members on their final flights.
Atta and other hijackers also recorded a rap song at a Sarasota recording studio, calling themselves "The Arab Assassins" and referencing martyrdom, bombings, and impending attacks.
A generation that never knew September 11
As a quarter century has passed since 9/11, so have many of the memories.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 104 million Americans alive today —nearly a third of the population — were born after September 11, 2001.
Christensen says that gap in lived experience makes continued remembrance essential.
"To you and I, this is a historical event that we witnessed, and we remember the terrific emotional impact that it had on us, and they don't have that," Christensen said.
Christensen says it is important to continue to remember and teach future generations what happened on that day.
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Adam Walser has spent more than a decade fighting for what’s right in Tampa Bay as part of the I-Team. He’s helped expose flaws in Florida’s eldercare system and held leaders accountable for questionable HOA practices. Reach out to Adam with any issue you think he needs to investigate.
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