Ziad Jarrah

Ziad Samir Jarrah (Arabic: زياد سمير جراح; 11 May 1975 – 11 September 2001), also known as Ziad al-Jarrah, was a Lebanese terrorist who was a member of al-Qaeda. During the September 11 attacks in 2001, he was one of 19 al-Qaeda members who hijacked four American commercial flights in an attempt to crash them into national landmarks in the country. Jarrah's group hijacked United Airlines Flight 93, departing Newark, New Jersey, for San Francisco, but they failed to reach their target when the plane crashed.

Jarrah was born in a secular and wealthy family living in Beirut during the Lebanese Civil War. In 1996, he moved to Germany to study aerospace engineering at the Hamburg University of Applied Sciences. In Hamburg, he became part of a clandestine cell system known as the Hamburg cell with fellow hijackers Mohamed Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi, among many others. In 1999, member Ramzi bin al-Shibh took the cell to Afghanistan to meet al-Qaeda's leader, Osama bin Laden, where they were instructed to receive flight training. In 2000, Jarrah enrolled in a flight school in Florida.

In September 2001, Jarrah, Ahmed al-Haznawi, Ahmed al-Nami, and Saeed al-Ghamdi boarded Flight 93 at Newark International Airport. Mid-flight, they took control of the cockpit, injuring or killing the pilots, and Jarrah began flying it towards Washington, D.C. His group likely planned to crash into either the U.S. Capitol or the White House. The passengers then tried storming the cockpit to take back the plane, which caused it to crash in a field near Stonycreek Township, Pennsylvania, killing everyone onboard who was still alive.