Portal:History/Featured article/February, 2008

Ziad Jarrah (Arabic: زياد سمير جراح; (May 11, 1975&mdash;September 11, 2001), was the hijacker who acted as pilot of United Airlines Flight 93, part of the September 11, 2001 attacks. He is believed to have taken over as the pilot of the aircraft and made an unsuccessful attempt to crash the plane into the U.S. Capitol.

There are many variations on his name, including Ziad Samir Al-Jarrah, Zaid Jarrahi, Ziad Jarrah Jarrat, and Ziyad Samir Jarrah. After a wealthy and secular upbringing, Jarrah became involved in the planning for the September 11 attacks in college. Unique among the hijackers, he had a German girlfriend and was close to his family. There have been some questions as to whether or not Jarrah was actually on Flight 93 and whether he was a hijacker; the 9/11 Commission concluded that his was not a case of mistaken identity and that he piloted the plane. In October 2006, an al-Qaeda video was released showing Jarrah and Mohammed Atta recording their wills in January 2000 in Osama Bin Laden's Tarnak Farms base near Kandahar.