The image of mature “sleeper” hijack pilots living in Florida with their wives and children is a false one. What The New York Times described as “a remarkable set of circumstances” led the FBI, local investigators and news media to all but convict several men as hijackers, when in fact they are innocent, alive and well, in some cases having returned to their native countries before the attacks. The U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, Department of Justice and the government of Saudi Arabia are investigating the possibility of identity theft.
Most remarkable is the case of Abdulrahman al Omari (often written as Alomari), a veteran flight engineer with Saudi Arabian Airlines. He is the man described in several news outlets as living with his wife and four children in a stucco house in Vero Beach, Fla., while taking flight training at FlightSafety Academy. Al Omari was involved in a highly screened, one-year program for flight engineers at FlightSafety, and was in the country under the stewardship of his employer after having completed stringent background checks, according to a FlightSafety spokesman.
