Hani Hanjour is an antagonist from the 2004 historical film The Hamburg Cell. He is based on the real life hijacker of American Airlines Flight 77 of the same name.
He was portrayed by an unknown actor.
Biography[]
Hani Hanjour appears late in the film when he is in Washington DC alongside other members of the 9/11 plot, posing as tourists while their mission is to check out potential targets for the upcoming attacks. Later in the film, the three main hijackers of the plan, Mohamed Atta, Marwan Al-Shehhi, and Ziad Jarrah, sit down with Hani Hanjour, and two of his muscle hijackers, Khalid Al-Mihdhar, and Nawaf Al-Hazmi, to discuss the targets of each hijacker-pilot. Hani Hanjour is instructed that his target is the Pentagon, while Atta and Al-Shehhi's targets are the Twin Towers in New York, and Jarrah's target is the Capitol Building in Washington DC. On the morning of September 11, 2001, all 19 hijackers pack their luggage and their weapons which are utility knives, no more than 4 inches. Then, Hani Hanjour and his 4 muscle hijackers arrive at Washington Dulles Airport in Washington DC, then they check in their luggage and show their boarding passes, despite of the presence of knives on them, they pass through security with relative ease.
Then, Hanjour and his 4 team members board American Airlines Flight 77, departing from Washington DC to LAX International Airport in Los Angeles, California. Flight 77 then takes off at 8:20 am, heading in a West route from Washington DC to Southern California. At 8:51 a.m., only 5 minutes after Mohamed Atta crashes American Airlines Flight 11 into the North Tower Of the WTC, Hani Hanjour and his hijack team begin their attack on American Airlines Flight 77, Khalid Al-Mihdhar and Majed Moqed push the passengers to the back of the plane, while Nawaf Al-Hazmi, and his younger brother Salem, head to the cockpit, armed with weapons. Then The Al-Hazmi brothers breach the cockpit and unlike the other three flights, no one is known to be stabbed and there's no known bomb threat. The Al-Hazmi Brothers kill the Captain and the FIrst Officer, allowing Hani Hanjour to take over the plane and divert it back to Washington DC. Then at 9:03 am, Marwan Al-Shehhi flies United Airlines Flight 175 into the South Tower of the WTC, then at 9:28 a.m., Ziad Jarrah and his team hijack and take over United Airlines Flight 93, by this time Hani Hanjour is within 9 minutes of striking the Pentagon. Then, at 9:32 am, Flight 77 is tracked flying through Washington DC, and an urgent warning goes out that Washington DC would be a potential target. At 9:36 am, US F-16 Fighter Jet Squadrons realize that American Airlines Flight 77 is flyign to Washington DC, and by that time they are directed towards Flight 77 and Washington Air-Space, but they are 240 km from Washington DC, and too far to reach Flight 77. Then at 9:37 a.m., Hani Hanjour descends Flight 77 and noses it down in the direction of the West Wing of the Pentagon, and then Hani Hanjour flies Flight 77 at high speed and finally crashes the plane into the West Wing Of the Pentagon, killing all onboard, including himself, and more than 100 Pentagon Staff are killed by the impact of the crash of Flight 77. Then, at 9:58 a.m., the passengers on United Airlines Flight 93 launch a revolt against the hijackers after hearing about the fates of the other hijacked planes, their struggle against the hijackers ends with Flight 93 being crashed by Ziad Jarrah in a field in Pennsylvania at 10:03 a.m., taking himself and everyone else down with him. By this time, the South Tower had collapsed at 9:59 a.m., and then at 10:28 a.m., the North Tower collapsed, and within the span of less than 2 hours, the 4 hijacked planes took the lives of 3,000 people.