of the September 11 attacks. The team was assembled by al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, who also provided the financial and logistical support, and was led by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed who devised the plot. Bin Laden and Mohammed, along with the hijackers, were motivated by anti-US sentiment. The attacks were given the go ahead by bin Laden in late 1998 or early 1999. The World Trade Center was chosen as one of the targets due to it being a prominent American symbol that represented economic prowess. Hijackers The team of hijackers on United Airlines Flight175 was led by Marwan al-Shehhi, originally from the United Arab Emirates with a stint in Hamburg, Germany as a student. By January 2001, the pilot hijackers had completed their training; Shehhi obtained a commercial pilot licence while training in South Florida, along with American Airlines Flight 11 hijacker Mohamed Atta and Flight93 hijacker Ziad Jarrah. The hijackers on Flight175 included Fayez Banihammad, also from the UAE, and three Saudis: brothers Hamza al-Ghamdi and Ahmed al-Ghamdi, as well as Mohand al-Shehri. The hijackers were trained at an al-Qaeda camp called Mes Aynak in Kabul, Afghanistan, where they learned about weapons and explosives, followed by training in Karachi, Pakistan, where they learned about "Western culture and travel". Afterwards, they went to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia for exercises in airport security and surveillance. Part of the training in Malaysia included boarding flights operated by US carriers so they could observe pre-boarding security screenings, flight crew movements around the cabin, and the timing of cabin services. A month before the attacks, Marwan al-Shehhi purchased two pocket knives from a Sports Authority store in Boynton Beach, Florida, while Banihammad bought a two-piece "snap" utility knife set at a Wal-Mart, and Hamza al-Ghamdi bought a Leatherman Wave multi-tool. The hijackers arrived in Boston from Florida between September 7 and 9. Flight The flight was operated by a Boeing 767-200, registration number N612UA, built and delivered to United Airlines in February 1983, with capacity of 168 passengers (10 in first class, 32 in business class, and 126 in economy class). On the day of the attacks, the flight carried only 56 passengers and 9crew, which represented a 33 percent load factorwell below the average load factor of 49 percent in the three months preceding September11. The youngest person on Flight175 was Christine Hanson, aged two and a half, and the oldest was 82-year-old