Apparently, the answer to that question is yes .
Source: Records suggest Atta in NYC on Sept. 10
From Susan Candiotti, May 22, 2002
CNN
MIAMI, Florida (CNN) --The FBI has found credit card receipts that appear to place September 11 hijacker Mohamed Atta in Manhattan the day before the attacks, a source close to the investigation told CNN Wednesday.
Atta is one of the men authorities say hijacked American Airlines Flight 11 and crashed it into the World Trade Center.
Officials speculate Atta may have been in New York on September 10 to make a final visit to the World Trade Center to program the towers' location into a global positioning system, the source said.
So far, however, investigators have been unable to prove he was doing that, the source said. Using satellite technology, GPS is able to locate with pinpoint accuracy any location on Earth.
The source would not say what was purchased with Atta's credit card.
Investigators have traced 27 credit cards to the 19 men who hijacked four airliners and crashed them into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field, killing thousands, the source said.
The source also said investigators have determined Atta may have been accompanied to Manhattan on September 10 by Abdulaziz Alomari, also identified as one of the hijackers aboard Flight 11.
They were both photographed by an ATM camera in Portland, Maine, and by a surveillance camera at the Portland airport before boarding a flight to Boston the morning of the terrorist attacks.
Authorities have been working for months to build a paper trail of purchases made by the hijackers in the weeks before September 11.
Sources have said that another of the 19 attackers, Ziad Samir Jarrah, purchased a GPS device at a store in Miami. Investigators say Jarrah was aboard United Airlines Flight 93, which crashed in Pennsylvania.
Investigators believe at least three other GPS devices were purchased, one for each hijacked plane.
In addition, the federal indictment of alleged would-be hijacker Zacarias Moussaoui -- now facing terrorism charges in a federal court in Virginia -- says he purchased flight deck simulator videos for two types of Boeing 747s on June 25, 2000, from Sporty's, an Ohio pilot's store.
On November 5 and December 11, 2000, Atta also purchased flight deck simulator videos for Boeing 747, 757, 767 and Airbus A3-20 aircraft, authorities said. The videos, which show the cockpits of various airplanes, can be used by pilot students for flight training.
Nawaf Alhazmi, a hijacker on American Airlines Flight 77, which slammed into the Pentagon, also bought flight deck videos from the Ohio store, including simulators for the 747 and 777, according to the indictment.