Officials at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University said the FBI told school officials that Waleed Alshehri talked to U.S. officials in Morocco earlier this week.

The FBI had named Alshehri as one of the hijackers on American Airlines Flight 11 out of Boston that crashed into the World Trade Center.

''We are very pleased that our Alshehri turned up alive and well, and that the link between Alshehri and this despicable act has been proven to be nonexistent,'' university president George H. Ebbs said.

An FBI official refused to comment on the university's announcement. ''Our position continues to be that we cannot confirm or deny the information,'' bureau spokeswoman Sara Oates said.

The FBI has said that the identities of several of the 19 hijackers are in doubt. Also, Saudi newspapers have reported that some of the men are alive.

Officials at Embry-Riddle, located about 50 miles northeast of Orlando, said the FBI did not give them any details about Alshehri.

He graduated in 1997 with a bachelor's degree in aeronautical sciences, the university's commercial pilot training program, and held a commercial pilot's license.

It was not immediately clear how a hijacker might have used Alshehri's identity.

Meanwhile, a Saudi flight engineer living in Vero Beach who found himself under investigation returned home Thursday for the first time in more than a week.

The FBI questioned Adnan Bukhari, 42, over two days beginning the morning after the attacks. The agency later cleared him of any criminal connection - but only after he had been linked to the terror plot in some media reportes.

''When I go back and imagine, it's like a long nightmare,'' Bukhari told The Palm Beach Post. ''I'm here, I'm awake now.''

Bukhari, who works for Saudi Arabian Airlines, had just finished a year of training at FlightSafety Academy in Vero Beach. He lived next door to a fellow flight student, Abdul Rahman Alomari, who also had finished classes and returned home to Saudi Arabia earlier this month.

Alomari's name is similar to the name released by the FBI as one of the suspected hijackers, Abdulaziz Alomari, who allegedly was on American Airlines Flight 11 that crashed into the World Trade Center's north tower.

A spokesman for FlightSafety has said he believed the FBI was attracted to its students because of the timing of their departures and the similarity of their names to the hijackers.

Bukhari said that when he was released, the FBI agents apologized and thanked him for cooperating.

''I said, 'That's OK, it's my bad luck. I happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time,'' Bukhari said.