In search of the ever-elusive "truth," the pilot takes on the 9/11 conspiracy theorists.

[Kingshakabobo]

This is a great article...from a real live person/pilot.

He echos what I have been saying all along. Hanjour's maneuvers weren't an example of acrobatic flight. As a matter of fact, his final run was done at a shallow angle versus a more difficult steep dive in. The shallow angle, on the final run across the lawn, speaks more to his lack of skill than anything. I remember, as a new private pilot/student, having a hard time keeping my final approach at a 'steeper' angle prior to flaring the aircraft for touchdown. The shallow angle was always more of a 'sure thing.'

from Salon. Smith does a regular column "Ask The Pilot":

Ask the pilot
In search of the ever-elusive "truth," the pilot takes on the 9/11 conspiracy theorists.
By Patrick Smith

http://www.salon.com/tech/col/smith/2006/05/19/askthepilot186/print.html

Snip:

The terrorist pilots lacked the skill and training to fly jetliners into their targets.

This is an extremely popular topic with respect to American 77. Skyjacker Hani Hanjour, a notoriously untalented flier who never piloted anything larger than a four-seater, seemed to pull off a remarkable series of aerobatic maneuvers before slamming into the Pentagon. The pilots of American 11 and United 175 also had spotty records. They should have had great difficulty navigating to New York City, and even greater difficulty hitting the twin towers squarely. To bolster their belief that the 19 skyjackers were Oswaldian pawns, the conspiracy-mongers invoke impressive-sounding jargon and fluffery about high-tech cockpits, occasionally trundling out testimony from pilots.

Reality: As I've explained in at least one prior column, Hani Hanjour's flying was hardly the show-quality demonstration often described. It was exceptional only in its recklessness. If anything, his loops and turns and spirals above the nation's capital revealed him to be exactly the shitty pilot he by all accounts was. To hit the Pentagon squarely he needed only a bit of luck, and he got it, possibly with help from the 757's autopilot. Striking a stationary object -- even a large one like the Pentagon -- at high speed and from a steep angle is very difficult. To make the job easier, he came in obliquely, tearing down light poles as he roared across the Pentagon's lawn.

It's true there's only a vestigial similarity between the cockpit of a light trainer and the flight deck of a Boeing. To put it mildly, the attackers, as private pilots, were completely out of their league. However, they were not setting out to perform single-engine missed approaches or Category 3 instrument landings with a failed hydraulic system. For good measure, at least two of the terrorist pilots had rented simulator time in jet aircraft, but striking the Pentagon, or navigating along the Hudson River to Manhattan on a cloudless morning, with the sole intention of steering head-on into a building, did not require a mastery of airmanship. The perpetrators had purchased manuals and videos describing the flight management systems of the 757/767, and as any desktop simulator enthusiast will tell you, elementary operation of the planes' navigational units and autopilots is chiefly an exercise in data programming. You can learn it at home. You won't be good, but you'll be good enough.

"They'd done their homework and they had what they needed," says a United Airlines pilot (name withheld on request), who has flown every model of Boeing from the 737 up. "Rudimentary knowledge and fearlessness."..... "As everyone saw, their flying was sloppy and aggressive," says Michael (last name withheld), a pilot with several thousand hours in 757s and 767s. "Their skills and experience, or lack thereof, just weren't relevant."

"The hijackers required only the shallow understanding of the aircraft," agrees Ken Hertz, an airline pilot rated on the 757/767. "In much the same way that a person needn't be an experienced physician in order to perform CPR or set a broken bone."

That sentiment is echoed by Joe d'Eon, airline pilot and host of the "Fly With Me" podcast series. "It's the difference between a doctor and a butcher," says d'Eon.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

more at link above

[SidDithers]

1. I've been hearing you say that for a long time now...

but it never seems to sink in. Thanks for posting the article.

Sid

[Kingshakabobo]

2. Honestly, the opinions I posted on these threads where....

....formulated prior to reading articles such as this. Articles like this confirm what I already knew AND lend more credibility above and beyond some anonymous internet poster with a private pilot's license.

There is a paper written by a simulator/flight instructor on one of the debunking sites. The paper goes more in to the simulator/auto pilot(FMS) aspect. I plan on posting it. It's in PDF form but I want to find a version I can cut and paste including snips.

[Bassic]

3. I tend to agree with this.

Good article.

[MervinFerd]

4. Patrick Smith is a Gov't Shill.

So we don't need to listen to anything he says.

Just beating certain people to it. :)

[Kingshakabobo]

5. *snicker*

[G Hawes]

6. Good article

[John Q. Citizen]

7. The problems with the article are two fold;

1. The author goes over already stated positions from the OCT community. Nothing new here. I sum up the authors argument as, Hani wasn't very good but good enough. Well, OK, good enough, since diagnosing whether Hani was good enough or not now that he's not around to test or observe is not only pointless, but meaningless. It's pure speculative opinion on everyones part whether Hani was good enough or not. What criteria could we possibly base it on?

2. I am surprised that the author completely misses the big story here; How was Hani allowed to obtain and keep the commercial pilots license he needed to train on a 757 simulator when he was clearly unqualified for that? One FAA inspector, who responded to a flight schools concerns with Hani's poor English skills,suggested getting Hani a translator so he could qualify to fly 757s for commercial airlines. This is not just illegal, but prima facia evidence that Hani didn't posses the English skills necessary to obtain and keep a commercial pilots license. Why isn't the author upset about this glaringly obvious fact? Or is it now standard practice for the FAA to issue licenses to unqualified applicants and to allow unqualified licensees to maintain their pilot licenses?

So, I'm not too impressed with this particular piece. I have read and enjoyed the guys column in the past though. He just seems repetitive and thoughtless here.

[salvorhardin]

8. You're taking things out of context

The author is not making a judgment about Hani specifically. He's saying YOU could do it, anyone could do it, with just enough hours playing with Microsoft Flight Simulator.

And why should the author be upset about Hani's English skills? The whole point of the article is that the maneuver used was just not that difficult and did not require any skills beyond a basic familiarization with the controls. Whether or not proper procedures were followed in training Hani at the flight school is tangential at best to the question of whether he could have learned the skills necessary to fly a plane into the Pentagon. As it turns out the maneuver was relatively simple and anyone including Hani could easily have learned it.

Requoting 757/767 rated airline pilot Ken Hertz from the article, "The hijackers required only the shallow understanding of the aircraft... In much the same way that a person needn't be an experienced physician in order to perform CPR or set a broken bone."

[John Q. Citizen]

10. I appreciate this part of his article:

snip...
How much of it is compelling and potentially useful? Don't ask me. There's so much flak out there, it's difficult to tell what's genuinely mysterious and worthy of a closer look, and what's nonsense. I propose a conspiracy theory that the conspiracy theories are themselves part of the conspiracy, intended by the conspirators to discredit the idea of there being a conspiracy -- and to divide and conquer those who might sleuth out the truth (see the link to Jim Hoffman's page at the end of this article).

That's pretty insightful. He's fair about his subject and his approach to it. He makes his points without a lot of sarcasm, name calling, or condesention.


I think I will write him a letter with the relevant links to Paul's time line regarding Hani's commercial pilots license and ask him for his opinion on how Hani could get and keep the license he needed to be able to train on 757 simulators, in light of the flight schools complaints to the FAA, among other issues. I never took a position on whether Hani could possibly have pulled it off from a technical aspect. I figured from an operational aspect, he's not the pilot I'd choose if I were planning the crime. It would be a lot like enlisting bush to plan the crime. Why risk it?

There are better prospects to draw on.

[greyl]

11. How's that letter coming? nt

[wildbilln864]

9. excellent review....

very spot on! Though certain PNACCTers may disagree.
:hi: