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Edited on Wed Mar-29-06 08:01 AM by paulthompson
Here are some of the entries I'm talking about. There actually are a number of entries about Hanjour's poor skills, but the below two are a sample.
September 13, 2001-September 14, 2001: 18 Hijackers Named, Mysterious Name and Then Hanjour’s Name Follows One Day Later
On September 13, the FBI says there were 18 hijackers, and releases their names. Hani Hanjour’s name is not on the list. (CNN, 10/13/2001) On the morning of the next day, CNN announces on the air that “CNN managed to grab a list of the names of the 18 suspected hijackers that is supposed to be officially released by justice sometime later today.” An announcer reads the list, which actually contains 19 names. It is the same list as the day before, except for one new name: Mosear Caned. (Note that the name is a very rough phonetic spelling from a CNN transcript.) (CNN, 10/14/2001) Later in the day, the list is revised. Caned is gone and is replaced by Hani Hanjour. It is never explained who Caned is, how he got on the list, or even how his name is correctly spelled. No name even remotely similar to his appears on any of the released manifests of the hijacked 9/11 flights. (Associated Press, 10/14/2001; CNN, 10/14/2001) A few days later, it is reported that Hanjour’s “name was not on the American Airlines manifest for (Flight 77) because he may not have had a ticket.” (Washington Post, 10/16/2001)
April 15, 1999: Hanjour Gets Pilot’s License Despite Dubious Skills
When Hani Hanjour attended flight schools between 1996 and 1998 he was found to be a “weak student” who “was wasting our resources” (see October 1996-December 1997), and when he tried using a flight simulator, “He had only the barest understanding what the instruments were there to do.” (see 1998) Yet, on April 15, 1999, he is certified as a multi-engine commercial pilot by Daryl Strong in Tempe, Arizona. Strong is one of many private examiners independently contracted with the FAA. A spokesperson for the FAA’s workers union will later complain that contractors like Strong “receive between $200 and $300 for each flight check. If they get a reputation for being tough, they won’t get any business.” Hanjour’s new license allows him to begin passenger jet training at other flight schools, despite having limited flying skills and an extremely poor grasp of English. (Government Executive, 7/13/2002; Associated Press, 7/13/2002) At the next flight school Hanjour will attend in early 2001, the staff there will be so appalled at his lack of skills that they will repeatedly contact the FAA and ask them to investigate how he got a pilot’s license (see January-February 2001). After 9/11, the FBI will appear to investigate how Hanjour got his license and questions and polygraphs the instructor who signed off on his flying skills. The Washington Post will note that since Hanjour’s pilot skills were so bad, how he was ever able to get a license “remains a lingering question that FAA officials refuse to discuss.” (CBS News, 6/10/2002; Washington Post, 11/15/2001) After gaining the license, Hanjour returns to Saudi Arabia for a few months in late April 1999.
Mid-August 2001: Hanjour Still Not Skilled Enough to Fly Solo
Hani Hanjour goes to the Freeway Airport in Bowie, Maryland, about 20 miles west of Washington. He wants to rent a single engine Cessna airplane. However, when two instructors take him on three test runs, they find he has trouble controlling and landing the plane. One instructor has to help him land. Due to his poor skills, therefore, he is not allowed to rent one of their planes without more lessons. Further, while Hanjour appears to have logged over 600 hours of flying experience and possesses a valid pilot’s license (though it has in fact expired), he refuses to provide contact information: He gives no phone number and only gives his address as being a hotel in Laurel. In spite of Hanjour’s lack of flying skills, chief instructor Marcel Bernard later claims, “There’s no doubt in my mind that once (Flight 77) got going, he could have pointed that plane at a building and hit it.” (Gazette (Greenbelt), 10/21/2001; Capital News, 10/19/2001; Newsday, 10/23/2001; Washington Post, 11/15/2001) However, on 9/11, in piloting Flight 77 into the Pentagon, Hanjour would have needed to do much more than simply point the plane at a target. Because Flight 77 at first seemed to overshoot its target, the Washington Post will note that “the unidentified pilot executed a pivot so tight that it reminded observers of a fighter jet maneuver. The plane circled 270 degrees to the right to approach the Pentagon from the west, whereupon Flight 77 fell below radar level... Aviation sources said the plane was flown with extraordinary skill, making it highly likely that a trained pilot was at the helm...” (Washington Post, 10/12/2001) One Washington flight controller will later comment, “The speed, the maneuverability, the way that he turned, we all thought in the radar room, all of us experienced air traffic controllers, that that was a military plane.” (ABC News, 11/24/2001) One law enforcement official who will study Flight 77’s descent after 9/11 will call it the work of “a great talent ... virtually a textbook turn and landing.” (Washington Post, 10/10/2002) Remarkably, the 9/11 Commission will overlook the numerous accounts of Hanjour’s terrible piloting skills (see April 15, 1999; January-February 2001) and state that 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed assigned the Pentagon target specifically to Hanjour because he was “the operation?s most experienced pilot.” (9/11 Commission, 8/24/2004)
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