can anyone help.

I'm trying to work out if the hijackers that hit the WTC towers were experienced pilots.

I'm reading conflicting reports.

On the one hand we have people like Lear saying it would have been a daunting task for even the most experiencd of pilots- and on the other we have people saying virtually no flying experience would have been needed.

Which is it?

I found out the hijackers names

Mohammed Atta

Khalid Al-Mihdhar

Marwan Al-Shehhi

Salem Al-Hazmi

Hani Hanjour

and have found a page that quotes their instructors as saying it just wasnt possible for them to have carried out the attack.

Does anyone know what level of flying experience they had? and does anyone have a link to this?

reply to post by lifecitizen


This thread will answer many questions arising from how hard this was to accomplish, regardless of how skilled the hijackers were.

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Hope this helps.

Thank you Seventh

Will take a look.

Flying a plane straight and level is easy, especially on a clear day, when the horizon is clearly visible. Just keep your wings parallel to the horizon and keep the line on the climb indicator in the middle.

Turning requires judgement. If you turn too sharp, the g-forces make your arms weight 1000 pounds each. But if you take it easy, and watch the compass, (or GPS nowadays) turns are easy too.

So now you put it into a shallow angle dive untill the altimeter reads 800 feet and head for the towers. GPS would help alot here as well. When the WTC comes into view, put a tower into the middle of the windshield and ...

With a multiple engine plane, the various engine thrusts-- relative to each other-- could cause a complication during the turn. I suspect trial and error or an algorythm would solve the variable thrust problem.

Since only two manuvers, a turn and an altitude change, were required, I think almost anyone could have flown those planes into the towers.

reply to post by lifecitizen


The hijackers did not have to perfect pilots - just "good enough" . The 4 hijacker pilots all had pilots licenses
with commercial ratings. They had taken courses in a 737 jet simulator to learn how to handle large jet
airliners. The instructor who signed off on Hani Hanjour (Pilot of AA 77 which hit Pentagon) checked
"steep turns". He did not mark "taxi and landings"

The hijackers had to be able to steer the aircraft and make turns. They did not need to know how to takeoff
as that was already done or to land a large aircraft, the hardest parts of flying

reply to post by thedman


The Pentagon attack took some pretty damn good flying..

BTW, takeoffs are pretty easy..
Landings not so easy...

reply to post by backinblack


What fancy flying was that?

Hanjour had to execute a 270 deg turn to line up on Pentagon . Did you miss the part where he passed
"steep turns" in the simulator?

Originally posted by backinblack
reply to post by thedman

 

The Pentagon attack took some pretty damn good flying..

BTW, takeoffs are pretty easy..
Landings not so easy...

Good flying my patuee! What was so difficult about a poorly executed standard rate descending turn? One that every pilot performs every single time he flies? Hanjour had some 700 hours, so it's safe to say that he had done a standard rate descending turn hundreds of times. Good flying while hitting obstacles in the way leading to a crash is difficult!

BTW, just in case you didn't notice he didn't take-off or land, he crashed! Tell us what is so difficult about crashing an airplane? I need another good belly laugh today.

For the OP, the maneuvers performed by those idiot suicidal terrorists were not difficult for even a novice pilot. There was nothing precise about what they did at all. They basically just had to steer and line up with large buildings as has already been explained. They all had pilot's licenses, aircraft manuals, simulator time, and tons of time for studying and planning on how to kill themselves while killing a lot of others. Enroute to that they committed many errors and exceeded published aircraft limitations, but thanks to Boeing Aircraft Company they survived long enough crash.

BTW, new USAF Pilots fly SOLO in a jet trainer after about 5/6 hours of training. Most of them have no previous experience.

reply to post by lifecitizen


No pilots, no passengers, and no planes.

There are so many threads here to investigate. You have a long way to go. Careful not to get up.... into too much conspiracy. It can drive you crazy. Good luck. You definitely hit the jackpot of answers. Good luck to you.

Best regards

Originally posted by lifecitizen
I'm trying to work out if the hijackers that hit the WTC towers were experienced pilots.

I'm reading conflicting reports.

On the one hand we have people like Lear saying it would have been a daunting task for even the most experiencd of pilots- and on the other we have people saying virtually no flying experience would have been needed
Which is it?.

Easy...

a) Mohammed Atta's girlfriend (forgot her name) as well as his neighbors testified to the 9/11 commission that he was an accomplished pilot who had several pilot's licenses from other countries. As he already came into the mix with piloting skills, it's almost certainly the reason how the idea of using aircraft as suicide weapons came about. Hani Hanjour likewise received a commercial pilot's license in 1999.

b) All of them went through flight simulator training in Florida, and they all passed and received flight certification. They certainly weren't experts, but they at least knew what all the buttons in the cockpit were for.

c) The hijackers didn't need to be good pilots. All they needed to know how to do is use the automatic pilot and steer the plane for a few minutes. In the case of flight 77, they recovered the black box and discovered the hijackers dialed Reagan into the flight computer, and the plane navigated itself to DC. Everything else (communicating with ground controllers, landing and taking off, regulating fuel consumption, etc) were either handled by the original pilots or weren't needed at all. Obviously, in the case of flight 93, noone needs any piloting skills whatsoever to crash a plane into the ground.

d) Not all the hijackers needed to be pilots. There only really needed to be four (one per plane) with the rest being muscle to keep the passengers away from them.

e) The reason you're reading conflicting reports is becuase all these lunatics and con artists are spreading drivel to incite false public paranoia. You'll see conspiracy proponents wailing how the hijackers made "incredibly complex 270 degree maneuvers" which is simply embellishment for "they flew in a circle". Just look at the threads here and you'll see people so fanatic in their conspiracy beliefs that they'll even argue over ridiculously frivolous things like the exact angle of attack flight 93 had hit the ground. You can see right away there's a political agenda to foist conspiracy theories onto the public regardless of what the facts actually are.

At the end of the day, the question remains the same- if the conspiracy proponents disagree with the 9/11 commission's accounting, fine, but then it becomes their obligation to provide us with an alternative scenario which better fits the facts, and they have failed miserably at doing so. Argung over the exact angle of attack that flight 93 hit the ground in no way invalidates the fact that 9/11 was a genuine terrorist attack.