TheScionicMan

GPS and a momentary tip of the plane to see the landmarks. The plane is already flying at that point so it's not like they needed much flight experience. Even tho they didn't train on those planes, maybe they were given explicit instructions with pictures to input the correct info into the onboard gear. I lead people thru some pretty complicated computer tasks over the phone and/or with written instructions. They didn't need to know all about the technology, just enough to complete their task.

I fly very rarely but I can pretty easily pick out landmarks I know as we fly over California and figure out what town we are over, and that's without skyscrapers, etc. This idea that the pilots are flying almost blind seems extreme to me. Maybe the plane that hit the Pentagon pulled that big turn because they were looking out the side windows to see their target?

Also, Motive is usually a factor involved in an investigation, in my experience. Isn't it Motive, Means and Opportunity? The ones that tried to destroy the same buildings earlier and who claimed responsibility for 9/11 seem to have the strongest motive to me. I can't come up with a semi-logical motive for any other group, especially given all the possible variables and outcomes, etc.

mfbenson

I'm not sure if you are agreeing with me or arguing with me. My point is that its impossible that the plane was 20 feet above the ground at 400 mph (unless you are talking about that last half-second before impact) and in your last paragraphy you seem to agree. But you lead off with the broken light poles as though you are saying that the plane was doing the impossible.

The light poles could have been busted just by the jet wash, they would not necessarily have to been directly impacted.

bbcrud

Read this again and think about where the plane needed to have been in order for jet wash to have taken out the poles that were up to a mile away.

Then play that scenario through the final approach to the Pentagon.

If the plane was responsible for the broken poles so far away it almost certainly was not in a descent of 30-45 feet per second.

Right? Even if the poles were 100 feet tall?

I think we're gonna need MythBusters on this one.

mfbenson

The plane was at or near full throttle, it wasn't like a normal landing approach where the throttle is just above idle. Under full throttle the plane could have been hundreds of feet up and the jet wash (and wingtip vortices) would still damage things on the ground.

If it was descending at 45 feet per second while going 400 knots, that means it was covering 645 lateral feet per second as well. A mile away would have taken 8 seconds, meaning the plane was 360 feet in the air when it was one mile out. That's still plausible.

Wild eyed conspiracies saying the plane flew only 20 feet off the ground for over mile at 400 knots, on the other hand, are not plausible.

That to me seems to be the cornerstone of all conspiracy theories - they require a lot of ignorance to be believed.

mfbenson

Oh, and I forgot to respond to this gem of a quote earlier.

They would be beyond the scope of this forum because they involve REALITY and not some fantasy about 9-11 being an incident manufactured by bloodthirsty republicans.

bbcrud

You're not disputing that Republicans are blood-thirsty, are you?

Thanks for the answer on the earlier post. I was an avionics troop in the AF, not a jet guy.

matt_a

So is this all a lie too?

Cut & paste :
ALEXANDRIA, Va. — Al Qaeda conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui helped himself get one huge step closer toward getting the death penalty Monday when he testified that not only did he know about the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks ahead of time but that he and shoe-bomber Richard Reid were supposed to hijack a fifth airplane and fly it into the White House.

Moussaoui's testimony in his death-penalty trial stunned the courtroom as he disclosed new details in the case, many of which were in stark contrast to the self-confessed Al Qaeda member's previous statements in which he said the White House attack was to come later if the United States refused to release a radical Egyptian sheik imprisoned on earlier terrorist convictions.

"I was supposed to pilot a plane into the White House," Moussaoui responded when defense lawyers asked him if he knew he was supposed to be a pilot in the Sept. 11 attacks when he was arrested on Aug. 16 of that year. "I only knew about the two planes of the World Trade Center in addition to my own," he added.

Moussaoui said he knew on Aug. 16, "one definite member of my crew was Richard Reid" and that other mission participants were discussed.

On Dec. 22, 2001, Reid was subdued by passengers when he attempted to detonate a bomb in his shoe aboard American Airlines Flight 63 from Paris to Miami. There were 197 people on board. The plane was diverted to Boston, where it landed safely. Reid, also a self-proclaimed member of Al Qaeda who has pledged support to Usama bin Laden, pleaded guilty in October 2002 to trying to blow up Flight 63 and was sentenced to life in prison.

Moussaoui also said he interacted with bin Laden himself, "because I was special."

A FOX News producer who was in the courtroom said Moussaoui was very composed and articulate and spoke very deliberately while on the stand.

Moussaoui told the court he knew the World Trade Center attack was coming and that he lied to investigators when arrested in August 2001 "because I'm Al Qaeda ... because I wanted my mission to go ahead."

He said he even bought a radio so he could hear the attacks unfold. The statement was key to the government's case that the attacks might have been averted if Moussaoui had been more cooperative following his arrest.

He earlier asserted he was not part of that specific plot and didn't know the details.

"That's correct," Moussaoui said when the prosecution asked if he misled them and, earlier, FBI investigators so he could continue with his flight simulator training in order to fly a plane into the White House and kill Americans. The statement was key to the government's case that the attacks might have been averted if Moussaoui had been more cooperative following his arrest.

Moussaoui said he talked with an al-Qaida official in 1999 about why a 1993 bombing at the World Trade Center failed to bring the towers down. He said "was asked in the same period for the first time if I want to be a suicide pilot and I declined."

He also said he was excluded from pre-hijacking operations because he had gotten in trouble with his Al Qaeda superiors on a 2000 trip to Malaysia when he asked them for money to take flight training. He said it was only after he was called back to Afghanistan and talked with Osama bin Laden that he was approved again for the operation.

"My position was, like you say, under review."

But he also said he dreamed about flying a plane in an attack against the United States. When Moussaoui saw bin Laden and told him about the dream, the Al Qaeda ringleader apparently responded, "good." Moussaoui testified that he had a similar dream a few days later.

"Then I was asked if I wanted to be part of the operation and this time I said 'yes,' and so did Richard Reid," Moussaoui said.

In 2000, he said he and the Al Qaeda official discussed the methodology of the attack, either with a knife or without a weapon, and later talked about different scenarios, such as what if a fighter aircraft approached while he was flying a plane.

Nineteen men pulled off the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington in the worst act of terrorism ever on U.S. soil, leaving nearly 3,000 people dead in the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and on the four planes that crashed.

"I had knowledge that the Twin Towers would be hit," Moussaoui said. "I didn't know the details of this."

Asked by his lawyer why he signed his guilty plea in April as "the 20th hijacker," Moussaoui replied: "Because everybody used to refer to me as the 20th hijacker and it was a bit of fun."

Click here to read the legal history of the case (Findlaw pdf).

Moussaoui also said he knew the other hijackers by name or face because when he was in Afghanistan, he was a greeter at a guest house and used to drive the men to the airport.

Before he took the stand, his lawyers made a last attempt to stop him from testifying, but failed. Defense attorney Gerald Zerkin argued that his client would not be a competent witness because he has contempt for the court, only recognizes Islamic law and therefore "the affirmation he undertakes would be meaningless."

Asked by Zerkin if he was supposed to be one of the men who would pilot a plane on Sept. 11, he said no, adding: "I'm sorry, I don't know about the number of planes but I was not the fifth [pilot] hijacker."

About his guilty plea, he said: "I took a pen. I signed it."

But under cross examination, Moussaoui spoke of the plan that would have him attack the White House.

He said he talked with an Al Qaeda official in 1999 about why a 1993 bombing at the World Trade Center failed to bring the towers down. He said he "was asked in the same period for the first time if I want to be a suicide pilot and I declined."

Yet, he said he was taking flight training for a separate attack on the White House when he was arrested in August 2001 on immigration charges. He was vague on whether this attack was to have been after Sept. 11 or on it.

"I know it was something going on," he said in French-accented English. "We don't do single operation. We do multiple strikes."

He told the court it was "difficult to say" whether he was involved in the planning for Sept. 11.

When asked by the prosecution if he lied to FBI investigators about being in Al Qaeda, Moussaoui said he was not asked whether he belonged to a terrorist group. He referred to Al Qaeda as the "bin Laden group" and said he had never heard of "Al Qaeda" until Americans referred to it that way.

Just before Moussaoui took the stand, the court heard testimony that two months before the attacks that a CIA deputy chief waited in vain for permission to tell the FBI about a "very high interest" Al Qaeda operative who became one of the hijackers.

The official, a senior figure in the CIA's bin Laden unit, said he sought authorization on July 13, 2001, to send information to the FBI but got no response for 10 days, then asked again.

As it turned out, the information on Khalid al-Mihdhar did not reach the FBI until late August. At the time, CIA officers needed permission from a special unit before passing certain intelligence on to the FBI.

The official was identified only as "John." His written testimony was read into the record.

John's testimony was part of the defense's case that federal authorities missed multiple opportunities to catch hijackers and perhaps thwart the Sept. 11 plot.

His testimony included an e-mail sent by FBI supervisor Michael Maltbie discussing Moussaoui but playing down his terrorist connections. Maltbie's e-mail said "there's no indication that [Moussaoui] had plans for any nefarious activity."

He sent that e-mail to the CIA even after receiving a lengthy memo from the FBI agent who arrested Moussaoui and suspected him of being a terrorist with plans to hijack aircraft.

Former FBI agent Erik Rigler, the first defense witness, was questioned about a Justice Department report that he said criticized the CIA for keeping intelligence about two known Al Qaeda terrorist operatives in the United States from the FBI for more than a year.

Under cross-examination from the prosecution, he acknowledged the report did not link the pair specifically to a civil aviation plot. But he said the report's thrust was about their preparations for what turned out to be the Sept. 11 attacks and their ability to elude federal agents.

"That's why they came here," he said. "They didn't come for Disney."

The two were among the 19 hijackers on Sept. 11. The report said they had been placed on a watch list in Thailand in January 2000 but not on a U.S. list until August 2001.

Prosecutors argue that Moussaoui, a French citizen, thwarted a prime opportunity to track down the hijackers and possibly unravel the plot when he was arrested in August 2001 on immigration violations and lied to the FBI about his Al Qaeda membership and plans to hijack a plane.

Had Moussaoui confessed, the FBI could have pursued leads that would have led them to most of the hijackers, government witnesses have testified.

To win the death penalty, prosecutors have to prove that Moussaoui's actions — specifically, his lies — were directly responsible for at least one death on Sept. 11. Moussaoui's Monday testimony nearly guarantees that fate. Otherwise, he may have received life in prison.

TimmyT

Holy monkey! Can i get the cliff notes to that post?

wibblywobbly

Pedro Cerrano became President, so I'll listen to what Rick "Wildthing" Vaughn has to say.