hakkin@sarin.com (Khoder bin Hakkin) writes:
http://www.startribune.com/stories/1576/913687.html
Published Dec 21 2001
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- When a Twin Cities flight instructor phoned the FBI last August to alert the agency that a terrorist might be taking lessons to fly a jumbo jet, he did it in a dramatic way:
"Do you realize how serious this is?" the instructor asked an FBI agent. "This man wants training on a 747. A 747 fully loaded with fuel could be used as a weapon!"
The aviation student he was talking about was Zacarias Moussaoui, who was arrested the following day and last week was charged in a federal indictment with conspiring with Osama bin Laden and others to carry out the Sept. 11 attacks.
New details of how Moussaoui raised suspicions at the Pan Am International Flight Academy in Eagan -- and the company's eerily prescient tip -- are emerging from the briefings the school recently gave to congressional offices.
The still-unidentified flight instructor became wary of Moussaoui immediately, according to Minnesota Rep. Jim Oberstar and others with direct knowledge of the briefings.
Moussaoui first raised eyebrows when, during a simple introductory exchange, he said he was from France, but then didn't seem to understand when the instructor spoke French to him.
Moussaoui then became belligerent and evasive about his background, Oberstar and other sources said. In addition, he seemed inept in basic flying procedures, while seeking expensive training on an advanced commercial jet simulator.
Besides alerting the FBI about Moussaoui, the school's Phoenix office called the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) early this year about another student -- Hani Hanjour, who was believed to be the pilot of the plane that flew into the Pentagon on Sept. 11. The school had raised questions about Hanjour's limited ability to speak English, the universal language of aviation.
An FAA representative sat in on a class to observe Hanjour, who was from Saudi Arabia, and discussed with school officials finding an Arabic-speaking person to help him with his English, said Oberstar and others with direct knowledge of the school's briefings.
Oberstar and Minnesota Rep. Martin Sabo, who also was briefed by the school, praised Pan Am for its efforts to safeguard the skies and for passing federal authorities clues to possible terrorist activities before Sept. 11.
They said that, with the benefit of hindsight, it appears that the FBI and the FAA could have responded more vigorously.
"From what I've heard, the school was clearly more alert than federal officials," Sabo said.
----- Whose more incompetent, the politicos who made us such enemies or the feds who can't protect against them?