Did 9/11 Take a Genius?

It’s been five years and this is likely of no importance, but I find it interesting. Maybe you will too.

The attack on the World Trade Center has been characterized as taking years of planning, a big organization, and a great deal of money to carry out. I think its execution was much simpler than we’ve been told and than most people believe.

The main tenet of this false impression is a belief that it took a great deal of skill and training to fly the airliners into the buildings. Consider the following. If you can steer a go-cart you can steer a Honda, or a Cadillac, or a semi-truck and trailer. Flying [most] aircraft is much the same. Let me explain.

Getting from A to B in an airplane requires that you be able to do three things, take of, fly in the correct direction, and land. In correct order of skill required, landing is hardest, taking off is next, and flying in the desired direction is not just the easiest but is quite easy.

This is the disclaimer paragraph. Airline piloting requires a lot of skill and a lot of training and experience. For instance, they must be able to take off, fly to point B, and land the aircraft by instruments in all kinds of weather, and in total darkness. This is a huge jump from the ability to guide an aircraft which is already in the air. Flying an aircraft in clear air with a view of the horizon is relatively easy and intuitive.

Years ago I owned an Aeronca L-3, a small two seater similar to a Piper Cub. I had a trip planned with a friend to fly to a lake about 80 miles away. As it turned out, I had to work a 16 hour shift ending at eight in the morning of the day we were to leave. I took off, gave my friend, who had never been at the controls of a plane, or even in a small plane, about ten minutes of instruction, and he followed the highway to our destination while I slept. He woke me up to land the plane and we spent a pleasant day sailing on Texoma. That afternoon I took us off and he flew us back. I talked him through the flight pattern, it was a non-controlled country airport, and I took over well into the final approach and landed. I believe that my friend could have, with only a little more experience, done what the terrorists did on 9-11.

Shortly after 9-11 I discussed this idea with the pilots I know, including two who flew military aircraft, and they all agreed with me. Know too, that there are computer flight simulation programs on the market that simulate approaches to many of this countries major airports, including those in N.Y.C. and Washington D.C. They give headings and a visual depiction coming from any direction. I have seen one which has a picture of the Twin Towers featured prominently on the box. They are designed to familiarize a pilot and make him comfortable and competent to fly to those airports.

This then is how I see the problems the terrorist teams solved. They had to have one minimally qualified pilot for each team. Each team had to call a travel agent and book flights on aircraft leaving about the same time on a cross country trip heading West during daylight hours, they had to take over the aircraft in flight, which was easy if they were willing to be brutal, which they were, and then they had to turn around and go East. They could then pick up the right heading and fly visually to their targets. There targets were very distinctive. The terrorists did not have to take off or land, just aim the aircraft. The second one did show some skill in making a fairly hard banking turn near the end to hit his target squarely. This all took some planning, some money, some expertise, but not a lot and certainly not any diabolical geniuses.

In this particular case probably all that would have been necessary to foil the plot was secure cockpit doors, which, I believe, had been suggested and decided against, but then you didn’t really expect the

government to tell you that it would have been easy to prevent the tragedy of 9-11, did you?