September 11 hijackers had a 'trial run'

An FBI agent testified on Wednesday that the key plotters behind the September 11 2001 attacks had a test run criss-crossing the United States a few days before the suicide plane bombings.

The agent, testifying at the trial in Germany of a Moroccan charged with helping the plotters, said the group flew from the US East Coast to the West Coast and from there to Las Vegas.

More than 3 000 people died in the 2001 attacks when the hijackers ploughed passenger jets into New York, Washington and rural Pennsylvania.

In his evidence, which was strictly limited to published information, the FBI agent said the first of the suicide pilots began flight training as early as 1996.

They were interested only in special manoeuvres, he added.

"I know Atta and al-Shehhi wanted primarily to practise approaches, landings and how to turn, nothing else," he told the court in Hamburg, northern Germany.

http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=21322

What about navigation? Anyone who knows anything about flying could tell you that they'd be lost 4 minutes from take-off without navigational readings. I don't care if it was a clear day. Every student pilot knows this! You wouldn't believe what the world looks like in 3 dimensions! I'd like to see the FBI have a group of experienced student pilots test to see if they could fly jets like the hijackers did. NO WAY!