The Legend Unraveled
According to an FBI chronology for Hani Hanjour cited by the 9/11 Commission, Hanjour first travelled to the U.S. in 1991 on a visa issued in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia under the name “Hani Saleh Hanjoor”, in order to attend the University of Arizona’s Center for English as a Second Language. After returning to Saudi Arabia, he was again issued a visa at Jeddah in March, 1996. Back in the U.S., he attended classes at the ELS Language Center in Oakland, California from May until August. For a week in September, he took ground training lessons at the Sierra Aeronautical Academy Airline Training Center (SAAATC). From the end of September until mid-October, he purchased flight instruction from Cockpit Resources Management (CRM) in Scottsdale, Arizona. He then returned to Saudi Arabia once more.[20] The Washington Post reported that according to Hanjour’s brother, Yasser, “Hanjour applied for a job at the state-owned Saudi Arabian Airlines but was told that he lacked sufficient grades…. He said the company told him it would reconsider his application only if he acquired a commercial pilot’s license in the United States.”[21] Yasser characterized Hanjour “as a frustrated young Saudi who wanted desperately – but never succeeded – to become a pilot for the Saudi national airline.”[22]
Hanjour made plans to return to the U.S. and was issued a third visa in Jeddah in November 1997. His visa application contained red flags that should have resulted in his visa being denied. He failed to write in the name and address of the school he would be attending and provided no proof, as required by law, that he could furnish financial support for himself.[23] With that application accepted, he reentered the U.S. and took pilot training from CRM again in December.[24]
It was at this time that, according the 9/11 Commission, Hanjour began his training “in earnest”. But in reality, while at CRM, Hanjour never finished coursework required to get his certificate to be able to fly a single-engine aircraft.[25] The New York Times reported that “he was a lackadaisical student who often cut class and never displayed the passion so common among budding commercial airline pilots”.[26] ABC News reported that when he returned to CRM that December, “He was trying for his private pilot’s license”, but according to one of his instructor’s, he “was a very poor student who skipped homework and missed flights.”[27] The school’s attorney said that when Hanjour reapplied again later in 2000, “We declined to provide training to him because we didn’t think he was a good enough student when he was there in 1996 and 1997.”[28] The school’s owner described him as a “weak student” who “was wasting our resources”.[29] He said “One of the first accomplishments of someone in flight school is to fly a plane without an instructor. It is a confidence-building procedure. He managed to do that. That is like being able to pull a car out and drive down the street. It is not driving on the freeway.” Although it normally took three months for students to earn their private pilot’s certificate, Hanjour “did not accomplish that at my school.” He added that “We didn’t want him back at our school because he was not serious about becoming a good pilot.”[30] The Chicago Tribune reported that at CRM, “A flight instructor said Hanjour left an impression by being unimpressive. ‘He was making weak progress,’ said Duncan Hastie, president of CRM.”[31]
Hanjour switched schools, and from the end of December 1997 until April 1999, took flight lessons from Arizona Aviation in Mesa, Arizona.[32] There, too, the 9/11 Commission’s own evidence contradicts the characterization that Hanjour was training “in earnest”. An FBI document cited by the Commission stated that “Hanjour often participated in flying lessons for a one to two weeks [sic] and then would disappear for weeks or months at a time.” The school “often had to call Hanjour in an effort to get Hanjour to pay his bill.”[33]
Buried in the footnote for the paragraph suggesting Hanjour began training “in earnest”, the 9/11 Commission report acknowledged that “Hanjour initially was nervous if not fearful in flight training” and that “His instructor described him as a terrible pilot.”[34] FBI documents cited by the Commission reveal that witnesses from the school told investigators that “Hanjour was a terrible pilot. Hanjour had difficulty understanding air traffic control, the methods for determining fuel management and had poor navigational skills.” The FBI was told by one witness that “the only flying skill Hanjour could perform was flying the plane straight”, and that “he did not believe Hanjour’s poor flying skills were due to a language barrier.” He was “a very poor pilot who did not react to criticism very well. Hanjour was very, very nervous inside the cockpit to the point where Hanjour was almost fearful.”[35]
In April 1998, Hanjour applied for his private pilot certificate with a single-engine rating, but he failed his test. One of the tasks documents show he would need to be reexamined for was “coordinated turns to headings” [36] He tried again later that same month and this time received his private pilot certificate under the name “Hani Saleh Hanjoor”, with an “Airplane Single Engine Land” rating.
In an apparent attempt to bolster the misleading characterization that Hanjour began training “in earnest”, the 9/11 also stated that it took only “Several more months” to obtain his commercial pilot certificate. In fact, it took Hanjour another year of training before he managed to obtain that second certificate. On April 15, 1999, the FAA issued a commercial pilot certificate to him under the name “Hani Saleh Hanjoor”.[37] The certificate was issued by Daryl M. Strong, an independent contractor for the FAA, with an “Airplane Multiengine Land” rating. To obtain the certificate, Hanjour’s records show he flew his check ride in a Piper PA 23-150 “Apache”, a four-seat twin-engine plane, which Hanjour was in command of for 14.8 hours of the 27 hours completed for the test.[38]
Contrary to the Washington Post’s assertion that this certificate allowed him “to fly commercial jets”, in fact it only allowed him to begin passenger jet training. Hanjour did so, only to fail the class.[39] As the Associated Press reported, the “certification allowed him to begin passenger jet training at an Arizona flight school despite having what instructors later described as limited flying skills and an even more limited command of English.”[40]
Furthermore, there remains an open question about whether Hanjour was actually qualified to receive that certificate in the first place. According to Heather Awsumb, a spokeswoman for Professional Airways Systems Specialists (PASS), a union that represents FAA employees, “The real problem is that regular oversight is handed over to private industry”, since private contractors “receive between $200 and $300 for each check flight. If they get a reputation for being tough, they won’t get any business.”[41]
To obtain a commercial pilot license, the applicant must “Be able to read, speak, write, and understand the English language.” It seems highly dubious that Hanjour met that qualification, as the 9/11 Commission itself acknowledges that his English skills were inadequate. The certificate does not allow its holder to fly any commercial aircraft, but is issued for “the aircraft category and class rating sought”. Hanjour only trained in light propeller planes like the single-engine Cessna and twin-engine Piper, and had never flown a jet aircraft.[42]
Additionally, commercial pilot certification is different from the Airline Transport Pilot certification held by airline captains. To obtain a commercial certificate with a multi-engine rating, Hanjour only needed to log in 250 hours of flight time, whereas to obtain an Airline Transport Pilot certificate, pilots are required to log 1,500 hours.[43] Needless to say, having the ability to control a Cessna 172 or Piper Apache propeller plane does not translate into the ability to handle a Boeing 757 jetliner – and Hanjour could barely do the former.
Anyone unfamiliar with pilot certification could easily make the mistake of thinking a “commercial pilot license” meant Hanjour was qualified to fly a jet airliner, a conclusion reinforced by the Washington Post’s false assertion that his certificate allowed him “to fly commercial jets”. The 9/11 Commission report reinforced that false impression, only vaguely hinting at the truth six paragraphs later by saying that Hanjour subsequently “wanted to train on multi-engine planes”. But the Commission then further obfuscated that truth by asserting that this was merely “refresher” training (a matter to which we will return).
Hanjour again left the country on April 28, 1999. [44] As the 9/11 Commission report observed, when he returned to Saudi Arabia to apply in the civil aviation school in Jeddah, he was rejected.[45] He subsequently began making preparations to return to the U.S. once again.[46] In September 2000, Hanjour was denied a student visa after indicating that he wanted to remain in the U.S. for three years, and yet listed no address for where he intended to stay in Arizona.[47] But he tried again for a student visa under the name “Hani Hanjour” later that same month. This time, he wrote that he wanted to stay for one year instead of three, and listed a specific address in California, not Arizona, where he said he was going on his first application. Despite these obvious red flags, he was issued the visa. [48]
He entered the U.S. in December and took more flight lessons that month at Arizona Aviation. From February until mid-March, he attended Pan Am International Flight Academy, also known as Jet Tech International, in Mesa, Arizona.[49]
It was upon his return to Arizona Aviation in 2000 that the 9/11 Commission stated he wanted “refresher” training on multi-engine planes but was advised to discontinue “because his English was not good enough.” The implications are that Hanjour was merely brushing up on skills he had already achieved through previous flight training, and that the only reason he was advised not to continue was because of his poor language skills. But turning to the report’s footnote, it reads: “For his desire to train on multi-engine planes, his language difficulties, the instructor’s advice, and his reaction, see FBI report of investigation, interview of Rodney McAlear, Apr. 10, 2002.”[50] That document reveals that McAlear worked not for Arizona Aviation, but rather “instructed Hani Hanjour in ground school flight training at Jet Tech in the early 2001.”[51] The 9/11 Commission, by misleadingly suggesting that this occurred at Arizona Aviation, apparently intended to bolster the claim that this was “refresher” training by making it sound as though this occurred at Hanjour’s old school, when the truth is that it occurred when he was at a different school he’d never been to before.
The 9/11 Commission was also deceiving the public suggesting that the sole reason Hanjour was not able to complete his training on multi-engine planes was because his English wasn’t good enough. As already noted, an instructor at Arizona Aviation thought his earlier failings there were due primarily to his poor flight skills, and not because of his language inadequacies. More importantly, again, this training actually occurred at Jet Tech. Turning to the documentary record, an article in the New York Times entitled “A Trainee Noted for Incompetence” noted, his instructors there “found his piloting skills so shoddy and his grasp of English so inadequate that they questioned whether his pilot’s license was genuine”. As a result, they actually reported him to the FAA and requested confirmation that his certificate was legitimate. The staff there “feared that his skills were so weak that he could pose a safety hazard if he flew a commercial airliner.” Marilyn Ladner, a vice president at the academy, told the Times, “There was no suspicion as far as evildoing. It was more of a very typical instructional concern that ‘you really shouldn’t be in the air.’” [52]
As already discussed, it remains an open question whether Hanjour was actually qualified to hold his commercial pilot certificate. It was at this time, as the Associated Press reported, that “Federal aviation authorities were alerted in early 2001 that an Arizona flight school believed one of the eventual Sept. 11 hijackers lacked the English and flying skills necessary for the commercial pilot’s license he already held, flight school and government officials say.”[53] The manager of JetTech said, “I couldn’t believe he had a commercial license of any kind with the skills that he had.”[54]
to view a partial list of crimes committed by FBI agents over 1500 pages long see
forums.signonsandiego. com/showthread.php?t=59139
to view a partial list of FBI agents arrested for pedophilia see
campusactivism. org/phpBB3/viewforum.php?f=29
also see
ctka. net/pr500-king.html
Jeremy, excellent research and writing. Saw you also wrote recently re: 9/11 hijackers on manifests–which was good. I appreciate your cautious/sober, objective, and well-sourced investigations.
Have you investigated other aspects of 9/11?
Anything re: how the 3 towers (incl. WTC7) in NYC collapsed?
Hope you will if you haven’t yet. It’s most curious how the FEMA report & NIST report each based the Twin Tower collapses on opposite judgments re: the strength of the floor-truss connections to the exterior columns.
FEMA essentially claimed the floor truss connections were so weak that they failed easily, leading to a progressive pancake collapse–while NIST claims the floor-truss connections were so incredibly strong they actually bowed in (& even broke) the much, much larger exterior columns.. columns everyone agrees were designed to provide All the horizontal load support (from high winds, etc) and a portion (perhaps 30~40%) of the vertical (gravitational) load.
NIST is widely considered to be the ‘gold standard’ and yet when you look at their own illustrations/explanations, it’s painfully clear those relatively light truss connections (a couple of bolts, & possibly small welds) could never have exerted enough force (without breaking) to bend in or break the much more massive exterior columns. It would be like bending/breaking a tree by tugging on a twig.
Don’t mean to suggest the FEMA report is more accurate because it’s obvious there was no actual ‘pancaking’ but rather it’s curious how the 2 official reports rely on opposite assessments of those floor-truss connections.
If you’re interested, please see PBS / NOVA’s slideshow narrated by NIST’s lead investigator Sunder–and notice the relative size of the truss connections vs. size of the exterior columns. It all hinges on these magical connections.
NOVA link:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/wtc
To their slideshow detailing NIST’s version of collapse:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/wtc/sunder.html
Thanks for your superb work.
Yeah, I’ve followed it pretty closely. The bolt-breaking theory was officially scrapped.
Funny how the “conspiracy theorists” are ridiculed for saying the official story makes no sense, only to have the official story keep changing and acknowledgments made that, yeah, the official explanation was wrong after all. This has happened repeatedly. First they claimed fuel lines fed the WTC7 fire. Then they admitted that wasn’t true. Then they claimed damage to the building from the tower 1 and 2 collapses significantly weakened the structure. Now NIST acknowledges that that damage had no significant impact on the collapse. On point after point, first they offer some claim to support the official theory, only to be refuted and later have to admit that they were wrong.
The most telling thing about the NIST report on WTC 7 are its computer models of the collapse. They look NOTHING like the real collapse. The computer models are of a progressive collapse — which they claim it was. They do not in any way resemble the actual collapse, in which it is clear from all videos available that all major load-bearing columns gave out nearly simultaneously. Fire just can’t explain that. That’s the bottom line.
I also find the suggestion that the buildings could have been brought down in a controlled demolition to be incredible. And yet, I also have to trust what I can see with my own eyes happening before me, and have faith that the laws of physics still apply here on planet Earth.
Great points, Jeremy. Glad to hear you’re more than up on the plethora of details–and how contradictory so many are. How much of this is F.U.D. by design vs. FUD by…organic/natural processes? (like asking to what extent the Tea Party is a genuine grass-roots org) Of course, a few highly intelligent power-players can leverage organic processes by understanding human psychology & sociology.. just knowing how power tends to work and how major/corporate media is likely to portray events. Fear-mongering seems to help by simplifying the control efforts.
More specifically, my guess is that folks at NIST are not knowingly part of any inside-job conspiracy, but rather they were given a mandate to focus on explaining how the towers fell–and not to waste time/resources by investigating any ‘wild’ claims, so Sunder & others likely just did their jobs as best they could.. perhaps half-realizing along the way that their own analysis doesn’t really hold up well, but now their reps (& jobs) are staked to it so they must stand by it. Whistle-blowing doesn’t exactly pay the bills or endear you to your bosses, co-workers and neighbors.
Perhaps easy to understand why NIST doesn’t want to release their computer models (including exact inputs, etc) for public scrutiny.
To your points re: WTC7.. yeah, if NIST continued to claim that damage (from collapsing WTC1 &/or 2) played a significant role, then surely WTC7 would have fallen Over–in the direction of the damage. -which happens to be on the ‘short’ + thin side of the trapezoid-shaped building, thus easiest by far for the building to have toppled in that direction–and all the more with damage especially to the lower portion. And yet, it comes straight down most of the way, and only begins to slowly ‘topple’ (in direction of lower damage) near the end of collapse, so the debris field is pretty well (nearly) contained in the building’s footprint. Can’t explain that with any so-called progressive collapse sequence based on fire–as you said–or anything else other than some form of controlled demolition. All the more considering WTC7 had some asymmetrical structural elements, and yet came mostly straight down at near free-fall velocity.
And yeah, for various reasons, it’s not easy to accept controlled demolition and its implications. But so far, the C.D. theory seems to have the most merit in terms of the raw evidence & analysis. And NIST can’t really argue against it because they simply ruled it out summarily for all 3 towers–though with a token nod for WTC7. And they refuse to test their own dust samples for any evidence of incendiaries/explosives, so they can’t really refute the Harrit?, Jones, Ryan, et al paper showing evidence of super/nano-thermite in multiple dust samples.
But the larger question is this: how do we get mainstream, corporate-owned media to find it in Their self-interest to report what could be the biggest ‘scoop’ in recent history? Who do we approach..and how? -reporters? editors? publishers? owners? advertisers?
How do We leverage the massive corporate media?
There is so much verbal which clouds the fundamentals of true journalism. Is there one solid detailed offical commission report on any of the incident s of 9-11 which is the basic official government report. and for all to see.
Authority fails to see the implications and repercussions of this diabolic official investigation. A list naming all those responsible for the enquiries and subsequent decisions must be promulgated for future generations to pursue!.
Mr. Hammond’s point about the ever-changing nature of the official story is especially relevant to the question of why there were no interceptions. On that issue we’ve been handed three different stories.
The first story was that the military failed to intercept the airliners because the military failed to scramble any fighters–no scrambles until after the Pentagon had been hit. That was the account given during the week of 9/11, although it started to unravel in a few days.
The second story, made official on 9/18/2001, was that the military DID issue scramble orders in response to all four airliners. But the FAA had been so late in notifying NORAD (among other complications) that the fighters just couldn’t get to their targets in time to intercept them, in the case of the first three flights. They claimed they were finally in position to shoot down the fourth plane, Flight 93, but the passengers took matters into their own hands.
This version of the story collapsed by virtue of simple arithmetic. David Ray Griffin and other researchers (who know to add and subtract) were easily able to show that NORAD–assuming the reported notification times were correct–could certainly have intercepted these first three planes, especially Flight 77. This is now a non-controversial point, acknowledged even by the 9/11 Commission.
So, inevitably, the Commission gave us story #3. The gist of this third and current version is that military actually didn’t know the last three flights had even been hijacked until after each had crashed. Griffin has marshaled an impressive amount of evidence to show that this is an outright LIE. In fact, based on the evidence we now have, we can conclude that the military knew about these airliners being in trouble even earlier than they had claimed in story #2.
So that puts us back to square 1–nay, even further back than that. We have the 9/11 Commission’s admission that planes should have been intercepted if NORAD had known about them at least as early as originally claimed. Story #3 represents a last-ditch effort to refute the charge of a stand-down order. With the collapse of this story, that’s about all there is left to explain why these planes weren’t stopped.
Nice summary of the non-interceptions, Joel.
One of the first aspects that got me rethinking the official version(s) was wondering how on earth a commercial plane could just fly right into the Pentagon–presumably one of the most heavily protected areas on the planet as The nerve center of all U.S. military operations. Not to mention the Pentagon houses around 25,000 people.
Since 2 other planes had already smashed into the Twin Towers, you might assume our military/Pentagon would be on extremely high alert. And indeed, Mineta’s testimony clearly indicates the military was closely following Flight 77.. and yet it was allowed? to just fly right into the Pentagon… with all the military bases around the D.C. area, and you’d think the Pentagon would have some sort of defensive capabilities–anti-aircraft guns or something. Even multiple lines of defense.
All the more considering there were numerous documents re: the potential use of airplanes as weapons. And on 9/11, Gen. Schwarzkopf mentioned a famous Tom Clancy novel wherein a plane was used as a weapon–so not exactly a novel idea, though Bush & Rice & others later claimed, “uh, no one could have imagined using a plane as a weapon.”
Didn’t Michael Moore make a ref to the Pentagon having anti-aircraft weapons? -possibly in an interview.
Keep hoping he’ll do a follow-up doc to Fahrenheit 9/11.. there’s a bit more evidence & analysis since then.
Jeremy, not sure the flight ability of the pilot is as relvant as your effort and research implies. As even with little training I’m 100% sure anyone at the controls is going to hit some point very accurately. The pentagone has numerous sides, each very large. I appluade you on questioning the integrity of the reports and high lighting the possible conflicts. But your yield for truth maybe more rewarding if looking into the 5th flight that never took off or the crash in queens a month after 911. If a tail fell off a plane due to turbulence I think there would have been structural safety changes to that model plane or more crashes after 8 years. The 5th plane on 911 just dropped of into investigation with out conclusion. Were the four arabic men ever id from the luggae they left behind, all the other hijackers left Korans and final statements what happened to the luggage of those four unknown passanger that day? I find these questions very intriguing yet the goverment has been silent on the conclusion of these investigations.
I don’t know how it is you think a person with as poor piloting skills as Hanjour could have controlled Flight 77 in the manner it was. It’s a logical improbability, if not impossibility. The guy could barely handle a Cessna 172. I don’t know what “5th flight” you’re referring to.
Your assessment of the poor piloting skills of Hani Hanjour is based on the assumption that he was not flying the plane that hit the Pentagon. If he was flying the plane that hit the Pentagon then he was capable of flying the plane that hit the Pentagon. The 911 Commission looked at the facts and tried to come to a logical and reasonable conclusions about what happened, about who was flying the plane and assessed his background and the evidence of his piloting skills, both positive and negative. They then tried to arrive at logical conclusions based on those facts. That is what the process of investigation is about. Fortunately for those who try to denigrate and libel them by accusing them of deliberate deception and manipulation of the facts, because they reached conclusions, there is no such obligation. They don’t have to suggest any alternative reasonable or logical conclusions themselves. They have the same evidence. Tell us what your conclusions are. Those conclusions though have to be more logical and reasonable than those that are pejoratively labelled the ‘official narrative’.
What you mean to say is that my conclusion Hani Hanjour was likely not piloting the plane is based on his documented poor piloting skills.
Your conclusion that Hani Hanjour was likely not piloting the plane is based on his documented poor piloting skills , the distortion and exaggeration of the flying skills involved, and ignoring the evidence that he was likely the person flying the plane. Your failure to even try and suggest a more likely candidate for who was flying the plane is not a great basis for accusing people in the 911 Commission of trying to deceive people and distort evidence for reaching a conclusion about who was most likely flying the plane. Do you think the two AA pilots flew the plane into the Pentagon? If the conclusion about who was flying the plane that hit the Pentagon is to be reached based on the question of flying skills then the two pilots on the plane would be the conclusion. If you don’t know who was flying the plane then you can’t say Hani Hanjour wasn’t and therefore can’t say Hani Hanjour couldn’t. Either he did it, and was therefore able to,or he never tried, and his ability was never tested.
What a puzzling argument, given that the entirety of the lengthy article addresses the evidence cited to support the claim that he was piloting the plane.
The article is about the poor piloting skills of Hani Hanjour and and your conclusion is based on it.
quote “What you mean to say is that my conclusion Hani Hanjour was likely not piloting the plane is based on his documented poor piloting skills.”
That is only one part of the evidence. The lengthy article address the evidence cited to support the claim that he had the skills to fly the plane not all the evidence that he was likely the one flying it. It provides not more likely suspect. If the question was just who had the skills to fly the plane then the two AA pilots would be the conclusion. Do you think they were flying the plane? – I don’t.
You aren’t making any sense. I defer to my previous comments.