Posted on 04/25/2005 4:36:06 AM PDT by billorites
Tim Nelson stood puzzled in an office at the Eagan flight school when he learned about the new student -- a guy who had plunked down $8,300, most of it in hundred-dollar bills, for lessons in flying a 747 jumbo jet.
"A guy?" Nelson asked. That's odd, he thought. Most customers of the Pan Am International Flight Academy come in groups -- clusters of pilots from the same airline.
Nelson, who oversaw flight engineering classes for 727s and 747s, became even more suspicious when he learned the student didn't even have a pilot's license.
Veteran pilot Hugh Sims' eyebrows shot up, too, as he learned separately about the student, Zacarias Moussaoui.
It was early August 2001, a month before the Sept. 11 attacks.
For years, operatives of the Al-Qaida terrorist group had slipped in and out of the country, several enrolling in flight schools, training under the noses of U.S. aviation experts to carry out the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history.
At only one of those schools -- Pan Am's Eagan facility -- did employees sniff out an Al-Qaida operative's suspicious behavior and tip off the FBI. To do so, Nelson, a flight engineer, and Sims, a Texas-born pilot with a slight drawl and wry smile, say they had to buck resistance from company headquarters.
Now, in their first public interviews, they recount how they set into motion the only U.S. criminal prosecution to stem from the Sept. 11 attacks -- a case that led to Moussaoui's guilty plea Friday to six counts of conspiracy to commit terrorism. Their actions also may have preempted an attack on the White House.
Moussaoui's e-mail
"Hello, Mrs. Matt, I am Mrs. Zacarias," began the e-mail to Matthew Tierney at Pan Am's Miami headquarters, typed in broken English the previous May...
(Excerpt) Read more at startribune.com ...
We continue to be naive at our peril.
Proactive people act and if wrong, ask for forgiveness later!
Bump
Here we have Nelson and Sims, and, in another thread, a guy called Prevest, all claiming credit. What is the real story, I wonder?
The same thing occured to me.
Another untold story, that has great promise as history, is the way that the order to ground all flights developed. There are hundreds of stories there, from flight controllers to radar operators to flight schools.
The specifics at each location would be an education about how people deal with an event which is so unique as to foster mostly incredulity.
There is no doubt whatsoever that the prompt move saved many lives. How many, we may never know.
It also illustrates how simple things, like videotaping all disembarking passengers the remainder of that day might have identified God knows how many additional terrorists on their way to do their thing.
The same thing occured to me.
Another untold story, that has great promise as history, is the way that the order to ground all flights developed. There are hundreds of stories there, from flight controllers to radar operators to flight schools.
The specifics at each location would be an education about how people deal with an event which is so unique as to foster mostly incredulity.
There is no doubt whatsoever that the prompt move saved many lives. How many, we may never know.
It also illustrates how simple things, like videotaping all disembarking passengers the remainder of that day might have identified God knows how many additional terrorists on their way to do their thing.
The same thing occured to me.
Another untold story, that has great promise as history, is the way that the order to ground all flights developed. There are hundreds of stories there, from flight controllers to radar operators to flight schools.
The specifics at each location would be an education about how people deal with an event which is so unique as to foster mostly incredulity.
There is no doubt whatsoever that the prompt move saved many lives. How many, we may never know.
It also illustrates how simple things, like videotaping all disembarking passengers the remainder of that day might have identified God knows how many additional terrorists on their way to do their thing.
Excuses, please. No feedback there for a minute.
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