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Your explanation while plausible requires the assumption that in order for the terrorism to be successful that the buildings needed to fall.

My opinion is that just making impact with one of the jets into one of the towers is a major success for the terrorists. The buildings falling is gravy to these folks. It doesn't take much planning or sophistication to make contact. I can teach a monkey to fly a helicopter. I have never flown a plane. If you asked me to become a human bomb for your holy war, I am sure I can teach anyone to take my place and stear a jumbo jet towards a building as large as the WTC. If you can drive a car, you can steer a plane. You can't land one or take off in one but you can damn sure steer it in a general direction.

If you can drive a car, you can steer a plane. You can't land one or take off in one but you can damn sure steer it in a general direction. Maybe. Several of these planes had sharp and erratic course changes and changes in their velocity. Sort of abrupt for professional pilots from the impression I get.

Peter Jennings and the ex-government officials kept expressing puzzlement over this matter and seem to assume that only professional pilot training or at least professional simulator experience would be required.

I'm thinking that some of the flight simulator software might be able to give a private pilot a pretty good feel for the responsiveness of a jumbo jet. Some of the simulators that cost $40 simulate the physics and responsiveness of jumbo jets in both cargo and passenger configuration.

Those cheap little simulators also usually contain the graphics and instrument controls of the plane simulated. As well as geographical landmarks in major cities. I'd bet money they include the WTC in their maps. Most of them have the Statue of Liberty.

Before you laugh, remember this high-tech attack was carried out with knives on at least three of the planes. This doesn't seem to be too well-financed to me, contrary to what all the network and policy wonks keep saying.

Your explanation while plausible requires the assumption that in order for the terrorism to be successful that the buildings needed to fall.

I agree with you. I don't believe that they had figured out how to make the buildings implode. More likely they followed the law of "gross tonnage"--accellerate a big plane loaded with fuel towards the target. If they hit, they could count on Palestinian dancing in the street.

That there was some sophistication is evidenced by turning off the radars, etc, and (possisbly) flying low enough in DC to go off the radars.

The fact that four planes were used is mere audacity. No one could have expected that. By staying as low tech as possible and looking for huge symbols and destruction, they may feel that their terrorism was effective. It is because we have lived in freedom that much of this was possible. We will remain free, but today means the books are being rewritten. We need to recah to our religious roots in order to find the resolve and strength needed in these times.

Your explanation while plausible requires the assumption that in order for the terrorism to be successful that the buildings needed to fall. My opinion is that just making impact with one of the jets into one of the towers is a major success for the terrorists. The buildings falling is gravy to these folks.

*Very* astute.

I had come to the same conclusion myself.

People are assuming that the terrorists "knew exactly" how to bring down the buildings. They're forgetting these scenarios:

1. The terrorists naively and wrongly assumed that the plane impacts alone would topple the towers, but they didn't. But they got lucky and the flames finished the job, much to their surprise.

2. The terrorists figured the best they could do was to cause twin "towering inferno" out of control fires (which is why they made sure they used fully fueled planes, and hit high enough that water from the ground couldn't be sprayed on the fire), which would be more than enough to cause enormous death tolls and major financial/business disruption. They simply succeeded better than they dreamed when the fires caused the buildings to fail structurally.

Other factors which point to less than masterful planning was the relatively small amount of damage to the Pentagon (and into the *least* occupied wing of the building), and the botched fourth hijacking.

I don't see this as necessarily being the work of criminal masterminds. Balls and sheer luck could have been all that was needed.

Finally, it wouldn't surprise me if all the structural advice necessary to do even a planned demolition was contained in the pages of Time and Newsweek in the weeks after the original WTC bombings -- remember how all the news magazines fell all overthemselves interviewing building engineers and posting breathless stories about how, "it could have been worse, things could have been really catostrophic had the terrorists instead done something more like..."

I have never flown a plane. If you asked me to become a human bomb for your holy war, I am sure I can teach anyone to take my place and stear a jumbo jet towards a building as large as the WTC. If you can drive a car, you can steer a plane. You can't land one or take off in one but you can damn sure steer it in a general direction.

I agree with your statement about the collapse of the building as being gravy but it is obvious that you have never flown a plane.