The "wasn't interested in learning how to land or take off" claim is attribited to press reports on Moussaoui's arrest - which came in mid August 2001- less than 30 days prior to 9/11... not a year before. The press didn't claim he "wasn't interested in taking off"- they said he was interested in learning to steer, not to land. As it happens, this claim by the press was FALSE, completely opposite of the truth. Moussaoui had indeed expressed an interest in landing:
In his e-mail message, Mr. Moussaoui conceded his lack of experience but suggested that he was more interested in training than in earning professional certification. "In a sense, to be able to pilot one of these Big Bird, even if I am not a real professional pilot," he wrote of his goals. He was vague about which of the "big airliners" interested him the most, ticking off a list that ranged from a Boeing 747 to an Airbus A-300 and saying that his choice for training would "depend on the cost and which one is easiest to learn." But he was specific in the skills he hoped to master.
"The level I would like to achieve is to be able to takeoff and land, to handle communication with ATC," he wrote, referring to air traffic control, "to be able to successfully navigate from A to B (JFK to Heathrow for example)."--- by Jim Yardley, The New York Times , February 8, 2002 http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/08/national/08HIJA.html
What really concerned the instructors in Minnesota wasn't an alleged aversion to instruction on takeoff and landing - it was that he lacked a pilot's license and paid $10,000 or so just for what looked to them at first like an ego trip on a 747 flight simulator but later like he was trying to pack in TOO MUCH training, not too little. A guy just wanting a joy ride in a simulator wouldn't be as interested as Moussaoui was in learning so much detail and instructors gre suspicious:
"The instructor, Mr. Rosengren said, immediately became concerned and wondered why someone who was not a pilot and had so little experience was trying to pack so much training into such a short time." ------ by Jim Yardley, The New York Times , February 8, 2002 http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/08/national/08HIJA.htmlMoussaoui was also too interested in learning communications protocols to be a mere thrill seeker.
The Feds couldn't get him on terrorism - it's legal to buy time in a flight simulator and to blow money on flight traing, and Moussaoui made no claim he wanted to be a certified pilot. In fact, he just wrote that he wanted a thrill ride, which isn't unusual for bored people with too much money. The school had had doctors and lawyers do that before. The only thing the Feds had to go on was that he overstayed his visa. They could detain him for that but since FISA denied them a warrant they weren't going to get approval to waterboard the guy on an overstayed visa or for being wealthy enough to blow a wad of cash on a joy ride. That's why the INS and not the FBI arrested him the day before he was scheduled for his first "trip" in the flight simulator.
The FBI later inquired to see if there were any more details on Moussaoui to be found abroad , and received French reports that one of Massaoui's acquaintances had fought in Chechnya. But on Moussaoui there wasn't much, and there was no evidence linking him to a specific terrorist group or hostile government. Without such proof, given the composition of the court at the time, the FISA requirements couldn't be met and so the info on his laptop was legally out of reach until 9/11 made the FISA courts more open minded, and the info on cropdusting on his computer disc would have been found. Not that cropdusting intel would have been much forewarning of 9/11's hijackings. Moussaoui's mission wasn't to hijack anything on 9/11. His mission was quite different.