[Bikers4Bush]

What's so puzzling about them wanting to fly something that is designed to hold a large amount of liquid?

They didn't want them to spray anthrax or any other biological or chemical hazard.

They wanted them so they could turn them into flying bombs just like the big jets. For the love of god how f'ing confusing is it?

The fact that they wanted to know how far it went on a single tank is a red flag to me that they had no intentions of making a round trip.

They were gonna fill the tanks with airplane fuel and play kamikaze.

[aculeus]

They wanted them so they could turn them into flying bombs just like the big jets. For the love of god how f'ing confusing is it?

Don't waste your time on FR. Volunteer for the FBI, Sherlock.

[motexva]

Yes, almost certainly that's what they wanted to do. For targets even "softer" and less structurally sound than WTC. Think Sky Needle in Seattle, St. Louis Arch or maybe just a crowd of people at a sporting event or similar gathering.

[Starrgaizr]

Your argument that the crop dusters' tanks were to be filled with fuel seems plausible, except for the fact that even if you want to fly a round trip, you want to know a plane's range. Also, coupled with the hazardous materials trucking anecdotes, it seems to me as if they were in part simply accumulating a diverse set of skills and capabilities to be used as Osama later decided.

[Clinton's a rapist]

They didn't want them to spray anthrax or any other biological or chemical hazard.

Since Moussaoui was also interested in “wind patterns” relating to crop-dusters , your theory doesn't make much sense.

One thing I'm not clear on, and somebody may be able to cast light on this issue, is whether crop-dusters would have any utility in spreading the anthrax sent to Daschle. It would seem to me that mixing that anthrax with a liquid would defeat the object of the milling and anti-static coating that was applied o it -- it would actually be more effective to just toss the powder out of the side of a plane. If the crop dusters weren't for dispersing anthrax, what were they for?

[Starrgaizr]

Another scenario: spray a large crowd or large area target with avgas, then crash into it if it doesnt catch fire spontaneously.

[Lazamataz]

Nah! I think I just hit it.

800 lbs of nuclear waste, spread thinly and uniformly, would sure mess up a lot of property values.

[N00dleN0gg1n]

They were gonna fill the tanks with airplane fuel and play kamikaze.

I wonder if you could spray the gasoline out the nozzles and then fly back into it to ignite it, thus immolating yourself in the equivalent of a really monstrous FAE?

[eno_]

Oh please, they are not that stupid or without resources. They could probably buy as much high explosive as they could stuff into any size plane. If they wanted a kamikaze bomb, they would buy cheap and big. If they want a cropduster, they have something nastier in mind. I find it very disturbing that lost cropduster has not been found. It's also BS that crop dusters are short-range: the Ayers can be reconfigured to hold fuel in the spray tank, and was flown between South America and the U.S. on anti-drug missions. And it is lightly armored. Very unpleasant in the wrong hands.

[balrog666]

Hijackers' Interest in Crop Dusters Still Puzzles Terrorism Investigators

Tell Larry, Moe, and Curly to retire now!

[MizSterious]

Then again, one of the murdered journalists in Afghanistan had just found--and published a story about--vials of sarin in one a lab deserted by the Taliban.