American facing extradition from Argentina for murder

[orwellian]

I must admit this is an interesting aspect. It was the plane and nothing else, that's for sure (1000s of witnesses anyway).
But I wonder (any pilots here ?? Where is our Belgian friend ?) if a rookie pilot who doesn't know how to land a Cessna could have done it. Was he very lucky or maybe isn't it that hard to fly a boeing in such a approach and into a hit ?

The plane hit the first floor of the Pentagon without the wheels doing any damage to the lawn in front. That's after completing a difficult turn as well. If you have problems landing a Cessna aircraft, you will need more than luck to pull of something in the magnitude off.

 

[gunt86]

But I wonder (any pilots here ?? Where is our Belgian friend ?) if a rookie pilot who doesn't know how to land a Cessna could have done it. Was he very lucky or maybe isn't it that hard to fly a boeing in such a approach and into a hit ?

The plane hit the first floor of the Pentagon without the wheels doing any damage to the lawn in front. That's after completing a difficult turn as well. If you have problems landing a Cessna aircraft, you will need more than luck to pull of something in the magnitude off.

I am a pilot with significant experience in many types of aircraft. Based on what we know about the alleged 'pilots' who trained in Florida involved in these incidents, I can say that the chance that they were able to pilot those planes as expertly as they did is completely astounding. Just a very basic fact is that the pilot training they received in Florida was VFR training (Visual Flight Rules), which means that they had no training whatsoever with instrument approach. VFR is fine for a Cessna 172, but it is not possible to land a jetliner very well with only VFR training. The reason is that it is extremely difficult for someone trained only in VFR to get the correct angle of approach for such a large and complicated aircraft. On approach a Cessna 172 can be travelling as slow as 35 knots, which gives the pilot alot of time to react and correct mistakes in order to land safely. A jetliner has approach speeds of over 140 knots, which is very very fast and leaves no time for corrections if your target is something small (like a building). To be honest, it takes a good pilot to be able to hit a building with even something like a Cessna 172! Throw in the fact that the instruments of a Boeing 737 are massively more numerous and complex than a Cessna 172, and this seems very hard to believe. If I took a rookie pilot who was trained on a Cessna 172 and put her in a Cirrus (another small aircraft), she would probably be at a loss on how to operate it safely.

I believe that either the training in Florida we have heard about was not representative of the actual skills of the alleged perpetrators, OR the alleged perpetrators did not pilot the planes.

 

[steveinbsas]

The plane hit the first floor of the Pentagon without the wheels doing any damage to the lawn in front.

Interesting point. Has it been established that the landing gear was down? If not, how could the wheels cause any damage?

 

[orwellian]

Interesting point. Has it been established that the landing gear was down? If not, how could the wheels cause any damage?

Oops, I meant engines.

 

[steveinbsas]

Oops, I meant engines.

Are the engines actually below the underside of the fuselage?

Also, once I read a post that no aircraft wreckage was found at the United 93 crash site in Pennsylvania.

Does anybody have an answer to that one?

 

[citygirl]

The Pentagon is not exactly a small building - in fact, its the worlds largest office building at over 604,000 m2

As far as the conspiracy theories go - well, people will believe what they want to believe.

 

[orwellian]

Are the engines actually below the underside of the fuselage?

Ok. Not really important but yeah, I should have said the fuselage.

Also, once I read a post that no aircraft wreckage was found at the United 93 crash site in Pennsylvania.

Does anybody have an answer to that one?

Most likely shot down. That would explain the debris found scattered several miles around the crash site (like an engine found 2000 yards away from the crash site).
Also, there was a 3 minute discrepancy at the end of the tape from the black box which was never explained.
And there was the Rumsfeld slip up.

As far as the conspiracy theories go - well, people will believe what they want to believe.

Well you believe in one as well. And to me it's as plausible as the hologram theory.

 

[gunt86]

The Pentagon is not exactly a small building - in fact, its the worlds largest office building at over 604,000 m2

It is only 5 stories tall. Do you think you could hit that with a 757 going over 150 knots/hr? The 757 is 44 feet tall, while the Pentagon is 77 feet tall. I doubt that 757 had Luke Skywalker (of Death Star fame) as its pilot.

 

[steveinbsas]

Ok. Not really important but yeah, I should have said the fuselage.

I'm just trying to visualize.

 

[steveinbsas]

It is only 5 stories tall. Do you think you could hit that with a 757 going over 150 knots/hr? I doubt that 757 had Luke Skywalker (of Death Star fame) as its pilot.

Pilots (well trained, of course) land planes on relatively narrow runways (compared to the "width" of the Pentagon). The TP had a pretty big target.