Merged Was Hani Hanjour really inexperienced?

[FatesWebb]

No, go fly and see for yourself. Anyone can have a bad day and flunk. Go take a flight, and see the difference between landing and being able to crash into the runway. Hani had no real motive to be a good pilot, just a killer who can point a plane. If you have not flown for a while you may be rusty. Hani "flew" large aircraft simulators, and if he had flown the sim, he may of been leveling off at 20 or 30 feet to land, not a good idea in a small plane but in the big jet 20 or 30 feet is where you want your butt so the wheel are on the ground, not underground. One my first rookie flight in a big jet, the instructor told me to level off at 20 feet above the runway, then he said "pull it", the throttles, and we touched down with a wisper. My first landing in large jet was perfect. Beleive me, if I went in a small plane and forgot the "picture" and leveled off at 20 feet a time or two, no one will rent me a plane until I prove I can land. With training, in an hour I will have the picture and be renting the plane.

Go fly and see why there is a problem landing. An intro flight cost 100 buck or so in a 172. Go do a Hani test flight, see how you are better than 4 terrorist pilots and better than every single 9/11 truth pilot by default.

Get up, get money, go to airport, get an intro flight. Find a small airport away from the city. You can do it today, get out the phone book or look it up. go fly

but the problem that people have with hani being the pilot on 9/11 isnt that he flew a plane into a building, it was the maneuvers that the plane took before that occurred..

The thing being questions is DID he LEGITIMATELY get those 600 hours??

However, when Baxter and fellow instructor Ben Conner took the slender, soft-spoken Hanjour on three test runs during the second week of August, they found he had trouble controlling and landing the single-engine Cessna 172. Even though Hanjour showed a federal pilot's license and a log book cataloging 600 hours of flying experience, chief flight instructor Marcel Bernard declined to rent him a plane without more lessons.

In the spring of 2000, Hanjour had asked to enroll in the CRM Airline Training Center in Scottsdale, Ariz., for advanced training, said the center's attorney, Gerald Chilton Jr. Hanjour had attended the school for three months in late 1996 and again in December 1997 but never finished coursework for a license to fly a single-engine aircraft, Chilton said.

When Hanjour reapplied to the center last year, "We declined to provide training to him because we didn't think he was a good enough student when he was there in 1996 and 1997" Chilton said.

he could not solo a cessna 150...

So what was this maneuver? that this "pilot" preformed?


At a speed of about 500 miles an hour, the plane was headed straight for what is known as P-56, protected air space 56, which covers the White House and the Capitol.

"The speed, the maneuverability, the way that he turned, we all thought in the radar room, all of us experienced air traffic controllers, that that was a military plane," says O'Brien. "You don't fly a 757 in that manner. It's unsafe." [NATCA]

But just as the plane seemed to be on a suicide mission into the White House, the unidentified pilot [Hanjour] executed a pivot so tight that it reminded observers of a fighter jet maneuver. The plane circled 270 degrees to the right to approach the Pentagon from the west, whereupon Flight 77 fell below radar level, vanishing from controllers' screens, the sources said.
Less than an hour after two other jets demolished the World Trade Center in Manhattan, Flight 77 carved a hole in the nation's defense headquarters, a hole five stories high and 200 feet wide.

Aviation sources said the plane was flown with extraordinary skill, making it highly likely that a trained pilot was at the helm, possibly one of the hijackers. Someone even knew how to turn off the transponder, a move that is considerably less than obvious. [Washington Post]

"For a guy to just jump into the cockpit and fly like an ace is impossible - there is not one chance in a thousand," said [ex-commercial pilot Russ] Wittenberg, recalling that when he made the jump from Boeing 727's to the highly sophisticated computerized characteristics of the 737's through 767's it took him considerable time to feel comfortable flying. [LewisNews]

The steep turn [of Flight 77] was so smooth, the sources say, it's clear there was no fight for control going on. [CBS News]

I normally provide audio links, etc, but the forum will not allow new members to do this..

So that is why people question hanjours flight abilities...

 

[Corsair 115]

But just as the plane seemed to be on a suicide mission into the White House, the unidentified pilot [Hanjour] executed a pivot so tight that it reminded observers of a fighter jet maneuver.

Reread the quote from the controller. Note the bolded portion.

"The speed, the maneuverability, the way that he turned, we all thought in the radar room, all of us experienced air traffic controllers, that that was a military plane," says O'Brien. "You don't fly a 757 in that manner. It's unsafe." [NATCA]

The reason it's described as military is NOT the maneuvers in and of themselves, but rather no pilot would ever fly a commerical passenger jetliner in that manner.

The plane circled 270 degrees to the right to approach the Pentagon from the west, whereupon Flight 77 fell below radar level, vanishing from controllers' screens, the sources said.

Why is a 270° right turn extraordinary? You do realize, don't you, that the 270° figure only describes the amount the aircraft turned, it does NOT describe how hard the aircraft was turning. To know how hard the turn was, you need to know how long that 270° turn took. Knowing that allows one to determine the rate of the turn, that is, how many degrees of heading change per second. A 270° change in heading executed in a thirty seconds is a sharper turn than is a 270° change executed in two minutes.

 

[defaultdotxbe]

"The speed, the maneuverability, the way that he turned, we all thought in the radar room, all of us experienced air traffic controllers, that that was a military plane," says O'Brien. "You don't fly a 757 in that manner. It's unsafe." [NATCA]

as the last 2 sentences indicate, this doesnt necessarily refer to the skill required, but rather that a passenger jet being flown in this manner is unusual and unsafe (unsafe =/= impossible)

At a speed of about 500 miles an hour, the plane was headed straight for what is known as P-56, protected air space 56, which covers the White House and the Capitol.

But just as the plane seemed to be on a suicide mission into the White House, the unidentified pilot [Hanjour] executed a pivot so tight that it reminded observers of a fighter jet maneuver. The plane circled 270 degrees to the right to approach the Pentagon from the west, whereupon Flight 77 fell below radar level, vanishing from controllers' screens, the sources said.

look at this graphic of the flight path
http://911myths.com/assets/images/77FlightPath.jpg
does it look liek it was heading to white house? (im assuming you know where washington DC is relative to the pentagon)

ill give you answer: its near impossible to tell what he is headed "directly" for until hes pratically right there, the long turn was a relatively simple maneuver to lose altitude

Aviation sources said the plane was flown with extraordinary skill, making it highly likely that a trained pilot was at the helm, possibly one of the hijackers. Someone even knew how to turn off the transponder, a move that is considerably less than obvious. [Washington Post]

you can post links if you leave off the http:// part, i would like to know who the "aviation souces" are

"For a guy to just jump into the cockpit and fly like an ace is impossible - there is not one chance in a thousand," said [ex-commercial pilot Russ] Wittenberg, recalling that when he made the jump from Boeing 727's to the highly sophisticated computerized characteristics of the 737's through 767's it took him considerable time to feel comfortable flying. [LewisNews]

except hanjour was trained on a 757, not a 727, so there was no "jump" to be made

The steep turn [of Flight 77] was so smooth, the sources say, it's clear there was no fight for control going on. [CBS News]

correct, there was no fight for control going on

hanjours own flight instructor has said he has no doubt that hanjour could have hit the pentagon, it seems he would know the most about his skills, correct? (ill post a link when i can find it)

ETA: im having trouble finding a primary source (just getting a bunch of unsourced quotes on CT websites) but this is what Marcel Bernard said of Hanjour:

"Despite Hanjour's poor reviews, he did have some ability as a pilot." and "There's no doubt in my mind that once that (hijacked jet) got going, he could have pointed that plane at a building and hit it," he said.

 

[AMTMAN]

Anyone in the world could fly a 757/767 into a building. I took kids who never flew, into a simulator after 9/11, they flew into buildings, first time. No misses. A guy published a video showing a low time small plane pilot in a 757 or 767 simulator and he hit the Pentagon first time, and every time he tried.

At pilot training in the USAF in 1974 we would get 200 hours of flight time and come out fully trained. It took 5 or 10 flights in a big jet and you could land and fly under the Captains supervision. By 600 to 1000 hours you would be ready to fly in all weather and be real safe as the Captain. The guy in the left seat.

But you could get in a 757/767 and take the plane in flight and hit a building as big as the WTC, and the Pentagon is way too big to miss.

600 hours is over kill to do 9/11. The terrorist were over trained. But then if you were going to fly a jet like that, what would you do. Hani not being able to land a C-172 was not a big deal, he was only interested in getting to the runway, not landing. His goal was not to learn to land but kill people by crashing into something. Getting a C-172 to the runway is good enough to learn the pointing aspect of flying. What does not move in the windscreen is where you hit. I bet they were taught that, every pilot is taught a version of what does not move is where you hit. Does that make sense?

Flying is easy, takeoffs and landings and running the systems can be hard. Go to the airport and take an intro flight. See how easy it is! I wish everyone would. In the 70s a lot more people went flying and tried to learn, Go see for yourself. If you try, just ignore the instruments, look outside and fly the plane. Learning all the instruments is hard, but you do not really need them. (sort of)

Reheat - did a good job and beat me to some of this. I have talked to some 757/767 Captains who are also in the AF Reserves, who worked with me while I was on active duty, and after 9/11 they agreed it would be an easy task to do the flying seen on 9/11. If you hear the truth movement lies, you must remember there are thousands if not millions of pilots who do not agree with the handful of pilots in the truth movement.

Look at the Kamikaze pilots in WWII. They were young men given a bare minimum of training. Yet they were still able to crash their planes into targets that were not only moving but shooting back at them.

 

[beachnut]

Look at the Kamikaze pilots in WWII. They were young men given a bare minimum of training. Yet they were still able to crash their planes into targets that were not only moving but shooting back at them.

Outstanding, some of them recruited in Okinawa were not taught how to land, they ran into the hills. Kind of a joke I have with a friend from Okinawa. Riding a bicycle is almost enough training for someone to aim a plane.

 

[beachnut]

but the problem that people have with hani being the pilot on 9/11 isnt that he flew a plane into a building, it was the maneuvers that the plane took before that occurred..

The thing being questions is DID he LEGITIMATELY get those 600 hours??

he could not solo a cessna 150...

So what was this maneuver? that this "pilot" preformed?

At a speed of about 500 miles an hour, the plane was headed straight for what is known as P-56, protected air space 56, which covers the White House and the Capitol.

"The speed, the maneuverability, the way that he turned, we all thought in the radar room, all of us experienced air traffic controllers, that that was a military plane," says O'Brien. "You don't fly a 757 in that manner. It's unsafe." [NATCA]

But just as the plane seemed to be on a suicide mission into the White House, the unidentified pilot [Hanjour] executed a pivot so tight that it reminded observers of a fighter jet maneuver. The plane circled 270 degrees to the right to approach the Pentagon from the west, whereupon Flight 77 fell below radar level, vanishing from controllers' screens, the sources said.
Less than an hour after two other jets demolished the World Trade Center in Manhattan, Flight 77 carved a hole in the nation's defense headquarters, a hole five stories high and 200 feet wide.

Aviation sources said the plane was flown with extraordinary skill, making it highly likely that a trained pilot was at the helm, possibly one of the hijackers. Someone even knew how to turn off the transponder, a move that is considerably less than obvious. [Washington Post]

"For a guy to just jump into the cockpit and fly like an ace is impossible - there is not one chance in a thousand," said [ex-commercial pilot Russ] Wittenberg, recalling that when he made the jump from Boeing 727's to the highly sophisticated computerized characteristics of the 737's through 767's it took him considerable time to feel comfortable flying. [LewisNews]

The steep turn [of Flight 77] was so smooth, the sources say, it's clear there was no fight for control going on. [CBS News]

I normally provide audio links, etc, but the forum will not allow new members to do this..

So that is why people question hanjours flight abilities...

What maneuvers? Are you totally inept at flying evaluation. I was a check pilot in the USAF. As an evaluator I would have to rate Hani's flight as poor. He could not hold a constant bank, he over-sped the aircraft, he was so sloppy on altitude control he would have been busted. FLUNKED. There were zero fancy maneuvers, here are the biggest things he did to make his mission more successful please pay attention this is the big thing he did that day. Hani pushed up the throttle when the Pentagon was about a mile or two away. Okay FatesWebb, this would be like when you get mad at mom and point the car at the garage and stop on the gas and run into the garage to smash it up. That was the big maneuver, Hani pushed up the throttle levers, WOW! There were no maneuvers. But smarty repeat parrot man of 9/11 truth, please show me one fancy maneuver that kid off the street could not do? Remember I have placed kids who never fly a large jet in a simulator and they hit buildings easy. Zero training, hit buildings. BTW clever parrot man, the simulator is harder to fly than the plane.

You must be one of those want to be "pilots" from p4t. Idiots with dumb ideas on 9/11. Good job.

Hani did get a commercial license, too bad you are too research challenged to find a singe fact yet.

No the maneuver was not at 500 mph, it was at a speed of 300 KIAS, you be wrong again. There is no one protecting the P-56 air space on 9/11. You can fly in and out, but you will be caught and punished. Like loose your pilots license. Most pilots are not terrorist.

Listen real close brain child who parrots BS from 9/11 truth dolts. The ATC people thought he was military, because they are use to seeing planes doing 150 KIAS, not 300 KIAS. End of story. That was it brilliant parrot for 9/11 truth. They are not use to seeing a large plane go fast in their area. End of story. There is not a thing the plane did that was like a fighter jet military thing. But going twice as fast as normal traffic is something the military has a wavier to do, so the only other planes ATC ever saw on that scope that go 300 KIAS are the military jets, and on 9/11 flight 77. BTW, 300 KIAS is a perfect cruise speed, and you are wrong about 500 mph.

Tight turn. LOL, no it was 25 to 35 degrees of bank like a lazy passenger jet turn. The only difference was planes at 7,000 feet are not suppose to be doing 300 KIAS, they are limited to 250 KIAS, it is a law. WOW 270 degrees? Do not turn around it is 180, and all the way is 360 degrees, wow. Vanished from screens? When you fly low you vanish from radar. So? The plane did hit the Pentagon, and some idiot terrorist was flying the jet.

Name the aviation sources that said the stupid 270 degree sloppy turn and easy decent had to be done by some expert pilot. Sorry, I have seen all the data, and it was down by a low time pilot, not good maneuvers, just plan old sloppy flying, even you could do. Unless you are a p4t, those guys can not fly anything very well because they have problems with the real world. Hani had studied the 757, turning off the transponder is very easy. Oops.

Russ Wittenberg is a truther. I have talked to 7 757/767 captains, they all agree, no training was needed to do what Hani did. Sorry you been ace out by 757 Captains. Poor Russ is wrong on this one, go tell him you believed him, and you are wrong too. It took him time because he is challenged to find facts, poor Russ.

Ever pilot with the ability to think logically and rationally, agree Hani was capable of flying a 757 into the Pentagon. It is a big target, even an idiot who can not land could hit the Pentagon. You need to go fly and stop being such a fool believing liars.

Unless you are JDX with a sock puppet, you could do better than this tripe you post. It is all BS. Do not bring tapes of these idiots saying the things you just posted. It is waste of time. Instead go find some pilots, not in the truth movement, and ask them. If you are too lazy, then that explains why you just post lies form 9/11 truth, they must be doing your thinking for you.

To prove your stuff is wrong all you need to do is go fly. It is so easy to hit something, but not as easy to land. That being said, there are some people, you could be one, who are so good at flying, there is not a thing they do not get the first time. But Hani was not a great pilot, he was average or below. He took over a jet in the air. He took a while to figure out he was going the wrong direction. He flew average stuff, lined up on the Pentagon, pushed up the throttles and almost hit the ground as he crashed into the Pentagon. I agree Hani sucks as a pilot, but then crashing a jet is not my idea of great flying. Go find some facts and stop the hearsay and lies from 9/11 truth, and pilot for truth. You are using data from liars.

 

[AMTMAN]

but the problem that people have with hani being the pilot on 9/11 isnt that he flew a plane into a building, it was the maneuvers that the plane took before that occurred..

The thing being questions is DID he LEGITIMATELY get those 600 hours??



he could not solo a cessna 150...

So what was this maneuver? that this "pilot" preformed?


At a speed of about 500 miles an hour, the plane was headed straight for what is known as P-56, protected air space 56, which covers the White House and the Capitol.

"The speed, the maneuverability, the way that he turned, we all thought in the radar room, all of us experienced air traffic controllers, that that was a military plane," says O'Brien. "You don't fly a 757 in that manner. It's unsafe." [NATCA]

But just as the plane seemed to be on a suicide mission into the White House, the unidentified pilot [Hanjour] executed a pivot so tight that it reminded observers of a fighter jet maneuver. The plane circled 270 degrees to the right to approach the Pentagon from the west, whereupon Flight 77 fell below radar level, vanishing from controllers' screens, the sources said.
Less than an hour after two other jets demolished the World Trade Center in Manhattan, Flight 77 carved a hole in the nation's defense headquarters, a hole five stories high and 200 feet wide.

Aviation sources said the plane was flown with extraordinary skill, making it highly likely that a trained pilot was at the helm, possibly one of the hijackers. Someone even knew how to turn off the transponder, a move that is considerably less than obvious. [Washington Post]

"For a guy to just jump into the cockpit and fly like an ace is impossible - there is not one chance in a thousand," said [ex-commercial pilot Russ] Wittenberg, recalling that when he made the jump from Boeing 727's to the highly sophisticated computerized characteristics of the 737's through 767's it took him considerable time to feel comfortable flying. [LewisNews]

The steep turn [of Flight 77] was so smooth, the sources say, it's clear there was no fight for control going on. [CBS News]

I normally provide audio links, etc, but the forum will not allow new members to do this..

So that is why people question hanjours flight abilities...

I always get a kick ot of people like Mr. Wittenberg saying it would be impossible for Flight 77 to be flown in the manner it was. Well evidently Hani was still able to fly it into the Pentagon. Here's another thing to consider. There have been many occasions where something was said to be "impossible" that ended actually being quite possible. Case in point, UAL 232. Up until that accident it was said to be almost impossbile for a DC-10 to have a complete hydraulic system failure. Yet it ended up happening.

 

[defaultdotxbe]

Hani pushed up the throttle when the Pentagon was about a mile or two away. Okay FatesWebb, this would be like when you get mad at mom and point the car at the garage and stop on the gas and run into the garage to smash it up. That was the big maneuver, Hani pushed up the throttle levers, WOW!

i read an article about a year ago that said that even this was a mark of a novice pilot

the author speculated that hanjour aimed the nose of the plane at the "bullseye" formed the center courtyard and concentric rings of the pentagon (which seems reasonable) and when he got lined up a pushed the throttle all the way up

however, inexpereinced as he was he failed to account for the increase in lift coming with the increase in speed, and as he got closer he realised hed overshoot the target, and quickly pushed the nose down (and overcompensating at that) and slamming into the ground floor


unfortunately i lost the link, and as i said the author was simply sepculating, but it makes as much sense as anything else IMO

 

[Mince]

Was Hani Hanjour really inexperienced?

I'm not sure I can answer this, but I do know, given a solo opportunity, he crashed his plane into a very low building. That's a little indicative.

 

[Boone 870]

Good point Mince. I guess he was good enough to hit the Pentagon, but not good enough to hit it on the way in to DC and not good enough to avoid hitting light poles.

 

[fezzic]

Doesn't really matter whether he or any of the other hijackers were "experienced" which normally would mean (to me) that they would be able to handle a variety of aircraft behavior and procedures or "inexperienced".

What matters is that they were qualified (generally) to operate the aircraft including systems like transponders, radios, and navigation. They were familiar with piloting the aircraft. Anything else they might have known is irrelevant since they didn't intend to make flying a career nor did they actually intend to survive their experience.

 

[Reality Believer]

A popular claim is that flight 77 made an "impossible" fighter like maneuver at the end, just before crashing into the Pentagon.

Here is a clip, in real time, from the NTSB animation that shows the last 4 minutes of the flight that is essentially the 270 degree turn.

I am not a pilot, but have been a passenger plenty of times, and this animation, to me, does not seem much more aggressive than good hard turn to intercept the glide slope on a final approach. Certainly not "fighter jet" territory.

 

[jaydeehess]

Flt 77 never exceeded 1 g in its turn, its desent rate was certainly not all that great and the turn was by no means steeply banked. The plane did not get to 500 MPH until the straight line aim at the Pentagon.

The "ground effect" arguement is only made by people unwilling to research how this would affect an aircraft trimmed for cruise, with wheels up and flaps retracted and going 3.5 times normal landing speed.

 

[Spins]

Well if that's the case since most modern fighters are built to deliberately sustain 9g turns the assertion that Flight 77 made an "impossible" fighter like maneuver is pure nonsense.

All harps back to this quote from Danielle O'Brien at Dulles ATC which was taken out of context by conspiracy theorists.

 

[JamesB]

as the last 2 sentences indicate, this doesnt necessarily refer to the skill required, but rather that a passenger jet being flown in this manner is unusual and unsafe (unsafe =/= impossible)



look at this graphic of the flight path
http://911myths.com/assets/images/77FlightPath.jpg
does it look liek it was heading to white house? (im assuming you know where washington DC is relative to the pentagon)

ill give you answer: its near impossible to tell what he is headed "directly" for until hes pratically right there, the long turn was a relatively simple maneuver to lose altitude


you can post links if you leave off the http:// part, i would like to know who the "aviation souces" are


except hanjour was trained on a 757, not a 727, so there was no "jump" to be made


correct, there was no fight for control going on

hanjours own flight instructor has said he has no doubt that hanjour could have hit the pentagon, it seems he would know the most about his skills, correct? (ill post a link when i can find it)

ETA: im having trouble finding a primary source (just getting a bunch of unsourced quotes on CT websites) but this is what Marcel Bernard said of Hanjour:

"Despite Hanjour's poor reviews, he did have some ability as a pilot." and "There's no doubt in my mind that once that (hijacked jet) got going, he could have pointed that plane at a building and hit it," he said.

That is from CNN:

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0109/17/se.18.html

O'CONNOR: Hanjour didn't come back, and while landing a Cessna is far different from landing a 757, Bernard says keeping it in the air isn't.

BERNARD: We believe that even though he didn't necessarily have experience in jets, that once the airplane was airborne, that he could have easily pointed it in any direction he wanted to, and crashed it into a building or whatever would be a real feasibility, real possibility.

 

[Kent1]

That is from CNN:

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0109/17/se.18.html

O'CONNOR: Hanjour didn't come back, and while landing a Cessna is far different from landing a 757, Bernard says keeping it in the air isn't.

BERNARD: We believe that even though he didn't necessarily have experience in jets, that once the airplane was airborne, that he could have easily pointed it in any direction he wanted to, and crashed it into a building or whatever would be a real feasibility, real possibility.

http://www.capeargus.co.za/index.php?fSectionId=55&fArticleId=3171841


Woman taught 9/11 hijacker how to fly

The manager of a US flight school told of the terrible moment she realised she had helped to train Hani Hanjour, the September 11 hijacker who flew a jet into the Pentagon.

"I knew in my heart that Hani was part of it," Peggy Chevrette said yesterday at the death penalty trial in Alexandria, Virginia, of al-Qaeda conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui.

She told of her dread as the attacks unfolded.

"On 9/11 my husband told me that a plane had gone into one of the Twin Towers, then before I left for work, the second plane went in.

"On my way to work, the third plane had gone into the Pentagon.

"I remember crying ... knowing that our company helped to do this."


Chevrette, manager of a flight school in Phoenix, Arizona, said she had telephoned the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) three times to express concerns that Hanjour's piloting skills that were so bad she thought he would injure himself or others. But no action was taken, she said.

Witnesses told yesterday how, despite poor piloting skills and bizarre airborne antics, the hijackers had evaded detection by authorities as they learned to fly in the US in the months before the strikes.

 

[jaydeehess]

So, what did the controller mean by their thinking it must be a military pilot? Well the plane was desending at a higher forward speed than any commercial pilot would and was in fact doing a much greater speed than any commercial pilot would be doing while approaching the ground. commercial aircraft simply do not do low level at high speed, only fighters do that thus the statement that this looked like a fighter manouver perhaps.
It was also turning to do what would look somewhat like an approach to National airport yet any commercial pilot would have gone much further out and reduced speed while turning and desending. A landing approach at that speed is also unsafe for a large commercial jet.

However it must be kept in mind that Hanjour had nothing "safe" in mind for the aircraft or the souls on board. Low level unsafe flight? Sure, why not, after all one must fly low and fast if one's intent is to crash the plane and do maximum damage. Turn and desend at high forward speed? Sure, why not if one is intent on getting the aircraft to slam into a building as soon as possible. Hanjour never did anything that was technically particularily difficult. He did many things that a pilot intent on staying alive and well and keeping his aircraft and passengers intact would not do but those were not a concern to Hanjour.

 

[jaydeehess]

The military pilots here have noted that the landing of a Cessna requires one to level out at a height of only a few feet off the ground while a large aircraft requires that one do it while still 30 feet off the ground(the pilot that is) since at that height the wheels touch the runway.

I note also that a light Cessna would be much more greatly affected by wind than a heavy on final. A change in wind speed or direction of a few MPH will cause a Cessna to pitch, yaw or drift quickly compared to the effect on a large heavy aircraft and this will be accentuated on landing since the plane's airspeed is so low. If Hanjour had trouble landing the Cessna it could also be that he had great difficulty with even a slight crosswind or wind gusts that simply would not be much of an issue with a large Boeing and easily corrected for.

 

[Spins]

So, what did the controller mean by their thinking it must be a military pilot? Well the plane was desending at a higher forward speed than any commercial pilot would and was in fact doing a much greater speed than any commercial pilot would be doing while approaching the ground. commercial aircraft simply do not do low level at high speed, only fighters do that thus the statement that this looked like a fighter manouver perhaps.
It was also turning to do what would look somewhat like an approach to National airport yet any commercial pilot would have gone much further out and reduced speed while turning and desending. A landing approach at that speed is also unsafe for a large commercial jet.

However it must be kept in mind that Hanjour had nothing "safe" in mind for the aircraft or the souls on board. Low level unsafe flight? Sure, why not, after all one must fly low and fast if one's intent is to crash the plane and do maximum damage. Turn and desend at high forward speed? Sure, why not if one is intent on getting the aircraft to slam into a building as soon as possible. Hanjour never did anything that was technically particularily difficult. He did many things that a pilot intent on staying alive and well and keeping his aircraft and passengers intact would not do but those were not a concern to Hanjour.

Who are you replying to, me? If so I was actually agreeing with you that a 1g turn isn't exactly a fighter like manoeuvre because they (fighter jets) are designed to pull a constant 9g in turns, if Flight 77 pulled a 9g turn then fair enough that would be a valid description/comparison. I mentioned the quote from Danielle O'Brien at Dulles ATC because that's where, as far as I'm aware, the fighter jet manoeuvre conspiracy theory originated, they deliberately quoted her out-of-context.

 

[Reheat]

So, what did the controller mean by their thinking it must be a military pilot?

I think this has already been pointed out, but I'll mention it again.

Guys, it obvious what the Dulles Controller meant regarding this comment. There is an ICAO Speed Limit as follows:

Below 10,000 feet ASL indicated airspeed is limited to 250 knots;

Below 3,000 feet AGL within 10 NM of a controlled airport indicated speed is limited to 200 knots unless authorized to do so in an air traffic control clearance.

Military Fighters/Trainers whose Flight Manual calls for higher speeds ARE EXEMPT from these restriction.

AA77 was exceeding this speed and that would have been obvious to an experienced Air Traffic Controller. In her experience the ONLY aircraft who exceeded the speed limit were military, hence her comment. The turn was perfectly normal except AA77 was violating the speed limit during the turn. That's all.