Terrorists ‘flew the planes themselves’
The terrorists who hijacked four planes and attacked the US Pentagon and World Trade Centre are believed to have flown the planes themselves.
Terrorism experts say the suicide mission could only have succeeded with the use of trained terrorist pilots.
Gene Poteat, President of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers said, “They flew the planes themselves. No pilot, even with a gun to his head, is going to fly into the World Towers.”
He added that the terrorists might have been able to disable communications systems used to alert authorities to trouble.
Anti-terrorist organisations had examined the possibility of attacks on such prominent buildings, but had not expected simultaneous attacks.
They had also envisaged potential for attack by chemical or biological means, rather than today’s relatively low-technology attacks.