Wednesday, Jul 9, 2008
En route to the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, Mohammed Atta didn't stall American Airlines flight 11, and Marwen Al-Shehhi didn't rip the wings off United Airlines flight 175. While both men were licensed pilots, neither had previous experience in a 767 or the equivalent professional simulator -- at least, not in the U.S. In Florida, each had logged three hours on a 727 simulator, an older and less sophisticated aircraft, which suggests they hadn't received instruction on a 767 simulator abroad.
Yet the mystery behind their skills pales beside the case of Hani Hanjour, the suspected pilot of the plane that struck the Pentagon. Hanjour had been deemed inept even in a small aircraft by flight school instructors in Arizona and Maryland and just weeks before the attacks had failed the checkride exam required to rent a plane at another facility. When the time came, however, he handled the doomed 757 like a fighter jet, swooping down and clipping light poles before T-boning the Pentagon at high speed.
Did the hijackers use flight-simulation games to augment their actual flying lessons and better acquaint themselves with the aircraft they planned to overtake? The FBI refuses to say what, if any, flight-sim software was found on the terrorists' computers, citing the pending trial of suspected al-Qaida member Zacarias Moussaoui, who raised suspicions when he sought instruction at a Minnesota training facility on how to keep a 747 straight and level -- but not how to take off or land. Moussaoui reportedly had flight-simulation software on his laptop computer when he was arrested.
FBI spokesman John Iannarelli says the bureau doesn't really care if realistic computer flight sims get into the wrong hands. "Generally, anything that's commercially available but doesn't have, by its nature, nefarious intent is not something the FBI would be interested in," he says. "Someone learning through a flight-simulator program with the idea of taking over an aircraft still has huge hurdles to surmount -- mainly gaining access to the cockpit."
Warnick, whose flights often take him to the United States, disagrees. "Are we still at risk of getting a terrorist into the flight deck? You bet. We are still allowed visits by cabin crew. The junior girls in particular get lazy and come in with two cups of coffee and leave the door open behind them. If you were sitting on the front row, then you could leap up, slamming the door behind you, while pushing a ballpoint pen into the eyes of the captain and first officer."
Precision Manuals Development Group founder Robert Randazzo, who is also an airline pilot, declined to be interviewed for this story; Wilco Publishing co-founder Fred Goldman says his company has no information about whether any of the Sept. 11 hijackers purchased or used "767 Pilot in Command" and adds that Wilco has never been contacted by the FBI or any other law enforcement agency. A product such as "767 Pilot in Command" takes a year or two to develop, he says, and the heightened accuracy stems from having active pilots on the programming team. Neither Boeing nor Airbus has objected to the software or demanded a licensing fee for the use of their planes' likenesses.
"We are only using publicly available information," Goldman says, although the product literature would have users believe otherwise. The A320's instruction manual says the program offers 1) "a fully-functional virtual cockpit with a perfect, realistic view of the whole flight deck," 2) "near total simulation of on-board systems," and 3) "a precise flight model and a perfect reproduction of the Fly-by-Wire system with which the Airbus is equipped." Nevertheless, Goldman maintains that the program couldn't provide a complete education. "Although instrument flying can be learned on a PC-based simulator," he says, "the handling of a real aircraft cannot be simulated. The use of our add-ons as the only source for a terrorist is not enough."
Some aviation experts refute the training potential of home computer games for the same reason, saying the programs don't -- and can't -- re-create the physical characteristics of the aircraft such as the feel of the yoke or the rudder pedals, and many pilots agree that an airliner under the manual control of a novice would soon veer astray like a horse bolting under a hapless rider. Thanks to the automated design of modern airliners, however, most phases of flight -- even landing, at a properly equipped airport -- can be performed without touching the main controls. Once the autopilot is engaged, changes in course, speed or altitude can be entered with the twist of a knob. If you can set an alarm clock, you can turn a 767 in flight.
This is where simulation software shines, thanks to its faithful depiction of high-tech systems and procedures. "The threat to air travel that these sims produce," Warnick says, "is that once the aircraft is airborne, anyone entering the flight deck could program the latitude and longitude of the chosen target into the flight management computer." Then the hijacker could "engage the appropriate autopilot commands and -- unless intercepted or out of fuel -- watch as the aircraft carries out the attack completely automatically."
Retired TWA captain Barry Schiff, who says the flight deck of the Wilco 767 looks identical to the 767s he flew during his 34 years as an airline pilot, doesn't believe such programs would ever be a terrorist asset. After all, using an airplane as a cruise missile ultimately requires more fanaticism than finesse. "If you wanted to point an airplane at something on the ground and crash into it," Schiff says, "you don't have to know a hell of a lot."
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