A Trainee Noted for Incompetence - New York Times

"Among the five hijackers aboard American Airlines Flight 77, Hani Hanjour was the sole individual who FAA records show completed flight training and received FAA pilot certification. Hanjour received his commercial multi-engine pilot certificate from the FAA in March 1999. He received extensive flight training in the United States including flight simulator training, and was perhaps the most experienced and highly trained pilot among the 9/11 hijackers." 9/11 Commission Staff Statement No. 4

"Federal Aviation Administration records show he obtained a commercial pilot's license in April 1999, but how and where he did so remains a lingering question that FAA officials refuse to discuss. His limited flying abilities do afford an insight into one feature of the attacks: The conspiracy apparently did not include a surplus of skilled pilots." The Cape Cod Times

"However, when Baxter (Sheri Baxter, flight instructor) 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." (Newsday) Local copy - original removed.

"Hani Hanjour, who investigators contend piloted airliner that crashed into Pentagon on Sept 11, was reported to Federal Aviation Administration in Feb 2001 after instructors at Pan Am International Flight Academy in Phoenix found his piloting skills so shoddy and his grasp of English so inadequate that they questioned whether his pilot's license was genuine....." New York Times

"They reported him not because they feared he was a terrorist, but because his English and flying skills were so bad, they told the Associated Press, they didn't think he should keep his pilot's license." CBS

Here we see the 9/11 Commission saying one thing and certified flight instructors another. The Commission had to say his skills were great to account for the maneuver at the Pentagon. But peopled trained to evaluate pilots said the exact opposite. I wonder why the FAA doesn't want to talk about it?