Alleged 20th hijacker wanted to fly ‘big bird’

Alleged 20th hijacker Zacarias Moussaoui wrote that he wanted to ‘‘pilot one of those big bird’’ as he tried to get into a flight school.

The French-Moroccan, who faces the death penalty over charges that he conspired to hijack planes and crash them into buildings, was arrested in August when he aroused the suspicions of the flight school he asked to join.

And today the e-mail he sent the Pan Am International flight academy was published for the first time and showed how he admitted he was ‘‘not a real professional pilot’’.

In it he said he wanted to be able to fly an airline and navigate to Heathrow airport, but said he only had 55 hours of flying time in a small training plane.

Moussaoui, 33, wrote in broken English despite having a masters degree in international business from London’s South Bank University and having lived on and off in London since the early 1990s.

‘I am Mrs Zacariasl,’’ he wrote from his e-mail address, pilotz123athotmail.com.

‘‘Basically I need to know if you can help me achieve my Goal’ my dream.

‘‘I would like to fly in a professional’ like manners one of the big airliners.

‘‘I have to made my mind which of the followwing: Boeing 747, 757, 767, 777 and or Airbus A300 (it will depend on the cost and which one is easiest to learn).

‘‘The level I would like to achieve is to be able to takeoff and land, to handle communication with ATC, to be able to successfully navigate from A to B (JFK to Heathrow for example).

‘‘In a sense to be able to pilot one of these Big Bird, even if I am not a real professional pilot.’’

And he ended the message by saying: ‘‘I know it could be better but I am sire that you can do something.

‘‘After all we are in AMERICA and everything is possible. Have a nice day, waiting for a positive fly.’’

John Rosengren, director of operations at Pan Am International’s Minneapolis branch, where Moussaoui went in August 2001, said as soon as he arrived employees realised he was not the rich playboy they had taken him for.

He paid by pulling a thick wad of cash out of a satchel and said he wanted technical classroom training.

‘‘The cash, the Middle Eastern accent, the fact that he had very little pilot training and wanted a significant amount of training in ground school and on the simulator - all of these things together pointed to the fact that this was a significant concern,’’ said Mr Rosengren.

Other employees began asking if Moussaoui ‘‘could have been a hijacker who could have tried to take an airplane filled with passengers’’.

‘‘There was a discussion about how much fuel was on board a 747-400 and how much damage that could cause if it hit anything,’’ he added.

After the alleged al Qaida member had completed a second day of classroom instruction, a manager asked permission to call the FBI, who arrested Moussaoui on August 15.

But after being arrested and having his details passed to the FBI’s counter-terrorism unit, who learned French intelligence had a file on him, it was not until after September 11 that detectives were able to piece together enough details to find out enough about Moussaoui.

His trial is scheduled for later this year.