Thanks to Bill Herbert for pointing to this Slate story that debunks a central claim about alleged terrorist Zacarias Moussaoui.
All of the media coverage about Moussaoui has claimed that his behavior was suspicious because he wanted to learn how to fly a plane but did not want to learn how to take off or land — implying that he was training to pilot a plane into the World Trade Center.
It turns out that widely reported claim is false. According to writer Kate Taylor, “The facts are just the opposite: Moussaoui told his Eagan, Minn., instructors he wanted to learn only how to take off and land.”
According to Taylor, the FBI corrected the erroneous claim in a Nov. 17, 2001 meeting with reporters, but the orginal reports have stuck in the minds of the media (Taylor notes that Maureen Dowd last Sunday repeated the claim that Moussaoui did not want to learn how to take off or land).
Source:
Did the Media Misreport Zacarias Moussaoui’s Suspicious Activities? Kate Taylor, Slate, May 21, 2002.