Ari Fleischer's claim that the president didn't come back to the
White House right away because there was a "very credible" threat that
the White House was one of the targets is completly specious, and his
claim that Air Force One was also a target is nothing short of  laughable.

I've been a licensed pilot since 1986.  I grew up in Maryland and I learned
to fly in the DC area, so I'm pretty familiar with the geography and the landmarks there.
Take a look at a map of downtown D.C. and the surrounding area. The White House
is bordered on three sides by buildings that are as tall or taller than itself.  (OEOB,
Treasury, and Blair House.)  Beyond these buildings thare are still more buildings,
both government and private, that also are taller than the White House.

The only flight path that is relatively unobstructed if making a controlled,
straight-in approach, is from the south, over the ellipse.Even the Marine helicopter
the the president uses comes in from this direction and lands on the South Lawn.
The problem with flying a plane the size of a 757 or 767 in from this direction is
that there's a 555 ft tall structure in the way called the Washington Monument.
Some might say that a pilot could maneuver around it.  I say that in  that type of
aircraft, going in excess of 300 MPH, even an extremely skilled pilot would have
a hard time doing that.  Moreover, from the south, the view of the White House
is mostly obscured by trees.  It presents a very small target from even a mile away.
Trying to hit this with a jetliner going in excess of 300 MPH would require too
much luck as well as skill. These crazies were going for percentage shots.

The Capitol, although a bigger target, is similarly situated. There are buildings
on all sides except for the west side, which faces the Mall.  Again, for a controlled,
straight-in approach, a pilot first would need to avoid the Washington Monument,
and then fly straight down the Mall.  There is more room to do this, but again,
it would take considerable skill.  Moreover, the buildings in Roslyn, just across
the river from and to the west of the Mall, would have to be cleared, which means
the plane's altitude would probably be too high, or the angle of descent too steep
to permit a successful attack by anyone other than a skilled, experienced pilot
(which these pilots were not.)

The Jefferson and Lincoln Memorials present somewhat easier targets, but they
still are relatively small.  Additionally, there would not be as big an impact --
politically or pyrotechnically -- from targeting one of these buildings.

There are few other alternatives.  One would be to crash into the Federal Triangle,
which would kill thousands and disrupt the day-to-day operations of the Federal
Government.  But the Triangle is difficult to make out from the air when one is
NOT a suicidal, religion-crazed whacko, so it would hardly make a viable target
for the attackers.  They could crash into Crystal City, which would not only have
killed thousands, but also disrupted a fair amount of government business as well.
But few outside of those familiar with the D.C. area, even knows what this is.

No, the attackers needed a target in DC that was big, easily spotted
from miles away, easily approached from at least two directions, and
had sufficient worldwide prestige to make a very loud statement.

The Pentagon is by far the easiest D.C. landmark to see from the air.
In fact, it's so big it can be seen from low Earth orbit.  Coming in from the west,
the attackers probably did fly just to the north of the White House, using the
Washington Monument for a visual reference to steer toward D.C.  A wide, easy
U-turn east of the Capitol would set them up nicely for an approach directly into
the northeast wall of the Pentagon.  They would pass over SE D.C., where there
are no tall buildings to avoid, and be able to descend to tree-top level by the time
they were crossing over Haines Point and the Potomac River, continuing on to
their target in a straight-on, controlled descent.

As for Air Force One, for it to be a target the attackers would need continuous,
up-to-the-minute intelligence on its altitude and position just to be able to steer
toward it.  This is not the kind of  information they're going to get by watching CNN.
The hallmark of  their plan was its simplicity, and the very clever and efficient use
of widely available information no more complex than an airline schedule, and,
training that would cost would cost as little as copy of Microsoft Flight Simulator.

For Fleischer to suggest that Air Force One was a target is to suggest that the
attackers had inside information on the plane's whereabouts at critical, if not all times.
Setting aside the problem of finding the plane in the air, the difficulty in colliding with
it would only be compounded by the fact that it is flown by some of the most able
pilots in the US Military, highly-trained in evasive maneuvers.  Surely, the attackers
would have factored this into their planning, and dismissed it as being too unlikely
a goal to achieve.

With the exception of the fourth flight, on which something went terribly wrong for
the attackers, none of the flights came dive-bombing out of the sky.  All of them
made fast but level approaches into their targets.  And with good reason.
First, at too steep an an angle a commercial jetliner will accelerate to a speed
beyond which it can be controlled, let alone directed accurately to a target, by
even a highly skilled pilot.  And, second, these attackers were neither skilled,
nor were they experienced in flying large Boeing commercial aircraft.  But they were
determined to hit their targets, which apparently were chosen for their size and ease
of access, as well as political value.  They were not about to risk missing their
objectives for the sake of fancy flying.  It is extremely doubtful that either the
White House or Air Force One were ever targets.
 

Nick Seidenman
Coconut Creek, Florida