In the second week of August 2001, Hanjour had attempted to rent a small plane from an airport in Bowie, MD. Flight instructors Sheri Baxter and Ben Conner declined his request, after taking Hanjour on three test runs, noting he had trouble controlling and landing the Cessna 172. Though Hanjour had attended a flight school in Scottsdale, AZ, for four months in 1996 and 1997, he never completed the coursework for a single-engine aircraft license.  

It is doubtful that the best trained fighter pilots could have executed the maneuver that supposedly crashed a 757 into the Pentagon.It required making a tight 320-degree turn while descending seven thousand feet, then leveling out so as to fly low enough over the highway just west of the Pentagon to knock down lamp posts. After crossing the highway the pilot had to take the plane to within inches of the ground so as to crash into the Pentagon at the first-floor level and at such a shallow angle that [the Navy cruise missile] engine penetrated three rings of the building, while managing to avoid touching the lawn. And he had to do all of this while flying over 400 mph. Quite a feat for a flight school flunky who had never sat in the cockpit of a jet!  (read more)