Kip Powick Posted January 25, 2008 Share Posted January 25, 2008 WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A Minnesota flight instructor who notified his bosses of student Zacarias Moussaoui's suspicious behavior received a $5 million reward Thursday from the State Department, two government officials told CNN. Zacarias Moussaoui was convicted in 2006 of conspiring to kill Americans on September 11, 2001. Clarence "Clancy" Prevost was an instructor at the Pan Am International Flight Academy in Eagan, Minnesota, when Moussaoui was a student there. Moussaoui, sometimes called the "20th hijacker," is the only person charged and convicted in connection with the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington. Prevost received the reward from the State Department's Rewards for Justice program in a closed ceremony at the State Department, the officials told CNN. Moussaoui, an admitted al Qaeda operative, was prevented from participating in the 9/11 attacks because he was in jail. He was sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole in connection with his role in 9/11. He is held at the federal Supermax facility in Florence, Colorado. Prevost, a retired Northwest Airlines pilot, has never spoken publicly about Moussaoui, but testified during the sentencing phase of Moussaoui's trial. He said that by the second day of teaching Moussaoui, he heard that Moussaoui paid the bulk of his $8,300 tuition for a flight simulator course in hundred-dollar bills. And that made Prevost think the FBI should be notified. He testified that he found Moussaoui to be a "pretty genial guy" until a lunchtime conversation turned to the Hajj, a pilgrimage to Mecca made by Muslims during Ramadan. Prevost wanted to know if Moussaoui could explain the Hajj to him and asked, "Are you Muslim?" Prevost testified that Moussaoui responded by raising his voice and saying, "I am nothing!" Prevost testified that he approached his managers, and recalled telling them, "We don't know anything about this guy, and we're teaching him how to throw the switches on a 747." But he said his managers at first told him Moussaoui had paid his money and they didn't care. Prevost testified that he told his bosses, "We'll care when there's a hijacking and the lawsuits come in." He testified Moussaoui's stated goal of learning to fly from Heathrow Airport in London to New York's John F. Kennedy Airport was unusual from the beginning, because Moussaoui had 50-odd hours of flight time on a single-engine propeller plane and no pilot's license. Prevost testified he usually had students with more than 600 hours of flight time, and that they are usually professional pilots looking to upgrade their skills and fly bigger jets for a higher salary. But Moussaoui, he testified, "had no frame of reference whatsoever with a commercial airliner. After 15 minutes I said, 'Let's get lunch.' " Prevost said he was worried that if Moussaoui completed the three four-hour 747 simulator sessions he had booked, he would know how to operate a real 747. He testified that he let Moussaoui sit in on another student's simulator session, but he never got any of his own sessions. A day after Prevost went to his bosses with his concerns, two Pan Am program managers called the FBI, leading to Moussaoui's arrest on an immigration violation. Moussaoui had stayed in the United States past his allowed 90 days on his French passport. In November, the Air Line Pilots Association, International, presented Prevost with its 2007 Presidential Citation Award for his efforts to alert authorities to Moussaoui, according to an ALPA statement. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mo32a Posted January 27, 2008 Share Posted January 27, 2008 Just turn in anyone with a muslim type name and/or appearance and sooner or later you will collect $5million. HeII of a deal. 12 hours training and you're a 747 pilot - who would have thunk it. Heck I got 12 hours to spare - I think I will get me a job. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
handyman Posted January 27, 2008 Share Posted January 27, 2008 Just turn in anyone with a muslim type name and/or appearance and sooner or later you will collect $5million. HeII of a deal. 12 hours training and you're a 747 pilot - who would have thunk it. Heck I got 12 hours to spare - I think I will get me a job. I don't think you have made a fair statement! I agree with the IP that it was genuinely unusual for a 50 hour PPL holder to want to spend $8300 for B747 training with interest only in the JFK area. Without the advantage of hindsight, this IP's concern was very valid and you would have to be numb of the facts not to think so. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mo32a Posted January 28, 2008 Share Posted January 28, 2008 My point was that all of these clowns trained in the US, by virtue of probability eventually you are going to turn in someone who is actually guilty of something. I agree the IP was on the ball - what I hate is the reticence of his employers to follow up on it. Lesson - in the future go to homeland security and bypass your boss. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
handyman Posted January 28, 2008 Share Posted January 28, 2008 My point was that all of these clowns trained in the US, by virtue of probability eventually you are going to turn in someone who is actually guilty of something. I agree the IP was on the ball - what I hate is the reticence of his employers to follow up on it. Lesson - in the future go to homeland security and bypass your boss. Gotcha...agreed! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moon The Loon Posted January 28, 2008 Share Posted January 28, 2008 An acquaintance of mine from AA Dallas identified one of the others who actually went through with it. The info was passed directly to the FBI and buried/ignored/forgotten/whatever. No soup for him... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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