Co-pilot played minor role in story of Moussaoui

Associated Press, 26 October 2002

 

MINNEAPOLIS - The co-pilot who died in the crash of Sen. Paul Wellstone's plane played a minor role in the case of Zacarias Moussaoui, the alleged Sept. 11 conspirator who briefly attended an Eagan flight school.

Co-pilot Michael Guess had performed administrative work at the Pan Am International Flight Academy last year as he continued accumulating flying hours. There he met Moussaoui, the school's most infamous student.

Two former Pan Am program managers who tipped the FBI to Moussaoui's suspicious behavior at the school in August 2001 told the Star Tribune that Guess inadvertently gave Moussaoui unattended access to a computer program on flying a 747 jumbo jet.

One of the ex-managers said Guess placed a CD-ROM containing the 747 software at a work station in advance of one of Moussaoui's training sessions, before his flight instructor arrived. After Moussaoui was arrested and the FBI searched his belongings, they found the proprietary program copied on his laptop computer, the ex-manager said.

Guess was a victim of layoffs several weeks ago at the flight academy, where he had hoped to become a flight instructor.

At Executive Aviation in Eden Prairie, where Guess had been employed as a pilot since June 2001, a spokesman said colleagues remembered Guess telling them he had played a more significant role regarding the suspicions concerning Moussaoui.

Dave Mona, a spokesman for Executive Aviation, said Guess' colleagues had said that Guess had described himself as "at least a role player" in the detection of Moussaoui. Mona said Guess told his colleagues that "he and the receptionist . . . thought what (Moussaoui) was requesting was unusual" and raised the issue with others.

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