Search for terrorists extended to Scottish flying schools
by Andrew Black. Aberdeen Press and Journal
HIGHLAND CID officers visited a Caithness flying school as part of ongoing investigations into the US terrorist attacks.
Andrew Bruce, owner of Far North Flight Training, said yesterday he had received unusual e-mails from "areas in middle Europe", inquiring about his training school.
He said detectives wanted to know if anyone of "unusual origin" had asked about flight training in Wick, with a view to learning to fly in the North.
"I'm not surprised at all that I got a visit from the police," he said.
"These pilots (terrorists) have trained at similar schools in America, so the police coming here to make inquiries seems like a very good place to start."
Details of the visit emerged as a British defence analyst claimed members of Osama bin Laden's terrorist organisation may have been trained in the Highlands, during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.
It was reported yesterday that checks were made at other Scottish airfields including Glasgow, Cumbernauld, Prestwick, Perth, Edinburgh and Fife.
A spokesman for Tayside Police confirmed there had been an increased police presence at Dundee Airport following the terrorist attacks in America but he denied any investigation into flight training had been carried out by CID officers.
He said: "There has been high-profile police activity with officers attending the airport for public reassurance. There has been no inquiry made about people learning to fly, the police presence is just a show of strength to reassure the public who are still using aircraft."
However, officers from Wick Police Station visited Far North Flight Training, based at the town's airport. The company was started in 1991 and also supplies aviation fuel.
Wick CID officer Detective Sergeant Duncan Fraser yesterday confirmed general inquiries had taken place at the flight school with regard to the terrorist attacks, although he would not comment on reports that Special Branch had been involved in the visit.
Mr Bruce said: "You can go into a computer store and buy a program to put on your desktop computer that will show you how to fly a 767. The standards that flight simulators are at now are incredible.
"They (the terrorists) could have trained on a simulator and then just gone up in the real things. They are very realistic.
"These people would not even have had to have training in light aircraft.
"There were a couple of strange queries on e-mail, from areas in middle Europe, asking for all the information I had on learning to fly. The police wanted to know if anyone of unusual origin had asked about flight training in Wick, with a view to coming to the North of Scotland to learn to fly."
Defence analyst John Nichols said members of Osama bin Laden's terrorist organisation may have been trained in the Highlands.
Mr Nichols, a former RAF pilot who was taken hostage during the Gulf War, said his interrogators in Iraq had been trained in Britain.
He said it illustrated the difficulties in building "coalitions" with countries which may become enemies at a later date.
He said: "When the mujahidin were fighting their war against the Soviet Union, our special forces flew them into Luton Airport and transported them up to the Highlands of Scotland to train them in the use of terrorist activities against the Soviet Union.
"This is the whole problem with all of this – if you look at Iraq in the 1970s and 1980s during the war against Iran, we supported Iraq, trained Iraqi pilots in our air force and the Government was more than happy to export the basics of chemical weapons to Iraq. These things are well-known.
"One of the officers that interrogated me went to one of our joint services defence schools in the South of England. If you have a foreign policy, you are getting involved in other countries' affairs and once you are involving yourself in other people's affairs your foreign policy is not ethical.
"Whatever we do in the coming weeks, months and even years, something will come back to bite us in further years."
Mr Nichols said current intelligence efforts should concentrate on preventing another devastating attack such as the World Trade Centre attack.