Was London bomber planning to become a pilot?

Last updated at 13:21 25 July 2005


Police are investigating whether one of the July 7 suicide bombers obsessively used flight simulators to practise flying passenger planes.

Germaine Lindsay is listed as a "pilot" with a web-based group of flying enthusiasts who operate virtual copies of genuine airline schedules.

Most members of the club use Microsoft Flight Simulator, a realistic PC-based program that is also thought to have been used for training by the September 11 attackers.

A pilot roster for SimAirline.net indicates that a "Jermaine Lindsay" joined the group in December 2003.

He listed his nearest major airport as London Heathrow, and clocked up nearly 30 hours honing his skills over the next two months.

Police began investigating possible links between Lindsay - whose first name has been variously spelt Germaine and Jermaine - and flying simulators after being handed the document by the Press Association, the national news agency owned by national and regional newspaper groups, last week.

Police investigation

It is understood detectives have been trying to establish whether the man on the roster is the same 19-year-old who set off a bomb on the Piccadilly Tube line on July 7, killing himself and 26 others.

A spokeswoman for Scotland Yard said today that they would not comment on individual lines of inquiry.

SimAirline.net operates a virtual copy of scheduled flights by 22 real carriers, including British Airways, Virgin, Emirates and Air Canada.

The group's hundreds of pilots are expected to log their trips, stick to specified timetables, and use the type of aircraft employed by the particular airline they are "flying" for.

The 9/11 Commission in the US concluded last year that the terrorists on planes which flew into the World Trade Centre and Pentagon had used PC-based flight simulators for training.

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