There's one thing that really bugs me: why is everyone so surprised that an airport worker who was familiar with the planes managed to take off? The reason thi

There's one thing that really bugs me: why is everyone so surprised that an airport worker who was familiar with the planes managed to take off? The reason this bugs me is that the 9/11 investigation concluded that multiple people with 0 flight experience can be taught to accurately steer a large commercial jet after just a short time training on small aircraft. In this frame of reference managing to take of in a small turboprop in good weather conditions shouldn't surprise anybody. P.S. OK, I missed the part where "the plane was doing deep dives, broad loops and at least one upside-down roll"... But the "bug" is still there. If it's generally accepted that you can learn your way in a 747 cockpit on relatively short notice, doing dives and loops with a small plane shouldn't be that unbelievable. And I say this as a person who can comfortably take off and land a Piper Cherokee but was pretty dumbfounded when sitting in the captain's seat of a 747 for the first time.