Two Other CFIs Seek Recognition, Money For Their Actions
The US State Department
recently rewarded a flight instructor for tipping off the FBI to
Al-Qaeda conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui prior to the September 11,
2001 attacks.
Clarence (Clancy) Prevost, a former US Navy pilot, was given his
$5 million dollar reward at a closed ceremony in Washington, DC
with Justice Department and FBI officials present.
The reward surprised fellow CFIs Hugh Sims and Tim Nelson, who
also contacted the FBI in August 2001. Both are questioning why
they weren't recognized along with Prevost.
"I'm just totally dumbfounded," said Tim Nelson.
In interviews with CNN, the men emphasized they acted not
because they were looking for a reward, but because they wanted to
do the right thing. "But to hear that a reward was made and the
level of the reward being so significant," Nelson said. "It is just
kind of stunning that Hugh or I were not mentioned or included in
any sort of thing like that..."
As ANN reported in 2005,
Prevost, 69, a retired Northwest Airlines pilot, was an instructor
at Pan Am International Flight Academy in Eagan, MN when Moussaoui
sought lessons there in mid-August 2001.
Prevost said Moussaoui (above, right) showed up at the flight
school exactly one month before the attacks, bent on learning how
to fly a 747, and paying for his lessons with 68, $100 bills.
The man's inability to grasp the principles of flight
immediately caught the flight instructor's attention. Prevost
approached his managers, saying "We don't know anything about this
guy, and we're teaching him how to throw the switches on a
747."
After the FBI was alerted, they arrested Moussaoui on an
immigration violation. He later confessed to being the "20th
hijacker" and told jurors he was to have piloted a fifth plane into
the White House.
Prevost testified at Moussaoui's trial in the spring of 2006 in
which Moussaoui was sentenced to life imprisonment without
possibility of parole. He has since left flight instruction.
In a statement Friday,
Minnesota Senator Norm Coleman criticized the exclusion of Sims and
Nelson and said any honor bestowed regarding Moussaoui's arrest
should also include them. Both were previously been recognized by
the Senate in 2005 with a resolution honoring their "bravery and
heroism."
A US official said the FBI nominated Prevost to reward program
officials, who then decided whether to grant the award. The FBI
"considered relevant information about the two others before making
the nomination for the award and determined that the one individual
was the one deserving of it," the official said.
Sims said "Either nobody or all of us" should have gotten part
of the reward, if one was going to be offered.
Moussaoui is the only person so far tried and convicted in
connection with the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and
Washington.
Prevost could not be reached for comment on the award or the
controversy surrounding it.