March 2002: Learning to Fly in the Shadow of 9/11

Facing Fear, Finding Freedom, and Fueling a Lifetime of Travel

In what now feels like a different lifetime, back in March 2002, I made the decision to get my pilot’s license—not just for fun, but as a way to confront a very real fear: flying in small planes. I wanted to face it head-on, to overcome the fear through understanding, and ultimately, to prove to myself that I could do something most people only dream about.

But flying wasn’t just a challenge—it was also a natural extension of my obsession with travel. And somewhere along the way, I fell in love with the sky. I didn’t stop at a basic license. Instead, I pushed on, earning my private, commercial, instrument, and multi-engine ratings—completing them all between 2001 and 2002, in what was arguably the worst possible time to be training as a pilot.

Learning to Fly in the Post-9/11 Era

I began my flight training in the shadow of 9/11, when the aviation world had been turned upside down. Airports were tense, airspace was restricted, and federal scrutiny was intense. When I met my flight instructor, I had to wait while he finished his interview with the FBI—not because of anything he’d done, but because two of his former students had turned out to be 9/11 hijackers, including the one who flew into the Pentagon.

It was a surreal and chilling coincidence, and a stark reminder of how much the world had changed overnight. Training during that time was harder, more expensive, and wrapped in layers of regulation and suspicion. But I didn’t let any of that stop me. I poured everything I had—time, money, and focus—into flying.

From Training to Adventure

Though I eventually chose not to pursue a career as an airline pilot, my training opened up a world of freedom. I had incredible adventures flying across the United States, soaring over deserts, mountains, and coastlines. I flew into Mexico, crossing borders not with a passport but with altitude and fuel planning.

Those flights became part of my origin story—not just as a pilot, but as a traveler who wanted to go further, deeper, higher.

The Sky as a Launchpad

In the end, it wasn’t a career in aviation I was after—it was a life built around movement, curiosity, and courage. Earning my wings gave me the confidence and skill to explore not just airspace, but the world itself. And while I no longer fly planes regularly, I’ve managed to achieve something far more meaningful to me:

I’ve traveled to most countries on Earth.

That goal, planted in my heart long before I ever stepped into a cockpit, was always the real destination. Flying just helped get me there.

A few friends and I in front of a Cessna 182 I flew them in

Flying to Cabo: Logging Hours, Chasing Horizons

Fuel Stops, Friendships, and One Very Unusual Passenger

In the early 2000s, as I was building flight hours in pursuit of an airline career, I found myself hustling for airtime—splitting costs with fellow pilots, ferrying friends around Southern California, or sometimes getting paid to fly passengers who needed to get somewhere and didn’t mind a couple of low-time pilots at the controls.

Over the two years I spent flying, I logged hours zigzagging across the southwest—Catalina Island, Las Vegas, Utah, Arizona, and countless smaller airfields that now feel like stamps in a personal logbook of memories. But of all the flights I took, one trip stood out above the rest:

Cabo San Lucas, Mexico—a sun-soaked destination at the end of the Baja Peninsula, with beaches, airstrips, and enough distance to rack up serious cross-country hours.

An Unlikely Assignment

The opportunity came through one of the owners of a club plane—a Cessna 182 that, in an eerie footnote, had allegedly once been flown by two of the 9/11 hijackers during their training. Strange coincidence or not, the plane was solid, and I was eager to fly it.

The owner approached me and another student pilot named David, both of us grinding away at our logbooks, and asked if we’d be willing to fly him to Cabo San Lucas. His purpose? Let’s just say he wanted to visit some “adult nightclubs” where he had a few lady friends.

It wasn’t my place to ask questions—I just knew we were being paid, and the trip promised an unforgettable experience, both in the air and on the ground.

Fuel Stops, Desert Skies, and the Long Road South

Flying from Southern California to Cabo isn’t a straight shot. In a small Cessna, you need to land multiple times to refuel, navigate tricky airspace, and clear customs on both sides of the border. The route was beautiful but demanding—open desert, coastlines, isolated airstrips, and long stretches of nothingness.

David and I traded off every other leg, one flying while the other co-piloted and handled radios and navigation. We stayed overnight on both legs of the trip—bunking in budget motels, swapping stories over late dinners, and soaking in the kind of camaraderie that only comes from shared ambition and open skies.

A Trip That Was About More Than Cabo

Yes, our passenger had his own colorful reasons for going. But for David and me, this trip was about something deeper: the chance to prove ourselves in unfamiliar territory, to build confidence, judgment, and skill in real-world flying.

By the time we landed in Cabo, the ocean shimmering beside the runway, it didn’t matter whether we’d ever fly for an airline. What mattered was that we were up there, doing it, logging miles and stories, learning with every takeoff and landing.

Route to Cabo and back from Brown Field, San Diego

Flying Old School: A 5-Day Baja Mission in a Battered Cessna

No GPS, No Brakes, and Nowhere to Land But the Desert

The trip to Cabo San Lucas turned out to be far more than just a logbook filler—it was a 5-day round-trip journey through the wild skies and rugged terrain of Baja California, packed with mechanical issues, sketchy airstrips, and lessons I’ll never forget.

Flying in a Cessna 182 that had seen better days (allegedly once used by 9/11 trainees, no less), my co-pilot David and I alternated legs, keeping the aircraft in the air and ourselves mostly out of trouble.

Oil Leaks, Brake Failures, and No One for Miles

As if flying over the vast, desolate interior of Baja weren’t nerve-wracking enough, we had to monitor an active oil leak throughout the journey. Every hour in the air, we were scanning instruments, checking for pressure drops, and praying the leak didn’t worsen while flying over endless mountains and cactus plains with no emergency landing options.

And if that weren’t enough, our brake fluid was leaking too. Which meant… we didn’t really have brakes. We had to plan landings with long, empty runways, letting the plane roll to a stop on its own, often using the sheer length of the tarmac—and a touch of luck—to avoid overshooting.

Runways With Livestock and Potholes

Many of the airstrips we used were far from FAA-approved. Cracked concrete, potholes, grazing livestock, and heat distortion made each landing a unique experience. Before touching down, we had to do low passes over the runway to make sure no goats or cows had wandered onto the strip. Some airports had no visible personnel—just us, a windsock, and a whole lot of dust.

Shaking Down the Sky: Bribes and Bureaucracy

On the ground, it was rarely easier. Corrupt officials regularly hit us with made-up fines—some kind of paperwork issue, a fee for “extra security,” or a fuel tax that didn’t exist. We had no choice but to pay up or be grounded. Federales also stopped us more than once, spending long, theatrical minutes inspecting our plane for nonexistent narcotics, clearly waiting for a small bribe to move things along.

It was the cost of flying in rural Mexico in the early 2000s, and while annoying, it became just another part of the adventure.

No GPS, Just Guts and Dead Reckoning

We had no GPS onboard, and in a region where Mexican VORs were often blocked by mountainous terrain, we had to rely on old-school navigation: VOR triangulation when we could get it, and dead reckoning when we couldn’t—calculating position based on airspeed, compass heading, time, and terrain features.

It was flying by instinct, math, and hope.

Sleeping in Loreto, Cabo, and San Felipe

The journey gave us the rare opportunity to land in most of Baja’s major towns, turning fuel stops into miniature explorations. We stayed in:

• Loreto, with a family friend of David’s, where we were welcomed like wandering sky-nomads,

• Cabo San Lucas for two nights, soaking in the beaches and tequila-fueled nightlife while our client “checked in” on his club scene contacts,

• And finally San Felipe, for a quiet final stop before the long flight home.

The Kind of Flying You Don’t Learn in School

It was dirty, gritty, sometimes sketchy—but it was real flying, the kind of adventure that makes you a better pilot and a better traveler.

When you fly across Baja with no GPS, failing brakes, livestock on the runways, and corrupt officials asking for beer money, you learn quickly. You learn how to problem-solve, how to stay calm, how to read terrain like a map—and most of all, how to appreciate what flying gives you: freedom, perspective, and unforgettable stories.

My plane in the general aviation airport in Cabo

The only photo I have of myself flying a plane

View along the Sea of Cortez

La Paz View from Sky

Into the Darkness: A Night Flight Over Baja That Nearly Broke Us

No GPS, No Lights, and No Way Back

Flying through Baja California in a single-engine plane offers no shortage of unpredictable situations—but none compared to what happened the night we departed from Guerrero Negro.

It was supposed to be a simple fuel and immigration stop, but gun-clad Federales had other ideas. They detained us on the tarmac, searching our plane for narcotics with theatrical intensity. When it became clear they wouldn’t be satisfied quickly, we did what pilots flying light aircraft in rural Mexico often had to do: we offered a small bribe to “expedite” their work.

It bought our release—but at a cost.

By the time we were cleared to leave, the sun had already set. In Baja, flying a single-engine plane at night is illegal for good reason: the terrain is mountainous, the desert is vast and uninhabited, and navigation aids are spotty at best.

The wise decision would’ve been to spend the night in Guerrero Negro and fly out safely at first light.

We didn’t choose the wise decision.

A Black Hole Beneath Us

We departed into the night, the Cessna 182 humming beneath us, and within minutes we were swallowed by absolute darkness. There were no lights below, no signs of towns, roads, or even stars—the kind of blackness that makes it impossible to tell where the land ends and the sky begins.

We had been relying on VOR beacons, but Baja’s jagged mountain terrain often blocked the signal—and now, of course, they were dead. We were flying by compass heading and dead reckoning, trying to stick to our flight plan by feel, speed, and instinct.

There was no GPS. Just us, the darkness, and the deep uncertainty of whether we were actually on course—or heading for a very wet and final descent into the Sea of Cortez.

A Decision You Can’t Take Back

David and I considered turning back, but we were already deep into our intended flight path. To return would mean guessing a new heading without navigation, which was just as risky. We committed. Either we would find Loreto, or we would overshoot it and die over open water once the fuel ran out.

That was the reality. No backup. No bailout. Just us and the silence.

The owner of the plane, blissfully unaware, slept in the back. Meanwhile, in the cockpit, David and I flew without speaking, each of us doing our own mental math, managing our fear, and remembering that the worst thing a pilot can do is panic.

Above us, we could hear commercial airline pilots—Alaska Airlines, Aeroméxico—chatting calmly over the radio, their comforting voices floating down from cruising altitudes thousands of feet higher. They couldn’t help us. We were alone, in every sense of the word.

The Needle Moves

Then—just when our stress had calcified into resignation—the needle on our navigation aid flickered.

It began to move. Not confidently, not clearly—but enough.

We followed it with everything we had, recalibrating by the second, chasing that faint signal like a lifeline. And then, lights appeared on the horizon—Loreto, shining faintly through the dark like the end of a tunnel.

We were going to make it.

Pilots in the Dark

That flight was just 40 minutes of actual darkness, but it felt like a lifetime. I’d faced engine failures, smoke in the cockpit, a window flying open in clouds, but nothing compared to the creeping dread of navigating Baja’s mountains at night with no nav and no visual references.

That flight taught me what it really means to be a pilot. Not just the technical skill, but the mental resilience to keep flying straight and level even when the fear hits hard.

It’s one thing to learn how to fly—but moments like this are when you learn how to survive.

landing in San Felipe at night

Flying Under the Radar… Until I Wasn’t

Baja Adventures, Nightclubs, and a Visit from the FBI

The rest of our Baja trip was an absolute blast—long days of flying, pit stops in dusty towns, roadside tacos, desert sunsets, and the kind of camaraderie only forged through shared risk. We got to explore the peninsula from the sky, landing in remote strips and little-known towns that don’t make the guidebooks.

But while David and I were chasing flight hours and travel thrills, our passenger had a very different itinerary. In every town we stopped—Loreto, Cabo, San Felipe—he found his way to an “adult nightclub”, usually as soon as we refueled and parked the plane. At the time, we didn’t think much of it. We were just grateful to be flying, logging time, and getting paid to do what we loved.

Years later, though, things got weird.

A Knock at the Door

After a trip to Yemen, I came home to find myself on a U.S. terrorist watch list. Shortly afterward, the FBI showed up at my house. Calm, serious, and very pointed, they sat down and began asking questions—not just about Yemen, but about my past flights, and one in particular: the Baja trip.

They asked me about the owner of the plane, my purpose in Mexico, and whether I had any connections to Iranian nationals. It all started clicking.

The Cessna 182 we’d flown? Same model the 9/11 hijackers trained in. The owner of that plane? An Iranian man. The trip? A loop through multiple Mexican towns, documented by border and customs officials, where I’d been the pilot of record.

And now here I was, freshly back from Yemen, with all of that stacked in my file like some poorly-written spy thriller.

Wrong Place, Right Time (Too Many Times)

It was all just a string of coincidences, but on paper, it didn’t look great:

• A young pilot flying a plane once tied to terror training

• Paid for by a man visiting nightclubs across border towns

• With Iranian connections

• Then later traveling through Yemen at the height of the global security paranoia

In hindsight, it was almost laughable. But at the time, it was intensely uncomfortable. I cooperated fully, explained everything, and was eventually cleared—but it served as a wild reminder that the adventures of your past don’t always stay in the past, especially when they leave paper trails and passenger manifests.

Flying for the Love of It

What started as a mission to build flight hours and explore Baja from the cockpit turned into a saga that touched borders, blurred lines, and eventually landed me in the FBI’s crosshairs—if only briefly.

I never set out to do anything but fly and travel and chase freedom in its purest form. And I suppose, in a way, that’s what made it all feel worth it—even the parts that got a little too close to the edge.

Because that’s what adventure is: stepping just far enough outside the lines to feel alive, even if it means answering for it later.