In later years , the novel became widely-known for predicting the September 11 attacks , especially regarding its climax , where an embittered Japanese pilot crashes his 747 on a joint session of Congress in the Capitol . While researching for the novel 's ending , Clancy consulted an Air Force officer and described his reaction : " I ran this idea past him and all of a sudden this guy 's eyeballing me rather closely and I said , ' Come on general , I know you must have looked at this before , you 've got to have a plan for it . ' And the guy goes , ' Mr. Clancy , to the best of my knowledge , if we had a plan to deal with this , it would be secret , I would n't be able to talk to you about it , but to the best of my knowledge we 've never looked at this possibility before . ' " On April 1995 , United States senator Sam Nunn outlined a scenario similar to the novel 's ending , in which terrorists attack the Capitol on the night of a State of the Union address by crashing a radio-controlled airplane filled with chemical weapons into it . Nunn concluded that the scenario is “ not far-fetched ” and that the required technology is readily available . However , the 9/11 Commission Report revealed that national security officials did not consider the possibility : “ Counterterror official Richard Clarke told us that he was concerned about the danger posed by aircraft in the context of protecting the Atlanta Olympics of 1996 , the White House complex , and the 2001 G-8 summit in Genoa . But he attributed his awareness more to Tom Clancy novels than to warnings from the intelligence community . ” In the aftermath of the attacks , Clancy was called into CNN and commented on the very close similarity between the events in the novel and those attacks . CNN anchor Judy Woodruff later remarked : “ People in our newsroom have been saying today that what is happening is like right out of a Tom Clancy novel . ”
September 11 attacks
September 11 attacks
Debt of Honor