B2 Lesson: The Teenager Who Talked His Way Into a Cockpit

Level: B2 (Upper-Intermediate)

Content Objective: Students examine the famous story of con artist Frank Abagnale and the 2020 investigation that challenged much of it, weighing documented facts against a decades-old legend.

Language Objective: Students learn to use modals of deduction (must have / can’t have + past participle) to draw confident conclusions about the past based on evidence.

---

1. Reading Section

For decades, one of the most famous stories in American crime writing has been that of a teenage con artist who, according to his own memoir, talked his way into the cockpit of a Pan Am airliner and flew for free around the world, all before he turned twenty-one. His name is Frank Abagnale, and his book, Catch Me If You Can, became a bestseller in 1980 and a Hollywood film in 2002, starring Leonardo DiCaprio.

According to Abagnale’s own account, he impersonated a Pan Am pilot for roughly two years, deadheading on flights across the globe while the FBI hunted him through twenty-six countries. He also claimed to have worked as a hospital supervisor, passed the bar exam as a lawyer, and even taught university sociology, all using forged credentials.

In 2020, journalist Alan C. Logan published a book called The Greatest Hoax on Earth, the result of years spent examining prison records, court documents, and newspaper archives. What he found directly contradicted the version of events that had made Abagnale famous.

According to New York State Archives records that Logan uncovered, Abagnale was incarcerated at Great Meadow Correctional Facility from July 1965 until December 1968. In other words, he can’t have been flying as a Pan Am pilot during most of the years his memoir describes, since he was in prison at the time.

Some elements of the story do have a basis in fact. After his release in December 1968, Abagnale really did pose as an airline pilot, first for TWA in Baton Rouge and later, in 1970, at the University of Arizona. There, he told female students he was both a pilot and a physician and examined twelve of them under the pretense of a flight attendant recruitment program. University officials later confirmed these interactions took place, so he must have been a genuinely convincing performer to pull off the deception. However, he was never actually employed by Pan Am; his only documented connection to the airline was a set of ten forged Pan Am payroll checks, worth less than fifteen hundred dollars, which led to his arrest in 1970.

Other claims have simply gone unsupported. The Louisiana State Bar Association searched its records and found no trace of Abagnale passing the exam under his name, so he can’t have worked as a lawyer the way his memoir describes. Similarly, a Georgia hospital found no record of the overnight pediatric-supervisor position he claimed to have held, which means he can’t have worked there the way he described. In a rare moment of honesty in 2002, Abagnale himself told USA Today, “I impersonated a doctor for a few days, I was a lawyer for a few days. In the book, it’s like I am doing this for a year.” Despite this admission, he continued describing the longer version in public talks for years afterward.

So how should we judge a story like this? He must have spent years carefully building and defending this account, since he kept repeating it publicly long after journalists first raised doubts in 1978. But the two-year, globe-spanning pilot career of the bestselling memoir can’t have happened the way it was told, given the prison and court records Logan and later investigators uncovered.

When an audience member directly asked him about the discrepancies at a public event in September 2022, Abagnale denied ever telling a lie and said he bore no responsibility for what appeared in his own book, the film, or the Broadway musical based on it. Whatever the full truth turns out to be, one thing seems certain: a con artist’s greatest trick may not have been the crimes he committed as a teenager, but the story he told about them for the fifty years that followed.

---

2. Vocabulary Section

Word / Phrase	Meaning	Example
con artist	a person who tricks people, especially out of money, by gaining their trust	His name is Frank Abagnale, a famous con artist.
impersonate	to pretend to be another person in order to deceive people	He impersonated a Pan Am pilot for roughly two years.
incarcerate	to put or hold someone in prison	Abagnale was incarcerated at Great Meadow Correctional Facility.
forge	to illegally create or copy a document in order to deceive someone	His only documented connection to the airline was a set of ten forged Pan Am payroll checks.
contradict	to say or show that something is not true, or the opposite of another statement	What he found directly contradicted the version of events that had made Abagnale famous.
unsupported	not proven true by evidence	Other claims have simply gone unsupported.
admission	a statement accepting that something, often unfavorable, is true	In a rare moment of honesty in 2002, Abagnale himself told USA Today…
discrepancy	a difference between what is claimed and what is actually true	An audience member directly asked him about the discrepancies.

---

3. Example Sentences (Target Grammar in Use)

• In other words, he can’t have been flying as a Pan Am pilot during most of the years his memoir describes, since he was in prison at the time.
• University officials later confirmed these interactions took place, so he must have been a genuinely convincing performer to pull off the deception.
• The Louisiana State Bar Association searched its records and found no trace of Abagnale passing the exam under his name, so he can’t have worked as a lawyer the way his memoir describes.
• A Georgia hospital found no record of the overnight pediatric-supervisor position he claimed to have held, which means he can’t have worked there the way he described.
• He must have spent years carefully building and defending this account, since he kept repeating it publicly long after journalists first raised doubts in 1978.
• But the two-year, globe-spanning pilot career of the bestselling memoir can’t have happened the way it was told, given the prison and court records Logan and later investigators uncovered.

---

4. Grammar Section

Modals of Deduction (must have / can’t have)

We use must have and can’t have with a past participle to draw confident, logical conclusions about the past, based on strong evidence. This differs from modals of speculation like may or might have, which express genuine uncertainty. Must have and can’t have express near-certainty: the speaker is reasoning from evidence to a conclusion, not simply guessing.

Form	Use	Example
must have + past participle	a confident positive conclusion, based on strong evidence	He must have been a genuinely convincing performer to pull off the deception.
can’t have + past participle	a confident negative conclusion (logically impossible, based on evidence)	He can’t have been flying as a Pan Am pilot during most of the years his memoir describes.
must have vs. may/might have	must have shows near-certainty from evidence; may/might have shows genuine uncertainty	Compare: “He must have exaggerated” (strong evidence) vs. “He might have exaggerated” (a guess).

Quick Tip: Use must have when the evidence makes something almost certainly true, and can’t have when the evidence makes something almost certainly false or impossible. Avoid “mustn’t have” for this meaning — English uses can’t have instead, even though the logic might seem to call for a negative form of “must.”

---

5. Comprehension Questions

A. True or False

1. Frank Abagnale’s memoir claimed he impersonated a Pan Am pilot for about two years.
2. Alan C. Logan’s 2020 investigation confirmed that Abagnale’s memoir was entirely accurate.
3. University of Arizona officials confirmed that Abagnale posed as a pilot and physician there in 1970.
4. In 2002, Abagnale admitted to USA Today that his impersonations lasted only days, not years.

B. Short Answer

5. According to Logan’s research, why can’t Abagnale have been flying as a Pan Am pilot during most of the years his memoir describes?
6. What did Abagnale’s only documented connection to Pan Am actually involve?
7. What happened when the Louisiana State Bar Association and a Georgia hospital checked their records?
8. How did Abagnale respond when asked about the discrepancies at a public event in 2022?

C. Fill in the Blank / Transform — Complete each sentence with must have or can’t have and the correct past participle.

9. Since prison records place him at Great Meadow Correctional Facility until December 1968, he ___ (fly) as a Pan Am pilot during those years.
10. Because university officials confirmed the incident, he ___ (be) a convincing performer to deceive twelve students.
11. Since the bar association found no record of him, he ___ (pass) the bar exam under his own name.
12. Because he kept repeating the story publicly for decades despite the doubts, he ___ (feel) confident that most audiences would not check the records.

---

---

More B2 lessons are coming soon!