AMERICA'S politicians, terror experts and airlines have spent the better part of the last decade asking themselves how they could have prevented 9/11.

It turns out that suffocating airports in a blanket of panicky security measures and hammering Afghanistan and Iraq were the wrong answers. The right one was Mark Wahlberg - according to Mark Wahlberg.

While out promoting his new film, the buff actor claimed history would have "gone down differently" if he had been on one of the flights that terrorists crashed into the World Trade Center.

He told Men's Journal: "If I was on that plane with my kids, it wouldn’t have went down like it did. There would have been a lot of blood in that first-class cabin and then me saying, 'OK, we’re going to land somewhere safely, don’t worry.'"

Wahlberg was supposed to be on one of the doomed flights but he changed his travel plans a week before and flew to Toronto for a film festival instead.

He's since taken that well-worn route taken by uber-egoed speak-before-you-think celebrities and apologised, but it’s not the first time Wahlberg has expressed his anguish over the tragedy.

He told an interviewer in 2006: "We certainly would have tried to do something to fight. I've had probably over 50 dreams about it" - but his words are wake-up call to America: forget about air marshals and passenger screening, just put Marky Mark on every flight.

For all those who think that Wahlberg's comments make him a complete and utter... well, you know, then Wahlberg has this to say to you: "I don't get down with jerking off, dude. Look. I don't believe in everything that the church says. I try to do the right thing. I lead a clean and pure life. I'm a married guy. I have a beautiful wife. Sex is not the most important thing to me, being horny all the time, spanking the - I mean, it's not against the law. You can do whatever you want. And it's not like, 'I shouldn't do it because of my faith. I'm just not really that into it that much anyway."