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adoucette
08-13-2002, 07:34 PM
In the pre-9/11 world I don't find it surprising that the FAA did not contact NORAD for 15 minutes just because they lost contact with the aircraft and SUSPECTED a possible hijacking.

One thing is clear, on that morning everyone thought that the only role NORAD would play IF it was a hijacking would be to simply track the plane to its destination, this does not sound like a high priority call when they know where the airplane is as they have it on radar.

No one would have even entertained a thought that we would be scrambling jets trying to shoot other planes down.

You have to put yourself in the frame of mind of the people that morning prior to any attacks.

You have to realise that it actually took the second crash into the WTC for the realization to sink in that the first crash was deliberate. It was the second crash which changed everything.

Arthur

David Hilditch
08-13-2002, 08:29 PM
Originally posted by adoucette:
[B]In the pre-9/11 world I don't find it surprising that the FAA did not contact NORAD for 15 minutes just because they lost contact with the aircraft and SUSPECTED a possible hijacking.


I also agree whole-heartedly with that. The mindset must have been so totally different that the response times and the reaction up and down the civil and military chains of command was somewhat ragged - understandably so, until everyone got the measure of what was happening. I just said the same thing on another thread here.

Also, was it indeed even the procedure in the 'old' days that, if NORAD were informed of a hijacking, the Air Force would always 'suit up' and scramble to the runway within a few minutes ?
burlgoat
08-13-2002, 08:49 PM
Arthur and David,
I tried doing some quick research on Nexis (although, sadly, I do have some real work to do today!) to answer that very same question, and haven't been able to get a good answer so far. I know in the Payne Stewart case it took a while to get military intervention but of course that was a private jet. Thankfully, before Sept. 11 we hadn't had any major domestic hijacking for some time.
Although it's easy to be a "Monday morning QB" after 9/11, I still find it hard to believe that NORAD wouldn't be alerted fairly early on -- like within the first 5 minutes or so -- of "a possible hijacking." Although I beleive, as you do, that few Americans suspected a hijacked jet would be crashed into a national landmark, an F-16 could at least establish visual contact with cockpit, try to prevent the plane from leaving American airspace, etc. No?

JL
08-13-2002, 09:01 PM
what did you spect from a country who keeps Gen. Myers commanding the military Staff.

What do you mean by "a less enlightened country"?, please.

JL
08-13-2002, 09:05 PM
I have just read military planes cannot shot civil planes following a law passed by the US Senate in 1973, even in case of air hijacking. What do you know about this?

adoucette
08-13-2002, 09:11 PM
Originally posted by iamareporter:
I still find it hard to believe that NORAD wouldn't be alerted fairly early on -- like within the first 5 minutes or so -- of "a possible hijacking." Although I beleive, as you do, that few Americans suspected a hijacked jet would be crashed into a national landmark, an F-16 could at least establish visual contact with cockpit, try to prevent the plane from leaving American airspace, etc. No?

Actually, 15 minutes seems reasonable to me, remember it was just a suspected hijacking and the only purpose of Norad would be to keep an eye on it. Actually I don't think scrambling a jet is a normal activity. Even in Stewart's case that took quite a while to occur. As far as trying to keep an airliner from leaving US airspace, that again is not practical, you can't play chicken with it and threatening it serves no purpose (at least pre 9/11) as the idea would be to try to save lives.

This is their official timeline: http://www.norad.mil/presrelNORADTimelines.htm

And from testimony of Gen RALPH E. EBERHART, USAF to the Senate in Oct 01:

Prior to 11 September 2001, our air defense posture was aligned to counter the perceived external threats to
North America air sovereignty. Within this context, our aerospace control and air defense missions have traditionally been oriented to detect and identify all aircraft entering North American airspace, and if
necessary, intercept potentially threatening inbound air traffic. These threats were generally considered as hostile aircraft carrying bombs or cruise missiles. Based on the recent events, we are now also focused on threats originating within domestic airspace such as hijacked aircraft. While we have adjusted to provide a rapid response to domestic air threats, we continue to execute our previously assigned missions.
...
Additionally, we have positioned portable air control radars to more rapidly respond to Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) requests for assistance. We are also working together with FAA representatives to access FAA radar data and now maintain a continuous communications loop.
With the approval of the President and the Secretary of Defense, we now have streamlined the Rules of Engagement for hostile acts over domestic airspace to ensure the safety of our citizens and critical infrastructure. We have increased our alert posture from 20 aircraft standing alert to more than 100 U.S. and Canadian aircraft. (Normally, Norad had but 14 fighters on alert in the continental U.S., two in Alaska and two in Canada)

==> NOW if you read "between the lines" you can also see what WAS NOT PRESENT on the morning of 9/11 and it was these things which prevented as rapid a response as some of you are claiming should have occurred.

Another look at what was going on that morning: http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/020603/32426_2.html

Arthur

[ August 13, 2002 03:59 PM: Message edited 3 times, lastly by adoucette ]
MikeD
08-14-2002, 03:05 AM
The reason the intercept of Payne Stewart's Lear was so quick was b ecause airborne fighters in the area were simply diverted to his location. The initial interception was from two A-10s departing out of Eglin AFB FL. They, however, were beaten to the scene (no suprise) by F-16s on AD alert at Tyndall AFB. The Tyndall F-16s escorted Stewart's Lear until F-16s from the Oklahoma and North Dakota ANG units could take over.

MD

EzyJack
08-14-2002, 05:02 AM
[QUOTE]Originally posted by MikeD:
[B]The reason the intercept of Payne Stewart's Lear was so quick was b ecause airborne fighters in the area were simply diverted to his location--------------------------------------

Which begs the question how many fighers were up on 911? You don't hear the question asked nor the figures revealed. It was CAVU on the East coast that day.

Jack

burlgoat
08-14-2002, 06:20 AM
I think people who've read any of my posts on this board or the flight93crash.com board know that while I'm still an "agnostic" about a Flight 93 shootdown, I've never bought into any of the wackier theories, about Global Hawk or "no plane at the Pentagon" or Bush planned 9/11 or even that he "let 9/11 happen." That said, I'm both baffled and troubled by the information that the FAA itself is now admitting about what happened on 9/11.
According to the FAA's own press conference yesterday, it admits that its controller realized at 8:25 a.m. that AA 11 was a "possible hijacking" and that it didn't contact NORAD "for 15 minutes." 15 MINUTES!!!! If you're at work right now, take your watch off, put it next to your screen, and see how many phone calls, emails, etc., you can make in 15 minutes. If you happen to be at home with a small kid, try watching 15 minutes of "Barney" or "Blue's Clues" and see what an excruciatingly long time that is. (Mine are at the "Spongebob" age, thank God).
I understand the hijacking wasn't confirmed, but couldn't somebody pick up the phone and give NORAD a heads up, so the guys could at least suit up and get out to the runway. What's more, it took NORAD another 12 minutes after the phone call to get airborne, which seems awfully slow to me -- thank God the Russians never tried a sneak attack. So we're talking a total of 27 minutes from the time FAA realized there might be a hijacking to the time that F-16s actually took off. In a less enlightened country, the FAA supervisor who twiddled his thumbs for 15 minutes, when the lives of 1,500 or so people in the second tower could have been saved, would have been tried for treason right now.
Here's the key section of the AP story, and a link to the story in its entirety:

"Air traffic controllers didn't notice anything odd Sept. 11 until communications fell silent with Flight 11's pilot 25 minutes after the plane took off at 8 a.m.

"We considered it at that time to be a possible hijacking," air traffic manager Glenn Michael said.

The FAA notified NORAD 15 minutes later; three minutes after that, NORAD was told United Airlines Flight 175 had been hijacked.

The first two military interceptors, Air Force F-15 Eagles from Otis Air Force Base in Massachusetts, scrambled airborne at 8:52 a.m., too late to do anything about the second jet heading for the Trade Center or a third heading toward the Pentagon. http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/nation/3853484.htm

David Hilditch
08-14-2002, 08:03 AM
Originally posted by EzyJack:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by MikeD:
[B]The reason the intercept of Payne Stewart's Lear was so quick was b ecause airborne fighters in the area were simply div erted to his location--------------------------------------

Which begs the question how many fighers were up on 911? You don't hear the question asked no r the figures revealed. It was CAVU on the East coast that day.

Jack


Well, I guess the initial answer was 14 maximum (as Arthur says above), if that was the number NORAD had available for the continental US pre-9/11 (and I would guess in the immediate aftermath that morning, until new resources could be deployed). Yes ?

(I recall seeing two F-16s in close formation about 10,000 feet over my town in central Jersey 11.30 am/noon that day.)

[ August 14, 2002 02:03 AM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by David Hilditch ]
David Hilditch
08-14-2002, 04:02 PM
Just another idle thought, which may not be entirely irrelevant. Don't you think after the Korean 747 and the Iran Air A300 incidents in 1983 and 1988 respectively, the authorities would find it even more difficult to get their minds round the need to shoot down civilian airliners ? This is quite apart from all the other command issues/response times I have also mentioned.

MikeD
08-14-2002, 04:47 PM
Originally posted by David Hilditch:

Well, I guess the initial answer was 14 maximum (as Arthur says above), if that was the number NORAD had available for the continental US pre-9/11 (and I would guess in the immediate aftermath that morning, until new resources could be deployed). Yes ?



***Not necessarily only the NORAD interceptors, but any fighters for that matter. Remember, that at most airbases, the alert contingent is a few fighters, but there are far more on the ramp or already airborne on "routine training missions". In the Stewart case, the initial A-10s tasked for the intercept just happened to be departing on a training flight which, of course being A-10, would not "routinely" involve ANY sort of air intercept profile. The first F-16 that actually made the intercept of Stewart's Lear was from the Test Wing at Eglin AFB and on a routine FCF maintenance flight; the Lear happened to to be heading for the MOA that he was doing his maneuvers in.

The point is that there's many more available aircraft on a daily basis performing normal training than just NORADs alert birds. At Tyndall AFB, FL (in the Stewart case) there is the standard few F-16s for air defense alert. But Tyndall also trains F-15C Eagle pilots, so there's three squadrons of F-15s (whose sole mission is air-air) with aircraft airborne at all hours of the day and night on training hops, and which can be easily-re-tasked per request of ATC if the situation warrants it, prior to higher approval (ie- in an ATC emergency).

MD
JL
08-14-2002, 04:54 PM
A question just for the sake of knowledge, which has not been answered: I have just read military planes cannot shot civil planes following a law passed by the US Senate in 1973, EVEN in case of air hijacking. Maybe that's the reason why the pilot is said to hesitate on shoting F93.

What do you know about this? I have tried to search the Senate web but...

[ August 14, 2002 11:07 AM: Message edited 2 times, lastly by JL ]

EzyJack
08-14-2002, 07:12 PM
[QUOTE]Originally posted by MikeD:
[B] ***Not necessarily only the NORAD interceptors, but any fighters for that matter.

The point is that there's many more available aircraft on a daily basis performing normal training than just NORADs alert birds------------------------------

That's my main point. How many fighters were up on training missions and loaded with war shot on 911? The Guard unit at ADW had some F-16s returning with some cannon rounds on board around the first WTC hits.

My other point, Vipers and Eagles can go much faster than the reported 10 miles a minute they have used in the media, ROFL.

Jack

Leland
08-15-2002, 03:54 PM
I guess when you are watching "Blues Clues" 15 minutes might seem along time. After all, your point of comparison is about 1 to 4 years of life.

But when you are responsible for the safety of around a thousand lives spread across dozens of aircraft traveling at high speeds in your airspace... 15 minutes doesn't seem to last that long. Start moving up the chain to get help on one particular aircraft, the responibility only increases in the number of lives beyond just the 100-200 on one flight out of a hundred. The first task is the safety of all aircraft, then you work out the process for handling a hijacking on US soil during a time of peace.

I'd imagine the first 15 minutes were spent calling other planes to steer them clear of a possible airborne threat and also assessing whether the "possible" hijacking was what it appeared to be, and how it might impact (which it is your primary job to prevent such impacts) other aircraft in the airspace. Then maybe someone can find the time to contact NORAD and provide a reasonable assessment of what is going on.

By the way, how long after the first plane hit the WTC did it take before the media was convinced that it was not accidental but was intentional?

burlgoat
08-16-2002, 04:52 AM
Uh, not until the second one struck, of course. But the media didn't have access to the same info -- like a plane's transponder being shut off -- that the FAA, and, belatedly, NORAD, had.

Leland
08-19-2002, 05:39 PM
Ah, so if a transponder goes inactive, the first action should be for the FAA to contact NORAD (that red phone, right beside every air traffic controller from GS-14 to SES-5?) and have the plane shot down, so that the sensibility of the news media's 20/20 hindsight would not be offended because someone was be prudent about taking actions that would effect the lives of hundreds of innocent people. After all, the FAA's failure here, lead to the deaths of order magnitude greater lost than that of a single airplane. They should be held accountable for that, shouldn't they? After all, who could have missed the telling blue paw print?

Certainly out of the question would be to take a few minutes trying to communicate with the plane to determine the failure mode of the transponder. After all checking facts to assure accuracy in reporting events to others would be inappropriate when emotions call for immediate actions. The crime becomes intolerable if moments are taken to warn other aircraft of a potential danger in the air around them, and to request verification that they are also not experiencing problems and can contact other controllers via another channel in order to offload work and allow proper dedication be provided to a developing situation. May they burn in hell for carrying out their duties and not cutting corners where it might have prevented the tragic lost of lives in a manner never before seen on the face of the Earth.

Thank you for you for providing enlightenment on the untaken possibilities... I'll so go in ponder this revelation.

Again, 15 minutes watching television may seem excruciating especially when you choose programming beneath your mental capacity. However, watching a small representation of the supposed reality of the airspace around you; provided by complex systems that nominally, but not always, operate properly; all the while using this knowledge with the rights and responsibility to take action for the well-being on dozens of aircraft and close to a thousand lives, seems to make relatively fleeting...

adoucette
08-19-2002, 09:39 PM
Originally posted by 93questions:
Utter tripe.

Alerting the military for any suspected hijack was SOP on 9/11. Considering what had happened by 9:03, you better believe that the military was being told exactly what the FAA knew exactly when they knew it. Otherwise, heads should roll.

* All times are Eastern Daylight Time; NEADS = North East Air Defense Sector, NORAD

** Scramble = Order to get an aircraft airborne as soon as possible

***Estimated = loss of radar contact

**** Flight times are calculated at 9 miles per minute or .9 Mach

***** The FAA and NEADS established a line of open communication discussing AA Flt 77 and UA Flt 93




American Airlines Flight 11 – Boston enroute to Los Angeles

FAA Notification to NEADS 0840*

Fighter Scramble Order (Otis Air National Guard Base, Falmouth, Mass. Two F-15s) 0846**

Fighters Airborne 0852

Airline Impact Time (World Trade Center 1) 0846 (estimated)***

Fighter Time/Distance from Airline Impact Location Aircraft not airborne/153 miles


United Airlines Flight 175 – Boston enroute to Los Angeles

FAA Notification to NEADS 0843

Fighter Scramble Order (Otis ANGB, Falmouth, Mass. Same 2 F-15s as Flight 11) 0846

Fighters Airborne 0852

Airline Impact Time (World Trade Center 2) 0902 (estimated)

Fighter Time/Distance from Airline Impact Location approx 8 min****/71 miles




American Flight 77 –Dulles enroute to Los Angeles

FAA Notification to NEADS 0924

Fighter Scramble Order (Langley AFB, Hampton, Va. 2 F-16s) 0924

Fighters Airborne 0930

Airline Impact Time (Pentagon) 0937(estimated)

Fighter Time/Distance from Airline Impact Location approx 12 min/105 miles



United Flight 93 – Newark to San Francisco

FAA Notification to NEADS N/A *****

Fighter Scramble Order (Langley F-16s already airborne for AA Flt 77)

Fighters Airborne (Langley F-16 CAP remains in place to protect DC)

Airline Impact Time (Pennsylvania) 1003 (estimated)

Fighter Time/Distance from Airline Impact Location approx 11 min/100 miles

(from DC F-16 CAP)



This has nothing whatsover to do with any decision to shoot down passenger planes. Fighter interception of hijacks was standing operating procedure and has been such for the last 25 years. After the second WTC tower was hit, do you really expect us to believe that the FAA reacted to unresponsive planes with their transponders off by going to bathroom, getting a donut from the break room and refilling their coffees?
No and they apparently didn't either. However on the first aircraft (no collision yet) there apparently was not a huge urgency to notify NEADS, considering they realized it was a likely hijacking (remember no Hijack transponder code) only shortly before it turned south, they immediately had their hands full diverting other aircraft, trying to raise the plane on emerg. freq. etc.

As far as scrambling fighters, this is normally done with the approval of the Sec of Def. However in this case, once Otis heard there were two potential hijackings they scrambled anyway and said they would get approval later. The first arrived in time to see the second crash. The fighters apparently were kept as a CAP over NY and Langley was called into action for the Pent agon aircraft. They stayed in a CAP patrol over DC and (if you believe the military) were never clo ser than 100 miles to U93.

Arthur


EzyJack
08-19-2002, 10:28 PM
[QUOTE]Originally posted by adoucette:


**** Flight times are calculated at 9 miles per minute or .9 Mach
-----------------------

Kinda of slow for Mach 2 plus fighters. Any bets they had the pedal to the metal and busted Mach fast?

I forget who posted it. You don't need any National Command authority to intercept aircraft. Pre 911, there were more than a few TCAS alerts on airliners from fighters running practice intercepts on them.

Jack

Leland
08-19-2002, 10:42 PM
Originally posted by 93questions:
Utter tripe.

Alerting the military for any suspected hijack was SOP on 9/11. Considering what had happened by 9:03, you better believe that the military was being told exactly what the FAA knew exactly when they knew it. Otherwise, heads should roll.

This has nothing whatsover to do with any decision to shoot down passenger planes. Fighter interception of hijacks was standing operating procedure and has been such for the last 25 years. After the second WTC tower was hit, do you really expect us to believe that the FAA reacted to unresponsive planes with their transponders off by going to bathroom, getting a donut from the break room and refilling their coffees?

SOP? So how many times previously has this SOP been followed for actual hijackings? Do you have the time studies showing what the standard is for completing those procedures? I doubt it, since you failed to notice in 1992, that then President George Bush stood down the 5 minute alert status as the first step to spending the "peace" dividend. So where as for 25 years, we might have had fighters readied for intercept missions in under 15 minutes, for nine years preceeding 9/11/01, that standard was 20 minutes.

As for your last fictious interjection made up solely by yourself and no other... flight 93 transponder was not turned off until 9:40am, the FAA contacted NORAD at 9:16am to alert them to flight 93's possible hijacking. Which according to this timeline (http://256.com/gray/thoughts/20010912/timeline.html) is approximately 6 minutes after the experts (based on knowledge after the fact) believe flight 93 was actually hijacked. (note: if you read this timeline, in the first step in alerting external sources of the hijackings, the FAA contacted other centers about the developing situation, and then contacted NORAD, nearly 7 minutes prior to flight 11 crashing into the first WTC tower).

Read the article cited by imareporter. Note carefully the words like "today" and "now" as meaning the FAA can communicate information to NORAD much quicker since 9/11 as opposed to prior to 9/11 when it lacked the capability. That story doesn't even offer the closest of opinion that 15 minutes was unreasonable and could have been done sooner based on knowledge and capability present at that time.

More sources:
timeline puts 2 minutes between first FAA report of hijacking to NORAD and first crash (http://www.terrorismreporter.com/wtc-pentagon-attacks-timeline.html)
CNN article critical of NORAD and FAA (http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/09/16/inv.hijack.warning/) Yet, still shows both Boston ATC and FAA contacting NORAD before first crash and foolishly criticizes the FAA and NORAD for not being responsible for evacuating Washington DC buildings, which falls under the role of FEMA.
NORAD's press release on the subject (http://www.attackonamerica.net/8minutesaway.htm). Please note this paragraph
quote Last week, members of the Senate Armed Services Committee questioned Air Force Gen. Richard Myers about why the fighters hadn't been able to get airborne sooner. Myers, since confirmed as the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, pointed out that far fewer aircraft have been detailed to watch for attacking planes since the end of the Cold War.

Now that I have provided facts and external evidence to support what you call "tripe". Do you care to provide anything to support your credibility, or lack there of? Maybe in your 93questions, one should be, when did flight 93's transponder turn off, before or after the WTC attacks?"
Leland
08-19-2002, 10:55 PM
Originally posted by EzyJack:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by adoucette:


**** Flight times are calculated at 9 miles per minute or .9 Mach
-----------------------

Kinda of slow for Mach 2 plus fighters. Any bets they had the pedal to the metal and busted Mach fast?

I forget who posted it. You don't need any National Command authority to intercept aircraft. Pre 911, there were more than a few TCAS alerts on airliners from fighters running practice intercepts on them.

Jack

My father sat alert in both F-101s and F-4s for the same 147th FIG that the current President was once a member of flying the old Delta Darts. He flew actual intercept missions on aircraft intruding into US airspace, usually drug smugglers or stupid pilots. Due to complaints by various businesses, they were constrained from exceeding Mach 1 over land due to the damages of sonic booms. I'd imagine for suspected hijackings, not yet verified, speed above Mach 1 would not have been SOP or authorized. Over water, there would not be restrictions, except for vicinity to commercial aircraft. I'm sure you know that Jack.

You know I agree in principle with these nuts. 15 minutes is a long time. However, that time is long because the entire nation grew complacent about its security and for 10 years preferred stock options to real peace, then considered a dividend. In 1992, the US military was capable of a 2 front war, by 2001, it was only capable of 1 front, and that was hopeful. The military hands were tied, because the US was generally in a time of peace. I'm sure many of these people believe the US has an air defense system better than Baghdad, which is probably why they oppose missile defense systems, rather than understanding that we otherwise do not have air defense beyond fighters that take 5 minutes to get airborne (when at high level of alert), and more time to get on station.

.9 Mach is slow, but it's the fastest speed allowed by policy in place prior to sometime around 9:30am EDT 9/11/01.
93questions
08-19-2002, 11:09 PM
quoteAs far as scrambling fighters, this is normally done with the approval of the Sec of Def. However in this case, once Otis heard there were two potential hijackings they scrambled anyway and said they would get approval later. The first arrived in time to see the second crash. The fighters apparently were kept as a CAP over NY and Langley was called into action for the Pentagon aircraft. They stayed in a CAP patrol over DC and (if you believe the military) were never closer than 100 miles to U93.


And your analysis of the military strategy of using three fighters to "patrol over DC" when there is a known hostile flying bomb a few hundred miles from several nuclear reactors is?

My personal analysis: Militarily incompetent to such a ridiculous level that complicity becomes reasonable--assuming this cover story is accurate.
93questions
08-19-2002, 11:15 PM
General Myers? Did somebody mention General Myers? That guy owes me money! (And he owes all of us an explanation.)

General Myers was acting head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on September 11th. On September 13th, he's going for a nomination hearing to be made head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. This is the most important day of his life because on this day that Myers, an Air Force General with thousands of hours of time flying fighter planes, is acting chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff—it’s the only day in history that the continental United States has ever been attacked from the air.

Myers claims he is at Senator Max Cleland's office at 8:40 EDT. He sees on TV that the first plane has hit the World Trade Center. He claims on Armed Services Radio that at that point he went in and met with Cleland for an hour. Nobody called him and told him that a second plane had hit, that the air corridor had been closed between Washington and Cleveland, that a plane had been hijacked in Ohio and was flying back to the Pentagon. Then he also claims that when he walked out of Cleland's office, he was handed a portable phone and it was the head of NORAD--the North American Aerospace Defense Command--telling him the Pentagon had been hit.

Now these are unbelievable assertions. Doesn't the man have a beeper? Doesn't the man have a cell phone? Doesn't the man have a secretary who knows where he is? General Myers was, after all, acting head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the US military. Wouldn't anybody inform him that planes were being hijacked and flying into buildings? And you know what Myers said he talked to Max Cleland about? He claims he sat there and they discussed the dangers of terrorism. Now this is like a satire, isn't it?

Here is General Myers' response at his confirmation hearing. Note Senator Max Cleland's out-of-the-blue nonsequitur which gives Myers his alibi.

Senate Armed Services Committee Holds Hearing On Nomination of General Richard Myers to be Chairman of The Joint Chiefs of Staff, Washington, D.C., SEPTEMBER 13, 2001.

SENATOR LEVIN: Was the Defense Department contacted by the FAA or the FBI or any other agency after the first two hijacked aircraft crashed into the World Trade Center, prior to the time that the Pentagon was hit?

GENERAL MYERS: Sir, I don't know the answer to that question. I can get that for you, for the record...That order, to the best of my knowledge, was after the Pentagon was struck. ... I was with Senator Cleland when this happened and went back to the Pentagon. And they were evacuating, of course, the Pentagon at the time. And I went into the National Military Command Center because that's essentially my battle station when things are happening.

SENATOR LEVIN: Was the Defense Department contacted by the FAA or the FBI or any other agency after the first two hijacked aircraft crashed into the World Trade Center, prior to the time that the Pentagon was hit?

GENERAL MYERS: Sir, I don't know the answer to that question. I can get that for you, for the record.

SENATOR LEVIN: Thank you. Did the Defense Department take -- or was the Defense Department asked to take action against any specific aircraft?

GENERAL MYERS: Sir, we were . . .

SENATOR LEVIN: And did you take action against -- for instance, there have been statements that the aircraft that crashed in Pennsylvania was shot down. Those stories continue to exist.

GENERAL MYERS: Mr. Chairman, the armed forces did not shoot down any aircraft. When it became clear what the threat was, we did scramble fighter aircraft, AWACS, radar aircraft and tanker aircraft to begin to establish orbits in case other aircraft showed up in the FAA system that were hijacked. But we never actually had to use force.

SENATOR CLELAND: General, it's a good thing that, as I look back at that morning, that you and I were meeting. It's a good thing we were meeting here and not us meeting in the Pentagon because about the time you and I were having our visit, discussing the need to boost our conventional forces, to look at the question of terrorism and attacks on the United States, at just about that very moment, the Pentagon was being hit.

GENERAL MYERS: Yes, sir.

SENATOR BILL NELSON: ... General Myers, The second World Trade tower was hit shortly after 9:00. And the Pentagon was hit approximately 40 minutes later. That’s approximately. You would know specifically what the timeline was. The crash that occurred in Pennsylvania after the Newark westbound flight was turned around 180 degrees and started heading back to Washington was approximately an hour after the World Trade Center second explosion. You said earlier in your testimony that we had not scrambled any military aircraft until after the Pentagon was hit. And so, my question would be: why?

GENERAL MYERS: I think I had that right, that it was not until then. I'd have to go back and review the exact timelines.

SENATOR BILL NELSON: ... If we knew that there was a general threat on terrorist activity, which we did, and we suddenly have two trade towers in New York being obviously hit by terrorist activity, of commercial airliners taken off course from Boston to Los Angeles, then what happened to the response of the defense establishment once we saw the diversion of the aircraft headed west from Dulles turning around 180degrees and, likewise, in the aircraft taking off from Newark and, in flight, turning 180 degrees? That's the question. I leave it to you as to how you would like to answer it. But we would like an answer.

GENERAL MYERS: You bet. I spoke, after the second tower was hit, I spoke to the commander of NORAD, General Eberhart. And at that point, I think the decision was at that point to start launching aircraft...

{93questions' note: OK, so if he talked to Eberhart after the second tower was hit, why did he then meet with Cleland for 35 minutes to talk about "the question of terrorism and attacks on the United States"? I mean, wasn't he aware that America was currently experiencing just such an attack--the very worst such attack in its entire history? How in the world did he manage to while away the 45 minutes with Cleland such that he didn't arrive at the National Military Command Center, his admitted "battle station when things are happening," until the Pentagon was being evacuated (around 9:45 at the earliest)? Didn’t having hijacker terrorists hit the two tallest buildings in the United States with passenger jets qualify as a time "when things are happening"?}

In this case, if my memory serves me -- and I'll have to get back to you for the record -- my memory says that we had launched on the one that eventually crashed in Pennsylvania. I mean, we had gotten somebody close to it, as I recall. I'll have to check that out.

SENATOR BILL NELSON: ... Commenting from CNN on the timeline, 9:03 is the correct time that the United Airlines flight crashed into the south tower of the World Trade Center; 9:43 is the time that American Airlines flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon. And 10:10 a.m. is the time that United Airlines flight 93crashed in Somerset County, Pennsylvania. So that was 40 minutes between the second tower being hit and the Pentagon crash. And it is an hour ands even minutes until the crash occurred in Pennsylvania.

SENATOR LEVIN: The time that we don't have is when the Pentagon was notified, if they were, by the FAA or the FBI or any other agency, relative to any potential threat or any planes having changed direction or anything like that. And that's the same which you will give us because that's . . .

GENERAL MYERS: I can answer that. At the time of the first impact on the World Trade Center {93questions' note: around 8:40}, we stood up our crisis action team. That was done immediately. So we stood it up. And we started talking to the federal agencies. The time I do not know is when NORAD responded with fighter aircraft. I don't know that time.

SENATOR LEVIN: Or the time that I asked you for, which was whether the FAA or FBI notified you that other planes had turned direction from their path, their scheduled path, and were returning or aiming towards Washington, whether there was any notice from any of them, because that's such an obvious shortfall if there wasn't.

GENERAL MYERS: Right.

SENATOR LEVIN: And in any event, but more important, if you could get us that information.

GENERAL MYERS: It probably happened. As you remember, I was not in the Pentagon at that time, so that part of it is a little hazy. {93questions' note: This is now two days after 9/11.} After that, we started getting regular notifications through NORAD, FAA to NORAD, on other flights that we were worried about. And we knew about the one that eventually crashed in Pennsylvania. I do not know, again, whether we had fighters scrambled on it. I have to . . .

SENATOR LEVIN: If you could get us those times then. We know you don' t know them.

GENERAL MYERS: But we'll get them.

{93questions' note: Thank God the Senate quickly confirmed this knowledgeable bastion of combat-ready competence as the head of our entire US military structure!}

>
EzyJack
08-20-2002, 12:35 AM
Originally posted by Seven Fife:
[
.9 Mach is slow, but it's the fastest speed allowed by policy in place prior to sometime around 9:30am EDT 9/11/01.[/B]------------------

I gotta find the article but some of the Eagles were above Mach on 911. 101s were barely Mach 1 <G> Phantoms with external tanks were very Mach limited.

The crapola hit the fan and am sure they were well over Mach.

Sonic booms can do a little damage <G> Classic was a couple of F-105s over the Force Academy that went over Mach in 61 or so. Windows were blown all over the area. I use to hear the Shuttle and the Blackbird in SoCal often. In a quake area, you first wonder if it's the big one!!

Kinda of funny around me and near Camp David, since 911 almost a 100 intercepts and I have never seen the CAP. I tease the P area now and then <G>

I am still waiting for a report on available fighter assets on 911. How many fighters were out on training flights??

Jack
adoucette
08-20-2002, 03:35 AM
93,
How many times are you going to post the confirmation hearings on Meyers.

I suspect he had other things on his mind than to remember the exact times that things occurred and I would suspect that as the head of the JCS that by then they were head down planning on preventing new attacks and beginning the plan for retaliation.

Remember, the Pentagon got hit, he probably had people he knew and worked with die. He probably had been in damn near round the clock meetings since that morning and you thing because he doesn't know the exact minutes of some event or the exact time Norad was informed he is somehow not on the ball?

Please.

Arthur

adoucette
08-20-2002, 03:40 AM
Originally posted by EzyJack:
Originally posted by Seven Fife:
[
.9 Mach is slow, but it's the fastest speed allowed by policy in place prior to sometime around 9:30am EDT 9/11/01------------------

I gotta find the article but some of the Eagles were above Mach on 911. 101s were barely Mach 1 <G> Phantoms with external tanks were very Mach limited.

The crapola hit the fan and am sure they were well over Mach.

Sonic booms can do a little damage <G> Classic was a couple of F-105s over the Force Academy that went over Mach in 61 or so. Windows were blown all over the area. I use to hear the Shuttle and the Blackbird in SoCal often. In a quake area, you first wonder if it's the big one!!

Kinda of funny around me and near Camp David, since 911 almost a 100 intercepts and I have never seen the CAP. I tease the P area now and then <G>

I am still waiting for a report on available fighter assets on 911. How many fighters were out on training flights??

Jack[/B]

Jack,
I'm curious (never having flown a jet),
How long does it take to get up to Mach 1 or Mach 2?
Also if you were cruising into NY airspace at one of the peak arrival/departure times and with planes arriving at and departing from LaGuardia, JFK, Newark and WhitePlains would you come in above Mach 1?

Arthur
93questions
08-20-2002, 04:08 AM
quote:;Originally posted by adoucette:
93,
How many times are you going to post the confirmation hearings on Meyers.

I suspect he had other things on his mind than to remember the exact times that things occurred and I would suspect that as the head of the JCS that by then they were head down planning on preventing new attacks and beginning the plan for retaliation.

Remember, the Pentagon got hit, he probably had people he knew and worked with die. He probably had been in damn near round the clock meetings since that morning and you thing because he doesn't know the exact minutes of some event or the exact time Norad was informed he is somehow not on the ball?



Not at all.

I think he was lying through his teeth. I think the full text of the confirmation hearing makes that completely obvious.

I'm not sure exactly what he was lying about or exactly why he felt compelled to lie to Congress so blatantly. But if he wasn't lying, then he's an incompetent boob who shirked his duty on 9/11 in order to discuss the threat of terrorism with Senator Cleland during the critical moments of the single worst domestic attack in Pentagon history--and I'd hate to think that of the head of the entire US military.

Just my opinion from the outside looking in. If General Myers would like to answer a few simple questions about the events of that day, I'm sure he could clear everything up for us. skeptical.gif
adoucette
08-20-2002, 04:30 AM
Originally posted by 93questions:

Not at all.

I think he was lying through his teeth. I think the full text of the confirmation hearing makes that completely obvious.

I'm not sure exactly what he was lying about or exactly why he felt compelled to lie to Congress so blatantly. But if he wasn't lying, then he's an incompetent boob who shirked his duty on 9/11 in order to discuss the threat of terrorism with Senator Cleland during the critical moments of the single worst domestic attack in Pentagon history--and I'd hate to think that of the head of the entire US military.

Just my opinion from the outside looking in. If General Myers would like to answer a few simple questions about the events of that day, I'm sure he could clear everything up for us. skeptical.gif

The head of the entire US military is the President.

I think you misunderstand the purpose of the JCS.

The Goldwater-Nichols DOD Reorganization Act of 1986 identifies the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff as the senior ranking member of the Armed Forces. As such, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is the principal military adviser to the President. He may seek the advice of and consult with the other JCS members and combatant commanders. When he presents his advice, he presents the range of advice and opinions he has received, along with any individual comments of the other JCS members.

Under the DOD Reorganization Act, the Secretaries of the Military Departments assign all forces to combatant commands except those assigned to carry out the mission of the Services, i.e., recruit, organize, supply, equip, train, service, mobilize, demobilize, administer and maintain their respective forces. The chain of command to these combatant commands runs from the President to the Secretary of Defense directly to the commander of the combatant command. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff may transmit communications to the commanders of the combatant commands from the President and Secretary of Defense but does not exercise military command over any combatant forces.


The job is a intellegence job and he was not needed that morning at all.

To get planes in the air takes NORAD

To authorize shooting them down requires the pres/VP.

To tell the commanding officers what to do requires Rumsfeld.


So fine, in your wisdom you know that he is lying.

You are a horse's patooie.

Arthur
93questions
08-20-2002, 05:01 AM
Originally posted by adoucette:
The head of the entire US military is the President.

I think you misunderstand the purpose of the JCS.

The Goldwater-Nichols DOD Reorganization Act of 1986 identifies the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff as the senior ranking member of the Armed Forces. As such, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is the principal military adviser to the President. He may seek the advice of and consult with the other JCS members and combatant commanders. When he presents his advice, he presents the range of advice and opinions he has received, along with any individual comments of the other JCS members.

Under the DOD Reorganization Act, the Secretaries of the Military Departments assign all forces to combatant commands except those assigned to carry out the mission of the Services, i.e., recruit, organize, supply, equip, train, service, mobilize, demobilize, administer and maintain their respective forces. The chain of command to these combatant commands runs from the President to the Secretary of Defense directly to the commander of the combatant command. The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff may transmit communications to the commanders of the combatant commands from the President and Secretary of Defense but does not exercise military command over any combatant forces.



And all that has what bearing on the following obvious questions?

From the General's Senate confirmation hearing on 9/13/01:

SENATOR LEVIN: Was the Defense Department contacted by the FAA or the FBI or any other agency after the first two hijacked aircraft crashed into the World Trade Center, prior to the time that the Pentagon was hit?

GENERAL MYERS: I was with Senator Cleland when this happened and went back to the Pentagon. And they were evacuating, of course, the Pentagon at the time. And I went into the National Military Command Center because that's essentially my battle station when things are happening.

SENATOR CLELAND: General, it's a good thing that, as I look back at that morning, that you and I were meeting. It's a good thing we were meeting here and not us meeting in the Pentagon because about the time you and I were having our visit, discussing the need to boost our conventional forces, to look at the question of terrorism and attacks on the United States, at just about that very moment, the Pentagon was being hit.

GENERAL MYERS: Yes, sir.

SENATOR BILL NELSON: ... General Myers, The second World Trade tower was hit shortly after 9:00. And the Pentagon was hit approximately 40 minutes later. You said earlier in your testimony that we had not scrambled any military aircraft until after the Pentagon was hit. And so, my question would be: why? If we knew that there was a general threat on terrorist activity, which we did, and we suddenly have two trade towers in New York being obviously hit by terrorist activity, of commercial airliners taken off course from Boston to Los Angeles, then what happened to the response of the defense establishment once we saw the diversion of the aircraft headed west from Dulles turning around 180degrees and, likewise, in the aircraft taking off from Newark and, in flight, turning 180 degrees? That's the question. I leave it to you as to how you would like to answer it. But we would like an answer.

GENERAL MYERS: You bet. I spoke, after the second tower was hit, I spoke to the commander of NORAD, General Eberhart. And at that point, I think the decision was at that point to start launching aircraft...


OK, so if he talked to Eberhart after the second tower was hit:

1) Why did he then meet with Senator Cleland for 35 minutes to talk about "the question of terrorism and attacks on the United States"?

2) I mean, wasn't he aware that America was currently experiencing just such an attack--the very worst such attack in its entire history?

3) How in the world did he manage to while away the 45 minutes with Cleland such that he didn't arrive at the National Military Command Center, his admitted "battle station when things are happening," until the Pentagon was being evacuated (around 9:45 at the earliest)?

4) Didn’t having hijacker terrorists hit the two tallest buildings in the United States with passenger jets qualify as a time "when things are happening"?

5) Please remember the Myers is an accomplished fighter pilot with thousands of hours experience and the highest ranking USAF general, as well as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Are you really implying that Myers' leadership would have been some sort of a nuisance between 9:05 and 9:45 EDT on 9/11 and that the best possible activity for him during that critical time was to hide in Max Cleland's office discussing the threat of future terrorism?

6) Or was he, in fact, mistaken about this for some reason? Because he was either mistaken in his recollection or else he clearly shirked his duty during the most critical moments of the single worst domestic attack in Pentagon history. I mean, just consider that the official story is that, during this same time period, the passengers of Flight 93 had to take matters into their own hands because guys like Myers couldn't be bothered to end their meetings with bigwigs and yucketty-yucks and make damn sure someone got a fighter on Flight 93's ass within the next hour.
adoucette
08-20-2002, 05:58 AM
quote:Originally posted by 93questions:

And all that has what bearing on the following obvious questions?

From the General's Senate confirmation hearing on 9/13/01:

SENATOR LEVIN: Was the Defense Department contacted by the FAA or the FBI or any other agency after the first two hijacked aircraft crashed into the World Trade Center, prior to the time that the Pentagon was hit?

GENERAL MYERS: I was with Senator Cleland when this happened and went back to the Pentagon. And they were evacuating, of course, the Pentagon at the time. And I went into the National Military Command Center because that's essentially my battle station when things are happening.

SENATOR CLELAND: General, it's a good thing that, as I look back at that morning, that you and I were meeting. It's a good thing we were meeting here and not us meeting in the Pentagon because about the time you and I were having our visit, discussing the need to boost our conventional forces, to look at the question of terrorism and attacks on the United States, at just about that very moment, the Pentagon was being hit.

GENERAL MYERS: Yes, sir.

SENATOR BILL NELSON: ... General Myers, The second World Trade tower was hit shortly after 9:00. And the Pentagon was hit approximately 40 minutes later. You said earlier in your testimony that we had not scrambled any military aircraft until after the Pentagon was hit. And so, my question would be: why? If we knew that there was a general threat on terrorist activity, which we did, and we suddenly have two trade towers in New York being obviously hit by terrorist activity, of commercial airliners taken off course from Boston to Los Angeles, then what happened to the response of the defense establishment once we saw the diversion of the aircraft headed west from Dulles turning around 180degrees and, likewise, in the aircraft taking off from Newark and, in flight, turning 180 degrees? That's the question. I leave it to you as to how you would like to answer it. But we would like an answer.

GENERAL MYERS: You bet. I spoke, after the second tower was hit, I spoke to the commander of NORAD, General Eberhart. And at that point, I think the decision was at that point to start launching aircraft...


OK, so if he talked to Eberhart after the second tower was hit:

1) Why did he then meet with Senator Cleland for 35 minutes to talk about "the question of terrorism and attacks on the United States"?

==> This is your interpretation, he says he was meeting with Cleland when this happens, but he also says he talked to Eberhart after the second crash, so maybe he was just using Clelands offices at that time to conduct business.
You don't know and this man did not get to be the head of the JCS and also be a total Bozo as you seem to paint him.

2) I mean, wasn't he aware that America was currently experiencing just such an attack--the very worst such attack in its entire history?

==> Yeah, I'm sure he did.


3) How in the world did he manage to while away the 45 minutes with Cleland such that he didn't arrive at the National Military Command Center, his admitted "battle station when things are happening," until the Pentagon was being evacuated (around 9:45 at the earliest)?

===> Maybe he was busy on the phone and didn't want to take the time to drive over to the pentagon (not a short drive at that time in DC)

4) Didn’t having hijacker terrorists hit the two tallest buildings in the United States with passenger jets qualify as a time "when things are happening"?

==> Again, the drive puts him out of the loop.

5) Please remember the Myers is an accomplished fighter pilot with thousands of hours experience and the highest ranking USAF general, as well as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Are you really implying that Myers' leadership would have been some sort of a nuisance between 9:05 and 9:45 EDT on 9/11 and that the best possible activity for him during that critical time was to hide in Max Cleland's office discussing the threat of future terrorism?

==> It is soley your characterization that he was hiding. You don't know what he was doing.

6) Or was he, in fact, mistaken about this for some reason? Because he was either mistaken in his recollection or else he clearly shirked his duty during the most critical moments of the single worst domestic attack in Pentagon history. I mean, just consider that the official story is that, during this same time period, the passengers of Flight 93 had to take matters into their own hands because guys like Myers couldn't be bothered to end their meetings with bigwigs and yucketty-yucks and make damn sure someone got a fighter on Flight 93's ass within the next hour.
Once again, you are being a horse's rear-end. You have no problem slinging mud based on assumptions you are making about what went on.

Arthur



[ August 20, 2002 12:00 AM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by adoucette ]
93questions
08-20-2002, 06:58 AM
quote:Originally posted by Seven Fife:
Ah, so if a transponder goes inactive, the first action should be for the FAA to contact NORAD (that red phone, right beside every air traffic controller from GS-14 to SES-5?) and have the plane shot down, so that the sensibility of the news media's 20/20 hindsight would not be offended because someone was be prudent about taking actions that would effect the lives of hundreds of innocent people. After all, the FAA's failure here, lead to the deaths of order magnitude greater lost than that of a single airplane. They should be held accountable for that, shouldn't they? After all, who could have missed the telling blue paw print?

Certainly out of the question would be to take a few minutes trying to communicate with the plane to determine the failure mode of the transponder. After all checking facts to assure accuracy in reporting events to others would be inappropriate when emotions call for immediate actions. The crime becomes intolerable if moments are taken to warn other aircraft of a potential danger in the air around them, and to request verification that they are also not experiencing problems and can contact other controllers via another channel in order to offload work and allow proper dedication be provided to a developing situation. May they burn in hell for carrying out their duties and not cutting corners where it might have prevented the tragic lost of lives in a manner never before seen on the face of the Earth.


Utter tripe.

Alerting the military for any suspected hijack was SOP on 9/11. Considering what had happened by 9:03, you better believe that the military was being told exactly what the FAA knew exactly when they knew it. Otherwise, heads should roll.

This has nothing whatsover to do with any decision to shoot down passenger planes. Fighter interception of hijacks was standing operating procedure and has been such for the last 25 years. After the second WTC tower was hit, do you really expect us to believe that the FAA reacted to unresponsive planes with their transponders off by going to bathroom, getting a donut from the break room and refilling their coffees?
93questions
08-20-2002, 07:46 AM
Not quite.

Once again, I'm pretty sure he was doing his job as you point out, but, for some reason, he didn't want to talk about exactly what he was doing for the Congressional record.

I'm simply pointing out the ramifications of his own claims, but I certainly don't give them extraordinary credence and I'm actually more inclined to believe that Myers jumped into action that morning like every other good American who had a chance to help fight the terrorists.

adoucette
08-20-2002, 11:26 AM
Originally posted by 93questions:
Not quite.

Once again, I'm pretty sure he was doing his job as you point out, but, for some reason, he didn't want to talk about exactly what he was doing for the Congressional record.

I'm simply pointing out the ramifications of his own claims, but I certainly don't give them extraordinary credence and I'm actually more inclined to believe that Myers jumped into action that morning like every other good American who had a chance to help fight the terrorists.

BS,

You can sugarcoat it all you want but what you said borders on libel.

I think he was lying through his teeth. I think the full text of the confirmation hearing makes that completely obvious.

I'm not sure exactly what he was lying about or exactly why he felt compelled to lie to Congress so blatantly. But if he wasn't lying, then he's an incompetent boob who shirked his duty on 9/11


Lying to Congress will get you thrown in jail.

Telling the truth, even if one leaves out details not specifically asked about, will not.

If one is asked for a specific exact value, like how many minutes before or after something happened it is probably BEST to not state the answer unless you are 100% sure of the number, because if one gives a number and it turns out to be wrong, then it can be construed as lying. See no 1 above. Regardless of your intent.


Arthur
Leland
08-20-2002, 01:20 PM
93questions,

You have had 11 months and apparently nothing better to do, and you can't even get the events correct for when the transponder turned off on flight 93. Where is your credibility? Where is ability to gather the facts and present them? Screw pagers, you got a damn internet at your finger tips, and you still couldn't get the timeline correct even for the flight that you took your pen name from. Your arguments are without merit and are born from ignorance of reality. I'm glad you can copy and paste congressional testimony, and maybe even read it, but apparently it is beyond your attainment to comprehend what occurred both then and now.

[ August 20, 2002 07:21 AM: Message edited 2 times, lastly by Seven Fife ]

93questions
08-20-2002, 02:11 PM
Originally posted by Seven Fife:
93questions,

You have had 11 months and apparently nothing better to do, and you can't even get the events correct for when the transponder turned off on flight 93. Where is your credibility? Where is ability to gather the facts and present them? Screw pagers, you got a damn internet at your finger tips, and you still couldn't get the timeline correct even for the flight that you took your pen name from. Your arguments are without merit and are born from ignorance of reality. I'm glad you can copy and paste congressional testimony, and maybe even read it, but apparently it is beyond your attainment to comprehend what occurred both then and now.

Sure. Whatever.

My point was simply that it was known by everyone with a brain that we were under terrorist attack by 9:03 EDT on 9/11--the time the second WTC tower was hit.

At that time, all available fighters--including any on or about to leave on training sorties--should have been alerted to prepare to intercept any suspicious planes as soon as they became suspicious.

But go ahead, pat yourself on the back--for the second time now--that you caught me in some sort of mistake, if it really makes you feel better. I'm happy to help.
JL
08-20-2002, 02:24 PM
93,
How many times are you going to post the confirmation hearings on Meyers.
I suspect he had other things on his mind than to remember the exact times that things occurred and I would suspect that as the head of the JCS that by then they were head down planning on preventing new attacks and beginning the plan for retaliation.

Remember, the Pentagon got hit, he probably had people he knew and worked with die. He probably had been in damn near round the clock meetings since that morning and you thing because he doesn't know the exact minutes of some event or the exact time Norad was informed he is somehow not on the ball?



+


Lying to Congress will get you thrown in jail.
Telling the truth, even if one leaves out details not specifically asked about, will not.

If one is asked for a specific exact value, like how many minutes before or after something happened it is probably BEST to not state the answer unless you are 100% sure of the number, because if one gives a number and it turns out to be wrong, then it can be construed as lying. See no 1 above. Regardless of your intent.



Poor guy Myers. He is not an ordinary person like you and me. He is supossed to be a top officer, head of Joint Chiefs of Staff, trained for that and for worse.

And shouldn't he want to be inaccurate (that cannot "be construed as lying"), he should have taken the information in paper. The senator who put the questions had at hand.

By the way, thanks for the clarification of your type of justice: "beginning the plan for retaliation" already on 13th Sept.

"Lying to Congress will get you thrown in jail." Come on, come on.

And, isn't it laughable saying the poor military, who enjoy one of the biggest armies in this world, are short of budget or equipment as I have read here?

.
EzyJack
08-20-2002, 02:27 PM
[QUOTE]Originally posted by adoucette:
[B]Jack,
I'm curious (never having flown a jet),
How long does it take to get up to Mach 1 or Mach 2?
Also if you were cruising into NY airspace at one of the peak arrival/departure times and with planes arriving at and departing from LaGuardia, JFK, Newark and WhitePlains would you come in above Mach 1? ------------------------------------

Well under a minute from taking off. Also depends on your configuration. Mainly lack of external tanks or bombs. Plus your fuel flow goes sky high. Rule of thumb it's 4 times the fuel flow for twice the thrust. Burner is a very loud fuel converting noise maker.

The problem with going supersonic is the boom. Which is dependent on altitude and ambient conditions. You don't read about much damage when the Shuttle arrives for landing and it's well above Mach 1.

If I had the green light to go max speed, no problemo blowing through NYC area <G> I would double check that my recording gear is working!!

Jack

Leland
08-20-2002, 04:19 PM
quote:Originally posted by EzyJack:

Well under a minute from taking off. Also depends on your configuration. Mainly lack of external tanks or bombs. Plus your fuel flow goes sky high. Rule of thumb it's 4 times the fuel flow for twice the thrust. Burner is a very loud fuel converting noise maker.

The problem with going supersonic is the boom. Which is dependent on altitude and ambient conditions. You don't read about much damage when the Shuttle arrives for landing and it's well above Mach 1.

If I had the green light to go max speed, no problemo blowing through NYC area <G> I would double check that my recording gear is working!!

Jack

You have to get that green light though. The Shuttle also makes lots of money for the Florida economy, and takes a predefined path designed to minimize the effects of sonic booms. But I'm with ya, I would like the military to exercise like its for real, so they won't hold back when it is. Unfortunately, they had been trained for decades now not to push the sound barrier, and that may have caused hesitation.
Leland
08-20-2002, 04:35 PM
Originally posted by 93questions:
Sure. Whatever.

My point was simply that it was known by everyone with a brain that we were under terrorist attack by 9:03 EDT on 9/11--the time the second WTC tower was hit.

At that time, all available fighters--including any on or about to leave on training sorties--should have been alerted to prepare to intercept any suspicious planes as soon as they became suspicious.

But go ahead, pat yourself on the back--for the second time now--that you caught me in some sort of mistake, if it really makes you feel better. I'm happy to help.

That's a finer point. Unfortunately, its not that simple, but yeah, it would be nice if that was done. The US Military has many safe guards to assure the public that civilian leaders have control of the actions of its soldiers. These safe guards protect us but also prevent the military from operating at peak efficiency. When these safe guards are removed, you get 100 hour ground wars in Iraq, but you also get Friendly Fire accidents. Same has occurred in Afghanistan and many other theaters.

A better point is that if you are calling up fighters, it's too late. The lives of a least 100 innocent people are already in danger, and that's wrong. The guys in the control centers, and the military pilots operating in environment declared peaceful by both their military and political leaders are the ones who had to deal with the mistakes of others. I would even avoid blame of the terminal security at the airport, as they allowed to pass what policy stated was acceptable. If you want to parse it, you can bring up various FAA test teams that declared Boston security below average in security and failed them numerous times for allowing unacceptable items to pass. But that day, what the terrorist used to gain control was acceptable by policy. It was only due to complacency that people believed terrorist with box cutters were not a threat to thousands of people. What alarms me is that their are people already returning to complacency.

[ August 20, 2002 10:37 AM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by Seven Fife ]
Vostok1
08-24-2002, 11:03 AM
quote:Originally posted by Seven Fife:
If you want to parse it, you can bring up various FAA test teams that declared Boston security below average in security and failed them numerous times for allowing unacceptable items to pass.

Boston security was not responsible for what happened to Flight 11 since that hijacking crew was screened at Portland, Maine that morning. Does anybody know if the hijackers of UA 175 first boarded at Logan, or did they connect from Portland (or somewhere else), too?
Leland
08-24-2002, 12:48 PM
Originally posted by Vostok1:
Boston security was not responsible for what happened to Flight 11 since that hijacking crew was screened at Portland, Maine that morning. Does anybody know if the hijackers of UA 175 first boarded at Logan, or did they connect from Portland (or somewhere else), too? ;

It's a pointless item. Again, the items allowed on board were not against policy. Which is why I already stated that they were not responsible, even if seemingly a likely, and certainly better target than blaming the ATC personnel. It's imareporter calling for an indictment of treason.
EzyJack
08-24-2002, 02:14 PM
Fighter pilot scrambled on Sept. 11 recounts experience
United Press International
Published 3:26 p.m. PDT Wednesday, August 21, 2002

HYANNIS, Mass., Aug. 21 (UPI) - One of the two military jet pilots scrambled from Cape Cod in Massachusetts after air controllers suspected a flight out of Boston had been hijacked thought he was witnessing the start of World War III when he saw the World Trade Center twin towers in New York City collapse.

While the two F-15s arrived too late to prevent the hijackers from crashing two passenger jet airliners into the towers, the fighter pilots couldn't have tried to shoot them down, anyway. They didn't have presidential permission to fire on a civilian passenger airplane, the pilot said.

"We were 70 miles out" - about eight minutes -when the second plane crashed into a tower, said one pilot identified only as Nasty. He spoke publicly about Sept. 11 for the first time in Wednesday's Cape Cod Times.



"All we saw was Lower Manhattan covered in dust and debris," said Nasty, 35, who follows protocol by using his call name rather than his real name in the media.

"I thought it was the start of World War III," he said.

Nasty said he and the other pilot, Duff, after a supersonic chase from Otis Air National Guard Base on Cape Cod to New York City, were frustrated they couldn't have done more.

"We did everything we could do to get there in time," Nasty said.

However, by the time the fighters arrived over New York, American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175 - both hijacked after taking off from Boston's Logan International Airport - had already crashed into the towers.

Even if the military jets had arrived in time, Nasty said there was nothing they really could have done because the only one who could give orders to shoot down a civilian passenger jet was the president, and by the time he learned about the attacks the two planes had already crashed.

"If we had intercepted American 11, we probably would have watched it crash," he says. "We didn't have the authority to (shoot it down). We didn't suspect they would use kamikaze tactics that morning," Nasty said.

"We weren't ready for that type of an attack," Nasty said, "to quickly shoot down one of our own airplanes."

Jack adds, note the supersonic part. They had the pedal to the metal and a helluva of a lot faster than 10 miles a minute.

David Hilditch
08-24-2002, 02:57 PM
Originally posted by EzyJack:
HYANNIS, Mass., Aug. 21 (UPI) - One of the two military jet pilots scrambled from Cape Cod in Massachusetts after air controllers suspected a flight out of Boston had been hijacked thought he was witnessing the start of World War III when he saw the World Trade Center twin towers in New York City collapse.

While the two F-15s arrived too late to prevent the hijackers from crashing two passenger jet airliners into the towers, the fighter pilots couldn't have tried to shoot them down, anyway. They didn't have presidential permission to fire on a civilian passenger airplane, the pilot said.

"We were 70 miles out" - about eight minutes -when the second plane crashed into a tower, said one pilot identified only as Nasty. He spoke publicly about Sept. 11 for the first time in Wednesday's Cape Cod Times.

"All we saw was Lower Manhattan covered in dust and debris," said Nasty, 35, who follows protocol by using his call name rather than his real name in the media.

"I thought it was the start of World War III," he said.

Nasty said he and the other pilot, Duff, after a supersonic chase from Otis Air National Guard Base on Cape Cod to New York City, were frustrated they couldn't have done more.

"We did everything we could do to get there in time," Nasty said.

However, by the time the fighters arrived over New York, American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175 - both hijacked after taking off from Boston's Logan International Airport - had already crashed into the towers.

Even if the military jets had arrived in time, Nasty said there was nothing they really could have done because the only one who could give orders to shoot down a civilian passenger jet was the president, and by the time he learned about the attacks the two planes had already crashed.

"If we had intercepted American 11, we probably would have watched it crash," he says. "We didn't have the authority to (shoot it down). We didn't suspect they would use kamikaze tactics that morning," Nasty said.

"We weren't ready for that type of an attack," Nasty said, "to quickly shoot down one of our own airplanes."

Jack adds, note the supersonic part. They had the pedal to the metal and a helluva of a lot faster than 10 miles a minute.[/B]


Hang on, either he thought WWIII was going to start when he saw the second plane hit the second tower (9.03 am) or when the first tower (ie. the second to be hit) collapsed (about 10 am) - that's inconsistent. Or journalistic hype ?

Moreover, are we supposed to believe those same F-15s remained on station for another hour, especially after a supersonic dash ?

[ August 24, 2002 08:59 AM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by David Hilditch ]
Vostok1
08-24-2002, 05:54 PM
quote:Originally posted by Seven Fife:
It's a pointless item. Again, the items allowed on board were not against policy. Which is why I already stated that they were not responsible, even if seemingly a likely, and certainly better target than blaming the ATC personnel. It's imareporter calling for an indictment of treason. ;

I don't think it's pointless, because there were reports that the hijackers claimed they had a bomb on board, and we don't know that they didn't. In fact, given the evidence, one can make the case that they blew up Flight 93 themselves when faced with an apparent mutiny on board in the final minutes. It's not any less likely in my estimation than them putting the plane in a dive intentionally or accidentally.

BTW...can anyone answer the question about whether the UA 175 hijackers flew into Logan on 9/11 or began from there?
MikeD
08-24-2002, 09:52 PM
quote:Originally posted by David Hilditch:

Hang on, either he thought WWIII was going to start when he saw the second plane hit the second tower (9.03 am) or when the first tower (ie. the second to be hit) collapsed (about 10 am) - that's inconsistent. Or journalistic hype ?

Moreover, are we supposed to believe those same F-15s remained on station for another hour, especially after a supersonic dash ?

I'd like some clarification on the time too, it does seem a little inconsistent.

As far as the F-15s go, after a supersonic dash with their distance, I'd expect them to have less than :30 fuel remaining, that's considered minimum fuel already. Hang out much longer, and you're emergency fuel fast.

MD
adoucette
08-25-2002, 06:40 AM
quote:Originally posted by Vostok1:
I don't think it's pointless, because there were reports that the hijackers claimed they had a bomb on board, and we don't know that they didn't. In fact, given the evidence, one can make the case that they blew up Flight 93 themselves when faced with an apparent mutiny on board in the final minutes. It's not any less likely in my estimation than them putting the plane in a dive intentionally or accidentally.

BTW...can anyone answer the question about whether the UA 175 hijackers flew into Logan on 9/11 or began from there?

Based on what evidence can one make the claim that they blew up Flight 93????

Considering the reports of the planes flight path during the last minutes, flying at low level, twisting and turning and well over Vne, the putting it in the ground by accident (or intentionally) seems quite reasonable.

Assuming bomb residue / components were found why would the FBI surpress that as that would be valuable information as to our security needs? Makes no sense at all.

The bomb reference on 93 I believe is because they only had 4 hijackers and needed some way to frighten the passengers. The reports say they had 2 in the cockpit, with one quard and the 1 guard for all the rest in the back of the plane.

Only Atta and an associate named Alomari boarded via Portland, the rest boarded locally.

Arthur
Vostok1
08-26-2002, 03:40 PM
[QUOTE]Originally posted by adoucette:
Based on what evidence can one make the claim that they blew up Flight 93????

Considering the reports of the planes flight path during the last minutes, flying at low level, twisting and turning and well over Vne, the putting it in the ground by accident (or intentionally) seems quite reasonable.

UA 175 was twisting and turning too at speeds that were probably comparable to 93's. Yet it did not break up or ditch into the ground, rather it went smack dab into its intended target. All I am saying is that there is as much evidence for a bomb as there is for the "heroic passengers" putting the plane into a dive.

Assuming bomb residue / components were found why would the FBI surpress that as that would be valuable information as to our security needs? Makes no sense at all.

Maybe the bomb components haven't been found because they landed many miles away after being lofted by the fireball? images/smiles/icon_wink.gif

Only Atta and an associate named Alomari boarded via Portland, the rest boarded locally.

I know this is off topic, but I am wondering WHY these two dudes would go to Portland when all the others boarded at BOS?

BTW...Alomari was not the guy's name, that was a stolen identity:
http://www.mujahideen.fsnet.co.uk/wtc/wtc-hijackers.htm

93questions
08-26-2002, 03:53 PM
quote: Originally posted by MikeD:
I'd like some clarification on the time too, it does seem a little inconsistent.

As far as the F-15s go, after a supersonic dash with their distance, I'd expect them to have less than :30 fuel remaining, that's considered minimum fuel already. Hang out much longer, and you're emergency fuel fast.

MD

From:
http://www.capecodonline.com/special/terror/ithought21.htm

A second hijacked airliner had just sliced into the towers on the morning of Sept. 11, and the two Otis pilots were trying to clear the airspace over Lower Manhattan.

"When we turned around, all we saw was Lower Manhattan covered in dust and debris," said one of the pilots, who lives in Forestdale and is just now speaking publicly about that day.

The 35-year-old pilot, who follows military safety protocol by using his call name, Nasty, rather than his real name in the media, thought terrorists had just struck again.

"Then Duff (the other pilot) said over the radio, 'It looks like the building collapsed.' I thought to myself, 'There were just tens of thousands of people killed,'" Nasty said yesterday.

"We did everything we could do to get there in time," the Cape pilot said yesterday, sitting in the same control room where he first heard about the hijackings last fall.

"I was the same as everyone else. I was shocked and disbelieving, and frustrated that we were so late. But then again, it was out of our control."

On the morning of the 11th, Nasty was sitting in the Otis control office, its walls lined with pilot schedules and charts, working an "alert" shift for another pilot, who was scheduled for training that day.

While the unit always had two pilots on alert, much of the regular flying time was devoted to training high over the Atlantic.

At 8:40 a.m., all that was going to change.

An American Airlines flight out of Boston had apparently been hijacked, a colleague told Nasty.

There hadn't yet been an official call for a scramble, but the two pilots on alert duty hustled to a nearby room and donned flight gear.

As they walked across the airfield to their jets, which stood armed on alert, a horn sounded and the public address system blared their instructions: This was an official military scramble. They should report to their battle stations. According to the North American Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD - which is responsible for U.S. and Canadian airspace - the scramble was ordered at 8:46 a.m.

Within moments, they were traveling at supersonic speeds. All the pilots knew was that they were to intercept one airliner that appeared headed toward New York City.

The plan was to find the airliner on the jets' radar, follow it, let the ground controllers know what was going on.

But it was already too late. By the time the jets had left Otis, Flight 11 had crashed into the World Trade Center. Eleven months later, Nasty doesn't even recall hearing that the first plane hit.

{93 questions' comment: Um, wasn't he supposed to have been scrambled after Flight 11 hit the WTC? So how could he have possibly heard the first plane hit?}

And by the time he heard a word about a second hijacked plane, United Airlines Flight 175, it had already smashed into the second tower before the horrified eyes of millions on TV.

{93 questions' comment: So he never heard about Flight 175 until after it hit the WTC? WTF is this supposed to mean?}

That happened at 9:02 a.m., according to NORAD records. The two Otis F-15s were about 71 miles - or eight minutes - from Manhattan.

{93 questions' comment: Hmm, 71 miles in 8 minutes = 532 mph. WTF?}

Visibility was extremely clear that morning, and Nasty could see the plume of black smoke pouring from the first tower.

{93 questions' comment: So, they obviously got there before the second plane hit. Or am I missing something, experts?}

For a few minutes, the Otis jets were directed to a 150-mile chunk of air space off Long Island where the unit's pilots typically train.

{93 questions' comment: So that the second plane could hit its target unmolested. Right, everybody?}

But within minutes, the pilots received orders to head to Manhattan for combat air patrol, which would become a routine mission for Otis pilots over the next several months.

The two pilots tried to identify the dozens of small aircraft suddenly flying over Manhattan. There were several police and rescue aircraft, but also media helicopters and a few curious small-plane pilots.

Nasty and Duff alternated. One would drive away those aircraft that didn't belong toward airspace over the ocean, while the other monitored Manhattan.

{93 questions' comment: A far more important job than intercepting Flights 77 or 93. Right, experts?}

They refueled in midair just over the water.

{93 questions' comment: So obviously conserving fuel was not a paramount issue. Right?}

Both pilots were together, near John F. Kennedy Airport, about 15 miles from the World Trade Center, when the first tower collapsed.

{93 questions' comment: But I thought one was patrolling while the other was redirecting planes.}

Unlike millions of Americans who watched the events live on television, the Otis pilots were basically unaware of what was happening elsewhere in the country.

It was only later that a controller mentioned in passing that there was a similar attack in Washington.

"He didn't elaborate, and we didn't really have time to think about it," Nasty said.

At one point, a civilian controller said that if another plane were hijacked it would have to be shot down.

At the time of the first two hijackings, the military pilots couldn't be sure the commercial pilots weren't having electrical problems, for example. Besides, the only person who could have ordered them to be shot down was the president, and he was still at a public event when the second tower was hit.

{93 questions' comment: Makes sense until the first tower is hit. May even make sense until the second tower is hit at 9:03 EDT as he contends. But after 9:03 EDT, it makes no sense whatsoever--as any "civilian controller" could tell you.}

"If we had shot down four airliners on Sept. 11, we wouldn't have been heroes," Nasty says. "You don't have the choice of outcomes. They're all bad."

"If we had intercepted American 11, we probably would have watched it crash," he says. "We didn't have the authority to (shoot it down). We didn't suspect they would use kamikaze tactics that morning," he says.

{93 questions' comment: Flight 11 again. They were sent to intercept Flight 11, but they got there too late. No wonder they were too late. Now it makes sense. Then they were sent away until Flight 175 had a chance to hit its target as well. If not complicity, we are obviously talking about criminal incompetence. Great reason for a cover up either way. Right, experts?}

"We weren't ready for that type of an attack, to quickly shoot down one of our own airplanes."

When he landed about 4 1/2 hours later at Otis, it was a different base.

Armed security with flak jackets guarded every entrance. Personnel were swarming in the buildings, and officers were trying to locate all the reserve pilots.

As soon as he climbed off his jet, Nasty was told by a crew member on the ground that another airliner had smashed into the Pentagon. And he was told that a military F-16 had shot down a fourth airliner in Pennsylvania, a report that turned out to be incorrect.
Chris Mc
08-26-2002, 11:15 PM
Originally posted by Vostok1:
quote: I know this is off topic, but I am wondering WHY these two dudes would go to Portland when all the others boarded at BOS

I imagine they were trying to spread the risk around. In case airport security was an issue in BOS, they were hoping the Portland team would get through to maximize their chance of success.

Alternatively, they may have been hoping to avoid booking the same originating flights, in case that would have attracted some unwarranted attention.

What I wonder is why they only did this with AA 11? Why didn't they do the same with UA 175? Or with AA 77, why didn't somone catch an early morning flight from a smaller city to Dulles?

Vostok1
08-27-2002, 04:39 AM
quote:Originally posted by Chris Mc:
Originally posted by Vostok1:
I imagine they were trying to spread the risk around. In case airport security was an issue in BOS, they were hoping the Portland team would get through to maximize their chance of success.

Alternatively, they may have been hoping to avoid booking the same originating flights, in case that would have attracted some unwarranted attention.

What I wonder is why they only did this with AA 11? Why didn't they do the same with UA 175? Or with AA 77, why didn't somone catch an early morning flight from a smaller city to Dulles?


Besides the fact that the other groups all boarded at the same place, there are other problems with that theory. What if either group of AA Flight 11 hijackers had been stopped? It's not likely that the remaining two or three could have pulled off the mission by themselves. As has already been mentioned on these boards, making a connecting flight also increased the chance of missing the cross country flight, which in fact nearly happened to the two that flew to BOS from Portland (indeed Atta's luggage never made it onto Flight 11).


Is it true that there are no surveillance cams at BOS? The only pics of Atta and the other guy on 9/10 and 9/11 are from their time in Portland.
adoucette
08-27-2002, 07:51 AM
I've spent some time thinking about this as opposed to simply reacting to wild speculations and outlandish interpretations of innocuous statements.

However, one thing finally occured to me, and it bothered me because it took so long to finally sink in.

Re: Conspiracy theories related to Otis Jets, Pentagon Jets etc, etc ad nauseum.

What is the BEST THAT COULD HAVE HAPPENED ON 9/11?

From reading all the links the best I can figure out is that at 8:25 the FAA became reasonably certain that they had a hijacking despite the fact that the hijacking transponder code was not set.

Had they immediately notified NEADS at 8:25 and NEADS had immediately ordered the OTIS jets to scramble, the jets could have gotten airborne at 8:37.

At an AVERAGE speed of 1,000 mph (which means a much faster top speed) it would have taken 10.5 minutes to get the 175 air miles to Manhatten. They would have been 1.5 minutes too late.

EVEN IF THEY HAD PERMISSION TO FIRE AND SOME WAY OF IDENTIFING THE AA-11 AIRCRAFT, they would have had to fire missiles that traveled at 2,000 mph from a distance of over 20 miles.

We don't have targeting systems or weapons that could pick that specific jet out of the traffic around JFK, Newark and LaGuaria.

So there is actually NO CONCEIVABLE WAY we could have prevented the first tower from being hit (and eventually collapsing)

Now, had the FAA/Military reacted with incredible foresight, skill and the 20/20 hindsight to know exactly which of the 3,400 aircraft in the sky that morning were the real threats, it is possible they could have shot the other three down. (assuming they didn't wait for presidental permission of course).

So again I say, the best that could have happened that morning is one plane into the WTC and three commercial aircraft shot down. The loss of lives would have been around 1/2 the total figure, the economic impact would have been about the same. The military response WOULD NOT BE DIFFERENT AT ALL. It still would have evoked the exact same response, so all of this conspiracy about "could we have shot down 175" or the pentagon aircraft, is totally meaningless. The US response would have been the same even if there had been but one plane that morning.

Arthur

93questions
08-27-2002, 08:50 AM
quote:Originally posted by adoucette:
I've spent some time thinking about this as opposed to simply reacting to wild speculations and outlandish interpretations of innocuous statements.

However, one thing finally occured to me, and it bothered me because it took so long to finally sink in.

Re: Conspiracy theories related to Otis Jets, Pentagon Jets etc, etc ad nauseum.

What is the BEST THAT COULD HAVE HAPPENED ON 9/11?

From reading all the links the best I can figure out is that at 8:25 the FAA became reasonably certain that they had a hijacking despite the fact that the hijacking transponder code was not set.

Had they immediately notified NEADS at 8:25 and NEADS had immediately ordered the OTIS jets to scramble, the jets could have gotten airborne at 8:37.

At an AVERAGE speed of 1,000 mph (which means a much faster top speed) it would have taken 10.5 minutes to get the 175 air miles to Manhatten. They would have been 1.5 minutes too late.

EVEN IF THEY HAD PERMISSION TO FIRE AND SOME WAY OF IDENTIFING THE AA-11 AIRCRAFT, they would have had to fire missiles that traveled at 2,000 mph from a distance of over 20 miles.

We don't have targeting systems or weapons that could pick that specific jet out of the traffic around JFK, Newark and LaGuaria.

So there is actually NO CONCEIVABLE WAY we could have prevented the first tower from being hit (and eventually collapsing)

Now, had the FAA/Military reacted with incredible foresight, skill and the 20/20 hindsight to know exactly which of the 3,400 aircraft in the sky that morning were the real threats, it is possible they could have shot the other three down. (assuming they didn't wait for presidental permission of course).

So again I say, the best that could have happened that morning is one plane into the WTC and three commercial aircraft shot down. The loss of lives would have been around 1/2 the total figure, the economic impact would have been about the same. The military response WOULD NOT BE DIFFERENT AT ALL. It still would have evoked the exact same response, so all of this conspiracy about "could we have shot down 175" or the pentagon aircraft, is totally meaningless. The US response would have been the same even if there had been but one plane that morning.

Arthur


1) No way Flight 11 could have been prevented.

2) No way that fighters should not have been at least in the vicinity when Flight 175 hit (38 minutes after Flight 11 was confirmed hijack).

3) Slim chance that a fighter wasn't on Flight 77's ass without severe incompetence or else complicity (72 minutes after Flight 11 was a confirmed hijack, 34 minutes after Flight 175 hit the second WTC).

4) No possible way that a fighter wasn't on Flight 93's ass without ridiculously laughable incompetence or else complicity (99 minutes after Flight 11 was a confirmed hijack, 63 minutes after Flight 175 hit the second WTC).

I think this analysis is 100% objective, and I find the arguments of the apologists' for the military's reported (but not necessarily actual) response absurdly strained. It's as if you called 911 and then waited 90 minutes for the fire department to show up while your house burned to the ground with your family inside, but then comforted yourself by saying that "no one was prepared for this" and "no one was at fault for this" and "firemen have a difficult job." Never has there been such an epic level of tragedy with such an infinitesmal level of accountability.
Leland
08-27-2002, 03:19 PM
Obviously, a few people have watched to many fictional movies and believed the "realistic" video games played in "beginner mode" to be knowledgeable about the real world.

Some things that might help:

There is not an escape pod on Air Force One. Both the USAF and the Director and Producers of the movie acknowledged this one as a plot device.

There is not an F-117 capable of carrying more than one person, and certainly not one that can mate to a 747 and transfer people on board to stop terrorist.

Military pilots are not allowed to buzz towers, General's daughters, or commercial aircraft.

There is no such thing as a red phone hotline between any given US civilian installation and NORAD/NEADS.

The FAA has no rights to authorize military jets to scramble, intercept, and especially attack a civilian airliner.

Commercial aircraft do not carry IFF transmitters, thus do not show up as red, blue, or yellow on the pilot's radar MFD. In most F-15's and F-16's, everything is green anyway.

Beyond visual range (BVR) attacks were not allowed during Desert Storm in an actual war time, combat theater. They certainly would not be allowed during a time of peace, over US airspace, and utilized against a civilian target that is one amongst many others in the nearby airspace controlled by three major airports and only suspected of being hijacked.

During the cold war, aircraft and crew sitting 24/7 alert status had requirements to be airborne in 5 minutes to intercept aircraft off the coast, typically outside commercial air routes, that had been tracked for minutes following a vector bringing them into US airspace, and once on intercept arrival had all the appearances of being a Russian built Bear bomber or other military aircraft. If along the Southern border, they typically were small civilian prop planes smuggling drugs. After the cold war, this process was discontinued.

There is no autoland button. Missile do not lock on to the bad guy civilian airliner automatically, especially the heat seeking kind.

Missiles do not vaporize an aircraft such that no debris lands anywhere.

NECAP/Looking Glass flights ended with the 24/7 alert aircraft.

Imagine for a moment, a typically over-stressed air traffic controller had the power to declare an aircraft hijacked and without any review of his/her findings, the military was called in and took immediate action. Weeks later, the media put on its 20/20 delayed vision goggles, and parsed the whole situation...

One dose of reality: If you were the hapless controller having to handle a situation in which 19 hijackers gave you 45 minutes to do whatever to save as many lives as possible in a scenario that had never occurred before, and 3,000 people die because of it; the 20 hijacker shouldn't be given death, but you should be tried for treason and hung within less than a year according to a self-professed member of the media and others that have chosen you to shoulder the burden of grief they bare.

Ignorance must really be bliss...

Leland
08-27-2002, 05:33 PM
This just in...
Fighter Jet Escorts Plane to Md. (http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&ncid=716&e=1&u=/ap/20020827/ap_on_re_us/escorted_landing_3)

"There was a miscommunication between the pilot and the ground," Brown said.

An FBI spokesman in Baltimore, Barry Maddox, confirmed that an emergency code was mistakenly entered into the plane's radar transponder.

"It seemed to indicate a problem when it was not a problem," Maddox said. "They radioed back and said it was a mistake and the pilot was ordered to land at Baltimore."

This is during the post 9/11 era. I'm curious to see the public response to this action. One thing is for sure, we probably won't have to try the controller for treason. images/smiles/icon_rolleyes.gif

adoucette
08-27-2002, 05:34 PM
quote:Originally posted by 93questions:

1) No way Flight 11 could have been prevented.

2) No way that fighters should not have been at least in the vicinity when Flight 175 hit (38 minutes after Flight 11 was confirmed hijack).

==> They were close, (closer than Norad's estimate of 71 miles which was based on a speed of .9 Mach, 'cause they went faster), pointless as they couldn't actually do anything.

3) Slim chance that a fighter wasn't on Flight 77's ass without severe incompetence or else complicity (72 minutes after Flight 11 was a confirmed hijack, 34 minutes after Flight 175 hit the second WTC).

==> Ah, 20/20. Yes if they sent the NY fighters down they may have had a better chance, but how did they know more strikes were not planned for NY?

4) No possible way that a fighter wasn't on Flight 93's ass without ridiculously laughable incompetence or else complicity (99 minutes after Flight 11 was a confirmed hijack, 63 minutes after Flight 175 hit the second WTC).

==> Again, the decision was made to fly CAP over Washington, not go on a search and destroy. As the hijackers had been turning off the transponders and flying at low altitudes their exact location and heading was not something that was readily known.



I think this analysis is 100% objective,

==> Yeah, particularly the complicity parts and the ridiculously laughable incompetence characterizations.

and I find the arguments of the apologists' for the military's reported (but not necessarily actual) response absurdly strained.

==> That has hardly been discussed at all. The big questions have been: Did Otis Scramble at all or when Norad said they did? and Did U93 actually get shot down?

It's as if you called 911 and then waited 90 minutes for the fire department to show up while your house burned to the ground with your family inside, but then comforted yourself by saying that "no one was prepared for this" and "no one was at fault for this" and "firemen have a difficult job." Never has there been such an epic level of tragedy with such an infinitesmal level of accountability.

==> No it is as if you called 911 every few minutes and said I started a fire somewhere on the Eastern Seaboard. Good luck.

Arthur



[ September 03, 2002 11:13 AM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by adoucette ]
Leland
08-27-2002, 05:38 PM
quote:Originally posted by Seven Fife:
One thing is for sure, we probably won't have to try the controller for treason. images/smiles/icon_rolleyes.gif

Oops, I forgot, the rational for treason by the controller is not failure to contact NORAD, but for doing so in a less than timely manner. More investigation will need to be made as to whether this recent scum can be allowed to live. nonono2.gif
rosinante
09-04-2002, 10:20 AM
here are some fighters for NORAD truth who just try to implement 08:25 as the time for reasonable doubt of a hijacling and who try to argue about 15 minutes of delay as normal in pre911-times.

1) we are NOT talking about signs of hijacing.Wearetalking about reasonable causes to inform Noradto scramble interceptors.It might be technical problems, disease of the pilots - we do not know in pre911-times.

2) first signa arereported for 08:14 (transponder off and no radio). The change of direction at 08.24 is irrelevant, it is just another sign.

3) Only the first two signs are enough to cause to act according to the regulations, which say "immediately" call NORAD. It is the norad decision if and how to scramble, not of the flight controller.

4) So what we can see here is a nice deception: to blame a little bit the FAA, to elongate the timeline and to fit the fiction into reality

5) all in all it is to "explain" the time delay between 08:14 and the alleged 8:52(which we discussed in the other thread about UA93). More than half an hour. At least. In fact they must explain more than one hour untill the Pentagoncrash.

6) we were asked what could have happened best(which would have been STANDARD)That is:
alert in NORAD at 08:15, (immediately,standard)
scrambling at at least 08:30 (immediately,standard)
interception at 08:40, (immediately,standard)
call to the president in Sarasota (immediately,standard)
reaction in time before 08:45.(immediately,standard)

They try to tell us that all this standard was not possible and that the obstacles reach so far as to AA77. LOL.

limo driver
09-04-2002, 02:01 PM
"I think this analysis is 100% objective, and I find the arguments of the apologists' for the military's reported (but not necessarily actual) response absurdly strained. It's as if you called 911 and then waited 90 minutes for the fire department to show up while your house burned to the ground with your family inside, but then comforted yourself by saying that "no one was prepared for this" and "no one was at fault for this" and "firemen have a difficult job." Never has there been such an epic level of tragedy with such an infinitesmal level of accountability."

Your answer speaks for itself. "Never before" is its key phrase. Sep 11 cannot be judged by past standards. 93Q, feel free to stomp all over my comments,as they will be a bit strong. But one quality I constantly notice in the arguments of many conspiratorial types is an exaggerated conviction in the questionable assumptions they hold. Time and again they adopt a super-confident stance in regard to their so-called "common sense intuition" about how the world works. That is hubris with a capital "H." There are lots of stories of botched emergency responses in NORMAL times. There was one very recently here in Boston in which a man suffered a heart attack on a commuter train. The conductor was informed, and nevertheless continued the trip into Boston, making all the remaining scheduled stops! When the man finally got to a hospital he was dead. These things happen all the time! And then when we get this unprecedented event called 9/11, we are then lectured by know-it-alls about what constitutes "absurdly strained" responses. There are a thousand and one reasons that are constantly overlooked by the conspiracy brigade when they map out with arithmetic certainty why "x,y or z" should have happened in manner "a, b, or c" within time frame "d,e, f." This whole excercise, to repeat, is nothing more than HUBRIS. Our government is known for its massive incompetence, and history always shocks one at how unprepared governments can be in times of crisis.


regards
Chris

[ September 04, 2002 08:09 AM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by limo driver ]

adoucette
09-04-2002, 04:20 PM
Originally posted by rosinante:
here are some fighters for NORAD truth who just try to implement 08:25 as the time for reasonable doubt of a hijacling and who try to argue about 15 minutes of delay as normal in pre911-times.

1) we are NOT talking about signs of hijacing.Wearetalking about reasonable causes to inform Noradto scramble interceptors.It might be technical problems, disease of the pilots - we do not know in pre911-times.

2) first signa arereported for 08:14 (transponder off and no radio). The change of direction at 08.24 is irrelevant, it is just another sign.

3) Only the first two signs are enough to cause to act according to the regulations, which say "immediately" call NORAD. It is the norad decision if and how to scramble, not of the flight controller.

4) So what we can see here is a nice deception: to blame a little bit the FAA, to elongate the timeline and to fit the fiction into reality

5) all in all it is to "explain" the time delay between 08:14 and the alleged 8:52(which we discussed in the other thread about UA93). More than half an hour. At least. In fact they must explain more than one hour untill the Pentagoncrash.

6) we were asked what could have happened best(which would have been STANDARD)That is:
alert in NORAD at 08:15, (immediately,standard)
scrambling at at least 08:30 (immediately,standard)
interception at 08:40, (immediately,standard)
call to the president in Sarasota (immediately,standard)
reaction in time before 08:45.(immediately,standard)

They try to tell us that all this standard was not possible and that the obstacles reach so far as to AA77. LOL.

Rosi,
Do you bother to check anything?

This "immediately,standard" stuff is only in your immagination.

Here are the FAA's rules for request of ESCORT of hijacked aircraft. (Notice, there were NO RULES for shootdown of hijacked aircraft)

NOTICE, the words IMMEDIATELY CALL NORAD are nowhere to be found, in fact the FAA contacts the FAA hijack coordinator.

Notice, the FAA does not contact the military and REQUEST an escort UNTIL a hijack is CONFIRMED.


http://faa.gov/ATpubs/MIL/Ch7/mil0701.html#7-1-1

Chapter 7. ESCORT OF HIJACKED AIRCRAFT

Section 1. GENERAL

7-1-1. PURPOSE

The FAA hijack coordinator (the Director or his designate of the FAA Office of Civil Aviation Security) on duty at Washington headquarters will request the military to provide an escort aircraft for a confirmed hijacked aircraft to:

a. Assure positive flight following.

b. Report unusual observances.

c. Aid search and rescue in the event of an emergency.

7-1-2. REQUESTS FOR SERVICE

The escort service will be requested by the FAA hijack coordinator by direct contact with the National Military Command Center (NMCC). Normally, NORAD escort aircraft will take the required action. However, for the purpose of these procedures, the term "escort aircraft" applies to any military aircraft assigned to the escort mission. When the military can provide escort aircraft, the NMCC will advise the FAA hijack coordinator the identification and location of the squadron tasked to provide escort aircraft. NMCC will then authorize direct coordination between FAA and the designated military unit. When a NORAD resource is tasked, FAA will coordinate through the appropriate SOCC/ROCC.

Also the join up rules:

7-2-3. VECTORS

Escort aircraft shall be vectored to a position 5 miles directly behind the hijacked aircraft. The vectors shall be planned to approach the hijacked aircraft from the rear to avoid the possibility of being observed and to position the escort aircraft at the same altitude, speed, and heading as the hijacked aircraft.

7-2-6. RESPONSIBILITIES PRIOR TO JOIN-UP

Until the escort aircraft has joined-up with the hijacked aircraft, the pilot shall be kept informed of the hijacked aircraft heading, speed, altitude, and destination (if known); also, its range and position relative to the escort aircraft. For fighter/interceptor aircraft, the application of "optimum cruise" will normally ensure sufficient overtake during the "join-up" phase.

==> So on a normal hijack they wouldn't have gone supersonic, optimal cruise for an f/15 is about 600mph.


Assign an altitude which is either the altitude of the hijacked aircraft or the optimum altitude requested by the escort aircraft pilot when the hijacked aircraft is at a lower altitude. Descend the escort aircraft to the altitude of the hijacked aircraft prior to reaching a point 30 miles from the target. When the hijacked aircraft is at a low altitude where communications between the escort aircraft and the control facility would be questionable, a second escort aircraft (which will normally be available when NORAD interceptors are being utilized) may be stationed at a higher altitude near the hijacked aircraft's position for relay of information between the control facility and the escort aircraft maintaining visual surveillance.

7-2-7. POSITIONING INSTRUCTIONS

Unless the escort pilot has a visual contact, plan the join-up at 30 miles and issue positioning instructions.

EXAMPLE-
"Echo Golf One Two, when contact is established, maintain surveillance. Approach no closer than five miles directly behind. Remain out of sight from cockpit or cabin, and report all actions observed."


What this doesn't say is the military side of this equation. They also required chain of command approval to launch an intercept. An authorization they skipped when they heard that 2 planes had been hijacked.

Arthur
rosinante
09-04-2002, 04:23 PM
no limo:

nobody accuses the government or pilots or the FAA or anybody not to have been EYTRAORDINARYLY QUICK, specially skilled, not having advanced knowledge, not to be Superman, not to have intuitions.

I am talking about
the STANDARD to call NORAD immediately,
the STANDARD to scramble in at least 15 minutes,
the standard to fly OTIS-Manhattan in 10-12 minutes,
the standard of intercept routines even without weapons,
the logic to send two allegedly late-coming F-15 at least not somewhere into the open but to send them to intercept at least AA77.

Why did they not meet the normal procedures? Especially since we know that allegedly nobody knew of these flights to be suicide missions, so everybody could have just calmly followed the regulations. No extras required.

We are wondering about the "miracles", about no investigation, about no material evidence, but open lies.
This government of innocence is able to immediately point to the "Islamists". So who must prove? Who makes allegations?

We ASK - and you dont provide answers, but only explanations why asking is wrong. We would not ask when the standards were met and when material evidence were in the open.

adoucette
09-04-2002, 05:21 PM
quote" Originally posted by rosinante:
no limo:

nobody accuses the government or pilots or the FAA or anybody not to have been EYTRAORDINARYLY QUICK, specially skilled, not having advanced knowledge, not to be Superman, not to have intuitions.

I am talking about
the STANDARD to call NORAD immediately,

==> NO the STANDARD is to prevent midair collisions etc first and time permitting, notify the FAA hijack coordinator in DC of the issue. When the hijack is CONFIRMED, then notify NORAD.

the STANDARD to scramble in at least 15 minutes,

==> Actually 12 minutes I believe.

the standard to fly OTIS-Manhattan in 10-12 minutes,

==> No, they went much faster that morning than standard, as the previously published regs showed, normal intercept speed is "optimal cruise" which is NOT SUPERSONIC. At optimal cruise it would take about 18 minutes to get to NYC from OTIS. (PS these were the speeds NORAD used in its early estimates of distance, as we have heard, the planes went much faster than optimal cruise speed)

the standard of intercept routines even without weapons,

==> The standard of intercept routines is to join up 30 miles out and close to 5 miles behind.

the logic to send two allegedly late-coming F-15 at least not somewhere into the open but to send them to intercept at least AA77.

These were kept in CAP over NYC. Other jets were scrambled for AA77. In hindsight, since as it turned out there were no more jets heading to NY deploying the airborne jets would have been faster, but one can only make this call after the fact.



Why did they not meet the normal procedures?

==> As shown above, the notification was normal, right up until two hijacked planes were identified at which point Otis shifted into higher gear.

Especially since we know that allegedly nobody knew of these flights to be suicide missions, so everybody could have just calmly followed the regulations. No extras required.

We are wondering about the "miracles", about no investigation, about no material evidence, but open lies.

You have no idea of the level of investigation done, simply because the govt has not yet made the information public does not mean it does not exist. As mentioned before the huge number of coalition governments have heard our story and believe it enough to commit forces to the battle against terrorism.

You have never proven one "open lie". The one you harped on over and over about, "The Otis lie", has been taken apart piece by piece to show that Wibel's comments do not in fact prove that Norad lied about anything that morning.



This government of innocence is able to immediately point to the "Islamists". So who must prove? Who makes allegations?

==> Well since the airlines provided the manifests which showed that each of the aircraft had a large number of Arabic people all flying in first class and a number of the overheard conversations sounded foriegn and it was fairly quickly discovered that a number of the members such as Atta had taken advanced flight training (for which they had no jobs which required same) and martial arts training and that many of the Arabs on the different planes knew each other (hell of a coincidence?), that a number had ties to a terrorist organization which had previously attacked the US. That the method of taking over the planes controls required the use of force by 4 or more people and that the other passengers on the aircraft were easily identified as normal unrelated people going about their everyday lives. It was and is no stretch for any but the most ardent haters of the US that have any difficulty at all accepting what is so plainly evident.

We ASK - and you dont provide answers, but only explanations why asking is wrong. We would not ask when the standards were met and when material evidence were in the open.

==>We have provided answers over and over. You simply care not to listen, simply continue in your mindless hate.

Arthur



Leland
09-04-2002, 07:04 PM
quote:Originally posted by rosinante:

I am talking about
the STANDARD to call NORAD immediately,
the STANDARD to scramble in at least 15 minutes,
the standard to fly OTIS-Manhattan in 10-12 minutes,
the standard of intercept routines even without weapons,
the logic to send two allegedly late-coming F-15 at least not somewhere into the open but to send them to intercept at least AA77

Would you mind presenting your sources for what you deem normal procedures?

I add myself to this list when reading your above quote:
quote We are wondering about the "miracles", about no investigation, about no material evidence, but open lies.

How did you come up with these standards that are not true, where is your investigation, where is your material evidence, and why do you suggest you have any idea what the standard operating procedures of the FAA, NORAD, or other US government agency is? Again, where is your proof supporting your claims? You require such from others, but not of yourself!

Look at these talking points:
quote we are NOT talking about signs of hijacing.Wearetalking about reasonable causes to inform Noradto scramble interceptors.It might be technical problems, disease of the pilots - we do not know in pre911-times.

You don't call NORAD for sick pilots. Did you get this from the movie "Airplane!"?

quote 2) first signa arereported for 08:14 (transponder off and no radio). The change of direction at 08.24 is irrelevant, it is just another sign.

This didn't happen. First of all, the FAA would have no idea if a radio was on or off. Second, the radio was not off as at 8:24, the FAA recorded this:
quote Flight 11 broadcasts "We have some planes. Just stay quiet and you will be OK. We are returning to the airport. Nobody move." Apparently, one of the hijackers confused the aircraft's radio with its public-address system. Air traffic control responds "Who's trying to call me?" Then from Flight 11, "Everything will be OK. If you try to make any moves, you'll endanger yourself and the airplane. Just stay quiet." Source is the timeline I noted in a previous post to this thread. I'd say the time frame of 8:24 is not irrelevant.

quote 3) Only the first two signs are enough to cause to act according to the regulations, which say "immediately" call NORAD. It is the norad decision if and how to scramble, not of the flight controller.

First sign meant nothing. Transponders fail, and the response to such failures is not military escort, at least it was not prior to 9/11. You may have a small point with 8:24 if only you didn't provide an argumentative point that questions whether or not the radio was even on, much less a transmition was received from that airplane. Point of fact, without the communicator stating the source, no one in the FAA control center would know were the transmission came from at that time, only the channel on which it was boardcast. How would your argument work if Flight 11 transponder went out, but the communication was from flight 77? Wouldn't it be prudent for the FAA to take a moment and determine the source of such transmission? And only by process of elimination could that be completed. Then they would have something to tell NORAD besides, "we heard a communication on this channel."

quote 4) So what we can see here is a nice deception: to blame a little bit the FAA, to elongate the timeline and to fit the fiction into reality

I can't even comprehend your point here. You're the one blaming the FAA for not following procedures. You're the one that has been proved to confuse the timeline from reality to something fictional. So are you trying to deceive us?

quote 5) all in all it is to "explain" the time delay between 08:14 and the alleged 8:52(which we discussed in the other thread about UA93). More than half an hour. At least. In fact they must explain more than one hour untill the Pentagoncrash.

One minute after the 8:24am transmission, Boston control notifies other centers. That's probably a general announcement to discern where the broadcast came from, as of yet, no one knows if it is flight11 or not, and without assistance from people already watching and listening, they would not be investigating the situation. NORAD is contacted at 8:38. 14 minutes later (note less than 15 minutes), two F-15's are wheels up from Otis ANG. You could argue the validity of the F-15 takeoff times, but the rest is time stamped.

posted September 04, 2002 04:20 AM Delete Post

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
here are some fighters for NORAD truth who just try to implement 08:25 as the time for reasonable doubt of a hijacling and who try to argue about 15 minutes of delay as normal in pre911-times.
1) we are NOT talking about signs of hijacing.Wearetalking about reasonable causes to inform Noradto scramble interceptors.It might be technical problems, disease of the pilots - we do not know in pre911-times.

2) first signa arereported for 08:14 (transponder off and no radio). The change of direction at 08.24 is irrelevant, it is just another sign.

3) Only the first two signs are enough to cause to act according to the regulations, which say "immediately" call NORAD. It is the norad decision if and how to scramble, not of the flight controller.

4) So what we can see here is a nice deception: to blame a little bit the FAA, to elongate the timeline and to fit the fiction into reality

5) all in all it is to "explain" the time delay between 08:14 and the alleged 8:52(which we discussed in the other thread about UA93). More than half an hour. At least. In fact they must explain more than one hour untill the Pentagoncrash.

6) we were asked what could have happened best(which would have been STANDARD)That is:
alert in NORAD at 08:15, (immediately,standard)
scrambling at at least 08:30 (immediately,standard)
interception at 08:40, (immediately,standard)
call to the president in Sarasota (immediately,standard)
reaction in time before 08:45.(immediately,standard)


The military would love the budget that could afford to launch intercept missions everytime a EEE device fails on an aircraft. Heck, even for the times when that device is only the transponder. They already are meeting the 15 minute alert schedule, but if you want 10 minute intercept times, lets reopen a few of those bases closed over the last 10 years. The President would not get any work done if the FAA had to always call them when a transponder failed.

Of course the folly of all this is that you think this is what needs to be fixed. By 0814, people were already at risk aboard the flights, and a few likely even dead during the initial hijacking. Even if all the agencies worked in the way you declare, hundreds would of still lost their lives. If you really prefer to wait for an attack rather then prevent them, then I'd recommend forgetting NORAD and intercept missions, and ringing large cities with Baghdad type anti-air defense systems. F-117's might get by, but Boeing 757 and 767 would get shot down. Again, DoD would be happy for the budget increase to pay for this, but then why not just give the FAA/DOT/TSA direct control over those AAA defenses and exclude the middleman in the interest of efficiency.
EzyJack
09-04-2002, 08:35 PM
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Seven Fife:
[If you really prefer to wait for an attack rather then prevent them, then I'd recommend forgetting NORAD and intercept missions, and ringing large cities with Baghdad type anti-air defense systems--------------------

ROFL we use to have the air defenses with the Nike/Ajax missile bases. Think I read at o ne time we had 300 bases around the country. Downside to them was the atomic warheads they used

I toured one while they were operating. My old man was in them for a bit and he helped w rite the study to shut them down Am pretty sure by early 70s they were all shut down.

BTW, just heard another intercept of a little bird over busting the DC P area.

Jack

rosinante
09-04-2002, 10:26 PM
Oh I am so sorry Arthur.

You are so right about standards which you know so good. Except that you always take those quotes which you like and not the ones which are contradictory. The word "IMMEDIATELY" was not a quote, otherwise I would not have been able to use it for several very different issues where all sources use different words for the same meaning, and I would have putit in " "..

Now let us take our topic about telling NORAD. You need a lot of sentences to explain facts which I agree with and said it clearly in this forum. It is NOT the decision of the FAA to shoot down aircrafts and so on. You must not teach me basic points, and for sure I never said that. So what you are doing is producing fog to install yourself as the "expert" and me as somebody who is not able to comprehend basics-

So back to "IMMEDIATELY"
The phrase I relied on does not contain "immediately" . Only "most expeditious".

Ø http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/jel/cjcsd/cjcsi/3610_01a.pdf

"In the event of a hijacking, the NMCC will be notified by the most expeditious
means by the FAA."

There is one point open: "event of a hijacking". You like to trample on it to broaden this issue. I do understand that. The hijackers did not confirm "it is a hijacking", so it is not a confirmed hijacking. LOL
But we do not NEED that confirmation, although the two signs were enough. Even when it is not a hijacking and only a technical problem it is cause enough to call for interceptors. No radio: that is crucial! At least when the heavies veered of course there is the need to react. But the controllers allegedly did not even do that in time. How can we explain that the local controllers acted differently? Duffy on OTIS received his personal call from Logan. The Pentagon received their warning from Dulles.
So miraculously the local controllers knew what the approach of a Boeing without transponder, radio and flight route means - and those faa controllers not?


And here now a story about interception.

'The Associated Press State & Local Wire'
13 September 2001, Thursday, BC cycle,
"Small private plane ordered to land in vicinity of Bush ranch"

CRAWFORD, Texas--A small private plane flying
unauthorized in the vicinity of President Bush's ranch near
Crawford was ordered by the military to land Thursday, a
sheriff's deputy said.

Also Thursday, military jets forced a small plane down in
Wood County.

In Crawford, the 71-year-old pilot and his son were detained
for routine questioning by the U.S. Secret Service, said Chief
Deputy Randy Plemons of the McLennan County Sheriff's
Department. The incident, which occurred shortly before 10
a.m., may have been a misunderstanding, Plemons said.

"I can't even confirm if he was even close to the ranch,"
Plemons said. From what investigators have conveyed,
Plemons said, the pilot went up for a "joy ride" in his small
Cessna.

"Obviously, bad timing," he said.

The Federal Aviation Administration declared that the plane
was unauthorized and ordered its occupants detained,
Plemons said. At that point military officials, flying in two jets
beside the plane, got on the pilot's radio frequency and
ordered the Cessna to land.

"At this point we don't have any information that we can
release on that." said Staff Sgt. Ruth Lewis with the 301st
Fighter Wing public affairs office.

The plane landed on a private landing strip near State
Highway 6, about eight miles from the Bush ranch near
Crawford.

The name of the pilot and his son were not immediately being
released. It was unclear whether any charges would be filed.

The sheriff's department began receiving 911 emergency calls
immediately about the plane because residents believed no
planes were supposed to be flying.

"We're just trying to ease the fears of people here," Plemons
said.

Crawford Mayor Robert Campbell said the town of 705 is
beginning to return to its normal routine after terrorist attacks
on Washington and New York City. There have been no
indications of threats against Crawford, even though it's the
site of Bush's ranch, he said.

"Basically, things are quiet. Naturally, we're keeping our eyes
and ears open like everybody else," Campbell said. He added
that local officials are keeping a more visible police presence in
town.

School in Crawford had been called off Tuesday, but by
Wednesday children returned to class.

In Wood County, Sheriff's senior Dispatcher Rodney Mize
said a private plane was forced down by two military pilots in
A-10 Warthog jets about 11:30 a.m. The jets flew one above
and one below until the private plane's pilot landed at Wisener
Field near Mineola.

"I can tell you it sure spooked a lot of people this morning.
Everyone is on edge right now and this guy was doing some
afternoon flying," Mize said in a story in Friday's Tyler Morning
Telegraph.

Tyler Pounds Field Airport Air Traffic Controller Jerry Head
said the skies remain closed to general aviation until further
notice.

Mize said the pilot was not fined or charged with any crime.


I know it is not pre911. I hope I must not look for extracts even possted in here which show interception doesNOT mean to stay 5 miles behind.

And forget about the hate of the USA. I write in English, the music I hear is English, I was used to listen AFN every day for years. I like popcorn, Hollywood movies and donuts. Must I kiss Bushs ass to show how "not-Antiamerican" I am?

Leland
09-04-2002, 11:03 PM
I talked this weekend to a ret. USAF Colonel that lives a few miles away from the Ranch at Crawford. He says, when ever his neighbor is present, there are usually military helicopters operating within the local airspace. It is quite possible that this intercept was initiated by the military or via the local sheriff's department directly to the military, and not at all by the FAA.

Unfortunately, I didn't discuss this particular issue with my friend.

BTW, Rosinante, if your point is to suggest more efficient means and policies exist for intercept, I'm sure most of us would agree to one extent or another. However, the people that acted upon the policies in place on 9/11 did their job at the best of their abilities, and in a few areas, exceeded some expectations. It is wrong to hold them accountable for failures of a system that was unappropriate for the attack carried out.

MikeD
09-04-2002, 11:11 PM
Warthog's flying intercepts. There's a mission change for us. hehe

MD

adoucette
09-05-2002, 12:53 AM
Originally posted by rosinante:
Oh I am so sorry Arthur.

You are so right about standards which you know so good. Except that you always take those quotes which you like and not the ones which are contradictory. The word "IMMEDIATELY" was not a quote, otherwise I would not have been able to use it for several very different issues where all sources use different words for the same meaning, and I would have putit in " "..

Now let us take our topic about telling NORAD. You need a lot of sentences to explain facts which I agree with and said it clearly in this forum. It is NOT the decision of the FAA to shoot down aircrafts and so on. You must not teach me basic points, and for sure I never said that. So what you are doing is producing fog to install yourself as the "expert" and me as somebody who is not able to comprehend basics-

So back to "IMMEDIATELY"
The phrase I relied on does not contain "immediately" . Only "most expeditious".

Ø http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/jel/cjcsd/cjcsi/3610_01a.pdf

"In the event of a hijacking, the NMCC will be notified by the most expeditious means by the FAA."

There is one point open: "event of a hijacking". You like to trample on it to broaden this issue. I do understand that. The hijackers did not confirm "it is a hijacking", so it is not a confirmed hijacking. LOL
But we do not NEED that confirmation, although the two signs were enough. Even when it is not a hijacking and only a technical problem it is cause enough to call for interceptors. No radio: that is crucial!


==> To you it is crucial, to the controllers that morning it was just some communication problem with a jet. Nothing sinister. Even when it turned they thought it might be heading to NYC to land because of some problem, took a while to realize it was a suspected hijacking. Yes they heard something over the radio that was disturbing, but a radio broadcast that did not identify the source. None the less the procedures to be followed are:

FAA notify the FAA designated Hijack Coordinater in DC. (gotta call on regualar land line, his secretary answers, she passes call to him, the local FAA guy discusses with this guy why he thinks its a hijack, TICK TICK TICK) so if he agrees with the local FAA guy the hijack coordinator gets on the phone to the NMCC. (TICK TICK TICK)

But then look what happens:

c. Military Escort Aircraft
(1) When notified that military escort aircraft are needed in conjunction with an aircraft piracy (hijacking) emergency, the DDO, NMCC, will notify the appropriate unified command or USELEMNORAD to determine if suitable aircraft are available and forward the request to the Secretary of Defense for approval in accordance with DODD 3025.15, paragraph D.7 (reference d).
(2) Pursuant to reference j, the escort service will be requested by the FAA hijack coordinator by direct contact with the NMCC . Normally, NORAD escort aircraft will take the required action. However, for the purpose of these procedures, the term “escort aircraft” applies to any military aircraft assigned to the escort mission. When the military can provide escort aircraft, the NMCC will advise the FAA hijack coordinator of the identification and location of the squadron tasked to provide escort aircraft. NMCC will then authorize direct coordination between FAA and the designated military unit. When a NORAD resource is tasked, FAA will coordinate through the appropriate Air Defense Sector/Regional Air Operations Center.

So now the FAA hijack coordinator talks to the NMCC guys and convinces them of the situation. (TICK TICK TICK) and the NMCC guy agrees, So the NMCC guys puts the HC on hold while they determine what aircraft are available (TICK TICK TICK). Finding aircraft the NMCC guy gives authorization for the local FAA controller to contact Otis AFB. The NMCC guys then have to contact the DOD to get his ok (TICK TICK TICK) because the planes aren't taking off from Otis until the commander gets the DOD's approval (actually in this case they did, and they did that under the emergency clause of the 3015 directive which allows them to fly first and answer questions later, but they didn't exercise that option until they heard the second hijacked plane was heading to NY.)

Now NORAD says they were informed at 8:40.

When was the call put into the Hijack Coordinator and how long dit it last?
When did the Hijack coordinator contact NMCC and how long did that call last?
Did the NMCC use USELEMNORAD or the appropriate unified command to determine if planes were available and how long did that take?
Is this the 8:40 time or is it after the planes were located that the NMCC gave the FAA controllers the authority to contact Otis directly that represents the 8:40 time?

Let us know when you have the answers to these questions will you. You seem to think that everything should have proceeded at blinding speed that morning but they didn't and it wasn't because of anything sinister.



At least when the heavies veered of course there is the need to react. But the controllers allegedly did not even do that in time. How can we explain that the local controllers acted differently? Duffy on OTIS received his personal call from Logan. The Pentagon received their warning from Dulles.
So miraculously the local controllers knew what the approach of a Boeing without transponder, radio and flight route means - and those faa controllers not?

==> They are all FAA controllers.


...

I know it is not pre911. I hope I must not look for extracts even possted in here which show interception doesNOT mean to stay 5 miles behind.



PRE 9/11 - the use of fighters was AS ESCORT. I have published the FAA guidelines and if you will read the directive you posted, it puts the military on an escort mission under the FAA's control. The idea is to not spook the hijackers. So yes, one goes in trail 5 miles behind, I did not say they STAYED 5 miles behind however.


And forget about the hate of the USA. I write in English, the music I hear is English, I was used to listen AFN every day for years. I like popcorn, Hollywood movies and donuts. Must I kiss Bushs ass to show how "not-Antiamerican" I am?


Ok, you love us, and it just drips from your posts, sorry have another donut with my blessings. How Bush is involved in this is beyond me, you have certainly not cast any doubts on the events of the day or who the perpertrators were let alone any implication of Bush in any of this.

Arthur





null
Tony Manzur
09-05-2002, 12:58 AM
Does anyone else find it Ironic that Meyssan is using the terrorists inadvertant voice transmissions to establish when the FAA realised it was a hijack, when according to Meyssan, those terrorists did not exist?

I'm gonna need two popcorn machines at this rate.

burlgoat
09-05-2002, 01:42 AM
You guys are going on and on here about the Otis jets, but regarding Flight 77 the question would seem to be why weren't the LANGLEY jets scrambled sometime between 8:40 and 9:02? That's not a conspiracy allegation, but just in hindsight how dumb was it not to have fighters over DC by 9:38 when ol' No. 77 chugged into town?

[ September 04, 2002 08:14 PM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by iamareporter ]

adoucette
09-05-2002, 03:24 AM
quote:Originally posted by iamareporter:
You guys are going on and on here about the Otis jets, but regarding Flight 77 the question would seem to be why weren't the LANGLEY jets scrambled sometime between 8:40 and 9:02? That's not a conspiracy allegation, but just in hindsight how dumb was it not to have fighters over DC by 9:38 when ol' No. 77 chugged into town?

I guess one could have scrambled the jets with no known target, but airtime is limited so maybe they thought it best to keep them on the ground until there was a target?

This issue really boils down to when NORAD was informed of the aircraft. I have that as 9:24, not enough time to prevent the crash.

Why was the notification so late in coming? Have to ask the controllers that morning and see what data they had to work with. I don't know so am not ready to throw stones in their direction.

One question is that although all hell was breaking loose in NY starting at 8:46 and really going from an accident to an attack at 9:02. When did the controllers handling Flt 77 become aware of the situation in NY? Flt 77 was on its flight path until about 9:00 when its transponder was turned off.

I've been reading several conspiracy web sites and one thing that seems to be assumed is everyone at every ATC facility was (or should have been) aware of what was going on in the rest of the US airspace almost in real time.

I wonder what the information lag really is? 1 min , 5 min, 10 min?

Arthur
burlgoat
09-05-2002, 04:36 AM
I certainly agree that it's easy to be a Monday morning QB when we really have no idea about the stresses the FAA controllers were under on 9/11. But my point about the Langley F-16s is that I'm surprised (admittedly, again, with the benefit of hindsight) that they weren't sent to patrol DC "on spec," in a holding pattern rather than waiting until a confirmed report of a hijacking at 9:24, some 22 minutes after the second tower was struck and we knew there was some kind of attack underway.
Also, was there an "inland" NORAD base between the Eastern Seaboard and the central Midwest, or were the pre-9/11 bases only on the coasts?

adoucette
09-05-2002, 04:43 PM
quote: Originally posted by iamareporter:
I certainly agree that it's easy to be a Monday morning QB when we really have no idea about the stresses the FAA controllers were under on 9/11. But my point about the Langley F-16s is that I'm surprised (admittedly, again, with the benefit of hindsight) that they weren't sent to patrol DC "on spec," in a holding pattern rather than waiting until a confirmed report of a hijacking at 9:24, some 22 minutes after the second tower was struck and we knew there was some kind of attack underway.
Also, was there an "inland" NORAD base between the Eastern Seaboard and the central Midwest, or were the pre-9/11 bases only on the coasts?

As I see it the problem was the known attack location was not military or governmental, so DC would not necessarily be considered a prime target of whoever was doing this. The only thing the first targets had in common were they were very tall buildings, something DC pretty much lacks, however places like Atlanta and Chalotte to the south of Langely have the tallest buildings in the area and could also have been targets. They could have flown their fighters to DC and then a jet hit the BofA tower in Atlanta without them being able to get to it in time as easily as the pentagon.

There were 7 bases (14 aircraft) on alert on 9/11. All were around the perimeter of the country. Since Canada is part of NORAD, they also had 3 bases on alert, however these are well north of the US border.

The bases I've been able to establish are Otis, Ma; Langley, Va. Tyndall, Fl, Elmendorf, Ak; and Homestead, FL.

Arthur
Leland
09-05-2002, 05:07 PM
1st Air Force, comprised of ANG units, was made responsible for continental defense in 1997. Here's a list of their units:

102nd FW — Otis ANG Base, MA
119th FW — Hector Field, Fargo, ND
120th FW — Great Falls IAP, MT
125th FW — Jacksonville IAP, FL
142nd FW — Portland ANGB
144th FW — Fresno ANG Base, CA
147th FW — Ellington Field, TX
148th FW — Duluth IAP, MN
158th FW — Burlington IAP, VT

The 1st Fighter Wing based at Langley AFB, is part of the 9th Air Force, which on 9/11, was not part of the NORAD alert air defense. Therefore, those aircraft were not prepared for an air intercept mission, and the time to retask them was likely greater than that of calling more aircraft from Otis or even Burlington.

I do recall it was Ellington that provided fighter escort for Air Force 1 between Florida and Barksdale AFB (home of 8th Air Force).

adoucette
09-05-2002, 05:57 PM
quote: Originally posted by Seven Fife:
1st Air Force, comprised of ANG units, was made responsible for continental defense in 1997. Here's a list of their units:

102nd FW — Otis ANG Base, MA
119th FW — Hector Field, Fargo, ND
120th FW — Great Falls IAP, MT
125th FW — Jacksonville IAP, FL
142nd FW — Portland ANGB
144th FW — Fresno ANG Base, CA
147th FW — Ellington Field, TX
148th FW — Duluth IAP, MN
158th FW — Burlington IAP, VT

The 1st Fighter Wing based at Langley AFB, is part of the 9th Air Force, which on 9/11, was not part of the NORAD alert air defense. Therefore, those aircraft were not prepared for an air intercept mission, and the time to retask them was likely greater than that of calling more aircraft from Otis or even Burlington.

I do recall it was Ellington that provided fighter escort for Air Force 1 between Florida and Barksdale AFB (home of 8th Air Force).

Leland,
I only got one right????
I found the info on the net as these were listed as Norad bases (and matched the description of around the perimeter), you have 9 bases listed but all other reports I've seen have said 7 bases, 14 NORAD aircraft on alert. (6 more in Canada).

Also this:

At the time of the attacks, only seven locations-around the perimeter of the United States-were engaged
in the air defense mission.
Each was assigned a pair of Air National Guard fighter aircraft ready to scramble if US airspace were threatened.
These alert locations had F-15 or F-16 fighters on the runways, fueled, and ready to take off in fewer
than 15 minutes.
“Based upon the threat, seven sites was [considered] adequate for the outward threat,” he said. “Never did
we believe the threat would come from within.”
Shortly thereafter, at 9:24 a.m., NORAD got reports of additional hijackings and immediately scrambled
two F-16s of the 119th Fighter Wing, a North Dakota ANG unit that keeps a permanent detachment at Langley.
on Sept. 11, said a senior NORAD officer.
http://www.afa.org/magazine/Feb2002/0202norad.pdf

Arthur

[ September 05, 2002 11:58 AM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by adoucette ]
EzyJack
09-05-2002, 07:45 PM
quote: Originally posted by adoucette:
[

I wonder what the information lag really is? 1 min, 5 min, 10 min?

Arthur[/B]-----------

Depends if they had CNN on <G>

Jack
Leland
09-05-2002, 08:10 PM
Arthur and Mike,

I made several searches to get that info. One thing seems certain, on 9/11, the ANG was tasked for ADF. Andrews AFB was not, and only by luck would they have had aircraft prepared for such a mission that day. I also ran across the 1994 GAO report that called for the distribution of the peace dividend...

adoucette
09-05-2002, 08:23 PM
quote: Originally posted by EzyJack:
Originally posted by adoucette:
[

I wonder what the information lag really is? 1 min, 5 min, 10 min?

Arthur-----------

Depends if they had CNN on <G>

Jack[/B]

I don't know of many places that have a TV going during the workday. I don't know of many which even have the capability of receiving Cable TV.

Arthur
MikeD
09-05-2002, 08:28 PM
quote: Originally posted by Seven Fife:
Arthur and Mike,

I made several searches to get that info. One thing seems certain, on 9/11, the ANG was tasked for ADF. Andrews AFB was not, and only by luck would they have had aircraft prepared for such a mission that day. I also ran across the 1994 GAO report that called for the distribution of the peace dividend...

Leland,

And your information is very correct, I just added a few rainbow sprinkles to the icing on your cake, so to speak. Like you wrote, Andrews AFB doesn't have an alert barn, or alert aircraft. The DC Air National Guard, located there with F-16s, is a General Purpose unit that never was previously an ADF unit, so their flying would be limited to standard daily training missions.

Now, I don't know their flight schedule for that day, but if say, for example, they were flying a night schedule for that week, then it's unlikely any planes would've been being flown that morning. Unlike an airline, jets from fighter squadrons don't fly 24/7, unlike some laypeople might think.

Take my squadron, for instance. We have 25 jets. On any given day, up to 2 could be in phase checks, 2 more would be getting parted out, maybe another 2 or 3 broken for whatever reason. And another 2 or 3 getting other maintenance. So that leaves @16 available aircraft for the daily flight schedule. We usually have 2 or 3 "go's" per day, that is launches, where the jets take off, do their mission and come back. There's usually @3 hours between goes to turn the jets. If it's a night flying week, the first go might be in the late afternoon, and the last 2 in the night. That means no jets are flying in the morning timeframe, and vice versa. The reason we have only 2 or 3 "go's" is because the jets have to be down for some period of time for the different shifts to do the required maintenance to them, and there never seems to be enough maintenance personnel available for the work at hand.

Also, Air National Guard units normally have very relaxed schedules during the week. Remember, an ANG unit has only a fairly small crew of full-timers running the day-to-day ops, possibly augmented by some "traditional guardsmen" part-timers. It's usually only during "drill weekends" (where all the unit's part-timers are present for required duty) that you'll see any surge in operations.

MD
93questions
09-05-2002, 11:18 PM
quote: Originally posted by Seven Fife:
1st Air Force, comprised of ANG units, was made responsible for continental defense in 1997. Here's a list of their units:

102nd FW — Otis ANG Base, MA
119th FW — Hector Field, Fargo, ND
120th FW — Great Falls IAP, MT
125th FW — Jacksonville IAP, FL
142nd FW — Portland ANGB
144th FW — Fresno ANG Base, CA
147th FW — Ellington Field, TX
148th FW — Duluth IAP, MN
158th FW — Burlington IAP, VT

The 1st Fighter Wing based at Langley AFB, is part of the 9th Air Force, which on 9/11, was not part of the NORAD alert air defense. Therefore, those aircraft were not prepared for an air intercept mission, and the time to retask them was likely greater than that of calling more aircraft from Otis or even Burlington.

I do recall it was Ellington that provided fighter escort for Air Force 1 between Florida and Barksdale AFB (home of 8th Air Force).


FYI,

The 119th--aka the "Happy Hooligans"--were on alert at Langley on 9/11/01.

Supposedly three fighters from this unit were scrambled from Langley ~9:20 and flew CAP over DC after "just missing" Flight 77.

This is the official story, but it just doesn't add up in several ways:

1) Why did it take so long to alert them?

2) How did they get three fighters in the air when we have constantly been told there were only 14 alert fighter--two per base--in the entire nation? Might it be a bit easier to free up a single spare fighter among the hundreds and hundreds in the vicinity than we've otherwise been led to believe?

3) Why did these fighters then approach DC so slowly?

4) Why wasn't at least one of these fighters diverted to intercept Flight 93?

5) If these guys were all flying CAP and no other fighters were available, which fighter did Cheney order to intercept Flight 93 three times?

6) What did the Vermont fighters do on 9/11? Couldn't they have flown CAP over NYC, allowing the Otis fighters to intercept known or suspected hijacks?

7) If Toledo AFB--not part of NORAD--could get two armed fighters in the air in 16 minutes, why this incredible insistence that among all the AFB's on the eastern seaboard there were somehow only five total fighters available on a weekday morning?
David Hilditch
09-05-2002, 11:22 PM
quote: Originally posted by adoucette:
I don't know of many places that have a TV going during the workday. I don't know of many which even have the capability of receiving Cable TV.

Arthur

Arthur, in the Western business and finance world I don't know of a place which does NOT have live TV going on all day, at least somewhere in the office. Ironic indeed if the defense people don't. Proves perhaps that global markets really do run the world now !
adoucette
09-06-2002, 12:18 AM
quote:Originally posted by 93questions:

FYI,

The 119th--aka the "Happy Hooligans"--were on alert at Langley on 9/11/01.

Supposedly three fighters from this unit were scrambled from Langley ~9:20 and flew CAP over DC after "just missing" Flight 77.

==> Norad's report lists two F/16s, provide data source for 3 planes.

This is the official story, but it just doesn't add up in several ways:

1) Why did it take so long to alert them?

==> This is an FAA issue, not a Norad issue. I've seen little published on what went on with the controllers for this flight, but what I have seen is that they "suspected" a hijacking at 9:09. According to the other reports I've read they at one time had over a dozen "suspects" however. None the less the fact seems to be that NORAD was not made aware until 9:24.

2) How did they get three fighters in the air when we have constantly been told there were only 14 alert fighter--two per base--in the entire nation? Might it be a bit easier to free up a single spare fighter among the hundreds and hundreds in the vicinity than we've otherwise been led to believe?

==> Apparently these were available but were not part of the Norad fighters.

3) Why did these fighters then approach DC so slowly?

What do you base this on? Hopefully not Norad's early release of data which used an estimated speed of .9 Mach for all fighters in the air that day. We have already learned that the Otis fighters exceeded that, good chance these did too.


4) Why wasn't at least one of these fighters diverted to intercept Flight 93?

CAP means just that, if you don't sight the target and blow by the low flying jet for just a few minutes at supersonic speed you will never turn around and catch it. Since the jet was flying very low in mountainous terrain it would be very easy to miss. And remember once you pass it your separation rate will be 30 miles per minute, and your rate of gain once you turn around is about 10 miles a minute.
(Just guessing here, but if I'm in a rocket armed fighter with any number of potential large high speed unarmed targets possibly converging from unkown directions, I'd stay put and let them come to me.)



5) If these guys were all flying CAP and no other fighters were available, which fighter did Cheney order to intercept Flight 93 three times?

I've read Bob Woodward's account, the only thing that is not clear is what jet was being discussed. Remember there were other potential hijacked planes that morning and the first step of the new rules of engagement were to fly in front of the jet, not shoot it down. Rosi made the same argument, but there is every indication that it was a different jet as the one Bob was talking about got to within 40 miles of DC, Flight 93 never got that close and was about 140 miles out when it crashed.


6) What did the Vermont fighters do on 9/11? Couldn't they have flown CAP over NYC, allowing the Otis fighters to intercept known or suspected hijacks?

What Vermont fighters?



7) If Toledo AFB--not part of NORAD--could get two armed fighters in the air in 16 minutes, why this incredible insistence that among all the AFB's on the eastern seaboard there were somehow only five total fighters available on a weekday morning?

See Mike's earlier response, one needs not only gassed and armed aircraft but also suited up and ready pilots.


Arthur




adoucette
09-06-2002, 12:22 AM
quote:Originally posted by David Hilditch:
Arthur, in the Western business and finance world I don't know of a place which does NOT have live TV going on all day, at least somewhere in the office. Ironic indeed if the defense people don't. Proves perhaps that global markets really do run the world now !

David,
I just work in bank operation centers and computer companies and I never see one, none the less I'd be surprised if one was on and tuned to CNN in sight/hearing distance of working center controllers.
Arthur
MikeD
09-06-2002, 01:04 AM
quote: Originally posted by 93questions:

FYI,

The 119th--aka the "Happy Hooligans"--were on alert at Langley on 9/11/01.



The 119th, like a number of ANG ADF units, has and alert Det at Langley, as does the 144th with a Det at March AFB, Ca.

These can easily figure into the 14 a vailable alert jets.

MD

David Hilditch
09-06-2002, 03:08 AM
quote: Originally posted by adoucette:
David,
I just work in bank operation centers and computer companies and I never see one, none the less I'd be surprised if one was on and tuned to CNN in sight/hearing distance of working center controllers.
Arthur

Operational/IT centers, yes. But I think traders and sales staff have the access.

Last year I recall visiting a little NJ suburban office of Prudential Securities (ie. not down town Manhattan) - most of the senior investment/sales staff had their OWN TV in their own offices. All brokers and investment banks will have TV available somewhere, even provincially. Normally they are tuned to the financial channels, MSNBC, Bloomberg TV, maybe CNN at times. Trading rooms, of course, are dripping with TVs and related sources.

adoucette
09-06-2002, 04:22 AM
quote: Originally posted by David Hilditch:
Operational/IT centers, yes. But I think traders and sales staff have the access.

Last year I recall visiting a little NJ suburban office of Prudential Securities (ie. not down town Manhattan) - most of the senior investment/sales staff had their OWN TV in their own offices. All brokers and investment banks will have TV available somewhere, even provincially. Normally they are tuned to the financial channels, MSNBC, Bloomberg TV, maybe CNN at times. Trading rooms, of course, are dripping with TVs and related sources.

David,
Of course those in the investment business have TV access, probably a dozen or more channels, but how often do you see one going in an ATC facility?

Arthur

MikeD
09-06-2002, 06:34 AM
Of the bases you listed, Leland, only 4 of them are "dedicated" to the Air Defense mission. The rest (F-16 units) were at one time dedicated to ADF, but have since converted to a "general purpose" mission (ie- dropping bombs), due to the post-cold war drawdown. These GP squadrons still maintain an alert det, but not all of the rest of their fighters sit armed/ready on the ramp dedicated to ADF.

Here's a further breakdown for those interested:

Dedicated ADF:

102 FW, Otis: F-15A/B
119 FW, Hector: F-16A/ADF
144 FW, Fresno: F-16A/ADF
148 FW, Duluth: F-16A/ADF
125 FW, Jacksonville, F-15A/B

General Purpose (former ADF):

120 FW, Great Falls: F-16C/D
142 FW, Portland: F-15A/B (air-air only)
147 FW, Ellington: F-16C/D
158 FW, Burlington: F-16C/D

MD

93questions
09-06-2002, 07:52 AM
quote Norad's report lists two F/16s, provide data source for 3 planes.

http://europe.cnn.com/2001/US/09/16/inv.hijack.warning/


quote= This is an FAA issue, not a Norad issue. I've seen little published on what went on with the controllers for this flight, but what I have seen is that they "suspected" a hijacking at 9:09. According to the other reports I've read they at one time had over a dozen "suspects" however. None the less the fact seems to be that NORAD was not made aware until 9:24.


This is the explanation, not the fact.


quote- Apparently these were available but were not part of the Norad fighters.


Right. And how many dozens of other fighters fit this same definition that day?

About the fighters approaching DC slowly--the official timeline says they took off at 9:35 and made it to DC at 9:49. That's 130 miles in 14 minutes or 557 mph. Like I said, why did these fighters approach DC so slowly?

You can't possibly seriously believe that the best defense against a slow flying bomb zigzagging through Pennsylvania is to circle DC waiting for it. Not even you could believe something so absurd. Here we have a big, slow passenger plane whose only danger is to a completely unknown target. And so the best way to combat this threat is to let it hit whatever target it pleases as long as it doesn't fly right by you? Please!

The only way Bob Woodward's account is not clear is if you first translate it into Chinese and then translate it back into English using babelfish. Any unbiased reader who isn't trying to play sophists' tricks comes away from the article with the obvious understanding that Cheney ordered Flight 93 to be intercepted 3 times.


quote- What Vermont fighters?


158th FW — Burlington IAP, VT should have had two alert, ready fighters.


quote- See Mike's earlier response, one needs not only gassed and armed aircraft but also suited up and ready pilots.


And how many scores of fighter pilots would you expect to be working on the east coast on any given weekday morning?
MikeD
09-06-2002, 08:30 AM
quote: Originally posted by 93questions:

And how many scores of fighter pilots would you expect to be working on the east coast on any given weekday morning?


There's a difference between working in the office at the squadron, and having planes fueled/armed/preflighted/alert cocked with pilots in an alert shack located 50 ft from the planes, generally geared up, and awaiting a call, not unlike a fire station.

Also, as explained before, the VT ANGs 158th Fighter Wing is a General Purpose F-16 unit; that is, when they changed from the former 158th Fighter Interceptor Group, they dropped the ADF mission. The 158th doesn't keep an alert detachment up anymore.

Fighter Interceptor Group/Wing (now Fighter Group/Wing)= Air Defense, ie: air-to-air mission only, with ADF alert committment to NORAD. These units now fly F-16A/ADF version of the F-16, with a couple flying the F-15A/B.

Tactical Fighter Group/Wing (now Fighter Wing)= A General Purpose unit. That means that they do air-to-air and drop bombs. they are a jack-of-all-trades unit, however they DON'T maintain a NORAD alert committment. Even the former Air National Guard ADF units that converted to General Purpose (Vermont, New Jersey, Texas, Montana, etc) don't maintain an alert committment. These units traded their F-16A/ADF (which can't drop bombs), for F-16Cs (air-air and air-ground).

The 158th FIG kept 2 aircraft on 24-hours alert at Burlington in support of the Northeast Air Defense Sector and on 1 July, 1993, the Vermont Air National Guard's full-time Air defense mission ceased. The alert commitment at Langley AFB ended on June 1, 1994 and their Det.1 moved south to Charleston AFB, SC on 1 August, 1993 . Det.1 kept two aircraft on "hot" alert (at Charleston) while two other jets were spares. Pilots were on alert for three to four days at the time while crew chiefs pulled 24-hour shifts, ready to respond for a scramble. The unit was on alert 24 hours a day and was required to have its aircraft airborne within five minutes after receiving the call to scramble and intercept.

In 1996, the General Accounting Office (GAO) criticized the Air National Guard for continuing to maintain 150 fighters in 10 dedicated Air Defense Groups to defend the United States against invading Soviet bombers at a cost of nearly $500 million USD annually nearly 5 years after the Soviet Union's demise. The GAO urged that the 10 ANG units be either disbanded or given other missions.

Early in 1998, the USAF announced that the 158th FW would return to the general purpose mission and the Alert Detachment at Charleston AFB was deactivated on 15 July, 1998. The unit had maintained four F-16s there, two of which were on 24 hour-a-day status 7 days a week. The change of mission officially took place on 1 October 1998 and training for pilots without experience in bombing began at Tucson, AZ with the 162nd FW. The 158th FW sent three F-16s to be part of a pool that included other F-16s from the 177th FW/NJ ANG and the 147th FW/TX ANG, both of these units also former ADF that had changed over to General Purpose.

I already outlined which ANG ADF units have alert committments as part of the USAFs Order of Battle, and those are the only ones. At one time, the USAF had MANY AD Fighter Groups all over the USA, both ANG and Active Duty. With the ending of the cold war, and subsequent drawdown of the USAF, most of the units changed mission, changed aircraft, or ceased to exist all together.


MD
Leland
09-06-2002, 02:53 PM
So, did anyone watch the Fox News Magazine "Pulse" lastnight? It detailed exactly the actions NORAD took that morning including the personnel on duty, what buttons they pushed, and people they talked too. You could almost do a time and motion study from it. It showed what most of us knew already, and what a few others wouldn't believe no matter how many times it was explained to them, even though it did answer their questions.

Leland
09-06-2002, 04:04 PM
quote: Originally posted by 93questions:
You can't possibly seriously believe that the best defense against a slow flying bomb zigzagging through Pennsylvania is to circle DC waiting for it. Not even you could believe something so absurd. Here we have a big, slow passenger plane whose only danger is to a completely unknown target. And so the best way to combat this threat is to let it hit whatever target it pleases as long as it doesn't fly right by you? Please!


Please don't lie to try and justify and dumb point.

Source: Flight93Legacy.org (http://www.flight93legacy.org/FlightPath.html)

http://www.flight93legacy.org/93images/93FlightPathWP.gif

8:01 a.m. Departs Newark International Airport for San Francisco.

9:37 a.m. Near Cleveland, Flight 93 turns and heads towards Washington, D.C.

10:10 a.m. The path wavers in the final minutes before it crashes 3 miles outside Shanksville, in Stony Creek Township, PA,, about 80 miles southeast of Pittsburgh.


There was no zigzagging except in your head! You should probably change your userID to 93statements. Please in your 93 questions listen to answers and get the facts straight. The plane was on course, and then steered off direction and was on a vector towards a target that had already been hit once. Had it not crashed, there was a fighter, with instructions to shoot it down, blocking its path to DC.

This is the second time I had to correct the facts for you, and again I provided sources. I find it absurd that someone with your alias would not have discovered these on your own.
adoucette
09-06-2002, 09:06 PM
Originally posted by 93Questions:

quote:

Norad's report lists two F/16s, provide data source for 3 planes.

<http://europe.cnn.com/2001/US/09/16/inv.hijack.warning/>
quote:


==> Well this report came out of europe CNN two days before Norad listed 2 F/16s. Who's right? All the other reports I can recall reading have said 2 as well.



This is an FAA issue, not a Norad issue. I've seen little published on what went on with the controllers for this flight, but what I have seen is that they "suspected" a hijacking at 9:09. According to the other reports I've read they at one time had over a dozen "suspects" however. None the less the fact seems to be that NORAD was not made aware until 9:24.


This is the explanation, not the fact.


==> Yeah, but do you have any better (more damning data?)


quote:

Apparently these were available but were not part of the Norad fighters.


Right. And how many dozens of other fighters fit this same definition that day?


I don't know, why not do some research and get back to us?


About the fighters approaching DC slowly--the official timeline says they took off at 9:35 and made it to DC at 9:49. That's 130 miles in 14 minutes or 557 mph. Like I said, why did these fighters approach DC so slowly?


==> Actually the same article you quote above has this:

F-16 fighter jets arrive over Washington, D.C. to perform Combat Air Patrol (CAP) over city. (The fighters broke the sound barrier and traveled supersonic at 720 knots to Washington, making the approximately 130 miles in 14 minutes.) Of course the 130 miles in 14 minutes doesn't jive with the 720 kts, but if you look at the report quite a few numbers are off.


You can't possibly seriously believe that the best defense against a slow flying bomb zigzagging through Pennsylvania is to circle DC waiting for it. Not even you could believe something so absurd. Here we have a big, slow passenger plane whose only danger is to a completely unknown target. And so the best way to combat this threat is to let it hit whatever target it pleases as long as it doesn't fly right by you? Please!


==> Yeah that is exactly what I would do, however it is not my job so I defer to those whose it is. What we do know is that the planes had to get intercept data from the FAA and the FAA wasn't able to track the jet very well. At the distance it was and its height it would not likely be on the fighters radar either, like I said, best to stay put (remember Cheney was at the WH and the SS said to protect it at all costs), because if you leave and fly out 150 miles how do you get back in time if another jet pops up out of the trees?



The only way Bob Woodward's account is not clear is if you first translate it into Chinese and then translate it back into English using babelfish. Any unbiased reader who isn't trying to play sophists' tricks comes away from the article with the obvious understanding that Cheney ordered Flight 93 to be intercepted 3 times.


Total BS, the range of the plane in the discussion gets to less than 60 miles, while at this time U93 was more like 150 miles away. The only linkage between U93 and that discussion is that they heard of U93's crash just shortly after the last exchange. However it took the military 2 hours to confirm that they did not shoot it down. If U93 had been the plane the fighter was engaging with it is more likely that they would have had immediate confirmation.



quote:

What Vermont fighters?


158th FW — Burlington IAP, VT should have had two alert, ready fighters.
quote:

See Mike's earlier response, one needs not only gassed and armed aircraft but also suited up and ready pilots.


==> Again, do you do no research? See Mike's next response:
Early in 1998, it was announced that the 158th FW would return to the general purpose mission and the Detachment at Charleston AFB was deactivated on July 15, 1998. The unit had maintained four F-16s there, two of which were on 24 hour-a-day status 7 days a week. The change of mission officially took place on 1 October 1998 and training for pilots without experience in bombing began at Tucson, AZ with the 162nd FW.



And how many scores of fighter pilots would you expect to be working on the east coast on any given weekday morning?


==> I'll leave this for you to find out.

Arthur

MikeD
09-06-2002, 10:09 PM
quote:Originally posted by adoucette:

Norad's report lists two F/16s, provide data source for 3 planes.

http://europe.cnn.com/2001/US/09/16/inv.hijack.warning/
quote:


==> Well this report came out of europe CNN two days before Norad listed 2 F/16s. Who's right? All the other reports I can recall reading have said 2 as well.


Arthur


2 versus 3 F-16s. I'd say your data source is correct Arthur. Although 2 planes are normally alert cocked. There is always on or two spare planes sitting outside the alert shack in case one of the cocked birds goes down during the alert. The spare jet is also cocked, but may not necessarily be manned, the intention of it being to replace one of the first-out birds.

This spare aircraft may have been counted as available in the report, as I'm sure a spare pilot could be rounded up to fly it, even though it probably would not make the same takeoff time as the first-off aircraft.

MD
93questions
09-07-2002, 01:25 AM
quote: Originally posted by Seven Fife:
There was no zigzagging except in your head! You should probably change your userID to 93statements. Please in your 93 questions listen to answers and get the facts straight. The plane was on course, and then steered off direction and was on a vector towards a target that had already been hit once. Had it not crashed, there was a fighter, with instructions to shoot it down, blocking its path to DC.

This is the second time I had to correct the facts for you, and again I provided sources. I find it absurd that someone with your alias would not have discovered these on your own.


1) This Flight Explorer gif gives a bit better picture:

http://www.avweb.com/other/ual93_final.gif


Other possible targets:

1) Pittsburgh

2) Philadelphia

3) Camp David

4) Three Mile Island or any of several other nuclear power plants closer to Lambertsville than DC.


Considering these other possible targets, no one can seriously believe that the best defense against a slow flying bomb flying erratically through Pennsylvania is to circle DC waiting for it. Not even you could believe something so absurd. Here we have a big, slow passenger plane whose only danger is to a completely unknown target. And so the best way to combat this threat is to let it hit whatever target it pleases as long as it doesn't fly right by you? Please!

BTW, Cheney was not at the White House at this time. He had already been rushed to an underground bunker. The White House evacuation began around 9:45, so the place would have been completely empty by the time Flight 93 would have arrived. So what you folks are saying is that you would allow Flight 93 to crash into Three Mile Island in order to keep three fighters back to protect an empty building. Anyone who would seriously endorse this military "strategy" immediately loses 100% of their credibility.

[ September 06, 2002 07:42 PM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by 93questions ]
adoucette
09-07-2002, 01:37 AM
quote: Originally posted by 93questions:

1) This Flight Explorer gif gives a bit better picture:


Other possible targets:

1) Pittsburgh

2) Philadelphia

3) Camp David

4) Three Mile Island or any of several other nuclear power plants closer to Lambertsville than DC.


Considering these other possible targets, no one can seriously believe that the best defense against a slow flying bomb flying erratically through Pennsylvania is to circle DC waiting for it. Not even you could believe something so absurd. Here we have a big, slow passenger plane whose only danger is to a completely unknown target. And so the best way to combat this threat is to let it hit whatever target it pleases as long as it doesn't fly right by you? Please !

Well that is simply your opinion, which is obviously not the same as mine, because I SERIOUSLY BELIEVE the best defense OF THE WHITE HOUSE (and vice president among others) against an unknown number of jet aircraft on suicide missions is to stay around it.

Arthur
93questions
09-07-2002, 01:45 AM
quote: Originally posted by adoucette:
Well that is simply your opinion, which is obviously not the same as mine, because I SERIOUSLY BELIEVE the best defense OF THE WHITE HOUSE (and vice president among others) against an unknown number of jet aircraft on suicide missions is to stay around it.


Cheney was not at the White House at this time. He had already been rushed to an underground bunker. The White House evacuation began around 9:45, so the place would have been completely empty by the time Flight 93 would have arrived. So what you are saying is that you would allow Flight 93 to crash into Three Mile Island in order to keep three fighters back to protect an empty building. You just lost 100% of your credibility by pretending this "strategy" makes sense.
adoucette
09-07-2002, 01:55 AM
quote: Originally posted by 93questions:

Cheney was not at the White House at this time. He had already been rushed to an underground bunker. The White House evacuation began around 9:45, so the place would have been completely empty by the time Flight 93 would have arrived. So what you are saying is that you would allow Flight 93 to crash into Three Mile Island in order to keep three fighters back to protect an empty building. You just lost 100% of your credibility by pretending this "strategy" makes sense.
100% huh, gee thats a lot. (PS: how's the ballistics model coming?)

Ahhh....

The Presidential Emergency Operations Center is an underground bunker beneath the White House.

Bedsides the VP, many of the cabinet was there, (Rumsfeld, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and CIA Director George J. Tenet) so it was the major seat of the executive branch in DC at the time.

Still sticking to 3 fighters huh? Gotta look into that.


Arthur
Tony Manzur
09-07-2002, 02:32 AM
93Q, you completely ignore the fact that they were dealing with MANY possible 'targets' at the time and until the majority of the aircraft were grounded, EVERY SINGLE AIRBORNE AIRCRAFT was a potential weapon. Are you seriously suggesting us that in an unknown threat environment, they are going to commit VERY LIMITED resources to just one target?

Think of american football, is every defencive player dedicated to taking out the QB while he has the ball?

Absurd? Absurd is discussing this with someone who fabricates evidence and wouldn't see reason if we surrounded you with it, as you so perfectly demonstrate. You are a waste of a lot of peoples time.

[ September 06, 2002 08:35 PM: Message edited 2 times, lastly by Tony_M ]

93questions
09-07-2002, 03:02 AM
quote: Originally posted by adoucette:
100% huh, gee thats a lot. (PS: how's the ballistics model coming?)

Ahhh....

The Presidential Emergency Operations Center is an underground bunker beneath the White House.

Bedsides the VP, many of the cabinet was there, (Rumsfeld, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and CIA Director George J. Tenet) so it was the major seat of the executive branch in DC at the time.

Still sticking to 3 fighters huh? Gotta look into that.


Arthur


You mean the ballistics model in which at least slightly irregularly shaped bolt-sized pieces of charred aluminum fly through the air for well over a mile? Not good.

About the White House, you agree that Cheney was not in danger and that the place was evacuated by 10:20, right?

Why don't you "look into" the three fighters before you express your doubts to someone who has? Since the "Happy Hooligans" were interviewed about the events of 9/11, it shouldn't be too difficult.
Tony Manzur
09-07-2002, 03:07 AM
And why don't you admit that you use false and misleading data? Or that if you were in charge of tactical strategy for a football team, you'd have the highest amount of sacks, with the highest score against and no wins?

You are literally unbelievable.

Tony Manzur
09-07-2002, 03:09 AM
Anyway, how come these pieces have suddenly become aluminium? Show me the evidence, or is this another one of your 'inventions'

adoucette
09-07-2002, 03:22 AM
quote: Originally posted by 93questions:

You mean the ballistics model in which at least slightly irregularly shaped bolt-sized pieces of charred aluminum fly through the air for well over a mile? Not good.

==> No, you know the one I'm talking about, the one where beyond velocity A the horizontal X distances decrease.
I notice you have not responded to that post at all, you know the one where I was full of BS.

About the White House, you agree that Cheney was not in danger and that the place was evacuated by 10:20, right?

No, I don't agree he was not in danger, particularly before 10:00 which is when the fighters would have had to leave DC to go after U93. But while that wooden structure above ground may have been evacuated, the VP was in a bunker beneath the white house and considering what a 300mph 757 did to the reinforced pentagon there is no certainty that the bunker would have withstood a 600mph vertical dive of a 757, or lets put it this way, maybe the SS didn't want to take a chance and find out.



Why don't you "look into" the three fighters before you express your doubts to someone who has? Since the "Happy Hooligans" were interviewed about the events of 9/11, it shouldn't be too difficult.

I said I would, don't get your panties in a wad, I didn't say you were wrong, I just said other accounts I had read said 2 jets, and then again your track record for accuracy has been a tad, shall we say, lacking.
Arthur


adoucette
09-07-2002, 03:49 AM
Ok, 93, I've looked and the only place I can find 3 fighters is in that original CNN story (or exact copies of it), The official story is still 2 as far as I can tell.

Now, as Mike says, another possibility is they got another pilot for the standby bird and it took off soon after the first two. Don't know though.

I did find this:

on Sept. 11, Norad's radars were spread around the periphery of the U.S., looking outward for potential invaders. Inside U.S. borders, very few radars were feeding NEADS scopes.

In essence, technicians were half-blind, trying to separate hijacked airliners from thousands of skin-paint returns. At the time, more than 4,000 aircraft were airborne over the nation, most in the northeast sector, which monitors half a million square miles of airspace.

"We were trying to determine which [radar return] was him. But we couldn't get what we needed just from our scopes," said MSgt. Maureen Dooley, a noncommissioned officer in charge (NCOIC) of NEADS' identification technicians. She and other troops were constantly on the phone with the FAA, airlines and others, looking for clues. "If we could get good last-known-positions and tail numbers, that would help the fighters pick out the right aircraft."

"The biggest task was maintaining track continuity," echoed Tech. Sgt. Jeffrey Lamarche, NCOIC of the air surveillance section. Later, his team thought they had spotted a fifth hijacked aircraft. "This fifth guy made an abrupt turn toward a major city--but it was OK. He was told to land there. It sure had our hearts going and adrenaline pumping. We didn't know what he was doing."

Marr capsulized the tense moments: "The NEADS battle managers get the last known location, estimate [Flight AA11's] speed and find a green dot that's not identified. Almost as soon as it's discovered, it disappears. It's 8:46 a.m. A shocked airman rushes from the computer maintenance room saying, 'CNN is reporting that the World Trade Center has been hit by an airliner.' There are no other missing aircraft. As we watch the TV, another airliner shows up on the screen, aimed for the second tower [9:02 a.m.]. The shocking reality becomes apparent. This is no longer 'an accident.' New York City is under attack."

==> So directing fighters to targets, hell identifing targets was a major challenge. Our systems on the jets are designed for a battlefield where our IFF system identifies friends and everything else is foe. This was useless this day.

Calls from fighter units also started pouring into Norad and sector operations centers, asking, "What can we do to help?" At Syracuse, N.Y., an ANG commander told Marr, "Give me 10 min. and I can give you hot guns. Give me 30 min. and I'll have heat-seeker [missiles]. Give me an hour and I can give you slammers [Amraams]."

==> This gives you an idea of how long it takes to arm an aircraft, 30 minutes for missiles, but an hour for the long range weapons, so that pretty much blows the shoot it down from 40,000 ft angle huh?

Marr replied, "I want it all." NEADS controllers put F-16s at Langley AFB, Va., on battle-stations alert at 9:09 a.m., prepared to back up the F-15s over New York. But the FAA command center then reported 11 aircraft either not in communication with FAA facilities, or flying unexpected routes. At 9:24, the Langley-based alert F-16s were scrambled and airborne in 6 min., headed for Washington.
By 9:26 a.m., the FAA command center stopped all departures nationwide. At 9:41, American Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon, elevating tension levels even further. NEADS' Sr. Airman Stacia Rountree, an identification technician, said, "We had three aircraft down and the possibility of others hijacked. We had to think outside the box," making up procedures on the fly. Before the day ended, 21 aircraft across the U.S. had been handled as "tracks of interest."
"We didn't know how many more there were. . . . Are there five? Six? The only way we could tell was to implement Scatana--sanitize the airspace. Get everybody down," said Lt. Col. William E. Glover, Jr., chief of Norad's air defense operations.
Gen. Ralph E. Eberhart, Norad commander-in-chief, was in the Cheyenne Mountain battle center by then. He and his staff suggested, via an open command link, implementing a limited version of Scatana--a federal plan designed to take emergency control of all domestic air traffic and navigation aids. Transportation Secretary Norman Y. Mineta immediately concurred and gave the order to get all aircraft on the ground as soon as possible. That action probably saved many lives, but without unnecessary, paralyzing restrictions of a full Scatana order.
Mineta's decision--and the military recommendation that triggered it--may have been prompted by a few airline pilots reporting terrorists on the radio, talking about other hijacked aircraft. American Flight 77 had hit the Pentagon, and United Flight 93 was being tracked, heading for Chicago or Cleveland, then Washington, prompting the F-16s' scramble.
"We had all of our armed fighters in the air, but needed more," Marr said. Every unit in the northeastern U.S. was loading F-16s, F-15s and A-10s with any armament available, then being directed to combat air patrols (CAPs) over major cities. Soon, Navy F/A-18s, F-14s and E-2Cs--some from two carriers steaming off the East Coast--were flying CAP and surveillance missions over major cities. Ultimately, Navy P-3s and USAF/ ANG C-130s would be pressed into service, using their normal radars to search for intruders.
At Norad, Glover phoned Arnold, telling him Vice President Cheney had given the authorization to shoot down any threatening aircraft in order to save lives on the ground. "We created a free-fire zone over the nation's capital," Arnold said. "Anyone airborne who did not immediately turn away from the center of town, or who did not land, could be shot down."
When someone--possibly President Bush--ordered the military to a Force Protection Condition Delta wartime posture, Norad commanders ordered massive steel doors be closed, "shutting down Cheyenne Mountain for real," the first time in its 43-year history, an officer said. The FBI had warned that a flight originating in San Diego might be hijacked and headed for a target in Colorado. Another rumor referred to a Ryder rental truck full of explosives and driven by "Arab-looking men" targeting the mountain.
"It didn't make sense, but those phone calls were happening," Glover said. Every rumor was treated as a potential threat.
OVER NEW YORK, Duffy and Nash requested that a Maine-based ANG KC-135 tanker--assigned to support 102 FW training missions that morning--be positioned at 20,000 ft. above Kennedy airport. "Then, we worked on intercepting and visually identifying nearly everything that was in the air for the next five hours," Duffy said.
"I treated this as a combat hop from the moment I saw the towers burning, and that made it easier to deal with . . . actions we might have to take," he added.
Duffy estimated the F-15s intercepted and escorted about 100 aircraft, including emergency, military and news helicopters, plus dozens of private pilots who were unaware of the attacks. Some had seen the smoke over New York and decided to investigate. Nash said the F-15s flew "low-and-slow" to intercept helicopters flying at 500 ft.

Arthur

93questions
09-07-2002, 03:50 AM
quote:Originally posted by Tony_M:
93Q, you completely ignore the fact that they were dealing with MANY possible 'targets' at the time and until the majority of the aircraft were grounded, EVERY SINGLE AIRBORNE AIRCRAFT was a potential weapon. Are you seriously suggesting us that in an unknown threat environment, t hey are going to commit VERY LIMITED resources to just one target ?


Tony_M, you completely ignore the fact that Flight 93 could have had MANY possible 'targets' at the time. Thus flying around DC while A KNOWN AND CONFIRMED FLYING BOMB was on the loose makes absolutely no sense. It's like three policemen getting a report of a known armed and violent mass murderer on the loose five blocks away who decide that it's more important to stay and protect the donut shop because:

1) well, anybody could turn into a murderer at any time

and

2) well, the murderer is basically headed in this direction, so who knows, maybe he's hungry and is coming to the donut shop soon--so why go to the trouble of leaving to find him?

There were at least three available fighters within 250 miles of Flight 93 in the general direction Flight 93 was heading going over 500 mph. Assuming one of these planes approached Flight 93 at a comfortable 1000 mph, it should have been able to close ground and intercept (and dispatch) THE ONLY KNOWN AND CONFIRMED AND ASSUMED SUICIDAL HIJACK in about 10 minutes. OF COURSE THIS IS THE OBVIOUSLY CORRECT MILITARY STRATEGY!

Assuming that the official story is correct and that only three fighters total were available 45 minutes after the second terrorist plane hit the WTC (which is patently ridiculous in and of itself), what we are weighing here is:

1) The small probability that two fighters couldn't manage to protect DC's airspace by themselves against whatever UNKNOWN AND UNCONFIRMED attacks might arise in the perhaps 30 minutes it would take for the third fighter to down Flight 93.

Worst case: An evacuated lowrise building is destroyed if and only if two F-16 fighters somehow need a third to stop a passenger jet that somehow becomes a threat within the next 30 minutes out-of-the-blue.

Best case: You have to bring down Flight 93 over a highly populated area.

vs.

2) The completely unknown probability that Flight 93 might decide to target a skyscraper in a city other than DC or, worse yet, a nuclear plant.

Worst case: Thousands of Americans die and millions get radiation poisoning while three fighters circle a few empty buildings.

Best case: You get to bring down Flight 93, THE ONLY KNOWN AND CONFIRMED AND ASSUMED SUICIDAL HIJACK, over a largely unpopulated area-- limiting casualties to those on the plane and possibly allowing you to cover up the whole thing.

But please feel free not to "waste your time" with me. Since you now have zero credibility, it would just be a big waste all around.

[ September 06, 2002 11:15 PM: Message edited 4 times, lastly by 93questions ]
Tony Manzur
09-07-2002, 03:59 AM
93Q, it was a tactical decision based on what they knew and didn't know at the time, yet even with hindsight, you either lack the knowledge to understand it or chose to ignore it.

And I really care that a teller of untruths doesn't believe me.

93questions
09-07-2002, 04:25 AM
quote: Originally posted by Tony_M:
93Q, it was a tactical decision based on what they knew and didn't know at the time, yet even with hindsight, you either lack the knowledge to understand it or chose to ignore it.

And I really care that a teller of untruths doesn't believe me.


Translation: Boxed into a ridiculous stance by his unfailing propensity to support the official story du jour rather than apply one iota of critical thinking, Tony_M cries uncle.
93questions
09-07-2002, 04:33 AM
quote: Originally posted by adoucette:
Ok, 93, I've looked and the only place I can find 3 fighters is in that original CNN story (or exact copies of it), The official story is still 2 as far as I can tell.


Here's a reprint of the October 16th NY Times. Look it up in the archives if you doubt its veracity:
http://www.geocities.com/mknemesis/propaganda.html
Tony Manzur
09-07-2002, 04:34 AM
quote: Originally posted by 93questions:

Translation: Boxed into a ridiculous stance by his unfailing propensity to support the official story du jour rather than apply one iota of critical thinking, Tony_M cries uncle.

Translation: I don't tell the truth because I don't know how.
93questions
09-07-2002, 04:36 AM
quote: Originally posted by Tony_M:
Anyway, how come these pieces have suddenly become aluminium? Show me the evidence, or is this another one of your 'inventions'

Bolt-sized pieces of sheet metal. What kind of sheet metal do you propose? Note that the denser the metal is, the more minimal any putative wind effects would be.
93questions
09-07-2002, 04:50 AM
quote:Originally posted by adoucette:
No, I don't agree he was not in danger, particularly before 10:00 which is when the fighters would have had to leave DC to go after U93. But while that wooden structure above ground may have been evacuated, the VP was in a bunker beneath the white house and considering what a 300mph 757 did to the reinforced pentagon there is no certainty that the bunker would have withstood a 600mph vertical dive of a 757, or lets put it this way, maybe the SS didn't want to take a chance and find out.
[/b]


More disingenuous bs.

No suspected hijacks could have reached DC airspace before 10:00. So how exactly was Cheney in danger in a underground bunker built to withstand a nuclear attack?

Let me get this straight again. You have three fighters protecting a man hiding underground in a reinforced bunker designed to protect the President against nuclear attack, while Flight 93 is free to turn Three Mile Island into a nuclear bomb. Well, at least Cheney would be safe from the radiation in that shelter, right? Well, thank God for that. Because God knows it's far more important to protect against even a 0.1% chance of Cheney getting injured than it is to protect thousands of US citizens against the effects of a 757 impacting a sky scraper or a nuclear power plant. Right?
93questions
09-07-2002, 04:56 AM
quote:Originally posted by adoucette:
I did find this:

on Sept. 11, Norad's radars were spread around the periphery of the U.S., looking outward for potential invaders. Inside U.S. borders, very few radars were feeding NEADS scopes....



Great. If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bull****, right?

Let me concisely translate the article you posted:

Pure Revisionist History Karl Rove CYA Disinfo
Tony Manzur
09-07-2002, 05:00 AM
quote:Originally posted by 93questions:
Bolt-sized pieces of sheet metal. What kind of sheet metal do you propose? Note that the denser the metal is, the more minimal any putative wind effects would be.

That's funny, last week you were assuming they were steel bolts. Well, you have tungsten, steel, brass, dense composite alloys, light duralumin, titanium......I've probably missed another half dozen. I feel a sweepstake coming on.
93questions
09-07-2002, 05:11 AM
quote- Originally posted by Tony_M:
That's funny, last week you were assuming they were steel bolts. Well, you have tungsten, steel, brass, dense composite alloys, light duralumin, titanium......I've probably missed another half dozen. I feel a sweepstake coming on


Great. Which one of these projected and/or blew 1.5+ miles (and probably 1.85 to 2.85 miles) from the crash site?

I guess they started out as bullets to get high in the air and then flattened out to ride the wind, right?

No wait. I forgot. They took a ride in plastic bag and then used the little-known plastic bag ejection seat, right?

[ September 06, 2002 11:15 PM: Message edited 2 times, lastly by 93questions ]
Tony Manzur
09-07-2002, 05:17 AM
I'd go with tungsten, wonder if you can guess why?

Well, that's me for tonight, thanks for the company 93Q.

mharney
09-07-2002, 06:44 AM
quote:Originally posted by David Hilditch:
Arthur, in the Western business and finance world I don't know of a place which does NOT have live TV going on all day, at least somewhere in the office. Ironic indeed if the defense people don't. Proves perhaps that global markets really do run the world now !

In the early 90's, I worked as a contractor at an Air Force base in Colorado. The whole base was wired for cable TV, with every workcenter authorized to pay for cable access out of squadron funds, for the purpose of "information in times of contingencies"...read to be able to watch CNN and the Weather Channel. Our breakroom TV was so configured.

I work at a Navy base these days, where this is not so..our shop TV/VCR (for training video's) has "rabbit ears" so we can watch local news/weather, and maybe reruns of "Friends"

[ September 06, 2002 12:47 PM: Message edited 2 times, lastly by mharney ]
adoucette
09-07-2002, 06:56 AM
quote:Originally posted by 93questions:
Here's a reprint of the October 16th NY Times. Look it up in the archives if you doubt its veracity:
www.geocities.com/mknemesis/propaganda.html

I don't doubt its veracity, like many things that day there was confusion as even Norad listed but 2 jets. However, since you posted that link I have since found a site honoring the three pilots and even gave their names and rank, so it seems it was 3.

However in the same article you linked to was this:

Then the pilots received the most surreal order of the awful morning. "A person came on the radio," General Haugen said, "and identified themselves as being with the Secret Service, and he said, `I want you to protect the White House at all costs.' "


What seems clear is that there were two many targets to chase. The earlier article claims there were a totaly of 21 potential targets, which ones would you go after? Maybe there was only two or three that they were really worried about, but again, you can't go after them all. Clearly, by Monday morning quarterbacking you can say they should have done this or that, but the people that morning did not have the hindsight you now claim.

Face it, the military says they didn't send the fighters to Penn. and no one in the area has claimed they saw anything but the small white two engine jet and there were obviously people out and looking.

So you can rant on and on that they SHOULD have done this, but that is not the same as proof that they did simply because you are convinced that this was the most logical plan.

As far as the bunker, as I understand it, while hardened, it is not "nuke proof", as it was built in the days when the delivery accuracy of Nukes would have ment a direct strike was not likely. According to reports the SS repeatedly tried to get Cheney and the others to move to a more secure facility, most likely the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s bunker known as the High Point Special Facility, inside Mount Weather (48 miles from Washington).

Arthur
Leland
09-07-2002, 06:59 AM
quote:Originally posted by mharney:
In the early 90's, I worked as a contractor at an Air Force base in Colorado. The whole base was wired for cable TV, with every workcenter authorized to pay for cable access out of squadron funds, for the purpose of "information in times of contingencies"...read to be able to watch CNN and the Weather Channel. Our breakroom TV was so configured.

I work at a Navy base these days, where this is not so..our shop TV/VCR (for training video's) has "rabbit ears" so we can watch local news/weather, and maybe reruns of "Friends

I've heard that miscopied tapes of first run episodes of "Friends" is a national emergency. It's amazing the efficiency of phone systems to determine other sources for copies and just how prepared these redundant systems are in securing images of the video, so that it may be seen moments after whatever tragic event caused the miss of the realtime viewing.
adoucette
09-07-2002, 07:21 AM
quote:Originally posted by 93questions:

More disingenuous bs.

No suspected hijacks could have reached DC airspace before 10:00. So how exactly was Cheney in danger in a underground bunker built to withstand a nuclear attack?

==> Really, according to Woodward, Cheney ordered a fighter to engage a suspect aircraft less then 60 miles out right around 10:00am, so that couldn't have been U93.


Let me get this straight again. You have three fighters protecting a man hiding underground in a reinforced bunker designed to protect the President against nuclear attack, while Flight 93 is free to turn Three Mile Island into a nuclear bomb. Well, at least Cheney would be safe from the radiation in that shelter, right? Well, thank God for that. Because God knows it's far more important to protect against even a 0.1% chance of Cheney getting injured than it is to protect thousands of US citizens against the effects of a 757 impacting a sky scraper or a nuclear power plant. Right?


I guess the people giving the orders felt that way. So you don't. Guess what, they didn't ask you and they didn't ask me, so what we think is hardly relevant is it? Actually NPPs were tested for aircraft impacts. (that's what that F/4 collision at 600mph into a concrete barrier was done to simulate), so while since 9/11 I believe we realise they are probably more vulnerable then these tests indicated, the conventional wisdom spouted by the NRC at the time was they weren't in danger. I suspect the military would have known this.

By the way, he wasn't hiding (your bias is showing) and it wasn't just Cheney it was him and much of the presidental cabinet and congressional leaders. The continuity of govt plan wasn't put into action until about 9:45. So maybe you think the guys who contol the jets will send them out hunting, but if it happens again, I'd bet they would do the exact same thing, protect the seat of government, its who they work for after all.

Arthur




Leland
09-07-2002, 05:16 PM
93statements,

So what happened to the rest of the population of Washington DC? You keep talking about multiple targets, but within Washington DC, the only target you reference is the White House. There are three branches of government in the very near vicinity, and if you can guard one from the air, you can easily guard the rest as well. But if you fly out to engage one threat, you leave nothing behind to protect against new threats. I guess you are also forgetting, that although only 4 planes were hijacked, there were still other commercial airliners flying at the time. Don't start giving us "the FAA ordered to them to land at X:XX time so they were no longer an issue" as if landing a plane is instantenous.

I'm with Tony, don't coach football.

limo driver
09-08-2002, 01:30 AM
3) Slim chance that a fighter wasn't on Flight 77's ass without severe incompetence or else complicity (72 minutes after Flight 11 was a confirmed hijack, 34 minutes after Flight 175 hit the second WTC).

4) No possible way that a fighter wasn't on Flight 93's ass without ridiculously laughable incompetence or else complicity (99 minutes after Flight 11 was a confirmed hijack, 63 minutes after Flight 175 hit the second WTC).

I think this analysis is 100% objective, and I find the arguments of the apologists' for the military's reported (but not necessarily actual) response absurdly strained. .

93Q,

The above views create a dilemma for yourself:

Choice one: F93 was shot down. It follows from this that F77's not being shot down was not the result of complicity. (Why would interceptors waste their time with a plane over 100 miles from DC, but allow F77 to strike Pentagon?) It follows that F77 can only be explained by the kind of ridiculous, absurd incompetence that has been your main theme in this thread.

Choice two: F77 not being taken down was not the result of severe incompetence, but of complicity. It follows that F93 would not have been shot down, for the same reason mentioned above. Yet that would undermine your massive efforts over the last several months in establishing that F93 only makes sense as a shoot down.

May I ask which of the above you would choose, since one of them follows of necessity from your analysis?

A more general point about "laughable" incompetence: I agree with you to an extent that our responses did seem inexplicably slow. But, as is usually the case, you turn legitimate questions into seeming absolute refutations; make plausible assumptions as if there could be no other plausible interpretations. We saw that crystal clear mentality at work with your absolute assessment about the lack of seismic evidence. In due course it became apparent to everyone that the facts spoke to something a little bit less than absolute. It is this spirit of cockiness that runs through your themes over and over again.

You make assumptions about the response times in 911 that do not take account of the fact that governments are known for their lack of competence, or readiness when caught totally off guard. It is not precisely analogous, but still interesting to recall the response of the Soviets to KAL 007 on Sep 1, 1983. Here we have a plane about to overfly one of the most sensitive areas of Soviet defense, a defense belonging to one of the most paranoid nations on earth. Yet despite this, they were caught completely off guard. "Great confusion" quickly turned to "panic." By the time inetrceptors were scrambled the plane had already flown some 50 miles over Soviet territory. The initial inerceptors flew in the wrong direction, nor did they carry weapons sufficient to shoot F007 down. All in all, F007 flew for some 36 minutes over the S.U., covering 246 nautical miles, and not once did the Soviets successfully intercerpt it. By the time they caught up with it, it had escaped back into international air space. The Soviets never even figured out that it was a civilan jet. Again, of course not analogous to 911 for obvious reasons ( we know, it was dark, there was no plane hitting a building before hand, etc.), but I could easily see this same "absolutley absurd" mentailty at work in regard to F007, especially when you consider the Soviet's heightened state of military paranoia in the age of the "evil empire" in a nation already obsessed with looking out for any sign of military intrusion. Yet the fact is KAL 007 got away. The general point is simply to illustrate how even supossedly very prepared governments can be thrown into panic and confusion when the unexpected happens.


From the time F93 was a confirmed hijack, there where about 41 minutes to act. The plane was still over 120 miles from DC when it crashed. Call its progress "zigzag," but the fact is that it filed flight plans for DC, and it's pretty obvious it was on a heading in precisely that direction. It would have overflown the Pittsburgh area, with its nearby nuclear stations only minutes later. By the time it becomes plausible to assume an intercept, DC would have become the obvious intended destination. Three mile Island is almost exactly 120 miles from the crash site, and the plane did not appear headed in that direction. You underestimate the undoubted great hesitation in the unprecedented act of shooting down an airliner that must have caused extreme caution throughout F93's final moments. Given that, it is hardly clear that the plane would have been shot down earlier. Perhaps the interceptors were within moments of shooting it.

Yes, it's easy to say in retrospect it was incompetence on a massive scale, and therefore absurd. But as KAL007 shows, even super-prepared, paranoid, governments can screw up when sudden crisis strikes. This point seems even more relevant when one considers the greater reluctance of a democratic nation to consider shooting down one of its one planes, and the less prepared and paranoid state of the US military in 2001.

[ September 07, 2002 07:54 PM: Message edited 2 times, lastly by limo driver ]

EzyJack
09-08-2002, 01:35 AM
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Seven Fife:
Don't start giving us "the FAA ordered to them to land at X:XX time so they were no longer an issue" as if landing a plane is instantenous.

------------------------

A little sidebar to the above. If your VFR and cruising around you aren't under any FAA control. My local Unicom came up on freq and requested all aircraft to land ASAP. Unicom has no authority. Little birds don't have the guard freq option that military aircraft have.

I have since 911 monitored guard on my other radio <G>

Weather permitting were flying form on 911 <G>

Jack

Leland
09-08-2002, 03:50 PM
quote:Originally posted by limo driver:
You make assumptions about the response times in 911 that do not take account of the fact that governments are known for their lack of competence, or readiness when caught totally off guard. It is not precisely analogous, but still interesting to recall the response of the Soviets to KAL 007 on Sep 1, 1983. Here we have a plane about to overfly one of the most sensitive areas of Soviet defense, a defense belonging to one of the most paranoid nations on earth. Yet despite this, they were caught completely off guard. "Great confusion" quickly turned to "panic." By the time inetrceptors were scrambled the plane had already flown some 50 miles over Soviet territory. The initial inerceptors flew in the wrong direction, nor did they carry weapons sufficient to shoot F007 down. All in all, F007 flew for some 36 minutes over the S.U., covering 246 nautical miles, and not once did the Soviets successfully intercerpt it. By the time they caught up with it, it had escaped back into international air space. The Soviets never even figured out that it was a civilan jet. Again, of course not analogous to 911 for obvious reasons ( we know, it was dark, there was no plane hitting a building before hand, etc.), but I could easily see this same "absolutley absurd" mentailty at work in regard to F007, especially when you consider the Soviet's heightened state of military paranoia in the age of the "evil empire" in a nation already obsessed with looking out for any sign of military intrusion. Yet the fact is KAL 007 got away. The general point is simply to illustrate how even supossedly very prepared governments can be thrown into panic and confusion when the unexpected happens.

Nice analogy, it's not perfect as you say, but for the point, it is very illustrative. Good job.
Leland
09-08-2002, 03:58 PM
quote:Originally posted by EzyJack:

A little sidebar to the above. If your VFR and cruising around you aren't under any FAA control. My local Unicom came up on freq and requested all aircraft to land ASAP. Unicom has no authority. Little birds don't have the guard freq option that military aircraft have.

I have since 911 monitored guard on my other radio

Weather permitting were flying form on 911

Jack;

It wasn't until mid afternoon before I was comfortable that all the planes were down. If you read my personal accounting of events of 9/11 in the off-topic thread, that concern was reason I did not enjoy driving past the local refineries.

My father use to be a wizzo in the F-4s flying intercepts for the 147th out of Ellington. I realize technology advanced greatly, but he told me it was very difficult for their on-board radar to track light aviation. He told a story of a crew investigated for causing an accident. They couldn't find a plane on radar, and ended up passing right next to it at highspeed. Reportedly, the pilot had a heartattack (autopsy report) when the F-4 zoomed him and crashed. Drug intercepts were called off for awhile why the incident was investigated.

BTW, in the same "Pulse" story, they demonstrated with some congressman how easy it was for a light plane to cross the border from Canada to the US without being challenged. He said the only way to do anything about it would be to ground all GA, which he said would be dumb (MikeD, there is at least one with intelligence).
EzyJack
09-08-2002, 05:28 PM
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Seven Fife:


My father use to be a wizzo in the F-4s flying intercepts for the 147th out of Ellington. I realize technology advanced greatly, but he told me it was very difficult for their on-board radar to track light aviation. He told a story of a crew investigated for causing an accident. They couldn't find a plane on radar, and ended up passing right next to it at highspeed. Reportedly, the pilot had a heartattack (autopsy report) when the F-4 zoomed him and crashed. -------------------------

Yeah, fighters are built to handle high speed targets and hate to get slow. The Navy in the 90s was doing DCM between Tomcats and choppers. Choppers stayed low and slow and the Tomcats seldom could find them.

I use to cruise real close to the Mexican border during 78-81 for kicks <G> Turned off my IFF also <G> Never was intercepted and no calls on Guard. It was boring flying there so I would cancel IFR and dive for the deck.

Not sure my LongEZ is easily picked up by radar either

Jack

MikeD
09-08-2002, 08:36 PM
quote:Originally posted by Seven Fife:
My father use to be a wizzo in the F-4s flying intercepts for the 147th out of Ellington. I realize technology advanced greatly, but he told me it was very difficult for their on-board radar to track light aviation. He told a story of a crew investigated for causing an accident. They couldn't find a plane on radar, and ended up passing right next to it at highspeed. Reportedly, the pilot had a heartattack (autopsy report) when the F-4 zoomed him and crashed. Drug intercepts were called off for awhile why the incident was investigated.

BTW, in the same "Pulse" story, they demonstrated with some congressman how easy it was for a light plane to cross the border from Canada to the US without being challenged. He said the only way to do anything about it would be to ground all GA, which he said would be dumb (MikeD, there is at least one with intelligence)

Was that incident mentioned above involving a 147th F-4? I ask because there was the January 1983 incident with the Michigan ANG F-4C/Beech BE-55 off the coast of North Carolina, where nearly the same thing happened.

Like you say, it is pretty easy to tool across the country and not get caught in a GA. US Customs has all the Aerostat balloons all over the southern border here, but on a high wind day, those balloons come down.

Seems like you've lived in the Houston area a while. Ever remember when the 147th had F-101Bs? I think they used them up until 1982/83. Pretty cool jet.

MD
EzyJack
09-08-2002, 10:26 PM
quote:Originally posted by MikeD:


Seems like you've lived in the Houston area a while. Ever remember when the 147th had F-101Bs? I think they used them up until 1982/83. Pretty cool jet .

MD[/B]---------

The old Voodoo? Not sure I ever saw one flying while I was in the Navy from 73 on. Even 104s were being parked by 75.

Those custom blimps are seldom working and costly. Blimp does go up and the phone call goes out on the warning net

Jack
Leland
09-08-2002, 10:28 PM
quote:Originally posted by MikeD:
Was that incident mentioned above involving a 147th F-4? I ask because there was the January 1983 incident with the Michigan ANG F-4C/Beech BE-55 off the coast of North Carolina, where nearly the same thing happened.

Like you say, it is pretty easy to tool across the country and not get caught in a GA. US Customs has all the Aerostat balloons all over the southern border here, but on a high wind day, those balloons come down.

Seems like you've lived in the Houston area a while. Ever remember when the 147th had F-101Bs? I think they used them up until 1982/83. Pretty cool jet.

M

It may well have been. I was pretty young at the time, and I just remember the story. It could have been any fighter group. The Beech sounds correct, and it was over water.

I do remember the F-101Bs . My father flew many years in those before transitioning to F-4s (he started his career as an EWO in B-52s).
93questions
09-09-2002, 11:45 AM
quote:Originally posted by adoucette:
I don't doubt its veracity, like many things that day there was confusion as even Norad listed but 2 jets. However, since you posted that link I have since found a site honoring the three pilots and even gave their names and rank, so it seems it was 3.

However in the same article you linked to was this:

Then the pilots received the most surreal order of the awful morning. "A person came on the radio," General Haugen said, "and identified themselves as being with the Secret Service, and he said, `I want you to protect the White House at all costs.'


1) Was this guy really from the Secret Service or was he an imposter?

2) Since when does the Secret Service fulfill the role of command and control for USAF fighters?

3) If not Flight 93 and one of the three Happy Hooligans, what fighter did Cheney order three times to intercept what passenger plane?


Originally posted by adoucette:
What seems clear is that there were two many targets to chase. The earlier article claims there were a totaly of 21 potential targets, which ones would you go after? Maybe there was only two or three that they were really worried about, but again, you can't go after them all. Clearly, by Monday morning quarterbacking you can say they should have done this or that, but the people that morning did not have the hindsight you now claim.


Only one was a definite, confirmed hijacked. And how many of these so-called possible highjacks (the number I saw was something like 12 at the most, so if you really saw 21 somewhere please cite your sources) represented planes near and heading toward DC?


Originally posted by adoucette:
Face it, the military says they didn't send the fighters to Penn. and no one in the area has claimed they saw anything but the small white two engine jet and there were obviously people out and looking.


Face it, the only reasonable rationales for not intercepting Flight 93 with a fighter a full hour after the 2nd WTC tower was hit are 1) you know with 100% certainty that DC is the target (which implies complicity) or 2) you've have a another timely way to bring the plane down without using fighters.

This isn't a case of 20/20 hindsight. This is no more than 20/300 foresight. Either we had a fighter on Flight 93's ass by 10:00 or else we knew with 100% certainty the target was DC or else we had another method of taking Flight 93 in place or else the USAF is run by the Three Stooges. There are no other reasonable choices.
93questions
09-09-2002, 11:53 AM
quote:Originally posted by Seven Fife:
93statements,

So what happened to the rest of the population of Washington DC? You keep talking about multiple targets, but within Washington DC, the only target you reference is the White House. There are three branches of government in the very near vicinity, and if you can guard one from the air, you can easily guard the rest as well. But if you fly out to engage one threat, you leave nothing behind to protect against new threats. I guess you are also forgetting, that although only 4 planes were hijacked, there were still other commercial airliners flying at the time. Don't start giving us "the FAA ordered to them to land at X:XX time so they were no longer an issue" as if landing a plane is instantenous.

I'm with Tony, don't coach football.


Am I missing something here? Do you score seven points by hitting a target in DC, but none when you hit Three Mile Island, Pittsburgh or Philadelphia? Because that's the only way this ridiculous football analogy applies.

Assuming that the official story is correct and that only three fighters total were available 45 minutes after the second terrorist plane hit the WTC (which strains credulity in and of itself), what we are weighing here is:

1) The small probability that two fighters couldn't manage to protect DC's airspace by themselves against whatever UNKNOWN AND UNCONFIRMED attacks might arise in the perhaps 30 minutes it would take for the third fighter to down Flight 93.

Worst case: An evacuated lowrise building is destroyed if and only if two F-16 fighters somehow need a third to stop a passenger jet that somehow becomes a threat within the next 30 minutes out-of-the-blue.

Best case: You have to bring down Flight 93 over a highly populated area.

vs.

2) The completely unknown probability that Flight 93 might decide to target a skyscraper in a city other than DC or, worse yet, a nuclear plant.

Worst case: Thousands of Americans die and millions get radiation poisoning while three fighters circle a few empty buildings.

Best case: You get to bring down Flight 93, THE ONLY KNOWN AND CONFIRMED AND ASSUMED SUICIDAL HIJACK, over a largely unpopulated area--limiting casualties to those on the plane and possibly allowing you to cover up the whole thing.

[ September 10, 2002 08:23 AM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by 93questions ]

93questions
09-09-2002, 12:42 PM
quote:Originally posted by limo driver:

3) Slim chance that a fighter wasn't on Flight 77's ass without severe incompetence or else complicity (72 minutes after Flight 11 was a confirmed hijack, 34 minutes after Flight 175 hit the second WTC).

4) No possible way that a fighter wasn't on Flight 93's ass without ridiculously laughable incompetence or else complicity (99 minutes after Flight 11 was a confirmed hijack, 63 minutes after Flight 175 hit the second WTC).

I think this analysis is 100% objective, and I find the arguments of the apologists' for the military's reported (but not necessarily actual) response absurdly strained. .

93Q,

The above views create a dilemma for yourself:

Choice one: F93 was shot down. It follows from this that F77's not being shot down was not the result of complicity. (Why would interceptors waste their time with a plane over 100 miles from DC, but allow F77 to strike Pentagon?) It follows that F77 can only be explained by the kind of ridiculous, absurd incompetence that has been your main theme in this thread.

Choice two: F77 not being taken down was not the result of severe incompetence, but of complicity. It follows that F93 would not have been shot down, for the same reason mentioned above. Yet that would undermine your massive efforts over the last several months in establishing that F93 only makes sense as a shoot down.

May I ask which of the above you would choose, since one of them follows of necessity from your analysis?

A more general point about "laughable" incompetence: I agree with you to an extent that our responses did seem inexplicably slow. But, as is usually the case, you turn legitimate questions into seeming absolute refutations; make plausible assumptions as if there could be no other plausible interpretations. We saw that crystal clear mentality at work with your absolute assessment about the lack of seismic evidence. In due course it became apparent to everyone that the facts spoke to something a little bit less than absolute. It is this spirit of cockiness that runs through your themes over and over again.


You folks are really too much. Now you have lost 100% of your credibility as well. Is there not one one you who has the balls to admit the patently obvious?

Assuming that the official story is correct and that only three fighters total were available 45 minutes after the second terrorist plane hit the WTC (which already strains credulity tp absurd limits in and of itself), what we are weighing here is:

1) The infinitesmal probability that two fighters couldn't manage to protect DC's airspace by themselves against whatever UNCONFIRMED attacks might arise in the perhaps 30 minutes it would take for the third fighter to down Flight 93.

Worst case: An evacuated lowrise building (and all the important ones were being evacuated by 10:00 AM) is destroyed if and only if two F-16 fighters somehow need a third to stop a passenger jet that somehow becomes a threat within the next 30 minutes out-of-the-blue.

Best case: You have to bring down Flight 93 over a highly populated area.

vs.

2) The completely unknown probability that Flight 93 might decide to target a skyscraper in a city other than DC or, worse yet, a nuclear plant.

Worst case: Thousands of Americans die and millions get radiation poisoning while three fighters circle a fewempty buildings.

Best case: You get to bring down Flight 93, THE ONLY KNOWN AND CONFIRMED AND ASSUMED SUICIDAL HIJACK, over a largely unpopulated area--limiting casualties to those on the plane and possibly allowing you to cover up the whole thing.

This isn't a case of 20/20 hindsight. This is no more than 20/300 foresight. From the 1970's on, interception has been basic standard operation procedure for a suspected hijack. But here we have a confirmed hijacked (variously reported as confirmed between 9:18 and 9:30) more than a hour into a confirmed terrorist attack, and somehow it's supposed to require some brilliant insight on the part of some ineffectual bureaucracy to the same obvious decision that each and every person reading this forum would have made if they'd just be honest about it.

I'm sorry, but we all know US military just ain't quite that damn incompetent. Maybe Flight 77, although that's hard enought to fathom. But to believe the official story on Flight 93 is to equate Command and Control with Comedy Central. I mean, if ramming a plane directly into the Pentagon didn't get the US military to spring into decisive action, I have to wonder what in the world possibly could. This is like saying cops get a confirmed sighting of a cop killer and they decide it's more important to keep protecting the donut shop than it is to pursue the suspect.

This conclusion is formed simply and directly from the preponderance of the evidence the public has been offered about Flight 93. There are only four possibilities, ranked from most to least believable:

1) Flight 93 was helped down by one or more fighters dispatched to intercept it.

2) Command and Control decided to use another weapon to deal with Flight 93 rather than a fighter jet and somehow had this other weapon in range by 10:00 EDT.

3) At least one weaponed military plane was shadowing Flight 93 when it miraculously exploded in some manner--shedding charred bolt-sized pieces of sheet metal (and probably a large swatch of fuselage and large part of one engine among other part). Then it miraculously crashed just minutes before it reached a densely populated area over which it could not be brought down with the risk of significant casualties.

4) Command and Control was at least partially complicit in the attacks.
Tony Manzur
09-09-2002, 12:56 PM
quote: 1) Was this guy really from the Secret Service or was he an imposter?


So according to your conspiracy theory, he was a secret service agent 'posing' as a secret service. OK

2) Since when does the Secret Service fulfill the role of command and control for USAF

At times of threatened national security? Duh!

quote Only one was a definite, confirmed hijacked.

How TF did you come to this conclusion?

And how many of these so-called possible highjacks (the number I saw was something like 12 at the most, so if you really saw 21 somewhere please cite your sources) represented planes near and heading toward DC?


Every airborne aircraft was a potential hijacking, even the ones with transponders working heading to Washington to land. If you can't see this, you are beyond help.

quote Am I mising something here?

ROFL, yes, almost everything. Well you asked!

quote ...THE ONLY KNOWN AND CONFIRMED AND ASSUMED SUICIDAL HIJACK...

They didn't know who had broadcast the PA call to ATC and only 'confirmed' it was UA93 until much later.

You are still ignoring the fact that ATC had hundreds of targets on their scopes, many had no ident, many came and went from their screens, many were suspicious, all should have been considered as potential hijackings.

You'd be the first screaming conspiracy if they had chased after percieved threats while Washington got hammered.
93questions
09-09-2002, 01:05 PM
quote:Originally posted by adoucette:

==> Really, according to Woodward, Cheney ordered a fighter to engage a suspect aircraft less then 60 miles out right around 10:00am, so that couldn't have been U93


Out from what? Are you really trying to suggest the Woodward was talking about a completely unreported additional suspected hijack that was only 7 minutes from DC before it was intercepted by a fighter? Pray tell, what magical mystery flight was this? Why was it considered a hijack? How is it that it somehow managed to be spared just in the nick of time despite Cheney's emphatic orders? I mean, this would be the biggest and most dramatic unreported story of the day, and, I might add, far scarier than shooting down Flight 93.

In addition, why did everyone--from Cheney to Bush to the military who somehow needed two hours to "confirm they hadn't shot down Flight 93"--assume it was Flight 93?


quote So maybe you think the guys who contol the jets will send them out hunting, but if it happens again, I'd bet they would do the exact same thing, protect the seat of government, its who they work for after all.


Silly me, I thought they, as well as the entire US government, worked for the American people--thousands of whose lives and livelihoods they would have been criminally negligent in unnecessarily risking had they actually acted in such an utterly reckless and blatantly idiotic manner.

[ September 09, 2002 08:05 AM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by 93questions ]
93questions
09-09-2002, 02:02 PM
quote:Originally posted by Tony_M:
So according to your conspiracy theory, he was a secret service agent 'posing' as a secret service.

Do you understand the basic concept of critical thinking? The article says:

"A person came on the radio," General Haugen said, "and identified themselves as being with the Secret Service, and he said, `I want you to protect the White House at all costs.' "

I am simply asking the obvious question given the wording of the article.

And I assume you can supply several other examples in which USAF pilots took criminally negligent orders from someone who "came on the radio" and identified himself "as being with the Secret Service."

Back to critical thinking 101. Here's a little primer for you. The official story is that there were no other successful hijacks still in flight after 9:37 EDT besides Flight 93. Flight 93 was a known and confirmed hijack well before 9:37 EDT. Therefore, Flight 93 was the only known and confirmed hijack flying around between 9:37 and 10:06 EDT. Pretty slick how a few simple premises can lead to an obvious and inescapable conclusion, isn't it? Maybe you can try something like this yourself someday.


quote- Every airborne aircraft was a potential hijacking, even the ones with transponders working heading to Washington to land. If you can't see this, you are beyond help.

Flight 93 was the only known and confirmed hijack flying around between 9:37 and 10:06 EDT. It could have killed thousand of US citizens or even crashed into a nuclear reactor. If even a single fighter jet was available in the entire USAF fleet, its clear and obvious immediate mission would be to intercept Flight 93. If you can't see this, you are beyond help.

Please just step back for a second and consider how ridiculous you sound. If every plane in the air was just as dangerous as any other, why were any fighters ever scrambled to intercept Flights 175? Or Flight 77? According to all of you fearlessly imbecilic apologists, they should have instead immediately sought out some valuable target and flown around in tight circles protecting it. I mean, just how do any of you expect to get away with pawning off something so blaringly moronic as a legitimate strategy?

But maybe you guys are on to something. Sure. What was I thinking? I mean, the next time a plane is hijacked by terrorists, how could we possibly make the woeful mistake of intercepting it with fighters when those same fighters are obviously far more desperately needed to protect DC and NYC against other potential hijack threats? Gee, how could I have been so blind as to imagine that a definite, confirmed threat with the potential to murder thousands of Americans at any moment could possibly be given a higher engagement priority than the legions of bogeyplanes that are obviously about to appear out of thin air to attack DC and NYC without warning?


Originally posted by Tony_M:
You'd be the first screaming conspiracy if they had chased after percieved threats while Washington got hammered.


No. Flight 93 was NOT JUST A PERCEIVED THREAT. It was a real, highly dangerous, 100% confirmed threat, and it was the only real, highly dangerous, 100% confirmed threat between 9:37 and 10:03 EDT. And as the only real, highly dangerous, 100% confirmed threat between 9:37 and 10:03 EDT, at this time there was no possible mission more important than intercepting Flight 93. None. Even if there was only one available fighter, of course it would have been scrambled to meet Flight 93.
Tony Manzur
09-09-2002, 05:12 PM
ROFLMAO, like I'm gonna learn critical thinking from 93delusions. PpPpPpffffHhhhhaaHaaaaHaHahahah.

No, I think I'll just remain ignorant and closed to any other view on the planet but mine, just to spite you. smilewink.gif Thanks for the offer though laff.gif laff.gif laff.gif

adoucette
09-09-2002, 07:18 PM
93,
Do you not realize that USAF jets have a way to authenticate the source of their radio calls? While they can broadcast in the open they also have the ability to use encrypted secure communications.
Arthur

adoucette
09-09-2002, 07:42 PM
93,
U93 was not on radar, it was last tracked heading towards Johnstown, the controllers at Johnstown WENT OUTSIDE TO SEE IF THEY COULD SPOT IT VISUALLY.

Sure you could send Jets out to it, but if it got past you what then?

You keep talking about NPPs, but Tony already showed you the test they ran firing an F4 into the same thickness reinforced concrete that the containment structure is made from and hardly damaging it. Clearly a 757 would be worse, but the thinking that morning would be that were not likely targets.

As to this being the only confirmed hijack, true, but their were many others which were unconfirmed as NOT Hijacked. One could not put all ones eggs in one basket.

By the way I posted a new report that said only two jets took off from Langley and it mentions the pilots by name. I suspect what Mike said was true, they got another pilot to take up the reserve bird but he most likely took off after the first two (being as he wouldn't have been on alert). That seems to be the only explanation which makes both sets of numbers correct, problem is we don't know the takeoff time for the third bird.

Here are other excerpts about that morning:

But the FAA command center then reported 11 aircraft either not in communication with FAA facilities, or flying unexpected routes. At 9:24, the Langley-based alert F-16s were scrambled and airborne in 6 min., headed for Washington.

By 9:26 a.m., the FAA command center stopped all departures nationwide. (So look how long the FAA continued to allow FAA controllers to allow more aircraft to take to the sky and of course these kept the controllers busy, when the order came to land them all, this again took up the controllers time.)

Before the day ended, 21 aircraft across the U.S. had been handled as "tracks of interest."

===> So only 1 turned out to be hijacked but again, the other were just as serious suspects.

At Norad, Glover phoned Arnold, telling him Vice President Cheney had given the authorization to shoot down any threatening aircraft in order to save lives on the ground. "We created a free-fire zone over the nation's capital," Arnold said. "Anyone airborne who did not immediately turn away from the center of town, or who did not land, could be shot down."

==> This is the decision you think is stupid and illogical, but none the less it appears to be what was done. Since you are so much smarter than the existing military you should consider joining their ranks as your swift ascent is almost assured, you'll be General 93 in no time flat.


Duffy estimated the F-15s intercepted and escorted about 100 aircraft, including emergency, military and news helicopters, plus dozens of private pilots who were unaware of the attacks.

==> Does this give you any idea about how busy these guys were. They were up for about 5 hours. So that is one aircraft about every 3 minutes.

Arthur

Leland
09-09-2002, 08:23 PM
I'm still with you, Tony. However, I do hope 93statements is calling his Congressional delegates and demanding more money for the military. EMP missiles, supercruise for all alert aircraft, and enough alert aircraft to guard every part of the US, not just the borders. Then he can be made the CinC and protect us all. Well not all of us, because I would evacuate before the first star got pinned on him. I hope England doesn't have people like him.

Tony Manzur
09-09-2002, 09:05 PM
quote:Originally posted by Seven Fife:
I'm still with you, Tony. However, I do hope 93statements is calling his Congressional delegates and demanding more money for the military. EMP missiles, supercruise for all alert aircraft, and enough alert aircraft to guard every part of the US, not just the borders. Then he can be made the CinC and protect us all. Well not all of us, because I would evacuate before the first star got pinned on him. I hope England doesn't have people like him.

General 93delusions? Has a kinda ring to it. Yeah we have folk like this, I used to work for a bunch of em.
adoucette
09-09-2002, 10:25 PM
quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by adoucette:
==> Really, according to Woodward, Cheney ordered a fighter to engage a suspect aircraft less then 60 miles out right around 10:00am, so that couldn't have been U93.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Out from what? Are you really trying to suggest the Woodward was talking about a completely unreported additional suspected hijack that was only 7 minutes from DC before it was intercepted by a fighter?

==> Yes, that is EXACTLY what Woodward's report suggests.

Pray tell, what magical mystery flight was this?

==> Don't know.

Why was it considered a hijack?

==> Because it was heading towards the capitol and may not have been communicating with ATC.


How is it that it somehow managed to be spared just in the nick of time despite Cheney's emphatic orders?

==> Because Cheney's orders were to engage. Engage means follow the new Rules of Engagement that Bush had agreed to that morning which included FLYING IN FRONT OF THE JET and TRYING TO COMMUNICATE WITH IT and to only shoot it down IF IT DIDN'T TURN AWAY.

Bush then talked to Rumsfeld to clarify the procedures military pilots should follow in trying to force an unresponsive plane to the ground before opening fire on it. First, pilots would seek to make radio contact with the other plane and tell the pilot to land at a specific location. If that failed, the pilots were to use visual signals. These included having the fighters fly in front of the other plane. If the plane continued heading toward what was seen as a significant target with apparently hostile intent, the U.S. pilot would have the authority to shoot it down.


This also happened to the plane that was carrying Ashcroft

David Clemmer, a Vietnam combat veteran who received a warning as he flew the nation’s chief law-enforcement officer, John Ashcroft, back to Washington from an aborted speaking engagement in the Midwest. Land your plane immediately, Clemmer was instructed by an air-traffic controller, or risk getting shot down by the U.S. Air Force. Clemmer turned to an FBI agent assigned to guard Ashcroft and said, “Well, Larry, we’re in deep kimchi here, and basically, all the rules you and I know are out the window.” The pilot notified air-traffic controllers that he was carrying the attorney general—but was worried that the message wouldn’t get through to military commanders controlling the airspace around Washington. “Thinking out of the box,” as Clemmer put it, he asked for—and got—a fighter escort into Washington. His plane, guarded by an F-16, was one of the last to land on the East Coast that day.


I mean, this would be the biggest and most dramatic unreported story of the day, and, I might add, far scarier than shooting down Flight 93.

===> No, apparently it happened quite a few times that day, the closest call was a flight coming in over Alaska where the pilot misunderstanding the communication set his transponder to the hijack code. It almost got shot down.


In addition, why did everyone--from Cheney to Bush to the military who somehow needed two hours to "confirm they hadn't shot down Flight 93"--assume it was Flight 93?

Here's the piece:

"There is a plane 80 miles out," he said. "There is a fighter in the area. Should we engage?"

"Yes," Cheney replied without hesitation.

Around the vice president, Rice, deputy White House chief of staff Joshua Bolten and I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Cheney's chief of staff, tensed as the military aide repeated the question, this time with even more urgency. The plane was now 60 miles out. "Should we engage?" Cheney was asked.

"Yes," he replied again.

As the plane came closer, the aide repeated the question. Does the order still stand?

"Of course it does," Cheney snapped.

The vice president said later that it had seemed "painful, but nonetheless clear-cut. And I didn't agonize over it."

It was, "obviously, a very significant action," Cheney said in an interview. "You're asking American pilots to fire on a commercial airliner full of civilians. On the other hand, you had directly in front of me what had happened to the World Trade Center, and a clear understanding that once the plane was hijacked, it was a weapon."

Within minutes, there was a report that a plane had crashed in southwestern Pennsylvania-what turned out to be United Flight 93, a Boeing 757 that had been hijacked after leaving Newark International Airport. Many of those in the PEOC feared that Cheney's order had brought down a civilian aircraft. Rice demanded that someone check with the Pentagon.



Now Woodward earns his living though words.

If he had meant: There was a report that THE plane had crashed in ....

I think that is what he would have wrote, not A plane.

He DOES NOT link the two as being the SAME plane.

Finally there is nothing in the article that indicates that they ASSUMED the order was for U93, they were WORRIED that it MIGHT have been the plane.

Arthur

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So maybe you think the guys who contol the jets will send them out hunting, but if it happens again, I'd bet they would do the exact same thing, protect the seat of government, its who they work for after all.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Silly me, I thought they, as well as the entire US government, worked for the American people--thousands of whose lives and livelihoods they would have been criminally negligent in unnecessarily risking had they actually acted in such an utterly reckless and blatantly idiotic manner.

==> Yeah and that's why the President, Cabinet, Congress, Military leaders have an underground bunker and Cheyenne Mt in case of Nuclear Attack.

You get your Cheyenne pass in the mail?

Arthur

[ September 09, 2002 06:43 PM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by adoucette ]

adoucette
09-09-2002, 10:35 PM
[ September 09, 2002 06:44 PM: Message edited 2 times, lastly by adoucette ]
93questions
09-10-2002, 06:12 AM
quote:Originally posted by adoucette:
93,
Do you not realize that USAF jets have a way to authenticate the source of their radio calls? While they can broadcast in the open they also have the ability to use encrypted secure communications.


The article says:

"A person came on the radio," General Haugen said, "and identified themselves as being with the Secret Service, and he said, `I want you to protect the White House at all costs.' "

The wording of the article is quite pointed in leaving the actual identity of this mysterious person (or persons?) in doubt. I must assume this is because no actual individual wishes to take "credit" for an order that was obviously criminally negligent--if we are to believe the officially sanctioned version, of course.

That is all.
adoucette
09-10-2002, 02:44 PM
quote:Originally posted by 93questions:
The article says:

"A person came on the radio," General Haugen said, "and identified themselves as being with the Secret Service, and he said, `I want you to protect the White House at all costs.' "

The wording of the article is quite pointed in leaving the actual identity of this mysterious person (or persons?) in doubt. I must assume this is because no actual individual wishes to take "credit" for an order that was obviously criminally negligent--if we are to believe the officially sanctioned version, of course.

That is all.

And maybe Haugen didn't want to identify a specific SS officer by name (or in the heat of it all didn't remember it) who knows?

The only obvious thing is you don't know the definition or use of the term "criminally negligent", although you love to through it around.

Look it up and show us how any states (Feds don't have one) criminial negligence statue could fit.

Arthur
MikeD
09-10-2002, 03:42 PM
I have a hard time believing that a SS agent would actually begin giving tactics instructions to USAF jets. For one, the SS would have to know the frequencies the jets are using, and for two, this goes against every chain of command tenent there is.

I'd like to see the USAF pilot that would follow such orders from one claiming to be with the SS.

Sure it's not a typo in the story?

MD

93questions
09-10-2002, 03:51 PM
quote:Originally posted by adoucette:
U93 was not on radar, it was last tracked heading towards Johnstown, the controllers at Johnstown WENT OUTSIDE TO SEE IF THEY COULD SPOT IT VISUALLY.



Let me be perfectly clear here. You are now postulating total bs and there's no way in the world that you aren't painfully aware of that fact.

1) Johnstown went out to see if they could spot it visually BECAUSE THEY DIDN'T HAVE RADAR!

2) Flight 93 was on radar. United Airlines' officials reported following it on radar for its entire journey. The Nassau FAA employee followed both Flight 93 and a fighter on radar. Dozens of Congressmen and the mayors of Pittsburgh and Cleveland knew exactly where the plane was. They were setting up crisis teams in real time as the plane neared and then luckily flew by their cities. The CIA (or someone) was evacuating every ATC tower along Flight 93's path, using bomb scares and other ridiculous tactics so that the fewest folks possible would see Flight 93 (and whatever else) on radar.

3) Your best efforts at flippant duplicity cannot change the fact that it just isn't that hard to find a 757 on radar. Moreover, Willow Grove was just a few miles down the road, so if the fighter really needed help finding as big a target as any he'd ever trained against, they could have gotten a P-3C in the air to help him. Or an E-2C from Norfolk, VA. Or they could have turned around the Over the Horizon radar at Norfolk. Or they could have pointed the Pave Paws at Cape Cod in that direction in order to find the "missing" plane. Or they could have used any of dozens of training recon planes from NAS Patuxent River, MD. Or they could have used the United States Strategic Command's (USSTRATCOM) Airborne Command Post, aka the "Looking Glass" E-6B.

4) However, any decent pilot could have made an easy kill without all this help. And I'm sure any radar station that the CIA wasn't busy evacuating was picking up Flight 93 just fine because, believe it or not, 757's don't yet have Romulan cloaking devices.


Originally posted by adoucette:
Sure you could send Jets out to it, but if it got past you what then?


OH MY GOD, WE JUST SENT THREE F-16's FIGHTERS OUT INTERCEPT A 757, BUT THE 757 FLEW CIRCLES AROUND THEM AND LEFT THEM IN THE DUST!!!

You know, Arthur, you are utterly trashing your "thoughtful, well-reasoned" veneer by spouting such rampant idiocy.


Originally posted by adoucette:
You keep talking about NPPs, but Tony already showed you the test they ran firing an F4 into the same thickness reinforced concrete that the containment structure is made from and hardly damaging it. Clearly a 757 would be worse, but the thinking that morning would be that were not likely targets.


Can you possibly lampoon yourself any more?

So we are supposed to buckle in fear about the potential of a "dirty bomb," but since Tony assures us some nuclear power plant passed his Firestone test, it's somehow no big deal if a 757 plows right into one???

And please explain why we are holding Padilla for thinking about making a dirty bomb at some distant point in the future if "the thinking that morning would be that they were not likely targets." I mean, do murderous terrorists only like to scare us with radiation poisoning in small doses? But NPP's are perfectly protected against the kind of plane crash you contend ballistically ejected metal for well over a mile, right? I mean, Chernobyl proved just how full-proof these things are, right?


Originally posted by adoucette:
As to this being the only confirmed hijack, true, but their were many others which were unconfirmed as NOT Hijacked. One could not put all ones eggs in one basket.


Dammit, you are simply lying through your teeth a little more with each sentence of your post. We supposedly had two fighters covering all of NYC and three covering DC. So how the hell is it "putting all one's eggs in one basket" to send JUST ONE of these three fighters out to intercept THE ONLY 100% CONFIRMED HIJACK???

And if we only had five total fighters available a hour after the second WTC was hit, it's simply because that's all the fighters we wanted available. NAS Oceana has 125 Tomcats and 152 Hornets, over 10,000 military employees, and an annual operating budget of nearly half a billion. They also have 5,500 take offs each and every month--an average of one every four minutes. Now multiply this by 10 or 20 other nearby air bases and add in the fact that it took Toledo--which was NOT an alert NORAD pad--just 16 minutes to get an armed fighter in the air. So please tell me again how sending a single fighter out to intercept Flight 93--otherwise known as doing your damn job without being criminally negligent--in order to protect thousands of American lives "is putting all one's eggs in one basket."


Originally posted by adoucette:
===> So only 1 turned out to be hijacked but again, the other were just as serious suspects .


ONE AND ONLY ONE flight was an ABSOLUTELY CONFIRMED HIJACK. THERE WAS NO F****** DOUBT ABOUT IT! So how the hell could any suspects be "just as serious"? By definition, they cannot.


Originally posted by adoucette:
==> Does this give you any idea about how busy these guys were. They were up for about 5 hours. So that is one aircraft about every 3 minutes.


Wow! Almost the same number of planes as take off from a single nearby Naval Air Station on an average day. Gee, maybe they should have sent a few more fighters out there to help poor Duff, ya think?

[ September 10, 2002 09:58 AM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by 93questions ]
93questions
09-10-2002, 04:23 PM
quote:Originally posted by MikeD:
I have a hard time believing that a SS agent would actually begin giving tactics instructions to USAF jets. For one, the SS would have to know the frequencies the jets are using, and for two, this goes against every chain of command tenent there is.

I'd like to see the USAF pilot that would follow such orders from one claiming to be with the SS.




Does disinfo rhyme with typo? images/smiles/icon_razz.gif
limo driver
09-10-2002, 04:49 PM
93Q,
Let me ask you again. I assume you are reasonably convinced F93 was shot down. Doesn't that speak against complicity in allowing F77 to hit Pentagon? If so, then we have to be prepared to admit that this kind of "severe incompetence" is real. Agreed? If we agree on that, all the more reason to question that "F93 had to have been shot down." I think the Bush admin. was caught way off guard, totally unprepared, and chaos reigned, heistancy and incredulity ruled, creating confusion and delays, as it did with the Soviets over KAL 007 in 1983. Here again is the CIA link http://www.insightmag.com/main.cfm/include/detail/storyid/221879.html
for another example of the head-in-the-sand approach our government takes with regard to terrorism. To me, the analysis in that link fits hand and hand with our reactions on Sep 11th: a government woefully unprepared psychologically to get it together and act as quickly and desively as it otherwise might have.
To repeat, if F93 was shot down, the credibility of US government complicity is destroyed. So your choice is: F93 was not shot down, thereby undermining your whole theory about it; or F93 was shot down, which implies military incompetence as the necessary explanation for F77. Complicity is ruled out.

burlgoat
09-10-2002, 05:23 PM
Agreed, Limo. I think the government isn't giving us the whole story about Flight 93, but Flight 77 is a story of incompetance, not complicity.

Leland
09-11-2002, 01:15 AM
Tell you what 93delusions, I talked to people within the FAA and USAF about these issues and that's how I draw my conclusion on reality. I recommend face to face in your case as well, since MikeD is currently serving and EZJack is prior service, and you have not believed them yet, and you can't look them in the eye anyway. See what these people have to say about being complicit or "criminally neglegent". I'll even help you out, these people usually have a local establishment they may frequent in large numbers, find one of those places, so you will have a chance to talk to many of them at once.

When you do this, I suggest you consider tone. One method will allow you to really get a chance to listen to another perspective, and some questions might get answered. But other methods might get you no where. If you choose tact one, I'm speculating here, but you'll likely be more shocked than you are now, and your view of who is complicit or "criminally neglegent" will change dramatically.

Another thing, on a clear stretch of road (for the sake of others), try driving about 100 mph or whatever controllable top speed you can manage, may not be drag limited. Then pick up your cellphone and call a couple of people, conference call if you can and will, and ask them directions. Now while doing this, open up your glove compartment and find your liability insurance card, make sure to grab it and only it, and make sure it is the valid one. For duration, try and do this for about 5 minutes.

EzyJack
09-11-2002, 02:13 AM
quote:Originally posted by Seven Fife:
.

Another thing, on a clear stretch of road (for the sake of others), try driving about 100 mph or whatever controllable top speed you can manage, may not be drag limited. Then pick up your cellphone and call a couple of people, conference call if you can and will, and ask them directions. Now while doing this, open up your glove compartment and find your liability insurance card, make sure to grab it and only it, and make sure it is the valid one. For duration, try and do this for about 5 minutes.[/B]------------------

ROFL, the call might kill U.

If you pick up the new AW, they have an article about the F-16 wing at Andrews launching with SS authorization. One pilot knew an agent.

Some COs decided that the book went out the window with the WTCs being hit along with the Pentagon.

Bagged the article!!

F-16 Pilots Considered Ramming Flight 93


By William B. Scott/Aviation Week & Space Technology

09-Sep-2002 9:24 AM U.S. EDT



Editor's Note: This is Part 3 of an ongoing special report on how the military responded to terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. Earlier articles appeared in the June 3 and June 10 issues. For this segment, one D.C. Air National Guard F-16 pilot chose not to have her name used, so is identified only by her call-sign.

ANDREWS AFB, MD. -- With Pentagon in flames and hijacked aircraft threatening Washington, White House scrambled fighters with little or no armament.


Within minutes of American Airlines Flight 77 hitting the Pentagon on Sept. 11, Air National Guard F-16s took off from here in response to a plea from the White House to "Get in the air now!" Those fighters were flown by three pilots who had decided, on their own, to ram a hijacked airliner and force it to crash, if necessary. Such action almost certainly would have been fatal for them, but could have prevented another terrorism catastrophe in Washington.


One of those F-16s launched with no armament--no missiles and no usable ammunition in its 20-mm. gun. The other two "Vipers" only had a full load of 20-mm. "ball" or training rounds, not the high-explosive incendiary (HEI) bullets required for combat, and no air-to-air missiles.


The Andrews-based 121st Fighter Sqdn. was not standing alert on Sept. 11, because the District of Columbia Air National Guard (DCANG) unit was not assigned to the North American Aerospace Defense Command air defense force. Norad had already scrambled three F-16s from their alert base at Langley AFB, Va., but they were about 12 min. from Washington when the Pentagon was struck at 9:37 a.m. (AW&ST June 3, p. 48).


The 121st squadron's day had started normally. Three F-16s were flying an air-to-ground training mission on a range in North Carolina, 180 naut. mi. away. At Andrews, several officers were in a scheduling meeting when they received word that the World Trade Center had been hit by an aircraft. Minutes later, after United Airlines Flight 175 slammed into the second WTC tower, a squadron pilot called a friend in the Secret Service "to see what was going on. He was told some bad things were happening. At that time, we weren't thinking about defending anything. Our primary concern was what would happen to the air traffic system," said Lt. Col. Marc H. (Sass) Sasseville, the current 121st FS commander. On Sept. 11, he was the director of operations and air operations officer--the acting operations group commander under the 113th Wing.


Soon thereafter, the Secret Service called back, asking whether the squadron could get fighters airborne. The unit's maintenance section was notified to get several F-16s armed and ready to fly. Anticipating such an order, Col. Don C. Mozley, the 113th Logistics Group commander, had already ordered his weapons officer to "break out the AIM-9s and start building them up." The missiles had to be transported from a bunker on the other side of the base, which would take a while.

"After the Pentagon was hit, we were told there were more [airliners] coming. Not 'might be'; they were coming," Mozley recalled.


Sasseville grabbed three F-16 pilots and gave them a curt briefing: "I have no idea what's going on, but we're flying. Here's our frequency. We'll split up the area as we have to. Just defend as required. We'll talk about the rest in the air." All four grabbed their helmets, g-suits and parachute harnesses, and headed for the operations desk to get aircraft assignments.


Another call from the Secret Service commanded, "Get in the air now!" Almost simultaneously, a call from someone else in the White House declared the Washington area "a free-fire zone. That meant we were given authority to use force, if the situation required it, in defense of the nation's capital, its property and people," Sasseville said.


He and his wingman, Lucky, sprinted to the flight line and climbed into waiting F-16s armed only with "hot" guns and 511 rounds of "TP"--nonexplosive training rounds. "They had two airplanes ready to go, and were putting missiles on Nos. 3 and 4. Maintenance wanted us to take the ones with missiles, but we didn't have time to wait on those," Sasseville said. Maj. Dan (Raisin) Caine and Capt. Brandon (Igor) Rasmussen climbed into the jets being armed with AIM-9s, knowing they would take off about 10 min. behind Sasseville and Lucky.


"We had two air-to-air birds on the ramp . . . that already had ammo in them. We launched those first two with only hot guns," said CMSgt. Roy Dale (Crank) Belknap, the 113th Wing production superintendent. "By then, we had missiles rolling up, so we loaded those other two airplanes while the pilots were sitting in the cockpit."


Inside, at the operations desk, Lt. Cols. Phil (Dog) Thompson and Steve (Festus) Chase were fielding a flood of calls from the Secret Service and the FAA's two area air traffic control facilities--Washington Center and Washington Approach Control. Thompson is chief of safety for the 113th Wing, and Chase is now commander of the new Air Sovereignty Detachment here. By then, Brig. Gen. David F. Wherley, Jr., the 113th Wing commander, was on-site, trying to determine whether the unit had authorization to launch fighters.


"By this time, [commercial] airplanes were landing, but there were still several unidentified ones flying. One was in the northwest [area], basically coming down the [Potomac] River," Thompson said. Later, they would learn that the FAA and Norad's Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS) were tracking the hijacked United Flight 93, and feared it was coming toward Washington. Thanks to intervention by passengers, the aircraft ultimately crashed in Pennsylvania.


Maj. Billy Hutchison and his wingmen had just landed after being recalled from a training mission in North Carolina. When Hutchison checked in via radio, Thompson told him to take off immediately.


"Billy had about 2,400 lb. of gas; the other two [F-16s] were too light," Thompson said. "I told Billy to take off, but don't use afterburner to save gas. He took off with nothing--no weapons. I told him to 'do exactly what ATC asks you to do.' Primarily, he was to go ID [identify] that unknown [aircraft] that everybody was so excited about. He blasted off and flew a standard departure route, which took him over the Pentagon."


According to now-official accounts, an armed Norad-alert F-16 from Langley AFB, flown by Maj. Dean Eckmann of the 119th Fighter Wing Alert Detachment 1, was the first defender to overfly the Pentagon. At the time, Hutchison and his fellow "Capital Guardians"--as the 121st FS is known--were unaware that three other fighters were over the city.


MINUTES LATER, Sasseville and Lucky were in the air, roughly 6 min. after they had reached their F-16s. "I was still turning things on after I got airborne. By that time, the [Norad alert] F-16s from Langley were overhead--but I didn't know they were there," Sasseville recalled. "We all realized we were looking for an airliner--a big airplane. That was [United] Flight 93; the track looked like it was headed toward D.C. at that time."


The DCANG was not in the Norad or NEADS communication and command loops, so its pilots weren't on the same frequencies as Norad air defense fighters. The Andrews-based F-16s were launched by the Secret Service and someone in the White House command center, not Norad. At the time, there was no standing agreement between the Secret Service and the 113th Wing for the latter to provide fighters in response to an attack on Washington.


Hutchison made two loops up the Potomac, reversing course near Georgetown and the Pentagon, flying at 500-1,000 ft. AGL. Sasseville and Lucky were at 5,000-6,000 ft., "because I didn't want to get too low for a good radar angle, and not too high, so we could get somewhere fast," Sasseville said. He later conceded he was "making things up on the fly." Obviously, there was no precedent to draw upon. All the pilots were relying on their training and ability to think under pressure.


Hutchison was probably airborne shortly after the alert F-16s from Langley arrived over Washington, although 121st FS pilots admit their timeline-recall "is fuzzy." But it's clear that Hutchison, Sasseville and Lucky knew their options were limited for bringing down a hijacked airliner headed for an undetermined target in the capital city. Although reluctant to talk about it, all three acknowledge they were prepared to ram a terrorist-flown aircraft, if necessary. Indeed, Hutchison--who might have been the first to encounter Flight 93 if it had, indeed, been flying low and fast down the Potomac--had no other choice.


Sasseville and Lucky each had 511 rounds of ammo, but that only provided roughly a 5-sec. burst of the 20-mm. gun. And where should they shoot to ensure a hijacked aircraft would be stopped? Sasseville planned to fire from behind and "try to saw off one wing. I needed to disable it as soon as possible--immediately interrupt its aerodynamics and bring it down."


He admits there was no assurance that a 5-sec. burst of lead slugs could slice an air transport's wing off, though. His alternative was "to hit it--cut the wing off with my wing. If I played it right, I'd be able to bail out. One hand on the stick and one hand on the ejection handle, trying to ram my airplane into the aft side of the [airliner's] wing," he said. "And do it skillfully enough to save the pink body . . . but understanding that it might not go as planned. It was a tough nut; we had no other ordnance."


Still unaware that the 119th FW alert F-16s were overhead, patrolling at a higher altitude, Sasseville initially split the airspace into four sectors. He swept the northwest area of Washington--where the hijacked United Flight 93 was expected to be--and had Lucky guard the northeast area.


Approximately 10 min. after Sasseville and Lucky took off, Caine and Rasmussen launched, the first Andrews-based F-16s to carry both hot guns and live AIM-9 missiles. They worked the city's southern sectors. Soon, F-16s from Richmond, Va., and Atlantic City, N.J., as well as F-15s from Langley AFB, were arriving. The air picture was confused, at best, and radio frequencies were alive with chatter.


"The FAA controllers were doing their best to get us information [about unidentified aircraft], but we were used to working with AWACS and their weapons directors and controllers," Rasmussen said. Eventually, Washington Reagan National Airport was designated "Bullseye," and fighters were given range and bearing to targets from there.


Possibly the highest ranking pilot in the area, Sasseville "essentially declared myself the CAP [combat air patrol] commander and set up deconfliction altitudes so we didn't run into each other. There really wasn't time for niceties." For the rest of the day, a dozen or so fighters rotated in and out of the region, running intercepts on myriad helicopters and light aircraft.


"THEY WERE SNAPPING to targets everywhere," Thompson said. "A lot of light aircraft fly under the [controlled] airspace here, and they had no idea what was going on. What really scared us was Washington Approach broadcasting, 'Anyone flying within 25 mi. of the Washington Tacan is authorized to be shot down.' We kind of winced at that, because there are plenty of hard reasons to not shoot somebody down. We were really in an ID posture--and trying to really be careful."


A miracle of the post-attack hours on Sept. 11 was that no aircraft was shot down accidentally, a credit to the training and discipline of U.S. fighter crews. That fact is even more impressive when one considers many of those pilots had little or no experience with air defense techniques and protocols.


"We really didn't know the intricacies of Norad's mission--how it works," Thompson explained. "We've never been an air defense unit. We practice scrambles, we know how to do intercepts and other things, but there's a lot of protocol in the air defense business. We obviously didn't have that expertise, but it worked out fine. For the first three days, everybody seemed to be reasonably happy with our orchestrating the D.C. CAP. By day-four, we'd pretty much turned into a national asset" as Norad assumed control of CAPs nationwide.


On that first day, many of the pilots flying CAP over Washington, New York and other U.S. cities were faced with the very real possibility of having to shoot down or ram their fighter into an air transport filled with innocent passengers.


"I was asking myself, 'Is this when I have to make the million-dollar decision on my own?' But with smoke billowing out of the Pentagon . . . ," Rasmussen said.


"That's what we get paid to do, though. When young guys sign up, they may not see that the 'guts and glory' of fighter-flying may cost you your life. That day brought everything into focus."


In the afternoon, Sasseville and Lucky were flying their second mission of the day--armed with AIM-9 missiles now--when they were told to contact an AWACS aircraft in the area and "expect special tasking." They were directed to fly a 280-deg. heading for 140 naut. mi.--almost due west of Washington. Unable to communicate by secure or encrypted means, the AWACS controller lowered his voice and told Sasseville via radio they were going to "escort Air Force One," President Bush's aircraft.


Two Langley F-15s offered to go along, and Sasseville concurred. Soon, an AWACS controller reported a fast-moving, unidentified aircraft southwest of Air Force One, approximately 60 naut. mi. away, but on a "cutoff vector" to the President's Boeing 747. It was above 40,000 ft. and the 747 was "in the 20,000-ft. range," but Sasseville sent the F-15s to intercept the unknown aircraft. It was a Learjet that hadn't yet landed after aircraft nationwide had been ordered out of the air.


Sasseville and the two F-15s later joined on Air Force One, while Lucky positioned her F-16 about 10 naut. mi. in front of the 747. With the SADL data link system, she was able to monitor her location relative to Sasseville's SADL-equipped F-16 positioned on Air Force One's left wing. Another flight of F-16s from Ellington AFB, Tex., were about 5 mi. in trail. They had escorted the President from Offutt AFB, Neb., according to 121st FS officers.


Why the Washington-based F-16s were sent to shadow the President's aircraft back to Andrews AFB has not been disclosed. Apparently, someone in the Norad or Secret Service command loop had received information about a potential threat to the 747, prompting a request for additional armed escorts.


Surrounded by fighters, Air Force One descended rapidly toward its home base. Lucky made a clearing pass over the airfield, pulled up, circled back and joined on Sasseville's wing. All of the fighters remained with the 747 until the latter landed, then climbed and established a CAP over Andrews.


Despite being short of aircrews the next few days, the 121st flew continuously for about 63 hr., maintaining protective CAPs over Washington. They were aided by fighters from other ANG, Reserve and active-duty units, as well.


"We were generating airplanes faster than they could put 'em up," remarked Belknap. "And we still are."

Jack adds, lil more data. I wonder how many other fighters were up on training flights?
Leland
09-11-2002, 02:15 AM
Not that I told 93D to do anything I have not done, although foolishly in some cases, maybe suggesting something a bit illegal and dangerous is a bit rough. I think somewhere he needs to learn what it is like to have responsibility and then to handle the stress that comes with it.

I wonder is he up to the task of flying an aircraft at the edge of its performance envelope, handling the communications involved in coordinating a successful flight much less developing a strategy for dealing with a deadly situation, and then picking out amongst an array of blips the one that has innocent lives onboard yet still threatens more still. And after having done all this what he would think about being held responsible for the lives of thousands of people he didn't know, and then being blammed for risking the lives of millions more, including those he may know. And then to make sure the scenario is completely accurate, if he then would appreciate being called a liar after explaining in candor about his knowledge of the events as he knew them.

For the others who think our military was deficient on 9/11, I don't disagree. But for those who think it was capable of more with the resources present that day or that by suggesting such now will improve the current situation; they have no idea what is like to devote your life to serve others and then have them call you a traitor. Unfortunately, this past year was not the first time it has happened, and pretty much for that reason, it is getting harder and harder to find people willing to put up with it.

EzyJack
09-11-2002, 02:42 AM
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Seven Fife:
[I wonder is he up to the task of flying an aircraft at the edge of its performance envelope, handling the communications involved in coordinating a successful flight much less developing a strategy for dealing with a deadly situation, and then picking out amongst an array of blips the one that has innocent lives onboard yet still threatens more still------------------

Nice post Leland:

Tis why I use bullets and short replies. Am in the seat and working in 4D. Until your down in the weeds, sweating tight formation, add in geography. Folks don't know a mere nanosecond and your toast. Not that I would had thought that by ramming my bird was an option on 911.

I still have questions on 911. Will fly in AM tomorrow too <G>

Jack

limo driver
09-11-2002, 05:23 AM
Good post leland, and informative article EZ.

Just wanted to clarify that "severe incompetence" is 93 answers' phrase, and not mine. I agree with Leland here. The men and women who went out that morning to defend us are not the subject of my criticism. It was the pre-existing lack of preparedness that made things difficult. The article above taalks about the lack of coordination between Norad and the SS, and the general confusion that existed. This is what 93Answers poo-poos. I tend to favor the above article and the opinion of military pilots over know-it-all theorists who have never been in the hot seat. In any case, insistence that F93 was shot down rules out complicity. So it makes no sense to keep saying "ridiculous, absurdly strained" incompetence.

adoucette
09-11-2002, 08:51 AM
quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by adoucette:
U93 was not on radar, it was last tracked heading towards Johnstown, the controllers at Johnstown WENT OUTSIDE TO SEE IF THEY COULD SPOT IT VISUALLY.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Let me be perfectly clear here. You are now postulating total bs and there's no way in the world that you aren't painfully aware of that fact.

1) Johnstown went out to see if they could spot it visually BECAUSE THEY DIDN'T HAVE RADAR!

2) Flight 93 was on radar. United Airlines' officials reported following it on radar for its entire journey. The Nassau FAA employee followed both Flight 93 and a fighter on radar. Dozens of Congressmen and the mayors of Pittsburgh and Cleveland knew exactly where the plane was. They were setting up crisis teams in real time as the plane neared and then luckily flew by their cities. The CIA (or someone) was evacuating every ATC tower along Flight 93's path, using bomb scares and other ridiculous tactics so that the fewest folks possible would see Flight 93 (and whatever else) on radar.

==> So now the CIA is part of the conspiracy?
It might be a shorter list if you just told us who wasn't in on the fix.
Being on FAA radar doesn't get it to NEADS radar nor does it get it to the radar on the jets. The plane was flying at low altitude (3,000 ft AGL) in mountainous terrain so there is no way the Jets over DC had it on their scopes, not to mention their scopes would have lots of dots on them with none of them saying "Hey, look at me, I'm flight 93", we already know there were three other planes within 30 miles of 93 at the end, so how are they to go after the correct blip?
How many other planes were in the vicinity?


3) Your best efforts at flippant duplicity cannot change the fact that it just isn't that hard to find a 757 on radar.

==> No, but it is impossible to tell a 757 from a lear jet on a fighters radar and it IS hard to pick up an object at a distance if it is at low altitude (world curves you know) and if you are above it you get ground clutter.

Moreover, Willow Grove was just a few miles down the road, so if the fighter really needed help finding as big a target as any he'd ever trained against, they could have gotten a P-3C in the air to help him.

==> Assuming there was a crew for it and it wasn't in the maint shack etc etc.

Or an E-2C from Norfolk, VA.

==> Well E-2Cs are carrier based so don't know how many were in port that morning and of course fueled and with a crew available and then there is the 300 mph speed which would make getting to the Penn area take awhile.


Or they could have turned around the Over the Horizon radar at Norfolk.

==> I'm sure that's a piece of cake! Why don't you tell us exactly how you "turn this around"


Or they could have pointed the Pave Paws at Cape Cod in that direction in order to find the "missing" plane. Or they could have used any of dozens of training recon planes from NAS Patuxent River, MD. Or they could have used the United States Strategic Command's (USSTRATCOM) Airborne Command Post, aka the "Looking Glass" E-6B.


==> and where is that based?


4) However, any decent pilot could have made an easy kill without all this help. And I'm sure any radar station that the CIA wasn't busy evacuating was picking up Flight 93 just fine because, believe it or not, 757's don't yet have Romulan cloaking devices.

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by adoucette:
Sure you could send Jets out to it, but if it got past you what then?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


OH MY GOD, WE JUST SENT THREE F-16's FIGHTERS OUT INTERCEPT A 757, BUT THE 757 FLEW CIRCLES AROUND THEM AND LEFT THEM IN THE DUST!!!

You know, Arthur, you are utterly trashing your "thoughtful, well-reasoned" veneer by spouting such rampant idiocy.

==> Yeah, 93delusions, you got that right.


quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by adoucette:
You keep talking about NPPs, but Tony already showed you the test they ran firing an F4 into the same thickness reinforced concrete that the containment structure is made from and hardly damaging it. Clearly a 757 would be worse, but the thinking that morning would be that were not likely targets.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Can you possibly lampoon yourself any more?

So we are supposed to buckle in fear about the potential of a "dirty bomb," but since Tony assures us some nuclear power plant passed his Firestone test, it's somehow no big deal if a 757 plows right into one???

And please explain why we are holding Padilla for thinking about making a dirty bomb at some distant point in the future if "the thinking that morning would be that they were not likely targets." I mean, do murderous terrorists only like to scare us with radiation poisoning in small doses? But NPP's are perfectly protected against the kind of plane crash you contend ballistically ejected metal for well over a mile, right? I mean, Chernobyl proved just how full-proof these things are, right?

===> What proof do you have that a jet would breech a containment vessel? Tony at least showed a test of a 50,000 lb vehicle impacting into a simulated wall at 600 mph without significant damage. Right or wrong, the thought at the time is they were not likely targets.

PS the Chernobyl type graphite reactor DID NOT have a containment vessel which is why the radiation escaped.


quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by adoucette:
As to this being the only confirmed hijack, true, but their were many others which were unconfirmed as NOT Hijacked. One could not put all ones eggs in one basket.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Dammit, you are simply lying through your teeth a little more with each sentence of your post. We supposedly had two fighters covering all of NYC and three covering DC. So how the hell is it "putting all one's eggs in one basket" to send JUST ONE of these three fighters out to intercept THE ONLY 100% CONFIRMED HIJACK???

And if we only had five total fighters available a hour after the second WTC was hit, it's simply because that's all the fighters we wanted available.

===> Well as the previous post showed we had more than 5 fighters, but many were unarmed. Why, because we were at a very low state of alert. We could not tell which of the aircraft that were up were hijacked or not so many were potential hijacks (or could get hijacked at any time) just like the others were.


NAS Oceana has 125 Tomcats and 152 Hornets, over 10,000 military employees, and an annual operating budget of nearly half a billion. They also have 5,500 take offs each and every month--an average of one every four minutes.

==>Your math sucks, that would be every eight minutes, but your reasoning sucks as well, those takeoffs and landings are not different aircraft. Oceana is a major training base, one hell of a lot of those takeoffs and landings are touch in goes and pilots learning to do carrier type landings. None of these planes (in training) are armed and most couldn't get armed in some short period of time.


Now multiply this by 10 or 20 other nearby air bases and add in the fact that it took Toledo--which was NOT an alert NORAD pad--just 16 minutes to get an armed fighter in the air. So please tell me again how sending a single fighter out to intercept Flight 93--otherwise known as doing your damn job without being criminally negligent--in order to protect thousands of American lives "is putting all one's eggs in one basket."

==> Back to using the term "criminally negligent" for not shooting down U93 when no one died except on U93? You make no sense at all.


quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by adoucette:
===> So only 1 turned out to be hijacked but again, the other were just as serious suspects.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


ONE AND ONLY ONE flight was an ABSOLUTELY CONFIRMED HIJACK. THERE WAS NO F****** DOUBT ABOUT IT! So how the hell could any suspects be "just as serious"? By definition, they cannot.

===> Yes they could since obviously any plane was potentially subject to hijacking that morning.


quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by adoucette:
==> Does this give you any idea about how busy these guys were. They were up for about 5 hours. So that is one aircraft about every 3 minutes.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Wow! Almost the same number of planes as take off from a single nearby Naval Air Station on an average day. Gee, maybe they should have sent a few more fighters out there to help poor Duff, ya think?

MikeD
09-11-2002, 04:28 PM
quote:Originally posted by adoucette:
3) Your best efforts at flippant duplicity cannot change the fact that it just isn't that hard to find a 757 on radar.

==> No, but it is impossible to tell a 757 from a lear jet on a fighters radar and it IS hard to pick up an object at a distance if it is at low altitude (world curves you know) and if you are above it you get ground clutter.


Even though modern fighters have a look-down shoot-down capability, the crews in this situation would've been somewhat hard pressed to separate the wheat from the chaff on their scopes. Even if they could slew them in the general direction 93 was coming from, there are numerous azimuth/elevation problems to contend with. And though I can't discuss specific numbers associated with the F-16 AN/APG-68(V7) or the F-15 AN/APG-70(v) air-air radars, I can say there are limitations to even their most advanced capabilities.


Moreover, Willow Grove was just a few miles down the road, so if the fighter really needed help finding as big a target as any he'd ever trained against, they could have gotten a P-3C in the air to help him.



What could a P-3C have done to assist?

Or they could have turned around the Over the Horizon radar at Norfolk.

==> I'm sure that's a piece of cake! Why don't you tell us exactly how you "turn this around"


Over The Horizon- Backscatter radar sites are HUGE fixed sites that face and emit only in the direction they were built (away from the USA). They're not like an ATC radar with a rotating dish. Originally intended to track Soviet bombers approaching either coast, or north and south of the USA, a few are now used in support of aerial surveillance for anti-drug efforts, with a number of other OTH-B sites in caretaker status.


Or they could have pointed the Pave Paws at Cape Cod in that direction in order to find the "missing" plane.


PAVE PAWS is primarily a space tracking station for satellites and to detect incoming ICBMs towards the USA. How could it have helped here?


Or they could have used the United States Strategic Command's (USSTRATCOM) Airborne Command Post, aka the "Looking Glass" E-6B.

==> and where is that based?


Based at Tinker AFB, Oklahoma, the E-6B Hermes USAF/USN "Looking Glass" aircraft is a communications-only platform that coordinates the US Nuclear forces for US Strategic Command.

Possibly, co-located E-3 Sentry AWACS planes could've assisted had there been ones on training missions that day, etc (I don't know if there were).

MD
93questions
09-17-2002, 10:27 AM
MikeD,

Two simple questions.

1) How hard is it to locate a 757 on radar?

2) Was Flight 93 too difficult a target for a typical USAF fighter pilot?

Here's Ms. Taylor of Cleveland ATC:

BROKAW: You're keeping your eye on Flight 93 at this point?

Ms. TAYLOR: Yeah. And then the transponder came back on. We got two hits off the transponder. That's something we've always wanted to know. Why did the transponder come back on? Because the hijackers had shut it off so that they couldn't be tracked, even though we were still tracking them. Now we were getting an altitude readout on the airplane. I can't remember the precise numbers, but it was around 6400 feet, and then around 5900 or 5800 feet. And we're thinking, 'Oh, you know, maybe something's happened, maybe this isn't what we think it is.'


Well, how in the world were they tracking Flight 93 even though it had its transponder off? Any wild guesses here, MikeD?

[ September 17, 2002 04:30 AM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by 93questions ]

Leland
09-17-2002, 01:53 PM
Mike is out serving his country. He answered your questions though in the previous post. I'll quote his answer to you again:

quote Even though modern fighters have a look-down shoot-down capability, the crews in this situation would've been somewhat hard pressed to separate the wheat from the chaff on their scopes. Even if they could slew them in the general direction 93 was coming from, there are numerous azimuth/elevation problems to contend with. And though I can't discuss specific numbers associated with the F-16 AN/APG-68(V7) or the F-15 AN/APG-70(v) air-air radars, I can say there are limitations to even their most advanced capabilities.

Additional information:
The Day the FAA Stopped the World - Time Online 9-14-01 (http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,174912,00.html)

While confusing and conflicting information continued to pour into the FAA op center, news came that Canada had apparently shut down its own system. At 10:42, worse news: there was another crash — this of flight 93 into a Pennsylvania field. Confusion reached such a high level that the FAA admitted to the White House officials who wanted to bring the President back to Washington that the agency could not account for seven planes. In fact, four of those planes turned out to be the downed ones — but that would take a while to sort out. Even more worrying was that it took the FAA another hour and a half to account for three other aircraft.

Meanwhile, domestic flights were getting down — fast. Southwest Airlines planes descended on Denver, an airport the airline doesn't even fly to. JetBlue Airways, based at New York's John F Kennedy Airport, ended up with a plane at tiny Stewart Airport in upstate New York. United Parcel Service, which had 25 planes in the sky, had safely landed each of their aircraft at one of the company's eight hub airports. International flights, which were clearly getting low on fuel, apparently started dialing their transponders to indicate to Canadian controllers that there were emergencies on board. Some apparently even dialed in the 'hijack' code, and for a few frantic minutes the airspace near Alaska was peppered with "hijacked" planes. The FAA immediately called NavCanda and asked what was happening. The Canadians opened the system back up, but implemented rigid security procedures including keeping passengers on aircraft for hours.

93questions
09-17-2002, 02:16 PM
quote:Originally posted by Seven Fife:
Mike is out serving his country. He answered your questions though in the previous post. I'll quote his answer to you again:

Additional information:
The Day the FAA Stopped the World - Time Online 9-14-01 (http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,174912,00.html)

While confusing and conflicting information continued to pour into the FAA op center, news came that Canada had apparently shut down its own system. At 10:42, worse news: there was another crash — this of flight 93 into a Pennsylvania field. Confusion reached such a high level that the FAA admitted to the White House officials who wanted to bring the President back to Washington that the agency could not account for seven planes. In fact, four of those planes turned out to be the downed ones — but that would take a while to sort out. Even more worrying was that it took the FAA another hour and a half to account for three other aircraft.

Meanwhile, domestic flights were getting down — fast. Southwest Airlines planes descended on Denver, an airport the airline doesn't even fly to. JetBlue Airways, based at New York's John F Kennedy Airport, ended up with a plane at tiny Stewart Airport in upstate New York. United Parcel Service, which had 25 planes in the sky, had safely landed each of their aircraft at one of the company's eight hub airports. International flights, which were clearly getting low on fuel, apparently started dialing their transponders to indicate to Canadian controllers that there were emergencies on board. Some apparently even dialed in the 'hijack' code, and for a few frantic minutes the airspace near Alaska was peppered with "hijacked" planes. The FAA immediately called NavCanda and asked what was happening. The Canadians opened the system back up, but implemented rigid security procedures including keeping passengers on aircraft for hours.


Um, that's nice.

But could you just answer these simple questions?

1) How hard is it to locate a 757 on radar?

2) Was Flight 93 too difficult a target for a typical USAF fighter pilot?

3) How did Cleveland air traffic manage to track Flight 93 even though it had its transponder off? Any wild guesses here?
adoucette
09-17-2002, 05:42 PM
quote:Originally posted by 93questions:

Um, that's nice.

But could you just answer these simple questions?

1) How hard is it to locate a 757 on radar?

2) Was Flight 93 too difficult a target for a typical USAF fighter pilot?

3) How did Cleveland air traffic manage to track Flight 93 even though it had its transponder off? Any wild guesses here?

The trick is not to locate A 757 but THE 757. A fighter's radar will paint all aircraft and there were thousands in the air that morning. So how many were between say Pittsburgh and DC that morning?

A plane with its transponder off still paints on radar, just without call sign and altitude data.

Arthur

[ September 17, 2002 11:43 AM: Message edited 1 time, lastly by adoucette ]
Vostok1
09-17-2002, 05:53 PM
quote:Originally posted by adoucette:
A plane with its transponder off still paints on radar, just without call sign and altitude data.




Wouldn't that make it a lot easier to differentiate from the other non-hijacked planes?
Leland
09-17-2002, 09:32 PM
quote:;Originally posted by 93questions:

Um, that's nice.

But could you just answer these simple questions?

1) How hard is it to locate a 757 on radar?

2) Was Flight 93 too difficult a target for a typical USAF fighter pilot?

3) How did Cleveland air traffic manage to track Flight 93 even though it had its transponder off? Any wild guesses here?

Hmm, why don't you answer Arthur's question first, since he did ask it first. This was the statement you made:
quote Or they could have pointed the Pave Paws at Cape Cod in that direction in order to find the "missing" plane.

Arthur asked:
quote Why don't you tell us exactly how you "turn this around"

I'll even provide a picture of a Pave Paws that you can use to describe how to turn around this piece of equipment in say 90 minutes.
http://www.fas.org/spp/military/program/track/pavepaws.jpg

Oh, and I'm still awaiting your test results. Did you grab the right insurance card? I still think you should find a USAF pilot and ask him question number 2 face to face. I'm sure he'll give you an answer.

Just to be fair, answer 3:
First, you provided a quote that said the transponder was on. So was it off or on? If it was off, then is the lady credible, because she says it was on. If it was on, then your question is irrelevant because they may or may not have tracked it with the transponder off, she said it was on.

To go on the hypothetical, the transponder is off and Cleveland still can track it... well the transponder is just an aid. It provides data such as altitude that would take a lot of time and processor for the radar operator to determine on their own. Plus the transponder provides exact coordinates, where the radar provides a calculated coordinate based on various factors. None the less, the radar operator spends a lot of time learning about all these aspects, and they also have a nice air conditioned room with a large screen and controlled lighting conditions. If we go with the supposed FAA SOP, then of course, this operator had no other planes to track but to find this one plane. None the less, Cleveland may have been tracking the aircraft prior to the initial hijacking event. If so, then its probable that they simply followed the blip along that at one time had altitude data along side it, but oddly enough no longer did.

Oh, one more question for the group...
Is this an oxymoron or a paradox?
quote THE ONLY KNOWN AND CONFIRMED AND ASSUMED SUICIDAL HIJACK
EzyJack
09-18-2002, 03:03 AM
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Seven Fife:


To go on the hypothetical, the transponder is off and Cleveland still can track it... well the transponder is just an aid. It provides data such as altitude that would take a lot of time and processor for the radar operator to determine on their own. -----------------

Minor point, not sure ATC radar can primary paint a target with altitude. We need some ATC current types here to help us. No doubt any fire control radar could give you altitude.

Little spare time. One trick when your NORDO and can't transmit. You can ident on your transponder as a reply. Not sure that's in the SOP yet.

Another problem, if your low, ATC can't paint you at all. Mountains get in the way. Happens out West too often.

We are on the same wave length Leland. I can recall in 81, with my transponder on, Center couldn't see me on radar at 10,000' 120 miles off the East Coast.

Moving OTH radar might take a while <G>

Jack

Leland
09-18-2002, 05:09 AM
For reasons obvious to you and me, Jack, finding specifications on any American radar is tough. I agree that height-finding is a rare capability, mostly useful for finding weather ceilings and ranging AAA.

I did read about terrain issues regarding PAVE PAWS on FAS. Planes in 700' AGL pattern won't clutter that system...

On that day in 81, how was the humidity?

EzyJack
09-18-2002, 05:25 AM
quote:Originally posted by Seven Fife:

On that day in 81, how was the humidity?[/B] ----------------------

I flew the route for 3 years and 120 miles was the limit for US ATC and Bermuda ATC. I was DR in the middle with zippo nav aids. Plus or minus 10 miles maybe.

I see your point and damn if I can recall it. I do recall one flight to Bermuda and seeing my first St. Elmos fire on the windshield and props. One time damn pressure was the highest they had seen on the East coast. Really cold day and pushing 32". That's really high.

I really wanted an ATC or radar fix to the bitter end so I could figure the wind. If I missed Bermuda it was a really long flight <G>

Loran A had died and we didn't pick up Loran C receivers for a bit.

Jack
Leland
09-18-2002, 05:36 AM
quote:Originally posted by EzyJack:
Originally posted by Seven Fife:

On that day in 81, how was the humidity?---------------------

I flew the route for 3 years and 120 miles was the limit for US ATC and Bermuda ATC. I was DR in the middle with zippo nav aids. Plus or minus 10 miles maybe.

I see your point and damn if I can recall it. I do recall one flight to Bermuda and seeing my first St. Elmos fire on the windshield and props. One time damn pressure was the highest they had seen on the East coast. Really cold day and pushing 32". That's really high.

I really wanted an ATC or radar fix to the bitter end so I could figure the wind. If I missed Bermuda it was a really long flight <G>

Loran A had died and we didn't pick up Loran C receivers for a bit.

Jack[/B]

shake.gif The initial events that generates the "So there I was..." stories. But then those stories have happy endings, they were in first person. The other stories includes something about paranormal activity and frequent references to some triangle full of lost navigators, I mean UFO abductees.

I'm glad your skills were first rate.
adoucette
quote:Originally posted by Vostok1:

Wouldn't that make it a lot easier to differentiate from the other non-hijacked planes?

To some extent for the FAA but not all planes have transponders.

The military planes don't paint transponder data so it would be no help to them.

Arthur
93questions
09-18-2002, 06:36 AM
quote:Originally posted by Seven Fife:
I'll even provide a picture of a Pave Paws that you can use to describe how to turn around this piece of equipment in say 90 minutes.
http://www.fas.org/spp/military/program/track/pavepaws.jpg


From: http://www.fas.org/spp/military/program/nssrm/initiatives/pavepaws.htm

The unique aspect of the PAVE PAWS radar system is the dual-faced phased array antenna technology. This system differs from a mechanical radar that must be physically aimed at an object in space to track or observe it. The phased array antenna is in a fixed position and is part of the exterior building wall. Phased array antenna aiming, or beam steering is done rapidly by electronically controlling the timing, or phase of the incoming and outgoing signals. Controlling the phase, through the many segments of the antenna system, allows the beam to be quickly projected in different directions. This greatly reduces the time necessary to change the beam direction from one point to another, allowing almost simultaneous tracking of multiple targets while maintaining surveillance.

The large fixed antenna array, using its beam focusing, improves system sensitivity and tracking accuracy. A phased array antenna, as any other directional antenna, receives signals from space only in the direction in which the beam is aimed. The maximum practical deflection on either side of antenna center of the phased array beam is 60 degrees. This limits the coverage from a single antenna face to 120 degrees. To provide surveillance across the horizon, the building housing the entire system and supporting antenna arrays is constructed in the shape of a triangle. The two building faces supporting the arrays, each covering 120 degrees, are therefore able to monitor 240 degrees. The array faces are also tilted back 20 degrees to allow for an elevation deflection from three to 85 degrees above the horizon. The lower limit provides receiver isolation from signals returned from ground clutter and for environmental microwave radiation hazard protection of the local area.


Most of Flight 93's path appears to have taken place in Pave Paws' blind 120 degrees. However, Flight 93 was approaching the Cape Cod array's range--which extends over the DC metro area--when it crashed. To be honest, it probably could have been better used to help the poor three pilots flying CAP over DC at the Secret Service's behest to protect our capital from hordes of bogey planes.

Originally posted by Seven Fife:
Oh, and I'm still awaiting your test results. Did you grab the right insurance card? I still think you should find a USAF pilot and ask him question number 2 face to face. I'm sure he'll give you an answer.


Me, too. Please remember that I'm not the one who implied that an amateur Arab flight school dropout manning a 757 could get past a USAF fighter pilot.


Originally posted by Seven Fife:

Oh, one more question for the group...
Is this an oxymoron or a paradox?
"THE ONLY KNOWN AND CONFIRMED AND ASSUMED SUICIDAL HIJACK"

Please allow me to point out that the adjective "assumed" is modifying only the subsequent adjective "suicidal." The hijack of Flight 93 was known and confirmed--as opposed to all the other supposed potential hijacks being tracked at this time. And considering Flights 11, 175 and 77, everyone surely assumed Flight 93 to be another suicidal terrorist hijack.
EzyJack
09-18-2002, 02:34 PM
quote:Originally posted by Seven Fife:
[The other stories includes something about paranormal activity and frequent references to some triangle full of lost navigators, I mean UFO abductees.

I'm glad your skills were first rate.[/B]---------------

DR is somewhat artform and your basic nav skills. Bermuda was the longest run without a NavAid. Going down to Puerto Rico was a helluva of a lot longer but you could catch some ADF's line of positions now and then.

We ended up buying a boat Loran C and it impressed the hell out of me. It took the fun out of flying <G> I still have one just in case.

Great Lakes are another interesting area for some alleged activities.

Jack
Leland
09-18-2002, 05:18 PM
quote:Originally posted by 93questions:
Most of Flight 93's path appears to have taken place in Pave Paws' blind 120 degrees. However, Flight 93 was approaching the Cape Cod array's range--which extends over the DC metro area--when it

I'm a bit confused by your statement. Flight 93 was approaching DC, but it crashed in western Pennslyvania. Therefore, assuming your information about the Cape Cod array is correct, it would not have been useful until the aircraft got much closer to Washington DC.
Vostok1
09-18-2002, 05:43 PM
quote:Originally posted by adoucette:
To some extent for the FAA but not all planes have transponders.

The military planes don't paint transponder data so it would be no help to them.

Arthur

OK...I could see where the low altitude and the lack of a transponder would make things difficult, but wasn't Cleveland ATC in contact with planes that had visual contact of UA 93 while it was over SW PA? One of them even saw the smoke plume shortly after the crash if I'm not mistaken. I don't think that UA 93 was ever truly "lost" by ATC, in the sense that they had a good idea where it was in regards to surrounding planes. So if Cleveland ATC was able to relay the fairly specific, if not exact, location of UA 93, I don't think it would have been too hard for an F-16 pilot to find it.

[ September 18, 2002 01:04 PM: Message edited 2 times, lastly by Vostok1 ]
adoucette
09-23-2002, 11:32 PM
quote:Originally posted by Vostok1:
OK...I could see where the low altitude and the lack of a transponder would make things difficult, but wasn't Cleveland ATC in contact with planes that had visual contact of UA 93 while it was over SW PA? One of them even saw the smoke plume shortly after the crash if I'm not mistaken. I don't think that UA 93 was ever truly "lost" by ATC, in the sense that they had a good idea where it was in regards to surrounding planes. So if Cleveland ATC was able to relay the fairly specific, if not exact, location of UA 93, I don't think it would have been too hard for an F-16 pilot to find it

The plane was moving around 8 miles a minute, telling the F16 where it is at a point in time is not the same as the information needed to arrive at the same point in space some minutes in the future. It would be much more difficult if the AF jet is not within range of the same radar service as U93.

Just to make everything interesting, there were almost 4,000 aircraft up that morning, most in the east coast.

Here's what that sortof looks like:

<IMG SRC=http://www.airdisaster.com/user-uploads/airtrafic-snapshot2.jpg>

Arthur
Vostok1
09-24-2002, 09:19 AM
LOL Arthur

And half of those blue dots were F-16s!

laff.gif

93questions
09-24-2002, 12:17 PM
quote:Originally posted by adoucette:
The plane was moving around 8 miles a minute, telling the F16 where it is at a point in time is not the same as the information needed to arrive at the same point in space some minutes in the future. It would be much more difficult if the AF jet is not within range of the same radar service as U93.

Just to make everything interesting, there were almost 4,000 aircraft up that morning, most in the east coast.

Here's what that sortof looks like:

<IMG SRC=http://www.airdisaster.com/user-uploads/airtrafic-snapshot2.jpg>

Arthur


Please show us all the large passenger jets just southeast Pittsburgh at 10:00 EDT on 9/11/01.

I'd be extremely surprised if there was ANY problem whatsoever tracking Flight 93 on radar. How would you propose Flight Explorer got its flight path information if this were the case? And remember that Johnstown Airport just happens to be the home of the 258th ATCS. Are you really still trying to pawn off the idea that the foremost storied ATCS squadron in the ANG--located at an airport with a couple hundred Marines, a dozen Hueys and seven Super Cobras--couldn't somehow get a bead on a 757 flying by just a few miles to the south? Give it up, man. The idea is completely preposterous.
adoucette
09-25-2002, 10:13 PM
quote:Originally posted by 93questions:

Please show us all the large passenger jets just southeast Pittsburgh at 10:00 EDT on 9/11/01.

I'd be extremely surprised if there was ANY problem whatsoever tracking Flight 93 on radar. How would you propose Flight Explorer got its flight path information if this were the case? And remember that Johnstown Airport just happens to be the home of the 258th ATCS. Are you really still trying to pawn off the idea that the foremost storied ATCS squadron in the ANG--located at an airport with a couple hundred Marines, a dozen Hueys and seven Super Cobras--couldn't somehow get a bead on a 757 flying by just a few miles to the south? Give it up, man. The idea is completely preposterous.

We've already established that the flight was tracked but you have not established that the 258th ATCS was involved in any way. Reading up on the role of the ANG ATCS squadrons, they operate mobile ATCS systems to be deployed to forward locations, they also are designed to coordinate with AWACS/Hawkeye etc, which of course were not available. I have found no reference that they are tied into the civil ATC systems.
So why don't you come up with some data to support your contention that they were a player that morning before you label things as preposterous.
Arthur

Also see...

Norad - 9/11Encyclopedia

Myers testimony + Cleland on NORAD - September 11 attacks

Michael Kane: "9/11 War Games - No Coincidence"

Air Force Stand-down - 9-11

The 9/11 Evidence that May Hang George Bush

Northern Command - 9/11 Review

Amalgam - 9/11Encyclopedia

IS DEFENSE CONTRACTOR MITRE CORP THE TROJAN HORSE OF 9/11?

Black Boxes FBI Bush Lied september 11

9-11 review Wiki

911review

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