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CNN: Mystery 9/11 aircraft was military
'doomsday plane'
Shortly
before 10 am on the morning of September 11, 2001, amid rumors
of a fourth hijacked plane headed for Washington, DC, a mystery
aircraft appeared in restricted airspace over the White House. There
has never been an official explanation for this incident, which has
provided abundant fuel for 9/11 conspiracy theories.
CNN has now learned from two government sources
that the mystery
plane was a military aircraft and has determined that the blurry image
on video appears to match photos of the Air Force's E-4B (discussed here on
Wikipedia), a specially modified Boeing 747 with a
communications pod behind the cockpit.
"The E-4B is a state of the art flying command
post," CNN explained,
"built and equipped for one reason -- to keep the government running no
matter what, even in the event of a nuclear war, the reason it was
nicknamed the 'doomsday plane' during the Cold War."
9/11 Commission co-chair Lee Hamilton told CNN he
was aware of the
incident and that it had simply never seemed important enough to make
it into the commission's report. He called conspiracy theories
involving government complicity in 9/11 "ludicrous."
The plane was previously identified as the E-4B a
year ago by one researcher on a
forum associated with the 9/11 conspiracy film, Loose
Change.
CNN acknowledges that, despite its identification,
the absence of
the aircraft from official investigations, together with the Pentagon's
denial that it was a military plane and the insistence by the Pentagon,
Secret Service, and FAA that they have no explanation for the incident,
may continue to raise suspicions.
The following video is from CNN's Anderson
Cooper 360, broadcast on September 12.
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