Part
1 of a mid-2003 discussion between SPINE members about Cell phone Calls
and 9/11
Part 2 is HERE
webmaster
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Joined: May 13, 2003
Posts: 19
Posted: May 31, 2003 - 11:33
PM
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Reports of cell phone calls made from the 'hijacked' airliners on 9-11 was
one of the oddities in the 'official version' of events which first
alerted Professor Kee Dewdney to the possibility it is essenitally
fraudulent.
Dewdney is not the only person who has
raised this issue in the exploding internet debate about what really took
place on 9-11. But he has probably done more work on the topic than anyone
else - including a series of three self-funded practical experiments under
the name of 'Project Achilles'.
The results of the third and concluding
'Project Achilles' experiment can be viewed HERE on this site. The Feral
News website has reports of all three experiments and the accompanying
media releases - start HERE
This forum is open to allcomers. We
encourage your reports and comments on this specific topic - whether
supportive or not.
Are cellphone calls possible in large
aircraft? At what altitude and under what conditions? Please share your
thoughts and experiences here.
imagine
Registered User
Joined: Jun 16, 2003
Posts: 41
Location: Kenner Louisiana
Posted: Jun 17, 2003 - 01:11 AM
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I want to start by saying that i am sure the Bush and media releases have
to be wrong. But i want to bring up some topics so that if there are holes
in our story, better to debunk them now, than later.
On the issue of cascading cell phone calls...
I was an engineer for a cell company. In CDMA the most common of
technologies used today( but not the only) cascading doesnt occur in the
normal sense. That term is used for older systems. There may be
irreguarities in the system statistics, but part of my job was to overview
stats and sometimes we would see abnormal stats and just attribute them to
technical problems with the cell stie hardware, or maybe to several people
trying to access the site at one time, such as at a football game etc...
Being an engineer, you just dont attribute that kind of thing to an
aircraft.
Second, i would like to know if there was an attempt to track the calls.
The calls are on record and "backups" are made and held for years by law.
I suppose you may need a subpeona to get access to them though. Also in
regard to records, iot would be hard to obtain them for another reason.
You would have to know the rpcise postion of the aircraft when the call
was made, because the call would be logged at as home "switch", different
switches handle different areas, and with a plane moving at that speed,
the calls would have to make a "hard handoff" between switches ( which is
not common, and where most calls will drop EVEN on the ground), but in any
event, both switches would have to be looked in for the calls.
I have to say that the owner of the phone, from the bill on the account
can also show all of the calls made including the time and where from. All
of this is availible from the switch where the phone is registered. Anyone
who has a cell phone can request a detailed bill, some people get them
automatically ( i do). I guess you could ask the family for the info? If
they dont have it they could request it from the service provider.
Third, I do not believe that several calls were placed and connected at
30k feet, but at the same time, i have a very hard time digesting the
notion that several people talked to loved ones, and nobody put up a red
flag ( in regard to "Pearl" and that operatives were faking these
voices).Given - (Mom? This is Mark Brigham) does sound a bit strange?, but
it just seems to hard to think that all this was pulled off with no major
glitch. I think it more feasable that the plane may have been flying low
and slow and that the calls were made, but then at that time the plane
should have been at a higher altitude.
Fourth, and also in regard to 3, if the aircraft were at alower altitude,
AND ALSO if "plane swapping" took place, where one plane had to land and
another take off in its place(x) the air traffic controller would notice
the altitude changes and have to be either in on the "scheme" or be very
asleep at the wheel, which they are trained not to be.
Back to cell phones, is it possible to find out the altitude and speed of
the plane when the supposed calls were made? (Apologies if this is there
and i just missed it in the reading).
My first post here, just trying to throw some light on posibilities, or
eliminations of some if need be.
any replies welcome
Brad Mayeux
mothra
Registered User
Joined: Jun 17, 2003
Posts: 10
Posted: Jun 17, 2003 - 06:02
PM
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The switches intrique me. Would it be possible to fix the plane's location
at a certain time by checking the switches that may have responded to
calls?
RustyNails
Registered User
Joined: Jun 18, 2003
Posts: 33
Location: USA
Posted: Jun 18, 2003 - 12:51 AM
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"AND ALSO if "plane swapping" took place, where one plane had to land and
another take off in its place(x) the air traffic controller would notice
the altitude changes"
This aspect would be taken care of by
having the plane's transponders turned off. As such, the ATC controller
would not have any idea what altitude the planes were at during the time
of the switch, or at any other time since it is the transponder which
reports the altitude data (as well as the IFF ident code), not the radar
system.
imagine
Registered User
Joined: Jun 16, 2003
Posts: 41
Location: Kenner Louisiana
Posted: Jun 18, 2003 - 12:56 AM
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mothra wrote:
The switches intrique me. Would it be possible to fix the plane's location
at a certain time by checking the switches that may have responded to
calls?
Yes deifinately. especially since so many independant calls were made from
different phone#s.
From the log files, even from 1 phone call, there may be several cell
sites "towers" involved ( the way CDMA works several sites can be involved
in a call at one time), it is possible to triangulate from those sites the
exact position, there are other methods in the log files such as timing
which can tell how far away the caller was( with a little math).
The cell sites, or towers, are different tham switches. A switch is where
the call goes to record billing info, and where it makes decisions on what
other cells should be ready to accept the call in that area.
A Switch controls several sites ( depending on the size of the company,
and area it owns by the FCC at that location) The switch could handle 20,
or hundreds of sites.
With a plane moving 3-500mph it would travel out of service from 1 switch
to another in just a few minuits. The problem here is most switches do not
talk to each other well, usually the call will drop between the switches (
even on the ground at 50mph) I have done several trials of this TRYING to
make it work, it very rareley does if ever. So the call would have to be
re-initiated on the next switch after the call droppped. in either case,
both switches would have the info logged.
There are imaginary geographical lines in the sand between switches. If we
can prove that a call was continued from area 1 ( switch X) abd area 2 (
switch Y). that would gain us some assurance that the call did not happen.
( this would be a second option if we can not gain the data from the
switch itself).
If we could get a timeline ( i know its
there), but one correlating to the geographical position of where the
plane "supposedly"was, then put this on a map ( i have the software), then
overlay the switch boundries.
We could determine if a call was "supposedly "made and continued though
these boundries ( which is an almost imposibility).
If they were,
We have GOOD data !!!
Great Question.
Brad Mayeux
RustyNails
Registered User
Joined: Jun 18, 2003
Posts: 33
Location: USA
Posted: Jun 18, 2003 - 02:31 AM
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imagine wrote:
....There are imaginary geographical lines in the sand between switches.
If we can prove that a call was continued from area 1 ( switch X) abd area
2 ( switch Y). that would gain us some assurance that the call did not
happen.
Are you really saying that if a call is listed in the records as
continuing from switch X to switch Y that this would be a fraudulent
entry?
Is there an accepted percentage estimate
available in the industry for dropped connections between switches, even
at the 50mph ground conditions?
Do we, or anyody else, have a good idea
what the breakdown in calls were from the 'official story' as to the
different technologies that were used to make the various calls (i.e.
CDMA, TDMA, GSM, AMPS, plane phones)?
Also, wouldn't another factor that
(doesn't disprove) makes the official scenario less likely is that most
all networks, especially the newer digital ones have good coverage (and
smaller cells) only in high population and ground transportation
corridors? As far as I know airliners don't follow the highways, but then
this all happened on the denser 'right' coast.
imagine
Registered User
Joined: Jun 16, 2003
Posts: 41
Location: Kenner Louisiana
Posted: Jun 19, 2003 - 01:42 AM
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Quote:
Are you really saying that if a call is
listed in the records as continuing from switch X to switch Y that this
would be a fraudulent entry?
Not necessarily fraudulent but not a good
probabillity. I have worked on trying to get these handoffs working, it
depends a lot on which 2 switches ( and/or companies) are involved. there
are a few in the US that work. That info is easy to find out though. If we
have the exact geographical info, you can just call the providers cust
service lines and ask if it works, or i have friends in the indusrty that
can find out.
Quote:
Do we, or anyody else, have a good idea
what the breakdown in calls were from the 'official story' as to the
different technologies that were used to make the various calls (i.e.
CDMA, TDMA, GSM, AMPS, plane phones)?
That is a very important question, I think this should be persued if
possible.
Quote:
Also, wouldn't another factor that
(doesn't disprove) makes the official scenario less likely is that most
all networks, especially the newer digital ones have good coverage (and
smaller cells) only in high population and ground transportation
corridors? As far as I know airliners don't follow the highways, but then
this all happened on the denser 'right' coast.
I had mentioned this in a post prior to this board. As far as the size of
the cell its bassically irrelivant. A 80ft tower, or a 200 ft tower
wouldnt make much difference to a plane at 30,000ft, but, in the city,
while there is more coverage most new technologies "downtilt" the
antennas, which gives better performance to the local area ( this also
makes the signal much weaker the higher you go).
In planning a system, most carriers dont spend a ton of money on a site
where it will not be used ( over farmland, woods etc...) There will be
series of towers along a major highway, usually 2-5 miles apart.
True planes do not fly according to highways. Though i am not very
familiar with the area of the crash site. I may take it upon myself to
plot it out on a map and get a general idea of what i think the coverage
may have been.
What would be very helpfull, if anyone
has the info , is the altitude of the plane and the direction/location
during the calls.
Brad Mayeux
RustyNails
Registered User
Joined: Jun 18, 2003
Posts: 33
Location: USA
Posted: Jun 20, 2003 - 02:35 AM
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Quote:
As far as the size of the cell its bassically irrelivant. A 80ft tower, or
a 200 ft tower wouldnt make much difference to a plane at 30,000ft
Sorry imagine , what I meant to say was the coverage radius difference
between the older AMPS and the newer digital phones. Meaning that the
digital phones have even less coverage away from the highways in rural
areas, correct?
imagine
Registered User
Joined: Jun 16, 2003
Posts: 41
Location: Kenner Louisiana
Posted: Jun 23, 2003 - 11:27 PM
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Well I have worked with both. They are different technologies, and usually
but not always on different frequencies. The digital ( CDMA) needs less
power to do the same job, thats why they have less power. The hight of the
tower does affect how far away , from the highway lets say, that the call
can be made in either technology, so they tend to build taller towers on
the highways to reach farther. Thats just a tech note, like i said though
the height is negliable with a plane at 30k ft. Both technologies build
out relatively evenly in the amount of towers, one reason some people
think that the old amps give better range is that they have been around
longer and have more sites in general.
Just another tech note...
The older AMPS phones are all most all at 800 Mhz while the new CDMA are
at 1900Mhz. 800Mhz does penetrate better through walls trees, etc... while
higher freqs can travel further when there are no losses due to physical
obstructions.
( If you are off of a rural hwy, you MAY get a little better reception
with AMPS ( low freqs) due to trees stopping the high freq CDMA
signals).
One more note,
more sites, doesnt mean better reception in CDMA beause the phone works on
1 frequency. It can decode up to 3 signals at 1 time, but all other
signals are just interference to the phone. ( In AMPS when the phone hops
from 1 site to the next it changes freqs, in CDMA it decodes different
signals on the same freq)
You have just completed cell phone engineering 101.
Brad
RustyNails
Registered User
Joined: Jun 18, 2003
Posts: 33
Location: USA
Posted: Jun 25, 2003 - 06:49 PM
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I was under the impression that AMPS cells had a 10+ mile coverage radius
versus about 5 miles for the digital versions.
Rusty
imagine
Registered User
Joined: Jun 16, 2003
Posts: 41
Location: Kenner Louisiana
Posted: Jun 26, 2003 - 01:44 AM
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To a small extent thats true, but it depends on a lot of things. types of
antenna used, height of the tower, trees/other obstacles type of phone (
some AMPS phones are 3 watts max for the old car mount type with antennas
on the roof). I have designed a cdma site and had it working at 10 miles
on several occasions. Lots of variables.
Frequency - Amps and CDMA are protocalls, not freqs, MOST AMPS are on 800
mhz and MOST CDMA are on 1900, but not always. There are some CDMA systems
at 800 Mhz, these may travel a bit farther through tree clutter etc...
Brad
akd
Registered User
Joined: Jun 10, 2003
Posts: 3
Location: London, Ontario, CANADA
Posted: Jul 01, 2003 - 07:22 PM
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On the matter of cellphones, there are two issues if we're going to treat
this topic properly: a) the calls themselves and the conditions under
which they were made leading to an assessment of whether or not they could
have been made as described, b) documented evidence that cell phone calls
were claimed to have been made by the majpr media.
We must not overlook the fact that all
the work in the world could be undermined in a trice by a statement that,
well, a few media outlets may have said cell phones, but they meant
"airfones. (those back-of-the seat hamdsets that operate through the
aircraft's antenna system. (Verizon etc)
We must therefore develop the evidence
that remains on the internet, as well as searching other sources. I would
very much like to begin a thread on this fundamentally important
question.
Does anyone have the documentation ready
to hand? A Bush speech would be ideal. So would statements in siome of the
US' leading papers such as the NY Times, Chicago Tribune, Washington Post,
Boston Globe, etc. Only with solid documentation can we make it impossible
for possible alternate perps to sneak out of this one.
Kee Dewdney
imagine
Registered User
Joined: Jun 16, 2003
Posts: 41
Location: Kenner Louisiana
Posted: Jul 02, 2003 - 11:37 PM
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Sorry if this is confusing, it is cut and paste from different articles to
get the most info without too much stuff we dont need.
But i think its a start of a database. Hope it helps.
45 people onboard
Todd Beamer - Airphone 9:45
13 minutes with GTE operator trying to use his company's Airfone account
then re-routed to a Verizon supervisor
9:45 a.m.
He could see three hijackers, armed with knives. One insisted he had a
bomb. Twenty-seven of the passengers had been herded to the rear of the
plane, where the hijacker with the bomb was guarding them, he said. Two
hijackers were in the cockpit. A fourth was in first class.
source 2)"nine other passengers and five
flight attendants had been herded to the back of the plane, said Beamer's
friend Doug MacMillan, who heard a transcript of the call. The rest of the
passengers were in first class. The pilot and co- pilot had been taken
from the cockpit and were nowhere to be seen. It doesn't seem like they
know how to fly the plane," Beamer said of the hijackers.
His group was being guarded by a man who claimed to have explosives
strapped to his midsection. Beamer, a basketball and baseball player in
college and a take-charge guy, said he thought he and the others could
"jump the terrorist with the bomb."
In the background, the supervisor could
hear screaming. But Beamer's voice never wavered.
CeeCee-attend. cell 2 calls
police officer and detective for six years
call 1
At 9:47 a.m., the answering machine picked up a call from his wife,
CeeCee, stranded in the back of the airplane
call2
Lorne Lyles could hear what he now believes was the sound of men planning
a counterattack."They're getting ready to force their way into the
cockpit," she told him.CeeCee Lyles let out a scream."They're doing it!
They're doing it! They're doing it!" she said. Lorne Lyles heard a scream.
Then his wife said something he couldn't understand. Then the line went
dead
Marion Britton, 1 call ( cell or
airphone?)
53, assistant director of the Census Bureau's New York office, phoned a
longtime friend, Fred Fiumano. All he can remember is that it was
"sometime after 9:30
Britton was crying. She had been
hijacked, she told Fiumano, and two people on the plane already had been
killed.
Lauren Catuzzi Grandcolas Airphone
She'd been scheduled to take a later flight that day, but rebooked to get
home sooner
There's a little problem with the plane. I'm fine and comfortable for
now.
-Elizabeth Wainio - Airphone ( shared
with Grandcolas)
Mom, we're being hijacked. I just called to say good bye,
"I need to go," she said. "They're getting ready to break into the
cockpit. I love you. Goodbye."
10:00 a.m. Flight 93 -- last known human communication from passenger
Elizabeth Wainio to her stepmother
Ed Felt - Cell Phone
a software engineer for BEA Systems
In 2000, he was awarded a patent for inventing a system of updating and
authenticating passwords within a network to prevent unauthorized users
from posing as legitimate users
At 9.58am a 911 call - the last mobile phone contact from Flight 93 - was
made from one of the airliner's toilets by passenger Edward Felt.
"He did hear some sort of an explosion and saw white smoke coming from the
plane, but he didn't know where. And then we lost contact with him." Glenn
Cramer has now been gagged by the FBI
also said there were four men wearing red bandanas and wielding box
cutters
Mark Bingham - Cell Phone
owned a public relations firm, the Bingham Group
Bingham slipped into a seat in aisle 4-D,
next to Thomas Burnett. Nine minutes after Hall dropped him off, Bingham
picked up his cell phone.
He called his mother, Alice Hoglan, 15 minutes before the plane crashed
and told her that the plane had been taken over by three men who claimed
to have a bomb. Hoglan said her son told her that some passengers planned
to try to regain control of the plane.
9:42 Eastern time. Kathy's nephew, Mark Bingham was on the line.
"Alice, talk to Mark," Kathy said, handing her the phone. "He's been
hijacked.""Mom? This is Mark Bingham
Thomas E. Burnett Jr - Cell Phone 3
calls
a senior vice president and chief operating officer of Thoratec Corp., a
medical research and development company
6:20 a.m. -- 9:20 Eastern time.
They've already knifed a guy.Call the authorities," Tom told his wife over
his cell phone. There is a bomb on board. Call the FBI. Around 9:30, Deena
Burnett's phone rang again "I told him a lot of planes had been hijacked
Were they commercial planes, airliners, he asked her
In his final call, he told her that he
and two other passengers had decided to act rather than face certain
death. "We're going to try to do something,
Jeremy Glick - Airphone ?
1)Jeremy Glick picked up a GTE Airfone just before 9:30 a.m
http://www.post-gazette.com/headlines/2 ... toryp7.asp
2)Jeremy Glick, 31, from West Milford,
New Jersey, He called his wife, Liz, and in-laws in New York on a cell
phone to tell them the plane had been hijacked
http://www.wtc-worldtradecenter.com/uni ... ht-93.html
( 2 different stories, the first may have meant that he called his wife on
HER cell phone)
In the ensuing 20-minute conversation, he calmed his wife as best he
could, joking that he and his fellow passengers might assault the
hijackers with butter knives from the in-flight breakfast
Glick said that one of the hijackers "had
a red box he said was a bomb, and one had a knife of some nature
Lyz recalls no background noise. No commotion. He described the men as
Arabic-looking, wearing red headbands, carrying knives. One told
passengers he had a bomb.
Sandy Bradshaw-ATTND 11yrs
Her husband, Phil, a US Airways pilot. 1 call ( cell or airphone ?)
Bradshaw said he took his wife's call about 9:30 a.m
Bradshaw thinks they talked for five or 10 minutes
that would put the attack at 9:40
"I don't know who's flying the plane or where we are," she said.
Sandy Bradshaw, who was trained never to
spill hot coffee on a paying customer, slipped into the airplane's galley
and began filling pitchers with boiling water.
------
other interests...( no calls)
The pilot was Jason Dahl, 43( wasnt supposed to pilot 93). Sandy, a United
flight attendant, went onto United's computer system and shifted him to
Flight 93
Wanda Green, She'd phoned her best
friend, fellow flight attendant Donita Judge, who opened United's
computerized schedule and shifted Green to the Sept. 11 flight.
All said that the hijackers were wearing
RED bandanas. The official color of Al Queda is green, red is not
anacceptable color for Muslim garb
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/steveseymo ... land1.html
imagine
Registered User
Joined: Jun 16, 2003
Posts: 41
Location: Kenner Louisiana
Posted: Aug 05, 2003 - 01:42 AM
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THere are several inconsistancies here. I want to make this a project, but
here is a rough first draft.
Sorry for the cut and paste, but i put a few articles together from
different sources. They are not in chronological order(so read the dates)
and some info was cut out that did not pertain to the discussion, so you
can use the link if you want the whole story.
Any additions, or comments are encouraged.
Brad
--8:20 a.m.: American Airlines flight 77
departs
http://www.unansweredquestions.net/time ... 30502.html
March 5, 2002
Throughout the working day, they would speak on what they
called the "bat phone".
It was her last newspaper interview. On
September 11, American Airlines Flight 77 plunged
into the Pentagon with Barbara Olson on board. It was Ted Olson's 61st
birthday that day and
Barbara had delayed flying to Los Angeles so they could celebrate over
dinner the night
before.
That morning, a nightmare began to unfold in the room where we are now
sitting. "Someone
rushed in and told me what had happened. I went into the other room, where
there's a
television," Olson says. "It went through my mind, 'My God, maybe -
Barbara's on an
airplane, and two airplanes have been crashed', you know."
Then his secretary told him that Barbara was on the line. "My first
reaction when I heard she was on the phone was relief, because I knew that
she wasn't on one of those two airplanes." But Barbara then explained
calmly that she had been herded to the back of the Boeing 757 she was on,
along with the other passengers."She had had trouble getting through,
because she wasn't using her cellphone, she was using the phone in the
passengers' seats," says Olson. "I guess she didn't have her purse,
because she was calling collect, and she was trying to get through to the
Department of Justice, which is never very easy."
He was able to tell her about the World Trade Centre attacks before the
line went dead, then he called his departmental command centre to let them
know another plane had been hijacked.
( OK I know he probabally has multiple lines, but woulndt he wait for her
to call back)?
The phone rang again and it was
Barbara."She wanted to know, 'What can I tell the pilot? What can I do?
How can I stop this?' I tried to find out where she thought she was - I
wanted to know where the airplane was and what direction it was going in,
because I thought that was the first step to being able to do
something.
"We both tried to reassure one another that everything was going to be OK,
she was still
alive, the plane was still up in the air. But I think she knew that it
wasn't going to be OK and I knew it wasn't going to be OK."
They were able to have "personal exchanges", he says, before they were cut
off in
mid-conversation. "It just stopped. It could be the impact, although I
think she would have There's no point in speculating."
As soon as he heard a plane had crashed at the Pentagon, he says, "I knew
it was her".
( at that time there was a frenzy of reports of multiple hijackings, not
to mention he just said he didnt know where she was, the plane was
hijacked, how did he know it was near the pentagon, it had been in the air
for about an hour)
The air-traffic controllers of the FAA
explained to reporters of the Christian Science Monitor that, at around
8:55 am, the Boeing had descended to 29,000 feet and had not responded to
radio calls.
Then one of the secretaries rushed in and
said, "Barbara is on the phone." And I jumped for the phone, so glad to
hear Barbara's voice. And then she told me, "Our plane has been hijacked."
This was some time -- must have been 9:15 or 9:30
( Cell phones dont work above 5-10,000 ft
http://feralnews.com/issues/911/dewdney ... 0427.html)
-------------------------------------------------
http://www.unansweredquestions.net/time ... 1401c.html
September 14, 2001
KING: The next time you hear from her is on the plane?
OLSON: Actually, I heard from her before that. Before she boarded the
plane -- this plane
was scheduled to leave, and I guess did leave, at 8:10 in the morning.
She called me -- we always did this with one another. We always called one
another a lot
during the day, sometimes very briefly. But she called me around -- it
must have been around
7:30 or 7:40, before she got on the plane. We just talked to one another
and how anxious I was for her to come back and how anxious she was to
return. But then I did not hear from her again until after she was in the
air.
KING: And the plane is now -- she is flying. She calls you, you're at the
Justice
Department, right? Solicitor General's office is at the Justice?
OLSON: Yes.
KING: She calls you and what?
OLSON: I had heard a few moments before -- a few minutes before -- of the
disaster occurring at the World Trade Center. There is a television set in
the back of my office. I turned it on and watched with horror the film
being replayed of the airplanes crashing in to the World Trade Center.
KING: Both crashes?
OLSON: Both. The second one had just occurred, I think, when I had turned
it on, but they occurred in such a fashion they had film of it, which as
this station -- I think I was
watching CNN. And I was relieved because at the moment that I heard there
was hijacked
planes, I was both terrified and fearful for everything that was going on.
But I made a
mental calculation, because the first thing that comes in to your mind is
that Barbara's
plane, could that be one of those planes? And I thought oh, thank
goodness, it can't be her plane. I'm sounding rather selfish here. That
just went through my mind because there wasn't enough time for that
airplane to have gotten to New York.
--9:02 a.m.: United Airlines flight 175
strikes the World Trade Center
KING: So the television is on. You've see
the buildings, both in disaster mode, and you are
talking to your wife who has just been hijacked.
OLSON: Yes.
KING: And she says?
OLSON: She says we have just been hijacked. I had two conversations,
Larry, and my memory is -- tends to mix the two of them up because of the
emotion of the events. We spoke for a minute or two, then the phone was
cut off. Then we she got through again, and we spoke for another two or
three or four minutes. She told me that the plane had been hijacked, that
she had been -- she told me that they did not know she was making this
phone call.She told me that she had been herded to the back of the plane.
She mentioned that they had used knives and box cutters to hijack the
plane. She mentioned that the pilot had announced that the plane had been
hijacked. I believe she said that. And she -- I had to tell her about the
two airplanes that had hit the World Trade Center.
KING: Why?
OLSON: I just felt that I had to. I had to tell her. I will look back at
that and wonder
about that same question myself, but I had to tell her.
KING: You're the kind of couple, knowing you guys, you tell each other
everything.
OLSON: We are extraordinary close.
KING: This was a mad love affair?
OLSON: Yes, it was. I could not have kept that from her.
KING: What did she say when you told her?
OLSON: I think she must have been partially in shock from the fact that
she was on a
hijacked plane. She absorbed the information. We then both reassured one
another this plane was still up in the air. This plane was still flying,
and this was going to come out OK. I told her, "It's going to come out
OK." She told me it was going to come out OK. She said, I love you.
KING: Didn't she ask about the pilot? Was the pilot in the back with her
then?
OLSON: I don't know. But she told me at one point in this conversation:
"What shall I tell
the pilot? What can I tell the pilot to do?"
KING: Implying he must have been back there with her.
OLSON: Either the pilot or possibly the copilot or part of the crew. That
was the
implication, but I didn't really think to ask that specific question.
KING: Did she sound terrified, anxious, nervous, scared?
OLSON: No, she didn't. She sounded very, very calm.
KING: Typical Barbara.
OLSON: In retrospect, enormously, remarkably, incredibly calm. But she was
calculating -- I mean, she was wondering "What can I do to help solve this
problem?" Barbara was like that. Barbara could not have not done
something.
KING: What's going through you?
OLSON: My -- I am in -- I guess I'm in shock. And I'm horrified because I
really -- while I
had reassured her that I thought everything was going to be OK, I was
pretty sure everything was not going to be OK. I by this time, had made
the calculation that these were suicide persons, bent on destroying as
much of America as they could.
KING: Did you hear other noises on the plane?
OLSON: No, I did not. At one point, when she asked me what to say to the
pilot, I asked her if she had any sense for where she was. I had, after
the first conversation, called our
command center at the Department of Justice to alert them to the fact that
there was another hijacked plane and that my wife was on it and that she
was capable of communicating, even though this first phone call had been
cut off.
So I wanted to find out where the plane was. She said the plane had been
high hijacked shortly after takeoff and they had been circling around, I
think were the words she used. She reported to me that she could see
houses. I asked her which direction the plane was going. She paused --
there was a pause there. I think she must have asked someone else. She
said I think it's going northeast.
(Actually northeast would have been
toward New York, when the plane was hijacked it was over ?, well it was
well west of DC and NY, but then she said it was going in circles, so she
had absolutely no idea where they were)
( In retrospect the plane did go north east JUST before crashing into the
Pentagon, but that doesnt fit the timeline of the phone call)
KING: Which would have been toward the
Pentagon?
OLSON: Depending upon where the plane was, .
KING: Dulles...
OLSON: Dulles is west of the Pentagon. So east of Dulles is the Pentagon.
And this plane had been in the air for, I think, over an hour. So I don't
know where she was when she called.
KING: They didn't do any direct flight right to the Pentagon.
OLSON: No, no. Her plane took off at 8:10. Its impact with the Pentagon
must have been
around 9:30 or so. You will probably be able to reconstruct that or have
that information as to the time of the impact.
(He was absolutely sure it didt travel
straight to the Pentagon, and was also sure that it didnt go to New York
?)
KING: How does the second conversation
end?
OLSON: We are -- we segued back and forth between expressions of feeling
for one another and this effort to exchange information. And then the
phone went dead. I don't know whether it just got cut off again, because
the signals from cell phones coming from airplanes don't work that well,
or whether that was the impact with the Pentagon.
It was not -- I stayed glued to my television. I did call the command
center again. Someone came down so I can impart this information and also
to be there in case she called again. But it was very shortly thereafter
that news reports on the television indicated that there had been an
explosion of some sort at the Pentagon.
KING: Did you immediately know then that's what it was?
OLSON: I did. I mean I didn't want to. I did and I didn't want to, but I
knew. But it was a long time before what had happened at the Pentagon --
or it seemed like a long time -- before it was identified as an airplane.
Then the first report that I heard was that it was a commuter plane, and
then I heard it was an American Airlines plane.I called some people, I
guess maybe just because I had to share the dread that was living with me.
I called my mother and I called my son. I said I didn't think -- I thought
that -- I was hoping that it wasn't true, but I was very worried. I did
not want them to see
something on television and hear her name.
(actually the first reports of the
pentagon explosion were of a truck bomb if i remember correctly, how was
he sure it was his wifes Jet)?
KING: Did you hear from the president or
the attorney general?
OLSON: Oh, yes, I did. I heard from the president. Well, he was in the
air. I can't tell you
exactly what time of day that was on the 11th. I also heard from the
attorney general. I
also heard from the vice president and many other of our officials of
government. And of
course, scores of other people, including you and your wife and...
---------------------------------
September 12, 2001
Terrified passengers and crew on board the hijacked planes used their
mobile phones to make desperate calls for help, it emerged today.
As armed hijackers moved through the planes stabbing airline crew to force
them to
co-operate, people locked themselves into lavatories to ring relations and
emergency
services. On the American Airlines Flight 77 from Washington, television
reporter Barbara Olson, 46, locked herself in the lavatory to call her
husband, Solicitor General Theodore Olson.
( I guess that Airphone had an extension
cord? The cord on an airphone will not reach into the bathroom, this
suggests she was using a cell. Cell phones in planes dont work over
5-10,000 ft. inside a sealed bathroom would insert an extra 3-6 dB of
loss. I am a cell phone engineer and design cellular systems, that means
signal quality, which would have been nearly impossibe anyway would have
been cut to 1/3 to 1/6th stregth. Ted states that the quality of the
connection was CLEAR !)
( I would be happy if someone would verify the airphone reach of the cord-
to the bathroom on a 757)
Seconds after she spoke to him for the second time, her plane crashed into
the Pentagon, reportedly killing all 60 people on board. Her distraught
husband, a friend of President Bush who fought for him during the legal
battle over the disputed presidential election, said: "She called from the
plane while it was being hijacked. I wish it wasn't so but it is."
A spokesman for the family said Mrs Olson, a mother and grandmother, only
decided to take
the flight at the last minute, to join her husband for his birthday.
He said: "She called and said she was locked in the toilet and the plane
had been hijacked.
She said they had box-cutters and knives. They had rounded up the
passengers at the back of the plane. She referred to them as more than
one. There was nothing she could do. She said to her husband 'What shall I
tell the pilot to do?'
Mrs Olson's plane crashed into the
Pentagon at 9.43am local time, causing an explosion which destroyed six
storeys of the military command centre.
http://www.unansweredquestions.net/time ... 91201.html
---------------------------
y Tim O'Brien
CNN
September 12, 2001 Posted: 2:06 AM EDT (0606 GMT)
WASHINGTON -- Barbara Olson, a conservative commentator and attorney,
alerted her husband, Solicitor General Ted Olson, that the plane she was
on was being hijacked Tuesday morning, Ted Olson told CNN. A short time
later the plane crashed into the Pentagon. Barbara Olson is presumed to
have died in the crash.
Her husband said she called him twice on a cell phone from American
Airlines Flight 77,
which was en route from Washington Dulles International Airport to Los
Angeles.
Ted Olson told CNN that his wife said all
passengers and flight personnel, including the
pilots, were herded to the back of the plane by armed hijackers. The only
weapons she
mentioned were knives and cardboard cutters.
She felt nobody was in charge and asked her husband to tell the pilot what
to do.
Ted Olson notified the Justice Department command center immediately.
He told CNN that his wife had originally been booked on a flight Monday,
but delayed her
departure because Tuesday was his birthday and she wanted to be with him
in the morning.
Barbara Olson was a former federal prosecutor and served as Chief
Investigative Counsel to
the House Committee on Government Reform and Oversight during its probe
into the Clinton
Administration "Travelgate" scandal.
She had appeared frequently as a commentator on CNN.
http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/09/11/pentagon.olson/
---------------------------------
Now for the FOX report
by Alan Colmes, Sean Hannity, and Brit Hume
Fox News - Hannity and Colmes
September 14, 2001
COLMES: Many of you remember Barbara Olson, who was a frequent guest on
this program and a good friend. Ms. Olson was a passenger on the plane
that crashed into the Pentagon, and earlier today, Brit Hume spoke with
her husband, Ted Olson.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BRIT HUME, FOX ANCHOR: Ted, your wife's name was the first victim's name
that we heard from the crash at the Pentagon site. And I know that she
spoke to you.
I'd like to convey, on behalf of all of us here, our condolences to you
and our best wishes to you, sir.
TED OLSON, SOLICITOR GENERAL: Thank you.
I think some of your viewers know this, but Barbara was on your program
and Tony Snow's program from time to time. And she was -- she loved to be
with the people here at Fox. The people were very kind to her. And I very
much appreciate that.
HUME: And we liked having her here.
I know that she called you while that plane that had taken off from Dulles
was in the air. Could you describe those conversations?
OLSON: Yes. There were two conversations.
The plane took off at 8:10 in the morning -- or that's when it was
scheduled to take off. And that's when I believe it took off. I had been
in my office at the Department of Justice. Someone told me that there had
been the two strikes that occurred at the World Trade Center. I turned on
the television set in my office and watched, as I guess all of us did,
this tragedy unfold at the World Trade Center.
One of the gals in my office came in and said, "Barbara's on the phone."
And I picked up the phone. We spoke for a couple of -- maybe a minute or
two before we were cut off.
HUME: Did you have a clear...
OLSON: It was clear.
It was cut off. And then a few moments later, we had another telephone
conversation that lasted for three or four minutes. I was at first
relieved to hear Barbara on the telephone, because panic strikes
immediately. My wife had taken off on a plane. Two airplanes had crashed
into the World Trade Center. I, of course, like any other person, felt
potentially devastated, panicky a little bit.
And I made a calculation that it couldn't possibly -- that airplane
couldn't possibly have gotten to New York, although it could have been
close.
( in a previous statement he was SURE it
couldnt have been her plane, now he kind of backtracks, sounds like he had
a calculator and geographical map of the US, i guess he could have made a
call and got the flight speed of a Boing 757? )
But then to hear her voice was reassuring
and calming. But then her next words out of her mouth were that, "Ted, my
plane's been hijacked."
HUME: Now, was she calm?
OLSON: She was very calm. She was completely in control.
HUME: Was she sort of whispering? Or was she speaking in a normal
voice.
OLSON: No, she was speaking loud enough that I could hear her. I didn't
feel that she was whispering. I said -- I asked her a couple of questions.
And I'm not sure now the sequence in which I asked those questions.
But I learned from her that she had been in first class. She had been --
she and the other passengers had been herded to the back of the airplane.
I asked her whether they, the hijackers, knew that she was calling. And
she said, "No, they don't know."
( sounds like she was in the bathroom after all)
She indicated that they had used knifes and box-cutters to take over the
plane. At some point, we got cut off. I immediately called the command
center of the Department of Justice to let them know that my wife was on a
plane that had been hijacked. I mainly wanted them know there was another
hijacked plane out there. I didn't know whether anyone in...
HUME: What did they say when you called them?
OLSON: They just absorbed the information. And they promised to send
someone down right away. I didn't know that I was going to get another
call.
( Whom is he speaking of , his WIFE? of
course she will try to call him back. He sounds like he is making an
excuse for being on the phone when his wife who is about to die, just
might call again?)
And I expected them to pass the
information on to the appropriate people. I assumed that they did.
A few minutes later, another call came in from Barbara. I found out later
that she was having, for some reason, to call collect and was having
trouble getting through. You know how it is to get through to a government
institution when you're calling collect.
( this is a whole can of worms. They call
each other constantly (admittedly), they travel a lot, they are not dumb
when it comes to cell phones. If it were a cell call, you dont have to
call collect. The charges are billed to the account automatically, I have
been in the cell industry for 15yrs, but any idiot with a cell can figure
that out the first time you leave your city. How did he find out LATER she
tried to make a collect call, did she tell him from the grave ? Remember
this was the second and final call)
HUME: With a collect call, right.
OLSON: Well, she managed to -- Barbara was capable of doing practically
anything if she set her mind to it. In retrospect, I'm not surprised that
Barbara managed to get collect calls through.
HUME: You don't know whether it was on a regular cell phone or one of
those air phones?
OLSON: No, I don't. I first of all assumed that it must have been on the
airplane phone, and that she somehow didn't have access to her credit
cards. Otherwise, she would have used her cell phone and called me.
(First, he assumed the OPPOSITE in the
interview before this one, saying she was using a cell. Second, Barbra
Olson just happened to forget her credit cards on a 4 day long trip? dont
think so. Most people have caller ID ( I did in my office, but perhaps Ted
Olsons is not as technically advanced as mine) and that would have
registered as her from her cell phone.
HUME: Of course.
OLSON: So I think that was probably what it was. But Barbara got through a
second time. And we exchanged the feelings that a husband and wife who are
extraordinarily close, as we are, those kind of sentiments. And she
assured me everything was going to be OK. I told her in the first
conversation that the two hijacked planes had hit the World Trade
Center.
And my impulse was that I had to tell her that. That was the kind of
person she was. That's the kind of relationship that we had. I will always
wonder whether I should have. But she -- her instinct was: "What do we do?
What do we tell -- what shall I tell the pilot? What can I do?"
And I asked her where she was. And she tried to tell me where she was and
what direction the aircraft appeared to be going.
HUME: It was probably hard to tell.
OLSON: I think it's impossible to tell. We've all looked out the window
and we don't know exactly where we are. She said there were residences she
could see. And she speculated that the aircraft was headed northeast. But
I don't know whether that was correct or whether she really knew that or
whether someone had told her that.
HUME: Did she describe the hijackers or say what they had said or anything
of that kind?
OLSON: No. She -- the only thing she said with respect to that is the
pilot had announced that the plane had been hijacked. She said it had been
hijacked shortly after takeoff. By this time, the plane had been in the
air -- again, I'm presuming that it took off on time -- for over an
hour.
She implied that they had been circling around for a while. Not long after
the second phone call, the connection was broken, by what I don't know. I
was watching television in my office both before, after, and during these
telephone calls. I began to hear reports of the explosion at the Pentagon.
And I knew in my heart that was that aircraft.
And I also knew in my heart that she could not possibly have survived that
kind of an explosion with a full load of fuel on a recently taken-off
airplane. I wanted it not to be true. I wanted it not to be her plane. I
wanted it -- I wanted, if it was her plane, to have somehow survived
because she was in the back of the airplane. But we know that doesn't
happen, not with those sorts of things.
HUME: No.
http://www.unansweredquestions.net/time ... 91401.html
"It's easy to imagine an infinite number of situations where the
government might legitimately give out false information," the
Solicitor-General, Theodore Olson, told the court on Monday.
here is another interesting link to Olson
( Yes VIALS, but some good info anyway)
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/steveseymo ... 1/lies.htm
Brad M
RustyNails
Registered User
Joined: Jun 18, 2003
Posts: 33
Location: USA
Posted: Aug 05, 2003 - 02:36 PM
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Great post Brad,
In addition to the other contradictions,
we have the issue of the other passengers (on the other planes only?)
stating that they were told to call their families and tell them what was
going on.
I know it's a pain to do here, but
reading your e-mail version of this was much easier with the colorized
highlights.
Rusty
___________________________
See also Part 2 of this discussion.
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