the "Stand Down" of the Trillion Dollar
Air Force
proves that 9/11 was not an "intelligence failure" |
On a newsgroup a former Pentagon Air Force Traffic controller writes:
"All those years ago when I was in the Pentagon, this wouldn't have happened.
ATC Radar images were (and are) available in the understructures of the Pentagon,
and any commercial flight within 300 miles of DC that made an abrupt course
change toward Washington, turned off their transponder, and refused to communicate
with ATC, would have been intercepted at supersonic speeds within a max of
9 minutes by a Fighter out of Andrews. Period. Why these planes weren't, baffles
me. If we could get fighters off the ground in 2 minutes then, we could now."
http://www.flight93crash.com/flight93_military_faq.html
After Bush has been told the second tower had been hit,
he stays in a second grade classroom for almost another half hour instead of
performing his ostensible duties as Commander-in-Chief.
http://www.nyobserver.com/pages/story.asp?ID=7816
Four 9/11 Moms Battle Bush
by Gail Sheehy The New York Observer
.... "I can’t look at these timelines anymore," Lorie confessed
to Kristen. "When you pull it apart, it just doesn’t reconcile
with the official storyline." She hunched down in her husband’s
swivel chair and began to tremble, thinking, There’s no way this could
be. Somebody is not telling us the whole story.
General Ralph Eberhart, who was in charge of NORAD
(air defense) on 9-11, now runs the new "Northern Command,"
the domestic unified military command established in October 2002. If
the domestic use of the U.S. military escalates into full-scale martial
law, the Northern Command would essentially manage it. If
9-11 had been an "intelligence failure," it is likely that General
Eberhart would have been court-martialed instead of promoted.
|
|
http://www.emperors-clothes.com/indict/faq.htm
Frequently Asked Questions about the stand down
John Judge:
They have spent $13 trillion tax dollars since the end of WWII on this military/intelligence
complex, and it cannot protect its own headquarters? It can track every electronic
communication on earth, crack the codes of the Al Quaeda in advance of 9-11,
locate bin Laden's cell phone, but it can't decipher what it all means?
And beyond that question is the more pertinent one hardly anyone is asking.
* Bush clearly and undeniably had advance knowledge of a terrorist attack
on US soil using planes as weapons by 9:05 am on September 11.
* NORAD had it by 8:45 in an unprecedented simultaneous hijacking of four
planes.
* The Pentagon had it, as did everyone in DC by 9:05 as well.
* The Pentagon began to evacuate the building, as did the White House and
Capitol.
* EVERYONE had advance knowledge of Flight 77 coming towards DC for 40 minutes.Yet,
there was a complete defensive stand-down. Interceptors from distant Langley
AFB took off late and flew at subsonic speeds to arrive 5 minutes too late.
Planes from nearby Anacostia Naval Air Station, Andrews Air Force Base, and
the 73rd Air Wing at Atlantic City, NJ never took off. Scramblers in the air
already at 9:05 from Otis AFB turned to target Flight 77 and were called off,
despite a formal shoot-down order from Bush/Cheney "moments after"
the 9:05 crash -- which had ended any speculation of accident or coincidence
or hijacking motives.
By that moment they undeniably knew in advance what was coming and where it
was headed. Local news announced that DC was the destination. Surface-to-air
missiles at the White House and Pentagon remained sheathed in their silos.
Despite the planes having turned off communications with ground control towers
and their identifying transponders (which also shuts off their own near-range
radar screens to avoid mid-air collisions), they were clearly visible to all
external radars, they were being tracked by NORAD and DC towers, and they
were somehow being navigated directly to their target.
How were they allowed to come into the most restricted air space in the world
with no challenge or defense? That is the question that answers both when
Bush knew in advance and begs any rational response.
The White House and Pentagon officials have been lying since day one about
both advance intelligence knowledge that could have foiled the operation,
and about their own ability to prevent, at least, the attack on the Pentagon.
Let them answer that.
John Judge, 5/19/02 http://www.ratical.org/ratville/JFK/JohnJudge/WrongQuestion.html
http://www.davidcogswell.com/MediaRoulette/FiddlingWhile.html
July 1, 2003
Fiddling Around While New York Burns
The Memory Hole http://www.thememoryhole.org/911/bush-911.mov
has made available a copy of the video taken of Bush on September 11 the moment
he was allegedly informed of the second crash at the World Trade Center. It
is an eery, strange thing to see. It's reminiscent of the Zapruder film, a grainy,
unclear, wobbly image of a unique, horrific moment, the moment the "president
of the United States" is informed that the country is under attack. And
he just sits there, like a bag. Inert. It's soooo weird! It's hard to see his
facial expressions clearly, to try to ascertain what is going on in his head.
What was he thinking while he is sitting there? What can he be thinking? He's
the president of the United States. Why doesn't he act? Why doesn't he do something?
How can he just sit there? He's the one person who has the power to do something
and of all the people in the whole country who knew what was happening, he was
probably the most inert. This is something you have to see just for its colossal
bizarreness.
Bush being told about the second WTC attack
on 9/11
note the blank look on his face, and that he remained reading (!) with second
graders for nearly another half hour, almost until the Pentagon explosion
Retired career Special Forces Master Sergeant Stan Goff
http://www.narconews.com/goff1.html
"Four planes get hijacked and deviate from their flight plans, all the
while on FAA radar. The planes are all hijacked between 7:45 and 8:10 AM Eastern
Daylight Time.
Who is notified?
This is an event already that is unprecedented. But the President is not notified
and going to a Florida elementary school to hear children read.
By around 8:15 AM, it should be very apparent that something is terribly wrong.
The President is glad-handing teachers.
By 8:45, when American Airlines Flight 11 crashes into the World Trade Center,
Bush is settling in with children for his photo ops at Booker Elementary.
Four planes have obviously been hijacked simultaneously, an event never before
seen in history, and one has just dived into the worlds best know twin towers,
and still no one notifies the nominal Commander in Chief.
No one has apparently scrambled any Air Force interceptors either.
At 9:03, United Flight 175 crashes into the remaining World Trade Center building.
At 9:05, Andrew Card, the Presidential Chief of Staff whispers to George W.
Bush. Bush "briefly turns somber" according to reporters.
Does he cancel the school visit and convene an emergency meeting? No.
He resumes listening to second graders read about a little girl's pet fucking
goat, and continues this banality even as American Airlines Flight 77 conducts
an unscheduled point turn over Ohio and heads in the direction of Washington
DC.
Has he instructed Chief of Staff Card to scramble the Air Force? No.
An excruciating 25 minutes later, he finally deigns to give a public statement
telling the United States what they already have figured out; that there's
been an attack by hijacked planes on the World Trade Center.
There's a hijacked plane bee-lining to Washington, but has the Air Force been
scrambled to defend anything yet? No.
At 9:30, when he makes his announcement, American Flight 77 is still ten minutes
from its target, the Pentagon.
The Administration will later claim they had no way of knowing that the Pentagon
might be a target, and that they thought Flight 77 was headed to the White
House, but the fact is that the plane has already flown South and past the
White House no-fly zone, and is in fact tearing through the sky at over 400
nauts.
At 9:35, this plane conducts another turn, 360 degrees over the Pentagon,
all the while being tracked by radar, and the Pentagon is not evacuated, and
there are still no fast-movers from the Air Force in the sky over Alexandria
and DC.
Now, the real kicker: A pilot they want us to believe was trained at a Florida
puddle-jumper school for Piper Cubs and Cessnas, conducts a well-controlled
downward spiral, descending the last 7,000 feet in two-and-a-half minutes,
brings the plane in so low and flat that it clips the electrical wires across
the street from the Pentagon, and flies it with pinpoint accuracy into the
side of this building at 460 nauts.
When the theory about learning to fly this well at the puddle-jumper school
began to lose ground, it was added that they received further training on
a flight simulator.
This is like saying you prepared your teenager for her first drive on I-40
at rush hour by buying her a video driving game. It's horse shit!
http://septembereleventh.org/airdefense.php
Cheryl's Daily Diatribe: Monday, June 10, 2002 -- SMOKING
GUN feedback:
Where Was G.W. Bush on the Morning of Sept. 11?
http://www.unknownnews.net/cdd061002.html
To get caught up into the "he said she said" (what Dan
Rather said Myers said Bush said etc.) is to get involved in chasing your tail
— and everyone else's! History tells us that in a crisis like this, the
scramble to cover butts, even when there HASN'T been a conspiracy involved,
ususally results in contradictory, every-changing stories. This is true from
sorting out who broke the cookie jar in the kitchen to who was caught with their
hand in the till at Enron...everyone will scramble to hit on a story that plays
well. So, to avoid this quagmire, the best approach is to go with the most concrete
evidence and know facts.. Known fact: NORAD called by the FAA because it is
the established protocol in such a case (and, as one of my readers suggested,
NORAD would probably have known of the planes even before then, based on their
radar data). In keeping with protocol, NORAD would have required a response
from Bush. Now just applying common sense (another unglamorous habit of mine),
here's what you get:
1. If this was indeed a conspiracy involving
those in high places, then the details of NORAD's response, which would become
a matter of public record, now or in the future, would have been accounted for
in advance by the conspirators.
2. When the stakes are as high as the ones involved
on 9/11, a conspirator would take NO CHANCES on doing anything that might seem
to implicate themselves. By NOT CALLING ANY PLANES, Bush et al would be implicating
themselves big time. However, by delaying the call for a scramble and not calling
for evacuations, they would easily be able to plead later their decisions were
based on not having any idea the danger was of the scope it proved to be. This
is, in fact, what the Bush folks have tried to do. If NO PLANES had been called
in at all, there are too many "peripheral" people in the chain of
communications, from the FAA to NORAD to Bush that would have been outraged
and spoken out. A delayed call on the other hand would have been initially seen
as "tragic bad luck" and later as too ambiguous to base an accusation
on.
911 - Facing our fascist state
The Air Defenses and their "failures"
http://www.sfcall.com/issues%202002/10.14.02/paul_10_14_02.htm
www.standdown.net
http://www.cooperativeresearch.org
- The Complete Timeline of 9/11
http://cooperativeresearch.org/timeline/main/essayairdefense.html
The Failure to Defend the Skies on 9/11
by Paul Thompson
"Yet as America was suffering its worst assault in history, the president
of the United States remained largely in the dark, knowing far less than the
average couch potato watching Diane Sawyer.
At the time, George W. Bush was sitting on a stool in Sarasota, Florida, listening
to a small class of second graders read him a story about a girl's pet goat.
It was the day's routine photo-op, prepackaged propaganda for the press designed
to demonstrate his concern for education. Just before entering the class, Condoleeza
Rice, the national security advisor, informed the president of the devastating
jet plane crash into Tower One. Nevertheless, Bush decided to stay on message
and go forward with the publicity event. Florida, after all, had been the most
crucial battleground of the last election, and
could be in the next.
About 9:06, four minutes after the attack on Tower Two, White House Chief of
Staff Andy Card leaned over and whispered the brief message in the president's
right ear. "A second plane has hit the World Trade Center," he said.
"America is under attack." Almost immediately an expression of befuddlement
passed across the president's face.
Then, having just been told that the country was under attack, the commander
in chief appeared uninterested in further details. He never asked if there had
been any additional threats, where the attacks were coming from, how to best
protect the country from further attacks, or what was the current status of
NORAD or the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Nor did he call for an immediate
return to Washington. Instead, in the middle of a modern-day Pearl Harbor, he
simply turned back to the matter at hand: the day's photo op. Precious minutes
were ticking by, and many more lives were still at risk. "Really good readers,
whew!" he told the class as the electronic flashes once again began to
blink and the video cameras rolled. "These must be sixth graders!"
- from "Body
of Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency,"
by James Bamford, (2002 edition), p 632-3
www.emperors-clothes.com/indict/urgent.htm
military "stand down" on 9/11
http://emperors-clothes.com/indict/update630.htm
note: after the SECOND tower was hit (9:03 am), the plane that
took off from Dulles Airport (near Washington) was at the Ohio / West Virginia
border -- plenty of time to scramble an interceptor from Andrews AFB to protect
the Nation's Capitol. Simple incompetence cannot explain this "failure"
Ignorad
http://slate.msn.com/?id=2060825
US military did not defend the Pentagon on 9/11
this article is also archived at www.attackonamerica.net/ignorad.htm
http://www.rense.com/general17/werestanddown.htm
Were Stand-Down Intercept Orders Given On Morning Of 911?
Military publication covers up with bogus "timeline"
Aviation Week & Space Technology:
June 3, 2002 Exercise Jump-Starts Response to Attacks
http://www.aviationnow.com/content/publication/awst/20020603/avi_stor.htm
The Aviation Week article doesn't match the known facts of the apparent
"stand down" of the Air Force on 911 -- if there was a readiness
exercise underway, why weren't interceptors deployed in a timely manner,
at least to prevent the attack on the Pentagon (hit nearly an hour and
a half after the first plane went off course)? Aviation Week's "timeline"
of 911 is extremely deceptive - it suggests that orders to intercept each
plane were only given a few minutes before each hit their target, omitting
the fact that already scrambled fighters could have intercepted subsequent
planes.
Back at the NEADS Operations Center, identification technicians
were sorting thousands of green dots on their radar scopes, looking for
American Flight 11. Since terrorists had turned off the Boeing 767's transponder,
FAA controllers could only tell NEADS technicians where the flight had
last been seen. The NEADS radar screens showed "primary" or
"skin-paint" returns, the raw radar pulses reflected from an
aircraft's surface.
Ironically, FAA officials only a few months earlier had tried to dispense
with "primary" radars altogether, opting to rely solely on transponder
returns as a way to save money. Norad had emphatically rejected the proposal.
Still, 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."
This claim, from a publication that is essentially a Pentagon press outlet,
argues that the world's most sophisticated military surveillance system
was unable to properly track the off course jets, that NORAD isn't tied
into domestic radars, and lacks computers capable of keeping track of
planes. None of these claims seem to be true.
|
Aviation Week "timeline" that suggests
the
Air Force could not intercept "hijacked" planes
Note that the official timeline pretends that warplanes scrambled to
intercept the planes that went to New York somehow could not be used to
intercept the planes that went to Washington. (At supersonic speeds, New
York and Washington are not far apart.)
|
from Mike Ruppert, author of the forthcoming book "Crossing the Rubicon:
America's Descent into Fascism at the End of the Age of Oil"
I prepared more than 160 index cards creating a minute by minute and second
by second timeline of events and then juxtaposing them with known and cited
FAA/USAF regulations to prepare my spreadsheet. I also dispel many false beliefs
such as the one that NORAD Radar only looks outward. Actually NORAD
radar INCLUDES all FAA civil radar in the country and has added passive tracking
abilities and the ability to determine altitude. The two systems are and were
plugged in together on 9/11. Fighter aircraft were successfully scrambled
on 56 occasions in the calendar year prior to 9/11 -- within minutes. ....
I have no doubt that the "piggybacked"
exercises were used as distraction and chaff on 9/11 to provide plausible
deniability for the inexcusable fighter response. But a thorough
look leads all roads back to one place, the FAA Hijack Coordinator who is
the guy who is obligated to pull the trigger for DoD response when certain
conditions are met.
This timeline also subtly suggests that warplanes scrambled to protect
New York (and failed to do so) somehow could not be used to intercept
Flight 77 after the second tower was hit but before the Pentagon crash.
No government official has yet explained the inexcusable nearly half-hour
delay for the FAA to tell NORAD that the planes were off course (standard
protocol is to notify the Air Force immediately - and NORAD has its own
radar systems that track commercial flights).
Does anyone really believe that the FAA waited nearly a half hour to
tell the Air Force that Flight 77 had turned around in the direction of
the national capital, especially after the World Trade Center buildings
had been hit?
|
Another Lie about 9/11 fighter
jets from the Washington Post
|
No "Stand Down" at Andrews AFB any more ...
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/11/national/11PLAN.html?ex=1069131600&en=f24b90546bc7ffc9&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE
Secret Service Hides Cheney as Plane Enters Restricted Area
By RICHARD W. STEVENSON
Published: November 11, 2003
WASHINGTON, Nov. 10 — The Secret Service hustled Vice President Dick
Cheney into a secure site on Monday morning after a small plane flew into restricted
airspace around Washington, government officials said.
The plane was intercepted by two Air Force F-16 fighters, whose pilots determined
that it was not a threat and escorted it out of the area.
President Bush was on his way to a fund-raiser in Little Rock, Ark., at the
time, and Laura Bush was in Maine.
Mr. Cheney returned to work in the White House after a short time, said a Secret
Service spokesman, Tom Mazur.
Mr. Mazur said Andrew H. Card Jr., the White House chief of staff, was also
taken to the undisclosed secure spot while the Air Force sought to determine
whether the small plane presented any danger.
Officials said the plane, a single-engine Mooney M20, entered the restricted
zone, within 17.5 miles of the Washington Monument, about 11:15 a.m. Mr. Mazur
said the pilot of the small plane cooperated with the instructions of the fighter
pilots and was allowed to go on his way.
The restricted airspace was established after the terrorist attacks of Sept.
11, 2001, to help protect the White House and other government buildings in
Washington.
Officials said the plane proceeded on to Siler City, N.C., where an airport
official said it landed about noon.
The Secret Service later said it had searched the plane and not found any weapons.
Jean Mitchell, a spokeswoman for the Secret Service, said the pilot had thought
he was abiding by the flight restrictions around Washington, not realizing they
had been changed after the terrorist attacks. Ms. Mitchell said the pilot, whom
she would identify only as a white male, was flying to Florida from Pennsylvania.
She said the Secret Service was satisfied that he had not intended harm to Mr.
Bush or the White House.
The incident was the second security scare for the administration in a little
more than a week. On Nov. 1, a woman drove a car through a security cordon outside
an arena in Mississippi where Mr. Bush had just finished speaking. She crashed
her car near where the president had just gotten into his limousine, but the
Secret Service later determined that she had not intended to try to hurt Mr.
Bush.
A spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration, William A. Shumann, said
the Mooney M20, a four-seat, low-wing plane with retractable landing gear, was,
"by general aviation standards, a fairly hot airplane."
Mr. Shumann said the punishment for violating the restricted airspace could
range from a letter of reprimand to a temporary suspension of a pilot's license
to revocation of the license.
Jets Intercept Plane Close to White House
by Terence Hunt
AP Nov 10, 8:02 PM ET
www.globalresearch.ca 13 November 2003
The URL of this article is: http://globalresearch.ca/articles/HUN311A.html
WASHINGTON - Air Force fighter jets were scrambled Monday to intercept a privately
owned plane that flew too close to the White House, prompting Vice President
Dick Cheney (news - web sites) and President Bush (news - web sites)'s chief
of staff to be moved to a secure location.
The plane was determined not to be a threat. The president was away at the time,
on a trip to Arkansas and South Carolina, and his wife, Laura, had a speaking
engagement in Maine.
Cheney and White House chief of staff Andrew Card were moved temporarily to
a secure location as a precautionary measure, said presidential spokesman Scott
McClellan. They resumed their normal routine soon thereafter, said McClellan,
who was with Bush in Little Rock, Ark.
The privately owned plane was detected flying in a southwest direction, coming
down the Potomac River, when it entered restricted airspace, said Secret Service
spokeswoman Jean Mitchell.
The fighters were scrambled from nearby Andrews Air Force in Maryland and they
intercepted the plane, escorting it out of the area, she said.
"He was within eight miles" of the White House, she said. "It's
enough to affect our emergency response plan." Armed officers took up positions
on the White House lawn during the incident.
"Anytime we have an airspace violation, we take it very seriously,"
Mitchell said.
Maj. Douglas Martin, spokesman for the North American Aerospace Defense Command,
or NORAD, said it was determined that the plane did not represent a threat.
"From the NORAD perspective, he's not a threat, and that's the main thing
for us," Martin said.
The plane apparently strayed within the Air Defense Identification Zone, roughly
a 23-mile radius around Washington, according to Les Dorr, spokesman for the
Federal Aviation Administration .
Nothing Urgent
by George Szamuely
New York Press, Vol. 15, No. 2
Centre for Research on Globalisation (CRG), globalresearch.ca , 15
February 2002
Let’s revisit the curious lack of military action on the morning
of Sept. 11.
That morning, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Richard B. Myers,
was having a routine meeting on Capitol Hill with Sen. Max Cleland. While the
two men chatted away, a hijacked jet plowed into the World Trade Center’s
north tower, another one plowed into the south tower and a third one into the
Pentagon. And still they went on with their meeting. "[W]hen we came out,"
Myers recounted to American Forces Radio and Television Service, "somebody
said the Pentagon had been hit." Myers claims no one had bothered to inform
him about the attacks on the World Trade Center. Meanwhile, in Florida, just
as President Bush was about to leave his hotel he was told about the attack
on the first WTC tower. He was asked by a reporter if he knew what was going
on in New York. He said he did, and then went to an elementary school in Sarasota
to read to children.
No urgency. Why should there be? Who could possibly have realized then the calamitous
nature of the events of that day? Besides, the hijackers had switched the transponders
off. So how could anyone know what was going on?
Passenger jet hijackings are not uncommon and the U.S. government has prepared
detailed plans to handle them. On Sept. 11 these plans were ignored in their
entirety. According to The New York Times, air traffic controllers knew at 8:20
a.m. "that American Airlines Flight 11, bound from Boston to Los Angeles,
had probably been hijacked. When the first news report was made at 8:48 a.m.
that a plane might have hit the World Trade Center, they knew it was Flight
11." There was little ambiguity on the matter. The pilot had pushed a button
on the aircraft yoke that allowed controllers to hear the hijacker giving orders.
Here are the FAA regulations concerning hijackings: "The FAA hijack coordinator…on
duty at Washington headquarters will request the military to provide an escort
aircraft for a confirmed hijacked aircraft… The escort service will be
requested by the FAA hijack coordinator by direct contact with the National
Military Command Center (NMCC)." Here are the instructions issued by the
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on June 1, 2001: "In the event of
a hijacking, the NMCC will be notified by the most expeditious means by the
FAA. The NMCC will…forward requests for DOD assistance to the Secretary
of Defense for approval."
In addition, as Vice President Cheney explained on Meet the Press on Sept. 16,
only the president has the authority to order the shooting down of a civilian
airliner.
The U.S. is supposed to scramble military aircraft the moment a hijacking is
confirmed. Myers’ revelation to the Senate Armed Services Committee on
Sept. 13 that no fighter planes had been launched until after the Pentagon was
hit was therefore surprising. Senators and even some tv commentators were a
little incredulous. Dan Rather asked: "These hijacked aircraft were in
the air for quite a while… Why doesn’t the Pentagon have the kind
of protection that they can get a fighter-interceptor aircraft up, and if someone
is going to plow an aircraft into the Pentagon, that we have at least some…line
of defense?"
Good question. Clearly another, more comforting, story was needed, and on the
evening of Sept. 14 CBS launched it by revealing that the FAA had indeed alerted
U.S. air defense units of a possible hijacking at 8:38 a.m. on Tuesday, that
six minutes later two F-15s received a scramble order at Otis Air National Guard
Base on Cape Cod and that by 8:56 the F-15s were racing toward New York. Unfortunately,
the fighters were still 70 miles away when the second jet hit the south tower.
Meanwhile, at 9:30 a.m., three F-16s were launched from Langley Air Force base,
150 miles south of Washington. But just seven minutes later, at 9:37 a.m., Flight
77 smashed into the Pentagon. The F-16s arrived in Washington just before 10
a.m.
This story, which has now become the "official" version, raises more
questions than it answers. F-15s can travel at speeds of 1875 mph while F-16s
can travel at 1500 mph. If it took the F-16s half an hour to cover 150 miles,
they could not have been traveling at more than 300 mph–at 20 percent
capability. Boeing 767s and 757s have cruising speeds of 530 mph. Talk about
a lack of urgency! Assuming Otis Air National Guard Base is about 180 miles
away from Manhattan it should have taken the F-15s less than six minutes to
get here. Moreover, since Washington, DC, is little more than 200 miles from
New York, the two F-15 fighters would have had time to get to DC, intercept
Flight 77 and grab breakfast on the way.
Ah, but of course the transponders were turned off. So no one could keep track
of the planes. If it were true that the moment a transponder is turned off a
plane becomes invisible there would be no defense against enemy aircraft. Normal
radar echo return from the metal surface of an aircraft would still identify
it on the radar scope.
Luckily, we still have first-rate establishment media to make sure that we retain
confidence in our government.
See also:
9/11 Stand Down
http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/ELS305A.html
by Mark Ellis
Exposing NORAD's "Wag the 911 Window Dressing Tale", using NORAD’s
own Press Release and Fifth Grade Math
A Timeline Surrounding September 11th
If the CIA and the Government Weren't involved in the September 11 Attacks,
What were they Doing?
by Michael Ruppert
http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/RUP112A.html
THE COUNTER-TERRORIST, Lawrence Wright, The New Yorker, Issue of January 14,
2002:
“ intelligence had been streaming in concerning a likely Al Qaeda attack.
‘It all came together in the third week in June [2001],’ Clarke
said. ‘The C.I.A.'s view was that a major terrorist attack was coming
in the next several weeks.’ On July 5th, Clarke summoned all the domestic
security agencies—the Federal Aviation Administration, the Coast Guard,
Customs, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, and the F.B.I.—and
told them to increase their security in light of an impending attack.”
Re: http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?020114fa_FACT1
www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/042402_jets.html
timeline of jet interceptors
http://www.cnn.com/US/9910/26/wayward.jet.01/index.html
Inspectors seek to solve mystery of golfer's last flight U.S. Open champ Stewart
among 6 dead
October 26, 1999
Web posted at: 9:09 a.m. EDT (1309 GMT)
In this story:
Pilots' accounts point to cabin pressure
PGA statement
Troubled plane shadowed by military jets
Shoot down not considered by Pentagon
MINA, South Dakota (CNN) -- A private jet drifting on autopilot across the
South and Midwest. Frost on the windows of the plane. Wreckage scattered across
a South Dakota field.
Those are among the clues left for investigators Tuesday as they try to learn
why a Learjet carrying reigning U.S. Open golf champion Payne Stewart and five
others crashed, killing all aboard. The aircraft drifted off course shortly
after it left Orlando, Florida, for Dallas, aviation officials said.
In addition to Stewart, those aboard included golf-course designer Bruce Borland
and two officers of Leader Enterprises, the firm that chartered the Lear 35
jet. Robert Fraley and Van Ardan acted as agents for Stewart, said Jerri Gibbs,
of the Orlando-based firm.
The two pilots were identified as Michael Kling, 43, and Stephanie Bellegarrigue,
27.
The plane flew on autopilot for 1,500 miles before nose-diving into a field
in South Dakota on Monday afternoon. Investigators from the National Transportation
Safety Board began to examine the jet's wreckage Monday: Early discussion has
focused on indications that the plane's cabin might have lost pressure, killing
the pilots and passengers.
NTSB Vice Chairman Bob Francis said the investigation team included representatives
of the Federal Aviation Administration, state and local authorities in South
Dakota and the FBI. He also said he expected the makers of the Learjet would
join the probe.
Francis refused to answer any questions from reporters Monday night, issuing
only a short statement.
"Highway patrol people were here about 10 minutes after the accident and
they did not find any extensive fire," Francis said.
Pilots' accounts point to cabin pressure The Air Force used fighter jets to
shadow the doomed plane across the deep South and Midwest: They reported frost
on the windows, indicating the cabin lost pressure sometime during the flight.
Pilots said when they flew alongside and looked inside the aircraft, the people
inside appeared to be slumped over and incapacitated, CNN's Carl Rochelle reported.
Asked whether depressurization may have contributed to the crash, Francis said
he would not speculate: "We'll tell you factual stuff as soon as we figure
it out."
Air Force Capt. Chris Hamilton said there was nothing he could do when his F-16
caught up with the Learjet over Memphis, Tennessee.
"It's a very helpless feeling to pull up alongside another aircraft and
realize the people inside that aircraft potentially are unconscious or in some
other way incapacitated," Hamilton said. "And there's nothing I can
do physically from my aircraft -- even though I'm 50 to 100 feet away -- to
help them at all."
If the plane depressurized, passengers and pilots could have died from lack
of oxygen, leaving the aircraft flying without a pilot until it ran out of fuel.
The plane was equipped with a cockpit voice recorder.
It finally fell to earth about 12:20 p.m. CDT (1:20 p.m. EDT) in a marshy pasture
about two miles south of Mina, in north-central South Dakota.
FAA spokesman Paul Turk said the plane had flown as high as 45,000 feet (13,500
meters). Before the crash, he had described the plane as being "in distress."
Planes that fly above 12,000 feet are normally pressurized, because passengers
would have difficulty breathing the thin air above that altitude.
If there is a pressurization problem, those aboard the aircraft could slowly
lose consciousness or, if an aircraft broke a door or window seal, perish in
seconds from hypoxia, or oxygen deficiency.
"This is a tremendous loss for the entire golfing community and all of
sports," PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem said after learning of Stewart's
death.
"Payne was a great champion, a gentleman and a devoted husband and father.
He will always be remembered as a very special competitor, and one who contributed
enormously to the positive image of professional golf."
Stewart and his wife, Tracey, had two children, Chelsea, 13, and Aaron, 10.
Vistors, including fellow golfer Mark O'Meara, began arriving at Stewart's home
in an exclusive Orlando community.
The Rev. Jim Henry, retired pastor for First Baptist Church of Orlando who used
to minister to the Stewart family, was one of those outside the home.
Stewart, 42, easily identified on the links by his patented knickers and tam-o'-shanter
hat, had 11 PGA victories spanning 17 years, including the 1991 and 1999 U.S.
Open Championships.
Stewart, who lived in Orlando, had been expected in Houston on Tuesday for practice
rounds in advance of the Tour Championship, the PGA Tour's final tournament
of the year for the top 30 players on its money list.
Troubled plane shadowed by military jets
An Air Force spokesman says two U.S. Air Force F-15s from Eglin Air
Force Base, Florida, intercepted the plane shortly after it lost contact with
aircraft controllers, and followed it to Missouri.
Pilots reported the plane's crew was "non-responsive" and that the
cockpit windows were obscured by condensation or frost, an indication the aircraft
may have lost cabin pressure.
Over Missouri, four F-16s from an Air National Guard unit based in Fargo, North
Dakota, took over the escort mission, and stayed with the plane until it crashed.
The Air Force says additional F-16s were also scrambled from the Oklahoma Air
National Guard unit in Tulsa, but were not used because the Fargo planes arrived
first.
The plane originally had been scheduled to fly to Love Field in Dallas where
Stewart was to have had a business meeting.
The FAA said the plane was a 1976 Learjet and was owned by Jetshares One, Inc.,
of Wilmington, Delaware. It was operated by Sunjet Aviation, of Sanford, Florida.
Shoot down not considered by Pentagon
The Pentagon said Monday it never came close to shooting down Stewart's wayward
plane in order to prevent a possible crash into a heavily populated area.
In fact, a Pentagon spokesman said, the F-16 fighter planes that monitored the
jet's flight were not armed with air-to-air missiles.
Two other F-16s on "strip alert" at Fargo, South Dakota, were armed,
but never took off.
Pentagon spokesman Ken Bacon said, "Once it was determined it was apparently
going to crash in a lightly populated area, we didn't have to deal with other
options, so we didn't.
The FAA routed air traffic around the Learjet and kept planes from flying underneath
it in case it crashed.
Air Force pilots reported no movement in the cockpit, and that the plane seemed
to be on auto pilot.
The tracker planes reported the Learjet altitude was varying wildly from between
22,000 and 51,000 feet. One possible explanation for the so called "porpoiseing"
effect is that the plane's autopilot was having trouble maintaining speed and
was diving and climbing in an attempt to adjust.
Pentagon officials say the fighter jets could do little but watch as the plane
completed it fatal fight.
In theory, the fighters could have tried to tip or nudge the wings of the plane
to change it's course, but it's not clear if the Learjet's auto-pilot would
have simply automatically corrected its course.
At 11:10 p.m. CDT (12:10 p.m. EDT) the Northeast Air Defense sector estimated
the Learjet would run out of fuel in one hour, and calculated the plane would
likely to go down in a sparsely populated area near Pierre, South Dakota.
At 12:16 CDT (1:16 p.m. EDT) the F-16s following Stewart's plane reported the
jet had run out of fuel and was spiraling through the clouds. The fighter planes
circled the area until they were told the scene of the crash had been located
and their assistance was no longer needed.
Military Affairs Correspondent Jamie McIntyre, The Associated Press and Reuters
contributed to this report.
