It was just recently declassified.

The film United 93 includes some of this confusion. Everyone seems pretty well certain that flight 11 was hijacked, and when its signal goes out over Manhattan, and the news shows that a plane has hit the WTC, most folks in charge make the assumption that flight 11 crashed into the first tower.

Later in the film they show how American Airlines tells them that flight 11 is still in the air, but it's very sketchy, and it's never explained in the film why American says this (either that, or I somehow missed it in the dialogue).

Thermite.

it was released to the 9/11 commission see here.
"These and other discrepancies did not become clear until the commission, forced to use subpoenas, obtained audiotapes from the FAA and NORAD, officials said. The agencies' reluctance to release the tapes -- along with e-mails, erroneous public statements and other evidence -- led some of the panel's staff members and commissioners to believe that authorities sought to mislead the commission and the public about what happened on Sept. 11."

Shouldn't this have been publicly released long ago if it wasn't classified?

Sorry, there was no compelling reason to do so; it wouldn't have made Bush's approval numbers any better. Therefore, not released.

This administration is so craven it's hard to believe anymore.

I'm glad these are released. My only fear is that it'll further fan the flames of the 9/11 conspiracy crazies...

Other posters are driving at the other huge point - it certainly appears that administration tried to misled the 9-11 commission again.

Why again do we think that it is good for the country NOT to learn from experience is a bit beyond me. But I'm sure the new tbroz/ Al, etc. battalion will try to enlighten me.

There is nothing, nothing that the Bush administration won't lie about.

That's right, e1:

Suspicion of wrongdoing ran so deep that the 10-member commission, in a secret meeting at the end of its tenure in summer 2004, debated referring the matter to the Justice Department for criminal investigation, according to several commission sources.

They ended up NOT referring the matter to DOJ.

Thomas:

Why bother transferring it to Justice - Bush owns them!

Doing so would have been a waste of taxpayer money.

Where. The fuck. Is. Osama?

I feared the Comments section of this blog might turn into a newer version of the NewsMax Forum, and it looks like I was right. What was once a fun place to bandy about political opinions has turned into a cesspool of anti-Semitic hate speech from watcher/slim/pal/whatever, Asian pictograms and sophomoric posts about weather, sex and advertising. Soon, people will start trying to find out other people's home or work addresses, to try to get them in trouble for what they post here. Maybe even some death threats. Same thing occurred at NewsMax's website a few years back. They had to shut it down.

Anonymity is a dangerous thing. I have always used my real name, under the supposition that would tend to suppress my more base instincts. Most people don't and look where that leads.

Time to take a vacation from this forum for a while.....

I was broadcasting news from wire feeds on my radio station that day, and trying to get a handle on information was a big freaking deal. After 4 planes were down, American Airlines released information that 2 of their planes were missing and unaccounted for. This was generally viewed as "two MORE planes" being hijacked. I remember the panic of that moment, the "oh, fuck, not more." It's sad to hear that the confusion was general.

Osama's been dead for years.

What was the reason for *not* releasing the cockpit tapes from United 93?

Kevin is correct that it is not a big deal, but I remember how Cheney managed to imply that Bush had ordered the hijacked planes shot down while they were still in the air, rather than after it was too late. It's typical of Cheney's rather distant relationship with the truth. The point is not, as most of the hysterical commentators here would say, that Cheney lies constantly and thoughtlessly. In fact, he's very careful in his words. But the thing is, he doesn't care at all about truthfulness for its own sake, and his carefulness is only motivated by a fear of getting caught.

"Can someone tell me why American Airlines declined to cooperate with the United States military over the fate of a hijacked plane?"

Maybe they thought, as in past hijackings, that they could get the plane down, and were reluctant to give the military info that might lead to it being shot down?

Stephen Kriz, what are you talking about? It would help if you referred to the actual content of this thread.

Just to clarify: There was a big, unwieldy teleconference started between FAA atc facilities, and Colin Scoggins, a head-up manager at Boston's air traffic control facility, believes the mistake happened as someone was overheard trying to confirm that AAII was the one that hit the tower. When this person couldn't get confirmation, this transmogrified into someone thinking they heard AA11. The planes were flying low once the hijackers turned off their beacons, so it's conceivable in the heat and confusion of the moment that it was still flying and something else hit the first one. It was prudent to plan for it - you can't ignore the possibility that a hijacked plane may be headed for DC.

I'm not sure what conversations American Airlines had with "the military" that day - it's not a monolithic entity - so I think it may not be fair to say American Airlines refused to cooperate with the military on the whole. There were a lot of confusing rapid-fire communications that day, and this is how the particular mistake about AA11 still possibly flying was made. -MB

We could have used Al Haig that day.

Mark-NC:

So, you are unaware of the names James Comey, Jack Goldsmith, or Patrick Fitzgerald over at DOJ? See here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11079547/site/newsweek/

Stephen Kriz:

Have a good vacation.

mc and Michael Bronner:

Unfortunately for the good guys, crisis management is complicated, but minimizing confusion is the key.

wishIwuz2:

Amen!

Why did the Pentagon release the full NORAD recording from 9/11 to a film producer but not to anyone else?

Because they doctored it?

As I recall, things were quite chaotic that morning.

I was in mid-town, and the rumors going around were horrendous. The Washington Mall was on fire. There was a bomb threat in Grand Central Station. Death tolls of 10-20 thousand were widely anticipated.

Everyone was worried about family and friends; I imagine for airline workers, this would be an even more poignent concern.

So that there were communications screw-ups on that day seems fairly reasonable. Sad, but reasonable.

Chicken Hawk is right, we surely don't want the crazies getting any ideas, what with rational cooler heads now in firm control of the world's fate.

"Can someone tell me why American Airlines declined to cooperate with the United States military over the fate of a hijacked plane?"

I don't know. Can anyone tell me why American Airlines refused to confirm for several hours after scheduled takeoff that my plane was delayed? Or why they originally blamed it on the FAA, only to admit later that it was the fault of mechanical failure when the flight was cancelled?

Maybe they gave the US military a free voucher for $50 off its next flight. Apparently that makes it all better.

"Can someone tell me why American Airlines declined to cooperate with the United States military over the fate of a hijacked plane?"

I strongly suspect that AA manages communications tightly in the event that a plane goes down.

This would make sense - crashes are a huge liability issue. AA doesn't want to signal culpability, all the more so when they don't know what's going on. (To me perfectly reasonable.)

When an organization orients itself towards "don't give any details about anything" it's very difficult to suddenly override that orientation in the event of an exceptional case.

Some organization within the Federal Government would have had to notify airlines beforehand that "in circumstance A do recourse B or suffer consequence C." But that would have taken some far sighted and creative governance.

Why did the Pentagon release the full NORAD recording from 9/11 to a film producer but not to anyone else?

An educated guess:

The director is a right wing Christian who gives lots of money to Republicans.

"THE fascist movement is inevitable in the United States. To believe otherwise is to imagine that the capitalists will give up their power without a fight. On the contrary, at the slightest indication of loss of their power, they will be prepared for a most ferocious struggle. The people of this country must learn this important truth."

XXXII. FASCIST TRENDS IN THE UNITED STATES

What about the second 9/11 report? Wasn't that supposed to have been released a long time ago? Or did I miss that?

I was broadcasting news from wire feeds on my radio station that day, and trying to get a handle on information was a big freaking deal. ...
Posted by: mc on August 2, 2006 at 1:32 PM | PERMALINK

I remember hearing, on CNN, stories about reports of plane crashes in Oregon and Colorado that morning, before the crash of flight 93.

Then a few days later, there was that huge fire and explosion at the oil terminal in New York, then that other plane crash. Folks were nervous, and thems in the news media were no different.

Red State Mike and Advocate for God:

For the record, I've read a NYT piece last week that followed around Israeli troops clearing away rocket debris. Some of the writing on some of the rocket pieces was indeed in Persian -- so, although I can't say for certain of course (who can, who isn't there?), I think it's reasonable to assume that some of the Katuyskas fired by Hezbollah were supplied by Iran.

OTOH, there has been no solid confirmation that the guided weapon that took out the Israeli gunboat was indeed an Iran-modified Silkworm -- info again from a NYT article.

Good supposition, but less solid than the one about some of the Katyuskas ...

Bob

Wrong damn thread -- sorry.

Bob

I suspect Bush's alcoholism is behind the Republican inclination to lie when the telling the truth would be beneficial: gotta share W's world.

Cheney was busy after 9/11 trying to come up with a story of why Bush spent that day hiding and flying all around the country looking less than presidential especially when compared with Giuliani. He finally came up with the mole and the flight codes story which he promptly fed to William Safire. The lie served its purpose and was forgotten about a few weeks later.

"Maybe this is old news and I just haven't seen it, but can someone tell me why American Airlines declined to cooperate with the United States military over the fate of a hijacked plane? What the hell?"

But isn't cooperating with the US military worse than cooperating with the FBI or NSA? Maybe American Airlines wanted to make sure Americans' freedoms and rights were not eroded by the military on 9/11... seems like it was the left thing to do.

I think there's quite reasonable doubt as to whether Bush was even involved in the decision to attempt to shoot down hijacked aircraft, let alone that he "wrestled" with it. This was an issue the Commission grappled with. My understanding is that Cheney made this decision, and had to be reminded that the President needed to make it, at which point Bush was brought into the loop. I think there was some concern that this led to confusion in the military since the Vice President is not in the chain of command and actually has no legal authority to issue orders.

Oh, and one other thing. Why did the Pentagon release the full NORAD recording from 9/11 to a film producer but not to anyone else? Shouldn't this have been publicly released long ago if it wasn't classified? —Kevin Drum

We'll get the full story on 9/11 and all the intelligence acquired prior to that day only after Bush is out of office, and maybe not until he's dead. The only thing that might accelerate this is the Dems taking control of the Congress and the White House. Doing so, and thus revealing the depth of Republican nonchalance and incompetence up until 9/11, would be enough to keep the Rethugs effectively out of government for decades.

"An educated guess:

The director is a right wing Christian who gives lots of money to Republicans."

I had a similar educated guess on the morning of 9/11 as well, in that all of the hijackers were right wing Christians who gave to Republicans.

Many leftist intellectuals have gone from decades of denying the crimes of Lenin, Stalin, Castro, Mao, the Rosenbergs, Alger Hiss, et. el

Big Bird. You forgot Big Bird.

"We'll get the full story on 9/11 and all the intelligence acquired prior to that day only after Bush is out of office, and maybe not until he's dead."

It will reveal once and for all that there really never was an Osama Bin Laden. He's the creation of the CIA, played by none other than Valerie Plame!

Open question to Mr. Bush...

Just where the fuck is Osama anyway? Do you care or are you not that concerned with him?

I had a similar educated guess on the morning of 9/11 as well, in that all of the hijackers were right wing Christians who gave to Republicans.

Well, they were right-wing Muslims who support oppressive social and political policies. So you weren't too far off.

"Well, they were right-wing Muslims who support oppressive social and political policies. So you weren't too far off."

I guess the ironic thing is that their biggest cheerleaders and supporters in the West are liberals.

ckelly: Open question to Mr. Bush...Just where the fuck is Osama anyway?

he has already answered that question....

"I don't know where bin Laden is. I have no idea and really don't care. It's not that important. It's not our priority. I am truly not that concerned about him."

-- G.W. Bush, responding to a question about bin Laden's whereabouts, 3/13/02

Al Haig certainly would have been better than those idiots Cheney and Rumsfeld, the supposed "brains" for the brainless Bush.

And Cheney actually had his wife advising him on 9/11. Pathetic.

Here's the way I remember the day (which, as always, is rather upsetting): The fact that AA 11 had been hijacked came out very early, but I think because it was the first to go, at the time it seemed isolated, and I suspect they did what was normal - they notified the FAA and then waited. I remember that reporters for much of the morning spoke of all 4 flights but were more tentative about conifrming AA 11 than the others (and as someone notes above at one point there were 10 unaccounted for planes according to reports, and so much more).

I also recall that one of the points in the Commission report was that cross agency communication was problematic and FAA to NORAD was a particular issue (or FAA linking up with the others, maybe?). In any case, I think like all the aspects of 9/11, this is after the fact disaster management; the reality (which is a good lesson for the conspiracy theorists) is that there weren't fighters shooting down airliners because communication was spotty and often incorrect. The real lesson is that better communication and better cross-agency coordination is the real key to getting things done better, and that's why you shouldn't worry quite so much that Dick Cheney would try to kill you - he apparently can't coordiate the people needed to get it done. Not exactly comforting, but sort of.

Considering that an airline usually won't even tell you if your luggage is lost, it's easy to see why they didn't want to say that their airplane flew into the World Trade Center.

It's a situation that just begs for "I'm not authorized to disclose that information".

Then there's:

"We to this day don't know why NORAD [the North American Aerospace Command] told us what they told us," said Thomas H. Kean, the former New Jersey Republican governor who led the commission. "It was just so far from the truth. . . . It's one of those loose ends that never got tied."

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/08/pentagon-may-have-criminally-misled.html

I am sure that both Bush and Cheney were listening in NORAD's comm and FAAs comm during the attack and probably both could have ordered or commented on what was going in. Were there such tapes that we have not heard or allowed to hear?

Bon - A)There's nothing to suggest that and B) what would it tell them? NORAD couldn't figure out what was going on; the FAA was trying to ground every plane in the air. Information, such as it was, came in piecemeal and was incomplete and often contradictory. What, excatly, were they supposed to do with it? I'm only asking because I think there's these assumptions of all-seeing, all-knowingness that just don't bear up under scrutiny. The problem with this Administration is not their Master of the Universe Control of all Things; it's their inability to master the basics, to worry about process, and to get the details right. 9/11 caught them off guard and unprepared. Every piece of evidence points too even more disorganization, not less (and clearly, by the time Katrina hit, they hadn't learned any lessons from it). The conspiracy, if there is one, is about pursuing failure, not success.

Is it any surprise that not every airline company had people in place that could handle the situation on 9/11?

Large corporations aren't usually organizations that can react to anything in a couple hours.

the problem continues to be that the legitimate inquiries were prevented.

since the earliest days of aviation, aircraft accidents occuring in the usa were required to be investigated in a timely manner. this applied to all aircraft accidents, commercial as well as private.

to the best of my recollection, only 5 aircraft accidents were prohibited from investigation. and all by presidential decree.

one was jfkjr's accident which went uninvestigated by order of president william jefferson clinton.

the other four were those "collisions with terrain" that occurred on 11/09/01. by order of resident george walker bush.

that these formal investgations conducted by professional aviation accident investigators did not occur dictates that virtually every aspect of those catastrophes are conjectural, anecdotal.

consider the fact that if a real investigation had not been prevented, all major aircraft components at the accident sites would have been secured and retained for identification purposes. consider that landing gear components, engine components, would have had serial numbers that would have linked them to airliner tail numbers.

the question, "why was such a formal investigation prohibited by the resident?", continues to be relevant.

still intriguing, was the presence of joe albaugh's[sic] FEMA in manhattan that day for OPERATION TRIPOD[a very curious name, don't you think - WTC1,2,7. a tripod?].

it should not be forgotten that FEMA personnel took immediate charge of the manhattan site and imposed stringent control over the debris[the evidence].

since there was no legitimate role for this FEMA involvment, you would be wise to question what you think you know about the WTC catastrophes.

the tailoring of evidence can occur even with the most legitimate of investigations, of course. think on TWA 800. but even in that investigation, the aircraft was clearly identified, from debris, as the subject tailnumber. even though the conclusions of ntsb were tailored to reach a non-missile strike, most of the data of the empirical, physical investigation of the aircraft are unimpeachable.

i mention TWA800 because the detail in the investigation that was completely fraudulent was the detail furnished by the clinton dod.

it is also my observation that similar dod obfuscations occurred concerning the aviation accidents involving ALASKA261, SWISSAIR111,EGYPTAIR990.

i think that believing anything introduced at this date, by the dod, has to be considered a con. it is way too late for it to be probative.

Flight 77 Timetable.

8:20 am : Flight 77 departs from Dulles Airport. Some
20 miles from the Pentagon.

8:50 : Last radio communication with flight 77. Now some
260 miles from the Pentagon.

8:56 : Transponder contact is lost. Flight 77 is now some
300 miles from the Pentagon.

9:00 : Flight 77 turns and begins its return to the Pentagon, which is now over
300 miles from the Pentagon.

So after flying some 300 miles directly away from the Pentagon, the "hijackers" figure they should turn around and go back.

Our heroic hijackers wait till they are over 300 miles away from their target before turning back and returning to it, just to give the Air National Guard/USAF a fighting chance of shooting them down.

After all, they have given the USAF an extra 30 or 40 minutes to get aircraft up to investigate, and if necessary, shoot them down.

But the totally incompetent, USAF isn't up to the job of intercepting a large slow moving civilian aircraft within such a long period of time.

9:38 : AA77 crashes into the southwest side of the Pentagon. Now, precisely
0 miles from the Pentagon.

So, Why didn't the hijackers, hijack flight 77 immediately after takeoff, when only 30, or so, miles from the Pentagon?

So, Why didn't the USAF even investigate? Why was the USAF so tally and completely incompetent.

Because the whole flight 77 story is a fabrication, that's why.

From http://bb.domaindlx.com/911TheTruth/ and http://guardian.150m.com/

Large corporations aren't usually organizations that can react to anything in a couple hours.
Good!!

I guess the ironic thing is that their biggest cheerleaders and supporters in the West are liberals.

No, the biggest supporters are obviously the Wingers and Bush/Cheney. They have done more for recruitment and financial support than Osama could have ever hoped for. Osama gets his war with the infidels and Iran gets the Middle East.

Wingers could even screw up a wet dream...

You're kidding me, Watcher / slim -- you really believe no Jews died in the WTC?

larry birnbaum:

You haven't read the timeline Kevin linked to, have you. Bush clearly gave the order (unfortunately, or fortunately if you think about it) after Flight 93 had crashed. Don't tell me. Wacther / slim -- you think the Jews brought that plane down too?

From the story:

"Despite the fact that NEADS believes there may be as many as five suspected hijacked aircraft still in the air at this point — one from Canada, the new one bearing down fast on Washington, the phantom American 11, Delta 1989, and United 93 — the answer to Nasypany's question about rules of engagement comes back in no uncertain terms, as you hear him relay to the ops floor.

10:10:31
NASYPANY (to floor): Negative. Negative clearance to shoot.… Goddammit!…
FOX: I'm not really worried about code words at this point.
NASYPANY: Fuck the code words. That's perishable information. Negative clearance to fire. ID. Type. Tail."

. . .

"President Bush would finally grant commanders the authority to give that order at 10:18, which — though no one knew it at the time — was 15 minutes after the attack was over."

albertchampio:

What do you mean "investigations were prevented"? The FBI and NTSB were all over Flight 93 for months after 9/11. If there was no investigation, how do we suppose we know what was on the cockpit voice recorder for those last 31 minutes of sounds from the cockpit via microphones in the pilots’ headsets, as well as in the overhead panel of the flight deck? Did you go see the movie Flight 93?

This is the only recorder from the four hijacked airplanes to survive the impact and ensuing fire. Is that what you are complaining about? The CVRs and FDRs from American 11 and United 175 were never found, and the CVR from American Flight 77 was badly burned and not recoverable (cue Watcher / slim).

See FBI report,“CVR from UA Flight #93,”Dec. 4, 2003; see also FAA regulations, 14 C.F.R. §§ 25.1457, 91.609, 91.1045, 121.359; Flight 93 CVR data. A transcript of the CVR recording was prepared by the joint investigation by NTSB and the FBI.

"You're kidding me, you really believe,..."

Tell me who put the explosives in the WTC buildings and I will tell you exactly who did 9/11.

The Jews are covering up 9/11, big time, therefore the Jews were certainly, without any doubt at all, involved.

Was it only Jews? Well the Jews have so many operatives in the Masons, that they would have been involved as well, even if the Masons as individuals didn't realize what was going on.

9/11 was just another Jew false flag operation, like the Lavon affair (they got caught with this one (some of their operatives were hung)), and dozens of other Jew bombings etc, that have been blamed on the Arabs.

The whole point of 9/11, was to frame the Arabs a spark a general war on them, for Israel.

Pretty simple really.

The whole point of 9/11, was to frame the Arabs, in order to "justify" a war on them, for Israel.

Since there were no explosives, then I guess you can't tell me that. How about my original question though: "Do you think Jews died in the WTC or not?"

Kevin:

The Pentagon 9/11 report remains classified -- complain all you want about our right to know -- I'd much rather the bad guys not finding out everything that went wrong and how they can do better next time.

Saying that flight 93 wasn't shot down doesn't explain the debris field; there's been no credible explanation for the 8-mile scatter of debris that doesn't include a shoot-down.

Yeah, lots of Jews were killed, but only one,possibly two, Israelis.

I know the Jew false-opposition has spread "stories by Arabs" claiming no Jews died. The Jew false-opposition has spread many such false claims.

Jew terrorist are not adverse to killing large numbers of Jews, for example, on November 25, 1940,...

the liner Patria (berthed in Haifa harbor) exploded killing 267 Jews. Eventually, the Jewish terrorist group the Haganah was found to be to blame. Their pathetic excuse,... they had miscalculated the amount of explosives needed.

i shall reiterate, there were no investigations comparable to all of those involving aircraft collisions with terrain prior to 11/09/01.

if you want to believe the bushit-controlled fbi, doj, fema,dod - you are entitled to your idiocy.

just a minor rejoinder, do not forget how the bushit-controlled epa told the world that there were no hazards in the air in the wtc neighborhood. and months later, after having heard that epa vouchsafe for months, learning how the christy todd whitman lied to the public, we learn that the bushits want the authority to hide this kind of data. oh,i am so warm and fuzzy.

but it is worse than that, of course. perhaps i have misunderstood so many things about that day, and the evidence profered by the state. surely you can educate us, thomas.

for instance,

1. cell phone conversations from aircraft at altitude and cruising speed.

i think that without those conversations, there would be no evidence of any hijackings.

it was remarkable that day that cell phones were able to cement connections, conduct long-term conversations, which technically cannot be implemented as of august 2006.

the cell phone conversation evidence is fraudulent. and when you throw it out because it cannot have occurred, you have no evidence of any hijackings.

and this is a technological verity.

2. the passenger manifests. perhaps you have an explanation why none of the "hijackers" appear on the passenger manifests. why the passenger counts fail to reveal their presence.

i have been flying my own light plane and flying commercially for decades. the passenger manifests and the passenger counts can be considered the gold standard of airliner inventory. just as every bit of booze is accounted for, on each flight, so is every seat.

if you doubt that, you don't know anything about airline sop.

3. there is the inconvenient truth that the timeline proposed by the vanity fair rag doesn't cut it.

as i read it, this is rudely pronounced when the timing of the transponder turn-offs are noticed.

as a rule, the disappearance of a transponder signature of any aircraft that has filed an instrument flight plan is grounds for "scrambling" interceptor aircraft.

surely that was the lesson of the payne stewart jet charter. if you don't recall how that event was handled by norad, do tell. i shall be pleased to educate you.

the events of that day are so monstrously treasonous that i consider anyone defending the official explanation as a traitor.

consider the aircraft strike at the pentagon, for instance. no evidence left for examination is the official explanation. it just vaporized. have to tell you, in the history of aviation accidents, aircraft have never vaporized into nothingness.

and then let us consider the disappearance of the airliner outside of shanksville, pa. the official story is that the airliner was swallowed by the ground...no evidentiary residue.

if you buy into that bushit tale, are you related to the bushits?

and that is how i care to leave it for now.

there was no terrorist attack that day.

as ubl said, he had nothing to do with whatever it was that happened that day. but i guess most of you forget that tape. you like those later ones that were prepared in langley.

because you really like the fiction[s] that will cover your homicidal predilections.

The wackos are out late tonight!

so, here we go again...

if you refuse to kowtow to thomas, you are a "wacko".

so interesting. because thomas refrains from contesting the reality-based critiques of the events of that day.

why is that thomas? is it because you cannot?

the reality of cellphone transmissions - thomas avoids.

the reality of passenger manifests - thomas avoids.

thomas wants to promote the idea that if one disagrees with the official explanation, one is a "wacko".

the real "wacko" here is thomas.

anyone defending the "official" explanation is the "wacko".

No, anyone complaining about "no investigations" but when given the evidence of an investigation, comes back with "if you want to believe the bushit-controlled" NTSB, FBI, DOJ, FEMA, and DOD - is a wacko. There were legitimate explanations for everything you've raised, but it is obvious that will do no good with you.

You actually made the most sense complaining about the death tax.

"Oh, and one other thing. Why did the Pentagon release the full NORAD recording from 9/11 to a film producer but not to anyone else? Shouldn't this have been publicly released long ago if it wasn't classified?"

And to one who promoted the status quo bullshit.

This is moderately interesting, but I wonder whether NORAD's primary problem was that they were still operating in a Cold War mode, expecting attacks from over the North Pole (from Russia, of course) or other external sources, rather than attacks from planes that took off from the US.

It has been reported that the planes had left the air controllers' radar screens because their transponders had been turned off from the cockpit. I am amazed that transponders can be turned off from the cockpit.

"It has been reported that the planes had left the air controllers' radar screens because their transponders had been turned off from the cockpit."

This is clearly false. Planes don't stop reflecting radio signals (radar) when the transponder is turned off. If they did stealth technology would be trivial.

Planes with their transponders turned off are clearly visible on radar screens.

All a transponder does is to send out the planes name, altitude, etc, sort of an aviation greeting card.

Turning a transponder off, makes the plane STAND OUT LIKE A SORE THUMB.

Since, turning the transponder off, doesn't hide the plane, and, in fact, makes the plane stand out like a sore thumb, no hijacker would ever turn off the planes transponder.

So why did the press report that the transponders on all 3 planes were turned off.

Because, the press fabricated (i.e, made up) much of the story, that's why.

"So after flying some 300 miles directly away from the Pentagon, the "hijackers" figure they should turn around and go back"

No, it took a certain amount of time to actually hi-jack the plane and take over the controls (40 minutes, apparently). You think the hijackers are going to take over the plane before it's taken off?

slim:

Did you even read the timeline Kevin linked to? The transponder / radar issue was dealt with therein.

One wishes that conspiracy theorists were right in their assumption that the American government is competent to accomplish what it sets out to do.

Three things:
1. National security bungles are to be expected from an administration that was still fighting the Cold War.
2. We will get nowhere from blame but somewhere from constructive criticism.
3. A Democrat is not weak on homeland safety. Contrary, they are probably stronger.

"The transponder / radar issue was dealt with therein."

Oh really,... tell us all about it. Or is this just another lie for the unaware public?

Read for yourself. After 9/11, NORAD upgraded to state-of-the-art equipment.

I don't get it. Why would you express minimum wage as a percentage of median? There doesn't seem to be any real logic to that. It might make some sense to look minimum wage in regard to per capita GDP, but median wage seems like an irrelevant comparison.

OTOH, I have to agree with your conservative friend: that things like this only get publicized if they serve the right is part of the reason the left is losing. And its not just that the right has unreasonably low standards; while this is, at best, minimal evidence, it is the kind of thing that rightly would, if publicized, put pressure on the right to make its case rather than just asserting on an "everyone knows" basis that higher minimum wages will "of course

let us talk about norad equipment for a moment.

though someone cares to assert that it was inadequate, out of date, i sure recall being intercepted on more than a few occasions when i flew my light twin into forbidden areas.

and of course, there is that "uncommented upon by thomas" paine stewart's lear charter.

very few want to deal with that. but allow me to note it. on an instrument flight plan[required of all jet aircraft, all airliners], the charter pilot had been instructed to report when reaching 30,000 ft. that didn't happen.

within minutes, faa controllers reported this to the north amerikan defense command[norad]. within 20 minutes of that report, interceptors were directed towards that lear. an a-10 from macdill that was airborne and on exercise station. and two f16's launched from eglin[ft walton] when it was noted that the a-10 could not make the intercept.

the f16's made the intercept and followed the unresponsive lear until they became fuel short. they were replaced by interceptors out of oklahoma. who followed the lear until it ran out of fuel and augured into an unpopulated area.

now, i want to inform you that this vanity fair piece is a large bit of con.

the notion that norad was unable to monitor aircraft is a large bit of bullshit.

i have strayed into adiz areas over the years. i have been surrounded by interceptors within minutes of my straying.

anyone who tries to tell you that norad is incompetent, inadequate is spinning one large yarn.

The Pentagon 9/11 report remains classified -- complain all you want about our right to know -- I'd much rather the bad guys not finding out everything that went wrong and how they can do better next time.
Thank you! http://cigarettes.net-resort.com/ Buy Cheap cigarettes

That bold text is really visible. As a fully qualified psychiatric neurosurgeon, I would venture that it represents shouting aloud - either that or a defect in the hippocampus requiring a complete lobotomy."

and what does never hitting the shift key represent? havving spent all your political capitals?

"Planes with their transponders turned off are clearly visible on radar screens.

All a transponder does is to send out the planes name, altitude, etc, sort of an aviation greeting card.

Turning a transponder off, makes the plane STAND OUT LIKE A SORE THUMB."

If an aircraft is above Flight Level 180 (18,000 Ft.) and the controller is working a high altitude sector he will normally have his primary turned off. When a transponder is turned off you will see nothing, until the controller turns the primary on, normally just a push of a button. Then a controller has to find the primary target amongst ground clutter, and any other moving aircraft. For a civilian ATC usually it doesn't take very long, but the FAA has a lot of the ground clutter filtered out. The military uses the exact same radar site as ours, however they decrease the filters because they are required to try and receive all primary targets. It is harder for them to spot a primary then it is for us. A sore thumb I don't think so, but they can be found.

CheapShot

"Radar is the NEADS controllers' most vital piece of equipment, but by 9/11 the scopes were so old, among other factors, that controllers were ultimately unable to find any of the hijacked planes in enough time to react. Known collectively as the Green Eye for the glow the radar rings give off, the scopes looked like something out of Dr. Strangelove and were strikingly anachronistic compared with the equipment at civilian air-traffic sites. (After 9/11, NEADS was equipped with state-of-the-art equipment.)

In order to find a hijacked airliner—or any airplane—military controllers need either the plane's beacon code (broadcast from an electronic transponder on board) or the plane's exact coordinates. When the hijackers on American 11 turned the beacon off, intentionally losing themselves in the dense sea of airplanes already flying over the U.S. that morning (a tactic that would be repeated, with some variations, on all the hijacked flights), the NEADS controllers were at a loss.

"You would see thousands of green blips on your scope," Nasypany told me, "and now you have to pick and choose. Which is the bad guy out there? Which is the hijacked aircraft? And without that information from F.A.A., it's a needle in a haystack."

At this point in the morning, more than 3,000 jetliners are already in the air over the continental United States, and the Boston controller's direction — "35 miles north of Kennedy" — doesn't help the NEADS controllers at all."

albertchampion:

The transponder was never turned off on the jet that carried Payne Stewart to his death. That's a major difference, don't you think? Although, as I recall, President Clinton authorized the shoot-down of that civilian plane as well:

http://www.ntsb.gov/Publictn/2000/aab0001.htm

slim:

Did you ever read the link?

But, now I know why you brought up Stewart's plane crash, from this web site about the 9/11 "conspiracy" http://www.wanttoknow.info/991026dallasmorningnews :

"There was some speculation Monday that the military jets were prepared to shoot down the Lear if it threatened to crash in a heavily populated area. But officials at the Pentagon strongly denied that possibility.

Shooting down the plane "was never an option," Air Force spokesman Capt. Joe Della Vedova said. "I don't know where that came from."

Instead, according to an Air Force timeline, a series of military planes provided an emergency escort to the stricken Lear, beginning with a pair of F-16 Falcons from the Air National Guard at Tyndall Air Force Base, Fla., about 20 minutes after ground controllers lost contact.

An F-16 and an A-10 Warthog attack plane from Eglin Air Force Base, Fla., took up the chase a few minutes later and were trailing the Lear when it climbed abruptly from 39,000 to 44,000 feet at 9:52 a.m. CDT.

Fifteen minutes later, the F-16 intercepted the Lear, the pilot reporting no movement in the cockpit.

At 10:44 a.m., the fighters from Eglin diverted to St. Louis for fuel. Fifteen minutes later, four Air National Guard F-16s from Tulsa, Okla., took up the chase, accompanied by a KC-135 refueling tanker.

F-16s from Fargo, N.D., later scrambled to intercept the Lear jet, too. At noon Dallas time, the Fargo F-16s reported that the windows of the jet were fogged with ice and there was no evidence anyone was piloting the plane.

At 12:14, the Lear jet began to spiral. It crashed about six minutes later."

That's why I linked to the actual NTSB report of Stewart's plane crash. 0927 to 0952 was more than 20 minutes from last contact to intercept - and that quick intercept was possible only because the transponder was on -- you do realize the 9/11 hijackers turned those off, right?

Great post. Ver helpfull.

I have alot of good information like this on my site.
Check it out when you get a chance!

Http://www.axxsis.com