NORAD had 51 minutes from the first tower attack. There was plenty of time to intercept, attempt to negotiate, threat, and eventually make the horrible decision to shoot down #77. Mistakes were made. Hind sight 20/20 is an understatement.
Posted on 08/03/2006 10:28:57 AM PDT by Lorianne
I go with the way it was depicted in United 93. Essentially, chaos and lack of protocol. Can't respond like clockwork that that which is well outside previous scenarios and gaming. Fault is with the lack of creativity in said scenarios and gaming. End of discussion. Learn from it and move on.
This is also very good
911 Case Study: Pentagon Flight 77 interesting… just click the link below
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVDdjLQkUV8
Very good.
Thanks.
| 08:37:58 | Otis calls North East Air Defense (NEAD) asking about the possible hi-jack and NEAD says they are working on it. |
| 08:39:58 | Boston Center tells NEAD there is a possible threat to the cockpit |
| 08:44:59 | NEAD orders Otis to scramble two jets toward NYC |
| 08:46:36 | NEAD still cannot locate Flight 11. |
| 08:51:11 | NEAD gets first report of Flight 11 crash |
| 08:52:40 | NEAD confirms continue sending Otis jets toward NYC |
| 08:55:18 | Boston Center tells NEAD "he crashed into the World Trade Center" |
| 08:56:31 | NEAD calls Boston Center for confirmation, but Boston Center cannot confirm its Flight 11 |
Next, the author explains that "American Airlines refused to confirm for several hours that its plane had hit the tower." To me, that is just unbelievable on American Airlines part.
Another interesting tidbit from the story is that NORAD had only 14 jets to cover the US, and of these, NEAD had only four jets to cover the whole north east air defense (two at Otis and 2 at Langley).
Tracking is one thing. Shooting down a civilian airplane loaded with passengers is quite another.
Was anybody at 9:00 AM EST on Sept, 11, 2001 ready to accept civilian planes being shot down by an F15? >>>
No way!
thanks.
Dad is almost 80, and I have patiently tried to explain the sweeping nonsense that has infiltrated virtually avenue of our lives with some little success, and recently I had tried to explain to him some of the "conspiracy" nonsense that is making the rounds these days about the 9-11-01 mass murders. I don't think he could comprehend what I was talking about, till he saw the C-Span deal yesterday. What we're witnessing is more or less the same thing that happened with the Kennedy assasination. Deflect blame everywhere but where it lays.
Thanks for reading the story.
Prior to 9/11/2001, the doctrine was to wait out the hijackers, get the plane down safe and negotiate -- or storm the plane -- on the ground. It was the best approach to every hijacking to date.
You can argue from 20/20 hindsight that the planes should have been shot down, but the argument was equally valid that they should have been grounded before they ever took off. Or that Mohammed Atta should have been killed in kindergarten.
Everything is unprecedented the first time, and the 9/11 hijackers had the element of surprise. That tactic will not work again. It didn't even remain effective for one morning, once the Flight 93 passengers knew what was going on.
The wargames on morn of 9/11 from an analysis of the confused/slow response to the 4 hijacked planes and NORAD and FAA inaccuracies in testimony before 911 Commission appeared on website JusticeFor911.org :
" Military jets ordinarily available in the Northeastern Aerospace Defense Sector (NEADS) were apparently diverted to other sectors for a set of ongoing NORAD wargames (in coordination with Canada) under the headings of Northern Vigilance, Vigilant Guardian, Vigilant Warrior, Northern Guardian and possibly other, as-yet unreleased operation names (Toronto Star, 12/9/01; Aviation Week, 6/3/02; Newhouse News, 1/25/02; Richard Clarke, Against All Enemies, 2004). An additional, apparently separate drill was scheduled for 8:30 a.m. on the morning of 9/11/01, under the direction of CIA officer John Fulton. It was intended to simulate the crash of an "errant plane" into the headquarters of the National Reconnaissance Office ("NRO") near Washington (AP, 8/21/01). The government has never released a statement about whether any office was coordinating the multiple wargames and exercises held on September 11, which appear to have also involved operations within NEADS. A full investigation of the events would give priority to determining who was in charge.
NORAD personnel in Rome, New York who received first reports of hijackings within NEADS, including Col. Robert K. Marr and Lt. Col. Dawne Deskins, are reported to have asked if this was "real or exercise" (Newhouse News, 1/25/02; Aviation Week, 6/3/02). This implies that the scenarios for the wargames within NEADS on September 11 were strikingly similar to the actual attacks that unfolded that morning (as was the NRO exercise). A full investigation would explore the question of whether these wargames contributed to the confusion that prevented timely air defense response, and whether this may in fact have been intended by parties involved in the planning of the wargames in the first place, or whether information about the wargames was delivered via moles to the agents responsible for the hijackings (see, Ruppert, Crossing the Rubicon, 2004)
source: http://www.justicefor911.org/iiA1_AirDefense_111904.php
I used to be an amateur student of conspiracy theories, from John Birch publications to JFK theories, Trilaterals, CFR, Bilderbergers, all the usual stuff. I sought that stuff out in browsing used book stores.
What fascinated me (as someone who would go on to be a political science major and philosophy minor) about it was the intricacy of its thought process. People who rely on facts always have gaps in their knowledge, because some facts simply aren't known or are pretty solid but with some margin of doubt.
Conspiracy theorists, on the other hand, have no gaps. There is an explanation for everything, and if there is no evidence to support that explanation or if there is evidence to the contrary, it's because the conspiracy covered up or manufactured the evidence.
That requires treating complicated subjects as very simple -- as if image analysis, engineering, metallurgy, acoustics, forensics and chemistry are something a self-appointed "investigator" can grasp and convey to readers with a little self-study. Anyone with actual expertise or credentials is obviously part of the conspiracy and not to be trusted.
It also requires treating simple and obvious facts as complex. Despite the fact that millions of people saw two commercial airliners fly into the World Trade Center, and hundreds if not thousands of them photographed it; despite the fact that hundreds of families put their loved ones on planes and never saw them again; despite the fact that scientists and engineers from every reputable organization back the official version; the conspiracy theorists squint to find unexplained shadows in a couple of pixels and spin fanciful yarns supported by such compelling arguments as "are we to believe ..." or "isn't it possible ..."
One author, I can't remember who, explained the rash of JFK conspiracy theories thus: The Nazis and the Holocaust made instinctive sense; greatest crime, greatest criminals. But the idea that Oswald alone could kill JFK, that a hapless loser could pull off an act that so shocked millions of people, doesn't fit. Cognitive dissonance sets in. There is an instinctive need for a bigger villain. So a lot of folks are willing to cling to a tenuous presentation of "facts" because it gives the sense of proportion they crave, and they want to believe.
9/11 has a similar effect. How could nineteen people pull this off? Answer: They were disciplined and patient. They were well-funded and well-taught by people who had experience in how to wound a superpower using its own strength against it. Evil isn't stupid. And, unlike Good, it isn't complacent or naive. A lot of Americans can't accept that that explanation, and must look for a larger villain behind the crime.
Then there are political motivations. A surprise attack inevitably leads to war, and war inevitably leads to greater domestic powers for the government. By radically simplifying the question sui generis -- who benefits -- folks of a conspiratorial mindset will conclude that the government must have rigged the attack as an excuse for war.
It's not new. There are still theories afloat that the U.S. government engineered or allowed the attacks on the Lusitania and on Pearl Harbor, because Wilson and Franklin, respectively, needed a pretense to bring the US into a foreign war. This isn't always a fringe phenomenon; after WWI, Congressional committees concluded that the US involvement in that war was the result of a conspiracy between the financial industry (which leant money to the Allies) and the munitions industry.
But the history of conspiracies is the most powerful argument against these theories. My Lai couldn't be covered up for longer than weeks, nor Watergate for longer than months. The XYZ affair and the Zimmerman Telegram were blown almost before they started.
It's an old maxim in the intelligence community that the odds of keeping a secret are inversely proportionate to the square of the people who know the secret. A conspiracy involving thousands of people and spanning years is wildly unlikely on its face.
And a tenth of a second is plenty of time to track, lower the bat, adjust your stance, and drive a 96-mph fastball into the parking lot. If you know it's coming, and you're one of the 0.01 percent of the population that makes it look easy. I'll scream at a player who whiffs at strike 3 in the dirt, but I know I couldn't do the easiest part of his job on my best day.
The FAA and NORAD, even after they were alerted that we were under attack, were faced with a scenario they had not modeled, had not practiced, had not anticipated. They had formidable assets to track and shoot down planes coming from international airspace. but who was planning to stop an attack between Wheeling and Arlington? And how do you pick out the threat from the tens of thousands of aircraft being tracked at the time?
Mistakes were made. Hind sight 20/20 is an understatement.
Okay, genius. Tell me what you would have done differently. Be specific. Which planes would you have sent, from where, at what time. Assume no information that the people who actually had to make those decisions did not have at the time. Even under those conditions, you have the luxury of having had five years to think about it.
If you don't know this you're an idiot or ignorant !
Thanks for the reply and time you invested in it. Great read!
How many would have died if that plane had been shot down over the financial district in Manhattan. Imagine the aircraft exploding downward onto numerous other skycrapers.
I cannot imagine such a thing.
But then I cannot imagine the deliberate ignoring of the gathering threat.......that lasted at least since our marines were slaughtered in Lebanon.
I am really confused.....why on GMA were they referring to some "admission" that Cheyney and Bush lied about calling up the F16s before the flight 93 went down?? I don't see that anywhere in what I have read??
This info does lead one to wonder what are the odds that at the very time NORAD was conducting these excercises, leaving the NE quadrant of the country very vulnerable, the terrorists were in the process of hijacking and heading these planes towards NYC........how lucky could they have been?
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