Posted on 08/29/2002 5:33:11 PM PDT by The Energizer
Thursday, 29 August, 2002, 21:09 GMT 22:09 UK US considered 'suicide jet missions'
US Air Force commanders considered crashing fighter jets into hijacked planes on 11 September because of a lack of armed planes, a BBC investigation reveals. In the immediate aftermath of the terror attacks US fighter planes took to the skies to defend America from any further attacks.
Their mission was to protect President George W Bush and to intercept any hijacked aircraft heading to other targets in the US.
But, as a new BBC programme Clear The Skies reveals, the threat of an attack from within America had been considered so small that the entire US mainland was being defended by only 14 planes.
As a result unarmed planes were diverted from training missions in a desperate bid to increase the number of fighter planes patrolling American airspace.
Colonel Robert Marr was Commander of the North East Defence Sector and remembers the words that came over the secure phone "we will take lives in the air to preserve lives on the ground".
US military unprepared
However, at the time of the attacks the US had just four fighter pilots on alert covering the north eastern United States.
Colonel Marr: Too few planes to defend the US
US pilots were forced to take to the skies without any weapons and might have had to deliberately crash into a hijacked plane to prevent casualties on the ground.
"I had determined, of course, that with only four aircraft we cannot defend the whole north eastern United States," he said.
"Some of them would have just gotten in the air possibly without any armament onboard.
"If you had to stop an aircraft sometimes the only way to stop an aircraft is with your own aircraft if you don't have any weapons.
"It was very possible that they [the pilots] would have been asked to give their lives themselves to try to prevent further attacks if need be."
Colonel Marr said: "That was the sense of frustration, of I don't have the forces available to do anything about this, we've got everything up that we can get up and still can't do anything."
Two of the pilots patrolling north east America told the programme how they struggled to get to New York as fast as possible after the first plane had hit the World Trade Center.
Pilots "Duff" and "Nasty" recalled they were only minutes away when the second plane hit the towers.
Pilot Duff said: "For a long time I wondered what would have happened if we had been scrambled in time.
"We've been over the flight a thousand times in our minds and I don't know what we could have done to get there any quicker."
This has to be complete and utter BS. The friggin' Brits love to toss this kind of misinformation around as if they know what they're talking about.
There would have been more than four pilots in F15s on alert at Otis AFB on the Cape alone. And I know that the Air Force has a wing stationed at or near Bradley Int'l in Connecticut.
Jet fighters which are unarmed, are not entirely disabled --- they do not necessarily have to ram another aircraft to bring it down.
I think people who are in the business of saving lives would be unable to make such a decision or to live with themselves if it was made. Some people think it's better to die trying. That is the mark of a hero, I think.
Yeah, but why would it have been strange to have only four jets in the air, or ready to launch, regardless of how many squadrons we have on the East Coast.
It takes time to take a jet from stone cold to airborne. Having jets on standby wears the jets big-time, and costs like the dickens. On Sept 11th we were in a peacetime situation, with no apparent military threat. It wasn't the cold war where they had thousands of jets on the ground ready to launch in 15 minutes. The only jets up in the air would have been those training, and a handful of jets used for drug intradiction.
Even the paranoid Soviets had troubles keeping their intradiction forces ready 24-7. Remember Matthias Rust (AFAIR), who landed a 152 on Red Square after flying from W. Germany. Or how about KAL 007. It spent three-four hours over Soviet airspace with the Soviets scrambling like mad to get planes up in the air after it. They finally got two -- and only two -- in the air.
Like Toby Keith sang we "got sucker-punched from somewhere in the back."
You never heard of Gruppe Elbe? They were have half trained Luftwaffe pilots who rammed B-17's in the last days of the war. Scores died but few bombers were lost. Ramming was a matter of course in the Soviet Air Force. It was even being considered decades after the war.
It seems correct that only a few birds were on Zulu alert status since the end of the cold-war and pre 9/11. There probably was only 4 F-15s(which is the standard) on alert at Otis to cover the Northern to Central coast states. I Never heard of Bradley Int in Connecticut doing 24/7 strip alert. Bradley obviously an ANG or AF Reserve station. I wonder what AFB or ANG is tasked to cover the South-East US seaboard?
It's called a CAP-9 and the the guidance control unit is a passive seeker. You can tell an inert missile from by its blue band markings. Yellow painted bands = high explosive and the rocket moter would have brown painted bands --medium explosive.
Suicide missions may not be part of the national culture but "Duty, Honor and Country" are. Many pilots have ridden their planes down to avoid hitting populated areas. In my Air Force career, I have known pilots that would do ( and have done) anything necessary to protect their buddies like intentionally drawing fire. The type of mission depicted in this article is derived from the same necessity.
Also, based on the article, the possibility of a shootdown in Pennsylvania is debunked. There were true heroes on that plane who also made the same type of decision, giving their life to save others, that the pilots would have faced.
Conspiracy theorists can save the flaming, it just ain't right to trash these heroes.
They could farm out the duty to the ChiComs. I understand they have recent hands-on experience in this area.
--Boris
I agree with you except the MOH is awarded not won.
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