- Dear Jeff,
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- The vital perspective provided by this pilot raises
as many questions as it answers on - "Where Was The U.S. Air Force
When We Needed It On 9-11?" - the answer is, they were in-flight along
the Atlantic seaboard, but didn't follow regulations to intercept
those off-course and unresponsive airliners - WHY? I hope you will
post this along with the testimony given on September 13th, two days
after, by General Richard Myers before the Senate Armed Services
Committee. The questions by senators on 9-11 and his answers
outrageously insult the intelligence of the senators, and by extension
the congress and the American public. Nevertheless General Myers was
promoted to Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, in spite of his dereliction
of duty and criminal negligence on the morning of 9-11.
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-
Posted on the KPFK 90.7 FM Listener Online
Bulletin Board
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By Michael Guillaume
6-9-2
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- I am a pilot and I know what happens to me when I
lose my transponder. The controllers console immediately alerts him to
the fact since he no longer has my transponder code and altitude. This
causes him a graet deal of trouble and very shortly I get trouble
also. I am usually instructed to stay below 3,500 feet and return to
the airport. The reason for the concern is that I am a hazard to
navigation. Now imagine the situation in the Air Route Traffic Control
Center (commonly abreviated to "center").
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- This is in the northeast corner of the U.S., the
busiest airspace on the planet. Each controller has a wedged shaped
sector that he is responsible for. His airspace is also bounded by
altitude limits. Commercial flights, refferred to as heavies, are
always under positive control. They must constantly be in
communication with the controllers in order to maintain legal
seperation. If one of these heavies loses its transponder, it causes
instant problems for more than one controller since altitude
information is lost.
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- The controllers still have a skin paint, or passive
echo from the airframe, but the blip now shows up on all consoles for
that sector, not just the original one that was handling the altitude
range of the flight. If that same flight loses communication with the
controllers as well, the controller work load takes another giant step
upward. Keep in mind that this is in an area that is normally
stretched to the breaking point with controller overload. This flight
is now a hazard to air navigation, and the controllers primary
function of seperating the planes is in jeopardy.
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- The procedure for lost communication emergencies is
simple: follow your last clearance. If the flight under discussion
follows its last clearance, the controllers can predict where it will
go and can still keep other flights out of harms way. If in addition
to losing communication and transponder the flight starts to deviate
from its last clearance, the whole system is in an emergency
condition. Alarms all over the country would be going off. One
interesting piece of information is the recording of controller and
pilote conversations. These tapes are a matter of public record and
are written over after a few days unless something interesting
happens. These tapes would show the response of the system. Where are
they?
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- So, we know that the traffic control system would be
in panic mode within two to three minutes of the initial events. We
know that Otis Airforce Base is only five minutes from Manhatten by
F15. We know that the controllers always had a passive return form the
planes and could vector an intercept. The last Airmans Informatiion
Manual I bought has a date of 1989 and it describes intercept
procedures. So we know that intercepts have been routine low level
events since at least that time.
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- We know that there is an Air Defence Intercept Zone
just off shore for the entire Atlantic Coast. This zone is constantly
being patrolled. In general fast movers would not need to be
scrambled. They can be diverted from routine patrol and training
flights for the intercept. I know from experience that early morning
flights are every pilots favorite. You preflight the plane in the dark
and take off. Even in a Cessna breaking out into the bright clear
sunshine from the dark earth below is a kick. In an F15 doing Mach 1
straight up would make it impossible to stop grinning. The odds are
that many flights would be on patrol just off shore. It would be most
improbable that even one commercial flight could go more than ten
minutes without being intercepted. The intercepting plane would slowly
close from the left and take station slightly above and ahead of the
errant heavy. At this pont he would rock his wings and expect the
other plane to do the same as a form of non verbal communication.
After this he would perform a gentle turn to the left and the
intercepted plane is required to follow. If this does not occur, there
are many actions short of firing the fighter can take to prevent the
commercial jet from harming either itself, any other plane, or any
ground structure.
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- Interceptions are routine daily occurrances. The
fact that they didn't happen under extreme provocation raises some
serious questions. I hope Mary Schiavo will ask them.
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- http://disc.server.com/discussion.cgi?id=165346&article=10650
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- General Myers' Confirmation Hearing
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- Senate Armed Services Committee Holds Hearing On
Nomination of General Richard Myers to be Chairman of The Joint Chiefs
of Staff, Washington, D.C. , SEPTEMBER 13, 2001
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- SENATOR LEVIN: Was the Defense Department contacted
by the FAA or the FBI or any other agency after the first two hijacked
aircraft crashed into the World Trade Center, prior to the time that
the Pentagon was hit?
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- GENERAL MYERS: Sir, I don't know the answer to that
question. I can get that for you, for the record... That order, to the
best of my knowledge, was after the Pentagon was struck. ... I was
with Senator Cleland when this happened and went back to the Pentagon.
And they were evacuating, of course, the Pentagon at the time. And I
went into the National Military Command Center because that's
essentially my battle station when things are happening.
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- SENATOR LEVIN: Was the Defense Department contacted
by the FAA or the FBI or any other agency after the first two hijacked
aircraft crashed into the World Trade Center, prior to the time that
the Pentagon was hit?
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- GENERAL MYERS: Sir, I don't know the answer to that
question. I can get that for you, for the record.
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- SENATOR LEVIN: Thank you. Did the Defense Department
take -- or was the Defense Department asked to take action against any
specific aircraft?
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- GENERAL MYERS: Sir, we were . . .
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- SENATOR LEVIN: And did you take action against --
for instance, there has been statements that the aircraft that crashed
in Pennsylvania was shot down. Those stories continue to exist.
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- GENERAL MYERS: Mr. Chairman, the armed forces did
not shoot down any aircraft. When it became clear what the threat was,
we did scramble fighter aircraft, AWACS, radar aircraft and tanker
aircraft to begin to establish orbits in case other aircraft showed up
in the FAA system that were hijacked. But we never actually had to use
force.
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- SENATOR CLELAND: General, it's a good thing that, as
I look back at that morning, that you and I were meeting. It's a good
thing we were meeting here and not us meeting in the Pentagon because
about the time you and I were having our visit, discussing the need to
boost our conventional forces, to look at the question of terrorism
and attacks on the United States, at just about that very moment, the
Pentagon was being hit.
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- GERERAL MYERS: Yes, sir.
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- SENATOR BILL NELSON: ... General Myers, The second
World Trade tower was hit shortly after 9:00. And the Pentagon was hit
approximately 40 minutes later. That's approximately. You would know
specifically what the timeline was.
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- The crash that occurred in Pennsylvania after the
Newark westbound flight was turned around 180 degrees and started
heading back to Washington was approximately an hour after the World
Trade Center second explosion. You said earlier in your testimony that
we had not scrambled any military aircraft until after the Pentagon
was hit. And so, my question would be: why?
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- GENERAL MYERS: I think I had that right, that it was
not until then. I'd have to go back and review the exact
timelines.
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- SENATOR BILL NELSON: ... If we knew that there was a
general threat on terrorist activity, which we did, and we suddenly
have two trade towers in New York being obviously hit by terrorist
activity, of commercial airliners taken off course from Boston to Los
Angeles, then what happened to the response of the defense
establishment once we saw the diversion of the aircraft headed west
from Dulles turning around 180 degrees and, likewise, in the aircraft
taking off from Newark and, in flight, turning 180 degrees? That's the
question.
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- I leave it to you as to how you would like to answer
it. But we would like an answer.
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- GENERAL MYERS: You bet. I spoke, after the second
tower was hit, I spoke to the commander of NORAD, General Eberhart.
And at that point, I think the decision was at that point to start
launching aircraft...
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- In this case, if my memory serves me -- and I'll
have to get back to you for the record -- my memory says that we had
launched on the one that eventually crashed in Pennsylvania. I mean,
we had gotten somebody close to it, as I recall. I'll have to check
that out.
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- SENATOR BILL NELSON: ... Commenting from CNN on the
timeline, 9:03 is the correct time that the United Airlines flight
crashed into the south tower of the World Trade Center; 9:43 is the
time that American Airlines flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon. And
10:10 a.m. is the time that United Airlines flight 93 crashed in
Somerset County, Pennsylvania.
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- So that was 40 minutes between the second tower
being hit and the Pentagon crash. And it is an hour and seven minutes
until the crash occurred in Pennsylvania.
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- SENATOR LEVIN: The time that we don't have is when
the Pentagon was notified, if they were, by the FAA or the FBI or any
other agency, relative to any potential threat or any planes having
changed direction or anything like that. And that's the same which you
will give us because that's . . .
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- GENERAL MYERS: I can answer that. At the time of the
first impact on the World Trade Center, we stood up our crisis action
team. That was done immediately.
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- So we stood it up. And we started talking to the
federal agencies. The time I do not know is when NORAD responded with
fighter aircraft. I don't know that time.
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- SENATOR LEVIN: Or the time that I asked you for,
which was whether the FAA or FBI notified you that other planes had
turned direction from their path, their scheduled path, and were
returning or aiming towards Washington, whether there was any notice
from any of them, because that's such an obvious shortfall if there
wasn't.
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- GENERAL MYERS: Right.
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- SENATOR LEVIN: And in any event, but more important,
if you could get us that information.
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- GENERAL MYERS: It probably happened. As you
remember, I was not in the Pentagon at that time, so that part of it
is a little hazy. After that, we started getting regular notifications
through NORAD, FAA to NORAD, on other flights that we were worried
about.
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- And we knew about the one that eventually crashed in
Pennsylvania. I do not know, again, whether we had fighters scrambled
on it. I have to . . .
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- SENATOR LEVIN: If you could get us those times then.
We know you don' t know them.
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- GENERAL MYERS: But we'll get them.
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- http://emperors-clothes.com/9-11backups/mycon.htm
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