Portugal's National Weekend Newspaper in English

FRONT PAGE STORY - 03/08/2002

September 11 - US Government accused

A Portugal-based investigative journalist has presented THE NEWS with version of the September 11th attacks that has to date failed to attract the attention of the international press. The report, compiled by an independent inquiry into the September 11th, World Trade Centre attack, warns the American public that the government’s official version of events does not stand up to scrutiny.

A group of military and civilian US pilots, under the chairmanship of Colonel Donn de Grand, after deliberating non-stop for 72 hours, has concluded that the flight crews of the four passenger airliners, involved in the September 11th tragedy, had no control over their aircraft.

In a detailed press communiqué the inquiry stated: “The so-called terrorist attack was in fact a superbly executed military operation carried out against the USA, requiring the utmost professional military skill in command, communications and control. It was flawless in timing, in the choice of selected aircraft to be used as guided missiles and in the coordinated delivery of those missiles to their pre-selected targets.”

The report seriously questions whether or not the suspect hijackers, supposedly trained on Cessna light aircraft, could have located a target dead-on 200 miles from take off point. It further throws into doubt their ability to master the intricacies of the instrument flight rules (IFR) in the 45 minutes from take off to the point of impact. Colonel de Grand said that it would be impossible for novices to have taken control of the four aircraft and orchestrated such a terrible act requiring military precision of the highest order.

A member of the inquiry team, a US Air Force officer who flew over 100 sorties during the Vietnam war, told the press conference: “Those birds (commercial airliners) either had a crack fighter pilot in the left seat, or they were being manoeuvred by remote control.”

In evidence given to the enquiry, Captain Kent Hill (retd.) of the US Air Force, and friend of Chic Burlingame, the pilot of the plane that crashed into the Pentagon, stated that the US had on several occasions flown an unmanned aircraft, similar in size to a Boeing 737, across the Pacific from Edwards Air Force base in California to South Australia. According to Hill it had flown on a pre programmed flight path under the control of a pilot in an outside station.

Hill also quoted Bob Ayling, former British Airways boss, in an interview given to the London Economist on September 20th, 2001. Ayling admitted that it was now possible to control an aircraft in flight from either the ground or in the air. This was confirmed by expert witnesses at the inquiry who testified that airliners could be controlled by electro-magnetic pulse or radio frequency instrumentation from command and control platforms based either in the air or at ground level.

All members of the inquiry team agreed that even if guns were held to their heads none of them would fly a plane into a building. Their reaction would be to ditch the plane into a river or a field, thereby safeguarding the lives of those on the ground.

A further question raised by the inquiry was why none of the pilots concerned had alerted ground control. It stated that all pilots are trained to punch a four-digit code into the flight control’s transponder to warn ground control crews of a hijacking - but this did not happen.

During the press conference Captain Hill maintained that the four airliners must have been choreographed by an Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS). This system can engage several aircraft simultaneously by knocking out their on-board flight controls. He said that all the evidence points to the fact that the pilots and their crews had not taken any evasive action to resist the supposed hijackers. They had not attempted any sudden changes in flight path or nose-dive procedures - which led him to believe that they had no control over their aircraft.

THE NEWS, in an attempt to further substantiate the potential veracity of these findings, spoke to an Algarve-based airline pilot, who has more than 20 years of experience in flying passenger planes, to seek his views. Captain Colin McHattie, currently flying with Cathay Pacific, agreed with the independent commission’s findings. However, he explained that while it is possible to fly a plane from the ground, the installation of the necessary equipment is a time-consuming process, and needs extensive planning. THE NEWS will publish a full interview with Captain McHattie in next week’s edition.

The FBI also came in for criticism for the various pieces of contradictory evidence it has published regarding the suspects. Questions are now being asked as to how incorrect information was given out regarding the ID cards of the suspects, and the seat numbers they supposedly occupied after boarding the flights.

None of the suspects named by the FBI appeared on any of the official passenger lists. A further point was how the FBI had managed to retrieve the passport of one of the suspects amid the molten and twisted remains of thousands of tons of steel and rubble brought about by the Twin Towers collapse.

Dr. Paul Roberts, former Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury, and presently Senior Research Fellow at Stamford University, has lent his support to the independent inquiry findings. He also claims that Osama Bin Laden was not responsible for September 11th. The doctor has challenged President Bush to make public the so-called “irrefutable evidence” incriminating Bin Laden.

Colonel Donn de Grand said that if President Bush is lying it would not be the first time that the American people had been mislead by its government. He cited the recently published official government archives describing President Roosevelt’s duplicity in deceiving Americans about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour, which triggered the US entry into WWll.

He also highlighted the role of the country’s government in misleading its citizens in respect of the Bay of Pigs invasion in Cuba, and the events that brought about the Spanish American war in the late 19th, century. “Whilst considering who committed this act of war on September 11th,” he said, “albeit Russia, China, an Islamic country or NATO, we must also consider that the enemy may well be within the gates.

“Not for the first time the American public might be being mislead, by those with ulterior motives, into lending its support to a war, this time against Iraq, that has no bearing whatsoever on the interests of the people of the USA.”

So far the mainstream American news media has failed to publish or broadcast any details regarding the independent inquiry. Similarly, the White House, whilst having received a copy of the report, has remained silent on its findings.