Fourth hijacked flight shot down?

[wabe0x90]

What is the chances of a flight crashing into the Pennsylvania countryside due to some sort of internal fight? Doesn't that seem weird? Wouldn't hijackers, if they win, keep the flight towards DC, and passengers, if they win, keep the nose up, at least?

Also, what are the chances pieces of the plane would start coming off on the way down, and end up eight miles away?

I'm not certain I believe the government's story that the plane was forced down by internal action - but I'd certainly like to hear the Straight Dope on the matter.

[UDS]

As I understand it, if a large aircraft is put through excessively violent manoeuvres, it suffers strains which the airframe cannot withstand. The breakup of the aircraft in the air follows.

A brawl in the cockpit could have this effect, surely?

[wabe0x90]

I dunno - there's another story listed about a 747 doing a roll or loop which says it maybe could do it I think, if you were stupid enough to try. I'm relying on memory here though.

The cockpit's not that big. I mean, maybe they'd be kicking around the steering wheel, but if you just throw a plane into a dive, I don't think it's going to come into pieces.

[Fish Cheer]

Originally posted by wabe0x90
I dunno - there's another story listed about a 747 doing a roll or loop which says it maybe could do it I think, if you were stupid enough to try. I'm relying on memory here though.
For the sake of completeness:

Is it possible to loop or roll a 747 jet? (http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a1_262.html)

[mister_me]

Originally posted by wabe0x90
What is the chances of a flight crashing into the Pennsylvania countryside due to some sort of internal fight? Doesn't that seem weird?

Doesn't seem any weirder than a bunch of nut-jobs highjacking the planes in the first place.


I've read the 'shot down' theory on several webpages and don't believe it, BUT,............

Even it was shot down, I wouldn't blame them (Gov.) for doing it! I mean, imagine the devestation (based on the earlier attacks on WTC) that could have occured.

like I said, I don't think it was shot down but if it was and I found out about it, I would say, good job!

[vibrotronica]

I don't believe it was shot down, either. I don't think the Air Force had enough time to get an armed plane into position to do the job. But is there any consensus on exactly how the passengers brought the plane down? Did they just burst into the cockpit, fight with the hijackers, and point the stick toward the ground? Did they blow the door and depressurize the cabin? It seems like that would have been easier. Do we know how they did it?

[wabe0x90]

I'd like to know why you don't think the Air Force had enough time to get a plane into shot range. I'm fairly sure they DID, but the math would be good to see.

[bdgr]

I dont think we will ever know....Its possible it was shot down. Its possible it crashed due to the fight. If the government shot it down, they sure wouldnt tell us. I wouldnt blame them if it they did shoot it down.

[carnivorousplant]

The voice recorder was played for relatives. I wonder how much they heard.

[Kilt-wearin' man]

Everything I've seen (including eyewitness reports from the ground and air traffic control tapes) states that the F-16's arrived several minutes after the airliner crashed - too late to have had anything to do with it.

This issue has been rehashed and rehashed on this board and others and in the end, it's meaningless since the plane crashed in PA, not DC, whether brought down by a missile or by the passengers. Since there is actual evidence (cell phone conversations and background noise) that the passengers rushed the cockpit, that's the conclusion I'll stick with. You're right on one point, wabe0x90 - the cockpit's not that big. Several pissed off passengers who know they have nothing to lose crowding into the cockpit to drag the hijackers away from the controls would have a bad effect on the plane's flight path. Remember, it takes very little airspace to put a plane into a dive, but a lot of altitude to pull it out - especially at high speed, and it's been pointed out by investigators that the terrorists had those airliners moving as fast as they would go.

[RadioWave]

The voice recorders were released and available to the media. They indicated that after the cell phone calls, the passengers did gain access to the cockpit and struggle with the terrorists. It seems very plausible that during the struggle, the plane (a Boeing 757) was pushed beyond its limits and started to break up in the air. Either way, once it was in a high speed dive, its very unlikely that the untrained passengers or poorly trained terrorists could have saved it.

Furthermore, having been around USAF bases most of my life, I can tell you that even at altitude, fast moving fighters are extremely loud and someone in Pennsylvania should have noticed them if they were anywhere near the scene of the impact.

Snopes (http://www.snopes.com/rumors/beamer.htm) mentions the voice recorders.

[Monty]

Originally posted by wabe0x90
What is the chances of a flight crashing into the Pennsylvania countryside due to some sort of internal fight?

Apparently, 100%.

Doesn't that seem weird?

Why?

Wouldn't hijackers, if they win, keep the flight towards DC,

If the hijackers had remained in control, then they certainly would've continued on their course.

and passengers, if they win, keep the nose up, at least?

Depending on how many passengers knew how to fly the aircraft. There's bound to be more than just "grab the wheel and aim" to keeping a rather large aircraft level and pointed in a particular direction. Of course, there's also the issue of landing the thing. A jumbo jet in the air is not someone's compact auto on the highway.

Also, what are the chances pieces of the plane would start coming off on the way down, and end up eight miles away?

There used to be a term in military aviation, "TFOA", which means "Things Falling Off Aircraft." As mentioned above, this particular aircraft was subjected to more than the anticipated stress and thus started to fall apart.

I'm not certain I believe the government's story that the plane was forced down by internal action - but I'd certainly like to hear the Straight Dope on the matter.

Why don't you believe the government's reports?

[minty green]

There is also the distinct possibility that the hijackers intentionally crashed the craft when it became clear that they would not be able to retain control of the airplane. Once the passengers broke into the cockpit, the hijackers had lost control of the situation for all intents and purposes.

The crash scene is inconsistent with a midair breakup--it's one giant hole in the ground, not pieces strewn over miles of ground. To me, that indicates an intentional crash rather than loss of control/extreme maneuvering. YMMV.

[shelbo]

The "plane shot down" theory would also require the somewhat unlikely cooincidence of the plane being shot down at the precise time the passengers rushed the cockpit (based on the voice recorder data, which we have). Not impossible, but with no evidence to show that it did happen that way, and evidence that, in fact F-16s arrived after the crash, it seems a little silly to believe that the government shot it down, and is now covering up that fact. (But, hey, I guess some people like to believe that the government is involved in everything, and is really, really good at keeping secrets!)

[aahala]

Originally posted by wabe0x90

I'm not certain I believe the government's story that the plane was forced down by internal action - but I'd certainly like to hear the Straight Dope on the matter.

Believing something without any evidence one way or another is called faith.

Believing something completely contrary to all available evidence is called foolish.

[Bongmaster]

I don't know how much this means if anything, but I have been flying MS Flight sims since they first came out. I've tried many times to do crazy stuff in the larger aircraft provided in the game, and have successfully managed loops, (sloppy) barrel rolls, and other crazy stuff. Its a fairly accurate flight model, but I don't know if this translates at all into real life.

[Scuba_Ben]

Originally posted by vibrotronica
I don't believe it was shot down, either.... Did they just burst into the cockpit, fight with the hijackers, and point the stick toward the ground? Did they blow the door and depressurize the cabin? It seems like that would have been easier. Do we know how they did it?
I seem to recall (possibly from movie-mistakes.com) that aircraft cabin doors open in-then-out. If this is true, then blowing a door requires opening it AGAINST pressure.

Can anybody confirm how the cabin doors operate?

[Weary]

I have no theories either way...however...I would like to know how we managed to get a camera crew live in Afghanistan minutes after the bombing started yet it was several hours before one news team managed to make it ot the crash site of the PA. Plane

[carnivorousplant]

I dunno. PA is a big state. How long did it take CNN to get a camera crew to the trapped miners?

[Fish Cheer]

Originally posted by Monty
There's bound to be more than just "grab the wheel and aim" to keeping a rather large aircraft level and pointed in a particular direction. Of course, there's also the issue of landing the thing. A jumbo jet in the air is not someone's compact auto on the highway.

Of course not. But I guess that there's a big difference between actions leading to a nose-down crash and actions required to keep the plane at least level (forget about the direction for now) until you can radio anyone who will tell you what to do to get it to the ground safely.
A difference laymen should be able to recognize.

[Patty O'Furniture]

Can anybody confirm how the cabin doors operate?

Cecil can. (http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a2_390.html)

[MrTuffPaws]

Many are stating that we have voice recorder data, and cell phone calls. Can anyone give a link to them, or a reason why they have not been made public?

[kunilou]

One other detail I haven't seen mentioned yet. I recall a military spokesman saying the Air Force had already received permission to shoot down the plane if needed, and would have shot down the plane, but didn't get there in time.

So why wouldn't the Air Force have admitted to shooting down the plane? Certainly, that would be a bigger deterrent to any potential hijackers still out there than saying "we would have, but couldn't."

[Jonathan Chance]

Yep. It's difficult at best, to do it.

[zut]

Originally posted by Weary
I have no theories either way...however...I would like to know how we managed to get a camera crew live in Afghanistan minutes after the bombing started yet it was several hours before one news team managed to make it ot the crash site of the PA. Plane Perhaps you don't recall, but there was a fairly large pre-9/11 Afghanistan story involving aid workers detained by the Taliban. For example, note the date on this CNN story (http://www.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/asiapcf/central/09/10/robertson.focus/index.html). I imagine it would be pretty easy to get a camera crew to Afghanistan when they were already there. All in all, not very mysterious.

[Skammer]

To expand on what Shelbo said, why wouldn't the government admit shooting the plane down, if that's what happened? They've said they would have, if they had been able to. They said they would try, if it ever happened again. I don't think they would have to cover it up if they had been successful.

[Kilt-wearin' man]

Originally posted by MrTuffPaws
Many are stating that we have voice recorder data, and cell phone calls. Can anyone give a link to them, or a reason why they have not been made public?

You mean more public than having sections of recorded cell phone calls played on CNN and other news outlets? The FAA never releases cockpit voice recordings (transcripts yes, actual voice recordings no), but other recordings from this incident have been broadcast on the evening news. How much more "released" do they need to be?

[Tuckerfan]

Originally posted by kunilou
One other detail I haven't seen mentioned yet. I recall a military spokesman saying the Air Force had already received permission to shoot down the plane if needed, and would have shot down the plane, but didn't get there in time.

So why wouldn't the Air Force have admitted to shooting down the plane? Certainly, that would be a bigger deterrent to any potential hijackers still out there than saying "we would have, but couldn't." Except that the first planes on the scene were from a training flight and unarmed. They would have done whatever it took to bring the plane down, however.

Additionally, there's an impact crater in PA, not a debris field. Had the plane been shot down, there would have been a debris field. Also, there was a seismic wave created by the crash of the plane that was detected by instruments, from this, one can calculate not only the speed with which the plane crashed, but also how much of it crashed into the ground at the same time. Had anything but the intact airframe crashed into PA, the seismic wave created would have been too faint to be detected by the instruments.

[ataraxy22]

That plane was going to be coming down short of DC one way or another...if the passengers hadn't taken care of it, the Air Force would have.

[Broomstick]

Ah, THIS again -- you know, we hashed this out at least once before since Sept 2001?

Originally posted by wabe0x90
What is the chances of a flight crashing into the Pennsylvania countryside due to some sort of internal fight?Pretty high. Imagine you're going down the freeway in a car and a fight breaks out between the driver and the front seat passenger. The ride will get exciting, yes? All over the road? Think it's quite possible that will end in an accident?

Imagine you're in a jet and a fight breaks out in the cockpit. People flinging themselves about in a very tight space, bashing the controls as well as each other. Do you think the airplane will continue on a straight and level course? I don't. I expect the ride will make the average roller-coaster look pretty boring.

Doesn't that seem weird?No. Does it seem weird to you? Why?

Wouldn't hijackers, if they win, keep the flight towards DCYes. Assuming they regain control of the plane prior to a crash.

and passengers, if they win, keep the nose up, at least?If they can. Tell me, good sir (assuming you are a "sir") if you suddenly found youself in the cockpit of a 757 with no concious pilot in sight would YOU know what to do?

That's actually a little unfair. There was at least one other pilot riding as a passenger on that flight, and he was involved in the scuffle (or so it seems based on our information). But no guarantee he wasn't critically injured early in the fight, or that he had a chance to get at the controls.

If someone jumped on someone at the controls and forced them forward, they would push against the control yoke, which would put the airplane into a dive. Seems to me, if you're attacking from behind, which would be the case in this scenario, this could easily happen.

Also, what are the chances pieces of the plane would start coming off on the way down, and end up eight miles away?There is a speed called "Vne" for every airplane, which is short for "Never exceed this airspeed". If you go above that airspeed you can damage the controls and, yes, pieces can start falling off the airplane. The easiest way to achieve Vne or greater is to put the airplane into a steep dive with the engines still running. If they did exceed Vne then yes, there is a significant chance pieces of the airplane could start coming off. Doesn't mean HUGE CHUNKS are flying off - maybe just things like the control surfaces and antennaes or the occassional hunk of aluminum skin. The bulk of the plane would still lawn-dart into the ground, but yes, bits could end up a considerable distance away.

Remember that flight 587 lost it's vertical stabilizer and rudder during take-off, and there was no fight going on in the cockpit and it wasn't in a dive. Excessive stress can cause major damage to an airframe. Certainly, with a fight in the cockpit and bizarre course changes flight 93 could have been subjected to unusual and extreme stress, resulting in broken bits falling off prior to the final crash.

Originally posted by vibrotronica
I don't believe it was shot down, either. I don't think the Air Force had enough time to get an armed plane into position to do the job.They didn't. Even post-9/11 the airforce has sometimes found it difficult to perform timely intercepts. Gotta remember, jetliners are fast. Truth is, it can be difficult to quickly intercept even a smaller, slower airplane.

But is there any consensus on exactly how the passengers brought the plane down? Did they just burst into the cockpit, fight with the hijackers, and point the stick toward the ground?I think it's more likely no one was flying during the fight and the controls got knocked around by accident - but that's my opinion. It could be the hijackers delibrately crashed to prevent the passengers from taking the airplane away from them. The exact circumstances will never be known since there are no surviving witnesses.

Did they blow the door and depressurize the cabin? It seems like that would have been easier. First of all, there's no way to "blow the door" from inside the cabin. Second, depressurization, contrary to Hollywood depictions, is not instantly or inherently fatal. It will not, in and of itself, cause an airplane to go into a fatal dive. In fact, during the Payne Stewart/Learjet accident the airplane continued flying quite nicely for several hours after depresurizing and, presumably, all aboard were dead. It crashed only after it ran out of gas.

Originally posted by monty
Depending on how many passengers knew how to fly the aircraft. There's bound to be more than just "grab the wheel and aim" to keeping a rather large aircraft level and pointed in a particular direction. Of course, there's also the issue of landing the thing. A jumbo jet in the air is not someone's compact auto on the highway.As I mentioned before, at least one passenger was also a pilot, although I'm not sure he had any training on the big jets. "Grab the wheel and aim" might work if you're in level cruise (essentially, that's what the hijackers did and it worked 3 times out of 4) but pulling out of a dangerously fast and steep dive is another matter. It is possible to reach a point of no return in a dive and simply not have the altitutude left in which to recover level flight without pulling back so hard you start snapping bits off the airplane. Did it reach that point? I have no idea. I don't think anyone does.

Landing is the other issue. Although many people who are non-pilots have successfully landed SMALL, piston-powered airplanes I've yet to hear of any untrained person managing this in a big jet. In the movie Executive Decision Kurt Russell portrays a student pilot who lands a big jet, but Mr. Russell - who is a private pilot of some experience - tried landing a big jet on a simulator and just couldn't do it successfully. In other words, it's extremely unlikely that someone - even a pilot - untrained in landing a big jet would be able to do so. On the other hand, if a person DID find themselves in such a situation they would be highly motivated to beat the odds. Certainly, any possible assistance would be given to them in order to land, since it is inevitable that once an airplane takes off it will come down again.

Originally posted by ataraxy22
That plane was going to be coming down short of DC one way or another...if the passengers hadn't taken care of it, the Air Force would have.Given how soon the Air Force managed to show up after the crash... probably. I'd like to think so.

[Zagadka]

... and if the government DID do it, would it matter? I would expect no less. The passengers on the plane certainly didn't. The lives of the passengers on the plane are frankly beans compared to the potential targets they were going for.

[Ferret Herder]

Originally posted by Kilt-wearin' man
You mean more public than having sections of recorded cell phone calls played on CNN and other news outlets? The FAA never releases cockpit voice recordings (transcripts yes, actual voice recordings no), but other recordings from this incident have been broadcast on the evening news. How much more "released" do they need to be?

And as stated earlier, the cockpit voice recordings were played some time last year for the families of the passengers of that plane. This was reported on heavily on the news, and I saw an interview with a couple of the family members afterwards. The FAA decided to do this in light of the unusual situation, to help comfort them and hopefully help answer questions they may have had.

[Whack-a-Mole]

Originally posted by shelbo
...evidence that, in fact F-16s arrived after the crash, it seems a little silly to believe that the government shot it down, and is now covering up that fact.

So what if the Air Force showed up after the crash? Some missiles have a beyond visual range capability. The AIM-54 Phoenix Missile (http://www.chinfo.navy.mil/navpalib/factfile/missiles/wep-phoe.html) can engage targets over 100 miles from the attacking aircraft. Given that the missile itself moves at over 3,000 m.p.h. it could easily arrive several minutes before the attacking craft. Especially if the attacking craft knew it got a hit and didn't feel the need to haull-ass on afterburner all the way in to the final crash site. The Phoenix, IIRC, was made to engage long-range bombers so attacking a jumbo jet is righ up its alley. The missile also attacks from above (that is it flies high and then drops down on its target) so it is doubtful that observers on the ground would even see it or hear it (I think its fall on target is unpowered...no more rocket pushing it so little noise and no visible glow).

Personally I think the plane just crashed and as others have mentioned I also would support the government for shooting it down given the circumstances (although you might think they'd give at least one warning to the terrorists to land the plane before shooting...they had some time for that it would seem). Nevertheless I don't find evidence that fighters showed-up several minutes afetr the crash as necessarily compelling evidence in and of itself that Flight-93 wasn't shot down.

[Johnny L.A.]

And as stated earlier, the cockpit voice recordings were played some time last year for the families of the passengers of that plane. This was reported on heavily on the news, and I saw an interview with a couple of the family members afterwards. The FAA decided to do this in light of the unusual situation, to help comfort them and hopefully help answer questions they may have had.
Yes, the families were allowed to listen to the recordings. But I don't remember the recordings ever being released except in the usual transcript form. (Some other countries have and do release the audio for their aircraft.)

[Rick]

I fly lots (as a passenger IANAP) and often the door to the flight deck is open when passengers are boarding. Based on my observations, I can tell you this without fear of being contradicted. The guys that designed large airplanes did not waste any excess space on the pilots. Flight decks are tight. I doubt that there is room for more than one person to attack a set of hijackers at a time.
Now let me take a couple of guesses here.
I can very easily see where a plane could go out of control when trying to overcome a couple of bad guys at the controls. If the plane were to go into a dive everyone not belted in would be thrown forward, hard. Do you think you could pull the plane out of a dive, with two unconscious bad guys laying on the controls, and ten other people laying on your back? I don't even think Seve Canyon could pull that one off.

However, I seem to recall that flight 93 made a roll before the dive. So try this senario on. Good guys make it to the flight deck. Good guy #1 hits first bad guy on head with, oh say, a wine bottle (heavy, and available). Bad guy #2 turns to see what is going on. And not being highly trained he turns the control wheel at the same time. (much like an inexperienced driver has a tendency to turn the steering wheel when looking over their shoulder before making a lane change). On an airplane turning the control wheel causes the plane to bank. And continues to bank until plane is upside down. Everyone not belted in gets thrown around. At this point one of several things happens, but bottom line is the control stick gets pulled back which normally would cause the plane to climb, but because the plane is upside down, causes the fatal dive.

IMHO anyone who thinks that flight 93 was shot down probably also think that OJ was framed. :)

[threemae]

Whack, just out of curiosity, how the hell do you target that thing?

I mean, there must have still been dozens of airplanes similar to the 757 that crashed in PA in the air within a couple dozen miles of that aircraft. How would you pick off the right one?

[Whack-a-Mole]

Originally posted by threemae
Whack, just out of curiosity, how the hell do you target that thing?

I'm not a fighter pilot or any kind of pilot for that matter but I do know that the planes carrying those missiles can track and engage multiple targets at one time. I'm sure with training and what not pilots know how to pick out the target they want (and not just even from their own systems...ground and airborn systems can relay tracking and targeting information to the fighter). In all I'm sure it can be done if they want to...it's not as if the all the planes in the sky are flying in tight formation that they can't be distinguished.

I go with Rick's hypothesis. These guys were not experienced pilots by any stretch and could have easily done something stupid as regards keeping the plane flying. That or they intentionally threw the plane into some wild jinks to try and throw their attackers off them and lost control (again all to easy for these neophyte pilots).

Or, possibly, the hijackers upon realizing they were going to lose control of the plane intentionally screwed it up to at least cause the plane to crash. Just turning off (or throttling back) the engines might have been sufficient...stall then nose dive to the ground. In the good old days of terrorism just crashing a plane was plenty so why not? Who would guess that we'd ever be grateful that he plane actually did crash but only into an empty field?

It would seem the cockpit recorder would have some answers. Isn't there a data recorder too that tells what the planes status was? Was that ever found? That would shed some light on what the plane controls were doing.

[Revtim]

I thought about this while I was flying over the holidays. The thing that I wonder about a bit is how the passengers would have come to the decision to storm the hijackers. Would cell phone calls from people watching CNN be enough for me to be sure that we were on a suicide path like the other flights? Sure enough to risk the lives of every passenger on the plan? I guess it was for them, and they were almost certainly correct, but I know I would be wondering if I was taking an unnecessary risk with the other passengers' lives by storming the cabin.

[Whack-a-Mole]

Originally posted by Revtim
I thought about this while I was flying over the holidays. The thing that I wonder about a bit is how the passengers would have come to the decision to storm the hijackers. Would cell phone calls from people watching CNN be enough for me to be sure that we were on a suicide path like the other flights?

Are you kidding? Remember what had happened so far and consider yourself receiving the following info:

REVTIM: Operator...we've been hijacked!

OPERATOR: Oh no! In the last two hours three hijacked planes have struck both World Trade Centers in New York and one crashed into the Pentagon!

REVTIM: You think these guys want to do the same thing or do you suppose they just want a flight to Cuba and some guy out of jail?

Seriously...what would be the chances that some completely unrelated hijack happened simultaneously with three otehr coordinated ones? Even if you had your doubts could you afford to NOT take action? You risk your life now and maybe live and maybe save untold hundreds of people on the ground or you wait and die for certain after hitting a building or you just hope these are some other guys with no connection to the three earlier attacks?

Me...I'd go for the terrorists in that situation. The math is easy. I'd be scared to death but I'd have to try (of course I might just be paralyzed with fear...no way of knowing till actually faced with such a situation but the logical side of my head would say 'go get them').

Frankly, I doubt terrorists will find much luck in capturing American laden airliners in the near to semi-distant future. The passengers will almost certainly attack them on the spot. Happened with that nut on the flight from California to Chicago who rushed the cockpit. By all accounts several passengers were on his heels almost as soon as the crazy guy made his move.

[Broomstick]

Originally posted by Whack-a-Mole
So what if the Air Force showed up after the crash? Some missiles have a beyond visual range capabilityWere the pursuit aircraft armed?

Important question. At least two of the intercept pilots that day were trainees with no live munitions on board. In which case the only way to stop an airliner would be to ram it. Basically, the guys were asked to go on a suicide mission. And they did - but did not reach the intended target in time. I recall seeing an interview with these two pilots on TV, don't recall if they were the pursuit for Flight 93 or not.

Originally posted by Rick
Now let me take a couple of guesses here.
I can very easily see where a plane could go out of control when trying to overcome a couple of bad guys at the controls. If the plane were to go into a dive everyone not belted in would be thrown forward, hard.Good guess, but not necessarially. Dive abruptly enough and you could wind up in a zero-g condition for a few seconds, with folks and objects floating about randomly, or even negative g's, with everyone slamming into the ceiling of the airplane or rolling up into the tail. In any case - would make moving about and conducting any sort of attack extremely difficult.

Do you think you could pull the plane out of a dive, with two unconscious bad guys laying on the controls, and ten other people laying on your back? No! Don't think I could do it even without the folks on my back! Once you start a dive towards the ground things start moving very fast. You need two things to fix a dive: time and altitude. You have to have enough of both of them.

Originally posted by Rick
And not being highly trained he turns the control wheel at the same time. (much like an inexperienced driver has a tendency to turn the steering wheel when looking over their shoulder before making a lane change). Originally posted by Whack-a-Mole
These guys were not experienced pilots by any stretch and could have easily done something stupid as regards keeping the plane flying. That or they intentionally threw the plane into some wild jinks to try and throw their attackers off them and lost control (again all to easy for these neophyte pilots).

Hey, hold on a minute here.

No, these guys weren't airline pilots - but they were pilots. Some of them, apparently, weren't very good pilots but at least a couple of them WERE quite competant given their training and number of hours in the air. They were NOT amateurs - Mohammad Atta had a commercial pilot's license, for example, and could have had a career as a professional pilot if he hadn't turned to martyrdom. Don't make the mistake of assuming these were poorly trained incompetants at the controls because they weren't. At least, not all of them were. Granted, Atta was not on Flight 93 but there's no reason to think the guys at the controls of that flight were any less competant than he was. In normal cruise - which is when the hijackings occurred - I would think maintaining control of an airliner and holding it on course is well within the capability of most pilots, even those less experienced than the hijackers. For starters, the yokes/sticks and rudders all work the same way from the pilot's viewpoint and those are the basic controls of any airplane. We also know these guys studied the systems of these airplanes - in other words, they knew where all the controls were and how they worked. It's take-offs, landings, and emergency procedures that are the difficult parts, not sitting in cruise flight

There is one aspect of flying an airplane that non-pilots typically don't know - and that's you don't need your hands on the controls 100% of the time. Or even 50% of the time in good weather, and September 11, 2001 was an exceptionally fine day for flying. Most pilots of my acquaintance, if they feel a need to turn their heads and look behind them, tend to let go of the yoke to prevent just that. These guys had studied that variety of airliner - they might well have set the autopilot to fly a course. It would just as likely in my mind that the hijackers, with autopilot set, could turn and meet the charging passengers as they could have inadvertently started an uncontrolled roll leading to a crash.

[Revtim]

Whack-a-Mole, I agree that that's the most logical assumption in that situation. I'm just saying it still might be tought to risk a plan load of lives, if there's even the tiniest possibility of a non-suicide hijack.

[handsomeharry]

While i think that the AF didn't shoot the plane down, i just love conspiracy theories, so i would have no problem with it. however, i can think of one reason why the AF WOULD deny it. just thinking of the number of lawsuits would be enough to clamp the ol' lid on it pronto! if one doubts that there would be lawsuits, just remember the one filed by that one jewel who sued the builder of the WTC (or the architect) for making a building that couldn't resist the pressure of an airliner crashing into it...

on another point, couldn't an unarmed f-16 do something by positioning itself in front of an airliner which could foul up the engine or the air currents (i'm talking WAYYYYYYYYYYY above myself on the physics of the thing)? or, have i just been watching too much clutch cargo or fireball xl-5???

[Kilt-wearin' man]

Originally posted by Whack-a-Mole
So what if the Air Force showed up after the crash? Some missiles have a beyond visual range capability. The AIM-54 Phoenix Missile (http://www.chinfo.navy.mil/navpalib/factfile/missiles/wep-phoe.html) can engage targets over 100 miles from the attacking aircraft. Given that the missile itself moves at over 3,000 m.p.h. it could easily arrive several minutes before the attacking craft. Especially if the attacking craft knew it got a hit and didn't feel the need to haull-ass on afterburner all the way in to the final crash site. The Phoenix, IIRC, was made to engage long-range bombers so attacking a jumbo jet is righ up its alley. The missile also attacks from above (that is it flies high and then drops down on its target) so it is doubtful that observers on the ground would even see it or hear it (I think its fall on target is unpowered...no more rocket pushing it so little noise and no visible glow).

Personally I think the plane just crashed and as others have mentioned I also would support the government for shooting it down given the circumstances (although you might think they'd give at least one warning to the terrorists to land the plane before shooting...they had some time for that it would seem). Nevertheless I don't find evidence that fighters showed-up several minutes afetr the crash as necessarily compelling evidence in and of itself that Flight-93 wasn't shot down.

The only aircraft in the world that is equipped to fire the AIM-54 Phoenix is the Navy's F-14 Tomcat. The longest range missile the F-16 can carry is the AIM-120 AMRAAM (that's an acronym for Advanced Medium Range Air to Air Missile), and its range is a little over 20 miles, a distance an aircraft moving at 600 mph would cover in 20 seconds. Definitely not a BVR weapon, and not one that could be fired while the attacking aircraft was several minutes away from the impact point. Cite. (http://www.af.mil/news/factsheets/AIM_120_AMRAAM.html)

Let's not give the conspiracy folks more straws to grasp at, hmmm?

[Kilt-wearin' man]

Um...that is to say, it couldn't be fired at a target that far away unless the attacker and the target are closing, which the F-16's and the airliner were not.

[Khadaji]

LOL. You bet! AND we never landed on the moon!

[carnivorousplant]

Originally posted by Kilt-wearin' man
unless the attacker and the target are closing, which the F-16's and the airliner were not.


If the F-16 is on afterburner it is much faster than an airliner, is it not?

If a missile hits the airliner, will it have an engine blown of and come don it one piece, or loose a wing and come down it many pieces?

Which airliners are equipped to be landed by auto pilot or remote control?

Thanks.

[Zagadka]

Missiles typically explode in proximity and cause damage over a wider area of the plane, but a missile strike on a large pressurized aircraft would probably cause a breakup, not a full body.

When the Vicennes shot down Iran Air 655 (mistaking it for an Iranian F-14, in all irony). A quote from a description of the accident from the Washington Post:
The Standard missiles homed in on the heat of the quarry's engines and at least one of them exploded when it pulled abreast of the Airbus. Such a missile hit usually slices an aircraft apart and turns it into a fireball of burning fuel.

[Johnny L.A.]

Which airliners are equipped to be landed by auto pilot or remote control?
Many airliners are capable of being landed by autopilot, but I don't have a list. The thing is, that the pilot has to "program" the autopilot to do it -- which he can't do if he's dead. Airliners are not equipped to fly by remote control for obvious reasons.

Following up on what Broomstick[/b[ said earlier, it is possible to recover an aircraft from an unusual attitude (e.g, pointed toward the ground) if it has not already exceeded Vne and parts have not started coming off, and if you have the altitude and time to do it, and if the pilot (or de facto pilot) knows what he or she is doing. There is a sequence of maneuvers that need to be done in order, and it does take altitude. [b]Broomstick or one of the other fixed-wing pilots can give you the correct answer, but IIRC this is how it goes: Reduce the throttle to idle. Level the wings. Gently and gradually pull the nose up to the horizon. If you're in a dive and you just pull back on the yoke, you're liable to snap the wings off.

[El Zagna]

Kunilou’s correct. The military has admitted that it had a couple of fighters on the way to intercept the 747. Unfortunately the two fighters that had the best chance of reaching it were on a training mission and unarmed. The military made it clear that their intention was to shoot the hijacked plane down or otherwise take it out of the air. They were unapologetic about their intentions. If they had pulled it off they would have been heroes.

Originally posted by bdgr If the government shot it down, they sure wouldnt tell us. Why wouldn't they tell us? Let's do a little critical thinking here. What is the advantage to the government of trying to pull off such a lie? What are the chances of actually getting away with the lie? Compare that to the downside of getting caught in the lie. There’s just no benefit to it.

[Robot Arm]

Originally posted by Kilt-wearin' man
...and its range is a little over 20 miles, a distance an aircraft moving at 600 mph would cover in 20 seconds.
600 miles per hour is equivalent to 10 miles per minute. 20 miles will take 2 minutes.

[wevets]

I just wanted to point out that with reference to the Air Force getting planes to intercept the airliners; between the time the Cold War ended and September, 2001, the Air Force didn't really have airplanes just sitting on the tarmac fully armed and fueled with pilots waiting just for the word "go." (Maybe they do now, I don't know)

I imagine that a major part of the problem of intercepting the airliners isn't the amount of time it takes for a supersonic fighter to reach Pennsylvania or the amount of time it takes the missile from the fighter to reach the plane, but the time it takes to get the fighter plane in the air in the first place.

[Broomstick]

Originally posted by handsomeharry
just remember the one filed by that one jewel who sued the builder of the WTC (or the architect) for making a building that couldn't resist the pressure of an airliner crashing into it...Teeny nitpick: the towers DID resist the full impact of airliners crashing into them. If there had been no fire those buildings might still be standing.

on another point, couldn't an unarmed f-16 do something by positioning itself in front of an airliner which could foul up the engine or the air currents (i'm talking WAYYYYYYYYYYY above myself on the physics of the thing)? or, have i just been watching too much clutch cargo or fireball xl-5??? A little too much cartoon physics, here - but that's OK by me.

The wake left by a passing figher jet could totally rip apart a small plane such as I fly - 4 seats or fewer. Over the past couple of decades there have, in fact, been a few tragic accidents involving fighter wakes and small airplane disassembly. But an airliner is much more massive than the fighter pursuing it. More likely the jet's wake would cause a loss of control for the fighter pilot than vice-versa. Particularly a 757, which is infamous for the nasty wake it can leave, even posing a risk to other jumbo jets. You'd probably notice a fighter jet screaming by, but I would think it unlikely to cause the airliner much trouble beyond a bump or a rumble of air over part of a wing. Remember our spy plane and the Chinese fighter that collided a couple years ago? No damage occured until the two actually touched, and the spy plane, although damaged, landed safely. An airliner is much more massive still. Short of ramming, I don't see a way for an unarmed fighter to pull one down. I could be wrong on this, of course, since I'm hardly a trained military pilot or an expert on large Boeings, much less schooled on how to cause airborne mayhem, I'm just going by what I know of airplanes.

Originally posted by handsomeharry
If the F-16 is on afterburner it is much faster than an airliner, is it not?Yep, it sure is. An F-16 can easily exceed the speed of sound in level flight where an airliner is capable of "only" about .8 or .9 Mach. But how great a distance can that high speed be sustained? The faster you go the more fuel you burn. Gotta have enough to get to the intercept, with enough left over for any necessary manuvers and the landing and/or refueling procedure after things settle down. How much fuel does an F-16 hold?

If a missile hits the airliner, will it have an engine blown of and come don it one piece, or loose a wing and come down it many pieces?We covered this recently in another thread. Basically, it depends on how direct a hit you get. If you just "blow off an engine" but there is enough airplane intact that the pilot still has control over the flight path you might well have a landing the people will survive or even walk away from. However, the few instances where civilian jets have been fired on and hit have resulted in fireballs, much destruction, many small pieces, and no survivors. Basically, if the fuel on board is ignited the whole thing turns into a bomb and goes >BOOM!<

Which airliners are equipped to be landed by auto pilot or remote control?None are equipped to be landed by remote.

Automated landing is not a standard feature. So far as I know, you can order a jet with that on board, but it's not a feature common to, say, all 747's. (If there's a Boeing pilot around here who knows otherwise please correct me.) It not only requires the equipment to be on board the jet, properly calibrated, and properly used, but there is also a ground-based component. So it matters which airports you go to as well.

If, hypothetically, the passengers had regained control and yelled "HELP!" over the radio, and IF the airplane had autolanding capability, it MIGHT be possible to program the autoland and have it land the airplane. It might, in fact, be your best bet if there are no trained jumbo jet rated pilots on board. Needless to say, no one is going to try this before they really have to use it.

Interesting question - keep in mind, if the passengers had regained control and were able to keep the airplane flying level they would have easily had 4 hours, and likely significantly more than that, in which to consult with people on the ground, figure out a gameplan, and even rehearse parts of the landing procedures prior to actually having a go at the real thing.

Originally posted by Johnny L.A.
Following up on what Broomstick said earlier, it is possible to recover an aircraft from an unusual attitude (e.g, pointed toward the ground) if it has not already exceeded Vne and parts have not started coming off, and if you have the altitude and time to do it, and if the pilot (or de facto pilot) knows what he or she is doing. There is a sequence of maneuvers that need to be done in order, and it does take altitude. Broomstick or one of the other fixed-wing pilots can give you the correct answer, but IIRC this is how it goes: Reduce the throttle to idle. Level the wings. Gently and gradually pull the nose up to the horizon. If you're in a dive and you just pull back on the yoke, you're liable to snap the wings off.Good memory, Johnny

If you find yourself in an "unusual attitude" recovery techniques may vary somewhat depending on what, exactly, is happening, but considering the "uncontrolled dive" scenario, here's what you need to do:

1) Throttle(s) to idle. Gravity is already accelerating you at this point and it does not need assistance. Jumbo jets can easily exceed Mach 1 in a steep dive, do you really want to be heading towards the ground that fast?

2) Eliminate any roll or yaw. This means get the wings level with the ground and eliminate any tail waggles. Otherwise, when you pull out of the dive you will not be going straight up but off at some sideways angle, not to mention imposing all sorts of extra stress on your airframe. Since, at this point, you and the airframe are already into the red-zone on stress you don't need any more.

3) Gently but smoothly pull back on the yoke. The idea is to pull back so you get the maximum up force without breaking the wings off the airplane. You may, in fact, reach or even exceed Vne at this point. You will certainly pulling some g's, which will make it harder and harder to hold the yoke steady. If you let go at this point, if you're lucky, all that will happen is the dive will resume - at a much lower altitude with much less time/distance in which to recover. More likely, you'll lose control of the airplane and all sorts of hell could break loose. Meanwhile, if your vision starts to gray-out there's this nifty technique (used by fighter jocks, in fact) which basically is like straining to get a turd out while consitpated that will raise your blood pressure in your upper body, head, and neck. It could buy you a few more seconds of useful conciousness.

Remember - do NOT jerk back on that yoke, even with the ground coming up at several hundred miles per hour. If you do yes, you really can break the wings off an airplane. If you hit Vne or start to go over it you MUST release some of the backpull if you want to retain control over the airplane. At first, when you pull back, there will be some period of time when you will continue in the dive - the recovery will not be immediate.

4) When you have established a postive rate of climb, release the backpull on the yoke. "Positve rate of climb" means you're actually going up as opposed to down or level. Technically, at this point you're out of the dive. But you're not quite home free because the plane will go up and up for a bit. If you don't put the yoke back in the "straight and level" position you might stall, or re-enter a descent... anyhow, the typical situation is to "porpoise", go up-and-down for a bit until level flight is resumed. Get those barf bags ready!

My experience with unusual attitude recovery is the standard stall-and-recovery techniques all (fixed-wing) pilots learn as part of primary training, and some limited spin-and-recovery lessons. I did this training in a Cessna150, considered a reliable and docile trainer. We'd typically take one up to around 6000 feet above the ground and kick it into a spin, then perform a recovery. Keep in mind, this is a controlled training manuver, done under (one would hope) ideal conditions with an experienced instructor on board in an airplane with known spin characteristics and a 40 year track record for how the model behaves in "unusual attitudes".

C150's are a lot less aerodynamic than a jumbo jet and fall much slower due to drag - peak vertical speed (meaning how fast you fall) in a spinning C150 can exceed 270 mph in the first second or two. That's 0 to 270+ in two seconds - nice acceleration, ay? From our starting point a little over a mile above the ground, if we had let the spin continue unrecovered we'd have a theorectical 10-12 seconds to impact (for some complicated reasons I won't explain unless asked to, the vertical speed in a spin slows down after the first several seconds/rotations). An airliner, in a dive, can accelerate much faster.

Anyhow, a spin recovery leaves you in a fairly steep dive. The truth is, spins seldom kill (unless you hit the ground while in one), it's the dive recovery where people tend to screw up. You've taken care of the spin's rotation, the airplane is flying again, you can hear the rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrRRRRRR just like in the movies from the air going by the cabin and the ground is coming at you really really fast. Your instincts are screaming haul back on that yoke or WE'RE GONNA DIE!. YOU have to retain control over your stone-age impulses. Pull back on the yoke while watching the airspeed indicator near Vne but before you actually reach it, STOP increasing the backpull. Just hold it. Just hold it while the ground is still coming up at you very very fast. You see, at this point you have to trust the machine and aerodynamics, not what your eyes see and your gut tells you. You WILL start going up again, you will (as I stated) easily pull 2 or 3 g's, and at that point you can gently return the yoke to the normal flying position.

That's the controlled training manuver in a nice, cooperative airplane. In a jumbo jet everything will happen a LOT faster and be a LOT worse. There have been a few jumbos recovered from steep dives - achieving 6 g's is fairly common, it can take more than one person to handle the controls, and major airframe components are twisted, warped, cracked, and even broken because they almost always exceed their Vne once they start diving. We're talking about wings twisted to the extent that even non-aviators can see there is something seriously wrong from a quarter mile away. A very very few trained jumbo pilots have managed to land after such an experience, but the airplanes do not fly again. The odds of someone NOT trained in an airliner making such a recovery are extremely low.

Nonetheless, should you find yourself in such a situation, have a go at it. I mean, at that point you have nothing to lose, right?

[Whack-a-Mole]

Originally posted by Broomstick
None are equipped to be landed by remote.

Automated landing is not a standard feature. So far as I know, you can order a jet with that on board, but it's not a feature common to, say, all 747's. (If there's a Boeing pilot around here who knows otherwise please correct me.) It not only requires the equipment to be on board the jet, properly calibrated, and properly used, but there is also a ground-based component. So it matters which airports you go to as well.


I'm no Boeing pilot or any kind of pilot for that matter but this link (http://www.aaib.dft.gov.uk/bulletin/oct00/gbdxj.htm) leads me to believe that 747's (probably only certain models) at least do have autopilot landing capabilities. As mentioned it looks like there is still a fair amount of work that goes into setting up the landing anyway but it can still do it. I can only presume had such a feature been on the hijacked plane and th eplane was left with no trained pilots that ATC could talk someone through flipping the appropriate switches.

[qupte] (From Link provided above)
The aircraft was operating a scheduled return flight from Miami to London Heathrow Airport. The weather conditions on arrival at Heathrow were dry with light winds and good visibility. The crew were carrying out an automatic landing on Runway 27L for practice purposes. The aircraft was configured during the approach for an automatic landing with all three autopilots engaged. [/quote]

[Bosda Di'Chi of Tricor]

Originally posted by Weary
I have no theories either way...however...I would like to know how we managed to get a camera crew live in Afghanistan minutes after the bombing started yet it was several hours before one news team managed to make it ot the crash site of the PA. Plane

There is little reason for a news-crew to be in rural Pennslyvania. According to my Dad (who is a Pennsylvania native), it is a very boring place, where nothing happens, usually. Amish barn raisings are about the peak of things, until recently.

Afghanistan, on the other hand, has war, Soviet invasions, tribal feuds, religious purges, & revenge killings. It is the opposite of boring, & that's a big part of its problem. Anyplace CNN keeps permanently stationed newscrews is not a happy place.

[Johnny L.A.]

Good memory, Johnny
Hm. Maybe I should get back into fixed-wings? They're a helluvalot cheaper than helis!

[Broomstick]

Originally posted by Bosda Di'Chi of Tricor
Anyplace CNN keeps permanently stationed newscrews is not a happy place. :eek: There's a CNN crew truck parked outside the office building I work in almost every day!

maybe they're just picking up Starbuck's coffee, yeah, that's it...

Originally posted by Johnny L.A.
Hm. Maybe I should get back into fixed-wings? They're a helluvalot cheaper than helis!Funny, I keep thinking that if I ever win the lottery I can finally get those rotorcraft lessons....:)

[Bosda Di'Chi of Tricor]

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by Bosda Di'Chi of Tricor
Anyplace CNN keeps permanently stationed newscrews is not a happy place.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Originally posted by Broomstick
:eek: There's a CNN crew truck parked outside the office building I work in almost every day!



They know you're there, Broomstick . :cool:

[yoyodyne]

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Standard missiles homed in on the heat of the quarry's engines and at least one of them exploded when it pulled abreast of the Airbus. Such a missile hit usually slices an aircraft apart and turns it into a fireball of burning fuel.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

FWIW, Standard missiles are radar-guided only, not heat-seeking.

[mangeorge]

About that nose-dive; (IANAP)
If you just push the "stick" forward, won't the plane continue through 180 deg and over onto it's back?
To dive, you have to push forward until you're going straight down, then pull back to maintain that angle. Right? I understand the plane hit pretty much vertical.
Would the passengers have been skilled enough to do that?
Peace,
mangeorge

[carnivorousplant]

Originally posted by mangeorge
If you just push the "stick" forward, won't the plane continue through 180 deg and over onto it's back?

I think the airframe of a large plane fails when you do that.

[Broomstick]

Not necessarily.

Airplanes can fly upside down (well, most of 'em...). Usually you roll them inverted (that's movement about the long axis - lie in bed with your arms outstretched, then roll over from right to left and you'll get the idea) rather than use pitch (that's where the tail goes over the nose or vice versa, like if you did a somersault) but in theory both work. In fact, what mangeorge describes is a "loop". Normally, you loop by going UP, because it's not a good idea to get too close to the ground. The key thing in a standard loop is to maintain enough airspeed to carry you up and over to the point where gravity starts to pull you down, but late enough you're coming down nose-first. (If gravity takes over before the top of the loop you come down tail-first. This is a Very Bad Thing is most cases)

Yes, in theory if you held the stick or yoke forward you the airplane would, essentially, perform a forward somersault and you would (eventually, in theory) find yourself upright again. Problem is, in practice, once you point the nose down gravity takes over and it is extremely unlikely you'd have either enough room to complete the manuver or enough power/control to come out of the resulting dive. But the manuver in and of itself is not likely to overstress the airframe and probably it's been done by somebody somewhere succesfully (although probably not in an airliner). Excessive speed during the manuver - yes, that will cause damage. The question is, would the required airspeed to successfully complete such a loop in a Boeing 757 exceed the Vne? I don't know. I don't think anyone does. Such manuvers are not considered when designing passenger jets.

Airplanes are not quite like cars - when you turn the wheel of your car while driving and let go of the wheel, the wheel turns back to neutral and the car comes out of the turn. Airplane controls do tend to return to neutral... but when you turn the yoke to put it into a turn, while they DO tend to return to the neutral position when you let go of them the airplane tends to stay in a banked turn. They do try to design airplanes such as passenger jets so they tend to return to straight and level flight, but this take a lot longer to happen than it does for the steering wheel on your car to return your straight line of travel. Once you get that nose pointed down a significant degree it's going to tend to stay in that position, even with the yoke moving to neutral on its own. At a certain point, gravity alone will be enough to continue the downward path on it's own, or even increase the steepness of the dive. You don't have to "point the nose straight down" to achieve this glorious state, either.

At this point we're moving beyond my expertise - I'm not an authority on what is, essentially, stunt flying. But all aircraft obey the same laws of physics and all fixed wing aircraft have certain tendencies and limitations (rotorcraft have some different limitations and tendencies, as folks like Johnny L.A. can testify).

originally posted by mangeorge:
To dive, you have to push forward until you're going straight down, then pull back to maintain that angle. Right?OK, let's see if I can do this without the 40 minute lecture on aerodynamics (which even I would find boring...)

To a large degree, the difference between a "descent" and a "dive" in an airplane is a matter of degree only. I can tootle along straight and level at 110 mph, then adjust the controls so that I will descend at 110 mph even if I'm not touching the controls and even without benefit of autopilot or other mechanical aids. I may be descending at a 3 degree angle or a 10 degree angle or even a 30 degree angle which would be pretty steep - I got a "yikes!" out of a fellow pilot for doing that once without warning. Most people would call a 30 degree descent a "dive". (Thing is, when I do it, it's a controlled dive - I know what I'm doing, how I'm going to do it, and how I'm going to get out of it. It's not an accident but something I plan and perform according to that plan) In other words, no, you don't have to pull back to maintain the angle. In fact, if you point down steeply enough, you'll have to pull back to keep the angle from getting worse. Yep, it's different than motion and direction in ground vehicles. A lot of basic flight training is learning that difference so it gets down to your gut level and you can anticipate how the airplane will react.

Would the passengers know enough to delibrately put an airliner into this position? Depends on the passengers. The hijackers certainly had the knowledge, and, as I said, there was at least one other pilot among the passengers.

On the other hand, someone falling onto the controls during a fistfight could easily put the plane into this situation by accident, and then the question is - is there anyone aboard with the knowledge to get out of this situation?

Another factor is the autopilot. An autopilot keeps an airplane on course (in part) by counter-acting any forces like gusts, or perhaps an accidental bump on the controls. As a result, the airplane flies in a straight line. If the autopilot is set and you push on the yoke, the autopilot will push back. So, in our hypothetical cockpit fight, IF the autopilot was set while the bodies were flying about the interior, it would try to compensate for any jars and jolts. Up to a point.

You see, most autopilots will automatically disengage if a certain amount of movement is performed on the controls. For instance, if a pilot has to make a sudden manuver to avoid hitting another airplane, this will allow him to do that without having to first deactivate the autopilot - the assumption is that if the controls are moved that much, it's time for the human to take over.

Here's the rub - when the autopilot lets go, it really lets go. All the little compensating things it does to make up for, say, the yoke being more forward than it should be - stop. An autopilot unhitching itself due to sudden extreme inputs can result in a roller coaster-like ride if the pilot isn't ready to take over immediately. (In some circumstances - such as heavy turbulence - pilots turn off autopilots to prevent these sorts of sudden ooopsies.)

So, let's go back to Flight 93. The passengers storm the cockpit. A fight breaks out. At first the autopilot struggles to compenstate for the jars and bumps given the controls during the initial scuffle and keeps the airplane more or less on course. (that could account for some minor rolls and yaws and nosing up and down) However, the fighting intensifies and someone is thrown into the control yoke, or falls over it, shoving it forward far enough and quickly enough to deactivate the autopilot. The airplane noses over, there is perhaps a brief interlude of zero-g, then everyone and everything loose in the cockpit slams into the back wall of the cockpit as the acceleration builds up. This may result in the body draped across the yoke(s) falling away, relieving the pressure on the controls and allowing them to return to neutral, but by this point that does no good - gravity and the airflow around the jumbo is now helping to keep the nose down. The speed builds, passes Vne. At some point past that mark, pieces start to peel off the airplane - maybe nothing more than some skin panels, maybe an engine. Then comes the impact.

It would happen within a few seconds. From the viewpoint of anyone inside the airplane, assuming they were concious, they would be long seconds. Me, I'm not sure if I'd be frightened out of my wits or numb with terror. Hard to say - hope never to be in that position.

And it's all speculation at this point - as I've said, we will never know all the details of what happened. There are a number of different ways this could have played out, including a delibrate nose-over suicide by the hijackers. We just don't know for sure.

[mangeorge]

Originally posted by Zagadka
... and if the government DID do it, would it matter? I would expect no less. The passengers on the plane certainly didn't. The lives of the passengers on the plane are frankly beans compared to the potential targets they were going for.
Where did the Air Force plan on shooting down these beans? There are some pretty heavily populated areas around DC. A lot of residential communities, for sure.
Peace,
mangeorge (Oh, thanks, Broomstick :))

[racosun]

Doesn't the Air Force have jets that can lock-and-shoot another aircraft from over 100 miles away? This, if a shoot-down was true, could be why nobody heard an Air Force craft in the area.

[Richard Pearse]

I seriously doubt that any Air Force jet would be shooting a US civilian airliner down without getting an initial visual ID to make damn sure that it's the right aircraft.

(That's in response to the 100miles-away-to-fire-a-missile proponents).

[Zagadka]

Originally posted by racosun
Doesn't the Air Force have jets that can lock-and-shoot another aircraft from over 100 miles away? This, if a shoot-down was true, could be why nobody heard an Air Force craft in the area.

We covered that. Air Force fighters typically are armed with short to mid range missiles. The Navy has the F-14, which can have that range (I won't go into details of missile names etc), but the Navy happening to have an armed F-14 in the area is almost laughable.

Also keep in mind that as Skogcat pointed out, they didn't have a lot of information on which airliner it was, and that is the kind of mistake you DON'T make - they would rather wait until it was closer to DC to shoot it down with positive ID, even if that meant it falling on suburbs. After all, we're talking about the lives of the entire head of the government (Congress, the House, judges, Cabinet members, slightly lower level officials, etc) versus a few hundred civilians here.

In any case, as I pointed out above, the instances where a commercial jetliner HAS been shot down by a missile result in a large debris field (missile detonates in proximity, usually tearing off the engines and ripping the pressurized plane to pieces).

[carnivorousplant]

Originally posted by Broomstick
Not necessarily.

Airplanes can fly upside down (well, most of 'em...).



For what it's worth, I asked an airline pilot about training and he responded "They (airliners) won't fly upside down".

[Sam Stone]

For what it's worth, I asked an airline pilot about training and he responded "They (airliners) won't fly upside down".


I'd be curious what he based this statement on. I can't see any reason why an airliner wouldn't fly upside down. It's not particularly stressful, and the aerodynamics aren't anything special.


If you just push the "stick" forward, won't the plane continue through 180 deg and over onto it's back?
To dive, you have to push forward until you're going straight down, then pull back to maintain that angle. Right? I understand the plane hit pretty much vertical.
Would the passengers have been skilled enough to do that?


An airplane wants to fly at its trimmed airspeed. If you push the stick forward, the plane will dive, but the force trying to pull the plane's nose back up will build. If you let go of the yoke, the airplane will nose up all on its own and attempt to return to its trimmed attitude after a few oscillations.

Passenger Jets are dynamically stable, which means that if you upset the plane from its trimmed attitude and release the controlls, it will attempt to return to that attitude.

A more likely scenario is a spiral dive. If the plane is banked and the nose lowered, it will descend in a spiral. The problem is, if you pull back on the yoke to pull out of the dive, it just tightens the spiral and makes the situation worse.

I can easily imagine a situation in which the the plane falls into a spiral while the struggle continues, then a passenger grabs the wheel and pulls back. Things get worse, the passenger pulls harder, things get worse, warning horns are going off all over the place, the ground is rushing up, everyone's panicking, and it's all over.

Another bad thing about a spiral dive is that if you let it get out of control and then you level the wings, there will be an immense force trying to pull the airplane back up, and that can over-stress the airframe. That's why spiral dive recovery involves IMMEDIATELY pulling the power to idle and levelling the wings. If the spiral is well advanced, you are supposed to push FORWARDS on the column while levelling the wings to prevent the overstress. A non-pilot would have no way of knowing that.

That said, I don't believe there is any evidence that the airplane came apart in any way before it hit the ground, either by missile or structural failure. That debris field that was found some distance away was made up entirely of light material that could have been launched into the air by the explosion and then floated with the wind.

Another possibility is that the terrorists themselves intentionally crashed the plane when they realized they weren't going to make their destination.

[mangeorge]

Another possibility is that the terrorists themselves intentionally crashed the plane when they realized they weren't going to make their destination.
That's what I think happened. That, or the passengers tried to take over and unintentionally crashed the plane. The spiral dive sound's good.
It's just not the American Hero way to give up and dive a plane into the ground when there's any chance at all of securing the situation and bringing the plane, intact, to a safe landing. Remember, there were other people on board.
I'd have fought for the plane all the way down.
Peace,
mangeorge

[pilot141]

I'd be curious what he based this statement on. I can't see any reason why an airliner wouldn't fly upside down. It's not particularly stressful, and the aerodynamics aren't anything special

It is in fact very stressful, specifically because of the aerodynamics. What keeps an airplane aloft? Lift, of course. The force from the lift is directed up, or more correctly, vertically from the center of lift in whatever direction the wing is pointed. If you roll an airplane inverted, the wings still produce lift but it is now directed DOWN, toward the ground. To maintain level flight something must counteract that lift. In fighters and aerobatic planes this is done with the horizontal stab or elevator. In any case, inverted level flight requires you to sustain -1g loading on the airplane. Most airliners have -1g or somewhere near there as a structural limit, but this is meant as a mometary limit. All kinds of bad things happen when you negatively load an airplane - fuel pumps can cavitate, oil sumps go dry, etc. I doubt if most large jets even have enough elevator authority to maintain -1g.


If you just push the "stick" forward, won't the plane continue through 180 deg and over onto it's back?

This is called an "outside loop" and can be done, but as described before is a much more precise maneuver than just pushing forward and hanging on. I have some friends that did it in a certain military trainer, and they had many failures before they finally got all the airpseeds and power settings figured out.

[mangeorge]

About that "stick forward = outside loop" thing. I wasn't suggesting that anyone was trying to loop, I was speculating on what would happen if the stick were forced to the full forward position and held there - without making any other adjustments. As would happen if a body should fall onto it as suggested above.

[Broomstick]

About flying upside down...

There's a difference between momentary inverted flight and sustained inverted flight. Since someone has rolled a 707 (I'm pretty sure it was the 707) it is safe to assume that particular model of jumbo is, in fact, capable of momentary inverted flight. But when performing a roll or many other "stunt" manuvers you can maintain a postive g loading throughout, and usually require no more than 1 or 2 g's - I expect that's well within the design parameters of airliners.

Sustained upside-down flight is another matter.

I'm going to retreat back to my little Cessnas where I have some authority to stand on. The Cessna Aerobat 150 I fly states very clearly that while momentary inversions are OK, and negative g's up to (darn, where is that manual?...) around 3 or 4 (if I recall correctly) are also OK, it ALSO states very clearly that anything other than momentary inverted flight is not recommended. Has nothing to do with airframe or the wing. The engine is the problem. The fuel system in that airplane only works when it's under positive g loads. Fly that sucker upside down more than a few seconds and the gas will drain out of the engine and back into the fuel tanks. After which the engine will stop making noise and supplying power to the prop. And, oh yes, all the oil will drain out of the crankcase. It will glide quite satisfactorially while upside down (provided the pilot stays calm and in control) but you certainly can't land it on it's roof! Does the airplane fly upside down? Yes, it does and no, it doesn't.

Can a big airliner fly upside-down? Well, looking at the wings and such... my guess would be that it could handle momentary inversions. Could the airframe handle the -1 g required for sustained inverted flight? I don't know. Those airframes have survived some very rugged treatment in the past. They're not designed with that in mind, but probably could handle it (again, my guess). Here's another problem - those attachments for those honking big jet engines are designed to hold an engine suspended beneath the wing - could they handle support an engine from below? Don't know. Airplanes have survived a completely detached engine, but... mmm... that's getting to be quite a nasty proposition. Next problem - the engine/fuel system. Will it work upside down? I haven't a clue. Major difference between my itty bitty Cessna and the Boeing: once you get the Cessna right way up again the engine will USUALLY re-start. If a jet quits in flight, it UNLIKELY starts up again while in the air. Certainly it won't do it automatically.

In other words, it probably is easier for a beat-up old dinky Cessna 2-seater to fly upside down than for a passenger jet.

Would much prefer to avoid the situation. In either airplane. Because while the Cessna is qualified for that sort of gymnastics this little pilot is not.

[Richard Pearse]

Originally posted by pilot141
If you roll an airplane inverted, the wings still produce lift but it is now directed DOWN, toward the ground.

Well, not really. An inverted wing with the normal aerofoil shape can happily produce upward lift you just need to fly it at a much higher angle of attack than if the wing's the right way up. Maybe that's what you were getting at with the elevator? The higher angle of attack also means that you are much closer to the stall when inverted.


This is called an "outside loop" and can be done, but as described before is a much more precise maneuver than just pushing forward and hanging on. I have some friends that did it in a certain military trainer, and they had many failures before they finally got all the airpseeds and power settings figured out.

I have done many outside loops, the safest way to do it is to roll inverted first and then push. That way you are starting at the bottom of the loop and the worse that can happen is you run out of airspeed on the way and fall off the top. Starting at the top and pushing over risks overspeeding if you don't have the entry speed right. Also, if you get to the top and are not game to complete the second half of the manoeuvre (negative gs are a bit uncomfortable) you can simply fly away, right way up.

[Sam Stone]

It is in fact very stressful, specifically because of the aerodynamics. What keeps an airplane aloft? Lift, of course. The force from the lift is directed up, or more correctly, vertically from the center of lift in whatever direction the wing is pointed. If you roll an airplane inverted, the wings still produce lift but it is now directed DOWN, toward the ground. To maintain level flight something must counteract that lift. In fighters and aerobatic planes this is done with the horizontal stab or elevator. In any case, inverted level flight requires you to sustain -1g loading on the airplane. Most airliners have -1g or somewhere near there as a structural limit, but this is meant as a mometary limit. All kinds of bad things happen when you negatively load an airplane - fuel pumps can cavitate, oil sumps go dry, etc. I doubt if most large jets even have enough elevator authority to maintain -1g.


I'd have to quibble with this. The lift is created by the angle of attack of the wing. Inverted, a plane can maintain a positive angle of attack by just pitching up more (pushing forward on the yoke). You can even fly a plane with a flat-bottomed or undercambered airfoil upside down. I don't see why the airplane wouldn't have the rudder authority, although the deck angle in the fuselage would be interesting.

Yes, the airplane is now pulling -1G on the airframe instead of +1g. But that is nowhere near the structural limit of the airframe. A modern Jet is certified to be able to withstand a minimum of -1 and +2.5 g's. That's the 'limit load', and the airliner is expected to withstand that indefinitely without any permanent deformation to the fuselage or flying surfaces. The 'ultimate load' at which the airframe comes apart is much higher. 747's have survived loads of greater than 6 g's positive.

The trick would be getting the plane on its back and stabilized without overstressing the airframe. A barrel roll would probably be the way to go. And there'd be a hell of a mess in the cabin and lavatories. And as you said, I sure wouldn't want to guarantee that the engines would keep running.

[av8rmike]

Why is this still coming up? The OP's done a drive-by on us, and here everyone is talking about flying airliners upside down.

The Air Force has admitted that they diverted jets, unarmed, and told them to go kamikaze if they could. They also admitted that they would have shot down the jet, but denied having done it. The appearance of the crash site (i.e. crater) tend to bear that out.

Just because some part of the military has a magic missile doesn't mean they had it ready to use, ready to fire at whatever plane looked suspicious.

Point is, we don't know the answer, and will never know, especially not to the degree that will placate the most die-hard conspiracy theorists.

Can we let this one drop, and not satisfy every drive-by?

[Robot Arm]

Originally posted by Broomstick
Since someone has rolled a 707 (I'm pretty sure it was the 707) it is safe to assume that particular model of jumbo is, in fact, capable of momentary inverted flight.
Not quite. It was the 367-80, prototype for the 707. (And somewhat different than the production version, narrower fuselage, I think.) It was in 1955 at the Seafair Gold Cup hydroplane race in Seattle. In fact he rolled it three times, once for practice and twice over the lake.

From Tex Johnston's autobiography:

Proceeding on a southwest heading in a shallow dive across the racecourse to 300 feet altitude, speed 490 mph, I established a 35-degree climb and released the back pressure. The airplane was climbing at 1 G, the same as level flight. I applied full left roll control and, as the airplane approached the inverted position, applied slight back pressure, bringing the nose down slightly to maintain 1 G, continually holding full left roll control. The roll was complete in level flight at 1,500 feet altitude.
It almost sounds dull. There's also a picture looking out the window with the engine above the wing.

[Richard Pearse]

Originally posted by Broomstick
Since someone has rolled a 707 (I'm pretty sure it was the 707) it is safe to assume that particular model of jumbo is, in fact, capable of momentary inverted flight.

When Tex rolled that 707 he maintained positive g throughout the manoeuvre so the aircraft never really "knew" it was inverted. There's a big difference between sustained inverted flight with negative g and a roll which involves the aircraft flying through the inverted but maintaining positive g - as I'm sure you know.

This is all very good discussion but a bit of a hijack eh?

[Robot Arm]

Didn't I just say that, and right from the horse's mouth?

[Richard Pearse]

Yeah you did. I was just emphasising that positive g inverted is totally different from negative g inverted.

[vex77]

Just curious.................Does the US have and ground to air missle defense systems set up on the east coast (A guess will do, I know exacts are not public knowledge). I know there are rumors that certain installations have hand held missles but I can visualize with no pproblem some of the higher security facilities have small silo's.

About the Navy having planes in the area....Correct me if Im wrong but quite a few of the intecept planes that were dispatched came from langley, whose security fence I can see right now from my bedroom. Well there are 2 Naval Air Stations really close to here Oceana a jet base and Norfolk Naval Air which is mainly choppers. Oceana Naval Air Base which is 25 min away has a ton of aircraft, could some of them have been scrambled also?


Vex

[Richard Pearse]

Originally posted by vex77

About the Navy having planes in the area....Correct me if Im wrong but quite a few of the intecept planes that were dispatched came from langley, whose security fence I can see right now from my bedroom. Well there are 2 Naval Air Stations really close to here Oceana a jet base and Norfolk Naval Air which is mainly choppers. Oceana Naval Air Base which is 25 min away has a ton of aircraft, could some of them have been scrambled also?


I think the problem with scrambling aircraft is that they have to be ready to start with. You can't just get a crew together, brief them, and have the ground crew ready the aircraft in a few minutes. You can only do it if you have armed aircraft prepared with a standby crew sitting around waiting. I wouldn't think that the US would have very many aircraft on alert within their own borders every day (although probably they have a few more now than prior to 9/11). So it would seem the best they could do at the time was send a couple of unarmed fighters, and even they didn't get there in time.

I wonder what those guys would have done if they'd got there in time? My immediate thought is that they could ram the airliner and eject at the last moment.

[mangeorge]

So now you want to add a jet fighter (or two) to the mix of lethal stuff falling all over Virginia? You guys are freakin' brutal. :eek:
mangeorge

[Broomstick]

Originally posted by Skogcat
This is all very good discussion but a bit of a hijack eh?Yeah, I suppose we wandered a bit off topic, but folks asked questions and I can't see where trying to answer hurt anything. It would be just as annoying to start a new thread every time the topic changed just slightly, too.

[mangeorge]

Well, here's the OP's basic question, and a pretty good one it is. He/she really like's commas, though. Not bad for a newby;
What is the chances of a flight crashing into the Pennsylvania countryside due to some sort of internal fight? Doesn't that seem weird? Wouldn't hijackers, if they win, keep the flight towards DC, and passengers, if they win, keep the nose up, at least?.
Most replies seem pretty much on topic to me.
If I were to start a new topic, it would concern why you're all so willing to knock a bunch of civilians to save a few politicians. Most of whom would run for the basemant and be safe anyway.
All except the Marines. They gotta guard the place.
Off-topic, eh. :)
mangeorge

[Broomstick]

I never said I'd trade a couple hundred civilians for Congress, that was someone else.

When folks talk about shooting down a hijacked plane they seldom consider where the pieces will fall. And fall they will. What goes up must come down. Having an airliner crash in your backyard is a really bad thing - just ask the folks in Rockaway who got to play catch with Flight 587 (the Airbus that lost it's vertical stabilizer and rudder). Or the folks in the path of that Concorde that crashed. Or the folks in Lockerbie, Scotland. Or the recipients of various other fractured aircraft.

When Payne Stewar's Learjet had its little presurization problem they let the darn thing just fly on its own for a couple hours. One reason was to give those aboard every possible (even ridiculously remote) chance to do something about the flight. Another reason was that no one was comfortable with the idea of shooting down an unarmed civilian airplane. And another reason was if you shoot it down, it falls on something. Don't want to shoot it down over buildings if you can help it, and when it started to run out of fuel it was over farm country, so in that case the damage on the ground was minimal.

Likewise, with the small stolen planes (Frankfurt, Tampa) you've got the dual problems of 1) most aircraft aren't equipped with weapons to shoot someone down anyhow (think in Frankfurt they did call in fighter jets) and in a 2) over a city, you got a choice between a nut crashing into a building, or you can shoot him down, and he will then crash into a building. That's a choice?

If the fighters HAD reached Flight 93 they would have had very little time in which to take down that plane before it was over heavily inhabited territory where any crash would result in death on the ground.

I tend to think (and it's strictly opinion here) that if the hijackers had been in control they would NOT have suicided until they were over buildings and could do some killing on the ground, too. Which is why I think it was an accidental crash arising from a cockpit fight for control of the aircraft.

Of course, other folks think different.

[Zagadka]

Originally posted by mangeorge
If I were to start a new topic, it would concern why you're all so willing to knock a bunch of civilians to save a few politicians. Most of whom would run for the basemant and be safe anyway.

That was me, and I didn't say I or anyone else here would be so willing to knock off a bunch of civilians to save the politicians. I said the military would.

The military's duty is national defense. By definition, the most important part of the nation is the government. Even if the more important politicians got out of DC before this point, even the deaths of a number of senior bureaucrats and the destruction of a major government building would have long-lasting effects. Assuming it was a symbollic attack, it would be targetted probably at the White House. Not so much of a real loss tactically, but the effect on moral of the nation would be horrendous. But I think these guys were, unfortunately, smarter than that. Taking out Congress probably wouldn't have costed so many lives (evacuation), but the offices contain their records etc, the destruction of which would cause a legal jam for years. Or taking out the Treasury. Or FBI HQ. There are a number of targets, many of which weren't evacuated, and any of which would have hurt our government system and response time to the attacks a lot - not to mention their stated effect on moral.

To a civilian, the death of, say, 400 civilians would normally be horrible... but remember the jet that crashed into a neighborhood a month after? It wasn't totally devastating. In the light of the other deaths of the day, the civilians on the ground would be tragic, but still a drop in the relative bucket. The military wouldn't hesitate to give the order.

Off that topic, someone at the top of this page mentioned something about the towers not resisting the blow from the airliner. The problem was that the towers WERE built to resist an airliner impact - that of a 707 or 727, IIRC, the standard airliner at the time. The plane that crashed into the towers was larger and carried more fuel. Frankly, they did their job admirably by standing up long enough for most of the people in them to evacuate -and to collapse straight down.

[Zagadka]

... I used "costed"... I'm sorry... *breaks down into tears*

[GregAtlanta]

As for "trading a couple hundred civilians to save Congress":
Uh....those civilians weren't going to survive if we let the plane fly into the Capitol or the White House. They were doomed either way, which some on board seemed to realize, thus their actions.

[Zagadka]

The point wasn't the people on the plane, the point was the people on the ground. Someone brought up that shooting down the plane too close would cause it to crash in a suburban/urban area, causing more deaths... but the military wouldn't blink (my point and theirs).

[mangeorge]

Somebody called all those dead people "beans".

[El Zagna]

The hijackers on that day had proven themselves to be very good at selecting targets that caused the maximum toll in human lives and psychological shock. It is an extremely safe bet that anywhere that the plane would have been brought down at random would have been better that wherever the hijackers had planned to crash it.

[El Gui]

Slightly off the current path, but has the 911 telephone call from one of the passengers been explained? He was the one locked in the bathroom who mentioned to the 911 dispatcher of hearing a loud explosion and seeing white smoke:

"Minutes later, news broke of another crash, this time around 80 miles south-east of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. At 9.58am, an emergency dispatcher had answered a telephone call from a man who said he was a passenger locked in a bathroom on United Airlines flight 93. "We are being hijacked, we are being hijacked," he told the dispatcher, while repeatedly insisting that the call was not a hoax. The plane was "going down", he said. He had heard some sort of explosion and said there was white smoke coming from the aircraft. Then the dispatcher lost him. "

http://www.guardian.co.uk/wtccrash/story/0,1300,550539,00.html

[Sam Stone]

Aside from the fact that there is absolutely no evidence of a shoot-down, there are plenty of logical holes in the theory.

For one thing, since the government categorically denied it before the wreckage was analyzed, they had to know beforehand that there would be no evidence of the shootdown that was obvious to all observers.

But more importantly, why would they lie? They voluntarily admitted that they were GOING to shoot it down. Why didn't they cover that up and say they would never shoot down civilians? It seems to me that we have plenty of reasons to believe that the government is being reasonably honest about what happened to that flight, perhaps with a few details left out for security reasons or to protect the feelings of the family from gruesome details.

[El Gui]

Originally posted by Sam Stone
That debris field that was found some distance away was made up entirely of light material that could have been launched into the air by the explosion and then floated with the wind.

Not according to this article. It just seems very unlikely that books, clothing and even possibly human remains, floated with the wind over six miles:

http://post-gazette.com/headlines/20010913somersetp3.asp

[Broomstick]

There is this phenomena called "bounce", you see.

To my mind, it's entirely conceivable that when the plane hit some of the debris bounced back up into the air. Given the forces involved, some debris could have been flung a considerable distance back up into the sky. The shockwave traveling away from the site, and the rising air from burning fuel, could also help send debris flying.

Also, when they say "human remains" they're probably NOT talking about entire arms and legs but much much smaller pieces. The smaller the piece, the further it can go.

But the biggest argument in my mind against a shoot-down is there no reason for the government to deny this, if it actually occured. The necessity of it would have been painfully obvious. Instead, they military admits it couldn't get to the scene in time - wow, THAT makes them look good. :rolleyes:

[carnivorousplant]

Originally posted by Sam Stone

But more importantly, why would they lie?

Why not?
I don't believe that the aircraft was shot down, nor do I believe in Area 51's hanger 18, but I don't believe that the Government always tells the truth, particularly in time of war, or what it believes to be war. Why didn’t they tell us how difficult Operation Anaconda was?
I don’ t believe that “Why would they” proves they didn’t any more than “Why wouldn’t they” proves that they did. It seems to me using that as an argument is scraping the bottom of the barrel and makes the very convincing argument that goes before less convincing.

[El Zagna]

The question of why the government would lie has been asked a couple of times on this tread, but no one has yet to offer a reason why doing so woule be in their best interest. So I'll ask again, carnivorousplant what would be their motive for lying. What possible benefit could they possibly derive from lying that would outweigh the liabilities of either not lying or getting caught in the lie.

I disagree with your claim that the "why would they" argument is some sort of logical fallacy. The question of motive is well established in criminal cases, and that's essentially what we have here. It also seems to me that the burdon of proof lies with those who are making such an outrageous claim.

[carnivorousplant]

Perhaps I expresed myself poorly.
I think the questions "why" and "why not" are speculative rather than factual and thus unanswerable.
Thanks,
CP

[El Zagna]

If I have no motive for killing someone, I'm not going to do it. If I receive no benefit from telling a lie I'm not going to tell it. There is a significant downside to getting caught for either act. To me that isn't speculation. It is a very reasonable and logical thought process.

If someone is going to accuse the government of lying about shooting down a plane, then they must suggest a benefit that the government would derive from doing so. If there is no benefit, then their claim simply doesn't hold up. That's just good reasoning. No?

[elf6c]

Originally posted by Whack-a-Mole
So what if the Air Force showed up after the crash? Some missiles have a beyond visual range capability. The AIM-54 Phoenix Missile (http://www.chinfo.navy.mil/navpalib/factfile/missiles/wep-phoe.html) can engage targets over 100 miles from the attacking aircraft. Given that the missile itself moves at over 3,000 m.p.h. it could easily arrive several minutes before the attacking craft. Especially if the attacking craft knew it got a hit and didn't feel the need to haull-ass on afterburner all the way in to the final crash site. The Phoenix, IIRC, was made to engage long-range bombers so attacking a jumbo jet is righ up its alley. The missile also attacks from above (that is it flies high and then drops down on its target) so it is doubtful that observers on the ground would even see it or hear it (I think its fall on target is unpowered...no more rocket pushing it so little noise and no visible glow).



Not to belabor the point, but only the F-14 can carry those puppies, and they are very, very expensive. In fact, once the F-14 is gone, so are the Phoenix missles. AMRAM's are the name of the game now. I imagine finding a fueled and ready F-14 and a warshot Phoenix would have taken too long. No evidence any were even remotely close to the area.

Also, I throw my support behind the posters who pointed out that (a) The Air Force and DoD admitted they would have shot the Jet down if it did not comply with orders (b) F-16's got there, but a bit late, (c) the passengers were sadly without real hope other then self help, and they knew it.

Additional points-

recent news articles have pointed out the Bush administration now believes they were going after the White House after all. This was based on interviews with detainees as I recall.

Bodies of the passengers and terrorists impacting (from the rush into the narrow cockpit) into the control yoke would push it down, wouldn't it? Then the dive and extra gravity would place more weight on the yoke pressing it down further- right? Wouldn't take much to cause a serious unrecoverable dive.

IMHO: If there was going to be a coverup it would have been regarding all the hints and information the FBI, CIA and NSA missed regarding 9/11 prior it happening right? That information, while very, very embarassing did come out.

[mangeorge]

Had the passengers killed the terrorists, taken control of the plane, and returned it to level flight, what are the chances they would have been allowed to land? They would all be on their cell phones saying "Yay", but could they convince the military, and would the military react quickly enough? Would the brass launch a SAM to bring down the F-16 sent after the passenger jet? Just one pilot. Beans.
Sorry, Mr. Pollyanna here wants a happy ending. I want Spielberg to make the movie.
Peace,
mangeorge

[carnivorousplant]

I think they'd have been allowed to land with a fighter escort.

[Broomstick]

Especially if they had been willing to obey orders to turn away from Washington and head towards an airfield away from heavily inhabited areas.

[Lemur866]

Yeah, the key is whether the aircraft suddenly starts obeying orders from ground control. Somebody on the radio speaking with an American accent probably wouldn't hurt either.

[Kilt-wearin' man]

Originally posted by mangeorge
Had the passengers killed the terrorists, taken control of the plane, and returned it to level flight, what are the chances they would have been allowed to land? They would all be on their cell phones saying "Yay", but could they convince the military, and would the military react quickly enough? Would the brass launch a SAM to bring down the F-16 sent after the passenger jet? Just one pilot. Beans.
Sorry, Mr. Pollyanna here wants a happy ending. I want Spielberg to make the movie.
Peace,
mangeorge

Um, why the hell do you think the F-16 would be shot down? And why with a SAM (and from where?)? Do you seriously believe that the US military is that bloodthirsty?

Man, I'd hate to live in your world.

[mangeorge]

Well, K-w'm, the F-16 would be shot down to save the lives of all those brave passengers on the passenger jet (it's the target, remember?). I do believe the military should be so compassionate as to sacrifice the life of one pilot to save the lives of so many on the plane and maybe on the ground.
LION, you are part of my world. Just not the part that read's posts in their entirety.
According to what I've read, the US was just minutes away from downing the passenger jet, and just several minutes away from putting the DC area in peril. It would have taken some pretty quick decision making and communicating to avert downing the plane. Even so, I believe they would have tried. I think the fighter pilot would have been all too ready to call it off.

[UncleBill]

The fighter pilot would have been in voice contact with higher command, and would have had specific instructions up to the point of firing or otherwise bringing down the airliner. The fighters would contact the airliner on Guard Channel before firing. They are not deaf and blind after they take off.

[Kilt-wearin' man]

No, I've read a couple of your posts in their entirety, Mangeorge, and you seem pretty convinced that not only would the military be eager to shoot down a planeload of civilians, but they would also forego using a radio to order a fighter pilot not to fire, and opt for launching a SAM at him instead. Not sure where your SAM would be launched from, since it would be rather unusual for a military installation on US soil to have air defenses primed and ready to go like that...even on September 11th.

Your main theme in your posts seems to be that the Air Force (and the US military in general) is - or should be - just slathering at the mouth to shoot somebody down, and you don't seem to think they would care who it is. It wasn't until your last post that you even admitted believing the fighter pilot wouldn't want to pull the trigger.

The quick communication you mention would be the passengers convincing the authorities that they were in control of the plane, and the message making it to the Air Force. Once that was done, a single radio call to the pursuing fighters is all that would be necessary to call off the attack. This is assuming that nobody on the airliner could figure out how to use the radio to answer the attempts at communication coming from the fighters.

I am, however, the part of your world that's tired of this re-hashed conspiracy theory that the OP isn't even interested in anymore - he or she has only posted three times, and all three of those posts were in this thread several days ago. This is all territory that has been explored to death in the last two years and nothing is being accomplished by dredging all of this bullshit up again and again and again...

[carnivorousplant]

Originally posted by Kilt-wearin' man

I am, however, the part of your world that's tired of this re-hashed conspiracy theory

Did you know that you can unsubscribe to threads?
:)

[mangeorge]

Ok, ok. I was in the USN (and you?), and don't know much about recall times for fighters. I don't even play war games (Ghost Recon, etc).
But I do know about truth. I re-read several of the latest of my replies and didn't find anything expressing the opinion that the military is bloodthirsty, and eager to kill people.
So you show me, boy.
And this has been, imo, one of the most interesting and balanced threads on the subject. Good questions, good answers.
Peace,
mangeorge

[Kilt-wearin' man]

Originally posted by mangeorge
So you show me, boy.

"Boy?" Mature attitude, pal.

Originally posted by mangeorge
Had the passengers killed the terrorists, taken control of the plane, and returned it to level flight, what are the chances they would have been allowed to land? They would all be on their cell phones saying "Yay", but could they convince the military, and would the military react quickly enough? Would the brass launch a SAM to bring down the F-16 sent after the passenger jet? Just one pilot. Beans.


Sounds pretty bloodthirsty - you assume that the fighters would make no attempt to communicate with the airliner, and assume that any attempts by the passengers would be ignored. Then, conveniently forgetting that all military aircraft have radios, you also assume that the only way to call the fighters off is to shoot them down with a SAM, which you still haven't explained the magical appearance of - the Army doesn't just have them sitting around waiting to shoot something down. More bloodthirstiness.

Now, we can have this discussion (which, frankly, I was tired of several days ago) like adults, or you can keep throwing snide comments and condescension my way.

As to your Navy service, hey, that's great, and I am glad you've served in this nation's military. I lost my chance when I pulled a lot of tendons in both of my legs in college, otherwise I'd have been the "Kilt-wearin' Major" by now - most of my old friends have at least been selected for major at this point if they aren't already wearing their shiny brass oak leaves. Not that our personal affiliations with the military have any bearing on this conversation whatsoever. The facts remain:

You declared that the passengers on the airliner would have a hard time convincing the Air Force not to shoot them down even if they had regained control of the aircraft and had managed not to hit the planet with it.

You speculated that the Air Force wouldn't be able to call off its pilots and would opt instead to have the fighters shot down by a SAM instead - still not sure what Army base your SAM would come from....

You seem to have an odd fixation on beans...(yes, I know what post the reference is from, it's a joke, ah say a joke boy...)

Maybe you didn't express the opinion of our military being bloodthirsty in so many words, but a majority of your posts have strongly implied it from where I'm sitting. Maybe you should think about how things are phrased when you post them before accusing others of not reading your posts when conclusions are drawn based on what you say. Maybe I should cut down on the run-on sentences... Maybe you shouldn't be so defensive, especially when the little hijack you and I have managed to create is the only thing keeping this pointless thread alive. I'm willing to concede this as a point that you and I won't be agreeing on at any time in the near future and let this thread die the withering death it should've died a week ago.

We've managed to peacefully post to the same threads before, so let's let this stupid conspiracy thread that the OP bailed out on after a day and a half go to wherever it is that useless old threads go to die.