I’ve heard three possible targets - Airforce One, the White House and Camp David.
If it was Airforce One, did the terrorists plan to hit it in mid-air as it was flying back to Washington with the President on board?
This would mean that they deliberately hit the three targets - the WTC and the Pentagon - first because they knew the President was in Florida and they thought he would immediately return to Washington. Then they would activate plane No. 4 which would hit Airforce One.
This seems to presuppose an incredible amount of detailed knowledge on the part of the terrorists.
the timing of all the “hits” had to be perfect
they knew the President was going to be in Florida at the time
they would need to be able to hit a moving plane with another moving plane
they would need to recognise that that other moving plane was indeed Airforce One and not some other plane
So was this the plan? If so, how do we know?
Was this an assassination attempt as well as everything else?
When the U.S. government releases a statement that says there was a “real and credible threat” to that plane, I expect they mean that something, somewhere was wrong, and they decided to implement their super-cautious emergency procedures.
It would be quite difficult to use an airplane to bring down Air Force One. It’s a big sky, and it wouldn’t be easy to find it from hundreds of miles away and run right into it.
Plus, I would suspect that AF1 had a fighter escort under these circumstances. I doubt it usually needs one over American soil, but Tuesday was quite different.
Eh? Not to contradict anything else, but I believe AF1 is basically your run-of-the-mill 747 (with modifications to accomadate the President, of course). Would it out manuver the sleeker (and I think faster) 757? I could find out for sure next time I talk to my dad but I’m guessing not.
Note: I’m not saying they could’ve actually hit AF1, just that they could probably “out-manuver” it.
And, for at least part of its round-about flight back to DC, AF1 had an escort of several Air Force fighter jets. I suppose that ANY plane that got within radar range would be toast.
And k2dave why would AF1 (a 747) be more maneuverable than a smaller aircraft? I doubt that POTUS and company ride securely strapped in, so any evasive manuevers would seriously put a hurt on the passengers.
OK, I type slow, Arden Ranger / Psi Cop mention a fighter escort. I’m not sure it ALWAYS has an escort, but the TVNews has made a big deal about showing the escort it had THIS flight.
Just like there are about 7 Shamu killer whales used interchangeably, I was under the impression that there are several Air Force Ones readily useable at any time. Am I wrong?
To answer the OP, the story I’ve heard is that the plane would wait for AF1 to land at Andrews Air Force Base and then crash into it on the ground. Maneuverability would have been zero on the ground, and it would have easily been hit.
The threat from what I read was deemed credible because there were mentions of code words used for Andrews and the White House, I believe. So the thought was they’d try to hit the prez either at the AFB or at the White House, wherever he was.
Well, I’m glad somebody else asked this, because I wondered about it, too, but I didn’t want to say anything, for fear of sounding like I was accusing My Elected Officials of being fat-headed.
I thought it sounded strange when I heard it, too. How COULD a flying 747 hit another flying 747? I assumed that the Elected Officials who made the statement that AF1 was the fourth target must have meant “while it was on the ground” somewhere.
Because it would be fat-headed to think that a flying plane could deliberately hit another flying plane.
Wouldn’t it?
The other flying plane (call it the Party of the Second Part), while not perhaps as maneuverable as a fighter jet, I would think could still just move --up-- or --down-- a little, and so get out of the way. And then they could have a game of 747 Air Tag up there at 10,000 feet, lumbering back and forth, high above Washington, while the Air Force scrambled every single fighter plane on the East Coast and eventually shot down the party of the first part.
And what would be the point of hitting AF1 while it was parked? The international terrorist equivalent of “keying” a car? “Hah, Dubya, that’ll show you, your Satanic vehicle is now severely damaged and will require many evil American dollars to repair…”
And–Dubya wasn’t scheduled to return Tuesday morning at 9, was he? So how could they be sure of hitting AF1 just as it had landed and before he got out of it? Were they planning on circling above Andrews, circling and circling, while the control tower guys just sat there chewing gum and watching them? “Don’t mind us, we’re just waiting for the Prez, we wanna meet him…”
There’s lots of information about various Air Force One scenarios in the New York Times, Great Debates and the BBQ Pit.
The threat may have seemed credible at the time, but it doesn’t hold up well to hindsight.
The 747 is actually faster than the 757. The Boeing website gives the cruising speed of a 757 as Mach 0.80, and the 747 as Mach 0.85. I couldn’t find any specs for maximum speed, but I imagine they’d show a similar edge for the larger plane.
There’s been a fair amount of talk about how much planning went into the attacks, but I haven’t seen anything about how far in advance the exact date was selected. At the time, they may not have known where Bush would be.
Pilot skill must also be considered. I’m sure Air Force One’s pilots are some of the best in the country. They could have easily outmanoevered another jet, especially a large one.
I thought the idea of hitting it in midair seemed farfetched. I assumed they meant on the ground as well.
Not to mention that by most accounts, the terrorists, while trained, were not advanced pilots. I would think AF1 is flown by about the best pilots the Air Force has. TLC (or Discovery) had a show on AF1 and there were vague mentions of “defensive capabilities” for the plane.
Of course, even if they failed 999 times out of 1000, Tuesday could have been that 1 in 1000. They sure seemed to get lucky in everything else they tried (I am almost physically sick using the word “lucky” to describe Tuesday.)
I didn’t think this was followed up adequately. No, Air Force One almost never has a fighter escort. Peter Jennings reported on Tuesday evening that AF1 only receives a fighter escort when flown over insecure locations, such as when President GHW Bush attended a drug summit in Peru in the early 1990’s. I presume that this includes trips over international water as well. My search for information has not yielded much information, for obvious reasons. Just because we don’t know about it doesn’t mean there aren’t escorts. However, anecdotal evidence suggests that there really aren’t any escorts when the President flies domestically. Back in 1997, there was a near miss between AF1 and a UPS 747. The two planes came within 3 miles and 1k vertical ft. I don’t think any self-respecting F-15 pilot would have allowed that to happen. On the plus side, AF1 has some built-in counter measures in the event of attack.