Except in 1994, someone attempted to hijack a FedEx jet with the intention of flying it into a building. So it’s not like we don’t have a precedent.
I don’t know where you got all this, but most of it is wrong. Turning off a transponder is not going to affect tracking using a primary radar return.
In that fevered thing you call a mind, exactly what do you suppose has been debunked? According to Desmostylus, seems planes WERE in the air (I’m assuming they were armed), but that nothing was decided as far as shooting anything down went. And nothing COULD be decided as things simply happened too fast. I think I’ll expend some energy on this ridiculous thread and actually break this thing down. Its a waste of course…when partisanship raises its ugly head rational discourse is tossed out the window.
So, they sent up the aircraft while they decided what to do. They didn’t have a clue yet what was going on, nor what steps they could or should take. All was confusion. You, sitting back here with loads of time and all the information, can smuggly say what they SHOULD have done, but you weren’t there, on the spot, trying to make heads or tails of what the hell was happening.
I’ll get to Ace Face in a sec. First, you got a cite that anyone knew exactly which planes had been hijacked and that it was that easy to detect them? Because I remember at the time that there were all kinds of conflicting reports that there were unidentified or non responding planes in California, over Boston, Chicago, etc etc. In other words they didn’t know what the hell was going on. Or did they? Please feel free to bring out a cite showing that someone during that small window of time knew exactly what was going on, which exact planes had been hijacked (besides flight 11 at either 8:14 or 8:37am EST…and later flight 175 at 8:42am EST), what their intentions were…oh, and you can list out anyone who had a clear idea of what they should do as far as shooting down civilian airliners goes.
I disagree with the last part. They WERE making decisions and weighing whether or not to shoot down civilian planes over populated areas…the FAA was handling it as its THEIR job. They just didn’t rush into anything, and they spent their time trying to figure out what the hell was happening.
You can wave your hand about and get all red in the faced as you rant yet again at the evil and incompetence of Bush, but there is no way that Clinton, Bush I, Regan, Carter, Nixon, Johnson, Kennedy, etc would have done anything differently in 36 minutes…they might as well have cut their political throats by ordering US military personnel to shoot down civilian jet liners on the chance that the jet they were shooting down actually had hijackers, and that said hijackers were indeed going to fly their planes into buildings. Thats of course discounting the fact that the planes themselves couldn’t have gotten there anyway. I’ll go through it in a bit.
For all the president knew, the first plane flown into the WTC might have been hijacked and the hijacker might have simply fucked up, or maybe shot the pilot on accident, or any number of other things…and that the other planes weren’t going to be used that way…that it was a large scale hijacking that had just gone wrong. Even if he was being informed min. by min. by either NORAD or the FAA (which wouldn’t have happened) he only had 16 min. from when flight 11 struck (and they didn’t KNOW it was going to crash into a building) until flight 175 struck.
I’m going to double post the second half of this which has the time table in it…I’m going over the word limit atm.
-XT
Lets take Desmostylus time table cite as fact for arguments sake and walk through it all. Its probably a waste of my time to try and convince rabid partisans of anything, but what the hell.
Ok, so, nothing intersting has happened yet. Its 8:00am EST and no one has any inkling whats going on.
Its now 8:14am EST, and the second flight, 175 takes off. Still no one knows anything about whats going on.
Its now 8:37am EST, and flight controllers are aware now that flight 11 has gone off course. But they still don’t know for sure whats happening. At this point certainly the FAA is investigating things, and maybe NORAD is aware there might be a problem, but certainly the president hasn’t been informed except maybe in someones fevered fantasy world. I seriously doubt ANY high ranking official is aware at all that there might be a situation. They are focused on flight 11 right now.
Ok, its now 8:40am EST and things are starting to happen. Appearently on someones authority (I’m guessing its NOT an Administration official but some base commander, or maybe someone at NORAD) fighter jets are scrambled to take a look at what the hell is happening to flight 11. I’m reading this as they still don’t know whats going on, but that they think it is a hijack. So, planes were dispatched 13 min after they became aware there might be a problem…26 min. at most (either 8:37-8:40 or 8:14-8:40 depending on how you look at it). Possibly at this point senior Administration personnel MIGHT have become aware that something was afoot. Certainly I doubt the President is aware anything is happening by this time. Its only 26 min. so far.
<snip>
NORAD is notified that Flight 175 has been hijacked. [8:43, NORAD, 9/18/01, 8:43, CNN, 9/17/01, 8:43, Washington Post, 9/12/01, 8:43, AP, 8/19/02, 8:43, Newsday, 9/10/02] Apparently NORAD doesn’t need to be notified, because by this time NEADS technicians have their headsets linked to the FAA in Boston to hear about Flight 11, and so NORAD learns instantly about Flight 175. [Newhouse News, 1/25/02]
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Ok, so its now 8:43am EST and appearently everyone is aware that flight 11 has been hijacked, and that flight 175 has also probably (possibly) been hijacked. NORAD has been following whats going on by listening in to chatter by the FAA on all this. They don’t have any indications though that the two are related, though I’m sure they have their suspicions. They don’t know whats going on.
Its now 8:46am EST and flight 11 has now crashed. However, its been flying without a transponder appearently so they haven’t been able to track the plane for quite a while. Appearently flight 175 has also turned off its transponder, but then in a fit of stupidity turned it back on but with a different (and unknown) code. However, focus at this time has to be on flight 11 thats now crashed…people going nuts but still not knowing what the hell is going on.
8:46-9:03am EST…17 min. period. Ok, mass confusion. No one knows what the hell is happening. By now the President is most likely informed that bad things are afoot…but what exactly? No one knows whats happening. The flight controllers in NY aren’t even given a conclusive report yet as to the fate of flight 11. This is reasonable…look how fast things are progressing. These folks are fucking humans after all. They are confused, maybe even in a bit of a panic, and don’t know what the hell is going on. They are TRYING to sort things out and figure out whats happening.
Intersting but irrelevant. I’m sure that it would take some time for this fact to percolate up the chain of the FAA to get to someone who could evaluate it and fit it into the puzzle of whats happening. Things are mass confusion with the focus most likely STILL on flight 11 and what the hell happened. And what the hell flight 175 is doing is probably starting to become a bit more urgent.
8:52 am EST and the fighters are finally prepped, manned and dispatched. Its now a whole 15 or 40 min depending on how you are counting (8:14-8:52 or 8:37-8:52) since they became aware of a problem with flight 11 and 10 min after losing track of flight 175 (8:42-8:52). They go out hell bent for leather…but its 8:52am EST now. Exactly how fast the planes were in fact going is a matter of debate appeantly…the range seems to be from 500-1125 mph. Reguardless the BEST they could have done at this point was reach flight 175 just before it crashes (according to the cite).
Going to skip the next two time lines as they aren’t relevant at all (you can read em yourself by going to Desmostylus time table cite.
Ok, its now between 9:01 and 9:03am EST. Flight 175, with its transponder squacking an unknown code is over New York. The total focus is now here as the FAA and the various controllers try and figure out what the hell is going on NOW. They still don’t know at this point, but probably have a sneaking suspicion that flight 175 is going to go the way of flight 11.
Its now 9:02:54 am EST. Wham! Flight 175 hits the south tower of the WTC. Many of us watched this happen live on TV…including myself, roused out of sleep by a frantic brother in law to see what happened to the first building of the WTC. The fighter jets dispatched to investigate first flight 11 and then flight 175 are 71 miles away still…8 minutes flight time. Its now been 48 min. (or 25 depending on if you start at 8:14 or 8:37) since the FAA became aware of a problem with flight 11, and 20 min since they became aware of a problem with flight 175. 48 whole minutes, during most of which the FAA was trying to get a handle on what the hell was going on…and didn’t have a clue for the most part. Only 20 min. since they could have even had an inkling that there might have been MULTIPLE planes in the air. Only 16 min. since flight 11 itself crashed for still unknown reasons (at that time) and when they could have reasonably started to seriously worry that an ATTACK might have been going on.
Its now just after the crash of flight 175…9:03-9:08 am EST, and they are scrambling to put the pieces together. They ban planes flying near cities and start thinking about bringing all the planes down. By 9:07 they stop takeoffs.
Its now 9:06am EST and Bush has just been told of the second crash (4 min. after). He elects to spend 8 or 9 min. in the classroom, which is controversial. I won’t get into if this was right or wrong. He’s told by Ari Fleischer to not say anything yet…I assume they are trying to project a measure of calm…and also they still don’t know exactly what the hell is going on nor what to do about it. The pilot notes that only the president could authorize him to shoot down a civilian plane…but its a moot point as he as 8 min. out anyway when flight 175 crashed. Even if he had of gotten there on time though, it would have taken phenominal timing to GIVE him the order to shoot. It was also a pretty thin time table for Bush to have made such a decision. Only 16 or so min. since flight 11 crashed after all.
I don’t have time right now, but it would be intesting to have the exact timing of the flight that hit the Pentagon to fit it into all this. However, I think its totally unreasonable knowing human nature, how the government works, and how politicians work, to expect ANYONE to have put things together and come up with an effective plan of action in such a short time frame. You can wave your hands all you like, hem and haw, second guess to your little flinty hearts content…but it was just not going to happen. NO ONE could have worked under those conditions and done anything effective. 16 min from the first crash to the second? Who knew exactly what was going on? Again, maybe the first crash was unrelated to the second hijacking. It all happened too fast.
-XT
O.K., fair enough.
But every analysis I’ve seen where someone has actually done the math shows that they had much more than enough time to get fighters there in time. We had F-15s in the air by 8:52 am, NORAD would have been aware that 93 was hijacked at about 9:20 am, and the plane went down at 10:06 a.m., 124 miles from Washington D.C. It just shouldn’t take that long for a supersonic jet to get there; they should have been there already.
Yeah, but you’re saying it takes awhile to get the planes off the ground, when it actually took only minutes.
But the analyses I’ve looked at show that they would have only been flying at 1/3 of their top speed for it to take as long as it did. It sounds like they weren’t flying fast at all.
Man am I ever f***ing sick of the “well, if X had happened, we all know that (insert group of people) would have responded like Y” argument. Sure, there are a very small number of leftists who are nutjobs who do nothin but make up lies about Bush being evil in all circumstances. A very very small number. But most of us, even if we criticize Bush a lot, even if we truly believe him to be an evil and terrible president, don’t just automatically blame everything on him always.
For example: The US has invaded and conquered two sovereign nations recently, Afghanistan and Iraq. When invading Afghanistan, we were told “Afghanistan has harborded Al Qaeda, which attacked us on 9/11. Also, the Taliban is evil”. When invading Iraq, we were told a whole lot of BS. One of those two invasions is being protested a zillion times more than the other. Why? Aren’t we stupid leftists just going to automatically protest everything Bush does?
Anyhow, back to the issue at hand, the important question for me is why, given the raised terror alert level, and given the NORAD drills, was there not a policy or set of rules in place? Something like “the moment there’s even a suspicion of a hijacking you start launching fighter planes and get them into the area”? Also, you can go on all you like about conflicting reports, but (as far as I know) those were conflicting reports IN THE PULIC MEDIA. I have no doubt that the information available to whoever was in charge (if anyone was in charge) was a lot more clear, although certainly still far from perfect.
The poor response time of the military showed up in Florida too:
http://www.911timeline.net/
AF-1 ultimately got its escort from a base in Texas.
(I’ve not checked the link for political bias. The delay in getting AF1 covered is reported in any number of 9-11 timelines.)
That “threat against Air Force One” story was bullshit fed to William Safire by a friend in the White House. I wouldn’t trust anything else on that website if they haven’t got that story clearly debunked as such. By the time Bush left the ground in Florida, emergency procedures (designed for the event of a nuclear attack) were already in effect that said Bush should be sent to an emergency bunker to keep him geographically separated from Cheney for the time being. Later, Cheney (and some other governemnt bigwigs) got sent to the “undisclosed location” as Bush returned to Washington.
60 Minutes covered the emergency procedures in a story some weeks ago…
Yeah, I’m going to make a bunch o’ replies in a row, because if I try to cut and paste I just know I’ll botch it up
Actually, he DID hit the White House. As usual when a small, single-engine airplane hits a solid object, the airplane crumpled and the solid object had far less damage.
I don’t know if it’s lying or self-delusion or big time cover-your-ass stuff. Remember, Bush is our first MBA president. The Bush administration’s conduct in regards to 9/11 and the commission investigating it is not unlike the conduct seen by many corporate officers in recent years - cover your butt, find a fall guy, practice plausible deniability. He’s a Big Business president, why should we expect anything different?
Disappointing and disturbing, perhaps, but understandable given how long it had been since the continental US had been attacked, and the general level of prosperity and security in the country at that time. Countries that have gone several generations without direct attack and developed a lot of material wealth tend to get complacent and let their guard down. It’s human nature.
And before someone jumps on me about making “excuses” - I’m not making excuses, I’m making observations. Could things have been done better? Of course! But unless you take into account all the factors that go into something like 9/11 it’s no more than an excercise in finger-pointing. Granted, there’s a primative side of me that would like to see some heads on pikles, but what I really want is to prevent such a thing from occuring again. That means taking a real look at the situation, even when it’s uncomfortable.
99.99% of the time I’d agree with you, BUT–
If the CO ordered a pilot/solidier to gun down a schoolyard full of toddlers should he obey that order?
The Nuremburg trials established that “I was just following orders” is not a justification for certain types of acts.
I think if a pilot was ordered to shoot down an airliner of civilians and refused to do so he might have an argument in his favor. Sure, the circumstances where a military man can justifiably refuse to follow an order are very few and very far between, but in the confusion of 9/11, when Joe Pilot is ordered to scramble and, instead of the enemy he expects, he is told to gun down a United or AA airliner … you know, I would NOT find it reassuring if he didn’t run it through the morality computer first. Yes, the correct conclusion is in this particular case shooting down civilians is justified, but that sort of thing should never become automatic. IMO.
tagos, on this statement you and I are in agreement
Yes, someone should do the decent thing, but decency seems in short supply these days.
Well, let’s see - after the end of the Cold War and the fall of the Berlin Wall and sundry related events, the government decided it didn’t need quite so large a military and thus proceeded to reduce personnel, close bases, cancel weapons programs, etc.
Neo-cons - many of whom make up parts of the current administration - did not see stateless terrorism as a threat. They focused on nation-states like Iraq and North Korean, pretty much ignoring the likes of bin Laden and AQ as bit players at best and incapable of attacking the heartland of the US
And no one has accepted responsibility because this adminsitration is riddled with people of small intellect who would rather change the facts to fit their preconceived world view than change their world view to fit the facts.
Fine, the threat to air force one was bullshit. We all know that now. That doesn’t alter in any way the long delay before the president’s plane was covered. If you don’t like the cite I pulled up, look it up at another location by googling (9-11 timeline).
Not to hijack the thread (har!) or anything, but I wanted to add an observation or two.
First, from the USA Today article in the OP:
Gee, last I heard, it was the same government. Just a different chief executive and executive staff. Puts a pretty sharp point on the indicator of George W.'s perception of himself.
And secondly, and more on topic, someone in the White House knew there was enough of a threat to commercial air traffic to advise A.G. John Ashcroft to stay off of commercial flights and start using charters. (Cite: CBS News, 26 July 2001)
So, the obvious question is: if someone in the Exec Branch of our current government thought there was enough of a threat to keep their own exec staff off of airliners, then why wasn’t NORAD put on higher alert to respond to threats to air traffic?
The claim that our government was blindsided by these hijackings is beginning to sound pretty damn thin…
First of all, I didn’t intend any of that post to “excuse” anything - I stated it was to point out factors that didn’t seem to be considered in the arguments flying around here.
Now, about that radar thing - radar is NOT an omnicisent, all-seeing eye in the sky. It has limitations. Granted, I am not an air traffic controller but I do talk to them and I have been on the inside of a working control tower.
Berkut, you are correct, a transponderless plane does appear on “primary radar”. But that’s only helpful IF the controller is already on the primary radar. ATC has a number of views available to them on their scopes, each delivering slightly different information. Particularly when handling large numbers of planes, or in a high traffic area, ATC employs filters of various sorts, tagged targets, and other devices to help them. But, as I pointed out, a transponderless airplanes does NOT help the radar system, and will not appear tagged, and may not appear at all in some of the views used by ATC. Which is why a plane without a transponder MUST arrange in advance to enter such airspace - so the controllers know in adavance that it will be there and will know to use a view that will enable them to see it, or to switch to such a view when the pilot advises them he is entering the airspace.
In fact, there have been times when flying over the city of Chicago in a small airplane I have WANTED to be on radar but failed to appear on ATC’s 'scopes despite a working transponder. Depending on traffic they sometimes let me enter the area anyway, but with the condition I make frequent radio updates of my position and heading, or have even refused me permission to enter the airspace. Granted, it is much less likely for a jumbo jet to fail to appear on radar, but it is an illustration that radar is not all-seeing and all-knowing.
So… Flight 11 (as an example) is put-putting through the skies and suddenly - BLIP! - the transponder signal disappears. There’s a very good chance the controller will have to
Is this impossible? No. But it takes time and could account for part of the delay in scrambling jets. Because the controller isn’t going to think “hijack” immediately, he’s going to thing “equipment failure” or possibley “airplane in distress” because those are much more common occurances. As I have pointed out in other threads, the lack of transponder and scanty radio contact would have initially appeared as a possible equipment failure. Sure, ATC will figure out it’s a hijacking - in a few minutes Tick-tick-tick. It’s a tactic not to delay the inevitable but to buy some time. If it takes 5-10 minutes to figure out it’s a hijacking rather than an airliner in distress that’s 5-10 minutes LESS for the fighters to scramble and pursue.
I also think that **tagos ** and **rjung ** are confusing military and civilian radar and traffic control. Civilian radar is NOT set up to deal with uncooperative “targets”. Civilian ATC depends on everyone having a stake in the system working properly, on cooperation, on the idea that people tend to follow the rules. It doesn’t seek out delibrate deception.
Military radar, however, deals entirely with unco-operative targets. Their systems and their controller training is very different than civilian - which is why a military controller requires re-training before assuming a civilian post in ATC.
Now, on 9/11 the military was still looking outward for attack - not inward. Sure, once the civilians realized what was happening they called NORAD - but how much time had elapsed? How easily could NORAD swing from external watch to internal watch?
As I’ve said - ordering all planes to land helped a great deal in reducing the number of possible targets, which make detection and pursuit MUCH easier all around. But that order probably came too late to save the day.
As for planes diverting from “flight plans”, making “u-turns” and so forth - flight plans DO change (yes, Berkut, I know they’re really clearances). Airplanes with equipment problems DO make “u-turns” back to base for an emergency landing.
My point is NOT that the hijackers practiced perfect deception - they didn’t - but rather that ATC had to sort out just what was happening with these airplanes. It delayed the proper response to the crisis at hand. Excuse? No - rather a partial explanation of why fighters didn’t launch 2 minutes after the first impact on the WTC.
Nor have I seen any indication that any controller was seeing more than one plane acting funny when this whole thing unfolded. Why would a controller in Ohio, confronted with an airplane that suddenly went radio and transponder silent and made a 90 degree turn to the south even be aware, at that time (remember, he’s at work) that anything unusual is going on in New York City? He’s concentrating on his chunk of sky, not listening to CNN. In New York they know something’s VERY wrong - but are they talking to NORAD or the guy in Ohio?
Because the crowd running the show doesn’t give a damn as long as they think they’re insulated from the threat.
I mean, really - they seem quite eager to send other peoples’ children into harms way, but how many of the Bush inner circle have THEIR children in the front lines?
Not to mention, Bush’s line of “Bring it on!” is… is… contemptitable. How easy it is for HIM, with his retinue of bodyguards, secret service, his anti-missile equipped jet, the layers of security around him, to say “bring it on!”? HE is not expecting to be among the bleeding and dying, is he?
Yes, but in this case the contingency planners weren’t listened to and the message didn’t get out. The controllers aren’t contingency planners, either - they’re paid to keep the tin moving without colliding, not to come up with worst-case scenarios.
Except they WEREN’T making “U-turns”, or at least not obvious ones. I recently found with flight 93 that it didn’t make a clean reverse at all - it turned south for awhile, turned east, turned again … it made a meandering path back to the east coast and Pennsylvania. Odd? Yes. Obvious where it was going? No.
No, actually he doesn’t.
If an airplane is radio-silent and flying screwy ATC will get traffic out of the way. I know, because I’ve seen it. I was flying into Palwaukee when some guy stopped talking to the tower and flew crazy - cutting across traffic patterns, all sorts of stuff. When he turned and headed off to O’Hare ATC warned off the big jets since the guy in the Bonanza sure wasn’t listening or talking to anyone.
Yes, he’s either an idiot or part of a vast conspiracy. Take your pick.
Yes, - IF the base was alerted ahead of time - which, apparently, none were.
And while the turns were suspicious, as I have pointed out numerous times, there were potential alternative explanations outside of hijackings that needed to be eliminated prior to calling in the calvary.
Again, there are differences between civilian and military radar and air traffic responsibilities. Initially, this was being dealt with by civilians, not military. When it was clear there were multiple hijackings the miltiary was called in - but that was, at soonest, AFTER the first two impacts.
Again, not excuses. I’m not “excusing” anyone. I’m merely pointing out that it was not so cut and dried as some people seem to think.
Thank you.
So what? Did they have to know where it was going to intercept it? Besides which, if you look at a map of the route Flight 93 took, it pretty much exactly doubles back on its course. The fact that they didn’t fly in precisely a straight line should have been more suspicious, not less.
Yeah, maybe they were taking the scenic route. 
After the SECOND WTC hit, they still had over an hour before Flight 93 went down. The determining factor should have been when they discovered it was hijacked; they already should have known that acts of terrorism had been committed.
Again, not excuses. I’m not “excusing” anyone. I’m merely pointing out that it was not so cut and dried as some people seem to think.
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