Down being the operative word here. Those jets wouldn’t evaporate into thin air. They’d spread tons of fuel and wreckage over a very large area. What was vertical at the Towers would have been horizontal on the ground.
So why all the enthusiasm for having had the military shoot down the hijacked jets on 9/11? When I hear someone express this opinion, I ask what would be the loss of life compared to what happened at the targeted buildings, and nobody, including me, has the slightest idea. These planes were flying over very densely populated areas, right? In fact, it looks to me like the one that hit the Pentagon could have easily done much more damage, and killed many more people, had it been shot down short of it’s intended target.
Could it be that our enthusiasm for action is a result of our misguided distaste for doing nothing? What if an F-15 had gotten to the plane in Pennsylvania while it was still over populated areas? Imagine that crater in the center of Pittsburg.
Peace,
mangeorge
After looking at the time lines in another thread, I don’t really think it was an option to shoot any but the last flight down in any case…not unless people knew what was coming. The timetable was really very tight, especially when you factor in all the confusion…of which there was a hell of a lot.
I just don’t see ANY American President (or anyone in the US military establishment) making a decision at the time and not looking at the events in retrospect making a decision to shoot down jet airplanes filled with US citizens over populated areas. Once you really look into the thing and really study the timeline, and how the information was fragemented among several different agencies and even groups in the different agencies, when you really study how it all went down, I dont think any reasonable person could come to the conclusion that anyone could have stopped the thing. The one caviot I’ll make is that, by the third plane, I think something COULD have been done…that planes COULD have been sent to intercept (and they weren’t afaik). Its a moot point of course as the plane crashed on its own in a rural area, but I think this is the one legitimate beef from the ‘shoot em down’ crowd.
-XT
Once the intercepting fighters located and acquired their targets, they would have some choice in the matter of when they were shot down, and therefore over what they were shot down.
Maybe, as you say, it would have been too dangerous to people on the ground (although I’m skeptical of this, since potentially there were 50,000 people in the Twin Towers; I find it hard to believe the dispersed remains of an aircraft falling anywhere else in the world, even over the rest of Manhattan, could have caused anywhere near that much harm).
The 9/11 Commission’s criticism is merely that it would have been nice to have that option, I think.
There was no way, without prior knowledge that planes could have been armed and in range to attack the two planes that hit the WTC from the data I’ve seen. Especially the first one…no one knew what it was going to do. As for the second it happened too fast, there was too much confusion. I’ve seen the time lines and I know how people opperate under stress and in a confusing and fragemented situation. Its not reasonable to think that anyone would or could have known enough to be able to make a reasonable decision with reguards to the first two planes. The third plane…well, thats another story. I’ll conceed that I think the government could have done more about that one. Happily its a moot question, but it COULD have been very bad and I don’t think the government (or the FAA or NORAD specifically) handled that part well.
-XT
The NY metro area is populated, but it’s not that dense. An Airbus A300 crashed in Queens in November 2001 and a relatively small number of people on the ground were killed.
The planes were also moving very fast, so they were only over the extremely dense area for a very short time.
While the planes did in fact fly over some populated areas, it’s highly unlikely shooting them down would have caused anywhere near the loss of life on the ground that occurred when they struck the WTC and Pentagon, unless, perhaps, they were shot down in the last minute or so of their respective flights. The fact is, the majority of all four flights, except for the takeoff and terminal phases, took place over relatively unpopulated areas.
A number of commercial flights have gone down in urban areas in the US in the past 30 years as a result of mishaps in flight. Examples include:
American Airlines Flight 191, Chicago, 25 May 1979, two on ground killed
Air Florida Flight 90, Washington, DC, 13 January 1982, five on ground killed
Aeromexico Flight 498, Cerritos, CA, 31 August 1986, 15 on ground killed
USAir Flight 427, Pittsburgh (Aliquippa), PA, 08 Sept. 1994, none on ground killed
American Airlines 587, New York, 12 Nov. 2001, five on ground killed.
Source: www.airdisaster.com
Most of these crashes involved aircraft that were completely out of control, and the pilots hod little or no chance to affect to location of impact.
A shootdown would of course be a tough decision to have to make, but if one determined with a high degree of probability that a flight had been hijacked by a suicidal group, IMO it would be the option likely to result in the least fatalities and damage.
Whoops, let’s try again.
Anyway, as others have said, in the case of 11 Sept. 2001, it’s a moot point, as the system really was not geared up to get fighters onto the hijacked planes in time for a shootdown to be an option.
But they did.
Cheney Authorized Shooting Down Planes
But this is the scariest part, for those maintaining a picture of Bush as a profile in courage:
The 9/11 question may well be moot, but the bigger question certainly is not.
If a passenger plane bound for the east coast is hijacked after leaving Los Angeles and appears to be heading for San Francisco, is it going to be shot down over, say, Berkeley? Or Oakland?
Some of those officials at that hearing were bemoaning the fact that the military didn’t get up in time to bring down the jets, even before they (the govt) knew the intended targets of the terrorists. By the time any plane gets close enough for the target to become obvious, it’s too late for pilots to pick a “less important” place to crash it, isn’t it? Are the terrorists going to fly out over the ocean to make it easier for us?
I do not believe that had those two planes crashed on the ground in the vincinity of the Towers instead of into them, at the same time of the day, with the same fuel load, that only4 or 5 people would have died. Maybe the military could have “precision crashed” them into the harbor. I don’t know.
Your link requires registration, ElvisL1ves. I have no doubt Cheney authorized the military to ‘take them out’…but whats the time stamp on that?10am? 10:30am? 11am? Later? Maybe you can read through the link since you have registered and look it up and post it. Its kind of important, no? Depending on WHEN he gave such authorization will depend on if it would have made any difference. If I recall it was after 10am that such authorization was given (its been several months and I’m too lazy to look up that other thread now)…which was too late to do anything about either of the planes that hit the WTC.
We’ve been through this and through this. It was at a time when no one knew the extent of what was going on. Look up the time tables and plug in what was happening at 9:00am. Remember that they didn’t KNOW what was going on, that multiple groups at the FAA were dealing with multiple problems separately, no one had ‘the big picture’…and NORAD was observing mostly, not really involved at this point. They didn’t KNOW it was a multi-event until later than this, or the extent of the attack…hell, they didn’t know anything really except a plane had slammed into the WTC (cause unknown at this time).
Look at your own cite: “who first told him and White House Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center, though initially it was believed to be a small private plane, the commission reported.”
"He had his first conversation with Cheney at about 9:15. Those traveling with the president did not know other aircraft were missing, the commission reported. "
There is nothing ‘scary’ about Bush remaining calm and not rushing out when no one knew what was happening…for a whole fucking 5-7 min. I seriously doubt ANY president would have reacted differently…its their job to remain calm and look presidential. I’ve yet to see a credible cite that the Secret Service WANTED to rush Bush out of there either.
-XT
Mangeorge, why do you think they would have been shot down in the close vicinity of the towers? Keep in mind these planes were going 300 mph in open air. If they were shot down even 2 minutes before they crashed, they would have been 10 miles away.
Don’t worry, it’s free.
I understood you to be flatly disbelieving of any possibility that the White House would order, or authorize, a shootdown. Did you aactually mean something more nuanced?
The Cheney order may well have been received too late, but that couldn’t matter for purposes of this discussion, that information not being knowable at the time the order was given. One can only conclude that the probable location of a forced crash was not a consideration for the acting President.
Read it again, or for the first time, whichever. The part I called “scary” was the President of the US, the Commander in Chief, *knowing * that a second plane had hit, a *second * plane, and continuing to read children’s books to an elementary school class. How did he react? Not a “What the hell?”, not a “We’d better get out of here”, nothing, until he got a good, forceful talking to from somebody.
Once you’ve actually read the link, feel free to comment upon it.
[/QUOTE]
Yes…I meant in a time frame that would have made a difference. I figured it was obvious that EVENTUALLY they would make a decision about it. Democracies work slowly when presented with such problems and the unexpected…they don’t have a play book for it, they don’t know the poll numbers or how the citizens (or the press, or the opposition) will react. You want fast response, you need a good dictatorship where you don’t have quite as much cover your ass going on.
Think about it…an America President or any other official ordering the shoot down of a plane full of US civilian citizens…men, women and children. They are going to dither until they know EXACTLY what is going on and have no choice but to issue such an order…and by then its going to be too late, because getting a handle on such events takes time. Now, today it would be different…its no longer an unknown situation (plus they have poll data to back them up on such a decision, know what the press and the people would say and how they would react, even how the opposition would react). If something like that happens again, the government has their their trusty dusty plans book they can look too to tell them what to do.
I’ve read it and similar things ad nausium ElvisL1ves. I’ve also looked at it in conjunction with the timeline of events as they happened, and I’m unconvinced there is anything unusual or ‘scary’ about it. Basically it breaks down on partisan lines as to whether it was a non-issue or the greatest folly of all time by a US President. Personally I have looked at the data in an as unbiased way I could and thats the conclusion I’ve come too. YRMV.
I really have nothing further to say about it that I haven’t said in at least 3 other threads about it in the past…at great length. For a full listing of my position on it feel free to do a search and look it up for yourself if you are interested. It really has no impact on THIS OP though about shooting down the planes…or not shooting down the planes.
-XT
Well, Berkeley is north of Oakland, so…
Or they could wait 10 seconds and shoot it down over the Bay.
Or Emeryville. No one likes Emeryville. It is just a big industrial wasteland anyway. Or maybe Richmond, just put those people out of their misery.
The nice thing about California - there’s no big targets anyway. What are you going to hit, the Transamerica building? Coit tower? Maybe the Golden Gate, though the Bay Bridge would be a better target. Down in LA, you have even less… Capitol Records building… Hollywood sign… um… Disneyland…
The real problem, to me, is not what decision was made, it’s that procedures were not already in place.
In retrospect, there should have been a standing policy that the moment an airliner is even suspected of being hijacked, you scramble fighter jets and get them over to that jet ASAP. That way, if someone does make the tough choice to shoot such a plane down, the jet is already there. If no such decision is made, well, you’ve wasted some jet fuel, but at least the possibility existed.
There also should have been a clearly assigned command structure in place, channels of communication, etc. etc. etc.
(Note that this is not meant as a partisan criticism… every administration back to Eisenhower or so could have implemented and perfected a system of this sort, but didn’t.)
As for Bush continuing to read to the schoolchildren, well, maybe this is pure partisanship on my part, but which of these seems more likely?
(a) Bush instantly processed the information, realized the potential gravity of the situation, but also realized that, given his current location, and the communication tools he potentially had access to, there was nothing that he could do at that moment, and thus quickly and decisively made the decision to keep reading books to kids for a few moments, while his razor-sharp intellect continued to play over various scenarios, and develop plans and strategies
(b) Bush just sat there until his advisers told him to do otherwise, because that’s the kind of tool that he is
OK, I didn’t present those choices in the most impartial fashion possible, I admit, but really, the whole situation pisses me off… it’s one thing to say that any president would dither about making tough decisions for any number of reasons, including politics. It’s another to say that any president would hear the news that an even of extraordinary significance was in the midst of occurring (and even without realizing the true scope of 9/11, the fact that two planes had crashed into the WTC is obviously HUGE) and just sit there without asking questions, trying to get to a potential command center, etc. Do you honestly believe that Clinton would have reacted the same way? Bush Sr.? Reagan? Carter? JFK? Teddy “San Juan Hill” Roosevelt?
Well if you shoot down a plane short of its intended target it breaks up somewhat in mid air. The fuel is somewhat consumed and then spreads on the ground on impace.
Now many people would die, but it would be alot better than having all the fuel concentrated in one point (in the WTC) and burned there, hot enough to eventually bring the whole thing down.
So yeah, people will die either way, but it’s still better to shoot the thing down.
Intersetingly, now that they’ve played the “we’re hijacking this plane but don’t worry, you won’t be harmed bit”, I don’t think they can play it again. The pilots would start doing loops, decompress the cabin, everything knowing that they’ll be killed if they give in to terrorist demands.
Not when you know that four planes have been hijacked simultaneously, and two of them have already been crashed into a high-profile target. Even without hindsight, wouldn’t it be sufficiently clear what the hijackers of the other two are planning?
The Commander-in-Chief’s inaction had no impact on the decisionmaking process? You’re serious? Well, perhaps, if his nominal subordinates already knew it was futile to include him in the loop. Otherwise, that statement is unreasonable.
Well, that’s the thing. Until 9/11, “no one” “suspected” “aircraft used as missiles” outside of the works of fiction. The SOP for an airline hijacking was to cooperate until the plane lands. The “genius” of the 9/11 operators was in exploiting this.
When did they know the Towers were targeted? That’s my whole problem with the “shoot 'em down” scenario. How are the authorities to know the intentions of probable terror hijackers? Take my example above. Could it be that the hijackers simply seek asylum in Canada? My concerrn isn’t for the past, but for future incidents. Are we to shoot down any passenger jet that seems to be heading for a potential target, and is not communicating with us? Are the authorities in the future going to be afraid to not order such an action, and if they’re wrong is it going to be acceptable? Will we (the public) know if they were wrong? We’re talking about the loss of lives of at least the passengers and crew (and hijackers) on the plane, maybe hundreds of people.
What if in the wreckage they find a disturbed Innuit who was trying to get home after too long in the hot California sun?
It’s the seeming enthusiasm of some of the authorities (and citizens) for the “shoot to kill” solution that disturbs me.
And “historical documents”.