# Why no jets launched against hijacked planes on 9/11? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 7, 2003, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-jets-launched-against-hijacked-planes-on-9-11/206161 "2003-10-07T21:49:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2003, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-jets-launched-against-hijacked-planes-on-9-11/206161/81 "2003-10-13T00:33:46Z")
Ah, **Hazel** , welcome to the party… > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Hazel \* > I don’t think the President or anyone in the administration knew exactly what was going to happen, or on what date. But it does not seem implausible to me that, due to the various warnings from our European allies, they did know that a terrorist attack was probably in the works. Let’s not forget that, until 9/11/01, the worst terrorist attack on the US was _by a US citizen_ who was certainly not acting alone. The truth is, there have _always_ been threats to _every_ nation. Given the current prominence of the US in the world, there are a lot of people who wish us harm. It’s more a matter of _which_ threat is really something to be concerned about, and what is so much hot air. People are plotting against the United States _all the time_, and have been from day one. Who is doing it might change - the British certainly meddled during the early years of our nation. There _were_ spies and sabotage during WWII. There _were_ communist agents during the Cold War (the fact a lot of innocents were accused of being agents does not elminate the fact there were real agents - and we had our own spies and agents in the USSR). The question is - should anyone have known that THIS PARICULAR threat was a real and valid danger? > [@](#): > > because they did want a Pearl Harbor type event to occur, so as to have justification for launching the Iraq War. Also, justification to reduce civil liberties here at home. I don’t think anyone else has mentioned that, but doesn’t it seem likely that they were just waiting for a good excuse to introduce the PATRIOT Act? You could build just as good a case that the current adminsitration _didn’t_ know, but used an occurrance they weren’t expecting to their advantage when it DID occur. Likewise, whether Roosevelt had any inkling of the Pearl Harbor attack or not, he certainly _used_ the attack to his advantage, to get what he wanted. It’s a very… um… what’s the best word… It’s quite an accusation to say the President of the US _allowed_ an attack on US citizens on US soil. It requires a great deal of proof. So far, although I have heard some interesting arguments, I have yet to hear of any _solid proof_ that Roosevelt knew in advance about Pearl Harbor, or that Bush & Co. knew about 9/11/01 in advance. > [@](#): > > as, due to racist assumptions, they didn’t think the Japanese were capable of pulling off a major attack. Well, don’t forget the racist assumptions _of the Japanese_ that they were superior warriors and that the US would simply bow to their superiority and stay out of the Pacific. Plenty of mis-reading of cultures on both sides. Given the gulf that still exists between our two cultures, I occassionally find it amazing that the US and Japan can be counted as allies. Nonetheless, I think each nation is less likely to underestimate the other, and most certainly I don’t think either side desires to face the other in open warfare ever again. If the US and Japan learned anything in the 20th Century it was that life is far better on both sides when we are allies rather than enemies. > [@](#): > > Likewise, IF the Bush administration decided not to try very hard to prevent an attack, they, too, may have assumed that it wouldn’t amount to much. They may have assumed that a bunch of fanactics from a third world nation just would not be capable of pulling off anything major. That is a _possibility_, and interesting speculation. But it does not amount to proof that the POTUS was so derelict in his duty to protect the country as to allow an attack and do nothing to prevent it. If you wish to discuss it purely as _speculation_ that might make an interesting thread - or it might wind up in the Pit. ---
**Author:** ![\_possum\_stalker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/_/b77776/32.png) [@\_possum\_stalker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/_possum_stalker)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2003, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-jets-launched-against-hijacked-planes-on-9-11/206161/82 "2003-10-13T00:52:47Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Airman Doors, USAF \* > \*\*Did you guys take your thorazine today? Are you donning your tinfoil hats? > > If you’re going to say that President Bush allowed this to happen, you’d better have some real proof. REAL proof. Because that would be accusing the sitting President of the United States of treason, and believe me, you REALLY don’t want to do that. \*\* Gosh, Airman… one of the reasons we have you out zapping stuff is so that people like myself, believe it or not, can have the freedom to say things like that. Perhaps you are thinking of PHYSICAL (rather than political or legal) threats to the president, which are punished no matter how far-fetched or stupid (e.g., [http://www.freedomforum.org/templates/document.asp?documentID=16929](http://www.freedomforum.org/templates/document.asp?documentID=16929)). I already pasted this quote on another thread today, but “here we go agin, Cletus!” “As I went back through the Pentagon in November 2001, one of the senior military staff officers had time for a chat. Yes, we were still on track for going against Iraq, he said. But there was more. This was being discussed as part of a five-year campaign plan, he said, and there were a total of seven countries, beginning with Iraq, then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Iran, Somalia, and Sudan… I left the Pentagon that afternoon deeply concerned.” – Wesley Clark, page 130, Winning Modern Wars. Yes, Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, and the other “neocons” are very upfront about the fact that they always wanted to attack Iraq, along with some other nations that have not been taking their Thorazine and have remove their U.S.-approved tinfoil hats. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2003, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-jets-launched-against-hijacked-planes-on-9-11/206161/83 "2003-10-13T00:54:07Z")
Hazel: That’s a load of hooey. You floated an accusation and then follow it with “Could this be true?” & expect people to think you’ve no reason for floating one of the dumber accusations ever made against a president? I don’t buy it. Enjoy your fishing expedition. ---
**Author:** ![\_possum\_stalker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/_/b77776/32.png) [@\_possum\_stalker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/_possum_stalker)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2003, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-jets-launched-against-hijacked-planes-on-9-11/206161/84 "2003-10-13T00:59:56Z")
BTW, I live in a rural area, and on 9/11 my windows were shaking all day from the sonic booms as the World’s Most Powerful Nation scrammed all fourteen of the active combat jets that we wisely had guarding the store that day. What’s the use of a Fascist jingo president if he can’t guard the womenfolk OR make the trains run on time? ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2003, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-jets-launched-against-hijacked-planes-on-9-11/206161/85 "2003-10-13T01:13:32Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Hazel \* > Once the planes had been hijacked, the puzzling thing isn’t that the attacks were not prevented, the puzzling thing is that the Airforce did not send planes to investigate sooner. Actually, NO ONE was sent to investigate. I forget the exact time, but it was _after_ the second tower was hit and _before_ the Pentagon crash that _someone_ gave the order to land every single airplane in US airspace. That’s not an investigation - that’s more like “everyone out of the water so we can see the sharks clearly”. (It is also very interesting that no one knows who FIRST gave that order - it IS known to have originated somewhere in the air traffic control chain of command, and somewhere in the Eastern half of the continental US, but it did NOT come from the top of the FAA. It WAS a very good idea, though.) > [@](#): > > It’s being said that this seeming failure to investigae was not unusual; that when a plane goes silent and departs from its flight plan, it’s usually not a hijacking, and while it is looked into, the looking into isn’t fast; isn’t deemed urgent. Hmm… not so much “not urgent” as nearly a century of experience with aircraft have taught us to proceed in a certain fashion when dealing with certain potentially emergency situations. How you handle an airplane in mechanical distress - a situation where the aircraft might not be able to continue safe flight - is quite different than a hijacking where the plane is intact and can presumaly remain in the air. Remember, prior to 9/11/01 our experience with hijacking was that the criminals wanted to go somewhere, wanted to live, and that if negotiations worked out nobody would have to get hurt. Problem is, on 9/11/01 the hijackers didn’t want to _go somewhere_, they wanted to _kill people_. > [@](#): > > But, these were not small pvt planes, they were large passenger planes operated by comercial airlines. At close to the same time, four such planes went silent. And they did not make small departures from their flight plans; they turned around and headed back the way they came. They were flying from the east coast to west coast destinations. They turned around and headed back toward NY and DC. Shouldn’t this have looked very suspicious? In retrospect, yes - BUT, hindsight is 20/20. I don’t think most people - even most Americans - really comprehend just how big the sky actually is. I know it keeps surprising me, and I’ve been a pilot for 8 years now. There are _thousands_ of airplanes over _millions_ of square miles, all stacked under and over each other in three dimensional space. Keeping track of all that is a HUGE task. Also, most people _do not_ understand the true role of air traffic control. Controllers _do not_ fly the planes. They _do not_ tell the airplanes where to go (although they can and do tell them HOW to get there). They _do not_ monitor and track and record every single flight - in fact, on a really nice day, the majority of aircraft DON’T talk to or interact with air traffic control except in the most minimal way - typically when taking off or landing at an airport with a control tower (and, in fact, MOST airports in the United States _do not have control towers_) Certainly, the airliners ARE in the system at all times - along with pleasure flyers, student pilots, cargo, military, hot air ballons, blimps, and the occassional Mr. Larry Walters in a lawnchair wandering through LAX’s airspace. Air traffic controllers care about your point of origin and final destination about as much as a traffic cop at a busy intersection cares about your street address or what you intend to eat for dinner. Because THAT’S what an air traffic controller is - a _traffic cop_ who keeps aircraft from smacking into each other. Which is not to diminish their role - they ARE a vital part of what makes the system work and keeps people safe in busy airspace, not to mention bad weather and other circumstances. So, is that clear? All the streetlights and traffic cops and crossing guards in a city are NOT to monitor, record, or dictate to the traffic on the roads - they’re there to keep the traffic flowing in a safe manner. While an individual traffic cop _might_ notice suspious behavior, there is _no_ one single “master traffic cop” monitoring the _entire_ system. Likewise, air traffic controllers exist to keep air traffic flowing in a safe manner - not to play Big Brother in the sky. On 9/11/01 no _one_ controller saw more than just _one_ airliner deviating from plan until after the “everybody land” order was given. In each case it _appeared_ to be a “routine” airliner in some sort of trouble - what sort very unclear. Whatever else these guys were, they WERE pilots. Real pilots. They knew our airspace system, which is why they were able to exploit it to their own ends. You don’t have to be a _great_ pilot to do this, just a really nasty human being. Now, remember, because the transponders were turned off and the response to the radio was intermittant, the airliners _appeared_ to be in distress - possibly an instrument failure of some sort, maybe a power failure shutting down the instruments. In such cases - where you have a major power or instrument failure - deviations from flight plans (or clearances or expected routes of travel or whatever) are NOT unusual - if your navigation equipment is not working you’re back to compass and eyeball navigating. You _can’t_ stay on a radio beacon course unless you have a working radio. You can’t stay on a GPS directed course if your GPS isn’t working. There is a _reason_ every aircraft still carries an old-fashioned compass. Also, if the airplane is in severe mechanical distress it _may not be able to hold a course_. The Sioux City Iowa/Al Hayes accident involved an airplane that was _unable_ to fly in a straight line - you can bet your booties they deviated like crazy from their original plans. IF an airplane is experiencing some sort of terrible failure it is _not unusual_ for it to fly a different and unexpected course. Nor would it be considered terribly strange to _turn back_ to seek a place to land. If things are going that wrong a landing sooner - by turning _back_ towards the point of origin - may be much more prudent than continuing a 3,000 miles cross-continental journey. Again, _initially_ the appearance was that of a airliner in distress. Now, if someone had been aware that there were _four_ such airplanes behaving oddly all in the same time frame it might have been different - but even then, there might have been a question of sabotage rather than outright hijacking, at least for a little while. What REALLY tipped people off to the fact that this was an attack? Quite simple - the second tower was hit. NOT the first tower - airplanes have crashed into buildings before (the Empire State Building, for instance, was hit by a bomber flying into its side in the 1940’s) so while the first tower being hit was horrific, it was seen as an accident - something gone terribly wrong. But TWO airliners hitting TWO buildings in the same city in the same morning? _THAT’S NOT AN ACCIDENT_. In fact, that’s _exactly_ what I said when my husband told me over the phone a second plane had hit the second tower. And not doubt what most everyone else was saying as well. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2003, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-jets-launched-against-hijacked-planes-on-9-11/206161/86 "2003-10-13T01:29:15Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by hansel \* > You’re making three unwarranted assumptions…[snip]…That commercial airliners almost never deviate from plan. Broomstick already cited one instance where a commercial airliner had a complete electrical failure over Chicago, and implied that there are relatively frequent occurrences of such apparently mysterious deviations from plan that have mundane explanations. Clarification: the particular incident I mentioned did _not_ involve airliners but rather small, four-seat general aviation aircraft. There have been complete power failures in large airliners, but I was not referring to one of those instances in that particular case. But you are correct that in the vast majority of cases there are “mundane” explanations involving things such as mechanical failure, volcanic ash, or even, in one instance, a failure to properly convert English measurements into metric (or was it vice versa…?) > [@](#): > > That there’s someone tracking air traffic for the entire country, or a significant part of it, who would notice four plans having significant deviations at the same time. Given the volume of air traffic over the U.S. at any given time, four might seem unusually high, but not suspicous, IMHO, in the sense of automatically leaping to the thought that terrorists have hijacked the planes. Now, there probably is; prior to 9/11, I doubt anyone _continously_ monitored the overall state of air traffic down to individual planes. Actually, no there isn’t. See, the system _wasn’t designed for it_. The air traffic control system was designed, as I’ve said, to keep air traffic flowing smoothly in high traffic areas. It was not designed for national security. I mean, sure, there are AWACS planes and satellite observations and guys sitting in tall towers with binoculars but the system is built for traffic control, not defense. Truth is, a significant percentage of flights at any given time are NOT in the air traffic system _at all_. I can think of only five flights I’ve made in _eight years_ that _required_ a flight plan - and they were all _prior_ to 9/11/01. (However I have filed a great many flight plans, because I thought doing so was a great idea). I spent 3-1/2 hours in the air _today_ and never talked to an air traffic controller, never filed a flight plan, and one of the three aircraft I was in didn’t even have a radio (or, for that matter, an engine). All perfectly legal in the post-9/11 world. I am certain I showed up on radar from time to time - along with airliners, blimps, balloons, and flocks of wild geese heading south for the winter. > [@](#): > > Look at it another way: it only took an hour to get fighter jets in the air, after discarding all the more plausible scenarios like equipment failure, and making normal efforts to contact the planes and find out if something is wrong. This is a key concept - there were so _many_ alternative explanations - all of them more common than a hijacking - for what a controller was seeing that had to be elminated first ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2003, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-jets-launched-against-hijacked-planes-on-9-11/206161/87 "2003-10-13T01:43:08Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by zwaldd \* > I watched the first interview with Cheney after 9/11. He reported that a fighter was sent after the Pennsylvania flight, and the President did give the order to shoot it down. Then the plane was down. It took officials two hours to “confirm” that it had not been shot down. Actually, two fighters conducting training operations over, I think, Ohio were sent to intercept the fourth jet (Flight 93), in part because they were already in the air. But those two fighers could not have shot down the airliner. _They were unarmed_ Their purpose being _flight training_, they had neither bullets nor missles on board. They were _asked_ to go after the fourth airliner, and _asked_ to stop it “any way you can”. Well, there was really only one thing they could do - _ram_ the airliner with their airplanes and try to bring it down that way. Needless to say, you’d lose _all_ the aircraft that way. It is _possible_ the Air Force pilots might have ejected safely… but not certain. (The Russians, if I recall, even have a specific name for this tactic which is _almost_ but not quite certain death for the attacker) No other jets got into the air in time to intercept one of the hijacked airplanes, although they did spend some time and effort escorting stragglers out of the sky during the reat of the morning. Part of the confusion about shooting down Flight 93 stems from people seeing a small, fast airplane checking out the crash sight. It was _not_, however, a fighter - it was a business jet on its way to landing (remember, everybody was busy landing at the time) that air traffic control asked to have a look at the spot where Flight 93 dropped off the radar - which they did. Hey, didn’t someone post earlier about how air traffic control sometimes asked an aircraft in the vicinity of a problem aircraft to have a look-see…? Radar doesn’t show everything, there are not master spy cameras in the sky, and sometimes you just need someone to take a look and provide an eye-witness report. Why did it take two hours to “confirm” Flight 93 was NOT shot down? Hey, things were pretty freakin’ confused that day, remember? More important to determine there were no more suicide flights in the sky FIRST - then go back and figure out just what the heck happened in a farm field in Pennsylvania. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2003, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-jets-launched-against-hijacked-planes-on-9-11/206161/88 "2003-10-13T02:16:50Z")
> [@](#): > > I don’t think anyone else has mentioned that, but doesn’t it seem likely that they were just waiting for a good excuse to introduce the PATRIOT Act? I don’t think anyone said it in THIS thread, but it came up a lot in another recent Sept. 11 conspiracy thread. I think it’s absurd. While the attacks were used as an excuse to justify the Act, I don’t know if it existed beforehand or it was a response. And it’s going to expire soon, so it makes no sense to have the attacks to justify the PATRIOT Act and then make it time-sensitive. > [@](#): > > Re the theory that Roosevelt failed to try to prevent Pearl Harbor, as I understand it, it’s believed that he and whoever else was in on it assumed that the attack wouldn’t amount to much, as, due to racist assumptions, they didn’t think the Japanese were capable of pulling off a major attack. Likewise, IF the Bush administration decided not to try very hard to prevent an attack, they, too, may have assumed that it wouldn’t amount to much. They may have assumed that a bunch of fanactics from a third world nation just would not be capable of pulling off anything major. I guess the embassy bombings in Tanzania and Kenya don’t count? (And don’t forget the USS Cole.) Though I’d agree they didn’t expect such a large attack on the mainland US. What you say about Roosevelt is just plain false. [Read this SD column about it.](http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mpearlharbor.html) The government was aware an attack was coming, but they didn’t know where or when, and figured it would be against the fleet in the Pacific (which was warned). ---
**Author:** ![Sofa\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/58956e/32.png) [@Sofa\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sofa_King)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2003, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-jets-launched-against-hijacked-planes-on-9-11/206161/89 "2003-10-13T03:23:39Z")
**’possum stalker** ain’t lyin’. While I was coincidentally on vacation that week, a number of my close friends here in Arlington claim to have heard the explosion at the Pentagon. Those sounds were almost certainly the sounds of jets scrambled from Langley AFB, 130 miles away, which arrived approximately nine minutes after the plane hit its target in Arlington, having made the trip in under twenty minutes. (Living in an apartment without a thermostat and the radiators turned on in September, I became well accustomed to something Rosslyn hasn’t heard in decades: near-silence before 9 pm, and no wake-up roar in the morning, punctuated only by the strange buzz of what I surmise were remotely piloted surveillance vehicles orbiting Washington at all times. I can’t remember when I stopped hearing them, but I definitely noticed when they came back from time to time.) There are a zillion cites which question the timing of the [initial launches](http://pages.infinit.net/fmgoyeau/911c04a.html) of interceptors, but I can offer a simple answer: confusion and lack of confirmation. We of the Straight Dope will likely not be able to penetrate that level of security in order to arrive at a sound conclusion. That does not prevent me from believing that this administration is using that cloak of security to protect itself from further, needed examination. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-jets-launched-against-hijacked-planes-on-9-11/206161.md?page=4)