Incorrect. There was no stand down. Indianapolis Center had only notified the FAA of the hijacking of AA77 by 8:56am. NEADS was not told about anything heading towards DC until 9:21am, and that was mistakenly thought to be AA11, so they thought it was inbound from New York. They scramble the fighters at Langley at 9:22am, and the Navy's ATC directs those fighters east out over the ocean.
At 9:34, NEADS is told about AA77, which they do not know is the only jet inbound to DC. AA77 hits the Pentagon at 9:37am.
In short, NEADS could not have scrambled fighters by 9:05; they didn't know anything about any threat to Washington DC until 9:21. Also, just the fact that AA77 lost its transponder signal doesn't mean anything to NEADS; not only are they thinking that AA11 is inbound from New York (they didn't know yet that it was one of the jets that had hit the Twin Towers), but they are orienting themselves towards dealing with
that threat, and by your arbitrary 9:05am time, they knew nothing about AA77 yet because it was not showing up on radar. Heck, Indianapolis Center had only figured out that it was a hijacking 9 minutes earlier. Anyway, it was not showing up
because the transponder was off, and it was flying in areas without primary radar coverage. Which is something that's been pointed out to you time and time again.
You cannot talk about AA77 being intercepted without considering that the threats prior to it arriving were thought to be coming from New York, and without understanding that it wasn't found on radar until 9:32am. Those are the facts.
Incorrect again. There was no stand down. As has been pointed out before, the top speed for an fighter jet is for a clean configuration, not for one with external tanks or any externally mounted weapons (i.e. missiles). Plus, regulations specifically placed on military craft prevent supersonic speeds over the continental US.
On top of that, the fighers launched at 8:46am. WTC 1 had already been hit. WTC 2 was hit at 9:03am. Even had the jets arrived on time, they'd have to discriminate between UA175 and all the other legitimate traffic circling both JFK and Newark. It's not like UA175 was the only jet above New York at the time.
Incorrect. There was no stand down. Stop and think about the protocols involved. You cite the FAA handoff to the military as if it's the only step in the chain. It is not. The procedure goes from the Air Route Traffic Control Center (ARTCC) controller to the ARTCC supervisor, to the FAA National ARTCC, to the FAA Hijack coordinator at the FAA headquarters in DC, and at that point, those higher ups make a decision on whether to request that the military provide an escort.
If they approve, only
then do they issue a request to the National Military Command Center (NMCC), and at that point the
military has to agree to it too. If they do,
then the orders are issued to NORAD through NORAD's chain of command. (Attribution:
Gumboot's post laying out the issue of military response to domestic acts)
Why did that procedure take 33 minutes? That you'd have to ask them about. But to assume there was a stand down order is to indulge in fantasy. Given the protocol, you can say that it might have taken that amount of time to get the proper people notified. The timeframe alone is no proof of a stand down in any way.
BTW, small correction: AA77's transponder was turned off at 8:54am, not 8:56.
Incorrect. Again, no stand down.
First of all, you make a mistake in saying where the Langley fighters were sent to. Those fighters were directed east over the ocean to a holding and training area, not towards New York. The Otis fighters were the ones sent to New York, and they were holding over Long Island by this time. When NEADS caught the mistake with the Langley fighters, they sent them to Baltimore. Why they chose that over DC, I'm not sure, but I can guess: Take a look at a map. And also remember that they thought the inbound track was AA11, not AA77, which was last caught on radar over New York. Baltimore lies between New York City and Washington DC. It's not a stretch to presume that they were instructing the jets to intercept the flight they believed was inbound from New York before it got to DC.
On top of that, by saying "There are no airliners headed for NYC or anywhere else with their communication and transponders turned off", you're misrepresenting the events of that day. As noted above, not only were they not sent to New York, they were sent to intercept a flight NEADS thought was coming from New York.
And for the umpteeth time, no, they did
NOT know that Flight 77 was heading directly for Washington DC. The NORAD tapes very clearly and definitively show this. They thought the flight was AA11. Flight 77 was not picked up by primary radar until Dulles ATCs saw them at 9:32. Also, you make a mistake in saying
"at 9:25 air traffic controllers have already informed the United States Secret Service in Washington D.C. that American Airlines Flight 77 is approaching them very fast". That timing is incorrect. Dulles and Reagan International ATC's did not notify the Secret Service after 9:32.
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This response is long enough already. I'm going to split this up into several parts. This ends this section.