Were The OTIS Fighters Diverted?

[DGM]

I haven't actually read FrankH's posts, so I don't know why he would have brought that issue up, and whether he meant "see plane just before impact" or "see firework effects from impact".

He's trying to make a case that the timelines are wrong and the fighters were already in a holding pattern when 175 hit (They could have intercepted them and should have shot them down).

 

[Reheat]

Chuck, the most that you might miss is something that Paul Schreyer, that at least doesn't fly directly into the face of reason: One thing that these military pilots can do, and occasionally do, when they intercept civilian planes in various kinds of incidents is to look into the cockpit and try and find clues as to what's happening.
Sure, it's as mad a scenario as anything else, but at least it makes more sense internally.

As if this thread could evolve into more uninformed silliness...these statements are wrong.

Once NEADS learned we were under a terrorists attack they then discussed various measures to recommend to the pilots on how to proceed. There was also a discussion with Gen Arnold regarding ROE for the fighters...

If the Intercept Pilots can see in the cockpit, the occupants in the cockpit can see them! Duh! This was in no way similar to the Payne Stewart scenario at all.

The philosophy NEADS discussed was to PREVENT the hijacker pilots from knowing they were being shadowed. One of the reasons is that there were reports of BOMBS on board. Another problem is that the hijacker pilots might intentionally crash if they know an armed interceptor is present. (Also, bear in mind the prevalent hijack philosophy at the time would also dictate that the interceptors remain undetected.)

It's not easy to remain undetected since all airliners have TCAS equipment and it was discussed how to avoid activating it in the hijacked airliners...

What might seem logical in the aftermath of hindsight was and still is not necessarily logical in the larger scheme of things...

There is already enough uninformed silliness in this thread and the longer it continues the worse it will get.

There remains NO EVIDENCE that the fighters were intentionally diverted for nefarious reasons and it would have made no difference in the outcome anyway.. /end thread

 

[minnemouse]

Reading this thread, I cant't help wondering if twoofers have EVER seen a flight radar image of the US of A, on any given weekday? Its not like those 4 flights were alone in the sky September 11th, 2001.

 

[Oystein]

Easy, Reheat!

I didn't claim that this idea makes sense in the REAL world, only that it makes INTERNAL sense in the Twoofers' weird little world of getting things bizarrely wrong even with the benefit of hindsight.
It makes more sense at least than talking about a shoot-down of the second plane. Ya know, this is like saying Judge Dredd is nicer than Orlok the Assassin. It makes sense internally, but they still are both bad fiction.

 

[Cheap Shot]

If Colin was to tell me for a fact that the plane was 100% without a doubt 20 miles south of Albany when he called NEADS, it would still not matter. Although I greatly respect and admire Colin, there is an indisputable and absolute record of everything that happened from multiple sources. The timeline of events is known down to a margin of a few seconds error and to overcome it would require substantial and objective evidence. To date, I have seen none.

I wish I could say that the AAL11 was exactly where I said it was but BCR is correct I still have to side with radar and black box data they don't lie, and if someone were to modify the data, what purpose would it do to adjust the data a couple minutes. If I had to be specific I would say the second set of latitude/longitudes that I gave was probably the most accurate Joe Cooper and I were on the location of AAL11. Even then we were looking at something was already 11 to 12 seconds in history. Every location I gave was from me either glancing at Joe Coopers radar display or me requesting Joe Cooper looking at the scope and him "slew balling" over the target. I did not have radar display in front of me I was sharing Joe's display. I had a computer monitor and a TSD display in front of me with a regular phone and a DSN phone.

 

[Cheap Shot]

There's no doubt that the Otis fighters were originally directed towards the NYC area. That's on that's NORAD tapes channel 2. You claim the diversion was for the FAA to clear the air space. Can you tell me exactly when the FAA did this and gave the pilots clearance? Source it please. You wont be able to because the FAA didn't. The pilots took the initiative and did it on their own telling the FAA & NEADS they NEEDED (were going to go with or without clearance) to go to NY. Why? Because they saw (from within their holding pattern) 175 strike WTC 2.

They were never diverted they were cleared to hold in W105. They were not allowed into NY ARTCC airspace due to traffic. Also at this time NY advised Boston Center that were considering going ATC Zero which is a shutdown of their entire airspace, so only would the fighters not be allowed nor would anymore of Boston Center air traffic be allowed either. Most of those ANG pilots are also airline pilots, they were not oing to violate any FAR's or disregard an ATC clearance for hijacked aircraft that they were going to have to escort, which was their only concern at that time. So even if they had seen the explosion from their location, how did they know instantly that it was another hijacked airliner, when we at Boston Center didn't even know UAL175 was Ben hijacked yet, they were still on Boston Center frequency at the time. Seconds later I am sure NEADS advised them another plane had hit the tower, but NEADS knew nothing about UAL175 until they saw the impact live on CNN.

 

[gumboot]

Someone sent this via email with the following remarks.





I have not done a lot of work with the OTIS response, so I'll just throw it out to you guys for a response (or not). It seems there is the suggestion that based on Colin Scoggins calls to NEADS, the video producers believe the time stamps on the radar data sets have been altered. Keep in mind that would involve changing not only the 84 RADES radar time stamps, but also the FAA's (multiple) as well. Since those records do align with events recorded via 'live' television on that day, such a claim is most certainly without merit.

I'm taking this from memory, as to be honest it's been a couple of years since I've really looked at my 9/11 research, but I believe PANTA was diverted away from their original Z-point (just beyond the mouth of Lower Bay) by New York ARTCC because by the time PANTA reached the edge of NY airspace UA175 had hit WTC2 at which point NY ARTCC closed their airspace.

There was a few minutes (less than 10) of wrangling between NORAD and the FAA (I am sure Cheap Shot can shed more light on this) to clear PANTA into the closed airspace, at which point they set up a CAP.

From memory NY closed their airspace at 0905. At that time, according to the radar track, PANTA was 92 miles due east of their Z-point and 106mi from the WTC.

I'll admit I wanted to throw up after about 30s of that video, so I didn't get to their argument, but it sounds like a rendition of the old argument that "F-15s can get to New York in 7 minutes!" or similar.

I would just point out that while a totally clean F-15, on full afterburner, could indeed attain speeds of around 1,600MPH, it would, nonetheless, not reach New York in seven minutes. Indeed, at that speed it wouldn't reach New York at all as it would exhaust its fuel supply in about six minutes, some 30 miles short of the WTC.

An external fuel tank would, of course, double its flying time at maximum power to a whopping 12 minutes, but at dramatic decrease in speed.

Needless to say, the Otis fighters, whatever poetic license the pilots may have used in the media, did not travel to New York at full power, let alone afterburner.

 

[gumboot]

He's trying to make a case that the timelines are wrong and the fighters were already in a holding pattern when 175 hit (They could have intercepted them and should have shot them down).

I think you could make an argument that this scenario is physically impossible. The holding pattern area was ~140mi from Otis ANGB. PANTA was airborne at 0852, and UA175 crashed at 0903. That means PANTA covered 140mi in 11 minutes - an average speed of 763MPH. Once you factor in the aircraft getting up to speed and altitude (if you allow only 2 minutes for that your average speed for the rest of the flight is already over 900MPH), you're getting dangerously close to an F-15 with external fuel tanks and air-to-air missiles having to use afterburner to get that far that quickly.

Of course, if they had been in the holding pattern long enough prior to UA175's impact that they could have otherwise intercepted it prior to impact we have to assume they arrived in the holding pattern well before 0903. Now remember, that holding pattern is 100mi from New York and UA175 was coming from the opposite side, so they've presumably been in the holding pattern long enough prior to 0903 that they could have, instead, covered the remaining 100 miles to New York, found UA175, and shot it down. Even on full afterburner, with a fighter that laden, that's at least a 5 minute flight. So let's say they reached the holding pattern at 0858. Now it took them only four minutes to get to the holding pattern from their base! That's an average speed of around 2100MPH; significantly faster than an F-15's maximum speed in slick configuration.

 

[Pinch]

I would just point out that while a totally clean F-15, on full afterburner, could indeed attain speeds of around 1,600MPH, it would, nonetheless, not reach New York in seven minutes. Indeed, at that speed it wouldn't reach New York at all as it would exhaust its fuel supply in about six minutes, some 30 miles short of the WTC.

To add some metrics to gumbbot's comment, the Pratt and Whitney TF-30 engines in my F-14, in full afterburner, gulped down 2,000 lbs of fuel *per minute*. We had 16,400 lbs of internal fuel, so from a standing start at full a/b, sure...we'd be haulin' the mail at a pretty damn good clip after a few minutes but would also be an out of fuel flameout in about 8 minutes and be a coasting limited-manueverability object thereafter at the mercy of gravity.

The F-15 had even less internal fuel than we had - somewhere around 13,5000 lbs if I remember correctly. Our two drop tanks only gave us an additional 4,000 lbs, so I'd expect an Eagle's drop tanks would give them a similar amount.

Point is, having to get from Point A to Point B as fast as possible does not obviate the need for fuel management. You'd be even worse than useless if you ended up over the area you were supposed to defend without fuel.

 

[Reheat]

Our two drop tanks only gave us an additional 4,000 lbs, so I'd expect an Eagle's drop tanks would give them a similar amount.

Point is, having to get from Point A to Point B as fast as possible does not obviate the need for fuel management. You'd be even worse than useless if you ended up over the area you were supposed to defend without fuel.

They were carrying three 600 Gallon tanks, so your numbers are very, very close...

An F-15 will not super cruise without afterburner and the fuel consumption numbers quoted by Gumboot and your opinion are pretty darn close... They would likely have needed full AB to achieve the speeds quoted considering all he appendages hanging off their aircraft.

As I said previously, they did not go supersonic based on radar return analysis except for one brief point. If I recall correctly that one point where they may have briefly gone supersonic was when they were finally allowed to go to NYC and then it was only for 1 possibly 2 radar sweeps that they were barely supersonic...

As has been vividly pointed out, it's a good thing they didn't as they would have had no gas to do much of anything except imitate a boat anchor.

 

[gumboot]

To add some metrics to gumbbot's comment, the Pratt and Whitney TF-30 engines in my F-14, in full afterburner, gulped down 2,000 lbs of fuel *per minute*. We had 16,400 lbs of internal fuel, so from a standing start at full a/b, sure...we'd be haulin' the mail at a pretty damn good clip after a few minutes but would also be an out of fuel flameout in about 8 minutes and be a coasting limited-manueverability object thereafter at the mercy of gravity.

The F-15 had even less internal fuel than we had - somewhere around 13,5000 lbs if I remember correctly. Our two drop tanks only gave us an additional 4,000 lbs, so I'd expect an Eagle's drop tanks would give them a similar amount.

Point is, having to get from Point A to Point B as fast as possible does not obviate the need for fuel management. You'd be even worse than useless if you ended up over the area you were supposed to defend without fuel.

Yup, exactly. If anyone is interested in specific metrics the F-15s had two F100-PW-220 engines with a wet thrust fuel consumption rate of 2.5lb/hr per lb of thrust generated, and a total thrust output (wet thrust) of 23,830lb, or a total fuel consumption rate (both engines) of 1,985lb/min at full afterburner.

The internal fuel supply of an F-15 is about 12,000lb (1,790gal), while on that day they were carrying an additional three 4,100lb (610gal) capacity external tanks.

Total burn time, internal only; 6 minutes. Total burn time, internal and external; 12 minutes. At full dry thrust those numbers extend out to 34min and 1hr 9min respectively, at considerable loss in speed.

 

[MaGZ]

There's no doubt that the Otis fighters were originally directed towards the NYC area. That's on that's NORAD tapes channel 2. You claim the diversion was for the FAA to clear the air space. Can you tell me exactly when the FAA did this and gave the pilots clearance? Source it please. You wont be able to because the FAA didn't. The pilots took the initiative and did it on their own telling the FAA & NEADS they NEEDED (were going to go with or without clearance) to go to NY. Why? Because they saw (from within their holding pattern) 175 strike WTC 2.
You claim the Otis fighters could not have made it to NYC in time to stop Flight 175,but this is simply wrong. By the Military's own admission the flight time for an F15 from Otis to NYC is 10-12 minutes. They were scrambled at 8:52 and flew from TAKE OFF "Full blower all the way","Supersonic"[Quotes-Col. Duffy].8:52 to 9:03 (time WTC 2 was hit)=11 minutes! yet the Commission claims they still 100 miles out from NYC at 9:03 ! They barely moved ! How do explain that?
You can pick your poison,but there's a problem here. Either the pilots are lying or the scramble didn't happen at the time we were told or the holding pattern came before 9:03. Either way the official story is false.

You all know where I think the Otis fighters were at 9:03.

 

[fess]

You all know where I think the Otis fighters were at 9:03.

Parked at the OC?

 

[FrankHT]

The internal fuel supply of an F-15 is about 12,000lb (1,790gal), while on that day they were carrying an additional three 4,100lb (610gal) capacity external tanks.

Gasp ! A Kiwi using Old English wine gallons (AKA-American gallon) rather than that new fangled Imperial gallon. Not bad for a citizen of a country that went metric decades ago.
Perhaps that's why Col. Duffy told Lynn Spencer for her book 'Touching History' that at 9:09 he told NEADS they had less than 30 minutes of fuel remaining. Truth be told,they couldn't possible have flown full blower for any appreciable length of time between 8:52-9:03 because if they had they would have been far,far closer to NYC than the Commission claims they were 9:03. So,either the pilots are lying about flying full blower from take off or the holding pattern came before 9:03.

 

[beachnut]

Gasp ! A Kiwi using Old English wine gallons (AKA-American gallon) rather than that new fangled Imperial gallon. Not bad for a citizen of a country that went metric decades ago.
Perhaps that's why Col. Duffy told Lynn Spencer for her book 'Touching History' that at 9:09 he told NEADS they had less than 30 minutes of fuel remaining. Truth be told,they couldn't possible have flown full blower for any appreciable length of time between 8:52-9:03 because if they had they would have been far,far closer to NYC than the Commission claims they were 9:03. So,either the pilots are lying about flying full blower from take off or the holding pattern came before 9:03.

Your fantasy failed, what will you do? Disneyland?

Is that 30 minutes on station? Do you have the quote, the tape? Is there any chance you can put this in perspective? No.

Have you ever flown in MAX AB, solo? Been SOF? Pulled 7.33 Gs chasing clouds? Why not study flying before making it all up?

 

[tsig]

Your fantasy failed, what will you do? Disneyland?

Is that 30 minutes on station? Do you have the quote, the tape? Is there any chance you can put this in perspective? No.

Have you ever flown in MAX AB, solo? Been SOF? Pulled 7.33 Gs chasing clouds? Why not study flying before making it all up?

Flying? I doubt if he's even used a flight simulator program.

 

[FrankHT]

Your fantasy failed, what will you do? Disneyland?

Is that 30 minutes on station? Do you have the quote, the tape? Is there any chance you can put this in perspective? No.

Have you ever flown in MAX AB, solo? Been SOF? Pulled 7.33 Gs chasing clouds? Why not study flying before making it all up?

Dude,we got the guy. It's over. Give it up. Col. Mar KNEW at 9:03 when he told Syracuse ANG to arm up FULLY that he was giving an order that would keep those fighters on the ground for a FULL hour! He WAS TOLD he could have had them up with "Hot Guns" in 15 minutes ,but CHOSE to keep them on the ground a FULL hour. How could he have known he wouldn't need them before that? (because as a conspirator he KNEW the attacks would be over by then! That's how,he didn't want them) He gave the same order to other ANG units a little later (thus GROUNDING them a full hour too) How do we know? Because Syracuse (1st the get the order) was ALSO the 1st to scramble planes after the attacks!
Also, at 9:09 Col Marr HAD TO HAVE KNOWN it was possible that Flight 11 was still in the air & heading towards Washington DC at 500 MPH (just minutes away). So,what does he do? He REFUSES a request to scramble Langley! That's it. No debate. It's over. They guy had to known & made decisions consistent with what he wanted to occur.
There's no debate here. Either Marr is guilty of GROSS incompetence or a conspirator. Period. As I have said before,if Nasypany has been running the show on 911,all of the plane but AA11 would have been intercepted. It happened because the people in power WANTED it to happen & made sure it did. Doubled defense budget & shredded Constitution they could have gotten no other way! Inside job.

 

[Spanx]

So what are you going to do about it Frank ?

 

[gumboot]

Col. Mar KNEW at 9:03 when he told Syracuse ANG to arm up FULLY that he was giving an order that would keep those fighters on the ground for a FULL hour!

I know, with absolute certainty, that no one told "Syracuse ANG" to do anything on 9/11.

There's no debate here. Either Marr is guilty of GROSS incompetence or a conspirator. Period.

I beg to differ.

As I have said before,if Nasypany has been running the show on 911,all of the plane but AA11 would have been intercepted.

I would love to hear the argument by which you came to this conclusion. Please feel free to use as much evidence as you want. I promise not to get intimidated by it.

 

[Oystein]

... Truth be told,they couldn't possible have flown full blower for any appreciable length of time between 8:52-9:03 because if they had they would have been far,far closer to NYC than the Commission claims they were 9:03. So,either the pilots are lying about flying full blower from take off or the holding pattern came before 9:03.

Given the full weight of all the available evidence, which do you pick as more likely?

Which happens more frequently: A witness being wrong or exaggerating, or scores of people manipulating several independent lines of physically recorded evidence and all of them keeping quiet about it despite this being assistance to an abominable crime?

I know which I pick, perhaps you can guess...

Dude,we got the guy. It's over. Give it up. Col. Mar KNEW at 9:03 when he told Syracuse ANG to arm up FULLY that he was giving an order that would keep those fighters on the ground for a FULL hour! He WAS TOLD he could have had them up with "Hot Guns" in 15 minutes ,but CHOSE to keep them on the ground a FULL hour. How could he have known he wouldn't need them before that?

What difference would it have made if Arnold had told Syracuse ANG at 9:03 to get all hot guns up in the air as they had - or any such scenario? Please give us details for the best realistic timeline with Syracuse figthers in the air! Would it have saved AA11? UA175? AA77? UA93? How?

...
Also, at 9:09 Col Marr HAD TO HAVE KNOWN it was possible that Flight 11 was still in the air & heading towards Washington DC at 500 MPH (just minutes away). So,what does he do? He REFUSES a request to scramble Langley! That's it. No debate. It's over.

Except AA11 wasn't still in the air, and they had no Z for any fighter. What should he have done instead? Please be very specific! The precise order that, in your opinion, ought to have been given to whom? Which pair of fighters could he have sent where, with what objective, and how could that have ideally played out?

if Nasypany has been running the show on 911,all of the plane but AA11 would have been intercepted.

Ok, suppose Nasypany had been running the show. You must not assume an omniscient, omnipotent and psychic Nasypany of course. So with the information available to Nasypany in real time, what could and should he have done differently? Give us a minute by minute timeline of Nasypany's hypothetical day!