Norad?

[Darth Rotor]

You're running scared.

NEADS did indeed have the authority to scramble jets in this situation:

But if you choose to stick your head in the sand and refuse Griffin's solid research, all you have to do is appeal to common sense. Why would NEADS need NORAD's approval just to get the fighters in the air during a potential emergency? Obviously a decision to shoot down a civilian airliner would require approval from a high authority, probably the Commander-in-Chief. But that approval could have been requested while the fighters were en route to the hijacked plane.

That makes sense, if the alert launch authority had been delegated to NEADS. Those alert aircraft were some of the few aircraft available in the country, and were thus a national asset. That they were launched on the initiative of folks locally is a good thing.

I've had to handle alert posture, and regeneration, matters when working CAS coordination with an austere asset base. You don't launch the alert on a whim, since you now have no alert for XX hours.

And another question, even if we assume NEADS needed Arnold's approval for a scramble, is why was that approval not given immediately? Are we supposed to believe that with with a hijacked plane heading toward Manhattan, General Arnold could not be bothered to make the call on a scramble?

You forget that hijackings pre 9-11 had a tempo of events that didn't include crashing into buildings, hijackings were generally escorted to a landing. That mind set/model may well have influenced the sense of urgency people felt until they began to get confirmed reports of the crashes into New York. Oh, wait, flt 11 hit in New York.

For a long time everyone here cheered you on, because they had an emtional desire to agree with you, while not having a clue what you were talking about.

Nope. I've worked air command and control of fighters, as has beachnut. Gumboot's homework and analysis tends to match with how C2 of USAF (and USN assets for that matter) are typically handled in the GCI mode.

Now someone is here who know the facts and the arguments, and you can't hack it.

You have demonstrated a curious aversion to facts, and reason, for some time. Who is this person you are referring to who "know the facts?"

DR

 

[Reheat]

The flights we are talking about were never lost. AAL11's target was watched all the way down by your fellow controllers at ZBW. And you know that, because you were there. There was no need for NEADS technicians to find any targets; civilian ATC had them the whole time and could have provided that information to the fighters.

OH, is that right? What about this conversation?

0839 NEADS contact Boston Centre and discover they do not know where AA11 is (because the aircraft’s transponder has been turned off).
08:39:58 WATSON: It’s the inbound to J.F.K.?
BOSTON CENTER: We—we don’t know.
WATSON: You don’t know where he is at all?
BOSTON CENTER: He’s being hijacked. The pilot’s having a hard time talking to the—I mean, we don’t know. We don’t know where he’s goin’. He’s heading towards Kennedy. He’s—like I said, he’s like 35 miles north of Kennedy now at 367 knots. We have no idea where he’s goin’ or what his intentions are.
WATSON: If you could please give us a call and let us know—you know any information, that’d be great.
BOSTON CENTER: Okay. Right now, I guess we’re trying to work on—I guess there’s been some threats in the cockpit. The pilot—
WATSON: There’s been what?! I’m sorry.
UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Threat to the … ?
BOSTON CENTER: We’ll call you right back as soon as we know more info.

NEADS then place the fighters on "Battle Stations" based on this conversation.

Hay A-Train, you don't know what you're talking about and I've just proven it again.

 

[Reheat]

Now someone is here who know the facts and the arguments, and you can't hack it.

Hay A-Train, are you talking about a mouse in your pocket?

 

[Cheap Shot]

Something that hasn't been found? The flights we are talking about were never lost. AAL11's target was watched all the way down by your fellow controllers at ZBW. And you know that, because you were there. There was no need for NEADS technicians to find any targets; civilian ATC had them the whole time and could have provided that information to the fighters.

You should already know this, Cheap Shot.

Watched it all the way down to what. All's we show at the center is a five mile gap between airways where the JFK VOR is. My reference to it being 8 miles from JFK is an estimate. I don't a clue where LaGuardia is reference JFK becasue on the High map I am not looking at Victor Airways. What we saw and everyone else at Boston Center was a primary target who had slowed down below 300 Knots, and disappeared like any other target that drops below radar. We don't have any structures on our radar map, when that plane went down, everyone at ZBW assumed he had landed. Even when the first report that a plane had struck the WTC, no one knew it was AAL11 at Boston Center, I would say for 2 to 3 minutes. No one knew he had crashed, no one made that statement. No one there even knew our radar coverage overhead JFK, becasue we don't own that airspace.

 

[Spins]

This is ridiculous A-Train, there was absolutely no time for NORAD to respond, you are asking the impossible and as we keep trying to point out to you there was no shoot down authorization in effect anyway, all the fighters would have done is intercept and shadow the airplane.

At 8:13:47, Boston Center instructed the pilots of Flight 11 to ascend to a cruising altitude of 35,000 feet, they never responded to this request. So this was the first indication that something hand happened on board that flight. Boston center then tried repeatedly to contact the aircraft (the voice of Mohammed Atta is highlighted in bold)…

8:13:47 - American eleven climb maintain flight level three five zero.
8:13:57 - American eleven climb maintain flight level three five zero.
8:14:08 - American eleven Boston.
8:14:23 - American eleven Boston.
8:14:33 - American one one uh the American on the frequency how do you hear me?
8:15:15 - American eleven Boston.
8:15:22 - American eleven if you hear Boston center ident.
8:15:49 - American eleven if you hear Boston center ident please or acknowledge.
8:16:32 - American eleven if you hear Boston center ah re-contact Boston Center on one two seven point eight two, that's American eleven on two seven eight two.
8:17:05 - American eleven, American one one Boston.
8:17:56 - American eleven if you hear Boston center ident please.
8:18:56 - American eleven Boston.
8:20:08 - American eleven American one one how do you hear the center?
8:22:27 - American eleven Boston.
8:24:33 - is that American eleven trying to call?.
8:24:36 - **.
8:24:38 - we have some planes. just stay quiet and you'll be okay we are returning to the airport.
8:24:46 - and uh who's trying to call me here?
8:24:53 - American eleven are you trying to call?
8:24:56 - nobody move. everything will be okay. if you try to make and moves, you'll endanger yourself and the airplane. just stay quiet.
8:33:59 - nobody move please we are going back to the airport don't try to make any stupid moves.

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB196/doc01.pdf

About four minutes later at 8:37:52 Boston center broke standard protocols and directly contacted NEADS in Rome, New York about the hijacking of Flight 11.

So basically NORAD had less than 9 minutes to launch and intercept Flight 11, and remember there was no shoot down authorization in effect at this time. Also as I mentioned previously NEADS were still trying to locate Flight 11, whilst the fighters were airborne, right up until 8:50 when they got word a plane had hit the WTC.

At 8:47 the first indications that Flight 175 had been hijacked occurred, the transponder code was changed twice but was never turned off. Unfortunately these transponder changes went unnoticed for several minutes by a New York controller because at the time he was focused on trying to find Flight 11 which they knew (at that point) had been hijacked. At 8:51 the controller finally noticed the transponder change from Flight 175 and immediately tried to contact the aircraft; he made repeated attempts...

8:51:42 - United one seventy five recycle your transponder and squawk code of one four seven zero.
8:51:53 - United one seventy five New York.
8:52:09 - United one seventy five do you read New York?
8:52:20 - United, United one seventy five do you read New York?
8:53:52 - United one seventy five New York.
8:54:33 - United one seventy five do you read New York?

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB196/doc03.pdf

At about 8:55 a controller notified the New York Center manager that she believed Flight 175 had also been hijacked. The manager tried to notify the regional managers and was told that they were discussing a hijacked aircraft, what now turns out to have been Flight 11, and refused to be disturbed. At 8:58 the New York Center controller searching for Flight 175 told another New York controller "we might have a hijack over here, two of them."

The first indication that NORAD had of the hijacking of Flight 175 came at 9:03 in the form of a phone call from New York Center.

So basically NORAD had less than 1 minute to intercept Flight 175, and remember there was still no shoot down authorization in effect at this time.

You can argue over the details as much as you want, given the time they had they simply had no time to intercept the flights, period.

I say again you are asking the impossible and you have provided no proof that a stand down order was in effect, the FAA and NORAD did everything they could to prevent the attacks, given the time and information they had. In fact it's the reason why almost 6 years since the attacks took place and numerous investigations later, internal and public, no body has come to the conclusion that a "stand down" or "slow down" order took place, outside of loony 9/11 conspiracy theorists who conduct Google investigations and have an agenda.

You quote David Ray Griffin who isn't an Air Defense expert and in fact he blatantly gets many things wrong (his 2.5 minutes to scramble claim for example), proving he's never verified any of his claims and conclusions with real experts. What is he afraid of that they'll disagree with him? I've no doubt that's the reason, he'll only accept expert opinion if it agrees with him everyone else is wrong or part of the conspiracy, exactly the same attitude you employ. Well unfortunately the evidence against a "stand down" conspiracy is overwhelming, and the evidence for doesn't exist, period.

For the stand down order to have taken place the FAA, NTSB, and NORAD have to be involved as far as I'm concerned, that's one hell of a conspiracy to cover-up; you truly have to be insane to believe it.

BTW I think it's worth pointing out that the time it takes A-Train to source, write and post his next sizeable message on this thread is probably more than NORAD had on 9/11 to intercept Flight 11.

 

[Reheat]

You quote David Ray Griffin who isn't an Air Defense expert and in fact he blatantly gets many things wrong (his 2.5 minutes to scramble claim for example),

All GREAT points, Spins.

David Ray Griffin (and his parrots) base their claim of a stand down and delay on two major erroneous presumptions plus some devious mumbo-jumbo.

He states that the F-15 could go from scramble order to 29,000' in 2.5 minutes and he states they could fly from Otis ANGB to Manhattan at 1800+ mph. Yet, his cult parrot states those are trivial errors!

Griffin ignores that there was no shoot down authorization and his parrot only mentions it on PAGE 5 of this thread after I mentioned it as a major issue.

NORAD actually beat their required response times according to Griffin's and his parrot's timeline, yet they allege there was a stand down and delay.

Can it get any more lubricious and insane than it already is? A normal, rational, and sane person would be gone into hiding for making such slanderous accusations against our Nation's Air Defenses, yet I'd guess he'll come back for more embarrassing factual abuse. That seems to be the norm with the so called "Troofer Movement" of which this clown is an obvious proponent.

 

[Cheap Shot]

It is also your job to provide fighters whatever assistance they need to find and intercept a suspect aircraft. If I could find a pre-2001 7110.65 I could prove that to you.

Actually you are incorrect, it is covered in FAAO 7610.4 (H, I beleive), under chapter 4. And I have a copy, large pdf file, but I have one. I don't beleive it specifically says that, but yes we can provide assistance if they need the help. NEADS provided intercepts back in 2001, not the centers. We were required to work the aircraft around our traffic, and when we could give control to NEADS. We would point out any IFR traffic to them and they would avoid it. The big thing here though is NEADS would never ever launch fighters without a Z-Point, period. They would never launch on some heading and DME that the FAA gave them. I don't know if they wouldn't trust us, but they would never do that.

We had ahijcack exercise years ago, I beleive in 1995, and NEADS was delayed in launching thier fighters, There was a predetermined heading that they would depart on, at a certain time. Since they were late we called NEADS and told them instead of a 230 heading you should depart on a 305 heading, they came out on the 230 heading and never intercepted the target. Why all of the sudden would they do something the FAA wants them to do, when all they are used to doing is following orders. Thats what they do.

 

[Cheap Shot]

New York, Washington, Indy, Cleveland-- they did call the military in plenty of time. I don't think we'll ever see your equivalents-- the military liaisons-- from those center checking on to JREF.

There was no breakdown at FAA headquarters. They're just a bunch of dummies who'll take the blame for anything because they don't know any better.

The breakdown was somewhere between NEADS and the fighter pilots in their cockpits. The suspicion is that breakdown was intentional.

The other centers didn't call the military in time, if they did, it would have been recorded. They would have probably done it on a shout line, which I should have, then it would have been recorded by the FAA. If they all called on time I am positive that they all didn't pick up the DSN phone and call NEADS. That was my choice.

No breakdown at FAA HQ, the first call form the hijack cooridnators office I beleive was at 10:10 several minutes after UAL93 impacted the ground. In that conversation they were aking if they think the military ought to launch some fighters. By that time NEADS had contacted about 6 military bases, had fighters up from Langley, Otis, Selfridge, DC, and Toldeo. (opinion ommitted ref FAA HQ), How is this a breakdown between fighters and NEADS.

 

[Spins]

David Ray Griffin (and his parrots) base their claim of a stand down and delay on two major erroneous presumptions plus some devious mumbo-jumbo.

He states that the F-15 could go from scramble order to 29,000' in 2.5 minutes and he states they could fly from Otis ANGB to Manhattan at 1800+ mph. Yet, his cult parrot states those are trivial errors!

Griffin ignores that there was no shoot down authorization and his parrot only mentions it on PAGE 5 of this thread after I mentioned it as a major issue.

NORAD actually beat their required response times according to Griffin's and his parrot's timeline, yet they allege there was a stand down and delay.

Yes and in my opinion it's the combination of all these errors that has lead him (David Ray Griffin) to believe there was a "stand down" order, or a "slow down" order as he put it.

It's obvious he hasn't verified anything he has said with real experts, it's all just speculation (and fiction) and in my opinion should be treated as such. Hardly surprising really when his expertise is Theology and certainly not the protocols and procedures employed by the FAA, NORAD and ATC etc.

By the way there is an error I've spotted in my post, the fighters were not airborne at 8:50 so the following should have read...

So basically NORAD had less than 9 minutes to launch and intercept Flight 11, and remember there was no shoot down authorization in effect at this time. Also as I mentioned previously NEADS were still trying to locate Flight 11, whilst the fighters were airborne, right up until 8:50 when they got word a plane had hit the WTC.

At that point I'm assuming the fighters were probably in the process of taxiing and or preparing for takeoff? They were in the air at 8:52.

See I'm prepared to admit mistakes, pity A-Train et al seem so reluctant to.

 

[AMTMAN]

You're running scared.


Gumboot, you hate this debate because you have been exposed. Your "expertise" on the subject of NORAD amounts to little more than an ability to recite the official story, mixed with a jumble of expert-sounding jargon. For a long time everyone here cheered you on, because they had an emtional desire to agree with you, while not having a clue what you were talking about.

Now someone is here who know the facts and the arguments, and you can't hack it.

You have got to be kidding me. When I pointed out an example of your sloppy "research" you say nothing and pretend it does not exist. How sad.

 

[AMTMAN]

It would not be very good if the pilots were already strapped in and ready to go, as Capt. Timothy Duffy tells us the Otis pilots were.

Reheat, Spins, funk de fino, sleahead, AMTMAN, Calcas, ref......

You guys have all made total fools of yourselves on this issue.

I'm not the one who identified the nose gear doors on the 767 as a route of escape, that was you. Now who looks foolish? And could you please tell me what a theology professor who spent almost his entire life in academia know about how the military works?

 

[A-Train]

You don't launch the alert on a whim, since you now have no alert for XX hours.

A known-to-be hijacked airliner heading for a metropolitan area is a whim?

 

[A-Train]

Watched it all the way down to what. All's we show at the center is a five mile gap between airways where the JFK VOR is. My reference to it being 8 miles from JFK is an estimate. I don't a clue where LaGuardia is reference JFK becasue on the High map I am not looking at Victor Airways. What we saw and everyone else at Boston Center was a primary target who had slowed down below 300 Knots, and disappeared like any other target that drops below radar. We don't have any structures on our radar map, when that plane went down, everyone at ZBW assumed he had landed. Even when the first report that a plane had struck the WTC, no one knew it was AAL11 at Boston Center, I would say for 2 to 3 minutes. No one knew he had crashed, no one made that statement. No one there even knew our radar coverage overhead JFK, becasue we don't own that airspace.

You're being really deceptive here, Cheap Shot. This has nothing to do with victor airways, or whether you knew the plane had hit the towers or not. FAA controllers were watching AAL11's target at least until 8:37, and therefore could have given its location to NEADS.

8:24
Boston flight control radar sees Flight 11 making an unplanned 100-degree turn to the south (the plane is already way off course). Flight controllers never lose sight of the flight, though they can no longer determine altitude once the transponder is turned off. [Christian Science Monitor, 9/13/2001; Newhouse News Service, 1/25/2002; MSNBC, 9/11/2002] Before this turn, the FAA had tagged Flight 11’s radar dot for easy visibility and, at American Airlines headquarters at least, “All eyes watched as the plane headed south. On the screen, the plane showed a squiggly line after its turn near Albany, then it straightened.” [Wall Street Journal, 10/15/2001] Boston flight controller Mark Hodgkins later says, “I watched the target of American 11 the whole way down.”

8:37
Flight 11 passes from Boston flight control airspace into New York flight control airspace. Flight controller John Hartling takes over monitoring the plane.

Quit playing games. Who do you think you're fooling? When the pilots were in the fighters ready to go, your people (or the controllers at ZNY) were watching the plane's primary target.

The idea that NEADS couldn't launch the fighters because the plane couldn't be found is hogwash.

 

[PhantomWolf]

A known-to-be hijacked airliner heading for a metropolitan area is a whim?

Ummm, you do realise that ALL hijacked airliners head for metropolitan areas don't you. That is were the airports are, and up until 9/11 (with only a few exceptions based on running out of fuel) ALL hijacked planes landed at an airport. Why should those in charge at the FAA or NORAD have believed any differently on 9/11 before 175 hit WTC 2? Why should they have rushed the launch of the fighters and what should they have done even if they had and by some miracle had gotten on the tail of Flight 11?

 

[PhantomWolf]

You're being really deceptive here, Cheap Shot. This has nothing to do with victor airways, or whether you knew the plane had hit the towers or not. FAA controllers were watching AAL11's target at least until 8:37, and therefore could have given its location to NEADS.


Quit playing games. Who do you think you're fooling? When the pilots were in the fighters ready to go, your people (or the controllers at ZNY) were watching the plane's primary target.

The idea that NEADS couldn't launch the fighters because the plane couldn't be found is hogwash.

You still seem to be missing the point that CS was making. Being able to see it on the radar, and knowing where it physically was with regard to the ground, ie an exact Latitude and Longitude, are different things and the second is not possible with their system. NORAD wanted the Latitude and Longitude. Boston wasn't able to determine that, only a vector which was useless to NORAD. It took them time to figure out a way to convert their data to something NORAD could use and until NORAD had that data, they weren't going to launch the fighters because they didn't have a position the of their target, a target that at that point in time wasn't a threat anyway.

 

[Spins]

You're being really deceptive here, Cheap Shot. This has nothing to do with victor airways, or whether you knew the plane had hit the towers or not. FAA controllers were watching AAL11's target at least until 8:37, and therefore could have given its location to NEADS.

So, lets hypothetically say that Boston Center broke standard protocol at 8:34 (after Mohammed Atta's last communication, which confirmed the plane had been hijacked) and contacted NEADS with all the information they needed to find the plane, that still only gave them less than 13 minutes to scramble the fighters (at that point they were not even at battle stations) and intercept. Also as everyone keeps telling you there was no shoot down authorization at this point anyway so to say there was a "stand down" order is ridiculous.

Boston were tracking Flight 11 but they, according the 9/11 Commission Report, were having trouble ascertaining the planes altitude. NEADS on the other hand were still searching their radar scopes for the primary radar return of Flight 11 at 8:50 when they got notice an airplane had hit the WTC.

So let's get to the crux of the issue, do you think Boston Center and the FAA were complicit in the events of 9/11?

 

[Spins]

Quit playing games. Who do you think you're fooling? When the pilots were in the fighters ready to go, your people (or the controllers at ZNY) were watching the plane's primary target.

No they were not, that is a blatant lie!

The pilots were ordered to battle stations at 8:37 because Boston Center had just contacted them about the hijacking. That was the first notification received by NEADS that Flight 11 had been hijacked, so if you move the scramble time back to 8:37 it would have taken longer than 6 minutes because they were not as prepared. When the scramble orders were given at 8:46 they had been on battle stations for several minutes so they were prepared, in fact this is probably why they were able to get airborne in such a short space of time (6 minutes as appposed to the target time of less than 15 minutes).

So in some ways that's all you've proved, the reason why they managed to get the planes airborne in 6 minutes.

You've yet to prove there was a "stand down" order because there is no evidence for one, sorry.

 

[Darth Rotor]

A known-to-be hijacked airliner heading for a metropolitan area is a whim?

Besides trying to take my point out of context, you appear to be overlooking the fact that prior to 9-11, hijackings had typically been handled, the world over, with trying to get them landing somewhere, and then negotiating with hijackers (or running a raid like the Italians in Sicily with the Achille Lauro bunch) when they land at the airport.

Guess where most airports are that can handle large passenger planes, A-Train? Near large metropolitain areas.

In other words, you don't get it, at all.

DR

 

[A-Train]

Besides trying to take my point out of context, you appear to be overlooking the fact that prior to 9-11, hijackings had typically been handled, the world over, with trying to get them landing somewhere, and then negotiating with hijackers (or running a raid like the Italians in Sicily with the Achille Lauro bunch) when they land at the airport.

Guess where most airports are that can handle large passenger planes, A-Train? Near large metropolitain areas.

In other words, you don't get it, at all.

This whole line of reasoning is a total joke. Do you really believe the authorities at NORAD said to themselves, "there's a hijacked airplane out there heading for NYC, but no biggie. We can just hem and haw for 5-10 minutes, because the plane will probably just land at JFK or LGA or somewhere like that...."

How preposterous. NORAD prides itself on extremely fast response times to all types of emergencies.

 

[PhantomWolf]

"there's a hijacked airplane out there heading for NYC, but no biggie. We can just hem and haw for 5-10 minutes, because the plane will probably just land at JFK or LGA or somewhere like that...."

Are you suggesting that they were thinking "OMG there's a hijacked plane heading towards NYC and it's planning to dive bomb a building"

As for taking pride in a fast responce, why shouldn't they be proud of getting off the ground within 9 minutes when their expected warning to liftoff under those cercumstances was 15 mins? Thy did it 6 minutes faster than their alotted time.

We aren't saying they stuff about for that time, they were busy doing other things, getting the pilots to the planes, checking and testing systems, awaiting clearnace, getting to the runway, awaiting a position on the plane they were going after.

What we are saying is that a hijacked plane heading towards two major airports is not an emergency that requires the pilots to take extreme risks by cutting check procedures and then to take off and fly about blindly hoping they spot the target. Things you seem to think they should have been doing.