Were The OTIS Fighters Diverted?

[cjnewson88]

Why does a Kiwi know so much about air traffic management over the USA?
You're not really from New Zealand,are you?

I'm also from New Zealand and clearly know a hell of a lot more than you about air traffic management and procedures in the USA.

What a truly stupid accusation.

Some years back the NZ Prime Minister was asked about rumours that lots of lower intelligence Kiwi's were among those moving to Australia. His response was "It will improve the average IQ of both countries".

One of my favorite quotes (from Robert Muldoon), I believe it went more along the lines of "New Zealanders who move to Australia raise the IQ of both countries"

Well it does seem a rather odd thing that a kiwi would care so much about an American 'terrorist' attack. Since it's well known that kiwi's aren't terribly fond of Americans (cousins though we may be).
Since the days of Reagan they've denied the US Navy the use of their ports unless we'd declare to them (the world) if they were carrying nuclear weapons or not.
After the Christchurch earthquake the US sent specially trained search & rescue teams from California to help. The US ambassador felt it necessary to repeatedly reassured the people of NZ that it wasn't an invasion & that we were there at the "invitation" of their own government. One would think that it wouldn't be necessary,one former British colony to another,BUT I guess the mistrust & hatred of the US by the people of New Zealand made it so & the Ambassador knew it.

Possibly one of the most retarded things I have ever read. US and NZ are old allies, we fought and died along side each other during WWII in Europe and in the Pacific, during Korea, Vietnam, and Afghanistan. Yes, the 80's and David Lange's anti nuclear stance spoke louder to a generation of kiwis than old ties (what else would you expect from a lefty government) but those old ties still remained among the majority and we strongly support the US on the War on Terror.

Why do some kiwi's care about a US terror attack? Because trash which began by idiots in the US talking about "inside job" filtered over here and began dumbing down people. Because when I hear morons try and deny all evidence by saying no plane hit the pentagon, or that it wasn't UA175 that hit the South Tower, my pilot instinct takes over and I feel, as someone who knows more than the average idiot about aviation, aerodynamics, and physics, that I must correct them on their flawed belief, to which I have done successfully for about 6 years now.

 

[ozeco41]

...One of my favorite quotes (from Robert Muldoon), I believe it went more along the lines of "New Zealanders who move to Australia raise the IQ of both countries" ...

My other Kiwi story concerns the time when the NZ Condom factory burned down and Australia offered to provide some condoms......

My fun comment was intended to distract from FrankHT's hate post which shows how little understanding he has of the relationships between the three countries.

 

[Edx]

Come on Reheat everyone knows that if you get hurt you slowly regenerate your health, its the same for fuel. You dont use much fuel unless you're using afterburners. It doesnt take much to lift a little plane. /s

 

[dafydd]

C'mon people, let's bow down to Frank's vast knowledge of military aviation.

 

[Cheap Shot]

Are you suggesting the whole phantom 11 report originated as a computer glitch?

No glitch

There are several posts in JREF regarding the TSD and the public flight following program that emulates the TSD. First if there is no flight plan data then it will not show up on a TSD. TSD is based on the last three minutes of history of where the aircraft should have been based on flight plan data, not radar data. I will have more later gotta go

 

[gumboot]

Well it does seem a rather odd thing that a kiwi would care so much about an American 'terrorist' attack. Since it's well known that kiwi's aren't terribly fond of Americans (cousins though we may be).
Since the days of Reagan they've denied the US Navy the use of their ports unless we'd declare to them (the world) if they were carrying nuclear weapons or not.
After the Christchurch earthquake the US sent specially trained search & rescue teams from California to help. The US ambassador felt it necessary to repeatedly reassured the people of NZ that it wasn't an invasion & that we were there at the "invitation" of their own government. One would think that it wouldn't be necessary,one former British colony to another,BUT I guess the mistrust & hatred of the US by the people of New Zealand made it so & the Ambassador knew it.

When CA-TF2 arrived at Christchurch airport the members of the public gathered there gave them a spontaneous round of applause. As per usual, you have no idea what you're talking about.

 

[Lenbrazil]

Originally Posted by FrankHT
Why does a Kiwi know so much about air traffic management over the USA? You're not really from New Zealand,are you?

You are paranoid, he is a rational researcher. Story ends.

Actually despite his paranoid phrasing not an unreasonable question, the 1st one that is. Based on his extensive knowledge of the subject I assumed he had professional knowledge. One member who hasn't posted here for a while is a RAN aviator who spent a few months (or was it weeks?) touring USAF and USN facilities, I thought Gumboot might have had a similar story.

 

[gumboot]

Actually despite his paranoid phrasing not an unreasonable question, the 1st one that is. Based on his extensive knowledge of the subject I assumed he had professional knowledge. One member who hasn't posted here for a while is a RAN aviator who spent a few months (or was it weeks?) touring USAF and USN facilities, I thought Gumboot might have had a similar story.

My story is that the first 9/11 Conspiracy stuff I came across tended to be built on poor photographic and video interpretation, which happens to be a field I have professional experience with. That got me interested in the topic. At the time that I started looking into this virtually nothing was known about the Air Defense side of things (this was before even the release of Vanity Fair's landmark article feature recordings from NEADS), and a lot of discussion on that topic was happening in these forums - most of it revolving around the conflict between what NORAD and the FAA originally said, and what the Commission Report claimed happened. Having come from an Air Force background it interested me, and I saw a gap in the research, so I started digging around a bit, and did some of the earliest work on piecing together NORAD's response to the attacks. Getting my heard around the FAA side of things was just a natural part of that process, but by far most of my knowledge is in relation to the air defense picture; the exercises, the stand-down claim, the rules and procedures in place on 9/11, the number of alert sites, the performance of the aircraft, and so on.

Since then, of course, other researchers have used more precise data to produce more precise insight in various aspects (some of which modify and correct mistakes in my earlier understandings), but I like to think I was the first person in the debunking world to put together a comprehensive picture of the overall Air Defense picture.

 

[Huttosaurus]

My fun comment was intended to distract from FrankHT's hate post which shows how little understanding he has of the relationships between the three countries.

As another NZer who has been following this thread, I have to say I'm finding the drift resulting from FrankHT's assumptions hilarious. God forbid we take an interest in the goings on outside our little islands .

 

[Huttosaurus]

Since the days of Reagan they've denied the US Navy the use of their ports unless we'd declare to them (the world) if they were carrying nuclear weapons or not.

Just to clarify this (and apologies for the drift), we never banned the USN, they just stopped coming due to their own policies about ship classification. "Our house, our rules" applies, and the USN (and by extension the Pentagon) was the only foreign party that had a problem with it when it came to ship visits. Didn't bother the French, Royal, or Chinese navies, all of whom had and have vessels that could violate the nuclear free legislation, but continued port visits nonetheless.

 

[cjnewson88]

The problem with 9/11 is that people started using the TSD to track flights. When AA11 turned south, deviating from its flight plan, NY ARTCC entered a second flight plan in the TSD; AA11A.

No they did not. There was no new flight plan entered for AA11A.

We know for certain there was an AA11A displayed in the TSD as a 757. The question that no one seems to be able to answer is how it got in there without any trace of a flight plan. Maybe Cheap Shot can step in and help us out.

I have not seen that on the TSD outputs I have seen. There was a tag "AAL11A" assigned to the primary return in the ZNY radar system. That tag should have dropped as soon as the coast track ended. But perhaps Cheap Shot can lend insight. We have seen no evidence that it did not in the limited radar data that we have from ZNY.

It's patently obvious that there was both an AA11 track (which was never removed from the system) and an AA11A track. AA11A was bound to AA11's primary track after it turned south, and dropped off scopes shortly after impact (tracks will coast for a couple of radar sweeps before dropping off), but that doesn't remove it from the TSD.

This may be helpful;

From ZNY OMIC (skip to ~12:20)



"American 11, uh, 11A on your TSD"
"Heading from the North directly overhead Kennedy"
"11A?"
"Yeah thats the track they just started on him, he's really American 11"


It seems fair to say there was an AA11A showing on TSD. But as BCR states (I am unable to confirm but I'll trust his experience) there is no flight plan provided for it, which either means there was one but for some reason it was never kept, or like BCR has suggested, perhaps there is some type of manual way to input into the TSD. I'd be interested in finding an answer to the latter.

 

[Cheap Shot]

It seems fair to say there was an AA11A showing on TSD. But as BCR states (I am unable to confirm but I'll trust his experience) there is no flight plan provided for it, which either means there was one but for some reason it was never kept, or like BCR has suggested, perhaps there is some type of manual way to input into the TSD. I'd be interested in finding an answer to the latter.

Someone may have added flight plan data to the AAL11A call sign. Not surprised if they didn't. They couldn't put in the AAL11 call sign becasue Boston Center still had track control. It is very common for controllers when they cant get track control to make a new Call Sign by adding the letter A to enhd of the call sign. Then if they had reason to beleive that AAL11A was going to continue southbound they could have added a basic flight plan from JFK to SWL (snowhill VOR) or even DCA for (National). This would have propogated the TSD. As far as AAL11 the track went inot Coast Track (which means it probably continued on its present heading.) When I cam back into work that night the AAL11 Data tag was still on the scope but we call under the rubber. On the midnight shift if you expand out you will see data tags that were not cancelled or handed off, and they will be at the edge of our scope just sitting their blinking. We cancel them or if the system gets a reset overnight, they will cancel automatically, otherwise the next day that call sign would still not be available if it was at the edge of the scope, or under the rubber.

It is ATC's responsibility to try keep all of our tracks "Flat Tracked" that means the target is with in paramenters of the route of fight. If it is flat tracked than the TSD will give you an accurate picture. If the aircraft is outside of the parameters, then it will be in a "Free Track", we are still trackiing the aircraft, but TSD will now not reflect what the aircraft is actually doing. If we lose radar data and the data tag falls outside of the route parameters it will go into a "Coast Track", which means it will normally follow its last known heading and present speed. Such as AAL11 and probably AAL11A in ZNY Airspace.

When the transponder was turned off on AAL11 Boston Center tracked it via the primary target only. The problem with this is that the radar and computer are always looking for the transponder the computer syas the aircraft is on. So every several sweeps it would drop the primary tag to look for the secondary tag (which is the transponder) and stop tracking the primary. I beleive we requested the area to change the equipment qualifier for AAL11 so the primary tag would stay on the aircraft better, but I can't remember if the ATC did make the change in the computer. We still tracked the primary all the way into NYC. Our determination that the aircraft was descending was based on the ground speed that we still received due to our ability to keep the aircraft tracked. At one time the aircraft was grounding 620 knots, and the closer it got to NY the ground speed was down to 320 knots.

 

[BCR]

It seems fair to say there was an AA11A showing on TSD. But as BCR states (I am unable to confirm but I'll trust his experience) there is no flight plan provided for it, which either means there was one but for some reason it was never kept, or like BCR has suggested, perhaps there is some type of manual way to input into the TSD. I'd be interested in finding an answer to the latter.

The whole TSD AAL11A phenomena was a manual one. The radar tag assigned by ZNY was a manual one as well, but automatically dropped from the system. Miles Kara has continued his work on this subject and has an updated post on the subject.

As Cheap Shot and every capable ATC I've consulted with have indicated, the TSD is updated via flight plan changes, not feeds from the radar and any tags associated with it. It is definitely known that someone was playing around with the TSD tracking (refer to Miles post linked above).

I can say this. As far as ZDC (Washington) goes, there is no AAL11 or AAL11A flight plan in their system files. Which of course explains why they were scratching their heads when NEADS called them asking what was going on. And the FAA insists that they have no record of a AAL11A flight plan being generated.

There were two primary aspects of AAL77 I focused a lot of energy on. The first was the missing Pentagon videos. I finally at least verified who took them and who should have them. Darn, they have even admitted to having them now, but claim have misplaced them.

The second was the ghost AAL11 (AAL11A). Never have found that AAL11A flight plan, but all indications are that there should have been one at some point in time. But, unlike FrankHT's nefarious plot, it seems the motive for all this chaos was concern over CNN monitoring the goings-on.

As Boone870 has already pointed out, both of these issues have devolved into the 'dog chasing his tail' scenario. So, until someone uncovers some new or 'lost' files, I'm afraid we know all we are ever going to know.

 

[gumboot]

According to the FAA's TFMS Reference Manual, the TSD gets its data from something called the Flight Table Manager, which is a database of flight information. The Reference Manual doesn't go into a lot of detail about the nature of the FTM, but it does indicate that there are multiple FTMs at different sites; for example you can switch the TSD to only display data from your local FTM, or from another FTM, or from multiple FTMs.

Secondly, the manual indicates that a limited number of staff with special clearance are able to modify the FTM. It's unclear if the FTM consists of flight plans, or if a flight plan is just one possible type of data that could be entered into the FTM.

 

[cjnewson88]

I'm currently in an email conversation with Mal Fuller, the watch supervisor at KPIT on 9/11. I'll hit him up about this, he may be more familiar with the systems than us.

 

[Cheap Shot]

The main TSD is located in Cambridge, MA, at the DOT Volpe Center. All of the TSD's in the country receive their data from this location. The FTM is kind of a portal from the TSD to the man frame in Cambridge. Not to up to date on it, but the FTM is constantly updating, a TMU person would have more knowledge. I visited here this place many years ago it's a very interesting place and very secure.

 

[FrankHT]

So,based on the posts I've been reading the TSD seems to be a 'predictive' computer program that extrapolates where aircraft will be (in future) based on their filed flight plan and (lacking that & assuming continued speed & direction) the last few minutes of their actual radar track? And it's possible for ATC to confuse the TSD display for an actual radar return? Is that correct?

 

[FrankHT]

I can't believe you play the hate card, is it due to your paranoia?

I didn't play the hate card. I don't hate anybody. I simply said Kiwis aren't very fond of Americans which I believe is true. I've been to New Zealand back in the 1980's. I spent 3 weeks in Australia on the same trip. Comparing the two,Australian were far more friendly & far more talkative. The Kiwis I met were quiet & standoffish towards us. I interpret that as dislike of Americans.

 

[BCR]

So,based on the posts I've been reading the TSD seems to be a 'predictive' computer program that extrapolates where aircraft will be (in future) based on their filed flight plan and (lacking that & assuming continued speed & direction) the last few minutes of their actual radar track? And it's possible for ATC to confuse the TSD display for an actual radar return? Is that correct?

Nope. TSD has nothing to do with the radar track and no, an ATC knows whether of not they are looking at a TSD or a radar screen. You really do need to keep up.

 

[gumboot]

I didn't play the hate card. I don't hate anybody. I simply said Kiwis aren't very fond of Americans which I believe is true. I've been to New Zealand back in the 1980's. I spent 3 weeks in Australia on the same trip. Comparing the two,Australian were far more friendly & far more talkative. The Kiwis I met were quiet & standoffish towards us. I interpret that as dislike of Americans.

The 1980s?



You do realise it's 2012, right?