Anyone who flew during the summer of 2001 should be OUTRAGED

[Bluebear]

That the 9/11 tragedy didn't happen to those of us who remain is just serendipity. Anyone who flew that year, pilots, flight attendants, businesspeople, family vacationers, school groups, sports teams, relatives who had loved ones flying about, were all in great danger....and NOTHING was done. Air marshalls could have been deployed immediately. Frontline airline personnel could have, SHOULD have been made aware of the threats. Whether or not the administration knew of the exact tactics to be used, SOME sort of heightened warning should have been out there. US flight crews were NOT advised whatsoever. Flight attendants who had been trained to try expect a 'traditional hijacking' were not advised about this new threat, what to look for, to realize that the cannot treat the situation as they would a 'normal' hijacking and to fight for their lives. They were trained to use outdated techniques in the face of a new kind of peril and they were flying blind. The threats were not "historical", DOCTOR Rice. YOU KNEW. And did nothing.


Congratulations on your promotion. this is NOT going away.


Remembering the crews that died on 9/11

=====

"Bush team tried to suppress pre-9/11 report into al-Qa'ida"
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=609895

Federal officials were repeatedly warned in the months before the 11 September 2001 terror attacks that Osama bin Laden and al-Qa'ida were planning aircraft hijackings and suicide attacks, according to a new report that the Bush administration has been suppressing.

Critics say the new information undermines the government's claim that intelligence about al-Qa'ida's ambitions was "historical" in nature.

The independent commission investigating the attacks on New York and Washington concluded that while officials at the Federal Aviation Authority (FAA) did receive warnings, they were "lulled into a false sense of security". As a result, "intelligence that indicated a real and growing threat leading up to 9/11 did not stimulate significant increases in security procedures".

The report, withheld from the public for months, says the FAA was primarily focused on the likelihood of an incident overseas. However, in spring 2001, it warned US airports that if "the intent of the hijacker is not to exchange hostages for prisoners but to commit suicide in a spectacular explosion, a domestic hijacking would probably be preferable".

[democrat in Tallahassee]

1. well, ashcroft was safe, wasn't he? That bastard stopped flying

on public planes with the rest of us in the summer of 2001

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

3. That story makes this one all the more an outrage

This proves they protected themselves and left everyone sorely at risk be it deliberately or through incompetence. Either one is unforgivable.

[SharonAnn]

14. I flew nearly 100,000 miles in 2001, up until October.

I was in Middletown, NJ on 9-11. I lived on planes that year. I ended up driving back to Tennessee at the end of the week.

And after 9-11 I went to Europe on 9-22-05, back to Middletown the middle of October and Denver in November.

Quite frankly, I have a difficult time being away from home any more. It never used to bother me but I've had too many things happen when I was out of town on business.

That's more the issue than safety, I think.

But yes, I'm outraged that we were left so vulnerable.

How could they be so f---ing incompetent, so f---ing careless of our welfare?

[Pachamama]

35. Seriously? Ashcroft wasn't flying since Summer '01? What about the rest

of the Cabal/Bush Junta?

Bet most of them were Air Force One, Military Planes and leased private planes all the way....

Sons of Bitches like Barbara Bush...... :grr:

[kath]

48. yes, Ashcroft quit flying commercial planes in July of 2001

[Mike Niendorff]

49. link: "Ashcroft Flying High" (CBS News, 7/26/01)

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2001/07/26/national/main303601.shtml


MDN

[slor]

2. You are DAMN RIGHT!!!!!

I am SOOO FUCKING MAD AGAIN! Fuck all those lying criminal fucks!!!

[Bluebear]

6. THANK YOU!

And I was one of those flying around that summer and would have expected any decent administation at least to address it, oh, SOMEHOW? Instead of this bullshit that she didn't know the flight numbers and seat numbers and special meal requests of the hijackers so 'nothing' could be done. Fuck them.

[rwheeler31]

4. Did we not reward those Airlines who kept all this info quiet ?

[Bluebear]

8. Did the airlines know?

The airline personnel sure as hell didn't.

[DoYouEverWonder]

43. You've got that part right

Two weeks before 9-11 I was able to board a plane in Laguardia Airport WITHOUT A TICKET.

Actually I did have a ticket but at no point did anyone check either my ticket or boarding pass.

When the gal at the gate called everyone to board the plane I tried to make her take my ticket and she refused. She said they were in a hurry to turn the plane and to just get on. I couldn't believe it.

[Hugin]

5. I agree!

I'm OUTRAGED!!! (but, what else is new.)

[havocmom]

7. My daughter flew to visit a friend in Manhatten in August, 01.

Her trip was originally planned for Sept, but they decided to move it up a bit. They didn't have a camera with them when they went to the WTC. Figured they could get pictures during her next visit.

She won't be going back. She IS outraged. She has been since that day in Sept, the time she had originally planned to be in NYC. She has been outraged everyday, thinking of all those people and of her friend, who will never be the same.

[Valerie5555]

9. Had any pilot been alerted to that sort of situation and been able to tell

their passengers how to "Flight 564" a potential highjack situation, I am sure that civilian "flyguy" or "flygal" should have been given a medal for having the "guts" or "balls" (which could probably apply to either testicles or ovaries or "ovies") to tell the passengers on their flight what must be said.

[laruemtt]

10. dh and i flew into manhattan

three weeks before 9/11 to see his family in brooklyn. his sister worked two blocks from WTC and his niece worked on the 57th floor of wtc2. she had the sense to get out despite being told to go back to her desk, that the problem was only in wtc1. i never forget how it was only pure serendepity that we're all still here today. damn them all to hell.

[Sparkly]

11. Husb and I flew from Florida to DC on 9/9/01

Two days before. :scared:

[bleever]

12. It could have been my mom, flying out to see her grandkids.

She was supposed to fly back on 9/13.

God have mercy on the souls of those who failed so wretchedly and abjectly to protect us.

They're going to need it.

[AZCat]

13. I didn't - but my friends flew on 9/11, two gates down from 93

They were flying back from NYC to Tucson that Tuesday (I was house-sitting) and boarded two gates down from Flight 93.

[HeeBGBz]

15. I flew to Tahoe in mid August 2001

Had some weird feelings on the flight home. Like, what would it feel like to fall out of the sky.

[Blue_In_AK]

16. My daughter was in France, Spain and Morocco

in the summer of 2001. She flew back the end of August. I would have been freaking out if she had still been in the Middle East on 9/11.

[walldude]

17. I fly all the time

It made 9/11 all that much more painful for me. I could imagine myself on one of those planes.
I was hoping Condi was going to get busted for perjury in front of the 9/11 commission but my wife pointed out to me that one of the conditions of her testimony(as well as Bush, Cheney's) was that she not be under oath. They knew they were going to lie to the commission and covered their asses well. I wonder how the freepers feel about that? Probably the most important investigation in modern times and instead of trying to help get to the bottom of the most horrible terrorist act ever on American soil they spent their time covering their asses.

[sunnystarr]

18. Is that first picture Madeline "Amy" Todd Sweeney?

I watched Amy grow up and her parents are my oldest daughter's godparents. They played together as children before divorces and moves separated them. She was a flight attendant on the plane from Boston and I believe was the first to sound the hijacking alert.

How many of us know someone or someone who knows someone who was lost to us that day?

The anger never goes away. Nor does the image of the laughter from the pixie faced skinny girl with the sun and wind playing with her hair as she begged to go "high up to the sky" on a swing that wouldn't do her bidding.

In her honor please forgive my posting this ..

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/R?r107:FLD001:H56092
The professionalism, courage and common sense exhibited by these individuals is clearly exemplified in the actions of Madeline Amy Todd Sweeney, who was a flight attend aboard American Airlines Flight 11 on September 11. That was the first aircraft to crash into the World Trade Center.

Showing courage under pressure, Amy was one of the first individuals to use a cell phone and notify the world of the hijackings that were underway. Her last acts of bravery were critically important in identifying and exposing those terrorists who threatened our lives, our country and our values.

Ms. Sweeney is a true American hero. She was many things to many wonderful people, a faithful wife, a loving mother, and a devoted daughter. But she will be remembered by most Americans for her extraordinary heroism and devotion to duty on a fateful day.

Consider this--those who hijacked American Airlines Flight 11, had years of training and preparation for their terrible mission. They had plenty of time to consider what they were going to do. But for Amy, the decisions of a lifetime were compressed into a few terrible minutes. Yet she responded with tremendous courage, calmness and common sense. She did her duty in the face of death. And at the last moment, she called out to God for salvation.

I had the honor earlier this year to attend a ceremony in Massachusetts where she became the first individual to be awarded the ``Madeline Amy Todd Sweeney Award for Civilian Bravery.'' It is in recognition of Amy Todd Sweeney's heroism and courageous spirit that this award was created.

Future recipients--awarded annually on the anniversary of her death--must demonstrate exceptional bravery, without regard for personal safety, in an effort to save the life or lives of another or others in actual or imminent danger. It is a fitting tribute to her conduct that this award has been established. There can be little doubt that many people are alive today because of her quick thinking and her heroism. Her actions remind us that courage is rightly esteemed as the first of human qualities because it is the quality that guarantees all others.

And we should remember that courage does not mean an absence of fear, because without fear there can be no courage. Courage is doing the thing you think you cannot do.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to enter into the RECORD a recent article from the New London Day entitled, ``A Hero On Flight 11, She Put Her Job First: Madeline Amy Todd Sweeney.''

May God bless and keep you, Madeline Amy Todd Sweeney, and may God bless America.

[Bluebear]

20. What a lovely post

That is indeed Amy. 25 flight attendants died that day, I believe. Your personal story about her is welcomed and I remember her with you.

[Hailtothechimp]

19. I read something in the summer of 2001....

It was a Chicago Magazine story about O'Hare airport. I don't recall when, but it was pre- 9/11.

There was a snippet of one sentence that indicated something about how O'Hare was being watched for terrorist attacks. Obviously some of the pre-9/11 warnings (and maybe that CD or powerpoint that we just learned about) had made its way from the FBI/CIA to the powers that be at the airport, and then to the reporter, and then through the editorial and production process, and then through the postal service, and then onto the mail truck, and then into my mailbox, where I read it and was struck funny by a sentence that didn't make any sense to me at the time. It must have stayed buried in my subconscious until hearing about the warnings that the airports were given prior to the attack.

I flew in September of 2001. Had I been aware, or any of us been let in on what the government and the airlines and airports knew, I would have thought long and hard about driving instead. But I got on a plane, like millions of others, unaware of what we might have been getting into. We were all let down. And I'm not ever going to forgive those who did it.

[notadmblnd]

31. It really is too bad that the airlines can't be sued

They choose greed over safty in 2001. They knew! They figured they'd lose too much money if they warned people. People would drive instead of take their cheep flights.

[KaryninMiami]

21. I flew all summer as well . They risked the lives of their citizens

by ignoring warnings that might have kept us safer. Do we have any grounds here for a class action suit? Is it legal for the government (whom we elect and we pay to keep us safe and make informed decisions) to apparently deliberately decide to ignore the reports and then not advise the public about credible reports about potential hijackings? But then again, this is the team that deliberately lied about the reasons for bringing us into a war. They operate by a different set of rules about what's right and wrong...

No wonder they suppressed this until now- could have made things just a wee bit messy for them before the election.

The great unraveling-- nope- this is not going to go away. But we need to make sure this story doesn't just fade into the background- chances are MSM will be back on the Michael Jackson trial as quickly as they can be. Or on some other similar story to divert us from this one. But this is important. Make sure your local papers cover this. Write to your editors, write to the MSM if you have the energy, call into C-Span and tell everyone you know.

Be the media.

[Bluebear]

24. Good points all.

And notice all the coverage is coming from overseas. Our media is still softballing this. The RW wants 9/11 to be 'their' rallying point without delving into what happened and why. We musn't let any of this be forgotten.

[satya]

53. Must be why "tort reform" is such a hot issue for the * regime.

Can't have the people filing lawsuits now, can we? I hadn't thought of that in terms of 9-11 till I read your post, always thought it might be because of Halliburton's liability for asbestos claims.

[Old Mouse]

22. My pregnant wife and I flew 9/10 out of Florida

EOM

[thecai]

23. A Plane Nearly Crashed Into Me and My Neighborhood

while I was reading a story to 2 little boys that summer, also read "Incident At Rebel Ridge" on one of my websites:
http://hometown.aol.com/sonrisepark/myhomepage/index.html

[RoeBear]

33. So you were reading a book while planes were crashing!?!

Why you could be President!

[thecai]

56. LOL! Ironic, Isn't It?

I was sitting outside, reading a story to my 2 friend's sons, when an old (40's bomber-type), unmarked, dark grey aircraft came a few feet over the tops of the trees, right at us. It veered away towards a neighbor's house, then up toward other trees, then over and down to the lake.
Several witnesses reported it, no follow-up or investigation was ever conducted to my knowledge.
Read about another similar incident prior to 9-11:
http://hometown.aol.com/wintergreen721/myhomepage/profile.html

[Patchuli]

25. I flew 9/8/01 to Arizona

because my stepmom had a heart attack. I wasn't sure how I was going to get home. The airport was downright scary.

Thanks Condoliar! :eyes:

[magellan]

26. My husband and I were just saying this this morning

We flew RT from Newark to Seattle in July 2001 for the All Star Game. Ever since 9/11 we've thanked our lucky stars because it could just as easily have been one of our flights. But to learn this GD administration had 52 warnings between April-September 2001 and said NOTHING to the public about the threats...Ghoulish. Unforgivable.

I felt completely safe until these dipsticks took over. I have never felt less safe than I do now. They aren't protecting us. They're playing russian roulette with us.

[Bluebear]

27. Magellan, I love your quote.....

'They aren't protecting us. They're playing russian roulette with us.'

You nailed it.

[Eurobabe]

28. I flew ALOT of transatlantics that year, every 6-8 wks.

so nice to know "I was warned."

[Coventina]

29. I flew with friends on 09/10/2001

Yeah, I'm pissed.

I've been pissed for a long time.

[rodeodance]

30. says airports were warned--but do not know if this applied to pilots/crew

The report, withheld from the public for months, says the FAA was primarily focused on the likelihood of an incident overseas. However, in spring 2001, it warned US airports that if "the intent of the hijacker is not to exchange hostages for prisoners but to commit suicide in a spectacular explosion, a domestic hijacking would probably be preferable".

[Old and In the Way]

32. Flew 175 from Boston to LA in August of that year.

So, it is a very wierd thing to think that a few weeks earler and it could have been me on that plane hitting the WTC.

[KharmaTrain]

34. Logan Airport - August, 2001

The place was under construction and it's usual mess. We stayed on Boston Harbor and our room had a view right onto the runways...I still have the videos of the planes taking off two at a time. At the time I noticed how there was no fence along the harbor, thinking anyone with a rowboat could have snuck across onto the tarmac and right up to the planes.

We left Logan for Chicago on a Sunday evening. There was only one security area open (there were three that sat vacant), with one guy working the machine one kinda checking the bags. A person in front of us had a wire tie...a plastic band around the lock of his carry-on...after futzing with it for a few seconds, the security guy gave up and waved the guy through. People were irate since the line was moving slow and the screeners looked like they'd rather be somewhere else. Every time I see the security video of Atta prancing through the gates, that image comes to mind. The other was seeing the WTC as we took headed out over the coast. Little did I know what I was looking at that night.

I am hopeful one day Rice will have to truly account for her lies and deceptions along with others of this regime in a courtroom in the Hague.

[murray hill farm]

36. My husband and i flew out of the country on sept 10

We flew from Orlando to Atlanta..and then to Mexico on that day...we were in Cancun shopping...on sept 11...when a store employee in the grocery store noticed we were american and asked to to follow him to the back of the store..all in spanish..we didnt understand what he was saying to us..but we followed him to a tv..where he showed us CNN..in spanish..and we saw what was happening in the USA...and then, of course, we could not fly back for over a week..and when we could fly again..we were very afraid to do it. Yes..i have thought about that many times..and more so in the past few days..that they knew of the threat to all of us who flew..and did not warn us of the danger.

[AnneD]

37. It's the wound that doesn't heal

I refuse to let the terrorist win by NOT flying, but I am furious at the incompetence of this admin. God Bless the 9-11 families for digging their heals in and demanding to be heard and never giving up.

[Bluebear]

40. AnneD welcome to DU!

[Pithlet]

38. I flew with my then 6 month old son three days before 9/11/01

I can't even think about it.

[southernleftylady]

39. As a flight attendant (who was a week away from maternity leave on 9/11)

I want to thank you for remembering the crew that died that day.. they were hardly ever mentioned :(
it was a tragedy

[Bluebear]

41. check your mail

:)

[southernleftylady]

42. ditto :) nt

[davekriss]

44. I was flying out of Westchester Airport on 9/11

All this talk about flights on or around 9/11 I thought I'd add my own.

I worked in the Chrysler Building building at the time. I was supposed to be in a small town north of Indianapolis the week of 9/11 (for business) and planned to fly out on Monday, 9/10. I had a connecting flight through Detroit. I lived in Connecticut, so it was convenient for me to fly out of Westchester Airport, just north of Manhattan.

That Monday, however, we had a freak and severe thunderstorm essentially just over the Westchester airport. It shut down the airport for a while. My flight was not cancelled, but was delayed late enough that it was unlikely that I would catch my connection in Detroit. I thought about renting a car and driving down (from Detroit), but instead elected to fly out in the morning, Tuesday morning. September 11.

I was on my way to the airport that beautiful spring morning when my wife called to tell me a plane crashed into the WTC. A small plane, she thought; maybe a Cesna. How could a plane hit the WTC without a cloud in the sky? Heart attack, maybe? We continued to talk, she watching TV at home and telling me what they were saying, when the second jet hit. We said simultaneously, "terrorists!".

I didn't know what to do. We agreed I'd continue on to the airport and decide there whether or not to postpone my trip. I got there. Everyone was silent, glued to the TV monitors, when they announced all flights were cancelled and they closed the airport. I hopped in my car and hightailed it back to Connecticut.

I had the radio on this time and heard them announce the first tower collapsed and reports of buildings in DC being hit. I thought to myself then that this was insane -- here it was a perfect spring day, pure blue sky, rich greens of early autumn, the grace of God's creation shining forth for all to see! -- I thought that there was no ideal, no possible justification, for these henious acts; evil exists, I thought, and it was alive and strong in the world that day.

I suddenly had a strong urge to gather my kids and wife around me and the next thing I noticed I was driving 100 mph on the winding Merritt Parkway! I made it home. The family gathered. We sat in shock watching the towers collapse over and over again.

The grieving process (for me) really isn't over. I grew up with the visage of the WTC always there; like a mood-setting backdrop, the twin towers stood like mythic guardians. My heart still aches whenever I glance at the marred NY skyline.

I genuinely expected additional attacks in the days after 9-11. But then I wondered. "They hate us for our freedoms!" announced what's-her-name on CNN. The 19 hijackers were so quickly identified. The rental car with "how to hijack an airliner" instructions found in it. Atta's passport in the rubble. It wasn't immediate, but it smelled of LIHOP-MIHOP. I especially thought so after events and information unfolded over the course of the next year -- after I became aware of PNAC and "Rebuilding's" language longing for a New Pearl Harbor (and learned how "Rebuilding" mimicked the 1992 draft Defense Policy Guidance, prepared by Cheney, Wolfowitz, Libby, and Bolton for GHWB but rejected for being, well, insane); after the trial balloon, launched by Condi the Coldhearted, where she said in in the Spring of 2002 with feigned indignation and anger that Saddam Hussein might be holding prisoner a fighter pilot downed in the first hours of the first Gulf War and heretofore thought dead (it was obvious, I told my wife, we'd be invading Iraq within a year); I had little remaining doubts after the White House published their NSS (National Security Strategy) in September 2002, announcing the Bush Doctrine of preventative strikes (forget such civil concepts as "pre-emptive" and "imminent") and positioning the U.S. as Saviors of the World from such evils as high marginal taxation.

We have been living pure nightmare since December 12, 2000, anyone who truly loves freedom, liberty, equality, justice.

How can any reasonable person doubt it? LIHOP (at the least). What was Richard Meyers doing on 9-11 when, after hearing that a jet struck the first tower, he ducked into a Senator's office for coffee and donuts and didn't emerge until after the Pentagon was struck? He was aware of the August 6 PDB. Surely he was briefed on what the previous administration (Clinton) considered our highest security risk, OBL and Al Qaeda, this man just given the highest military position in our nation? And Bush sits like a jerk as a student reads to him about pet goats. Standown my friends. Forget that the F18's were scrambled late; forget that they travelled at 1/4 speed -- all we need to know about "standdown" is evident in the actions of these two men. What a little LIHOP we had, indeed! Yet how enourmously tragic!!

[IronLionZion]

45. yes, they took way too long to scramble the jets

Everything else that people are saying about security measures is important too. But when a plane goes off course, military jets are supposed to get to it in 10 minutes just in case. They waited way too long. They violated standard military procedure. They still have no excuse.

[LifeDuringWartime]

47. training exercises

i read on DU once that NORAD was conducting a hijacking simulation over the Atlantic Ocean on sept. 11. struck me as odd.

[98geoduck]

46. I actually flew into Boston the day before 9/11. Definitely had me thinkin

[kath]

50. bluebear, are you the DUer who worked with some of those crew members?

If so, my heartfelt sympathies.

[Bluebear]

54. No, thank you for that...

I do have good friends who knew them very well.

[tinfoilinfor2005]

51. Scarier still

We're all still flying...and the same lunatics are running the asylum.

[aquart]

52. August 2001 cross country, non-stop round trip New York/San Diego.

Because my sister was having surgery.

American Airlines.

I know I hoped that none of the people who were so kind to me on that flight died on 9/11. But I don't know.

May the bastards, who decided it was advantageous to let us die, never sleep.

[Stephanie]

55. It's squarely on Bush's head. The FAA was not told it was urgent.

"lulled into a false sense of security"

They wanted a New Pearl Harbor.

My mother flew out of JFK that Monday. 9/11 was Tuesday.