Back to the transcripts (NJ Newspaper columnist ?'s FAA 9-11 ATC Response)

[RamboLiberal]

Found this link on Buzzflash. At least this columnist is questioning this puzzling aspect of 9-11. Now if the rest of the damn media would get their heads out of Bush's butt and start questioning what the hell happened that day. I'd love to see some brave media pundit question what the hell the CIC was doing that day sitting on his butt after knowing what was happening in NYC reading a goat story to 2nd graders.

http://www.northjersey.com/page.php?qstr=eXJpcnk3ZjcxN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXkxNCZmZ2JlbDdmN3ZxZWVFRXl5NjQ3MDQxMA==

THE SUBTLE WORDS of Sept. 11 keep dropping into our lives, still raising important questions. Last week, those words and questions popped up again. Is anybody listening?

This time, we heard from air traffic controllers and others at La Guardia Airport in Queens - their words preserved by the Port Authority on transcripts of radio transmissions and telephone calls. The latest transcripts were made public by the Port Authority only days before New Year's Eve, part of a court-ordered release of radio transmissions and other records that included about 2,000 pages, the first segments of which were released last August.

This latest batch of records is especially disturbing, however.

The transcripts offer a glimpse into the world of air traffic control. It shows how the massive civilian bureaucracy known as the Federal Aviation Administration that monitors commercial airliners handles an emergency such as the hijacking of civilian jetliners by Islamic militants on Sept. 11. If nothing else, this glimpse ought to be a warning of how badly this system needs to be fixed.

It was the morning of Sept. 11. At approximately 8:20, the FAA says, it received word that the first of two jetliners from Boston's Logan International Airport had been hijacked and was mysteriously heading for New York City. What did the FAA do? That seems like a simple question - a question that ought to have been answered clearly and unflinchingly months ago. But even now, almost 28 months after the Sept. 11 attacks, we still don't have a clear picture of how well the FAA responded.

[Fleshdancer]

1. very disturbing article.

Yes, the FAA has a lot of explaining to do.

"The transcripts reveal that even at La Guardia air traffic controllers were still allowing jetliners to take off after the first plane struck. Only after the second plane hit did the FAA order all commercial jetliners grounded across America.

Such a delay raises yet another question: Did the FAA dismiss that first hijacking report at 8:20 a.m.? How else to explain the delay in notifying the military, the delay in notifying air traffic controllers at La Guardia, and even the delay in grounding commercial jets in the New York area and beyond?

Put another way: Just what was the FAA doing?"

[Powerlock]

2. The FAA has no explaining to do

in this particular matter.

Since when have multiple air craft been hijacked on the SAME DAY within an hour (roughly) of each other?

There was no need to ground ALL air craft in the entire nation before anyone realized what was truly going on. For all they knew it was only an isolated incident (as all hijacking prior to 911 had been). I would say only after the 2nd plane hit was it obvious, and after that they made the right call.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

3. Since when has the FAA allowed thirty minutes to pass...

...before notifying NORAD about a potential hijacking? Yes, there were four of them, but they didn't report even one correctly.

[Powerlock]

4. So?

I wasn't speaking about notification. What does that have to do with this particular matter?

Regarding grounding ALL air craft nation wide my statement still stands.

[RamboLiberal]

5. How about explaining why Bush sat on his butt in the classroom

After seeing the effect of the first WTC strike on TV before entering the classroom, and then just sat there after Andy Card's whisper in his ear for what timelines claim was anywhere from 5-25 minutes. BTW, there is a film of him just sitting there on the net that I'm sure some here can point you to.

Be excusable if he had been as 'fat, dumb and happy' as the American public that day. But he in fact had at least been briefed about hijackings being planned by Al Qaida. And when he went the to the G8 summit in Genoa in late July 01 there was high security around him and even anti-aircraft missiles ringing the city because of the threat of planes being used as weapons to take out the G8 leaders.

Why the hell didn't a light-bulb go off in his and his administration's head that day that we were under attack.

And the same with the FAA - they had received the warnings that hijackings could occur.

And there's a helluva lot of explaining why Norad didn't get jets there quicker, especially with the Pentagon plane. Why didn't they come from the closer base of Andrews?

You don't even have to believe in :tinfoilhat: to ask why at least the Pentagon wasn't protected better and allowed to be hit a bit over 50 minutes from the time the first WTC tower is hit?

I'm just glad this bunch wasn't running the country in 1962 - there's a lot of us would've been blackened, smoking, toast.

[napi21]

7. I still question the FAA.

I agree that it was the second plane that convinced all controllers of the magnitude of the problem. What I don't understand is why the delay even on the first one. As I understand it, if a plane veers off it's flight plan, the plane is contacted immediately. If the response is not and appology and immdiate correction, NORAD is notified and action is taken.

I think it could have been a different kind of disaster if they had shot down the first plane because few people would have believed that it's intent was to fly into a building, but I still think more immediate action should have been taken.

Just maybe the second, third & fourth planes would have been deterred.

[bpilgrim]

6. how many minutes did the FAA know they were HIJACKED before the 1st HIT?

is the real question. 10, 15, 20, 25, :shrug:

psst... pass the word ;->

peace

[grasswire]

8. kick (eom)

[SpiralHawk]

10. Why don't you get youself a cup of coffee, Powerlock

And take another look at what you just wrote.

If that is truly your line of thinking, then I sincerely hope that you are not now -- nor ever have been -- involved in providing Security to any nation, state, town or family.

Smell the coffee. The hour it is getting late.

[ithacan]

14. you're right, it's BUSH that has a lot of explaining to do

pretty clearly the Bushies, including Ashcroft, massively played down terrorism when they took over.

Yet Ashcroft himself and other Bush regime officials avoided flying on commercial flights in the weeks prior to 9/11.

[rman]

18. since when is the FAA not prepared for hijacking?

Unlike what the Bush admin would have us believe, they actually did know such a thing could happen - see reports before 9-11 on the threat of terrorism.
Isolated incident or not, it's a hijacking and the FAA is not supposed to do nothing in such an event.

[stickdog]

24. OK. A known hijack crashes into the tallest building in NYC.

Meanwhile, another known hijack has stopped responding to ATC, altered its course, and is now heading in the same vicinity.

What is the probability that the first crash was an ACCIDENT?

So, is it a really a good time to take a coffee break right now?

Did every single ATC, FAA, NORAD and USAF employee really need 3000 people to die on 9/11 just to motivate then to simply do their fucking jobs?

[paulthompson]

17. Generally good article...

But this comment is totally misleading:

"Only after the second plane hit did the FAA order all commercial jetliners grounded across America."

The second plane crashed at 9:03. All new takeoffs were stopped at 9:26. All flights were ordered grounded at 9:45 (some locales on the East Coast did this earlier).

So technically yes, that order happened after the second plane hit. But waaaay after the second plane hit. In fact, after the third plane hit at 9:37.

http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/timeline/main/dayof911.html

[RamboLiberal]

9. I sent following email to columnist Kelly thanking him

Dear Mr. Kelly

I'm glad to see someone questioning what happened on 9-11 concerning the FAA, ATC, and Norad that tragic day. There are a lot of questions that need answering, and the timeline needs close investigation. I don't understand why the American people have not pressed the Bush Administration to do a more thorough investigation. In fact I think they are stonewalling the investigations as much as possible.

I also wonder why no one questions the reaction of President Bush that day. When was he informed that the first WTC building was hit? There are transcripts saying it was before he went in to that classroom. Why when Andy Card informed him of the second building being hit did he not immediately spring in to action, but instead just sat there pondering as 2nd graders read? After all he is the CIC, he is the one to order any planes to be shot down. How long did he sit there - I've seen everything from 5 minutes to 25 minutes. And if he at least was advised at the Presidential Daily Briefing on Aug 6th that planes may be hijacked, didn't it pop in to anyone's mind in this administration that the US was under attack when the 2nd plane hit. Why, if they had the PDB information didn't they even consider this and at least inquire and hold him back from a photo opportunity when they heard of the first strike?

At the least if President Bush, FAA, Norad, etc., had been quicker to react at least those in the Pentagon might've been saved.

I'm glad to see at least one journalist asking these questions.

BTW, I've been following Kristen Breitweiser's questions about that day, and wish she would get more publicity, maybe enough to get some honest investigation from the Federal Government. I'll be curious to see what comes from Gov. Keane's panel.

I just find it hard to fathom we could spend so much investigating President Clinton and so little investigating the most horrific attack on American soil.

Thank you.

[e-mail]

[cthrumatrix]

11. Wasn't there a link which shared that 9/11 was the First Day on Job

for some "imporant figurehead"....there might be a tie in. Tin Foil Hat on early.

[DoYouEverWonder]

15. John O'Neil

who just happened to be the FBI's expert on al Qaeda terrorism. He had recently left the FBI and had gone to work at the WTC has their head of security. This guy was important, very important but he was a major player not a figurehead.

Oh by the way, Marvin Bu$h happens to one of the principals of the company that hired O'Neil.

[rman]

19. who made a fuz about being blocked in following terrorist's money

then lost his position because of some documents he alegedly 'lost'.
9-11 was his first day as head of security at WTC.

http://www.rememberjohn.com/

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/knew/talk/share.html

[Q]

12. Some are trying to distract from the lack of action...

...by NORAD, FAA and the 'Commander in Chief' by referring to distorted facts about grounding all planes.

- The standard operating procedure of scrambling jets in response to hijacked or off-course planes was not followed on 9-11. The question remains: why?

[rman]

20. some claim scrambling jets was not standard procedure;

facilitated by the fact that the docs were removed from the FAA website.

[Corgigal]

13. I have 5 bucks here

that NORAD was contacted or the Supvr working shift that day was contact to notify NORAD within 5 mins of the transponder being shut off on the first aircraft. Probably less.

Any takers? Of course we have to live long enough to hear the actual tapes of that day. I SO knew they would blame the lowest rung on the ladder and those same ATC's for some reason are not allowed to talk but none of them lost their job either. You would have thought they would if they didn't follow procedure eh? Hell I lost minimum separation (10 miles) when it went down to 8 and I got pulled out for an investigation. They, meaning the assholes that are covering their disgusting non behavior that day, are looking for an easy out and knowing the public doesn't understand how Air Traffic Control works.

I do and I got 5 bucks here.

[paulthompson]

16. You're probably right with that five minute bet

The first hijacking occurred around 8:14. The transponder and radio were turned off within a minute of that. Boston flight control became finally convinced of it around 8:20. They notified some other flight control centers of a hijacking at 8:25 but supposedly NOT NORAD. According to NORAD, they weren't notified until 8:40.

So five minutes after they became fully convinced at least, notifications were made.

Does this make any sense that NORAD wasn't notified then? They just forgot NORAD's phone number when notifying everyone else? Note that both the FAA and NORAD have broken promises to turn over data to the 9/11 Independent Commission and now the commission has had to issue subpoenas to both agencies. Something very embarrassing is being covered up on this and many other issues.

I think it's likely NORAD was notified at 8:25, and NORAD sat on that information for who knows how long. Officially they ordered the first fighters to scramble at 8:46 - the same minute Flight 11 actually crashed into the WTC. But the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff testified two days after 9/11 that no fighters were scrambled anywhere until after the Pentagon crash at 9:37.

You can find lots of details here:

http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/timeline/main/dayof911.html

[paulthompson]

21. standard operating procedure

I just feel like pointing the following out.

At 8:14, the flight control manager working Flight 11 said "We considered it at that time to be a possible hijacking" because of things like the transponder and radio turning off.

Let's say the followed standard operating procedure and immediately notified NORAD. Then NORAD followed their procedure and immediately scrambled a fighter to check it out.

NORAD promises it can scramble fighters from any of seven bases to be armed and take off within 15 minutes. Give them and the flight controllers 5 minutes slack, and assume it takes the full 15 minutes to get a fighter in the air.

So that puts us at 8:34. NORAD says it takes 11 minutes to go from the nearest of these seven bases to NYC. So let's say they're in no big rush, and get there in 11 minutes.

The fighter would have (just barely) beat the first hijacked plane to NYC!

(The fighters at that base happened to already have extra fuel and were quickly ready because of a wargame planned for that day, so they should have been in the air in less than 15 minutes. In the actual event, they flew on afterburners, which means they would have reached NYC faster than 11 minutes, possibly around 7).

It would have been impossible to expect a shootdown order so soon, but by the time the next hijacked plane reached NYC 17 minutes later, the fighters over NYC would have been getting bored waiting. They could have done a whole range of things, including following the hijacked plane for some time and observing who was in the cockpit (again, standard operating procedure), giving the president plenty of time to know for sure the plane was hijacked and order a shootdown if it kept screaming into Manhattan like the first one.

Under this scenario, needless to say Flight 77 and 93 would have been dispatched with easily, since they were both known to have been hijacked about 40 and 50 minutes respectively before hitting the Pentagon and Pennslyvania soil.

But nothing even remotely close to standard operating procedure was done that day.

[SpiralHawk]

22. Thanks for shedding more light on the facts of 9/11 Paul

You are doing a great job.



"The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it's profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way, and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theatre."
~ Frank Zappa, 1977

[paulthompson]

23. Thanks!

[stickdog]

25. Thanks, Paul.

Note that the current official story is that not a single fighter intercepted a single hijacked flight on 9/11.

This requires us to believe that NORAD and the combined air defense fleet of the USAF, Air National Guard, Navy and Marines were somehow insufficient to get a fighter in the air to intercept Flight 93 a full hour and 45 minutes after they knew the first plane was hijacked, and a full hour after the everyone in the US knew we were under terrorist attack.