What is the evidence there was a "stand down order" on 9/11?

[unschooler]

I know many east coast fighters were involved in a war game in Canada or Alaska. However, "exercises" are basically what stateside fighter pilots do (beside sit around the base). I don't find this by itself to be particularly suggestive that there was some order to NOT intercept the hijacked planes. I read Griffin and the Cooperative Research timeline, and it seems to me that 9/11 was a study in chaos and denial, which resulted in a failure to implement procedures that might have been on the books but for which the pilots and their commanders were not really prepared. While there is some circumstantial evidence (after all, they didn't intervene with any of the flights, except possibly 93). However, I don't see a strong basis for the notion that fighters were affirmatively ordered NOT to intercept the 9/11 airplanes. Am I missing a smoking gun here?

[hack89]

1. Lets answer a simple question first...

how many fighter were routinely dedicated to the air defense of America and were armed and ready to intercept an intruder at a moments notice? IIRC, since 1997 and prior to 9/11, there were 14 air national guard F15s at 7 sites in American that were on strip alert at any given time. If those aircraft were still available on 9/11, then there was no stand down.

http://www.codeonemagazine.com/archives/2002/articles/jan_02/defense/defense_p.html

[philb]

4. I don't see your point? NORAD jets can intercept any plane in

any part of the eastern U.S. in from 15 to 20 minutes, less in many cases. They had that long in all of them, and should have intercepted all if standard proceedures had been followed.

Its clear there was time to intercept the 2nd plane at WTC and
the last 2 planes flew all over the country, watched on radar by the FAA and military, W.H., etc. long after 2 hijacked planes had hit the WTC buildings. To suggest they couldn't have been prevented is ludicrous imo.

And complicity was shown by Griffin, etc. and
http://www.flcv.com/offcom77.html
http://www.flcv.com/offcom93.html

[Make7]

5. Where did you get those times?

philb wrote:
NORAD jets can intercept any plane in any part of the eastern U.S. in from 15 to 20 minutes, less in many cases.

What source are you basing an intercept time of 15 to 20 minutes on?

-Make7

[philb]

15. Interceptors travel up to 30 miles per minute and those on alert can

reach 20,000 feet in 2.5 minutes.

There has been a lot of analysis of how long it takes to get an interceptor on alert to any of these sites, and 15 to 20 minutes is generous.

There is also a lot of experience from large numbers of past intercepts.

Jared Israel's Emperor's ... site has a good analysis of the stand down with lots of documentation.

summary from Dr. Griffin's book:
http://www.flcv.com/offcom77.html
http://www.flcv.com/offcom93.html

http://www.flcv.com/offco175.html

[Make7]

16. How long does it take to get a plane airborne?

NORTH AMERICAN AEROSPACE DEFENSE COMMAND, News Release, 18 September, 2001:
American Airlines Flight 11 – Boston enroute to Los Angeles

FAA Notification to NEADS                                                            0840*

Fighter Scramble Order (Otis Air National Guard Base, Falmouth, Mass. Two F-15s)     0846**

Fighters Airborne                                                                    0852

Airline Impact Time (World Trade Center 1)                                           0846 (estimated)***

Fighter Time/Distance from Airline Impact Location                       Aircraft not airborne/153 miles

http://web.archive.org/web/20020615115751/http://www.norad.mil/presrelNORADTimelines.htm

According to this timeline it took 12 minutes from notification to getting the fighters airborne.

So, let's just say they reach a speed of 30 miles a minute instantaneously - that gives them 3 to 8 minutes of flying time. (Depending on if you want to go with 15 or 20 minutes.) That gives a range of 90 miles and 240 miles respectively. (Of course this also assumes that the runway lines up in the direction that they are headed.) Are you suggesting that there is an airbase with fighters on alert no more than 90 miles in any direction? Or is it 240 miles? Was that the situation on September 11th?

-Make7

[petgoat]

17. Getting Airborne takes 2.5 Minutes

says Nafeez Ahmed, quoting the USAF website, according to Dr. David Ray Griffin.

"According to the US Air Forces own website," reports Nafeez Ahmed, an
F-15 routinely "goes from 'scramble order' to 29,000 feet in only 2.5
minutes" and then can fly at 1,850 nmph (nautical miles per hour).

http://vancouver.indymedia.org/news/2004/06/141355.php

[Make7]

20. Is that before or after September 11th?

From the Air Force website:

At about 3 a.m. on Jan. 24, 1989, they made repeated attempts to contact the pilot for identification, but were unsuccessful.

Consequently, the sector director issued the order to "scramble the Eagles." Within five minutes two F-15 Eagles from Det. 1, 102nd Fighter Interceptor Wing, screamed out of the now-closed Loring AFB in northern Maine, searching for the "unknown rider."

Does that mean it took almost five minutes for the fighters to take off?

Today, Canada and the United States can scramble any of more than 200 Canadian and U.S. intercept fighters and airborne early warning aircraft standing watch from the southern edge of Alaska to the tip of Florida. That number was 20 on Sept. 11.

Does having ten times the number of available aircraft have any effect on response times?

BTW - I could not find anything on the Air Force website that said anything close to what Nafeez Ahmed quoted.
____________________

And from Dr. Griffin:

According to spokespersons for NORAD, from the time the FAA senses that something is wrong, "it takes about one minute" for it to contact NORAD, and then NORAD can scramble fighters "within a matter of minutes to anywhere in the United States."⁴
____________________

FOOTNOTES for Chapter 1:

⁴Congressional testimony by NORAD'S commander, General Ralph E. Eberhart, made in October 2002, and Slate magazine, January 16, 2002, both quoted in Thompson, "September 11," introductory material. Although both statements were preceded by "now," suggesting a speed-up in procedure since 9/11, there seems to be no evidence that response times were different prior to that date. That should, in any case, be easy enough for investigators to determine.

So he is basing his theory on post-September 11th information, but doesn't think it will make any difference? Well, I'm sure someone other person investigating the issue will be able to figure that out. Why bother to determine if the data you are using is accurate for the time period you are discussing?

-Make7

[hack89]

8. I was referring to the exercise..

as a means to remove interceptors from the east coast. I don't think it happened. You are right that there was time if everything went fine and there was clear information - I would argue that there was tremendous confusion and poor communications. They fucked up but it was not deliberate.

You are wrong about standard procedures - the only intercept over the Continental US in decades was the Payne Stewart affair and that took one hour 20 minutes and did not use dedicated air defence interceptors. Part of the confusion over 9/11 was that the air force was not prepare for intercepts over land - they were focused solely on unidentified aircraft approaching the US mainland. That's why the Langley fighters initially flew over the Atlantic - they didn't have a precise intercept point so they flew a default intercept course until they were told otherwise.

[unschooler]

10. Shooting down a hijacked passenger airliner cannot have been SOP

prior to 9/11. Certainly it had never been done before in response to a hijacking. In most cases, the lives of many or most passengers were saved after long negotiations. I understand Griffin's point that the fighters could have "intercepted" at least Flights 175, 77 and 93 (and possibly did, at least wrt 93). However, according to the timeline on cooperativeresearch.org, the planes that were scrambled to go after 175 did not go directly to NY but went out to sea, where most interceptions (of foreign military aircraft) take place. I think this is an understandable mistake on the part of the pilots or their local commanders as this is what pilots typically do. Here on the west coast, fighter pilots used to "intercept" Soviet fighters probing our air space on a fairly regular basis. I also think that the fact that some fighters at some bases were not armed on 9/11 is not surprising, as I think they often fly without live missiles. I'm not saying 9/11 wasn't in some ways different than described in the "official" account or even that it wasn't a "conspiracy," involving some US officials (maybe, maybe not). I just don't think we can be so certain that the military's failure to shoot down the first couple of jets is such a huge deviation from SOP. WRT Flight 77, I've read Griffin but am not deeply enough familiar w/ the facts to have an opinion (yet). I just think that as to flights 11 and 175, if we put any burden of proof on ourselves, we are hard-pressed to say there was an official or unofficial "stand down."

[JackRiddler]

14. total strawman of the emotionally charged variety

The first question is not why any of the planes weren't shot down.

The question is why none of them were subjected to the standard procedure of interception (and it is the Commission's official story in contradiction to many earlier reports that nothing was intercepted, not even UA 93).

Interception is not shootdown. Interception should not require special orders to proceed automatically in the case of errant, unknown or unresponsive craft.

[Christophera]

19. How Will This "Q" Be Answered?

And will the answer be something confusing because of the war games that were intentionally scheduled to create confusion in the air defense issue?

This topic is a valid topic delineating a valid issue. but it depends on an accountable government for an answer or an action based on the answer. We do not have an accountable government nor will this information shared amongst the people generate the impetus to create a accountable government.

Meaning it is not a valid topic at this time. If we can create an accountable government it will be.

[Mr Rabble]

2. I believe there are transcripts available.

Both military and Bushco people have gone on record about this. I know this is discussed in Michael Rupperts book, and on his website.

Also, the cooperativeresearch timeline references this stuff if I am not mistaken.

[mirandapriestly]

3. David Griffin writes about this in" The New Pearl Harbor"

the book is online at
http://vancouver.indymedia.org/news/2004/06/141355.php

do a ctrl F search for standown or other key words. He starts talking about it right away, here is an excerpt:
"Why Were Flights 11 and 175 Not Intercepted?

One of the strange things about the official account, say its critics, is that there has been more than one version of it. General Myers, in his aforementioned testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee on September 13, said: "When it became clear what the threat was, we did scramble fighter aircraft." When asked whether that order was given "before or after the Pentagon was struck," Myers — who was acting chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff — replied: "That order, to the best of my knowledge, was after the Pentagon was struck." >18 One problem with this statement, point out critics, is that officials at NMCC would have become clear about "what the threat was" long before the Pentagon itself was hit at 9:38. It would have been clear at least by 8:46, when the WTC was hit and another hijacked plane was heading in its direction. Another problem, of course, is that it was not necessary for officials at NMCC and NORAD to understand fully "what the threat was" in order for there to be jets in the air to intercept Flights 11, 175, and any unauthorized aircraft headed toward Washington. Standard operating procedures should have taken care of all those things.

This version of the official account was also told by at least two other officials. According to a story in the Boston Globe on September 15, Major Mike Snyder, speaking for NORAD, said that no fighters were scrambled until after the Pentagon was hit. And on September 16, when Tim Russert, during his aforementioned interview with Vice President Cheney on "Meet the Press," expressed surprise that although we knew about the first hijacking by 8:20, "it seems we were not able to scramble fighter jets in time to protect the Pentagon," Cheney did not dispute this statement. "

[mirandapriestly]

6. oops, I meant "stand down" , not "standown"

too late to edit.

[unschooler]

11. I just read Griffin, and I'm not convinced that Myers' confusion equals

a stand-down order. Also, his citations for what is SOP are fairly often taken from current military websites and were likely modified post-9/11 in response to the military's realization of a new kind of threat.

[DoYouEverWonder]

7. They didn't need to issue a stand order

instead the top leadership ignored the attack for as long as possible, leaving everyone else to fend for themselves. With no leadership, it was much more difficult for anyone else to respond appropriately.

[unschooler]

12. Hmmmm.... Interesting theory. I'll have to toss that one around in

they gray matter for a while.

[DoYouEverWonder]

13. Look at their reactions

Not a single person at the top of the chain of command reacted appropriately until after the Pentagon was hit.

All of the planes were first flights out and were supposed to take off by 8:00 AM. That means that all of the targets would have been hit by 9:00 and the Bush Team would have switched into high gear and looked heroic.

Instead, Flight 93 was 45 minutes behind and the everyone went into stall mode. Bush got stuck with his pants down sitting in a 2nd grade classroom. Rummie and Wolfowitz decided there was nothing they could do about the WTC attack so they continued with their meeting until the Pentagon gets hit. General Myers, acting chief of staff, knew about the first tower getting hit when he was going into Max Cleland office for a meeting. He asked not to be disturbed and didn't respond until he finished the meeting and was told the Pentagon had been hit. Tenet was eating breakfast in DC and responded that this was definitely an al Qaeda attack. How does he respond? He finishes breakfast and then drives out to Langley. Cheney was watching the attack on CNN, until the SS carried him off because Flight 77 was heading toward the WH....

It seems the head of the snake went into a coma for the attack and the rest of it body just couldn't respond appropriately no matter how hard it tried.

[Old and In the Way]

18. JCS out of town flying to Europe and acting JCS unavailable.

And these huge exercises are underway. Who was in charge of these exercises? Some guy at Orfutt AFB. Hmmmmmm. Isn't that were Bush ended up on 9/11? Another coincidence, I'm sure.

[Old and In the Way]

9. Here's a site that makes the case for a stand down.

www.standdown.net