← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · MacDonald CSA
Thread ID: 20700 | Posts: 40 | Started: 2005-10-19
2005-10-19 18:18 | User Profile
[color=red][size=4]BUSH INSIDER CLAIMS WTC COLLAPSE BOGUS[/color][/size]
DEMOLITION MORE LIKELY
By Greg Szymanski
A former chief economist in the Labor Department during President Bushââ¬â¢s first term now believes the official story about the collapse of the WTC is ââ¬Åbogus,ââ¬Â saying it is likely that a controlled demolition destroyed the twin towers and adjacent building No. 7.
ââ¬ÅIf demolition destroyed three steel skyscrapers at the World Trade Center on 9-11, then the case for an ââ¬Ëinside jobââ¬â¢ and a government attack on America would be compelling,ââ¬Â said Morgan Reynolds, Ph.D., a former member of the Bush team who also served as director of the Criminal Justice Center at the National Center for Policy Analysis, headquartered in Dallas.
Reynolds, now a professor emeritus at Texas A&M University, also believes itââ¬â¢s ââ¬Ånext to impossibleââ¬Â that 19 Arab terrorists alone outfoxed the mighty U.S. military, adding the scientific conclusions about the WTC collapse may hold the key to the entire mysterious plot behind 9-11.
ââ¬ÅIt is hard to exaggerate the importance of a scientific debate over the cause(s) of the collapse of the twin towers and Building 7,ââ¬Â said Reynolds from his offices at Texas A&M. ââ¬ÅIf the official wisdom on the collapses is wrong, as I believe it is, then policy based on such erroneous engineering analysis is not likely to be correct either. The governmentââ¬â¢s collapse theory is highly vulnerable on its own terms. Only professional demolition appears to account for the full range of facts associated with the collapse of the three buildings.
ââ¬ÅMore importantly, momentous political and social consequences would follow if impartial observers concluded that professionals imploded the WTC. Meanwhile, the job of scientists, engineers and impartial researchers everywhere is to get the scientific and engineering analysis of 9-11 right.ââ¬Â
However, Reynolds said ââ¬Ågetting it right in todayââ¬â¢s security stateââ¬Â remains challenging because he claims explosives and structural experts have been intimidated in their analyses of the collapses of 9-11.
HASTILY REMOVED
From the beginning, the Bush administration claimed that burning jet fuel caused the collapse of the towers. Although many independent investigators have disagreed, they have been hard pressed to disprove the government theory since most of the evidence was hastily removed by the federal government prior to independent investigation. Critics claim the Bush administration has tried to cover up the evidence. The recent 9-11 commission has failed to address the major evidence contradicting the official version of 9-11.
Some facts demonstrating the flaws in the government jet fuel theory include:
[indent]ââ¬Â¢ Photos showing people walking around in the hole in the North Tower where 10,000 gallons of jet fuel supposedly was burning.
ââ¬Â¢ When the South Tower was hit, most of the North Towerââ¬â¢s flames had already vanished, burning for only 16 minutes, making it relatively easy to contain and control without a total collapse.
ââ¬Â¢ The fire did not grow over time, probably because it quickly ran out of fuel and was suffocating, indicating without added explosive devices the fires could have been easily controlled.
ââ¬Â¢ FDNY firefighters still remain under a tight government gag order to not discuss the explosions they heard, felt and saw. FAA personnel are also under a similar 9-11 gag order.
ââ¬Â¢ Even the flawed 9-11 commission report acknowledges that ââ¬Ånone of the [fire] chiefs present believed that a total collapse of either tower was possible.ââ¬Â
ââ¬Â¢ Fire had never before caused steel-frame buildings to collapse, nor has fire collapsed any steel high rise since 9-11.
ââ¬Â¢ The fires, especially in the South Tower and WTC-7, were relatively small.
ââ¬Â¢ WTC-7 was unharmed by any airplane and had only minor fires on the seventh and 12th floors of this 47-story steel building, yet it collapsed in less than 10 seconds.
ââ¬Â¢ WTC-5 and WTC-6 had raging fires but did not collapse despite much thinner steel beams.
ââ¬Â¢ Itââ¬â¢s difficult if not impossible for hydrocarbon fires like those fed by jet fuel to raise the temperature of steel close to melting.[/indent]
NUMEROUS HOLES
Despite the numerous holes in the government story, the Bush administration has ignored all critics. Mainstream experts, speaking for the administration, offer a theory essentially arguing that an airplane impact weakened each structure and an intense fire thermally weakened structural components, causing buckling failures while allowing the upper floors to pancake onto the floors below.
Hard evidence is lacking due to FEMAââ¬â¢s quick removal of the structural steel before it could be analyzed. The criminal code requires that crime scene evidence be kept for forensic analysis, but FEMA had it destroyed or shipped overseas before a serious investigation could take place.
And even more doubt is cast over why FEMA acted so swiftly since coincidentally officials had arrived the day before the 9-11 attacks at New Yorkââ¬â¢s Pier 29 to conduct a war game exercise, named ââ¬ÅTripod II.ââ¬Â
Besides FEMAââ¬â¢s quick removal of the debris, authorities considered the steel quite valuable as New York City officials had every debris truck tracked on GPS and even fired one truck driver who took an unauthorized lunch break.
ââ¬ÅThe government has failed to produce significant wreckage from any of the four alleged airliners that fateful day,ââ¬Â said Reynolds. ââ¬ÅThe familiar photo of the Flight 93 crash site in Pennsylvania shows no fuselage, engine or anything recognizable as a plane, just a smoking hole in the ground. Photographers reportedly were not allowed near the hole. Neither the FBI nor the National Transportation Safety Board have investigated or produced any report on the alleged airliner crashes.ââ¬Â
Not Copyrighted. Readers can reprint and are free to redistribute - as long as full credit is given to American Free Press - 645 Pennsylvania Avenue SE, Suite 100 Washington, D.C. 20003
[url]http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/bush_insider.html[/url]
2005-10-19 19:07 | User Profile
Mmmm, let's see: Wolfie & Co. openly pined for a "new Pearl Harbor" in their manifesto Project for a New American Century written in the late '90's and then a few years later the WTC destruction happened after Wolfie & Co were officially in the US gov. Further investigations into the 9/11 events are effectively stymied and stonewalled and dropped down the mass media black hole. The US justifies attacking innocent countries by continuously invoking "9/11". Alleged mastermind Bin Laden has still not been captured.
I dunno, something's very, very stinky here.:shocking:
2005-10-20 01:40 | User Profile
I am not an engineer, but I saw the first tower hit immediately afterward, and then, however many minutes later, saw it collapse. The cause-and-effect was weak, weak, weak. The first plane hit looked like a nick in the side of a very huge building. It seemed unimaginable that the whole thing could have been brought down.
I would not be surprised at all to learn that demolitions assisted.
2005-10-20 03:17 | User Profile
[quote=Hugh Lincoln]I am not an engineer, but I saw the first tower hit immediately afterward, and then, however many minutes later, saw it collapse. The cause-and-effect was weak, weak, weak. The first plane hit looked like a nick in the side of a very huge building. It seemed unimaginable that the whole thing could have been brought down.
I would not be surprised at all to learn that demolitions assisted.
mV^2. That is the kinetic energy loaded instantaneously onto the structure at the time of impact. Add fire.
Do the math.
I am not convinced that the magnitude of the damage done at impact is fully appreciated. I am impressed that the towers stood as long as they did, mute testimony to the robustness of their design and construction. THirty years old . . . no building is as strong as new thirty years on, is it?
Consider the consider impact load, using a cantilever as a model. Look how high up on the semi rigid structure the load was input, then on the stresses the building was built to withstand. How many other points in the structure were plastically deformed at impact, or by fire, with consequent changes to load bearing properties?
Was a plastic deformation at the base all that unlikely?
Follow that up with thermal stress.
I don't find the explanation of material failure of a number of structural members, with follow on domino effects, an unreasonable diagnosis.
AE
2005-10-20 12:21 | User Profile
That fuel did not generate 2000-degree heat that would compromise 6 tubular steel columns in the center of the building designed specifically to keep the building from collapsing if hit by a Boeing 707 that, because it was older and less efficient, carried more fuel that the 757 and 767 that hit the towers. (A [B]707 carries 23,000 gallons of fuel [/B]when full with a maximum [B]take-off weight of 322,000 lbs[/B]., a [B]757 carries 12,113 gal. of fuel [/B]with [B]255,000 lbs. maximum take-off weight[/B]).
2005-10-20 23:44 | User Profile
[quote=Cracker of the Whip]That fuel did not generate 2000-degree heat that would compromise 6 tubular steel columns in the center of the building designed specifically to keep the building from collapsing if hit by a Boeing 707 that, because it was older and less efficient, carried more fuel that the 757 and 767 that hit the towers. (A [B]707 carries 23,000 gallons of fuel [/B]when full with a maximum [B]take-off weight of 322,000 lbs[/B]., a [B]757 carries 12,113 gal. of fuel [/B]with [B]255,000 lbs. maximum take-off weight[/B]).
Right, so far so good, but what the fuel sets may get hotter than burning fuel. Consider how much aluminun is used in file cabinets and other structures withing a building. All of those drop ceilings, for a single example. Once a fire starts, a lot more than the initial fuel burns, ask any arson inspector. :smartass:
AE
2005-10-21 18:49 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Angeleyes]Right, so far so good, but what the fuel sets may get hotter than burning fuel. Consider how much aluminun is used in file cabinets and other structures withing a building. All of those drop ceilings, for a single example. Once a fire starts, a lot more than the initial fuel burns, ask any arson inspector. :smartass:
AE[/QUOTE] Read [url=http://911research.wtc7.net/mirrors/guardian2/wtc/how-hot.htm][B]THIS[/B][/url] and let me know if you still believe adding paper and aluminum filing cabinets to the fire caused it to hit a temperature high enough and long enough to melt the WTC steel.
2005-10-22 03:37 | User Profile
[FONT=Times New Roman][SIZE=3]Well, it's a certainty that NO airliner crashed into the Pentagon on 9.11. Something did, but it wasn't an airliner.
So, where shall we proceed from there with respect to "the government version?"[/SIZE][/FONT]
2005-10-22 15:26 | User Profile
Conspiracies of the past had one important thing going for them...technology wasn't yet invented to blast information across the world, anonymously, in a split-second.
My question, why is an economist presenting this demolition theory... what gives an economist a distinct perspective that is both accurate and inviolate?
And if demolition experts agree that the building came down because of bombs planted at the base, there are media outlets that would be too happy to air these debates, including the fairly anonymous internet. So why hasn't it happened? The article claims there's a gag order in place, but I have to believe there are ways of getting this information into the public forum.
2005-10-22 18:23 | User Profile
Where does this leave all the suckers who made a best seller out of the carbon dioxide in the [U]9/11 Comission Report[/U] ?
2005-10-22 21:20 | User Profile
[quote=Cracker of the Whip]Read [URL="http://911research.wtc7.net/mirrors/guardian2/wtc/how-hot.htm"][B]THIS[/B][/URL] and let me know if you still believe adding paper and aluminum filing cabinets to the fire caused it to hit a temperature high enough and long enough to melt the WTC steel.
Excellent link, thanks. :smartass:
Two critiques of their analysis.
The fuel assumptions could be easily calculated to a far finer weight of fuel, if these guys really wanted to get it right. Reserve fuel requirements for various air line routes are documented, both in FAA regulations and by each airline's operating procedures regulations. They seem to assume that the airliners refuels at each stop, which in a world unconstrained by ground crews and gate throughput rates would optimize, from a fuel management perspective, gas loads for each leg of a route.
Depending on the route (series of flights connecting various cities) a particular plane is going to fly, particularly a domestic aircraft, and the matter of gate clearance, which in New York is a source of significant scheduling effort, that assumption could be analyzed by looking into how that route is typically executed. Gate fee versus x fuel burn. While the lack of rigor in analysis is disappointing, that variable is probably not far enough off to significantly influence the entering assumption to throw out the baby with the bath water.
To present a worst case, they assume full bags, acknowledging that it is probably more than was on board.
Their treatment of impact loading and plastic deformation, and "everything else" catching fire, needs more attention.
"All of the material" that was not concrete and steel.
I like their logical analysis of the fuel's partial impact on final outcome, but I find their conclusion less than satisfying, partly since they seem to have assumed the outcome before they began their problem set up.
I have been through it once, but I will go through it again and possibly ammend these comments if I see something I missed on the first go through.
The collapse, en toto, was contributed to by floors above falling onto floors below and dynamic loading.
As I understand it, the insider theory being presented is that the planes flew into a particular floor and it, or one a few floors down, was wired to blow to start the cascading impact loads with the blow going un noticed due to all the smoke and flame already present.
Hmmmm. The necessary timing and synchronization required, and the number of things that can go wrong . . . Murphy being Murphy, I am still "not buying it."
Yet.
I applaud folks who are still pursuing a more rigorous explanation than that offered to the public, and looking for a clearer cause - effect picture. If nothing else, outcome of such in depth analysis, apart from the obvious political issues, will inform sky scraper construction, particularly in risk analysis and "cost benefit" considerations.
AE
2005-10-22 23:02 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Angeleyes]Excellent link, thanks. :smartass:
Two critiques of their analysis. ....AE[/QUOTE] You're welcome.
They make the case on 10,000 gallons of fuel enclosed entirely within the floor and it doesnââ¬â¢t add up. I donââ¬â¢t buy the official version based on the fact that as the plane hit, the fuel went right through the building and burned up as it passed through the windows (remember the big, huge fireball ââ¬Åas seen on TVââ¬Â?) or down the elevator shaft as Iââ¬â¢ve read as well. The initial burst of heat due to the fuel was all over in a flash. The paper and filing cabinets smoldered thereafter hence the billowing black cloud and no flames after the initial blast. Come on, people were walking out to the exposed impact holes seconds later! Hot enough to soften or melt steel my ass. At the time I was expecting the tops to slide off or partially collapse above the impact site at the worst but for both of them to fall into their own footprint? Especially when the impacts occurred in a different location for each building? Too Fn hard for me to believe it was mere chance. Now, Iââ¬â¢d like to hear the explanation as to why the WTC collapsed when it was [I][B]specifically designed [/B][/I]to withstand an impact from an [I][B]even larger plane[/B][/I] holding [I][B]even more fuel [/B][/I]than what actually did hit them.
2005-10-23 01:43 | User Profile
Regarding Flight 93 that crashed in Pennsylvania, some folks are reporting that this plane was shot down by a member of the North Dakota Air National Guard, and have even named the pilot of the fighter jet that fired the missile. This would shoot a big hole in the "Let's Roll..." story concerning Flight 93.
[url]http://letsroll911.org/articles/flight93shotdown.html[/url]
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Another part of this story that does not pass the smell test is the collapse of WTC Building #7.
[QUOTE]ââ¬Â¢ WTC-7 was unharmed by any airplane and had only minor fires on the seventh and 12th floors of this 47-story steel building, yet it collapsed in less than 10 seconds.[/QUOTE]
2005-10-23 19:07 | User Profile
Waco showed us.
Whatever the government says...is a lie.
2005-10-24 21:03 | User Profile
[quote=Texas Dissident]Waco showed us.
Whatever the government says...is a lie.
It showed us that some of what the government lips put out is false. Some is true enough. shrugs It also showed that humans err. Not news to anyone here, but I sometimes wonder at the following:
If they'd left Koresh and company the hell alone, who would have died?
AE
2005-10-24 22:09 | User Profile
[QUOTE=DakotaBlue]Conspiracies of the past had one important thing going for them...technology wasn't yet invented to blast information across the world, anonymously, in a split-second.
My question, why is an economist presenting this demolition theory... what gives an economist a distinct perspective that is both accurate and inviolate?
And if demolition experts agree that the building came down because of bombs planted at the base, there are media outlets that would be too happy to air these debates, including the fairly anonymous internet. So why hasn't it happened? The article claims there's a gag order in place, but I have to believe there are ways of getting this information into the public forum.[/QUOTE]The only media outlets that aren't Jewish controlled is the internet, and most of those do not go along with the OJV.
2005-10-26 21:47 | User Profile
Those who thing that the WTC was sabatoged by minions working with oil and incendinary devices have serious problems in their critcial thinking. I will not go into the manifold reasons why it was not, but to name a few: Could it have been kept a secret if so large a body of people were to work with torch and gas in so open an area. After all, the whold NYFD was at the scene shortly. The Engineering of the buildings are open to all who wish to view them. (the stats and figures). Jet fuel, actually mostly kerosene, will burn up rather raidly but makes a good accelerant on material in offcie buildings. William Langewiesche has written an understandable synopsis in his book, "Unbuilding the World Trade Center." In the meantime conspiratorialists, get a grip on yourselves.
2005-10-26 22:02 | User Profile
[QUOTE=solutrian]Those who thing that the WTC was sabatoged by minions working with oil and incendinary devices have serious problems in their critcial thinking. I will not go into the manifold reasons why it was not, but to name a few: Could it have been kept a secret if so large a body of people were to work with torch and gas in so open an area. After all, the whold NYFD was at the scene shortly.[/QUOTE]The building was owned by a Jew named Silverman, who just happened to have it doubly insured and collected twice. It would have been easy for him to have his mossad agents "prepare" the girders to collapse. The Jews control the mass media and can keep almost anything secret, that's why they control it for cryin' out loud. What bureaucrat or politician would dare speak out against their supervisors?
2005-10-26 23:22 | User Profile
[quote=travis]The building was owned by a Jew named Silverman, who just happened to have it doubly insured and collected twice. It would have been easy for him to have his mossad agents "prepare" the girders to collapse. The Jews control the mass media and can keep almost anything secret, that's why they control it for cryin' out loud. What bureaucrat or politician would dare speak out against their supervisors?
Two further points to comment on: a fire may start at 500 degrees, as in a campfire, but as you throw on more wood and material, the temp raises, particularly as oxygen continues to feed the fire. Between the floors of the WTC a partial Bernouli effect would be experienced, inducing a higher air flow as the fire gains strength.
Temperature of the kerosene, taken in isolation, is an immense red herring. I will also point out that turbine engine tempuratures are in the range of 500-800 deg C, though the compression of the air contributes to the high heat content. If you make a big enough fire out of wood and coal, stacking wood on top of wood, you get enough heat to smelt iron from rock.
While I will leave further detailed combustin models to those with physics curricula underway, the argument that kerosene does not burn hot enough fails. The failure is in problem set up, and in creating an artificial fence around the combustion of kerosene/jet fuel.
AE
2005-10-27 00:31 | User Profile
[QUOTE]And if demolition experts agree that the building came down because of bombs planted at the base, there are media outlets that would be too happy to air these debates, including the fairly anonymous internet. So why hasn't it happened?[/QUOTE]It has happened. You're reading it right now.
I'm still agnostic on the causes of the WTC collapse, but one point that has to be made is that even though steel MELTS at 2,000 degrees, it looses strength at significantly lower temperatures. It doesn't support the same carrying weight right up until the instant it becomes molten.
2005-10-27 01:22 | User Profile
[QUOTE=solutrian]Those who thing that the WTC was sabatoged by minions working with oil and incendinary devices have serious problems in their critcial thinking. I will not go into the manifold reasons why it was not, but to name a few: Could it have been kept a secret if so large a body of people were to work with torch and gas in so open an area. After all, the whold NYFD was at the scene shortly. [B]The Engineering of the buildings are open to all who wish to view them. (the stats and figures). [/B]Jet fuel, actually mostly kerosene, will burn up rather raidly but makes a good accelerant on material in offcie buildings. William Langewiesche has written an understandable synopsis in his book, "Unbuilding the World Trade Center." In the meantime conspiratorialists, get a grip on yourselves.[/QUOTE] A good way to end the debate would to build a scale model of the WTC and recreate the damage done, i.e. bend/break the appropriate beams and see if it collapses. The only problem is WTC blueprints are now non-existent, why is that?
2005-10-27 13:44 | User Profile
Indeed, why are no blueprints around? And, why is it that the folks who support the official story, on this thread, have yet to address that question of any of the following?
2.) How come FEMA was in NYC the day before?
3.) Why is there a gag order on firemen preventing them from speaking about what they heard?
4.) Despite the clearly stated law about removal of evidence from a crime scene, why was everything removed and destroyed as quickly as possible - to the extent that garbage trucks were tracked in case they tried to remove from the official removal?
5.) And what brought down the 3rd building as neatly into itââ¬â¢s own footprint (or almost) as the other two ââ¬â what uniquely weakened the steel to cause the 3rd collapse? Sympathetic vibrations?
The official story only works with unique physics and even then only when very important questions are ignored.
Since long before Ruby Ridge and Waco, everything the government says can logically be construed to be a lie. The facts ââ¬â without the need for unique physics ââ¬â bear this out. Who is it, again, who runs Popular Science and produced their debunking of the conspiracy story on 9/11? And, on a separate, but oh-so-closely related topic, wasnââ¬â¢t (isnââ¬â¢t?) Scooter jew Libby Mark Richââ¬â¢s lawyer? Amazingly small world, isn't it?
2005-10-27 14:19 | User Profile
Good points Gott. Also, where are the Air Traffic Control transcripts from 9/11? I never heard them. Anyone else here them? No, because they were confiscated and destroyed. Why? Wouldn't we want to hear the moment where the pilot first knew his plane was being hijacked. What did he say? What did the hijackers say? What did ATC say to the pilots?
Why couldn't one F-16 National Guard jet make it up to the hijacked planes to at least ID who was flying the plane? Would that at least be some small undisputable evidence that "Ay-rabs" indeed hijacked the planes? Alas it didn't happen.
Does everyone remember the Greek Cypriot plane crash from this past August?
Here's CNN's report: [QUOTE][url]http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/europe/08/14/greece.crash/[/url]
[B]Cypriot jet crashes in Greece; 121 dead[/B]
Sunday, August 14, 2005 Posted: 2330 GMT (0730 HKT)
The crash occurred in a mountainous area north of Athens.
ATHENS, Greece (CNN) -- A Cypriot plane with "no sign of life" in its cockpit while approaching Athens crashed into a mountain near Marathon on Sunday, Greek officials said. They said all 121 people aboard died.
[B]F-16 pilots escorting the jet after air traffic controllers lost contact with it said one of the pilots was not in its cockpit and another was slumped over the controls, according to reports.[/B]
The pilots of the Helios Airways Boeing 737 had reported an air conditioning problem, and Greek TV said a passenger sent a text message to his cousin saying it was freezing in the plane.
"The pilot has turned blue (in the face)," the passenger said in the SMS message, Reuters quoted the television report as saying. "Cousin farewell we're freezing."
The plane, Helios Flight 522 with 115 passengers and six crew en route from Larnaca, Cyprus, to Athens, crashed about 12 p.m. Sunday (0900 GMT, 5 a.m. ET), officials said.
The Greek government said there were no survivors.
The plane was supposed to continue to Prague, Czech Republic, after landing in Athens, according to the Czech Press Agency, citing officials at the Prague airport.
The passengers included 59 adults and eight children who were disembarking at Athens for a vacation, the government said, along with 46 adults and two children who were headed to Prague.
Akrivos Tsolakis, head of the Greek airline safety committee, called the crash the "worst accident we've ever had," The Associated Press reported.
Officials said the plane's voice and data recorders had been recovered and were sent to Athens for analysis.
Greek officials said they suspect malfunctions in the oxygen supply or pressurization system could have caused the crash. (Full story)
A spokesman for the Greek joint chiefs of staff said that terrorism does not appear the likely cause.
[B]"No scenario can be ruled out, but the likelihood of terrorism is diminished" because the F-16 jets that investigated saw no need to shoot down the planes, said Gerasimos Kalpoyiannakis.[/B]
A Cyprus government spokesman said all the passengers were Cypriots. Vicky Xites, commercial manager for Helios Airways, told CNN the airline had set up a command center at Larnaca Airport and that the prime minister was on his way.
Greek ministers broke off their holidays to return to Athens for emergency meetings.
The jet crashed near the coastal town of Grammatikos, about 40 kilometers (25 miles) north of Athens and near the historic town of Marathon.
The crash site was littered with bodies and debris, Athens journalist Paul Anastasi told CNN. Video footage from the site showed the smoking wreckage of the aircraft. Only the tail portion remained identifiable.
The crash sparked forest fires, which officials said were hindering recovery efforts.
"There is wreckage everywhere," Grammatikos Mayor George Papageorgiou told AP from the scene.
"The fuselage has been destroyed. It fell into a chasm and there are pieces. All the residents are here trying to help."
One witness told Reuters: "I saw many bodies scattered around, all of them wearing (oxygen) masks. The tail was cut off and the remaining parts of the plane rolled down a hillside about 500 meters away from the tail."
[B]The jet entered Greek air space about 10:30 a.m., but efforts by air traffic controllers to contact the pilots were futile. After some time, two Greek F-16s were scrambled, Greek Air Force spokesman Yiannis Papageorgiou told CNN.
As the F-16s approached, their pilots saw "no sign of life" in the cockpit, and the plane apparently was on autopilot, Papageorgiou said.
The F-16 pilots reported that one of the pilots was not in the cockpit, and the other pilot was slumped over the controls, Anastasi said.
They also reported they could see through the plane's windows that the oxygen masks had dropped down.
The F-16s escorted the plane until it struck the mountain. The Greek Defense Ministry has denied reports that the F-16s shot down the plane.[/B][/QUOTE]
So American F16's in Greece are scrambled and can see inside the cockpit, but American's can't do the same when the alleged hijacked planes went off their flight paths and were wayward for 45 minutes before they hit their targets??
2005-10-27 14:57 | User Profile
This is an interesting thread indeed. It's amazing when talking about topics like this that even admitted 'non-experts' try to explain away or even ridicule the legitimate questions brought by honest questioners. There ARE some mighty peculiar circumstances surrounding this whole affair (see Gott above {what did I just say?!?}) and the conventional answers taste kind of like day-old coffee, -they just don't SEEM right. But then those in power don't have to answer because there's no podium for the questioners that speaks loud enough. Plus their apologists (both witting and otherwise) are blocking for them.:dry:
2005-10-27 19:27 | User Profile
[QUOTE=xmetalhead]..where are the Air Traffic Control transcripts from 9/11? ...[/QUOTE] Add to that, where's the video footage from the surveillance cameras around the Pentagon. Why keep them from public viewing?
2005-10-28 00:07 | User Profile
[quote=xmetalhead]Good points Gott. Also, where are the Air Traffic Control transcripts from 9/11? I never heard them. Anyone else here them? No, because they were confiscated and destroyed. Why? Wouldn't we want to hear the moment where the pilot first knew his plane was being hijacked. What did he say? What did the hijackers say? What did ATC say to the pilots?
Why couldn't one F-16 National Guard jet make it up to the hijacked planes to at least ID who was flying the plane? Would that at least be some small undisputable evidence that "Ay-rabs" indeed hijacked the planes? Alas it didn't happen.
Does everyone remember the Greek Cypriot plane crash from this past August?
Here's CNN's report:
So American F16's in Greece are scrambled and can see inside the cockpit, but American's can't do the same when the alleged hijacked planes went off their flight paths and were wayward for 45 minutes before they hit their targets??
I answred this in detail in another thread about 4 months ago. The situations are and were not identical. The point we were discussing before ended up comparing the Payne Stewart escort to the Sept 11 ATC problem.
In summary, it took some time for American ATC with thousands of aircraft in the air to determine which few (three) were not going to obey orders and thus become the next bunch that were flying bombs.
And, every minute delayed response of a very thin patrol volume.
The Greek incident was as much happy circumstance of F-16's being available and being near a tanker/refueling point/airfield as of any plan. F-16's don't fly, nor patrol, 24/7.
AE
2005-10-28 23:00 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Angeleyes]I answred this in detail in another thread about 4 months ago. The situations are and were not identical. The point we were discussing before ended up comparing the Payne Stewart escort to the Sept 11 ATC problem.
[B]In summary, it took some time for American ATC with thousands of aircraft in the air to determine which few (three) were not going to obey orders and thus become the next bunch that were flying bombs.[/B]
And, every minute delayed response of a very thin patrol volume.
The Greek incident was as much happy circumstance of F-16's being available and being near a tanker/refueling point/airfield as of any plan. [B]F-16's don't fly, nor patrol, 24/7.[/B] AE[/QUOTE] When the orders came to ground the planes the "hijacked planes of 911" were already identified.
The jets may not fly 24/7 but crews are ready to launch 24/7.
2005-10-29 14:57 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Cracker of the Whip]When the orders came to ground the planes the "hijacked planes of 911" were already identified.
The jets may not fly 24/7 but crews are ready to launch 24/7.[/QUOTE]
This has never been adequately explained. Langley's F-15s are on constant alert. Shaw AFB to the south has F-16s on combat patrol and training nearly around the clock. Squadrons out of these bases could have and should have responded immediately to reports of multiple aircraft straying from flight paths. It is and was a part of their mission.
The Stewart incident was immediately regarded as an anomaly; the interception was not performed as quickly as is often reported. But the fact that commercial airliners were known to be involved in multiple incidents is the key; there is absolutely no legitimate excuse for the ACC standing down until all aircraft were down or committed.
2005-10-29 15:48 | User Profile
[quote=weisbrot]This has never been adequately explained. Langley's F-15s are on constant alert. Shaw AFB to the south has F-16s on combat patrol and training nearly around the clock. Squadrons out of these bases could have and should have responded immediately to reports of multiple aircraft straying from flight paths. It is and was a part of their mission.
The Stewart incident was immediately regarded as an anomaly; the interception was not performed as quickly as is often reported. But the fact that commercial airliners were known to be involved in multiple incidents is the key; there is absolutely no legitimate excuse for the ACC standing down until all aircraft were down or committed.
Time and distance is one factor, alert posture is another (alert 30? Alert 15? Alert 5?) and tanking another. How many two ships, and how many crews were at what posture? The Air Force does not routinely keep an entire squadron on alert unless DefCon is rather high. What DefCon was the US in on 11 Sept? Either 4 or 5.
The C2 decisions "when to launch and where to direct the alerts" are complicated by target identification. With all the Comair in the air, and the seconds ticking on an unknown number (to whichever poor SOB is on duty that morning) of aircraft that may need to be shot down, and a finite number of alert status fighters available to cover
The Entire Airspace volume of the East Coast of the United States (Though one could argue that DC should get priority of effort, Shaw is, for example, in SC while Langley is just over 100 miles from DC.)
I find the critique of ACC to be unwarranted, due to the fundamental C2 problem of the National Command Authority (Sec Def for example) not giving explicit orders rapidly on who and what, and what RoE.
As soon as you launch the fighters, and again, I covered the time and distance and fuel issue the last time we discussed this and the Payne Stwewat scenario, and the time required to lock and, track and intercept aircraft identified as not doing what ATC told them to do, contributed to the failure to get the plane that hit the Pentagon. RL ain't Hollywood. Not only that, planes already in the air on trainng missions are frequently not armed. Not sure what the RoE conditions are for ordering an F-16 or F-15 to ram a commercial aircraft.
I am still hearing stirrings that the plane over Pennsylvania was shot down, not crashed by the brave four passengers reported on, and that the tail section's location being some five miles from where the rest of the aircraft aircraft hit the ground is poorly explained by the theory of exceeding airframe design speed as it dove toward the ground. Another time distance computation that smells, this being speed down increasing each second nose pointed toward ground.
The tail shouldn't be five miles away from the main body if the plane was intact at or just before impact.
AE
2005-10-29 19:57 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Angeleyes]Time and distance is one factor, alert posture is another (alert 30? Alert 15? Alert 5?) and tanking another. How many two ships, and how many crews were at what posture? The Air Force does not routinely keep an entire squadron on alert unless DefCon is rather high. What DefCon was the US in on 11 Sept? Either 4 or 5.
The C2 decisions "when to launch and where to direct the alerts" are complicated by target identification. With all the Comair in the air, and the seconds ticking on an unknown number (to whichever poor SOB is on duty that morning) of aircraft that may need to be shot down, and a finite number of alert status fighters available to cover
The Entire Airspace volume of the East Coast of the United States (Though one could argue that DC should get priority of effort, Shaw is, for example, in SC while Langley is just over 100 miles from DC.)
I find the critique of ACC to be unwarranted, due to the fundamental C2 problem of the National Command Authority (Sec Def for example) not giving explicit orders rapidly on who and what, and what RoE.
As soon as you launch the fighters, and again, I covered the time and distance and fuel issue the last time we discussed this and the Payne Stwewat scenario, and the time required to lock and, track and intercept aircraft identified as not doing what ATC told them to do, contributed to the failure to get the plane that hit the Pentagon. RL ain't Hollywood. Not only that, planes already in the air on trainng missions are frequently not armed. Not sure what the RoE conditions are for ordering an F-16 or F-15 to ram a commercial aircraft.
I am still hearing stirrings that the plane over Pennsylvania was shot down, not crashed by the brave four passengers reported on, and that the tail section's location being some five miles from where the rest of the aircraft aircraft hit the ground is poorly explained by the theory of exceeding airframe design speed as it dove toward the ground. Another time distance computation that smells, this being speed down increasing each second nose pointed toward ground.
The tail shouldn't be five miles away from the main body if the plane was intact at or just before impact.
AE[/QUOTE]
Good stuff here.
No criticism of ACC was meant, only that there should have been command decisions made or issued to command that would have allowed ACC components to respond much more quickly. Additionally, I'm told that the distance from Shaw to DC is a factor but not that much of one when an F-16 is in a hurry (fueling considerations aside).
I'm not sure if DefCon is hard-linked to ThreatCon (FPCon) now or in 2001.
But I do remember during the months running up to 9/11 that Threatcon
Bravo was running constantly at most bases. This alone might be no big deal
considering the events in Kenya and the US Cole. But I also encountered
condition Charlie on several occasions during that summer, and saw those
alerts lasting for days and weeks at a time. I remembered commenting
on this at the time and then discussing it after 9/11 without finding any real
explanations. It would be interesting to see documentation of the Defcon
and especially ThreatCon status in the two weeks before the event.
2005-10-29 20:10 | User Profile
[quote=weisbrot]Good stuff here. It would be interesting to see documentation of the Defcon and especially ThreatCon status in the two weeks before the event.
Yes indeed. Might even provide a clue as to if someone perceived more threat than was generally understood. :smoke:
As to "Shaw to DC:" if an F-16 is in a hurry, as in afterburner in a hurry, he's out of gas in a hurry as well, and you either lose him to fuel starvation, or to a tanker for a while, and again, the minutes keep ticking off and he has to be re-vectored to intercept whichever target is estimated to be most threatening. From a cold cost benefit position, ramming is almost preferable (to ensure the airliner as bomb does not hit its target) if you are going to write off the jet anyway . . . but tell that one to the pilot, flying the mission, eh? :censored:
What seems obvious to me (unless the inside job theory is indeed true) is that the contingency for "someone uses an airliner as a bomb" did not have a well developed Quick Reaction Plan that was well rehearsed, as some contingency plans are, to include exercising the critical C2 nodes at the national level. Gotta get NCA authority to shoot down an airliner. The very fact that such a contingency existed would probably upset some bleeding hearts a great deal, pre 9-11, so perhaps that is why such an exercise was not frequently practiced, besides the usual myopia of "no one would/could pull that off . . ." the FAA guys might well spill the beans in casual conversation, setting off a storm of BS and "how could you even consider shooting down an airliner with a military craft over America . . . "
Not a good position to be in, if you are the Air Force and have a contingency that requires a rapid set of decisions, superb coordination, NCA decision keyed to a very short timeline, and interface with FAA. No practice, no likely mission success when "fight's on" as fighter pilots are so fond of saying.
AE
2005-10-30 00:08 | User Profile
[QUOTE]Col. Robert Bowman: ... If our government had merely done nothing - and I say that as an old interceptor pilot and I know the drill, I know what it takes, I know how long it takes, I know what the procedures are, I know what they were and I know what they changed them to - if our government had merely done nothing and allowed normal procedures to happen on that morning of 9/11, the twin towers would still be standing and thousands of Americans would still be alive. My sisters and brothers, that is treason! ... [url=http://benfrank.net/blog/2005/10/27/oil_mafia_treason/][B]HERE[/B][/url] [/QUOTE] Audio is on the site linked to.
And this all caused the following. [QUOTE][url=http://www.lewrockwell.com/akers/akers22.html][B]Slaying Lyons[/B][/url] ..."I was in the military and I hate to say this, but I just don't trust the government." [/QUOTE]
2005-10-30 01:55 | User Profile
[QUOTE]Federalized airport security does its best to turn travel into torment, and the Lyons' attempt to board their 7 AM flight on Southwest Airlines was no exception. Screeners rifling their belongings found a Swiss Army knife with ââ¬â horrors! ââ¬â a 2-inch blade nestled midway through a container of "Huggies" diaper wipes.[/QUOTE]
I remember being hassled by a very efficient, very well-spoken security screener at the tiny Pensacola airport during the time I mentioned above soon before 9/11. They couldn't figure out why my shoes made the magnetometor beep. This guy and his team were nothing close to being the bumbling homeys travelers encounter in the "World's Busiest Airport" in Atlanta. They knew that steel shanked shoes were not likely to be a security issue, but they came very close to making me miss my flight by making very sure they didn't miss one thing. I thought at the time that there was something happening in the background; the ThreatCon level at the time made me think maybe it wasn't just stinky shoes.
Yet at other airports I've breezed through security with inadvertent contraband numerous times. I watched one expert TSA screener in Orlando train a rookie on my computer bag; he told the newbie that the Leatherman I later unpacked from my power cable baggie was X-raying as a USB hub. This year I put a cheap metal promo Swiss Army knife given to me at a convention in an unused pocket of my carryon; it made over sixteen flights before being "confiscated" by Shawnika, a very polite if somewhat inarticulate TSA screener. Enjoy, Shawnika.
The TSA is a joke. Airport security before and after 9/11 is a joke. Any individual wanting to wreak havoc via the airlines could do so now as easily as they could have before 9/11. We're being worked and softened until the proper time, place and mode is identified, I believe; at that point the most useful political entity of the moment will take advantage of the latest outrage threatening the 'Mercun public.
2005-10-31 23:51 | User Profile
[quote=Cracker of the Whip]Audio is on the site linked to. And this all caused the following.
That speech is an emotional appeal being made on "Oh, I know x as an old fighter pilot." I know a thing or two as well, based on my years of experience, and I regret to say, respects to the Colonel, that his convenient omission of the analytical detail to flesh out his assertion makes his comment of no more substance that a typical Sean Hannity outburst. Why did he choose not to spell it out? The speech was an emotional appeal. Common habit these days, in the era of "it's all politics" absent substance.
I am sure he understands alert state, time and distance, tanking, weapons release, etc, however, I seriously doubt that the old man had even been in an exercise that entailed the intercept and shoot down of a civilian airliner in American airspace. Or maybe he had, so I wonder that he did not include that in his comments on why he feels the "send the interceptors" response was so poor.
(Note he does not comment on the Pennsylvania plane that some think was shot down . . . and the shoot down covered up.)
The key blunder made, C2 wise, was as I see it the "ground everything" order which apparently included some or all of the fighter outfits/assets that could have added to the response (with attendant burden on tankers alert or otherwise) and which I wonder at: was it a screw up, later realized to be a self inflicted wound, or was it the sinister, deliberate move to reduce the number of responding jets?
Unkown, at present, except to some few who aren't talking.
AE
2005-11-01 11:22 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Angeleyes]That speech is ...[/QUOTE] Is there anything that you question about the 9/11 incident?
2005-11-02 01:47 | User Profile
[quote=Cracker of the Whip]Is there anything that you question about the 9/11 incident?
What do you mean by that?
I don't have to subscribe to the belief that 9-11 was set up by the neocons, deliberately, to make possible a condition laid out in the Project for the New American Century blueprint, to be uncomfortable with:
The issues raised by the Able Danger revelation.
The lack of pursuit of Bin Laden (the asshole behind the attacks on USS Cole, and two American Embassies in 1998) by both Clinton and his successor previous to 9-11. His part in the assassinatino of Massoud, in Afghanistan was part of his assault in the American position in the Mid East and "the Stans."
The apparently deliberate stonewalling between governmental departments vis a vis information sharing in this so called "war on terror." (Won't rant on that in this space. :furious: )
The problem of how that fourth jet went down. Is the story as told in the news a fable? This goes to xmetalheads excellent question: where are the FAA tapes? I am not happy about that bit of "18 minute gap" at all.
All that said, I have yet to see a conspiracy argument that satisfies my BS-meter due to rigor and objective analysis. Too much of what comes out on the topic is laced with emotion and blatant agenda pandering. Too much tunnel vision. But I come here, among other places, to see what dissenting views say, since the "official story" is just too . . . full of holes. And I learn a bit. That don't mean I discard one set of blinders for another.
When I see a theory on what really happened that is purely objective, I'll be likely to buy it. Not impressed yet.
I also have a broad enough mind to accept that persons and agencies other than the crooked politicians and their backers in the US have goals, aims, and agendas; and they pursue them in spite of, regardless of, or in direct opposition to America's aims and objectives. (Or, the objectives and aims of whoever is setting policy in America . . . for better and worse. :argue: )
Osama Bin Laden fits the mould of extranational activist quite well, an almost polar opposite, in some respects, to extranational organizations like Doctors without Borders and Amnesty International. The assertion that the neocons hired him is one of the most laughable I have heard yet. It doesn't fit the profile.
AE
2005-11-08 18:00 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Angeleyes]What do you mean by that?
I don't have to subscribe to the belief that 9-11 was set up by the neocons, deliberately, to make possible a condition laid out in the Project for the New American Century blueprint, to be uncomfortable with:...[/QUOTE] Just wanted to know if you followed the government version lock, stock and barrel. So, they covered all the bases with you except for the fourth jet. Hmm, interesting.
2005-11-08 23:25 | User Profile
[QUOTE]This has never been adequately explained. Langley's F-15s are on constant alert. Shaw AFB to the south has F-16s on combat patrol and training nearly around the clock. Squadrons out of these bases could have and should have responded immediately to reports of multiple aircraft straying from flight paths. It is and was a part of their mission.[/QUOTE]In the aftermath of the London subway explosions, I read that the US military was conducting war games on 9/11 involving the air traffic control system. I saw a partial transcript in which one of the controllers, noticing the jets that had flown off course, asked, "Is this real, or is this part of the exercise?" Where did I see that? Was that fabricated?
2005-11-08 23:37 | User Profile
Here's an article from a mainstream media source. (Newhouse owns the Cleveland Plain Dealer, Newark Star-Ledger, New Orleans Times-Picayune, etc.)
[url]http://www.newhousenews.com/archive/story1a012802.html[/url]
Amid Crisis Simulation, `We Were Suddenly No-Kidding Under Attack'
By HART SEELY
c.2002 Newhouse News Service
...
Sept. 11 was Day II of "Vigilant Guardian," an exercise that would pose an imaginary crisis to North American Air Defense outposts nationwide. The simulation would run all week, and Deskins, starting her 12-hour shift in the Operations Center as the NORAD unit's airborne control and warning officer, might find herself on the spot.
Day I of the simulation had moved slowly. She hoped the exercise gathered steam. It made a long day go faster.
8:40 A.M.: REAL WORLD
In the Ops Center, three rows of radar scopes face a high wall of wide-screen monitors. Supervisors pace behind technicians who peer at the instruments. Here it is always quiet, always dark, except for the green radar glow.
At 8:40, Deskins noticed senior technician Jeremy Powell waving his hand. Boston Center was on the line, he said. It had a hijacked airplane.
"It must be part of the exercise," Deskins thought.
....
2005-11-08 23:42 | User Profile
At NEADS, most of the dozen or so staff on the operations floor have no idea what the exercise is going to entail and are ready for anything. [Utica Observer-Dispatch, 8/5/04] NORAD is also running a real-world operation named Operation Northern Vigilance. NORAD is thus fully staffed and alert, and senior officers are manning stations throughout the US. The entire chain of command is in place and ready when the first hijacking is reported. An article later says, ââ¬ÅIn retrospect, the exercise would prove to be a serendipitous enabler of a rapid military response to terrorist attacks on September 11.ââ¬Â [Aviation Week and Space Technology, 6/3/02; Bergen Record, 12/5/03] Colonel Robert Marr, in charge of NEADS, says, ââ¬ÅWe had the fighters with a little more gas on board. A few more weapons on board.ââ¬Â [ABC News, 9/11/02] However, Deskins and other NORAD officials later are initially confused about whether the 9/11 attacks are real or part of the exercise. There is a National Reconnaissance Office exercise planned to occur as well (see 9:00 a.m.), involving a scenario of an airplane as a flying weapon. [Associated Press, 8/21/02; UPI, 8/22/02]
All the referenced articles are linked at the following site:
[url]http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/timeline.jsp?timeline=complete_911_timeline&before_9/11=militaryExercises[/url]