9/11 and Atlantic City

[paulthompson]

It turns out that even the first WTC hit could have been stopped. Here's a new timeline entry from my 9/11 timeline:

(8:46 a.m.) As the WTC is hit by Flight 11, two F-16 fighters are practicing bombing runs over an empty stretch of the Pine Barrens near Atlantic City. They are only eight minutes away from New York City, but they aren't alerted to the emerging crisis. Shortly after the second WTC crash at 9:03, the two F-16s are ordered to land and are refitted with air-to-air missiles, then sent aloft. But they re-launch over an hour after the second crash. For decades, two fighters from the Atlantic City air base were on 24 hour alert status, but this changed in 1998 due to budget cutbacks. After 9/11, it is questioned why NORAD "left what seems to be a yawning gap in the midsection of its air defenses on the East Coast - a gap with New York City at the center."

You can see that and more here:

http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/061704-911timelineupdate.html

And here's something in today's 9/11 Commission staff report:

Boston Center did not follow the routine protocol in seeking military assistance through the prescribed chain of command. In addition to making notifications within the FAA, Boston Center took the initiative, at 8:34, to contact the military through the FAA’s Cape Cod facility. They also tried to obtain assistance from a former alert site in Atlantic City, unaware it had been phased out. At 8:37:52, Boston Center reached NEADS. This was the first notification received by the military—at any level—that American 11 had been hijacked

---

Put it together and its possible fighters could have reached NYC around 8:43, roughly three minutes before Flight 11, had the Atlantic City base not changed its function. Who knows what would have happened - they probably wouldn't have had the authority to do much - but they certainly would have been in a good position when Flight 175 came along at 9:03. Even if they'd been on the ground, they could have scrambled from Atlantic City in time to intercept Flight 175.

[paulthompson]

1. Oh yeah

And here's a bald faced lie from NORAD General Arnold today:

"Atlantic City is the only alert site that we had in the vicinity
of the threats during the height of the Cold War that we did not have
that day. And Atlantic City, given the timelines we had, would not
have been able to get there on time."

[GreenPartyVoter]

2. Thanks, Paul.

[paulthompson]

3. Yeay!

Peter Lance just mentioned this Atlantic City thing on Paula Zahn's CNN show. He knows the deal. :)

[Hoping4Change]

4. Paul I can't express how much I admire and respect you for

compiling the 9/11 Timeline. At a time when so much disinformation is disseminated, it is such a valuable resource. Everyone who values truth owes you a debt of gratitude for this painstaking work. I have it my mission since coming across the Time-line about 6 months ago to spread the word about it. In fact I posted several links to it today and I was actually going to start a thread when I got replies from people who had never heard of your site and were bowled over by it.

I wish DU and Buzzflash had a permanent link to it. I actually came across Buzzflash and DU as well as many other progressive sites I didn't know existed in my fervour to get the word out about the Time-line requesting everyone I emailed to post a link to it. I think every progressive site should have a link to the Center for Cooperative Research featured prominently on their home page.

So here's to you Paul. Thank you. :toast:

[Snazzy]

6. what hoping for change said!

:toast: :yourock:

[paulthompson]

12. thanks for all the thanks

You could ask Buzzflash for a permanent link (nudge, nudge). :)

[Hoping4Change]

14. Buzzflash is getting an e-mail tonight.

[Snazzy]

5. reading the report

Seems damning on so many different levels of FAA in Washington and the Herndon ATC. That they were the log jam or something much worse perhaps. Boston FAA goes around them (having called them up to eight minutes earlier), and that's supposedly how NORAD (NEADS) first finds out. Same thing from Cleveland and New York FAA--did an end run or NEADS would have heard nothing from the FAA. Apparently it's not until everything is well over that FAA Washington is in touch with NORAD.

Just love this bit:

FAA Headquarters: They’re pulling Jeff away to go talk about United 93.

Command Center: Uh, do we want to think about, uh, scrambling aircraft?

FAA Headquarters: Uh, God, I don’t know.

Command Center: Uh, that’s a decision somebody’s gonna have to make
probably in the next ten minutes.

FAA Headquarters: Uh, ya know everybody just left the room

(Who the heck is Jeff???)

It's Herndon, not headquarters/Washington that should be running things. And there you have a number of interesting things going on too. First, the former NYC attorney Sliney is on first day running the show as Operations while his bosses are in a bunker. But most important, I think, was NORAD was THERE on 9/11--the "military cell." All this lack of communication to NORAD has to be complete BS. The people who were there were there to train for and coordinate just this sort of emergency. The report and media coverage softballs that whole issue--there were indeed plans.

Some damning inaction examples:

"Boston Center asked Herndon Command Center to issue a similar cockpit security alert to all aircraft nationwide. We have found no evidence to suggest that Command Center managers instructed any Centers to issue a cockpit security alert."

And:

"A manager at the Herndon Command Center asked FAA headquarters if they wanted to order a “nationwide ground stop.” While executives at FAA headquarters discussed it, the Command Center went ahead and ordered one anyway at 9:25."

Shortly later FAA Washington questions whether they overstepped their authority in doing this!

But FAA Washington is communicating to other FAA centers and giving them the wrong information, which gets relayed to NORAD from those centers:

"NORAD did not know about the search for American 77. Instead, they heard once again about a plane that no longer existed, American 11."

and:

"The mention of a “third aircraft” was not a reference to American 77. There was confusion at that moment in the FAA. Two planes had struck the World Trade Center, and Boston Center had heard from FAA headquarters in Washington that American 11 was still airborne. We have been unable to identify the source of this mistaken FAA information."

I'd also like to find out more about who at FAA proposed shutting off the radars two months before as a cost cutting move--just rely on transponders.

[mike1963]

9. Uh, I'm confused by your question:

"I'd also like to find out more about who at FAA proposed shutting off the radars two months before as a cost cutting move--just rely on transponders."

I don't know anything about any shutting off of radars, but as a professional pilot since 1963 I do know this much - transponders are useless -without- functioning radar...

So ...?

[Snazzy]

10. Aviation Week article

I believe the following is linked on the timeline site. Aviation Week is behind subscriber only now, but wasn't in 2001 when they said this:

"Ironically, FAA officials only a few months earlier had tried to dispense with "primary" radars altogether, opting to rely solely on transponder returns as a way to save money. Norad had emphatically rejected the proposal. Still, on Sept. 11, Norad's radars were spread around the periphery of the U.S., looking outward for potential invaders. Inside U.S. borders, very few radars were feeding NEADS scopes."

Somewhere else today I read (maybe the 9/11 comm. report or just saw coverage) that FAA controllers had to turn on radar on their scopes--apparently they use just transponders and not radar normally. I think, though know practically nothing about the subject, this had something to do with updates (digital) to the entire FAA system which was coming on-line around then.

Aviation Week had another excellent source article about Herndon on 9/11, which has not made it into mainstream. That's where I learned about the military cell being active there on 9/11--a hell of a coincidence, made even worse by today's semi-snowjob's revelations I believe.


Edit to add (from AW 12/17/2001):

"The kind of government-industry coordination Herndon relies on to deal with bad weather turned instead to crisis management. As usual, the Air Transport Assn. (ATA) and the National Business Aircraft Assn. were represented on the operational floor. In a fluke, so was what Herndon calls "the military cell"--the Air Traffic Services Cell, created by the FAA and the Defense Dept. for use when needed to coordinate priority aircraft movement during warfare or emergencies. The Pentagon staffs it only three days per month for refresher training, but Sept. 11 happened to be one of those days."

[Snazzy]

13. Yeah, the other end I mentioned was in 9/11 report today

"On 9/11, the terrorists turned off the transponders on three of the four hijacked aircraft. With the transponder turned off, it may be possible, although more difficult, to track an aircraft by its primary radar returns. A primary radar return occurs when the signal sent from a radar site bounces off an object in the sky and indicates the presence of that object. But primary radar returns do not include the transponder data, which show the aircraft’s identity and altitude. Controllers at Centers rely on transponder signals and usually do not display primary radar returns on their scopes. But they can change the configuration of their radar scopes so they can see primary radar returns. In fact, the controllers did just that on 9/11 when the transponders were turned off in three of the four hijacked aircraft. Tower or terminal approach controllers handle a wider variety of lower-flying aircraft; they often use primary radar returns as well as transponder signals."

[librechik]

7. thanks paul

you are a most valuable resource. Blessings.

[Corgigal]

8. Boston Center did not follow the routine protocol

Who was that person that day? Why did they feel that they needed to take the initiative and try to scramble planes themselves. I bet someone there saw that it wasn't getting done and couldn't handle watching this just play itself out. Trust me, when I say this is unusual but I bet the controller thought to themselves that they had to do something.

[Snazzy]

11. there was a story...

about 9/11 tapes somewhere getting destroyed at FAA.

Where was that, which FAA center?

Story came out about 2-3 weeks ago.

Edit: looked it up. It was NY.


F.A.A. Official Scrapped Tape of 9/11 Controllers' Statements

By MATTHEW L. WALD

Published: May 6, 2004

WASHINGTON, May 6 — At least six air traffic controllers who dealt with two of the hijacked airliners on Sept. 11, 2001, made a tape recording that same day describing the events, but the tape was destroyed by a supervisor without anyone making a transcript or even listening to it, the Transportation Department said in a report today.


...

That manager crushed the cassette in his hand, shredded the tape and dropped the pieces into different trash cans around the building, according to a report made public today by the inspector general of the Transportation Department.

....

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/06/national/06CND-TAPE.html?ex=1087617600&en=16ae1e3d235eb76d&ei=5070&hp