DemoTex (with captain hat on) tries to dispel some 9/11 misconceptions.

[DemoTex]

Re: 9/11 radio transmissions from AA11 and UAL93.

The transmissions from these two aircraft were made on sector frequencies of Boston and Cleveland Centers, respectively. Those transmissions were recorded, as are all. However, the radio transmissions were not meant for the ATC Centers. They were meant to be PA announcements to the passengers. They were chilling and cruelly deceptive, given the ultimate outcome. Did the passengers hear these announcements, as the terrorists intended? I think not, and here is why.

I have years of experience and thousands of hours in Boeing aircraft. All had a separate microphones (like a telephone hand-set) for the public-address system and cockpit-cabin inter-phone system (F/A to pilot communications). It is normally mounted at the rear of the cockpit's instrument/radio center pedestal. I doubt that the hijackers knew this little tidbit.

So, what did they do? They either picked up a microphone or a headset/microphone and pressed the "transmit" button. That put them "out" to Boston and Cleveland centers. True, if they were really sophisticated, they could have selected "PA" on the audio-selection panel and used the cockpit microphone for a PA. That might have happened later. It will never be on the ATC tapes. The audio selection panel is either/or (radio/PA), not both.

Most pilots avoid using the audio selection panel for PAs like the plague, at least I always did. If you used the audio selection panel - say you selected PA for a "Bye-Bye" to the peeps in the back - and did not reselect radio-1 on the transmit side, the next call to ATC went out as a PA to the passengers. You have all heard it (but might not have known what it was!).

Did the hijackers ever figure out the PA system? I seriously doubt it. In my opinion, the doomed passengers in these aircraft never heard a word from the killers in the cockpits.

Mac

[Cheswick2.0]

1. do you think maybe the pilots did that on purpose?

In other words the hijackers asked which was the mic to talk to the passengers and the pilots lied to them knowing they would then be heard by the ATC?
I wonder if the pilots were killed right away or told to Head to DC or NY and forced to turn around. I wonder because I don't think the hijackers could take over until their targets were in sight. How would they know how to point the plane in exactly the right direction by themselves? Do you think they could have been that well trained?

[DemoTex]

3. No. The pilots were dead by then.

Throats cut with the infamous box-cutters. Just like my friend Michelle Heidenberger, the lead flight attendant on AA 77 (Pentagon crash), probably had her throat cut early by these bastards. That was more-or-less reported in some of the final calls from 77, including Barbara Olsen's call to her husband. The pilots were killed early, in each hijacking. Operational necessity.

[mike1963]

2. I've thought about that too, Mac...although I don't have any time in big

Boeings, I'm familiar with their radio/com setup and it's pretty typical for most any a/c with a PA and have wondered since 9/11 how both ATC and the pax could have heard the same thing. One or the other but not both as you say. Do the sims sim PA announcements?....
;-)

KS

[DemoTex]

4. The sims have the hand-set

On a LOFT you might use it to impress the instructor ("Play-the-game"), and that does have training value. But never in an initial training sim syllabus (2-3 weeks at the airlines) would that handset ever be mentioned. That's all left for the IOE. But that was what 9/11 was for those hijackers, one big IOE (Initial Operating Experience).

[mike1963]

5. IOE, OJT, PFO...

(pucker factor orientation)...haha I just made that one up. :D

Thanks, pretty much what I figgered...

You are cleared for the GPS approach to Snug Harbor...NoPT
;-)

[DemoTex]

6. Better yet ...

"You are cleared for the NDB approach runway 31 Nha Trang. Weather is at minimums, 500-and-2. Beware mountainous terrain in all quadrants. Missed approach procedure is too scary to publish. Single-engine missed approach calls for tight turns into the dead engine to get it over quickly."