Faith vs. Skepticism

[bmcatt]

A thought occurred to me last night. I'm sure that this will generate the usual quantity of heat (and little light) on both sides, but I'm struck by something what is a very simple distinction.

It is possible for me to say "I know that what I've been told is wrong" without, at the same time saying "... and I know what happened instead." The counter-argument against disbelievers of the official theory is ridicule - "Oh, so I suppose that you're firmly in support of the theory that the little green men from Mars came down and vaporized the people on those planes and caused all the other damage."

The simplest thing for anyone to say *at any point in this process* is "I don't know."

Using the attack on the pentagon (simply because that's generated the most interest with the release of additional "video"):

Question: "What hit the pentagon?"
Answer: "I don't know. I *do*, however, strongly believe that it wasn't a 757 flown by an unlicensed pilot."

Please note, if you will, the specificity of my answer. I have not said it's impossible for it to have been a 757 flown by a highly skilled pilot. I believe that's highly unlikely, but I haven't ruled that out.

I am willing to approach the question from a more objective (and more skeptical) perspective. I am a private pilot. I've flown small aircraft (from the "left seat") and I have strong doubts, based on personal experience, about how difficult it would be, for an untrained pilot, to: 1) figure out how (navigationally-speaking) to get a plane from the middle of nowhere to the pentagon; 2) perform the descent maneuver that is supposed to have occurred; 3) bring a plane in for a pinpiont impact on a wall without having the plane "float" due to ground-effect underneath the wings.

I also disbelieve that a plane will collapse into the outline of its own fuselage, vaporizing most of the major components of the airframe yet still allowing significant DNA evidence to be found of the passengers.

Do I know, instead, what happened? No. I do know, though, that the official explanation does not fit with the *experience* that, I believe, any licensed pilot has with the difficulty of flying even a light plane.

Please when responding to this, don't assume that I support or endorse *any* particular theory of how things *did* happen. Grant me, without attempting to insult my intelligence nor credulity, the right to have significant doubts and be skeptical.

Rather than going on the attack in support of the official theory, examine your own experiences. Determine whether you, too, have doubts about *any* aspects of the official theory. You don't have to have an answer for what *did* happen. You merely need to agree that what you've been told is what *didn't* happen.

[libertypirate]

1. It comes down to this my friend

people don't think unless there are holes in logic. This is why simple questions without answers are so powerfull, ask your self when has the TV talking head ever challenged your world view? The news structures logic and thought then acts like they have completely presented ALL the facts and story when really they made a small story out of what is something quite a bit more complex.

[bmcatt]

2. Good thing we teach kids how to think critically

:sarcasm:

Sadly, I agree with you. There's very little willingness to consider anything critically. I don't necessarily thing that *everything* should be challenged, but there are some rather simple tests (of the "gedanken experiment" type) that can be done to at least provide a "gut check" level of confidence or lack thereof.

Way too much of the official story of what happened doesn't pass that filter, at least for me.

[Grateful for Hope]

3. You are absolutely correct

we do not definitively know what happened on 9/11. We do know what the MSM chose to tell us, and, then afterward, what the 9/11 Commission chose to tell us.

Like you, I don't subscribe to any particular alternative theory, but, instead, I have looked at the OCT "facts", and have come to the conclusion that there are so many holes in these same facts, that somewhere along the line some inaccuracies (or lies) have entered into the picture.

This is not to say that I think the entire story is false. I do not know enough to make this statement, but, as they say, the best lies are those that are intermingled with elements of truth.

[KJF]

4. A couple of points

(1) The plane was on autopilot until 9:29, a live pilot (and I really doubt it was Hani) only flew the plane the last 8 minutes. If memory serves, they had programmed in a course for Ronald Reagan National.

(2) Hani (the alleged pilot) was licensed, he had the first type of licence (private pilot?) and had passed the tests for the second grade (multi-engine?). My understanding is that he hadn't taken a medical or something, so he didn't officially have the mutli-engine licence. Amusingly, he also failed a driving test a month before 9/11. This might all just be a wild goose chase, because I have severe doubts he ever boarded the plane.

(3) AFAIK no element of the plane has ever been officially said to have vapourised, although I vaguely remember a French newspaper article making this bizarre claim.

(4) The hole in the Pentagon is over 90 feet wide.
Link: http://www.911review.com/errors/pentagon/smallhole.html

[bmcatt]

9. Hanjour was judged an incompetent pilot

A CFI at an FBO (fixed base operator - a company that rents planes to pilots) was unwilling to sign off on his being allowed to rent a Cessna 172 because he was not capable enough to handle a light piston-single airplane.

Even licensed pilots (licensed by the FAA) must undergo a BFR (biennial flight review), every 24 months, with a CFI, consisting of at least 1 hour of ground instruction and 1 hour in the air to verify that they are still competent to pilot a plane safely. Unless someone flies actively and regularly, it is very common that a CFI will state that you need additional training (just to re-hone the skills that may have grown rusty through disuse) for another hour or two to ensure that you are competent and safe.

By what I've seen, Hanjour would have been incapable of passing a BFR, regardless of supposedly being a licensed pilot.

[KJF]

14. Yup

He certainly wasn't very good (there's also some sort of controversy about how he got his licence in the first place, but I'm not au fait with that). However, like I said, I really doubt he boarded, so it isn't a big deal for me.

[Grateful for Hope]

11. But, but, Kevin

This is (I thought) a thread about one's thoughts and beliefs about 9/11...and, not specifically, about what might have happened.

Am I wrong? Why can we not have a discussion of the underlying dynamics of what people believe or think when they come to this forum?

I am so frustrated.

[KJF]

15. You are perfectly entitled...

... to discuss whatever you want. However, there were a couple of things that I felt needed addressing in the OP, so I addressed them. Beliefs are based on facts - or what one thinks are the facts - so, if you get the facts right (or reasonably close - I can't tell you for sure who was flying the damn plane), then the beliefs should be, at least, nearer the mark. The way I see it, the no-757 argument is a donkey that partially obscures more significant issues related to American 77, such as Hani's flying ability (which the OP correctly raised, but incorrectly phrased), the fact some of the hijackers had been/were being followed, the lack of air defense, etc.

btw, Have you seen the Dulles security gate video?

[Grateful for Hope]

35. I don't think I have seen the video you mentioned, Kevin

Do you recommend it?

[KJF]

37. Here it is:

http://thewebfairy.com/911/blackops/secretagentmen.mpg

It took me ages to load this time. I seem to remember it was faster before, and I couldn't get it to fill the whole screen. I guess I have some pesky new software that I haven't quite got the hang of.

It's the hijackers coming through security at Dulles Airport on 9/11. Four of them are reasonable matches (i.e. they look like their photos), but Hanjour (who claimed to be about 5 foot 7), seems to have grown substantially, both in terms of height (compare it to that of the security guard and the old guy) and in terms of weight and muscle, in addition to having different hair and a beard.

The original DU thread is here:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=125&topic_id=34702&mesg_id=34702
Well worth a quick look.

Throw in the problems with the computer record of his check-in, the lack of his name on the first lists of hijackers and the "may not have had a ticket" comment and what have you got? And where does that leave us?

[Grateful for Hope]

38. Thank you!

Am definitely going to view it.

The thread's pics of Hanjour, to my mind, definitely show a different person in the photo taken at the ATM than that seen in the airport photo. There isn't even a remote resemblence.

[LARED]

5. I don't think you're a skeptic

I think you are operating on faith in regards to what hit the Pentagon

Faith

Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence.

The evidence that Flight 77 hit the pentagon is overwhelming. Eye witnesses, pictures of plane parts that match the aircraft, DNA, Radar, etc. There really is no doubt about it. To believe otherwise is an act of faith.

Your concerns about


1) figure out how (navigationally-speaking) to get a plane from the middle of nowhere to the pentagon;

Anyone with a topographical map can find DC. The Pentagon is the largest office building in the world. And has a distinct shape. How hard can it be to locate it once your in DC. Plus there is no evidence that the Pentagon was even the intended target. You have faith it was.


2) perform the descent maneuver that is supposed to have occurred;

While I am not a pilot and cannot speak to the level of difficulty, But the fact remains that it did occur. It obviously is possible. No one with authority has stated it was not possible.

3) bring a plane in for a pinpiont impact on a wall without having the plane "float" due to ground-effect underneath the wings.

Again you are operating on faith that it was a pinpoint impact. We have no idea where the target was.

I have a quiestion regarding ground effects if you don't mind answering. Given all the various wing configurations avalaibe on aircraft in flight. That is the flaps, elevators, ailerons, spoilers, slats, etc, is it possible to overcome ground effects?

Thanks

[bmcatt]

7. And thus, my point...

I claim faith on your part and skepticism on my part. You claim the opposite.

The evidence that Flight 77 hit the pentagon is overwhelming. Eye witnesses, pictures of plane parts that match the aircraft, DNA, Radar, etc. There really is no doubt about it. To believe otherwise is an act of faith.

From all the pictures I've seen, there is an insufficiency of debris to account for a full-sized airliner. "Where are the wings?" is, in my estimation, a major indictment of the official story of a 757 impacting the pentagon. In monoplane (single wing) aircraft, the wing, laterally, is one of the strongest, if not *the* strongest* structure in the entire airframe. It has to be. The wings are the most complex portion of the aircraft and must support not only their own weight but also the weight of the loaded (with passengers and cargo) fuselage. They don't simply disintegrate leaving minimal wreckage.

As for eye witnesses, there seem to be discrepancies between the various accounts. I don't know if you've ever been close to a commercial airliner on final approach. Anyone who lives in New Jersey and has driven through exit 14 on the New Jersey Turnpike, though, has. The approach path for 22L and 22R is, literally, right overhead. Planes on short final are *HUGE* and *LOUD*, and that's with, generally, the engines spooled back for approach speed. If a 757 was a few hundred feet overhead, there should be *NO* discrepancies. If anything, I'd expect people to have seen it as *bigger* than it actually was.

Re: DNA - I'm not discounting that DNA evidence was provided. My question, and, again, I don't claim to *know*, is whether that evidence came from the crash site or not. Unless a clear chain of custody was established and can be demonstrated, there's nothing to say that DNA evidence didn't come from elsewhere.

Anyone with a topographical map can find DC. The Pentagon is the largest office building in the world. And has a distinct shape. How hard can it be to locate it once your in DC. Plus there is no evidence that the Pentagon was even the intended target. You have faith it was.

I assume, from what you've said, that you're not a pilot. Unless you know, for sure, exactly where you are, it is *incredibly* disorienting to be in the air. One of the tests that a pilot must pass in order to receive their license is to determine where they are from being "lost". This is generally done by having the flight inspector put you "under the hood" (relying solely on instruments) while you fly around a bit. After that, the hood comes off and you have to pinpoint your position on a map. Most pilots, even after the 40+ hours of flight training for a private license, need to spend some time on this. And that's with proper charts and a clear understanding of how to use the avionics systems.

My point is that, from starting out in the middle of the country, it's actually a non-trivial operation to get to DC. I'm not claiming that it's impossible to locate the pentagon once you're near DC, but, even there, buildings are much smaller from altitude than you would think.

If I, as a trained pilot, wanted to use a plane to impact the pentagon, I sure as hell wouldn't try to hit an exterior wall - I'd aim for the bullseye.

While I am not a pilot and cannot speak to the level of difficulty, But the fact remains that it did occur. It obviously is possible. No one with authority has stated it was not possible.

I haven't said that it's not possible. I've said that, for an untrained pilot, or even a trained pilot without aerobatics training, it's a very difficult maneuver. Especially when the more obvious one - aim for the bullseye - is significantly easier.

Again you are operating on faith that it was a pinpoint impact. We have no idea where the target was.

Levelling out on an approach-like path for a wall and then hitting a wall, completely (or almost completely) missing the lawn is definitely pinpoint. Given the size of the airframe, the aircraft was flying a few feet off the deck in order to impact where it did. That's precision flying, not something that could be done sloppily.

I have a quiestion regarding ground effects if you don't mind answering. Given all the various wing configurations avalaibe on aircraft in flight. That is the flaps, elevators, ailerons, spoilers, slats, etc, is it possible to overcome ground effects?

Short answer: no.

Longer answer: The elevator and ailerons are flight controls and do not substantively change the shape of the wing. In modern aircraft, flaps, spoilers, etc., have, to the best of my knowledge, airspeed limitations, which are enforced by the plane mechanicals, at which they can be deployed. Either the plane was flying very fast, in which case the wing was clean, or it was flying slow enough to deploy flaps, etc., in which case there would have been much more wreckage.

There should have been a burning hulk of a 757 strewn about on the lawn of the pentagon, complete with lots of pieces of the plane and, sadly, body parts. I have yet to see anything that looks even remotely like that.

[Bolo Boffin]

6. Skepticism employs logic

1) figure out how (navigationally-speaking) to get a plane from the middle of nowhere to the pentagon;

Two things have been suggested on this. One is that the pilot may have used geographical landmarks like rivers to fly back. Another is that the pilot simply plugged a general Washington location into the autopilot.

2) perform the descent maneuver that is supposed to have occurred;

The descent maneuver is a descending bank at a high rate of speed. However the plane wasn't going top speed in the turn. It had to slow down to make the turn, and that robbed it of a lot of momentum (I believe that 77 hit at a speed of 260 mph, and the WTC planes hit at above 500 mph). I believe that it may have been difficult, but not impossible for the pilot to do.

3) bring a plane in for a pinpiont impact on a wall without having the plane "float" due to ground-effect underneath the wings.

The phrase "pinpoint impact" bothers me. Do you think that the plane was intended to hit precisely that place in the Pentagon? Because that's not my impression. I'd say that the pilot circled the Pentagon until he reached a low enough altitude, leveled the plane off, and rode the ground effect into whatever wall happened to be there.

In fact, it's the ground effect that I think helped the Flight 77 pilot hit the Pentagon - the plane could shoot along in those last few seconds.

Now, as to your thesis that you don't have to know what did happen, just that you know what didn't. I disagree, especially on such material parts of your proposal as the fate of Flight 77. That isn't a loose end. That's a plane full of people, whose remains were returned to their loved ones and buried. Somebody killed these people, and if they didn't die when Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon, then you must, you have to believe that these people were murdered somewhere else by our own government, their bodies suitably mangled to appear as if they'd been involved in a crash, and then transported to the site to be discovered by emergency workers in the course of salvaging the building. This is a direct consequence of Flight 77 denial, and you or anyone else cannot escape this by shrugging your shoulders.

[bmcatt]

8. Additional answers

I responded to some of these points above, but I'll try and address some of the specifics of the counter-questions you raise.

Two things have been suggested on this. One is that the pilot may have used geographical landmarks like rivers to fly back. Another is that the pilot simply plugged a general Washington location into the autopilot.

Please show me a large river that flows directly from Ohio / Western Pennsylvania to DC. The flight path that has been shown for Flight 77 is rather direct and does not follow, as far as I can determine, any topological path.

As for autopilots - they're actually non-trivial systems to operate. Even using a GPS system to determine waypoints for a flight plan is non-trivial. As I said in another thread, I invite anyone who isn't a pilot to go get some flight training and then report back on how easy you think it is.

The descent maneuver is a descending bank at a high rate of speed. However the plane wasn't going top speed in the turn. It had to slow down to make the turn, and that robbed it of a lot of momentum (I believe that 77 hit at a speed of 260 mph, and the WTC planes hit at above 500 mph). I believe that it may have been difficult, but not impossible for the pilot to do.

Actually, depending on how the turn was performed, it might have been necessary to *speed up* in the turn. Also, the speed of the descent leads me to wonder how the inner wing didn't stall, due to lack of airflow.

To try and give a non-flying analogy... Take someone who's taken a couple of driving lessons. They're sort of comfortable sitting in the driver's seat, but they're not yet competent to deal with all of the activities that are needed to drive a car (keeping the car straight, not over-braking, checking side and rear-view mirrors, etc.). Now take this person and plop them into a Formula 1 race car and tell them they need to go out on the track and win. Even this analogy, btw, doesn't come close to the complexity of flying even a light plane.

The phrase "pinpoint impact" bothers me. Do you think that the plane was intended to hit precisely that place in the Pentagon? Because that's not my impression. I'd say that the pilot circled the Pentagon until he reached a low enough altitude, leveled the plane off, and rode the ground effect into whatever wall happened to be there.

I use the phrase "pinpoint" because he impacted the outer wall, not the roof, not an inner wall, not the lawn. It's a non-trivial activity to do that. As for "riding the ground effect" - I seriously doubt that an untrained pilot had sufficient understanding of the impact (pardon the expression) of ground effect to *use* it in the way that it was used.

The aircraft impacted the wall pretty much level. If he'd needed to nose-down at the last instant in order to impact, the plane would have flipped and there'd be pieces of plane scattered all over that segment of the pentagon as the airframe shattered against the building (imagine smashing an icicle the long way against a wall). The aircraft, at least theoretically, disappeared the vertical footprint of its own fuselage.

That's a plane full of people, whose remains were returned to their loved ones and buried. Somebody killed these people, and if they didn't die when Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon, then you must, you have to believe that these people were murdered somewhere else by our own government, their bodies suitably mangled to appear as if they'd been involved in a crash, and then transported to the site to be discovered by emergency workers in the course of salvaging the building.

Please note that, in this case, it's *you* who are providing a thesis as to "what must have happened", not I. I have merely questioned whether those remains that were returned to to people were, in fact, discovered at the crash site. An impact / fire / whatever, that was sufficient to destroy beyond recognition most of a modern airframe yet still leave body parts identifiable and DNA evidence valid strains credulity.

I do *not* claim any particular thesis for what happened. I do claim that the official theory does not make sense and I question it. I don't claim to know where those questions would lead.

[Ezlivin]

17. Excellent response!

I notice a lot of non pilots saying essentially the same thing: "It was pretty easy to just turn the aircraft around, descend and hit the Pentagon."

It always sounds easy (and may be easy on a simulator), but for us pilots who have had to go through all the training to get our tickets punched, we know that it is not as easy as it sounds. (Did your CFI warn you about stalling in the pattern? Apparently a lot of pilots "hurry" a turn and stall the inboard wing and just fall from the sky.)

Non pilots also tend to think that "luck" played a big part in Hani's ability to hit the Pentagon. "He was incompetent," they say. "He missed his target and had to circle around to hit it." They believe that he just turned the yoke like he was driving a car and lucked out. Again this stems from the lack of experience. It is very hard to impress on someone the difference between operating in three dimensions and operating only in two. The best lesson is when your CFI kills the engine and sits back to watch you deal with the emergency. Of course you have enough altitude to recover, right....?

[bmcatt]

18. "The three most useless things in aviation"

1) Runway behind you
2) Sky above you
3) Fuel still in the truck

[Debunking911]

20. At least some of your questions are easily explained.

As for how did this pilot make it back to the pentagon the answer is simple. Anyone can use a VOR. (VHF omni-directional range) I know because I have and did not have formal training. It's an electronic line created by an airport radio frequency. Just punch in the VOR frequency and a line apears pointing toward the airport in the instrument. That doesn't mean toward a perfect path to the runway so when they say the plane was in "aproach" it means it was heading toward the airport and not in a perfect angle to the runway. If you were landing in fog or low clouds you would need to fly by totally on instruments. This was not the case on that clear day.

As for landmarks after you get close, the washington monument would be the perfect one.



http://perso.wanadoo.fr/jpdesm/pentagon/pages-en/trj-appr.html

No wild turns needed.

It looked like a "fighter" because no one would do those manuvers in an airliner because it would make the passagers uncomfortable. Not because it was a fighter.

You can get DNA from teeth after a fire.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/health/july-dec01/forensics_smith.html

[bmcatt]

22. VORs are line of sight

But thanks for giving it a good try. Again, you're not a pilot (or at least don't seem to be), so you're leaving obvious holes / fallacies:

a) Not all airports have VORs. Some do, but I don't know (and don't have charts for the DC area handy) to check which ones near there do. Not all approach paths wind up with a VOR on the airport. There *are* ILS systems which are not based on a VOR on-field.

b) VORs have ranges at which they operate because they're line-of-sight. I doubt that a plane in western PA / Ohio could even see a long-range (I forget the exact classification) VOR positioned in or near DC.

c) There are other reasons you don't do wild maneuvers in certain planes - they're not certificated for it. That's because the manufacturers have either strong reason to believe (or flight test data that shows) that the airframe will fail or will become unflyable for some reason - stalling the inner wing in a steep descending turn, for example. And, btw, doing so will turn you into a lawn-dart, not a smoothly performing aircraft.

Aerobatics planes are special for a reason - in many cases they can generate a thrust:weight ratio of greater than 1 - they can "fly" straight up, pulled merely by the propeller. I don't believe that a 757 is certified for aerobatics maneuvers.

As for teeth after a fire:

1) I hadn't heard that the "remains" that people were receiving and burying were merely dental bits.

2) I still claim that anything that can incinerate aluminum, steel and titanium is highly likely to do much worse to teeth.

Thank you for engaging in the discussion, though.

[gbwarming]

32. DCA has a VOR, also the FMS can give course beyond los

a) DCA has a VOR/DME ( http://www.airnav.com/airport/KDCA )

b) VORs are limited by line of sight, but this is pretty far if the airplane is at high altitude. About 250 miles for FL300 with the transmitter at 50ft, however I wouldn't be surprised if the signal was too weak to receive at a range shorter than 250 miles. It doesn't matter though, because the 757/767 fms (or any aviation gps) has a database of all airports and navaids so you do not have to be within radio range to get a course.

I used my garmin etrex vista on a commercial flight between SAT and DTW in february - I sat in a window seat and held it by my shoulder. It doesn't have a remote antenna and dropped out if I pulled it away from the window but I knew exactly where we were and could have gotten a course to any city (Arlington, VA for example). One interesting thing about that particular gps is that it has a pressure altimeter and I got bad altitude data since the cabin was pressurized.

plot showing most of PA, WV and VA within 250 statue mile radius circle around DCA
http://gc.kls2.com/cgi-bin/gc?PATH=%0D%0A&RANGE=250mi%40kdca%0D%0A&PATH-COLOR=red&PATH-UNITS=mi&SPEED-GROUND=&SPEED-UNITS=kts&RANGE-STYLE=best&RANGE-COLOR=navy&MAP-STYLE=
http://homepages.nildram.co.uk/~vwlowen/java/horizon.htm

c) Transport airplanes like the 757 can not be rated for aerobatic maneuvers because they are certified under FAR part 25 (transport category). Acrobatic category is covered under part 23. There slightly different requirements for acrobatic category airplanes as compared to normal or utility category, but they have nothing to do with thrust to weight ratio. The _minimum_ ultimate positive design load for transport category airplane is 3.75 (at max weight) - so let's not pretend that airliners are super delicate.

Regarding "Stalling the wing during a steep descending turn" and turning into a "lawn dart" - Did your flight instructor not teach you accelerated stalls? It isn't required, but most do to demonstrate that you can stall at higher (than stall) speeds when turning. Recovery isn't difficult, certainly not lawn dart difficult.

In any case, if you take the known numbers about the pentagon turn (330 degrees in about 4 minutes) at any reasonable speed the bank angle and load calculate to be very ordinary.

[Bolo Boffin]

26. The facts remain

http://fire.nist.gov/bfrlpubs/build03/PDF/b03017.pdf

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/pages/911_pentagon_757_plane_evidence.html

Hopefully the links above will help you understand non-trivial things like where the plane ended up. It is your assumption that the plane was destroyed beyond recognition.

Again with the shrugging of the shoulders. You got 64 people (including the terrorists) dead. They were alive that morning. 59 of them were delivered to their families. Doesn't that arrest your non-trivial curiousity in the slightest? That is a material fact here. Forget "claiming" anything - you owe those families an explanation of how their loved ones died, if not in an airplane crash at the Pentagon. You suggest that the bodies weren't found there. The largest forensical investigation in the history of the United States would beg to differ with you.

No rivers follow that route, you're absolutely correct. But did I say rivers exclusively? Let me check in a strictly non-trivial way...no. I said geographical landmarks. Highway 64 as a matter of fact runs parallel to the path the plane took for quite a distance, and the highway points straight to Washington. And I understand that they still put compasses in cockpits, with which a pilot could maintain his bearing after aligning with Hwy 64, but then I'm not a pilot, so don't quote me on compasses being in cockpits.

Could you, as a pilot, tell me, a non-pilot, how to place a certain waypoint into the autopilot? If I, a non-pilot, could pull that off, I'm sure the terrorists were able to give even their weakest pilot a non-trivial briefing on the matter.

A Formula One car, as non-trivial as that machine is, pales in comparison to the sophistication of a 757 - does a Formula One come standard with autopilot? I think you're way off the mark with that example.

So we're down to "Could the maneuver have been made by an inexperienced pilot?" Fine. Did the pilot have to know what ground effect was in order for it to kick in? Right, ground effect is physics, it happens whether we know about it or not. You say "outer wall" like it was tiny. The Pentagon is eight stories high. That's a non-trivial height.

And furthermore, you stated that you would have aimed for the middle. Who says that's not what the pilot was doing? Let's look at what happened with that assumption. The pilot approaches the Pentagon. He banks down to try and hit the center, but at the speeds he's travelling, he can only bank around, straining the plane to its limits, until finally he's too low to reapproach. He levels off and aims in, and ground effect finally kicks in for the last few seconds, slamming the plane into an eight story wall one-fifth of a mile long.

Does that sound like an inexperienced pilot to you?

[bmcatt]

27. That's a lot of plane to disappear...

Hopefully the links above will help you understand non-trivial things like where the plane ended up. It is your assumption that the plane was destroyed beyond recognition.

In looking at your links, I see nothing that looks like the wings or tail feathers of a commercial airliner. There's a *lot* of mass there and pictures showing a couple of piles of debris doesn't account for the mass of a commercial airliner.

Again with the shrugging of the shoulders. You got 64 people (including the terrorists) dead. They were alive that morning. 59 of them were delivered to their families. Doesn't that arrest your non-trivial curiousity in the slightest?

Not particularly. By way of comparison (and not as a means of elicting sympathy), my grandmother passed away 9/10/01. She was buried later that week in a closed casket. I have no idea if it was truly her body that was in the pine box. I take it on faith that the funeral home did their job in transporting her corpse from the hospital and preparing it for burial.

That is a material fact here. Forget "claiming" anything - you owe those families an explanation of how their loved ones died, if not in an airplane crash at the Pentagon. You suggest that the bodies weren't found there. The largest forensical investigation in the history of the United States would beg to differ with you.

Why is the onus on me to provide "an explanation of how their loved ones died"? If I study cosmology, am I required to provide an explanation for how the Big Bang occurred? No - I am merely required to ask useful questions and seek answers.

Why is there such an emphasis on having *the right answer*? Is it so difficult to say "I don't know"?

No rivers follow that route, you're absolutely correct. But did I say rivers exclusively? Let me check in a strictly non-trivial way...no. I said geographical landmarks. Highway 64 as a matter of fact runs parallel to the path the plane took for quite a distance, and the highway points straight to Washington. And I understand that they still put compasses in cockpits, with which a pilot could maintain his bearing after aligning with Hwy 64, but then I'm not a pilot, so don't quote me on compasses being in cockpits.

To answer in reverse order - yes, there are compasses in cockpits. They are also extremely inaccurate due to deviation and variation. The extent to which the compass is wrong is dependent upon the avionics in the aircraft as well as where on the planet you are (because true north doesn't equal magnetic north). Having said that, if you were to start in Texas, what bearing do you need to fly to arrive in Washington DC? What about starting in Michigan? Minor errors in your heading will result in large errors at your destination.

As for being able to follow a road, you're making an assumption - that an inexperienced pilot, at multiple thousand feet, can identify *a single highway*. There's no big sign that says "Highway 64" that's visible at 10,000+ feet. There's *NO* identifying signs whatsoever.

I've said it before - go get some flight training and come back and tell me how easy it is to find where you are and know that the road you're following is the right road.

Could you, as a pilot, tell me, a non-pilot, how to place a certain waypoint into the autopilot? If I, a non-pilot, could pull that off, I'm sure the terrorists were able to give even their weakest pilot a non-trivial briefing on the matter.

Actually, no, I couldn't. And thanks for assuming what my answer would be. :)

Even as an experienced pilot, I would need to spend time examining the autopilot system. These things are not like the radio in your car. They *all* have different interfaces and different controls and different methods of entering information. There are *no* standards on these things.

A Formula One car, as non-trivial as that machine is, pales in comparison to the sophistication of a 757 - does a Formula One come standard with autopilot? I think you're way off the mark with that example.

That was, in fact, my point. An F1 car (and the skills required to drive one successfully in a race) is far beyond what's required just to start driving. For argument's sake, call it an order of magnitude more difficult. A 757 is *multiple* orders of magnitude above a light plane. And this was a pilot who wasn't competent to fly a light plane.

So we're down to "Could the maneuver have been made by an inexperienced pilot?" Fine. Did the pilot have to know what ground effect was in order for it to kick in? Right, ground effect is physics, it happens whether we know about it or not.

To continue the driving analogy - how much do you need to turn the wheel and how much force do you need to apply to the brake to go through a sharp curve? Are those values determinable based on speed? Of course they are. But knowing what the values are and being able to "feel" them are two completely different things. A new driver tends to over- or under-steer, over- or under-accelerate, over- or under-brake. Those are with just a couple of variables. Flying is so much more difficult and requires juggling many more things in the cockpit.

You say "outer wall" like it was tiny. The Pentagon is eight stories high. That's a non-trivial height.

You say "non-trivial height" like a 757 is tiny. A new pilot in a small plane has difficulty judging how high above the runway the wheels are. That's because the sight picture is one that they're completely unfamiliar with. Even once you've gotten used to it, if you change planes, you have to learn it all over again.

A 757 is (approximately) 44-ish feet high. Accounting for the location of the cockpit, I'm going to guess that the cockpit is approximately 1/3 up that height. That places a pilot's face at about 13 feet off the ground if the wheels are on tarmac. An inexperienced pilot will either think they're too close to the ground or too far away. Either way, though, results in a dramatically different impact.

He banks down to try and hit the center, but at the speeds he's travelling, he can only bank around, straining the plane to its limits, until finally he's too low to reapproach. He levels off and aims in, and ground effect finally kicks in for the last few seconds, slamming the plane into an eight story wall one-fifth of a mile long.

Where to begin?

"Straining the plane to its limits" - an inexperienced pilot doesn't *know* what the limits of a plane are.

"until finally he's too low to reapproach" - Huh? He's under power, he's just pulled off a test-pilot level maneuver, he can't gain altitude and smash into the center? He, instead, has to do a blisteringly low approach (practically mowing the lawn as he goes) to have any hope of hitting his target.

"He levels off" - ah, so he *does* have control of his aircraft.

"ground effect finally kicks in for the last few seconds" - ground effect would've kicked in looong before this. An inexperienced (heck, even an experienced pilot, but without airliner experience) would be sitting there going "Why the hell can't I go lower?" rather than letting the plane just fly.

Either he was a pilot worthy of being a test pilot because of his skill or it wasn't an inexperienced pilot flying a commercial airliner.

I'll say it again - go out and get some flight training. There's a *reason* that the pilots here are saying "Uh-uh... no way that happened" and all the non-pilots are trying to refute us. In this case, experience *is* talking.

[Bolo Boffin]

29. Well, it didn't disappear

I'm sorry that you couldn't waste any time actually looking and reading the two links I provided. Otherwise you would have seen exactly where the plane was - inside the building.

It doesn't matter to you that people saw this happen. It doesn't matter to you that the bodies were recovered right there. It doesn't matter that the plane was recovered right there. It doesn't matter to you that Flight 77's path is trackable in the radar records from beginning to end of its flight.

What bothers you here is that an inexperienced pilot couldn't have done all that.

Well, how about what the man who gave Hanjour his flight certification said?

"Despite Hanjour's poor reviews, he did have some ability as a pilot...There's no doubt in my mind that once that got going, he could have pointed that plane at a building and hit it."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hani_Hanjour

And he spent a lot more time accessing Hani Hanjour's piloting skills than you or I.

[bmcatt]

30. You're assuming I didn't read your links

And, btw, I did.

There's no significant pieces of wing, nor empennage (tail-feathers), nor even fuselage. Please take a look at any other accident photos - there's always more wreckage.

It doesn't matter to you that people saw this happen.

I have yet to read any credible eyewitnesses who can describe the actual impact. (Edit: by "credible", I mean an eyewitness who gives sufficient detail to make it clear that they saw a *large* commercial airliner.)

It doesn't matter to you that the bodies were recovered right there.

*If* I were conspiracy-minded, I'd say that it's actually pretty easy to generate body parts. I will state that none of the pictures I've seen, which were taken *while the fire was still active* showed any significant debris on the lawn.

It doesn't matter that the plane was recovered right there.

I dispute that a 757 was recovered. There's more mass in a 757 than I've seen in any of the pictures, your links included.

It doesn't matter to you that Flight 77's path is trackable in the radar records from beginning to end of its flight.

Um... This is factually incorrect. http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node&contentId=A32597-2001Nov2

Also, radar doesn't actually "track" an aircraft. Radar tracks a transponder that's squawking the correct transponder code. If a particular code is lost to radar and another transponder appears that's squawking the same code, ATC can't tell that it's not the same aircraft.

What bothers you here is that an inexperienced pilot couldn't have done all that.

Um... Only partially. Show me, again by analogy, someone who's just learning to drive who can win a F1 race and you'll have demonstrated that this sort of improbability is possible.

Using your source (Wikipedia, which is *known* for its absolute correctness), in 1999, he "did have some ability as a pilot", yet, in 2001, he "tried to rent a small Cessna 172 plane from Freeway Airport in Maryland - though he was declined after exhibiting poor flying skills". How can you not see that there are inconsistencies there?

Also, it's a *lot* easier to keep a plane flying approximately in one direction at a level altitude than it is to execute high-performance maneuvers close to the ground.

[Bolo Boffin]

31. Well, you haven't been reading enough.

Many of the links I gave have plenty of eyewitness testimony. Here's more:

http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/blflight77w.htm

Here's the account of a priest who saw the plane hit and stayed there the entire time.

http://www.mdw.army.mil/news/Pentagon_crash_eyewitness_comforted_victims.html

Here's an exhaustive study of the eyewitness accounts:

http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/F77pentaToC.html

Here's eyewitness accounts of the plane parts:

http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/F77penta06.html#p6

The more you deal with actual facts, instead of feelings and hunches, the clearer the truth about what happened becomes.

It doesn't matter to you that Flight 77's path is trackable in the radar records from beginning to end of its flight.

Um... This is factually incorrect.

Um... This is actually correct. Pay close attention.

On the day of the attack ATCs lost track of the plane after it disappeared from their screens. However, what they are looking at normally is a blend of several different radar systems, put together by specially designed software. That software deals with up to four different systems. On the primary signals, Flight 77 is trackable from beginning to end. Check the 9/11 Commission Report, page 25, and accompanying footnotes.

But you're a pilot, and you're familiar with how the radar works in the tower, right? Well, obviously not. Radar is not just about recieving the radio signals of the transponder. That's not radar. Radar is sending out the signal, getting the echo back, and displaying the information on the screen. The transponder gives the radar system vital flight information, and the software used to produce the ATC screen uses that to flag the radar signal. But the radar system is far from reliant on the transponder system alone.

But nice try.

PS: No inconsistencies. I quoted the flight instructor saying that he had problems as a pilot. Yet he still gave the man a licence. The people in Maryland didn't feel comfortable renting him a plane. No inconsistencies.

[bmcatt]

33. Limited answers

Largely because it's late and this has strayed far from my original point, so I'd prefer to stop hijacking (pardon the expression) my own main idea.

I did not extensively read through all of the eyewitness accounts you listed. However, a brief reading showed a couple of interesting things:

1) Common phrasing - "... a high rate of speed ..." is attributed to multiple people. It's not a common way to say it. Most people would just say "moving fast" or something similar.

2) One report comments about the wing "dragging along the ground" and then the impact on the pentagon - no lawn damage.

3) Another report claims to have been within 100 feet of the wing - being that close to the wing of a heavy airframe generating lift would have left a significant impression on the person, not something to be idly dismissed.

4) The most striking thing is the extent to which people are either able to positively identify the aircraft ("a 757 or an Airbus") or do *not* remark upon the size. As I've said in another reply, NJ residents who use exit 14 on the NJ Turnpike tend to be familiar with having airliners immediately overhead, probably at a hundred feet or so. (I will defer to someone who has an instrument approach chart for KEWR 22L/22R to give a better answer for altitude over the turnpike toll booths.) Commercial airplanes at that distance are *HUGE* if you're sitting in a car.

In a related thought - how and why was the FBI able to so quickly confiscate video tapes of security and other cameras that were not located at the pentagon? Why haven't those images ever seen the light of day. Presumably any one of them would be able, with a single frame, to show that it was, indeed a 757 that was flying towards the pentagon.

Radar - yes, I'm familiar with the difference between primary and secondary radar. I'm also familiar with the fact that most if not all of the primary radar sites in the continental US were shut down or were in the process of being decommissioned even in 2000. They were deemed as being too expensive to run compared with the secondary systems (which, yes, rely on transponders). The US ATC system is much more dependent on transponders than you seem willing to accept.

And, lastly, a flight instructor plays no part in the actual process of granting someone their license. That's done by a flight examiner. If you have, for example, a flight instructor who feels you're incompetent to fly, but you find another one who is willing to sign off on your taking a checkride with an examinder, that's all the examiner needs to take you up for a flight. I'd be much more interested in hearing from the flight examiner who administered Mr. Hanjour's checkride.

[Bolo Boffin]

36. Excellent

By the way, I read through your article. And yes, the primary and secondary is as you say, and it bears out in the 9/11 Report. Did you catch the paragraph down further in your article that mentions reconstructing the flight of AA 77? It says that two other radar systems did have 77 on their primary data, but these weren't available to the inland ATCs. Comparing this to the 9/11 Report, these two radars (which must be primary, since secondary relies solely on transponder data) must be the "tertiary" and "quadrary" systems referred to in the endnotes. So even your article accords with the 9/11 Report's statement on page 25 that Flight 77 is seen throughout its flight in the radar records.

[LARED]

41. Welcome back

:hi:

[Bolo Boffin]

46. Glad to be here

:woohoo:

[rman]

10. recommended

[Grateful for Hope]

12. Unfortunately

what does "recommend" mean when it comes to this forum?

[rman]

24. not much,

Just a kick, basically

[coalition_unwilling]

13. David Ray Griffin, in "The New Pearl Harbor," calls for an

independent investigation to examine 9/11 because there are so many unanswered questions and holes in the "official narrative" (itself a form of conspiracy theory, i.e., al quaida, osama bin laden). Griffin does not conclude by embracing any one theory and explicitly says this. Instead, he points to crucial problems in the official story and says they are reason enough for an independent investigation.

I agree with much of what you have written. I would add only that it foregrounds an epistemological crisis in modern society. In other words, most of us are non-experts in the various fields (physics, aeronautics, intelligence ops, etc) that intersect here. So we must trust someone else for our "knowlege." So the question comes down to whom we are going to trust -- the government, the alternative narratives, or something else.

My problem with Griffin's independent investigation is what authority could preside that would have sufficient moral and intellectual authority to put most people's doubts to rest as to what really did (or might have happened). I would propose someone like Ralph Nader or Nelson Mandela but, already in the act of proposing them, I can forsee the bitter reaction their appointments would provoke.

So, long and short, it seems we will be forced to live with this epistemological crisis for some time and it may never dissipate.

[bmcatt]

16. Under other circumstances, I'd've said NIST or even NTSB

Historically, both organizations have been pretty good at bringing in the relevant experts for investigations - NIST from the purely scientific perspective, NTSB for aviation accident / incident investigation.

To the best of my knowledge, NIST has, at this point, been compromised from above (I've ready reports of someone from NIST disputing parts of the official theory and subsequently recanting with the implication that such was due to political or managerial pressure). And I don't believe NTSB was ever allowed anywhere near any of the three crash sites (counting WTC as a single site).

In fact, I'd even go so far as to say that the prevention (?) of NTSB from exercising their investigative responsibilities is, in itself, a large flag. I wonder what an NTSB investigation team would've said upon arriving at the pentagon. The words "Where's the plane?" come to mind, though.

[petgoat]

23. "Where's the plane?" might be said of Shanksville too. nt

[bmcatt]

25. I don't disagree

But I am aware of fewer details regarding Shanksville.

I still say, though, that there's no reason that I can fathom why the NTSB would *not* have been called to be on-scene for all of the incidents. Even if, in New York, their only recourse would've been to say "it's all buried in that rubble, so we can't even hope to find anything".

This is what the NTSB *does*. It's pretty much their primary mission - accident / incident investigation. They've pretty much *rebuilt* planes from shattered remains after they've been dredged up from being underwater. They would've been able to find all the parts of whatever impacted the pentagon and settled the question for once and for all.

[frylock]

19. bookmarking this one..

great discussion, folks. Welcome to the board, bmcatt.

[bmcatt]

21. Thanks

One of the things that's always puzzled me is the lack of discussion about any of this stuff. The outright dismissal of anyone who questions anything strikes me as just a bit too knee-jerk a reaction.

Personally, I like asking the "meta" questions and, in this case, "Why can't we ask the questions" seems like a good one. :)

[Pacifist Patriot]

28. That has been my dilemma.

The "official story" does not ring true in the slightest, but that does not mean I have a plausible scenario to supplant conventional wisdom. At the risk of enduring massive flames, I think this is the most honest position many of us can adopt. The truth is out there, but none of us have it yet.

[KJF]

34. Autopilot link:

9:29 a.m.: Autopilot on Flight 77 Disengaged
Flight 77’s autopilot is disengaged. The plane is flying at 7,000 feet and is about 38 miles west of the Pentagon. <9/11 Commission, 8/24/2004> Information from the plane’s recovered flight data recorder (see September 13-14, 2001) later will indicate the pilot had entered autopilot instructions for a course to Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (which is nearby the Pentagon). <9/11 Commission, 2/27/2004>
http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/searchResults.jsp?project=911_project&searchtext=autopilot&events=on&entities=off&articles=off&topics=off&timelines=off&projects=off&titles=on&descriptions=on&dosearch=on&search=Go

[HamdenRice]

39. Excellent OP! Too bad this thread got hijacked

The main point of the OP is simple: We cannot know on the basis of the evidence we have what happened on 9/11. For the debunkers to come in a hijack this thread, implicitly their position must be, yes we know exactly what happened on 9/11,. Now that seems absurd to me -- or at least a leap of faith.

Do the debunkers really want to take the position that it is skeptical and rational to say we know exactly what happened? Is the 9/11 Commission report the complete and total story, and hence there is no need to think about or research this monumental event?

The OP is about epistemology: how we know what we know, not what we actually know. The basic point is that the best frame of mind to have right now is a frank acknowledgement that the available evidence is contradictory and therefore we cannot make any firm conclusions, and that state of mind is appropriately called skeptical.

Is there any sentient person in this forum who truly believes that we know exactly what happened and all of what happened on 9/11?

If you do, then you, not the original poster, are living in a world of faith, not scientific skepticism.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=125x89097

[KJF]

40. I'd put it like this:

We can draw the following conclusions about different aspects of the story:
(1) The official account is very probably right (for example, 3 fighters were launched from Langley at 9:29);
(2) The official account is a bit shaky, I'm not sure what to believe (for example, the 3 fighters were sent after phantom Flight 11);
(3) The official account must be wrong, but I don't know what really happened (for example, was Winfield in the NMCC during the attacks or not - his two accounts are contradictory, so one of them must be wrong);
(4) The official account must be wrong, and I have a pretty good idea what really happened (for example, did Ramzi Binalshibh meet Mohamedou Ould Slahi for the first time in 1999 (no way), or had he known him for years (you bet)).

You could maybe define the categories a bit different and maybe add one or two, but it's always going to be something like that. I'd say (1) and (4) are strong enough to base working conclusions on.

[pberq]

42. Great post!

As an aside, this is from an article about Hayden's hearings yesterday:

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2006/05/19/hayden_the_good_soldier.php

Hayden: The Good Soldier
John Prados
May 19, 2006

. . . "(Hayden) demanded a halt to public rehashing of CIA successes and failures, and he blew very cold even on the idea of releasing the CIA Inspector General’s investigation of the 9/11 attacks."

[bmcatt]

43. Trying to re-route my own topic

Given the focus on the things that I, personally, disbelieve, I'd like to try and re-route this...

I stand by my OP that those who question the official story are attacked and ridiculed. Using the examples of this thread, I have yet to see anyone *who has piloting experience* suggest that there is anything wrong with my questions or that they are not, indeed, valid concerns over the description that's been given for how things have happened.

Rather, the vast uproar comes from non-pilots who, I'd suspect, have never looked through the front wind-screen of even a small plane. Non-pilots truly cannot grasp the immensity of "the world" when confronted with the view from even 6000 or 8000 feet. The planes that were hijacked (if such existed) occurred at 4-5 times that altitude.

If you're a non-pilot and wish to claim that what's been stated is possible, then I will repeat my request - go for flight training. Learn, from personal experience, how difficult it is to even control (and fly well) a small plane. Then take that experience and magnify it a hundred or a thousand times and you will have some idea of the task that would confront even a trained pilot trying to take the controls of a commercial airliner, never mind the non- or incompetent pilots that the hijackers supposedly were.

As I stated in my OP - I don't claim to know the answers. I don't believe I'm required to provide them. It is required of me (and, I would claim, everyone else) to be critical of any story which is being disputed *by subject matter experts*. Regarding the impact at the pentagon - show me an NTSB report that explains the stresses upon the airframe and the surrounding terrina; show me sufficient wreckage and debris to rebuild a 757; show me where the bodies, or body parts, were in any of the pictures.

Airplane crashes are *messy*. There's debris all over, not just at the point of impact. As for the pentagon - I don't see enough debris in any pictures that have ever been released that shows sufficient debris. There are claims "well, the debris was inside the building" - at best, that was scrap and not anything substantive. Likewise, there are claims that there was lots of debris in another parking lot - great - show me the pictures. Show me how the FBI or whoever was carefully photographing and cataloguing every scrap of debris that was found, treating the accident site as a crime scene, rather than an area that needed to be policed up to make sure there wasn't anything big enough to be incriminating.

Finally, as a comment about flying - for the nay-sayers (or should I call them "yea-sayers") - please take a look at The Impossibility of Flying Heavy Aircraft Without Training. The author raises even more points than I do, all of which are valid and reasonable *if you have the piloting experience to understand just how difficult flying is*.

If you don't, then, yes, you need to potentially take something on faith. Only, in this case, you have to take it on faith that subject matter experts know from whence they speak. Or you can take it on faith that it happened just the way you've been told, even though there is sufficient evidence to be at least a little bit skeptical.

Personally, I'm quite comfortable with my skepticism. It doesn't give me comfort. It gives me the heebie-jeebies. I would *love* for there to be simple, straight-forward answers. Odd as it might sound, I would prefer, in the grand sense, that this was truly the actions of 19 (or so) crazed individuals who were able to destroy a landmark and shatter the complacency of a nation.

But my head tells me that that scenario is so improbable as to be impossible. Consequently, there must be other explanations. I still don't know what those explanations are. But I'd sure like to find out.

I'm most reminded of a (poor) parent's response to a child who constantly questions: "Why? Why? Why?" As a parent, tremendous effort is involved in trying to answer a child's insatiable curiosity. Yet, a good parent will reward a child's curiosity - it's how their brains and knowledge base develop. A poor parent will, instead, punish curiosity and attempt to stunt it. "Don't ask questions - it's annoying and I don't have the time" or, worse yet, giving simplistic answers that aren't the real answer.

A few weeks ago, my 3-year-old son asked me why the moon was so bright. I could have gone the easy route and told him that the moon was a giant light bulb. I could have gone the even easier route and told him that I didn't have the time to answer his question. Instead, we both spent more than half an hour discussing how the moon travels around the earth and is illuminated by the sun. Will he retain that knowledge? Realistically, I doubt it. But he wanted knowledge. Who am I to reject his desire to learn.

Likewise, who are you (generically) to say that I should sit down and shut up and take, spoon-fed, the story that has been crafted to explain everything that's happened? Go ahead and tell me about the light bulb in the moon - I'll have an easier time accepting that as the factual truth.

[KJF]

44. Your main point...

... seems to be that, if the FBI's account of Hani's skills is accurate, then it is unlikely he really flew the plane for the final 8 minutes after the autopilot was turned off. I sort of agree with that, but I don't think it's particularly relevant, because I don't believe the FBI's account of his skills or that he ever boarded the plane.

Regarding body parts, I'm not going to post them again, because they are not pleasant viewing, but you can find some at the Moussaoui trial website:
http://www.rcfp.org/moussaoui/
You have to scroll down. You can try pressing Ctrl + F and typing in Pentagon. If you ask me, the dead people are probably Pentagon employees, but the body part might have come from a passenger.

There are dozens of photos of wreckage from the Pentagon, plus videos, plus other photos of fairly-unidentifiable confetti-type debris. I'm not going to post them all now (because some people have slow connections), but you can find plenty (about 20) at the very excellent www.pentagonresearch.com - which is well worth reading. Pentagon research doesn't have them all - there are others. Plus there are eyewitness accounts of lots of debris, plus they let in a CTer (associate of well-known assassination research John Judge) during the clean-up (she worked for American) and she claims the debris was from American 77. You can find that and more here:
http://www.oilempire.us/pentagon.html

Also please note that none of the leading 9/11 truth websites (like www.9/11research.com, www.oilempire.us, www.911truth.org or the 9/11 Timeline) support the no-plane hypothesis, although none of them think Hani did it and some of them don't mind a bit of remote control.

Finally, I'd like to ask your opinion on something, as you're a pilot. The 9/11 timeline has this entry for Hani:
August 2001: Hani Hanjour Successfully Takes Certification Flight?
According to the 9/11 Commission Report, some time this month alleged Flight 77 pilot Hani Hanjour successfully conducts “a challenging certification flight supervised by an instructor at Congressional Air Charters of Gaithersburg, Maryland, landing at a small airport with a difficult approach.” The instructor thinks that “Hanjour may have had training from a military pilot because he used a terrain recognition system for navigation.” <9/11 Commission, 8/24/2004> However, besides the 9/11 Commission Report, no other evidence exists of Hanjour passing this certification flight. A search of the Lexis Nexus database indicates there are no mentions of Hanjour attending this school, or any witnesses recalling him there. This account is also in contradiction to numerous other reports, according to which Hanjour was a very poor pilot who “could not fly at all.” (see January-February 2001; Mid-August 2001)

You can find it in the Hani chapter here:
http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/timeline.jsp?timeline=complete_911_timeline&the_alleged_9/11_hijackers=haniHanjour

What do you make of this? Why would he be doing a certification flight? Certification flight for what? I can't figure it out. Could it be to keep his private or commercial pilot's licence current? Any ideas?

[bmcatt]

47. Not the entirety of my main point

It's a combination of "Hanjour, as an untrained pilot, could not have flown in that manner" combined with skepticism, albeit of a slightly lesser intensity that a 757 flew in the manner that was described and impacted the pentagon.

What's interesting is, if you don't believe he boarded the plane, then who do you propose was responsible for guiding an aircraft (regardless of whether it was a 757 or anything else) in the manner described?

I took a look at the pictures from the trial. I hadn't seen those before. I'm struck by: 1) the few (quantity) pictures of human remains; 2) the pristine state of the lawn outside the pentagon in the pictures. It's also clear, at least without seeing the original pictures, that there wasn't impact debris (or at least not a significant quantity of it) at the parking lot to the "right" (north?) of the impact site.

I'm unable (while I write this) to view the other picture sites because my internet connection has been flakey for the past day or so, so I'm trying to write this while, effectively, offline.

Bear in mind, btw, that I'm not ruling out that *a* plane impacted the pentagon. I'm not personally familiar with all types of corporate (or otherwise) jets, but I wouldn't be surprised if there were some / any that had a similar configuration to a B757 (wing-mounted engine nacelles, standard-ish tailfeathers). The effect of the jet blast and downwash from a large commercial jet would have caused significantly more effects to the highway, etc., where the results seem to have only been clipped light-poles. Cars on the highway would probably have been tossed around and flipped over - I see (and have seen) no evidence of that.

Regarding the supposed certification flight, perhaps the most telling element is that it's stated he took it with a flight instructor. No pilot would use that terminology. Instructors do just that - they instruct. A CFI (or CFII) is unable to certify anything, other than a logbook endorsement that you are *able* to take an examination. (I'll hand-wave my way past a CFI's BFR sign-off as being a form of certification.) In order to get a particular certification, a checkride with a designated examiner would need to be accomplished, and a pilot would at least use the term "examiner", not "instructor". It's a small difference, but a telling one, IMHO.

[KJF]

49. One by one

Your point regarding the supposed certification flight is not quite clear to me. You are claiming:
(1) Either it is wrongly worded (possibly it was written by a non-pilot on the 9/11 Commission staff who doesn't know the difference between an examiner and an instructor), in which case it could be a checkride for either his private pilot's licence (is that for one-engine planes?) or commercial pilot's licence (is that for two-engine planes?).
(2) It's correctly worded, in which case it's only some sort of pre-examination flight, not the actual flight he needs to do to keep his license, and is therefore of lesser value.
Is that right, or not?

I don't know who set the autopilot for Ronald Reagan National and flew the plane for the last 8 minutes. I guess it was one of the other hijackers, but I don't know which one. I would point out that:
(1) Moussaoui received flight training in Asia before coming to the US;
(2) Atta and Alshehhi are supposed to have recieved flight training in Asia before coming to the States;
Link: http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/timeline.jsp?timeline=complete_911_timeline&the_alleged_9/11_hijackers=mohamedAtta
The relevant entry is for 1998-2000.
(3) Other Al Qaeda operatives connected to the 9/11 plot, for example Adnan El Shukrijumah, are supposed to have recieved flight training in Asia;
(4) Al Qaeda has lots of pilots that could have done it, for example they had a cell at Emry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Arizona;
(5) Osama controlled a fleet of Boeing aircraft (727s), they could have practised on them.
(6) A Pakistani fighter pilot was involved in the plot, although he seems to be alive.
It's quite possible that one of the other hijackers learned to fly somewhere in Asia and that the FBI didn't find out about it.

Few pictures: Yes, there are few pictures of bodies at the trial site. My understanding is that they were just examples to shock the jury - they certainly shocked me.

Lawn: the official account says that the plane didn't hit the lawn, but that it hit a generator and the retaining wall of a utility value in front of the Pentagon, both of which clearly suffered mechanical damage.

The "parking lot" is actually a helipad. Here it is with debris:


Cars on the highway: it appears the jet passed several feet above the cars, so why should the engines knock them about more? I haven't yet seen any quantification of the damage to cars caused by the engines.

If it was a smaller plane, how come it made a 90 foot hole in the building?

Note: I am not claiming that the debris and damage to the Pentagon prove it was American 77 (because no serial numbers are visible, for example). I am saying that, based on the debris and damage, the most likely conclusion is that the Pentagon was hit by a medium-sized jetliner. Different arguments need to be employed to get to American 77.

[bmcatt]

50. Thank you for engaging in discussion

Certification - There are different forms of license. The standard one that a pilot receives is PP-ASEL (Private Pilot - Airplane, Single-Engine, Land). That's the starting base upon which all other certifications are added. So, for example, once you get a multi-engine endorsement, you're the possessor of a PP-AMEL (Private Pilot - Airplane, Multi-Engine, Land).

A commercial license is not an endorsement for the type of plane you can fly but, rather, an indication that you can fly better. A commercial pilot is expected to be able to perform more complex maneuvers in the air, etc., because they will be, theoretically, flying for money and, therefore, entrusted with other people's lives. (Yes, you can say that a private pilot who takes passengers in his/her plane is also being entrusted with people's lives, but presumably they're that person's friends or family and they know what they're getting into.)

My supposition (and this is just that - speculation) is that your #2 is probably the correct one, in which case a pre-checkride sign-off is of limited value. A statement from the flight examiner who issued his license or endorsement would be of *much* more value.

I'm skipping over most of the other points as I don't have the time (at the moment - family calls) to try and follow-up on them. There is, however, an interesting credibility gap in that, supposedly, the transponder was turned off at some point in the flight, yet, later, it was turned back on in order for ATC to "see" the descending turn that was done in order to attack the pentagon. Again, putting myself into a "terrorist" mind-frame - once I turn off the transponder, I'm certainly not going to bother turning it back on.

Cars not being affected by wing backwash or wake turbulence. Do a quick search for "wake turbulence" or "wingtip vortices". The short form is that the tips of a wing generate a vortex of air. The larger the plane, the larger the size and strength of the vortex. There are special procedures that must be followed for pilots taking off or landing behind a "heavy" airplane in order to ensure that they miss the vortices of the plane that preceded them.

The vortex from a commuter jet is sufficient, *on the runway* to flip over a light piston-single (figure approximately 1500 pounds). The vortices from a large airliner would be enough to *literally* flip over another airliner. There have been documented cases of airline pilots needing to fight for control of their airplane after encountering the vortex from another plane.

A last note, the wingtip vortices from airplanes "settle" as they dissapate. A couple hundred feet is insufficient altitude for them to weaken to any significant extent. Flying that close to the ground, a B757 would have left a, pardon the expression, wake of destruction behind it.

As for the hole being "too big" for a different aircraft - there's a lot of energy in a fast-moving plane, just like there's a lot of energy in a fast-moving car.

Oh, one other thing that just occurs to me - why is it that there are only pictures of debris from one engine? This was, ostensibly, a twin-engined jet. The rotor, and other casing material, of both engines should have been found yet the only pictures that I've ever seen just show a single one of each.

[Hoping4Change]

51. bmcatt thank you so much for posting.

All your comments have been extremely informative. And I couldn't agree more with your initial remarks.:yourock:

[KJF]

52. It was a pleasure

Thanks for your comments on the pilots, they will come in useful.

Regarding the damage that should be caused to cars on the highway, I think we can agree that:
(1) It depends how high the plane was;
(2) We don't know exactly how high the plane was.

The transponder wasn't turned back on - that was United 93, which crashed in Pennsylvania. AFAIK they got the information from the flight data recorder. My understanding is that the cockpit voice recorder yielded no information (allegedly).

About the engine - I don't know of how many engines there are pictures of, the stuff I've seen could be from one engine (which was being moved about), but I having seen an analysis showing this. In any case, what would be the story here - the Pentagon was hit by a truck bomb, but the budget was so tight they could only afford to plant one engine? It seems so unlikely that I'm not willing to spend time pursuing it, but if yomebody else wants to, please be my guest.

[bmcatt]

53. Ultimately, we don't know

I think, on the whole, that's my "bottom-line". There is ample evidence from this event, but all of it has been "confiscated" (and, yes, I use that with the understanding that it's a loaded term) by the FBI or the DoD.

Surveillance video from any of the additional sources (hotel, DoT, gas station) would clear up the question of what really impacted the pentagon. (Side note - just how *did* the FBI know exactly where to go, and so quickly, in order to confiscate all the video that could have seen what impacted the pentagon? Do "they" know where the video cameras covering all approaches to the pentagon are? And, even if so, how did they know that the approach was from that direction?)

Serial numbered airplane parts would verify / confirm / positively identify the specific aircraft debris that was found at the site. (Another side note - the landing gear strut is a very prominent piece of debris that was recovered. Why was it *rusty*? There's no way in hell that an A&P (Airframe and Powerplant) mechanic would have let that stay in a plane that was flying.)

These are simple things to do. No national security issues would by compromised by the release of this information.

Unless, of course (:tinfoilhat:), the data would not support the official theory...

[Bolo Boffin]

54. There's no reason not to know.

There's more than enough evidence to know what physically happened at the Pentagon on 9/11.

You can take the DoT video off the list - it doesn't exist. Those cameras are a live feed to observe traffic patterns - they aren't recorded.

The people boarded the plane, the plane took off, it is trackable on radar records from beginning to end, it crashed into the Pentagon, the bodies were there recovered.

It really is that simple.

[bmcatt]

55. With no disrespect intended...

you're being willfully blind to things that many people have said are questionable.

Take a look at http://www.pentagonresearch.com/ or http://www.physics911.net/. There *are* valid, reasonable, scientifically-based questions about the official theory.

I understand that you're a staunch defender of the official theory. Rather than simply saying, repeatedly, "it's right and you're wrong", perhaps you'd, instead, take the time to examine those things which are seen as being inconsistent. Instead of starting at the beginning ("The plane took off ..."), start at the end. Examine the questions raised by people who have the training or have spent the time to do the research. Consider why you'd think they don't have valid questions and concerns or attempt to address them.

Merely repeating the same thing is, truly, not a defense of the official theory.

[Bolo Boffin]

56. None taken.

I actually am not being blind to things people have said are questionable. I have sympathy for them. When that charlatan Thierry Meyssan first put out his devious little website, I was stunned at the implication and by what my eyes were telling me.

But after careful examination of the facts, I realized how one-sided and cherry-picked that presentation was. Pictures began to flood the Internet, and one by one, examined together, the facts emerged - of course, Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon.

Over the past three and a half years, I've examined a lot of things that people have said were questionable. They are always things being taken out of context, or worse, being spun by somebody with a tape or a book to sell. Still, the evidence continues to mount up. The radar evidence should really be the clincher for anyone not truly blind to where the evidence leads them. From beginning to end, Flight 77 is trackable on the existing radar records. It took off from Dulles, turned around, and crashed in Washington. This rock-solid, incontrovertible evidence is supported by the hundred of eyewitnesses to the actual crash, the thousands of eyewitnesses to the aftermath of the crash, and the grieving families who received the bodies of their loved ones after their recovery from the site.

Denying or questioning Flight 77's part in 9/11 undermines any hope of proving any event in history happened. Question this event, and you destroy any chance of proving your own personal take on the issue. That's how overwhelming the evidence is in this case.

Sight requires focus.

[Grateful for Hope]

45. Just wanted to thank you for this thread

It is wise to question a story that has many holes, no matter who is telling the story, and there is no law that says that one has to have an alternative theory as a response to the questioning.

I think it is interesting to see how many attempts have been made to high-jack this thread, but, your responses, in my opinion, have been much more than adequate.

Thank you.

[Old and In the Way]

48. I'm agnostic on whether 77 hit the Pentagon.

I think if I or a hundred people had been on the other side of the Pentagon and came running around to see the accident, few would assume a 757 crashed there. The exterior, visual evidence just doesn't support it. I find eyewitness testimony to be suspect, simply because I don't know what a person could comprehend if the object is "seen" for 1-2 seconds. I've seen the incerated remains of people in the Pentagon...but how do we know that they weren't Pentagon employees? DNA and human remains could be and necessarilly would be falsified if the Pentagon crash was a hoax.

That said, I think no 77 at the Pentagon is problematic because there was no guarantee that such a hoax could be pulled off. There would be too great a risk that someone could get evidence to the contrary immediately out to the public. How would they have explained a videotape of an A-3 or cruise missle caught on film? Or someone taking a pic of a part that would have contradicted a 757? While the physical evidence is weak supporting a 757, physical evidence contradicting a 757 is non-existant.

I agree with Kevin that Hanjour probably wasn't the pilot....but I don't rule out RC. I don't believe our $400BB/year military can't scramble jets in 90 minutes to cover DC, but I am sure thy possess the capability of flying a commercial aircraft remotely.