Adam Larson / Caustic Logic
They Let It Happen
[undated]
Note [added 2/8/09] While I am leaving this post up as-is and FWIW, the core point of it - the apparent "muzzling" represented by the 2001 order - seems to have been debunked. See Mike W's 9/11 Myths page. What I'd previously read as an exception to new restrictions was actually THE change to a MORE restrictive previous order. Good thing I had already called it a red herring, rather than hanging any weight on the issue. So for the record - the June 1 change can have had no direct role in impeding the 9/11 defense, and so it's implementation is not direct evidence of any LIHOP thinking. Apologies also for the late update.
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As indicated by the swift fighter response in the Payne Stewart case, the Chain of Command was not ordinarily needed to get escort fighters off the ground – this could all be done automatically and at intermediate levels. But more tightly controlled actions, like issuing an order for these fighters to shoot down a civilian aircraft, constituted an emergency and had to originate with the President and pass through every link in the chain of command to the responsible fighter pilots.
But these guidelines, in effect since 1986, oddly changed just three months before September 11, extending the need for approval yet further down. A Defense Department directive of June 1 2001 stated: “In the event of a hijacking, the NMCC will be notified by the most expeditious means by the FAA. The NMCC will, with the exception of immediate responses […] forward requests for DoD assistance to the Secretary of Defense for approval.” [1] Aviation Week backed this up: “On Sept. 11, the normal scramble-approval procedure was for an FAA official to contact the National Military Command Center (NMCC) and request Pentagon air support. Someone in the NMCC would call NORAD's command center and ask about availability of aircraft, then seek approval from the Defense Secretary--Donald H. Rumsfeld--to launch fighters.” [2] In other words, the automatic scrambling of fighters was no more – the Secretary of Defense now had to personally sign off before fighters could be sent up, and specifically in response to a hijacking. Michael Ruppert wrote that this change in procedures “demonstrated a willful intent to centralize decision-making away from field commanders prior to the attacks.” [3]
But the 9/11 Commission’s final report states in its blameless way: “As they existed on 9/11, the protocols for the FAA to obtain military assistance from NORAD required multiple levels of notification and approval at the highest levels of government […] The NMCC would then seek approval from the Office of the Secretary of Defense to provide military assistance […] The protocols did not contemplate an intercept […] On the morning of 9/11, the existing protocol was unsuited in every respect for what was about to happen.” [4] They do not mention how recently and intentionally it had become so unsuited.
Of course “immediate response” actions were allowed without Rumsfeld’s immediate permission, and it appears some thought the attacks fit this exception – neither the Otis nor the Langley fighters, the first wave of defense (scrampled 8:52 and 9:30), were scrambled with Rumsfeld’s permission. He claims he never even arrived at the NMCC until 10:30 am. According to the Commission, Major General Larry Arnold, commander of the Continental U.S. NORAD Region said to one of his subordinates “go ahead and scramble [the Otis fighters], and we’ll get authorities later.” So the fighters were sent up, if slowly and with great confusion, and Rumsfeld’s procedure change becomes a red herring, if a telling one.
Sources: [5] Ruppert, Micheal C. Crossing the Rubicon. Gabriola Island, BC, Canada. New Society Publishers. 2004. Page 316
[6] Scott, William B. “Exercise Jump-Starts Response to Attacks.” Aviation week’s Aviation Now. June 3, 2002. Accessed April 27, 2003 at: http://www.aviationnow.com/content/publication/awst/20020603/avi_stor.htm. (need subscription to read it now).
[7] See [5]. Ruppert. Page 337.
[8] National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States. 9/11 Commission Final Report. Page 17
Showing posts with label FAA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label FAA. Show all posts
Monday, February 9, 2009
Friday, October 12, 2007
THE CHAIN OF COMMAND ON 9/11 {masterlist}
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Tightly controlled actions, like issuing an order for fighter jets to shoot down a civilian aircraft, constituted an emergency and had to originate with the President and pass through every link in the chain to the responsible fighter pilots. As the 9/11 Commission explained, “prior to 9/11, it was understood that an order to shoot down a commercial aircraft would have to be issued by the National Command Authority (a phrase used to describe the president and secretary of defense).” [2]
This Chain of Command was not ordinarily needed to get escort fighters off the ground – this could all be done automatically and at intermediate levels, as indicated by the swift fighter response in the Payne Stewart case. These guidelines, in effect since 1986, oddly changed just three months before September 11, with Rumsfeld asserting the sole authority to allow fighters to take off at all. This is covered in more in detail in the post "Muzzling the Defense?"
The 9/11 Commission’s final report later stated in its blameless way: “As they existed on 9/11, the protocols for the FAA to obtain military assistance from NORAD required multiple levels of notification and approval at the highest levels of government […] The protocols did not contemplate an intercept […] On the morning of 9/11, the existing protocol was unsuited in every respect for what was about to happen.” It became even more unsuited in the days and hours and even minutes before the attacks, and on the morning of September 11th, strangely, the National Command Authority’s chain of command seemed to sprout new links, swap out old ones, and seemed to not be anchored down to anything. The following posts deal with the US leadership response and the flailings and failings of a Chain of broken links.
- President Bush: “There’s one Terrible Pilot:” The accidental President Stumbles into 9/11.
- Vice President Cheney, the Roadmap Swap, and the “Effort.” Clarifying the Record. Did Bush hand Cheney the joystick to control the attacks?
- Cheney and the Shoot-Down Order: Who issued the order and when? 9:45, 10:14, 10:18?
- Link #2 AWOL: Psychic Rumsfeld’s Wanderings
- Myers the stand-in: How he responds "when things are happening."
- First Day Jitters: Sliney, Leidig, Myers: Three Defense Links Swapped out at the last minute at Joint Chiefs of Staff (ACTING Chairman richard Myers, as of ?:00 am, 9/11) Benedict Sliney at FAA Operations Center (first day as of ?:00 am, 9/11) and Leidig at the NMCC (see chart below - standing in as of 8:30 am, 9/11, as per a request from the previous day). This is spooky.
In the end, what we got was a startlingly "unprepared" and disjointed command authority that ran something like this:
Monday, May 7, 2007
BUSH, CHENEY, AND SECRET SERVICE COMMUNICATIONS
Adam Larson / Caustic Logic
They Let It Happen
last updated 5/7/07
A year after the attack, CNN retold Vice President Cheney’s version of what happened. Cheney was in his proper office in the West Wing when he heard that a plane had crashed into the WTC. Unlike everyone else whose reactions I’ve looked at - with the notable exception of counter-terrorism “Czar” Richard Clarke - Cheney had an inkling this may not be a simple accident. “He watched TV and hoped that his instincts were wrong.,” CNN reported. He explained “it was a clear day, there were no weather problems, and then we saw the second airplane hit in real time. At that moment, you knew this was a deliberate act. This was a terrorist act.” [1]
Shortly after this, his Secret Service agent “all of a sudden materialized right beside me and said, 'Sir, we have to leave now.' He grabbed me and propelled me out of my office, down the hall, and into the underground shelter in the White House." [2] So while, as many noted, the Secret Service was allowing the President to linger in the open at the schoolhouse, they were “propelling” Cheney to safety in an underground bunker. While both men were on the East Coast, they seemed to be operating in two different time zones.
This underground shelter was the Presidential Emergency Operations Center (PEOC). From the previously unused but well-equipped PEOC, as CNN explains, the Vice-President “directed the U.S. government's response” to the attack. The actions Cheney took “included moving key members of Congress to a secure location and having the Secret Service bring his wife, Lynn, to the bunker.” [3] Somehow, these radical moves failed to halt the attack.
Cheney’s account actually offers little in the line of useful action, focusing more on talk of raw emotion – agony and impotence and rage – just like the rest of us – after he saw the second plane hit on the TV - just like the rest of us. But Bush talked to Cheney on a regular cell phone instead of a secure phone, which wasn’t working right. Cheney’s information seemed partial and confused. The 9/11 Commission, based on Cheney’s private testimony, decided Cheney suffered major communications problems that hampered a response. [4] CNN described the PEOC’s performance on 9-11 “a day of crisis with some hitches.” For example, “Cheney wanted to track TV reports of the devastation and listen in on communications with the Pentagon.” But, as aide Mary Matalin recalled, “you can have sound on one or the other and he found that technically imperfect.” [5]
But we know he was in the presence of Secret Service agents during the entire crisis, and the evidence indicates their communication abilities were widespread and efficiently used. Cheney seemed to slip on this once, telling Meet the Press, on September 16 “the Secret Service has an arrangement with the FAA. They had open lines after the World Trade Center was ...” [6] He cut himself off there and shifted gears. What this means is that after the first plane hit, and we would presume soon after, the Secret Service knew, and were listening in on, at least, the FAA’s communications by about 8:50. The second plane was already confirmed hijacked by FAA and NORAD and headed to New York by this time.
Richard Clarke also testified in his book Against All Enemies that at about 9:40, Brian Stafford, Director of the Secret Service “slipped me a note. “Radar shows aircraft headed this way.’” Clarke explained “Secret Service had a system that allowed them to see what FAA’s radar was seeing.” [7] The 9/11 Commission also has backed up direct Secret-Service-FAA communications in their final report. [8] The Secret Service knew all these things and were just a “hey, you!” away from Cheney’s ear and Bush’s.
The communication abilities of the Secret Service also, apparently, extended into the military chain of command, their contacts to the very front lines of the battle. Recall that it was the Secret Service who called the Langley fighter pilots around 9:55 and told them to “protect” the White House (though with no mention of precisely how). [9] They also called Andrews Air Force Base, near the Pentagon, shortly after 9:03 to request fighter jets, which didn’t get any off the ground until 10:42. [10]
So the Secret Service - and thus both Bush and Cheney - were as in the communications loop as they wanted to be. There was two-way access to all information from FAA, regional Air Force bases, and even the actual fighter pilots, and probably also NORAD, NMCC, etc. So why, with access to a bird’s eye view of the situation and universal communications at Cheney’s and the President’s fingertips, wasn’t an adequate defense marshaled? The story that the phones didn’t work well that day, that Cheney couldn’t talk to the Pentagon and get his intelligence briefings from CNN at the same time, etc. does not pan out well. Something else, probably something sinister, had to be behind this curiously long roster of excuses.
[1], [2], [3], [5] “Cheney recalls taking charge from bunker.” CNN. September 12, 2002. Accessed at: http://archives.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/09/11/ar911.king.cheney/
[4] 9/11 Commission Final Report. Page 40.
[6] Thompson and the CCR. "The Terror Timeline." Page 375.
[7] Ruppert, "Crossing the Rubicon." Page 427.
[8] 9/11 Commission Final Report. Page 41.
[9] Thompson and the CCR. "The Terror Timeline." Page 436.
[10] Thompson and the CCR. Page 458.
They Let It Happen
last updated 5/7/07
A year after the attack, CNN retold Vice President Cheney’s version of what happened. Cheney was in his proper office in the West Wing when he heard that a plane had crashed into the WTC. Unlike everyone else whose reactions I’ve looked at - with the notable exception of counter-terrorism “Czar” Richard Clarke - Cheney had an inkling this may not be a simple accident. “He watched TV and hoped that his instincts were wrong.,” CNN reported. He explained “it was a clear day, there were no weather problems, and then we saw the second airplane hit in real time. At that moment, you knew this was a deliberate act. This was a terrorist act.” [1]
Shortly after this, his Secret Service agent “all of a sudden materialized right beside me and said, 'Sir, we have to leave now.' He grabbed me and propelled me out of my office, down the hall, and into the underground shelter in the White House." [2] So while, as many noted, the Secret Service was allowing the President to linger in the open at the schoolhouse, they were “propelling” Cheney to safety in an underground bunker. While both men were on the East Coast, they seemed to be operating in two different time zones.
This underground shelter was the Presidential Emergency Operations Center (PEOC). From the previously unused but well-equipped PEOC, as CNN explains, the Vice-President “directed the U.S. government's response” to the attack. The actions Cheney took “included moving key members of Congress to a secure location and having the Secret Service bring his wife, Lynn, to the bunker.” [3] Somehow, these radical moves failed to halt the attack.
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But we know he was in the presence of Secret Service agents during the entire crisis, and the evidence indicates their communication abilities were widespread and efficiently used. Cheney seemed to slip on this once, telling Meet the Press, on September 16 “the Secret Service has an arrangement with the FAA. They had open lines after the World Trade Center was ...” [6] He cut himself off there and shifted gears. What this means is that after the first plane hit, and we would presume soon after, the Secret Service knew, and were listening in on, at least, the FAA’s communications by about 8:50. The second plane was already confirmed hijacked by FAA and NORAD and headed to New York by this time.
Richard Clarke also testified in his book Against All Enemies that at about 9:40, Brian Stafford, Director of the Secret Service “slipped me a note. “Radar shows aircraft headed this way.’” Clarke explained “Secret Service had a system that allowed them to see what FAA’s radar was seeing.” [7] The 9/11 Commission also has backed up direct Secret-Service-FAA communications in their final report. [8] The Secret Service knew all these things and were just a “hey, you!” away from Cheney’s ear and Bush’s.
The communication abilities of the Secret Service also, apparently, extended into the military chain of command, their contacts to the very front lines of the battle. Recall that it was the Secret Service who called the Langley fighter pilots around 9:55 and told them to “protect” the White House (though with no mention of precisely how). [9] They also called Andrews Air Force Base, near the Pentagon, shortly after 9:03 to request fighter jets, which didn’t get any off the ground until 10:42. [10]
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[1], [2], [3], [5] “Cheney recalls taking charge from bunker.” CNN. September 12, 2002. Accessed at: http://archives.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/09/11/ar911.king.cheney/
[4] 9/11 Commission Final Report. Page 40.
[6] Thompson and the CCR. "The Terror Timeline." Page 375.
[7] Ruppert, "Crossing the Rubicon." Page 427.
[8] 9/11 Commission Final Report. Page 41.
[9] Thompson and the CCR. "The Terror Timeline." Page 436.
[10] Thompson and the CCR. Page 458.
Wednesday, May 2, 2007
FAA II: THE PHANTOM FLIGHT 11
NORAD’s third “incorrect” story to the 9/11 Commission was their testimony that the Langley fighters, scrambled eight minutes before the Pentagon was hit, “were scrambled to respond to the notifications about American 77, United 93, or both.” This certainly makes sense: there were planes targetting Washington. The jets that should have been sent for them were sent. But they were not sent up for that reason. As late as 9:35 no one in the defense system was aware of any real designs on Washington – or so says the Commission. Instead, they decided, “the notice NEADs received at 9:24 was that American 11 had not hit the World Trade Center and was heading for Washington, DC.” [1]
It was to intercept this ghost target that the Langley fighters took off at 9:30. The commission cited a taped NEADS call, conversations within the FAA system, contemporaneous logs from NEADS, Continental Region headquarters, and NORAD, among others. “Yet this response to a phantom aircraft was was not recounted in a single public timeline or statement issued by the FAA or Department of Defense. The inaccurate accounts created the impression that the Langley scramble was a logical response to an actual hijacked aircraft.” [2]
Here is the transcript of this call, placed from FAA’s Boston Center to NEADS at 9:21:
“FAA: Military, Boston Center. I just had a report that American 11 is still
in the air, and it’s on its way towards—heading towards Washington.
NEADS: Okay. American 11 is still in the air?
FAA: Yes.
NEADS: On its way towards Washington?
FAA: That was another—it was evidently another aircraft that hit the tower. That’s the latest report we have.
NEADS: Okay.
FAA: I’m going to try to confirm an ID for you, but I would assume he’s somewhere over, uh, either New Jersey or somewhere further south.
NEADS: Okay. So American 11 isn’t the hijack at all then, right?
FAA: No, he is a hijack.
NEADS: He—American 11 is a hijack?
FAA: Yes.
NEADS: And he’s heading into Washington?
FAA: Yes. This could be a third aircraft.” [3]
The NEADS technician who took this call from the FAA immediately passed the word to the mission crew commander, who reported to the NEADS battle commander: ”Okay, uh, American Airlines is still airborne. Eleven, the first guy, he’s heading towards Washington. Okay? I think we need to scramble Langley right now. And I’m gonna take the fighters from Otis, try to chase this guy down if I can find him.” The Otis pilots were not dragged from their just-established patrol of Manhattan, but they also were nearly sent after this non-existent target.
The Commission ultimately found themselves “unable to identify the source of this mistaken FAA information.” So let’s trace it back, based on the information that they had. In their report they note that the call was placed from FAA’s Boston Center to NEADS at 9:21, and in turn ”Boston Center had heard from FAA headquarters in Washington that American 11 was still airorne .” [4] So at some point prior to 9:20, someone at the national HQ in DC called this in to Boston, responsible for tracking these flights and already in contact with NEADS.
There are numerous possible explanations for this false report, and it wouldn’t have been the only one of the day. FAA Administrator Jane Garvey told Richard Clarke, after the first two planes had crashed, “we have reports of eleven aircraft off course or out of communications, maybe hijacked.” [2] Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta said “we probably had maybe about ten unaccounted for planes.” [3] Florida State Congressman Adam Putnam, who was aboard Air Force One with President Bush, who told him at 11:30 that there were six aircraft still unaccounted for. [4] In his bunker beneath the White House, Cheney had at least two possible run-ins with ghost planes, which he aggressively ordered shot down.
One explanation for these phantom flights centers on the presence in the radar system of false returns inserted for the morning’s war game Northern Vigilance. It’s unclear where these blips were showing up and on whose screens, but they were allegedly purged at about 9;00 am, as it became clear the US was under air attack and a clean slate was needed. Not that it helped much.
There are other possibilities as well. I’m guessing if this particular report of the Ghost Flight 11 is ever is explained, it’ll be something innocuous sounding, like this:
A controller at Boston center got a printed report – not a radar return – that American 77 was unaccounted for, missing from radar, possibly crashed or possibly headed to DC. But in the chaos after having seen American 11 disappear, he turns the 7s into 1s (optically easy to do, especially if the 1s are printed with pronounced serifs). He sees American 11 is missing from radar and possibly headed to DC and reports it as such. No radar track, so he can only guess – it was in New York, headed to DC… looking to the south of there...
But it could well be something more concrete than that, though we have to venture into weird land for the next post to see this possibility. Next: Mistaken FAA Info: Some or The?
Back to FAA Masterlist
It was to intercept this ghost target that the Langley fighters took off at 9:30. The commission cited a taped NEADS call, conversations within the FAA system, contemporaneous logs from NEADS, Continental Region headquarters, and NORAD, among others. “Yet this response to a phantom aircraft was was not recounted in a single public timeline or statement issued by the FAA or Department of Defense. The inaccurate accounts created the impression that the Langley scramble was a logical response to an actual hijacked aircraft.” [2]
Here is the transcript of this call, placed from FAA’s Boston Center to NEADS at 9:21:
“FAA: Military, Boston Center. I just had a report that American 11 is still
in the air, and it’s on its way towards—heading towards Washington.
NEADS: Okay. American 11 is still in the air?
FAA: Yes.
NEADS: On its way towards Washington?
FAA: That was another—it was evidently another aircraft that hit the tower. That’s the latest report we have.
NEADS: Okay.
FAA: I’m going to try to confirm an ID for you, but I would assume he’s somewhere over, uh, either New Jersey or somewhere further south.
NEADS: Okay. So American 11 isn’t the hijack at all then, right?
FAA: No, he is a hijack.
NEADS: He—American 11 is a hijack?
FAA: Yes.
NEADS: And he’s heading into Washington?
FAA: Yes. This could be a third aircraft.” [3]
The NEADS technician who took this call from the FAA immediately passed the word to the mission crew commander, who reported to the NEADS battle commander: ”Okay, uh, American Airlines is still airborne. Eleven, the first guy, he’s heading towards Washington. Okay? I think we need to scramble Langley right now. And I’m gonna take the fighters from Otis, try to chase this guy down if I can find him.” The Otis pilots were not dragged from their just-established patrol of Manhattan, but they also were nearly sent after this non-existent target.
The Commission ultimately found themselves “unable to identify the source of this mistaken FAA information.” So let’s trace it back, based on the information that they had. In their report they note that the call was placed from FAA’s Boston Center to NEADS at 9:21, and in turn ”Boston Center had heard from FAA headquarters in Washington that American 11 was still airorne .” [4] So at some point prior to 9:20, someone at the national HQ in DC called this in to Boston, responsible for tracking these flights and already in contact with NEADS.
There are numerous possible explanations for this false report, and it wouldn’t have been the only one of the day. FAA Administrator Jane Garvey told Richard Clarke, after the first two planes had crashed, “we have reports of eleven aircraft off course or out of communications, maybe hijacked.” [2] Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta said “we probably had maybe about ten unaccounted for planes.” [3] Florida State Congressman Adam Putnam, who was aboard Air Force One with President Bush, who told him at 11:30 that there were six aircraft still unaccounted for. [4] In his bunker beneath the White House, Cheney had at least two possible run-ins with ghost planes, which he aggressively ordered shot down.
One explanation for these phantom flights centers on the presence in the radar system of false returns inserted for the morning’s war game Northern Vigilance. It’s unclear where these blips were showing up and on whose screens, but they were allegedly purged at about 9;00 am, as it became clear the US was under air attack and a clean slate was needed. Not that it helped much.
There are other possibilities as well. I’m guessing if this particular report of the Ghost Flight 11 is ever is explained, it’ll be something innocuous sounding, like this:
A controller at Boston center got a printed report – not a radar return – that American 77 was unaccounted for, missing from radar, possibly crashed or possibly headed to DC. But in the chaos after having seen American 11 disappear, he turns the 7s into 1s (optically easy to do, especially if the 1s are printed with pronounced serifs). He sees American 11 is missing from radar and possibly headed to DC and reports it as such. No radar track, so he can only guess – it was in New York, headed to DC… looking to the south of there...
But it could well be something more concrete than that, though we have to venture into weird land for the next post to see this possibility. Next: Mistaken FAA Info: Some or The?
Back to FAA Masterlist
Saturday, April 7, 2007
FAA: FEDERAL ATTACK ASSISTANCE? {masterlist}
This post is to organize those sub-posts, both up and coming, detailing aspects of the role of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in the 9/11 attack carried out in their system.
(last Updated 3/22/07)
Active ATS threads on the FAA/phantom Flight 11/etc., from which I started this research:
"Evidence of a Cover-Up"
"Coverup of FAA role in gutting Pentagon Defense"
- FAA 1:The cover-up on page 34: the 9/11 Commission draws attention quietly to "incorrect" NORAD testimony on their links with FAA and the defense.
- FAA 2: The Phantom Flight 11: A quick look at the "mistaken FAA information" that AA 11 was headed to the capital, eclipsing all real threats.
- FAA 3: Mistaken FAA Info; Some or The? A fascinating look at the plane given a second chance, a half-hour after it ended, to distract defenders further south. I may have found the "smoking gun" memo (with a smoking gun in it) that put flight 11 back on the map.
- FAA 4: Authority: Unlimited but unsure: Ben Sliney's odd initiation
See also: First Day Jitters): FAA operations manager and NMCC director, besides JCS chairman, all first-day rookies on 9/11. Coincidence?
- FAA 5: Deserted Towers - coming eventually ...
- FAA 6: The Gutted defense of Washington (coming soon): The effect of this phantom flight and its part in the general failure of defense over the capital - see Failed Air Defense {masterlist} for existing analysis
- FAA 7: Human Error? (coming soon - clue: it's an inadequate excuse)
Additional, circumstantial evidence of odd FAA policy proposals in the months before 9/11 - shutting off radar and disarming pilots - two posts coming soon...
(last Updated 3/22/07)
Active ATS threads on the FAA/phantom Flight 11/etc., from which I started this research:
"Evidence of a Cover-Up"
"Coverup of FAA role in gutting Pentagon Defense"
- FAA 1:The cover-up on page 34: the 9/11 Commission draws attention quietly to "incorrect" NORAD testimony on their links with FAA and the defense.
- FAA 2: The Phantom Flight 11: A quick look at the "mistaken FAA information" that AA 11 was headed to the capital, eclipsing all real threats.
- FAA 3: Mistaken FAA Info; Some or The? A fascinating look at the plane given a second chance, a half-hour after it ended, to distract defenders further south. I may have found the "smoking gun" memo (with a smoking gun in it) that put flight 11 back on the map.
- FAA 4: Authority: Unlimited but unsure: Ben Sliney's odd initiation
See also: First Day Jitters): FAA operations manager and NMCC director, besides JCS chairman, all first-day rookies on 9/11. Coincidence?
- FAA 5: Deserted Towers - coming eventually ...
- FAA 6: The Gutted defense of Washington (coming soon): The effect of this phantom flight and its part in the general failure of defense over the capital - see Failed Air Defense {masterlist} for existing analysis
- FAA 7: Human Error? (coming soon - clue: it's an inadequate excuse)
Additional, circumstantial evidence of odd FAA policy proposals in the months before 9/11 - shutting off radar and disarming pilots - two posts coming soon...
Sunday, April 1, 2007
DISARMING PILOTS
Safety or Disempowerment of the Cockpit?
Adam Larson
Caustic Logic/Guerillas Without Guns
April 9 2007
When looking at the failure of the world’s mightiest Air Force to shoot down four hijacked airliners during an attack that lasted nearly two hours, it is important to remember that the far better option would have been to prevent the hijackings in the first place. The situation didn’t have to get to the point where orders to shoot down a planeload of innocents was necessary. Of course, stopping the men at the airport or before, preventing them even boarding, was the best sort of outcome with no possibility of a 9/11 size disaster. But even if these lines of defense failed (as was, of course, the case), there was still a possible last line of defense short of an air-to-air missile - the passengers, crews, and pilots aboard the planes themselves. If the numerous warnings of suicide hijackings the government had received in the months before the attack had been passed on to the airlines or the public, they may have known what was at stake and fought back, as the passengers on Flight 93 are believed to have successfully done once they learned the stakes.
It was soon noted that against terrorists armed only with box cutters, and alerted to the possibility of suicide hijackings, an armed pilot who knew the stakes may have been able, with the speed of a single bullet, to prevent his plane being turned into a missile. After September 11th, many voices went up asking that pilots be armed to meet future threats. Captain Stephen Luckey, Chairman of the National Flight Security Committee of the Airline Pilots Association, addressed this issue in testimony before a House Subcommittee on May 2nd, 2002. Luckey maintained that this drive to arm pilots was actually a question of re-arming them, as airline pilots indeed had been, quietly, allowed to carry guns onboard until… right before 9/11.
Luckey put it in context; “in 1961, the FAA amended federal aviation regulations, with Congressional support, to permit pilots to be armed with the consent of their airline – the agency removed that regulatory language in July 2001.” [1] That was quick – now for an instant replay: “the agency removed that regulatory language in July, 2001.” In 1961, in response to the Cuban missile Crisis and a spate of Cuban hijackings, the FAA enacted a rule that allowed pilots to carry guns on commercial flights with the purpose of stopping hijackings early. For forty years the rule stood, but in July 2001, the FAA rescinded it.
According to the conservative WorldNet Daily, the gun ban was set to take effect on an unspecified date in September. [2] In another article, WorldNet also reported that this decision was made despite a specific warning to FAA and other government officials from the ubiquitous Richard Clarke. On July 5, the nation’s top counter-terrorism agent reportedly told FAA representatives and others at a meeting in the White House that “something really spectacular is going to happen here and it’s going to happen soon.” [3]
An FAA spokesman downplayed the impact of the gun ban, saying “in the past, FAA regulations permitted pilots to carry firearms in the cockpit” but that “that was never put into effect because no requests… were ever made.” [4] Apparently, in forty years, there was not one request from an airline pilot to be armed. There must have been no successful drives to increase awareness of the policy. Were the pilots ever even aware of the policy? This rule stood, allegedly unused, for decades; if it was never used, why bother rescinding it after it had sat for so long? What was suddenly so different that mandated the change? The only thing I see different is the hijacking threat – if ever there was a time pilots would start asking for permission to carry guns, the summer and fall of 2001 would have, should have, been it.
It’s not likely that any of the pilots involved had been disarmed by this decision, and so it likely had no effect on the attack. But once again, the timing of this decision is strange, perhaps indicating a better safe than sorry mentality, a fear that some pilots might try to use that old rule in light of the threat and thus spoil a perfectly useful attack. The reasoning has been explained as eliminating redundancy, but on the question of timing, FAA officials referred WorldNet to the Department of Transportation, who refused to return calls. [5] If no pilots had ever asked for guns, or, as I argue in other posts, there were to be no hijackers to shoot, then the FAA’s decision served no tactical purpose, and yet its timing still seems at the far edge of coincidence territory to say the least.
Back to Federal Attack Assistance Masterlist
Sources:
[1] Luckey, Stephen. “Arming Flight Crews Against Terrorist Acts. Statement before Subcommittee on Aviation, Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, U.S. House of Representatives. Washington, D.C. May 2, 2002. Accessed November 7, 2004 at: http://www.house.gov/transportation/aviation/05-02-02/luckey.html
[2], [5] Dougherty, John. “Homeland Insecurity: FAA began disarming pilots in ’87.” Worldnet Daily. May 29, 2002. Accessed November 7, 2004 at: http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=27765
[3]Vulliami, Ed. “A Bad Call?” The Guardian. May 19, 2002. Accessed November 18, 2004 at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/september11/story/0,11209,718267,00.html
[4] Dougherty, John. “Armed-pilot rule nixed after hijack briefing.” Worldnet Daily. May 18, 2002. Accessed November 7, 2004 at: http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=27672
Adam Larson
Caustic Logic/Guerillas Without Guns
April 9 2007
When looking at the failure of the world’s mightiest Air Force to shoot down four hijacked airliners during an attack that lasted nearly two hours, it is important to remember that the far better option would have been to prevent the hijackings in the first place. The situation didn’t have to get to the point where orders to shoot down a planeload of innocents was necessary. Of course, stopping the men at the airport or before, preventing them even boarding, was the best sort of outcome with no possibility of a 9/11 size disaster. But even if these lines of defense failed (as was, of course, the case), there was still a possible last line of defense short of an air-to-air missile - the passengers, crews, and pilots aboard the planes themselves. If the numerous warnings of suicide hijackings the government had received in the months before the attack had been passed on to the airlines or the public, they may have known what was at stake and fought back, as the passengers on Flight 93 are believed to have successfully done once they learned the stakes.
It was soon noted that against terrorists armed only with box cutters, and alerted to the possibility of suicide hijackings, an armed pilot who knew the stakes may have been able, with the speed of a single bullet, to prevent his plane being turned into a missile. After September 11th, many voices went up asking that pilots be armed to meet future threats. Captain Stephen Luckey, Chairman of the National Flight Security Committee of the Airline Pilots Association, addressed this issue in testimony before a House Subcommittee on May 2nd, 2002. Luckey maintained that this drive to arm pilots was actually a question of re-arming them, as airline pilots indeed had been, quietly, allowed to carry guns onboard until… right before 9/11.
Luckey put it in context; “in 1961, the FAA amended federal aviation regulations, with Congressional support, to permit pilots to be armed with the consent of their airline – the agency removed that regulatory language in July 2001.” [1] That was quick – now for an instant replay: “the agency removed that regulatory language in July, 2001.” In 1961, in response to the Cuban missile Crisis and a spate of Cuban hijackings, the FAA enacted a rule that allowed pilots to carry guns on commercial flights with the purpose of stopping hijackings early. For forty years the rule stood, but in July 2001, the FAA rescinded it.
According to the conservative WorldNet Daily, the gun ban was set to take effect on an unspecified date in September. [2] In another article, WorldNet also reported that this decision was made despite a specific warning to FAA and other government officials from the ubiquitous Richard Clarke. On July 5, the nation’s top counter-terrorism agent reportedly told FAA representatives and others at a meeting in the White House that “something really spectacular is going to happen here and it’s going to happen soon.” [3]
An FAA spokesman downplayed the impact of the gun ban, saying “in the past, FAA regulations permitted pilots to carry firearms in the cockpit” but that “that was never put into effect because no requests… were ever made.” [4] Apparently, in forty years, there was not one request from an airline pilot to be armed. There must have been no successful drives to increase awareness of the policy. Were the pilots ever even aware of the policy? This rule stood, allegedly unused, for decades; if it was never used, why bother rescinding it after it had sat for so long? What was suddenly so different that mandated the change? The only thing I see different is the hijacking threat – if ever there was a time pilots would start asking for permission to carry guns, the summer and fall of 2001 would have, should have, been it.
It’s not likely that any of the pilots involved had been disarmed by this decision, and so it likely had no effect on the attack. But once again, the timing of this decision is strange, perhaps indicating a better safe than sorry mentality, a fear that some pilots might try to use that old rule in light of the threat and thus spoil a perfectly useful attack. The reasoning has been explained as eliminating redundancy, but on the question of timing, FAA officials referred WorldNet to the Department of Transportation, who refused to return calls. [5] If no pilots had ever asked for guns, or, as I argue in other posts, there were to be no hijackers to shoot, then the FAA’s decision served no tactical purpose, and yet its timing still seems at the far edge of coincidence territory to say the least.
Back to Federal Attack Assistance Masterlist
Sources:
[1] Luckey, Stephen. “Arming Flight Crews Against Terrorist Acts. Statement before Subcommittee on Aviation, Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, U.S. House of Representatives. Washington, D.C. May 2, 2002. Accessed November 7, 2004 at: http://www.house.gov/transportation/aviation/05-02-02/luckey.html
[2], [5] Dougherty, John. “Homeland Insecurity: FAA began disarming pilots in ’87.” Worldnet Daily. May 29, 2002. Accessed November 7, 2004 at: http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=27765
[3]Vulliami, Ed. “A Bad Call?” The Guardian. May 19, 2002. Accessed November 18, 2004 at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/september11/story/0,11209,718267,00.html
[4] Dougherty, John. “Armed-pilot rule nixed after hijack briefing.” Worldnet Daily. May 18, 2002. Accessed November 7, 2004 at: http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=27672
Thursday, March 22, 2007
FAA IV: SLINEY'S AUTHORITY, UNLIMITED YET UNSURE
Ben Sliney’s Odd Initiation
Adam Larson
Caustic Logic / They Let It Happen
March 22 2007
Besides the NMCC and Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Federal Aviation Administration, through whose system the 9/11 attacks occurred, was in weird hands on that weird day. Benedict Sliney had experience with FAA air traffic control dating back to 1964, but from the early 1980s took an 18-year hiatus to practice law in Manhattan. [1] He made a name for himself defending NY’s transit authority against passenger lawsuits, and once suing the FAA on behalf of fellow air traffic controllers. He gave up law in mid-2001, which he surrendered only, he says, after his 72-year-old secretary unexpectedly retired.
“I could not work without her, […] I wasn't going to continue. I didn't like law anyhow, it paid well, but it's very demanding in terms of time. I maintained my friendship of course with people in the FAA. The person in charge of the command center asked me, when I would complain about the law to come back to the FAA and I did.” [2]
This was apparently in mid-2001 when some combination of FAA connections, leadership skills, whatever, gave him a sudden career change back to the Administration, and straight to the top: National Operations Manager, a short, powerfully titled post described by USA Today as “the chess master of the air traffic system.” The paper explained “when he accepted the job overseeing the nation's airspace a few months earlier, Sliney wanted to be sure he had the power to do the job as he saw fit. "What is the limit of my authority?" he asked the man who had promoted him. "Unlimited," he was told.” [3] He got the job, and over the next several weeks set to re-learning the ropes and the two decades of technological and procedural changes since his old days.
It was hoped he’d learn enough to fulfill his normal, routine, functions. But Sliney’s new job also made him the man who would, theoretically, be responsible for such unprecedented things as ordering nationwide ground-stop of all air traffic, not that it ever had been an issue before. And he would also be the very guy in charge of requesting fighter assistance in the event of a suicide hijacking, on the off-chance that should ever be needed, which also had never ever happened once in the US. So perhaps understandably, these more esoteric duties were seemingly passed over a bit.
Tuesday being the slowest air travel day, little was expected (?) as Sliney clocked in for his first day at the FAA national operations center in Herndon Virginia, smack between Dulles Airport, the capital, and the Pentagon, at some time before 8:00 am on September 11. But it didn’t stay quiet for long; “It was a very short time,” Sliney later remembered, before he received the first clue this day would not be routine. At about 8:25 am, one of his assistant informed him “that they had an admission that a flight attendant was stabbed. Now it's starting to take a road that we hadn't been down before. It swiftly escalated after that.” [4] Somewhat less swiftly, the FAA response to the unfolding attack, largely overseen by Sliney, was measured, graduated:
8:15-20ish – Numerous calls sent to FAA from flight attendants Ong and Sweeney onboard Flight 11, clearly telling of a hijacking in progress.
8:24 - a transmission intended for the passengers on Flight 11 but accidentally sent system-wide by the hijackers, was received: "We have some planes. Just stay quiet and you will be OK." After Sliney learned of this line, USA Today reported, “the words will haunt him all morning. "We have some planes." Some? How many?” [5]
Before 8:46 – Sliney later described “an unidentified aircraft,” that is, with no transponder, “at 16,000 feet approaching New York City from the northwest at a pretty moderate ground speed of 300 knots. No one was working and we did not know who the aircraft was.” [6] Without transponders, we're told, it was hard to tell one of the thousands of blips from the next (which, if true, made the system completely useless)
8:46-8:50 - Sliney receives word from New York of a “small plane” crash into the World Trade Center. They turn on CNN in the control center. “That was no small plane, Sliney thinks.” Within minutes his suspicions were confirmed: it was the missing AA11. [7]
9:03 – The second plane, UA175, hits the second tower, and New York’s air space is ordered shut down, a multi-state area cleared of air traffic in the first such unprecedented move of the morning. Realizing this is an attack, and twenty minutes into it, Sliney scrambles to make up for lost time. It was time for bold – but not hasty - action.
9:15 – American Airlines orders no more AA takeoffs in the northeast. No concrete moves from Sliney in Herndon yet, just listing all troubled, possibly hijacked flights on a dry erase board. “The moves aren't strong enough for some of the air traffic specialists at the center,” says USA Today, “who bombard Sliney with advice. "Just stop everything! Just stop it!" The words ring true to Sliney.” [8] Haunted by knowledge of more planes, Sliney responds. Seconds tick by. (one mississippi, two mississippi, three mississippi... ten more minutes pass)
9:25 - AA77 has now been unaccounted for as well, for thirty minutes. Sliney issues another unprecedented order: full groundstop. No FAA controlled flights are to take off, anywhere in the country. The skies are full enough, but it wasn't yet time to order them cleared altogether.
“Amid the shouts and chatter and conflicting reports,” USA Today reported, Sliney “reminds himself: Don't jump to conclusions. Sort it out.” Indeed, deliberation seems his strong point: “since the second Trade Center tower was hit, Sliney has considered bringing every flight down,” the paper reported. It wasn’t until after the Pentagon was hit with AA77 at 9:38 that “the manager in charge of the nation's air traffic system is certain. He has no time to consult with FAA officials in Washington,” and made his snap decision all on his own to have all air traffic get out of the sky ASAP. "Order everyone to land! Regardless of destination!" Sliney shouted, since shouting helps orders get back in time to when they might have done some good. [1] The 9/11 Commission agreed that Sliney “ordered all FAA facilities to instruct all aircraft to land at the nearest airport” at exactly 9:42, 56 minutes after the first strike of the war against his native New York, an hour and twenty minutes after the first hijacking was known of.
Is that slow or fast? There’s not much precedence to judge by, but a faster response is at least feasible, by Sliney’s own account. US News reported in June 2004 that “he says he would have stopped everyone sooner,” had he not been left out of the pre-9/11 terror warning loop. Ominous predictions that had been issued that summer about al Qaeda’s potential air designs “never reached key people like Benedict Sliney.” [10] Whoever preceded Sliney in the NOM position likely had been aware of the threat, considering for example, the August 2001 CIA memo "Islamic Extremist Learns to Fly," and the high-level meeting Richard Clarke called on July 5, including FAA, and warning “something really spectacular is going to happen here, and it’s going to happen soon.” But the manager who might’ve known the score on what to expect, and probably had a better understanding of what could be done in response, was just not working out. And his replacement, being a first-day rookie not clued into the earlier threat assessments, was in effect a blank spacer inserted, by chance we are to believe, into a key spot in the air defense system.
Sliney was not the top link at FAA, of course. He had superiors like FAA administrator Jane Garvey and her deputy Monte Belger, and running all the way up to Transportation Secretary Norman “fuck pilot discretion” Mineta, in the PEOC beneath the White House with Cheney and Rice. But Sliney was the top hands-on guy with radar screens in front of him, called on to make major decisions that morning beside the ground stop. He told the 9/11 Commission about his first call with NORAD, at some point before 8:46:
“NORAD […] asked me if I were requesting a military intervention. And I indicated to NORAD that I'm advising you of the - of the facts of this particular incident. I'm not requesting anything. I wasn't sure I even had the authority to request such a thing. And when the lady persisted at NORAD, I asked her if I could call her back and I went to the domestic event net, which is available to all facilities and most of the major facilities around it, and I queried NORAD and the FAA headquarters as to whether or not I had such authority to ask for intervention by the military or a scramble on this particular aircraft, and they did agree that I had such authority after a discussion on the virtues of collaboration. However, I indicated further when I agreed that we should collaborate on such decisions, but if time did not permit it, did I have that authority, I persisted in that and they said that I did. I didn't know that prior to that moment in time.” [11]
CNN’s Paula Zahn explained further “Mr. Sliney says these conversations took several minutes and by the time he received an answer, the aircraft was past Manhattan,” meaning, I presume, past gone into the WTC. [12] Sliney had unlimited authority but like Bullwinkle the moose, he didn’t know his own strength, at least not precisely enough to do much of use on 9/11. He learned his powers eventually, of course, but too late. I’m not sure how long after 9/11 he held the NOM job, but by the time of his candid and well-covered May 2004 testimony to the 9/11 Commission, he had switched over to Operations Manager for the New York Terminal Radar Approach Control, another slot that had been vital on 9/11. This shows he’s serious about FAA; he didn’t just come on just for 9/11. That would look suspicious...
Pure coincidence is the official reason such man was put into such a spot at just that time, but the agency of chance is already strained enough to explain the events of that morning without adding this to its burden. If indeed Sliney were placed to help facilitate the attacks, it’s important to consider whether his part was really central or important enough to warrant the risk of dropping the spacer into his spot less than an hour before the attacks began. Delays in ground stop and military escorts seem to have had little overall effect, only helping keep the skies as cluttered as normal, limiting radar tracking. Even swift action would not clear the skies immediately anyway. This is secondary. As for his requests for fighter assistance, with or without Sliney’s involvement, fighters were off the ground just after the first plane hit, which is reasonably swift. Even if scrambled sooner, the total disempowerment of the defending fighter pilots was beyond his mandate and would have happened either way. His well-timed placement then serves as another redundant screw-up that helps cancel out the culpability of the others. The precision of the placement makes it also seem a possible distraction, but one engineered in advance, which is telling.
Curiously, Ben Sliney was able to regain the limelight again and add another title to his resume with another unexpected job offer – an actor, playing the part of himself in the 2006 film Flight 93 (which I have yet to see). He had become a piece of history, an ironic 9/11 artifact, the first-day guy! Man what a first day; Murphy’s law, we can all relate to that! He was initially brought on by director Paul Greengrass as an adviser on re-enacting his part of the morning of 9/11 – what it was like at the center, how to accurately reflect the events. Oddly parallel to his actual switch back to FAA moths before 9/11 as a last-minute replacement, Sliney explained in a 2006 interview: “they hired an actor to play me. And he was having a little difficulty with it. And after two days, they asked me to do it. I got a note under the door. 5 in the morning, I was getting ready to go to the set, could you please bring your suit, tie, shoes. At the bottom it said “this is not a test. This is not a drill.” [13]
---------
Back to "Federal Attack Assistance?" Masterlist
Sources:
[1], [2], [4], [13] United 93: An Interview with National Operations Manager Ben Sliney
By Tonisha Johnson April 2006. http://www.blackfilm.com/20060421/features/bensliney.shtml
[3] Adams, Marilyn, Alan Levin and Blake Morrison. “Part II: No one was sure if hijackers were on board.” USA Today. Posting date unlisted.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/sept11/2002-08-12-hijacker-daytwo_x.htm
[5], [7], [8], [9] Part I: Terror attacks brought drastic decision: Clear the skies
By Alan Levin, Alan, Marilyn Adams and Blake Morrison, USA Today. August 13 2002.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/sept11/2002-08-12-clearskies_x.htm
[6], [11] Benedict Sliney Testimony 9/11 Commission. May 21 2004. Via CNN. http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0406/17/pzn.00.html
[10] Levine, Samantha. “In the skies, a scary 'failure of imagination.” US News And World Report. June 28 2004. Posted June 20 2004. http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/040628/28nine11.b.htm
[12] Paula Zahn Now. “Chilling Audio From 9/11 Hijack Played at Hearing.” Aired June 17, 2004. Transcript: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0406/17/pzn.00.html
Adam Larson
Caustic Logic / They Let It Happen
March 22 2007
 |
Besides the NMCC and Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Federal Aviation Administration, through whose system the 9/11 attacks occurred, was in weird hands on that weird day. Benedict Sliney had experience with FAA air traffic control dating back to 1964, but from the early 1980s took an 18-year hiatus to practice law in Manhattan. [1] He made a name for himself defending NY’s transit authority against passenger lawsuits, and once suing the FAA on behalf of fellow air traffic controllers. He gave up law in mid-2001, which he surrendered only, he says, after his 72-year-old secretary unexpectedly retired.
“I could not work without her, […] I wasn't going to continue. I didn't like law anyhow, it paid well, but it's very demanding in terms of time. I maintained my friendship of course with people in the FAA. The person in charge of the command center asked me, when I would complain about the law to come back to the FAA and I did.” [2]
This was apparently in mid-2001 when some combination of FAA connections, leadership skills, whatever, gave him a sudden career change back to the Administration, and straight to the top: National Operations Manager, a short, powerfully titled post described by USA Today as “the chess master of the air traffic system.” The paper explained “when he accepted the job overseeing the nation's airspace a few months earlier, Sliney wanted to be sure he had the power to do the job as he saw fit. "What is the limit of my authority?" he asked the man who had promoted him. "Unlimited," he was told.” [3] He got the job, and over the next several weeks set to re-learning the ropes and the two decades of technological and procedural changes since his old days.
It was hoped he’d learn enough to fulfill his normal, routine, functions. But Sliney’s new job also made him the man who would, theoretically, be responsible for such unprecedented things as ordering nationwide ground-stop of all air traffic, not that it ever had been an issue before. And he would also be the very guy in charge of requesting fighter assistance in the event of a suicide hijacking, on the off-chance that should ever be needed, which also had never ever happened once in the US. So perhaps understandably, these more esoteric duties were seemingly passed over a bit.
Tuesday being the slowest air travel day, little was expected (?) as Sliney clocked in for his first day at the FAA national operations center in Herndon Virginia, smack between Dulles Airport, the capital, and the Pentagon, at some time before 8:00 am on September 11. But it didn’t stay quiet for long; “It was a very short time,” Sliney later remembered, before he received the first clue this day would not be routine. At about 8:25 am, one of his assistant informed him “that they had an admission that a flight attendant was stabbed. Now it's starting to take a road that we hadn't been down before. It swiftly escalated after that.” [4] Somewhat less swiftly, the FAA response to the unfolding attack, largely overseen by Sliney, was measured, graduated:
8:15-20ish – Numerous calls sent to FAA from flight attendants Ong and Sweeney onboard Flight 11, clearly telling of a hijacking in progress.
8:24 - a transmission intended for the passengers on Flight 11 but accidentally sent system-wide by the hijackers, was received: "We have some planes. Just stay quiet and you will be OK." After Sliney learned of this line, USA Today reported, “the words will haunt him all morning. "We have some planes." Some? How many?” [5]
Before 8:46 – Sliney later described “an unidentified aircraft,” that is, with no transponder, “at 16,000 feet approaching New York City from the northwest at a pretty moderate ground speed of 300 knots. No one was working and we did not know who the aircraft was.” [6] Without transponders, we're told, it was hard to tell one of the thousands of blips from the next (which, if true, made the system completely useless)
8:46-8:50 - Sliney receives word from New York of a “small plane” crash into the World Trade Center. They turn on CNN in the control center. “That was no small plane, Sliney thinks.” Within minutes his suspicions were confirmed: it was the missing AA11. [7]
9:03 – The second plane, UA175, hits the second tower, and New York’s air space is ordered shut down, a multi-state area cleared of air traffic in the first such unprecedented move of the morning. Realizing this is an attack, and twenty minutes into it, Sliney scrambles to make up for lost time. It was time for bold – but not hasty - action.
9:15 – American Airlines orders no more AA takeoffs in the northeast. No concrete moves from Sliney in Herndon yet, just listing all troubled, possibly hijacked flights on a dry erase board. “The moves aren't strong enough for some of the air traffic specialists at the center,” says USA Today, “who bombard Sliney with advice. "Just stop everything! Just stop it!" The words ring true to Sliney.” [8] Haunted by knowledge of more planes, Sliney responds. Seconds tick by. (one mississippi, two mississippi, three mississippi... ten more minutes pass)
9:25 - AA77 has now been unaccounted for as well, for thirty minutes. Sliney issues another unprecedented order: full groundstop. No FAA controlled flights are to take off, anywhere in the country. The skies are full enough, but it wasn't yet time to order them cleared altogether.
“Amid the shouts and chatter and conflicting reports,” USA Today reported, Sliney “reminds himself: Don't jump to conclusions. Sort it out.” Indeed, deliberation seems his strong point: “since the second Trade Center tower was hit, Sliney has considered bringing every flight down,” the paper reported. It wasn’t until after the Pentagon was hit with AA77 at 9:38 that “the manager in charge of the nation's air traffic system is certain. He has no time to consult with FAA officials in Washington,” and made his snap decision all on his own to have all air traffic get out of the sky ASAP. "Order everyone to land! Regardless of destination!" Sliney shouted, since shouting helps orders get back in time to when they might have done some good. [1] The 9/11 Commission agreed that Sliney “ordered all FAA facilities to instruct all aircraft to land at the nearest airport” at exactly 9:42, 56 minutes after the first strike of the war against his native New York, an hour and twenty minutes after the first hijacking was known of.
Is that slow or fast? There’s not much precedence to judge by, but a faster response is at least feasible, by Sliney’s own account. US News reported in June 2004 that “he says he would have stopped everyone sooner,” had he not been left out of the pre-9/11 terror warning loop. Ominous predictions that had been issued that summer about al Qaeda’s potential air designs “never reached key people like Benedict Sliney.” [10] Whoever preceded Sliney in the NOM position likely had been aware of the threat, considering for example, the August 2001 CIA memo "Islamic Extremist Learns to Fly," and the high-level meeting Richard Clarke called on July 5, including FAA, and warning “something really spectacular is going to happen here, and it’s going to happen soon.” But the manager who might’ve known the score on what to expect, and probably had a better understanding of what could be done in response, was just not working out. And his replacement, being a first-day rookie not clued into the earlier threat assessments, was in effect a blank spacer inserted, by chance we are to believe, into a key spot in the air defense system.
Sliney was not the top link at FAA, of course. He had superiors like FAA administrator Jane Garvey and her deputy Monte Belger, and running all the way up to Transportation Secretary Norman “fuck pilot discretion” Mineta, in the PEOC beneath the White House with Cheney and Rice. But Sliney was the top hands-on guy with radar screens in front of him, called on to make major decisions that morning beside the ground stop. He told the 9/11 Commission about his first call with NORAD, at some point before 8:46:
“NORAD […] asked me if I were requesting a military intervention. And I indicated to NORAD that I'm advising you of the - of the facts of this particular incident. I'm not requesting anything. I wasn't sure I even had the authority to request such a thing. And when the lady persisted at NORAD, I asked her if I could call her back and I went to the domestic event net, which is available to all facilities and most of the major facilities around it, and I queried NORAD and the FAA headquarters as to whether or not I had such authority to ask for intervention by the military or a scramble on this particular aircraft, and they did agree that I had such authority after a discussion on the virtues of collaboration. However, I indicated further when I agreed that we should collaborate on such decisions, but if time did not permit it, did I have that authority, I persisted in that and they said that I did. I didn't know that prior to that moment in time.” [11]
CNN’s Paula Zahn explained further “Mr. Sliney says these conversations took several minutes and by the time he received an answer, the aircraft was past Manhattan,” meaning, I presume, past gone into the WTC. [12] Sliney had unlimited authority but like Bullwinkle the moose, he didn’t know his own strength, at least not precisely enough to do much of use on 9/11. He learned his powers eventually, of course, but too late. I’m not sure how long after 9/11 he held the NOM job, but by the time of his candid and well-covered May 2004 testimony to the 9/11 Commission, he had switched over to Operations Manager for the New York Terminal Radar Approach Control, another slot that had been vital on 9/11. This shows he’s serious about FAA; he didn’t just come on just for 9/11. That would look suspicious...
Pure coincidence is the official reason such man was put into such a spot at just that time, but the agency of chance is already strained enough to explain the events of that morning without adding this to its burden. If indeed Sliney were placed to help facilitate the attacks, it’s important to consider whether his part was really central or important enough to warrant the risk of dropping the spacer into his spot less than an hour before the attacks began. Delays in ground stop and military escorts seem to have had little overall effect, only helping keep the skies as cluttered as normal, limiting radar tracking. Even swift action would not clear the skies immediately anyway. This is secondary. As for his requests for fighter assistance, with or without Sliney’s involvement, fighters were off the ground just after the first plane hit, which is reasonably swift. Even if scrambled sooner, the total disempowerment of the defending fighter pilots was beyond his mandate and would have happened either way. His well-timed placement then serves as another redundant screw-up that helps cancel out the culpability of the others. The precision of the placement makes it also seem a possible distraction, but one engineered in advance, which is telling.
Curiously, Ben Sliney was able to regain the limelight again and add another title to his resume with another unexpected job offer – an actor, playing the part of himself in the 2006 film Flight 93 (which I have yet to see). He had become a piece of history, an ironic 9/11 artifact, the first-day guy! Man what a first day; Murphy’s law, we can all relate to that! He was initially brought on by director Paul Greengrass as an adviser on re-enacting his part of the morning of 9/11 – what it was like at the center, how to accurately reflect the events. Oddly parallel to his actual switch back to FAA moths before 9/11 as a last-minute replacement, Sliney explained in a 2006 interview: “they hired an actor to play me. And he was having a little difficulty with it. And after two days, they asked me to do it. I got a note under the door. 5 in the morning, I was getting ready to go to the set, could you please bring your suit, tie, shoes. At the bottom it said “this is not a test. This is not a drill.” [13]
---------
Back to "Federal Attack Assistance?" Masterlist
Sources:
[1], [2], [4], [13] United 93: An Interview with National Operations Manager Ben Sliney
By Tonisha Johnson April 2006. http://www.blackfilm.com/20060421/features/bensliney.shtml
[3] Adams, Marilyn, Alan Levin and Blake Morrison. “Part II: No one was sure if hijackers were on board.” USA Today. Posting date unlisted.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/sept11/2002-08-12-hijacker-daytwo_x.htm
[5], [7], [8], [9] Part I: Terror attacks brought drastic decision: Clear the skies
By Alan Levin, Alan, Marilyn Adams and Blake Morrison, USA Today. August 13 2002.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/sept11/2002-08-12-clearskies_x.htm
[6], [11] Benedict Sliney Testimony 9/11 Commission. May 21 2004. Via CNN. http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0406/17/pzn.00.html
[10] Levine, Samantha. “In the skies, a scary 'failure of imagination.” US News And World Report. June 28 2004. Posted June 20 2004. http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/040628/28nine11.b.htm
[12] Paula Zahn Now. “Chilling Audio From 9/11 Hijack Played at Hearing.” Aired June 17, 2004. Transcript: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0406/17/pzn.00.html
Thursday, March 15, 2007
FIRST DAY JITTERS
SLINEY, LEIDIG, MYERS: THREE DEFENSE LINKS SWAPPED AT THE LAST MINUTE
Adam Larson
Caustic Logic/They Let It Happen
January 1 2007
Last Update: 3/19
9/11 was just such a weird day, who could think it relevant that among the other oddities of that morning The FAA was being run by a first-day rookie? Benedict Sliney was just getting his feet wet as the National Operations Manager when four civilian airliners were hijacked amid confused reports of about a dozen possible hijacks. While Sliney had superiors like FAA administrator Jane Garvey, he was called on to make major decisions that morning. He told the 9/11 Commission: “NORAD […] asked ME if I were requesting military intervention. And I indicated to NORAD that I’m advising you of the facts of this particular incident – I’m not requesting anything. I wasn’t sure I even had the authority to request such a thing.” [1] Perhaps he hadn’t watched the training video closely enough the day before.
But was the Chain of Command he and the others at FAA informing any better organized? The National Military Command Center (NMCC), beneath the Pentagon, is the command and control “nerve center” for the military leadership if America comes under attack. While this usually does not happen, the NMCC sits ready, watched over and coordinated by the Deputy Director of Operations (DDO) and is used for other activities requiring centralized coordination – like passing on requests for fighter assistance in case of a hijacking and, I’d guess, coordinating air-based War games, of which there were at least five on 9/11.
Army Brigadier General Montague Winfield was originally slated to be in charge of the NMCC that morning, but the previous day he had decided to take some time off, asking a recently qualified but inexperienced rookie, Navy Captain Charles Leidig, to stand in as DDO in the morning. This is confirmed by Leidig’s own testimony to the 9/11 Commission. His written statement was the shortest they received at just over one page, large font, double spaced. It stated blandly “on 10 September 2001, Brigadier General Winfield, US Army, asked that I stand a portion of his duty […] on the following day. I agreed and relieved Brigadier General Winfield at 0830 on 11 September 2001.” [2] At that very minute, the first plane was right between its hijacking (about 8:15) and its impact with the WTC (8:46).
The remarkable request was presumably for some other, lesser, reason. But Leidig’s rookie status (only qualified to be DDO a few weeks earlier) and the emerging crisis did not interrupt the transfer and Winfield left. I can’t say whether this had any operational role in 9/11 or the lack of defense against it, or was related to the air-based war games that have been acknowledged, but both seem probable. And while certainly the timing of this admitted September 10 request is beyond coincidence, none of the involved parties have offered any explanation - it has remained both curiously open and unexplained.
But war games or no, Leidig’s job there wound up more than a drill. As the 9-11 Commission’s final report explained “the job of the NMCC in such an emergency is to gather the relevant parties and establish the chain of command between the national command authority […] and those who need to carry out their orders.” [3] This includes, among others, the Defense Secretary and JCS Chairman. Acting Joint Chiefs Chairman, Air Force General Richard Myers – like Leidig, filling in as of the morning of 9/11 – claims total ignorance of the attack until about 9:40, and the 9/11 Commission confirmed that he arrived at the NMCC and joined the conference in session just before 10:00, over an hour after the attack began and just as it was ending.
By the time Myers arrived at 10:00, regular DDO Montague Winfield had taken the center over again from Leidig, but Rumsfeld, the middle link in the “national command authority” chain Leidig was tasked with “gathering,” was still MIA. Winfield would later state “for 30 minutes we couldn't find him. And just as we began to worry, he walked into the door” at 10:30 – nearly a half hour after the attack was over. [4] While he’d been at the building all morning, officially he’d been too busy loading injured into ambulances for the TV cameras to take his part in the defense, though accounts of his whereabouts vary greatly.
So here is the graphic representation of Leidig’s unorthodox stand-in shift and the results of his work to “gather the relevant parties” during the 111 minutes that hijacked attack craft were attacking the heart of America’s financial and military might. By whatever confluence of factors, the room was kept vacant of upper leadership until Leidig relenquished control and the attack ended. We should be left wondering why the parties weren’t gathered, what was so special about Leidig that he had to be there to fail to gather them, and who knew the day before just how badly he would fail when inserted in the morning?
Leidig did try to do things on his own as Myers and Rumsfeld kept their distance, initiating a phone bridge and significant event conference at 9:29, a line that the 9/11 Commission clarified did not have FAA on it. One minute later, Leidig announced that he was just told American 11 was still airborne. [5] It was also precisely at 9:30 that the Langley fighter pilots finally took off, and so Leidig gave them this new ghost target, which wound up distracting them from the very real Flight 77 as it closed in on his own location and entered radar screens again. The fighter pilots were never informed of the attack plane until after they saw smoke rising from the Pentagon after 9:37. The Commission admitted the FAA was not on the line with Leidig, but blames them anyway: “we have not been able to identify the source of this mistaken FAA information,” and left it at that [emphasis mine]. [6]
Since that day, Leidig has been promoted – first to Commandant of Midshipmen in September 2003, then to U.S. Defense Representative to the Pacific micro-states. Later he assumed command of U.S. Naval Forces Marianas and Navy Region Marianas and advanced to Rear Admiral status. Leidig is recipient of numerous service medals over his distinguished career, none specifically for his service on 9/11, of which his official Navy bio makes no mention whatsoever. [7]
[After I posted this, it occured to me to state I'm not accusing Adm Leidig of anything in particular, nor Sliney, Myers, or even Rumsfeld individually. I only present this in the public interest to help clarify the record - nothing personal.]
Sources:
[1] National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States. Panel one, Day two of 12th public hearing. Staff statements on the military and civilian aviation authorities. Washington D.C. June 17, 2004. http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/911/archive/hearing12/9-11Commission_Hearing_2001-06-17.htm
[2] Flocco, Tom. "NMCC ops director asked substitute on 9-10 to stand his watch on 9-11.” Prison Planet. June 18 2004. http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/june2004/061804askedsubstitute.htm
[3] 9/11 Commission Final Report. Page 37.
[4] Thompson, Paul and the Center for Cooperative Research. “The Terror Timeline.” New York. Regan Books. 2004. Page 456.
[5] 9/11 Commission Final Report. Page 37.
[6] 9/11 Commission Final Report. Page 26
[7] Commander Naval Forces Marianas: Rear Admiral Charles J. Leidig. US Navy bio. http://www.guam.navy.mil/bio_adm.htm
Adam Larson
Caustic Logic/They Let It Happen
January 1 2007
Last Update: 3/19
9/11 was just such a weird day, who could think it relevant that among the other oddities of that morning The FAA was being run by a first-day rookie? Benedict Sliney was just getting his feet wet as the National Operations Manager when four civilian airliners were hijacked amid confused reports of about a dozen possible hijacks. While Sliney had superiors like FAA administrator Jane Garvey, he was called on to make major decisions that morning. He told the 9/11 Commission: “NORAD […] asked ME if I were requesting military intervention. And I indicated to NORAD that I’m advising you of the facts of this particular incident – I’m not requesting anything. I wasn’t sure I even had the authority to request such a thing.” [1] Perhaps he hadn’t watched the training video closely enough the day before.
But was the Chain of Command he and the others at FAA informing any better organized? The National Military Command Center (NMCC), beneath the Pentagon, is the command and control “nerve center” for the military leadership if America comes under attack. While this usually does not happen, the NMCC sits ready, watched over and coordinated by the Deputy Director of Operations (DDO) and is used for other activities requiring centralized coordination – like passing on requests for fighter assistance in case of a hijacking and, I’d guess, coordinating air-based War games, of which there were at least five on 9/11.
 |
The remarkable request was presumably for some other, lesser, reason. But Leidig’s rookie status (only qualified to be DDO a few weeks earlier) and the emerging crisis did not interrupt the transfer and Winfield left. I can’t say whether this had any operational role in 9/11 or the lack of defense against it, or was related to the air-based war games that have been acknowledged, but both seem probable. And while certainly the timing of this admitted September 10 request is beyond coincidence, none of the involved parties have offered any explanation - it has remained both curiously open and unexplained.
But war games or no, Leidig’s job there wound up more than a drill. As the 9-11 Commission’s final report explained “the job of the NMCC in such an emergency is to gather the relevant parties and establish the chain of command between the national command authority […] and those who need to carry out their orders.” [3] This includes, among others, the Defense Secretary and JCS Chairman. Acting Joint Chiefs Chairman, Air Force General Richard Myers – like Leidig, filling in as of the morning of 9/11 – claims total ignorance of the attack until about 9:40, and the 9/11 Commission confirmed that he arrived at the NMCC and joined the conference in session just before 10:00, over an hour after the attack began and just as it was ending.
By the time Myers arrived at 10:00, regular DDO Montague Winfield had taken the center over again from Leidig, but Rumsfeld, the middle link in the “national command authority” chain Leidig was tasked with “gathering,” was still MIA. Winfield would later state “for 30 minutes we couldn't find him. And just as we began to worry, he walked into the door” at 10:30 – nearly a half hour after the attack was over. [4] While he’d been at the building all morning, officially he’d been too busy loading injured into ambulances for the TV cameras to take his part in the defense, though accounts of his whereabouts vary greatly.
So here is the graphic representation of Leidig’s unorthodox stand-in shift and the results of his work to “gather the relevant parties” during the 111 minutes that hijacked attack craft were attacking the heart of America’s financial and military might. By whatever confluence of factors, the room was kept vacant of upper leadership until Leidig relenquished control and the attack ended. We should be left wondering why the parties weren’t gathered, what was so special about Leidig that he had to be there to fail to gather them, and who knew the day before just how badly he would fail when inserted in the morning?
Leidig did try to do things on his own as Myers and Rumsfeld kept their distance, initiating a phone bridge and significant event conference at 9:29, a line that the 9/11 Commission clarified did not have FAA on it. One minute later, Leidig announced that he was just told American 11 was still airborne. [5] It was also precisely at 9:30 that the Langley fighter pilots finally took off, and so Leidig gave them this new ghost target, which wound up distracting them from the very real Flight 77 as it closed in on his own location and entered radar screens again. The fighter pilots were never informed of the attack plane until after they saw smoke rising from the Pentagon after 9:37. The Commission admitted the FAA was not on the line with Leidig, but blames them anyway: “we have not been able to identify the source of this mistaken FAA information,” and left it at that [emphasis mine]. [6]
Since that day, Leidig has been promoted – first to Commandant of Midshipmen in September 2003, then to U.S. Defense Representative to the Pacific micro-states. Later he assumed command of U.S. Naval Forces Marianas and Navy Region Marianas and advanced to Rear Admiral status. Leidig is recipient of numerous service medals over his distinguished career, none specifically for his service on 9/11, of which his official Navy bio makes no mention whatsoever. [7]
[After I posted this, it occured to me to state I'm not accusing Adm Leidig of anything in particular, nor Sliney, Myers, or even Rumsfeld individually. I only present this in the public interest to help clarify the record - nothing personal.]
Sources:
[1] National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States. Panel one, Day two of 12th public hearing. Staff statements on the military and civilian aviation authorities. Washington D.C. June 17, 2004. http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/911/archive/hearing12/9-11Commission_Hearing_2001-06-17.htm
[2] Flocco, Tom. "NMCC ops director asked substitute on 9-10 to stand his watch on 9-11.” Prison Planet. June 18 2004. http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/june2004/061804askedsubstitute.htm
[3] 9/11 Commission Final Report. Page 37.
[4] Thompson, Paul and the Center for Cooperative Research. “The Terror Timeline.” New York. Regan Books. 2004. Page 456.
[5] 9/11 Commission Final Report. Page 37.
[6] 9/11 Commission Final Report. Page 26
[7] Commander Naval Forces Marianas: Rear Admiral Charles J. Leidig. US Navy bio. http://www.guam.navy.mil/bio_adm.htm
Friday, March 9, 2007
FAA III: MISTAKEN FAA INFO: SOME OR THE?
Now let’s look at a report from onboard Flight 11, reportedly placed by a flight attendant just seven minutes before impact: Two crew members in the cockpit – presumably pilot and co-pilot – were stabbed. Communications were briefly cut, then another call came two minutes later - news came across that “a passenger in seat 10B shot and killed a passenger in seat 9B” with one shot fired. The killer was pegged as muscle hijacker Satam al Suqami. The victim was Daniel Lewin, founder Akamai tech and Israeli special agent, possibly an international counter-terror operative. “That call was put through by Suzanne Clark of FAA corporate headquarters,” an early FAA memo reported, supposedly based on flight attendant reports she’d just received (from who precisely is unsure). Five minutes later, the memo explains, Flight 11 crashed into the World Trade Center and disappeared for good.
This memo was released as a first draft, but never released in final form, as it had by then become “protected information,” and the final FAA record reflects no gunshots fired anywhere that day. Worldnet ran an article about this in February 2002, explaining that “the FAA, while confirming the document is authentic, claims the report of Lewin's shooting, written several hours after the Sept. 11 hijackings, was premature and inaccurate.” While this call mentioning the gunshot was not recorded, an FBI account of it was leaked to the media, though eventually eclipsed by another, recorded call from attendant Amy Sweeney. In this account, and referring to the same two passengers, “a hijacker also cut the throat of a business-class passenger, and he appears to be dead."
There are different opinions on the story change from firearm to blade, from FAA cover-up of abysmal security to simple communications errors. The 9/11 Commission’s Final Report made several mentions of the possibility of a gun on board Flight 93 (which they found in error), but no mention at all of any gun on AA11. It was completely ignored.
But the most interesting thing about this discredited FAA memo for the study at hand is the times listed in it: the calls from the flight were reportedly placed at 9:18 and 9;20, and five minutes later, “at 9:25 am, this flight crashed directly into one of the towers of the world trade center.” The actual crash was at 8:46, 32 minutes earlier. The 9/11 Commission just presumed a typo it seems, and shifted the time frame back an hour, placing two calls from Amy Sweeney at 8:19 and 8:21. So following this pattern, if we shift the impact back an hour as well, the plane would have crashed at 8:26. So now we have two separate “typos” and an impact time out of alignment with the others. Time zone lag is the not a reason – it was 9:25 nowhere in the world when Flight 11 ended.
But of course what was happening at 9;25 was that minutes-old reports that Flight 11 was airborne being passed on through the air defense system. Are these 9:18-9:20 report of violence on the ghost flight 11 what actually got Flight 11 reported as airborne at that time? It’s the kind of thing that would make a controller have to “presume” where the plane actually was, since no one was actually seeing it? Or is it just a coincidence that this incongruous memo matches both the plane and time of this noted but un-examined “mistaken FAA information,” as well as its origins at national HQ in DC? They weren’t able to find it, but I may have that very info they so desperately wanted, found in their discard pile of confused reports from that crazy day.
Next: Sliney's Authority: Unlimited But Unsure
Back to FAA Masterlist
This memo was released as a first draft, but never released in final form, as it had by then become “protected information,” and the final FAA record reflects no gunshots fired anywhere that day. Worldnet ran an article about this in February 2002, explaining that “the FAA, while confirming the document is authentic, claims the report of Lewin's shooting, written several hours after the Sept. 11 hijackings, was premature and inaccurate.” While this call mentioning the gunshot was not recorded, an FBI account of it was leaked to the media, though eventually eclipsed by another, recorded call from attendant Amy Sweeney. In this account, and referring to the same two passengers, “a hijacker also cut the throat of a business-class passenger, and he appears to be dead."
There are different opinions on the story change from firearm to blade, from FAA cover-up of abysmal security to simple communications errors. The 9/11 Commission’s Final Report made several mentions of the possibility of a gun on board Flight 93 (which they found in error), but no mention at all of any gun on AA11. It was completely ignored.
But the most interesting thing about this discredited FAA memo for the study at hand is the times listed in it: the calls from the flight were reportedly placed at 9:18 and 9;20, and five minutes later, “at 9:25 am, this flight crashed directly into one of the towers of the world trade center.” The actual crash was at 8:46, 32 minutes earlier. The 9/11 Commission just presumed a typo it seems, and shifted the time frame back an hour, placing two calls from Amy Sweeney at 8:19 and 8:21. So following this pattern, if we shift the impact back an hour as well, the plane would have crashed at 8:26. So now we have two separate “typos” and an impact time out of alignment with the others. Time zone lag is the not a reason – it was 9:25 nowhere in the world when Flight 11 ended.
But of course what was happening at 9;25 was that minutes-old reports that Flight 11 was airborne being passed on through the air defense system. Are these 9:18-9:20 report of violence on the ghost flight 11 what actually got Flight 11 reported as airborne at that time? It’s the kind of thing that would make a controller have to “presume” where the plane actually was, since no one was actually seeing it? Or is it just a coincidence that this incongruous memo matches both the plane and time of this noted but un-examined “mistaken FAA information,” as well as its origins at national HQ in DC? They weren’t able to find it, but I may have that very info they so desperately wanted, found in their discard pile of confused reports from that crazy day.
Next: Sliney's Authority: Unlimited But Unsure
Back to FAA Masterlist
Monday, February 26, 2007
FAA I: THE COVER-UP ON PAGE 34
Adam Larson
Caustic Logic / They Let It Happen
2/27/07
The current official story of what precisely happened on 9/11 has changed repeatedly, from the first chaotic report to the stalled and limited investigations culminating with the 9/11 Commission. Some major changes ere set in stone with the publication of their final Report in mid-2004. One that caught my attention was the assymmetry of White House accounts and evidence over the shoot-down order passed from Bush to Cheney at some vague time after 10:00 am. While all their evidence points to a call at 10:18 officially the Commission maintained the White House story that the call was placed at about 10:10, neither Bush nor Cheney recalls exactly when, and no records exist. [1]
Another changed story I’d noticed also became a central focus of "Nick7261" at Above Top Secret, who posted what he felt was “the strongest evidence of some sort of government cover-up.” He found this compelling seam in the pages of the 9/11 Commission’s final report, where they pointed out that NORAD had given them “incorrect” information regarding their awareness of and reaction to the hijackings of Flight 93 and 77. This is pivotal, since even many skeptics can see why the NY attack planes could have slipped through our defenses by sheer earliness and the whole “it’s never happened before” thing. By 9:03 am it had happened twice, and was looking to happen again, reportedly as many as eleven planes were suspected hijacked, and still no defenses showed late enough in the game to shoot AA77 or UA93 out of the sky. This might seem embarrassing to some.
Regarding the May 2003 testimony of NORAD officials, the Commission found three main issues of contention:
1) at 9:16 am NEADS (North East Air Defense Sector) received notification from the FAA that Flight 93 was hijacked.
2) NORAD received notification at 9:24 am that Flight 77 was hijacked.
3) As the Commission put it: “In their testimony and in other public accounts, NORAD officials also stated that the Langley fighters were scrambled to respond to the notifications about American 77, United 93, or both.”
Chairmen Kean and Hamilton and their cohorts decided all these assertions were “incorrect,” and chose to publish another, stranger version. But rather than simply alter the record silently, they drew attention to the changes in the text of their actual report, on page 34. Regarding the first point, NEADS’ notice of 93’s hijacking, they explained “this statement was incorrect. There was no hijack to report at 9:16. United 93 was proceeding normally at that time.” Indeed, by my research, the hijacking seems to have occurred at just about the time the pentagon was stricken at 9:37.
The Commission give no explanation of how NEADS was able to submit a timeline that was clearly false on at least this point; not having been given one, they probably didn’t feel like guessing a reason. The closest they came was in hinting “those accounts had the effect of deflecting questions about the military’s capacity to obtain timely and accurate information from its own sources. In addition, they overstated the FAA’s ability to provide the military with timely and useful information that morning.” (p 34) They didn’t like to look weak, so they overstated their abilities, both internally and with regard to FAA.
But either way, their explanation for the other two less-than correct statements are more interesting and bring us to our first major anomaly. The Commission found that NORAD had been informed by an unnamed FAA employee that Flight 11 did not fly into the WTC and was heading south towards Washington. Nick found on study “out of the entire 567-page 9/11 Commission Report, only one page covers how Flight 77 was able to avoid U.S. Air Defense and hit the Pentagon,” and that’s page 34, where they clarified that the Capital’s air defense was gunning for a ghost while a third real weaponized airliner, and soon a fourth, was targeting DC unseen. This is explosive evidence, indicating to me something, at best, on the far side of negligence.
So after the report’s release, we have two stories, one covering the other. Nick wondered if the new version were true, who gave the false info on Flight 11, why, and why the anonymity? And if the original NORAD version delivered under oath were true, then why did the Commission replace it with the new FAA version instead without seeking clarification on that perjured testimony? Certainly budgetary restraints, time pressures, and limited subpoena powers would be cited if we asked, but either way, there’s a slew of questions left unanswered, and possibly a cover-up. Nick speculated as one possibility that “the 9/11 Commission fabricated the story that the fighters were chasing a plane that didn't exist to explain how two hijacked planes were flying unimpeded towards their targets.” I had to admit it sounded plausible, and started digging in a little bit.
Next: The Phantom Flight 11
Back to FAA Masterlsit
Sources:
[1] 9/11 Commission Final report, pages 40-41.
[2] Ibid. Page 34.
Caustic Logic / They Let It Happen
2/27/07
The current official story of what precisely happened on 9/11 has changed repeatedly, from the first chaotic report to the stalled and limited investigations culminating with the 9/11 Commission. Some major changes ere set in stone with the publication of their final Report in mid-2004. One that caught my attention was the assymmetry of White House accounts and evidence over the shoot-down order passed from Bush to Cheney at some vague time after 10:00 am. While all their evidence points to a call at 10:18 officially the Commission maintained the White House story that the call was placed at about 10:10, neither Bush nor Cheney recalls exactly when, and no records exist. [1]
Another changed story I’d noticed also became a central focus of "Nick7261" at Above Top Secret, who posted what he felt was “the strongest evidence of some sort of government cover-up.” He found this compelling seam in the pages of the 9/11 Commission’s final report, where they pointed out that NORAD had given them “incorrect” information regarding their awareness of and reaction to the hijackings of Flight 93 and 77. This is pivotal, since even many skeptics can see why the NY attack planes could have slipped through our defenses by sheer earliness and the whole “it’s never happened before” thing. By 9:03 am it had happened twice, and was looking to happen again, reportedly as many as eleven planes were suspected hijacked, and still no defenses showed late enough in the game to shoot AA77 or UA93 out of the sky. This might seem embarrassing to some.
Regarding the May 2003 testimony of NORAD officials, the Commission found three main issues of contention:
1) at 9:16 am NEADS (North East Air Defense Sector) received notification from the FAA that Flight 93 was hijacked.
2) NORAD received notification at 9:24 am that Flight 77 was hijacked.
3) As the Commission put it: “In their testimony and in other public accounts, NORAD officials also stated that the Langley fighters were scrambled to respond to the notifications about American 77, United 93, or both.”
Chairmen Kean and Hamilton and their cohorts decided all these assertions were “incorrect,” and chose to publish another, stranger version. But rather than simply alter the record silently, they drew attention to the changes in the text of their actual report, on page 34. Regarding the first point, NEADS’ notice of 93’s hijacking, they explained “this statement was incorrect. There was no hijack to report at 9:16. United 93 was proceeding normally at that time.” Indeed, by my research, the hijacking seems to have occurred at just about the time the pentagon was stricken at 9:37.
The Commission give no explanation of how NEADS was able to submit a timeline that was clearly false on at least this point; not having been given one, they probably didn’t feel like guessing a reason. The closest they came was in hinting “those accounts had the effect of deflecting questions about the military’s capacity to obtain timely and accurate information from its own sources. In addition, they overstated the FAA’s ability to provide the military with timely and useful information that morning.” (p 34) They didn’t like to look weak, so they overstated their abilities, both internally and with regard to FAA.
But either way, their explanation for the other two less-than correct statements are more interesting and bring us to our first major anomaly. The Commission found that NORAD had been informed by an unnamed FAA employee that Flight 11 did not fly into the WTC and was heading south towards Washington. Nick found on study “out of the entire 567-page 9/11 Commission Report, only one page covers how Flight 77 was able to avoid U.S. Air Defense and hit the Pentagon,” and that’s page 34, where they clarified that the Capital’s air defense was gunning for a ghost while a third real weaponized airliner, and soon a fourth, was targeting DC unseen. This is explosive evidence, indicating to me something, at best, on the far side of negligence.
So after the report’s release, we have two stories, one covering the other. Nick wondered if the new version were true, who gave the false info on Flight 11, why, and why the anonymity? And if the original NORAD version delivered under oath were true, then why did the Commission replace it with the new FAA version instead without seeking clarification on that perjured testimony? Certainly budgetary restraints, time pressures, and limited subpoena powers would be cited if we asked, but either way, there’s a slew of questions left unanswered, and possibly a cover-up. Nick speculated as one possibility that “the 9/11 Commission fabricated the story that the fighters were chasing a plane that didn't exist to explain how two hijacked planes were flying unimpeded towards their targets.” I had to admit it sounded plausible, and started digging in a little bit.
Next: The Phantom Flight 11
Back to FAA Masterlsit
Sources:
[1] 9/11 Commission Final report, pages 40-41.
[2] Ibid. Page 34.
Monday, December 11, 2006
OTIS AND LANGLEY
SCRAMBLING AGAINST THE CLOCK
According to the official pre-2004 timeline supplied by NORAD, Boston flight control had waited twenty minutes after it decided Flight 11 was hijacked to alert them, at 8:40 am. This has been widely contested, with FAA insisting it had alerted NORAD much earlier. But anyway, at 8:46 NORAD issued the scramble order to Otis Air National Guard base in Cape Cod, Massachusetts – the same minute flight 11 slammed into the North Tower. The first two F-15 pilots, Lt. Col. Timothy Duffy (code-named “Duff”) and Major Daniel Nash (“Nasty”), were off the ground to intercept American 11 six minutes later, at 8:52.
This yielded a 39-minute loss-of-contact to takeoff time for Otis. This delay, coming after months of foreign and domestic warnings of possible hijackings, is 50%, longer than reaction in the totally unexpected Payne Stewart case two years earlier. These fighters were sent to intercept American 11 six minutes after it was obliterated in its impact with the WTC. [1] They finally arrived and established a combat air patrol over Manhattan at 9:25, 33 minutes after takeoff. [2]
At about this time, more jets were scrambled from Langley AFB in Virginia, the other ready pair in the northeast. NEADS called Langley at about 9:15 and asked national guardsman “Honey” urgently “how many planes can you send?” “We have two ready,” Honey replied. “That’s not what I asked,” came the curt reply. “How many can you get airborne?” “With me, three.’” Honey said.” [3] It’s not clear why there was an insistence on sending a third jet when standard procedure was to send a pair – I looked for clues in the 9/11 Commission’s final report, but it does not seem to mention the number of fighters sent from Langley. Since only two fighters were ready, prepping this third plane would set their schedule back. “Honey,” his partner “Lou,” and the unnamed third pilot took off at 9:30, just minutes before flight 77 reappeared on radar screens closing in on Washington. The CCR lists the pilots as pilots were Major Brad Derrig, Captain Craig Borgstrom, and Major Dean Eckmann, all from the North Dakota Air National Guard’s 119th Fighter Wing, then stationed at Langley, but I cannot find who was Honey, who was Lou, and ho as the third. The commission concluded they were not being sent to intercept American 77 closing in on Washington, but rather to New York to back up the Otis pilots. [4]
This was the entire first wave of national defense – five fighters, scrambled late from two bases far from the scene of the crime. More fighters would join them by about 10 am, but during the actual attack, the first wave was all there was. The following sections detail their mission, doomed to failure from the beginning.
(also linked on the air defense masterlist)
- Heading and Speed
- Information shared with the defending fighter pilots: RIDICULOUSLY inadequate
- No shoot-down order received.
Sources:
[1] North American Aerospace Defense Command News Release. “NORAD’s Response Times” September 18, 2001. Accessed May 7, 2003 at: http://www.unansweredquestions.org/timeline/2001/norad091801.html
[2] National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States. The 9/11 Commission Report. Authorized First Edition. New York. W.W. Norton. 2004. Page 24.
[3] "9;30 am: Langley Fighters Take Off." http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=a930langleylaunch#a930langleylaunch
[4] Longman, Jere. Among the Heroes: United Flight 93 and the Passengers and Crew who Fought Back. New York. Harper Collins. 2002. Page 65.
According to the official pre-2004 timeline supplied by NORAD, Boston flight control had waited twenty minutes after it decided Flight 11 was hijacked to alert them, at 8:40 am. This has been widely contested, with FAA insisting it had alerted NORAD much earlier. But anyway, at 8:46 NORAD issued the scramble order to Otis Air National Guard base in Cape Cod, Massachusetts – the same minute flight 11 slammed into the North Tower. The first two F-15 pilots, Lt. Col. Timothy Duffy (code-named “Duff”) and Major Daniel Nash (“Nasty”), were off the ground to intercept American 11 six minutes later, at 8:52.
This yielded a 39-minute loss-of-contact to takeoff time for Otis. This delay, coming after months of foreign and domestic warnings of possible hijackings, is 50%, longer than reaction in the totally unexpected Payne Stewart case two years earlier. These fighters were sent to intercept American 11 six minutes after it was obliterated in its impact with the WTC. [1] They finally arrived and established a combat air patrol over Manhattan at 9:25, 33 minutes after takeoff. [2]
At about this time, more jets were scrambled from Langley AFB in Virginia, the other ready pair in the northeast. NEADS called Langley at about 9:15 and asked national guardsman “Honey” urgently “how many planes can you send?” “We have two ready,” Honey replied. “That’s not what I asked,” came the curt reply. “How many can you get airborne?” “With me, three.’” Honey said.” [3] It’s not clear why there was an insistence on sending a third jet when standard procedure was to send a pair – I looked for clues in the 9/11 Commission’s final report, but it does not seem to mention the number of fighters sent from Langley. Since only two fighters were ready, prepping this third plane would set their schedule back. “Honey,” his partner “Lou,” and the unnamed third pilot took off at 9:30, just minutes before flight 77 reappeared on radar screens closing in on Washington. The CCR lists the pilots as pilots were Major Brad Derrig, Captain Craig Borgstrom, and Major Dean Eckmann, all from the North Dakota Air National Guard’s 119th Fighter Wing, then stationed at Langley, but I cannot find who was Honey, who was Lou, and ho as the third. The commission concluded they were not being sent to intercept American 77 closing in on Washington, but rather to New York to back up the Otis pilots. [4]
This was the entire first wave of national defense – five fighters, scrambled late from two bases far from the scene of the crime. More fighters would join them by about 10 am, but during the actual attack, the first wave was all there was. The following sections detail their mission, doomed to failure from the beginning.
(also linked on the air defense masterlist)
- Heading and Speed
- Information shared with the defending fighter pilots: RIDICULOUSLY inadequate
- No shoot-down order received.
Sources:
[1] North American Aerospace Defense Command News Release. “NORAD’s Response Times” September 18, 2001. Accessed May 7, 2003 at: http://www.unansweredquestions.org/timeline/2001/norad091801.html
[2] National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States. The 9/11 Commission Report. Authorized First Edition. New York. W.W. Norton. 2004. Page 24.
[3] "9;30 am: Langley Fighters Take Off." http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=a930langleylaunch#a930langleylaunch
[4] Longman, Jere. Among the Heroes: United Flight 93 and the Passengers and Crew who Fought Back. New York. Harper Collins. 2002. Page 65.
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