Craig

I still think that (pre Sept 11) there are probably other things that they do first before scrambling jets when a jet falls off radar. Today is obviously different, I'm sure they would be up in the air the minute any strange thing happened but not back then.

They did finally send some up- I think that there was about a 30 minute window that passed before they went up.

What I found more surprising was that the Pentagon was not better guarded- I guess I had this mental image of the airspace around it being monitored constantly and some kind of missile defense set up to handle an airborne attack.

Zar

Craig,

Well, of course you are correct that they eventually scrambled jets, but I don't think anyone is arguing that fact. They are saying it took far too long.

If slow scrambled jets were the only worrying piece of evidence, I might be inclined to put this whole thing out of my mind. But suffice it to say this is not, by far, all that troubles me. We may never really know.

Craig

Exactly what evidence? The fact that we got caught with our pants down? This is not exactly the first time it's happened, this was so completely foreign to anything that has ever happened to the US that I think we did pretty well in response, all things considered.

elwoodblues

JM- You seem to be making much of the fact that this kind of thing takes a long time to trickle up the chain of command. That's a simple fact of matters in any large bueracracy, and the federal government is the largest of them. Do you think that flight controllers have a red telephone sitting next to their desk with which to inform the president when something 'weird' happens? They have to tell their boss, who tells their boss, who collates the information, who tells HIS boss, who tells his boss...

Also, can you tell us exactly when jets WERE scrambled? As much as you make of the fact that it took awhile to get jets in the air, you don't tell us exactly when they DID get in the air. And acknowledge the fact that the pres can't order it and have it happen two seconds later. The damned things probably aren't sitting hot on an airstrip just waiting for a command. It takes time to get them ready to fly.

That sounds like a damned fool thing. The street outside isn't a secure area by any means, and could easily have a large bomb somewhere nearby, or a van loaded down with fertilizer parked there.

Zar

You can go ahead and think whatever you want. I haven't the time or energy to convince you of anything in particular. I was mainly just talking about what skeptics say are the problems.

If you want to get a better handle on what skeptics are saying, do some searches on the Internet. You could also view sites like The People's Investigation of 9/11. I'm not guaranteeing you'll be convinced by one iota of it (I myself think a good number of the questions floating out there hold little merit), but again, if you want to know what is at issue, and what really are the questions being asked, its worth a look. At the very least, you'll have a comprehensive knowledge of what the people you don't agree with are really up to.

Me and Me

When the famous golfer. Dont recall his first name but his last name was paine or something like that. It was that flight a few years ago where the oxygen ran out on the plane so all the people died of suffocation so the plane was on auto pilot going off course and everyone on the plane was dead. When this flight went off course a millitary jet was sent up within minutes to check things out.

cjack

I think perhaps that hindsight may be clouding your vision on this one.

As another poster said, it is important to keep in mind the unprecedented nature of what happened that morning, and approach it from that perspective.

Between 7:45 and 8:10 am, all the information that flight controllers had was that 4 planes had deviated from their flight plans for some reason. It is easy to look back with 20/20 hindsight and say that they should have known it was a multiple hijacking, but at the time, that would have been a pretty far-fetched scenario. Consider that prior to 9/11/2001, there had never been a multiple hijacking. For that matter, when was the last time a plane had been hijacked in the US?

When the first plane hit the WTC, it was still not clear what was happening. At that point, no one knew what had hit the WTC. Keep in mind that the FAA at this point just has 4 missing planes (with NO information as to their location or status) and a report of some disaster in New York.

Only when the second plane hit did it dawn on anyone that this might be some sort of attack.


Also, much is made of the fact that Dubya kept reading to the kids after Card whispered in his ear what happened. This is one of the cornerstones of the various conspiracy theories regarding 9/11.

However, we don't know what Card told him!

Did he say "Mr. President, terrorists have hijacked planes and are crashing them into buildings," or "Mr. President, there is a situation in New York...we don't have all the details, but it looks serious...we'll keep you informed."


As much as I dislike Bush, I can't imagine that he would keep reading to the kiddies if it had been the former.


We got caught with our pants down by the most audacious and well-executed terrorist attack in history. Why is that so hard to accept?

yaktldg

I think the point, cjack, is that they didn't have to know it was a hijacking. It is standard operating procedure to scramble jets when a plane goes off course or its transponder is turned off no matter what.

Check out GNN's Aftermath: Unanswered Questions from 9-11, and while you're at it the rest of their videos. They're pretty cool.

Craig

No it wasn't. That plane flew for a very long time on autopilot before anyone figured out what was going on.

cjack

Is it? No matter what? Every single time?

I found an ABC news report dated October 25, 1999, that addresses the issue:

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/Da...ane102599.html

In the section marked "Why Did F-16's Track the Jet?" I noticed two things:

1. The first F-16 to intercept the jet was already in the air when it was diverted.

2. According to an ABC aviation analyst...(regarding the shoot-down issue) "There is no set procedure for the Air Force or Navy to scramble an armed fighter for [that purpose] & simply because it's an unprecedented occurrence."

I know that it is NOW standard operating procedure, but was it before 9/11?