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Several fighter jets were flying over my head (I think in pairs, if I recall right) in numerous passes when I got to the Pentagon after it was hit, and before the plane went down in Pennsylvania. There were rumors that another plane was on its way to DC. Remember that there was a lot of confusion at the time. Initially in DC, reports were claiming that bombs had gone off in various locations.
Fighter jets wouldn't have been scrambled just because a plane went off course back then, before the first one hit the WTC, because we weren't thinking of that threat. As far as the Pentagon plane goes, planes take off and land throughout the day from DCA, which is just next door to the Pentagon. Low-flying aircraft in the area would not have raised suspicion until it was too late.
Stop trying to make sense, it just confuses some folks. I gave up on this thread a year ago when it was first posted.
People don't understand the realities of continental air defense since the end of the Cold War and the draw down of the Air Force units tasked with guarding against a Soviet attack. Which would have come from outside the borders, not from within as the 9/11 planes did.
Why were f-16 fighter jets sent up to escort Payne Stewarts private jet on 25 October 1999 Payne Stewart Plane Crash Information , but in 2001 when 4 major airliners veer off course and no jet fighters were sent up. I have always wondered this. I still think it was our government creating a reason to go into the middle east due to the oil there. Granted the terrorist aboard the planes were true terrorist, but they were hired by the CIA or other national security agencies in my opinion unknowingly. So in essence you had real terrorist doing real terrorism allowed to happen like the Japenese Invasioin of Pearl Harbor was by Roosevelt to start WW2. If America did not go into the middle east it would of been Russia. What do the you think the movie Charlie Wilson's War was all about. America and Russia have been at each others throats for the last 30 years over the middle east, and who do you think is funding the terrorist in the middle east now, Russia of course. The world we live in is a mess, and most Americans are to busy in their daily lives, and take main stream news to be fact. You have to dig for the truth!!!!! Oil is vital to the world wide economy, and thank goodness we have our military there protecting the vital interest, and not Russian troups. We did just push them out of Afghanistan in the late 1980's remember.
I would imagine that normally, fighter jets are not scrambled because passenger jets are out of course. I don't think it was untill the second jet hit the twin towers that they realized that it was deliberate, and not just a disaster.
Second, at the time I am pretty sure there was no legal possibility of gunning down passenger jets full of people over the US, even on very strong suspicion. There just wasn't the laws.
Third, even after they realized it was a deliberate attck, what are they going to do? Gun down every passenger jet in US airspace? Nothing like that had ever happened before, how long does it take to tally all the jets, contact them and figure out which ones are hijacked. Its not exactly something that there were procedures for. Most of the jets did not veer of track untill the last minutes of their flight. And remember the confusion ?
Fourth, remember the US passenger aircraft that was shot down by the Soviets over the Kamtchatka after going off course in the 80s? How everyone was saying that American fighterpilots would just not have obeyed an order that horrible. They were probably right.
The notion of sending up fighters to shoot down full passenger flights was pretty abhorrent before 9/11.
Several fighter jets were flying over my head (I think in pairs, if I recall right) in numerous passes when I got to the Pentagon after it was hit, and before the plane went down in Pennsylvania.
From what I recall, an ANG unit near Washington had jets armed, fueled and in the air in record time - which was still well over an hour. (Normally, just getting Sidewinders from the bunker to the flight line was a multi-hour deal.)
Second, at the time I am pretty sure there was no legal possibility of gunning down passenger jets full of people over the US, even on very strong suspicion. There just wasn't the laws.
Whether is is legal or not, Bush did order the shooting down of any hijacked passenger plane, fortunately or unfortunately the order was issued to late too make a difference since all the hijacked planes had already crashed.
That is only one unanswered question. You can almost attribute the bumbling incompetence of the Bush Admin. to the many unanswered questions, but there are way too many unanswered questions. The same questions the Bush/Cheney administration reacted to with SECRECY and HOSTILITY. They have never told us the whole truth and immediately lied by blaming this on Iraq, so its clear they were likely complicit in some way(s) yet unknown.
bush NEVER said that iraq qas responsible for the 9/11 attacks. that is a fantasy dreamed up by the left to try and discredit bush after they had voted for the use of force in iraq, and regretted making the vote.
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Originally Posted by Stac2007
Your question is a good one, especially since the two hijacked plans turned off their transponders. I am not sure they could have gotten all of them but the second plan which hit the second tower could have been avoided. For the life of me I don't know why we did not have a plan for such an event.
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Originally Posted by ovcatto
None of the fighters knew where they were! As I pointed out previously, unlike Stewart's plane, the hijacked airliners had their transponders turned off. The U.S. doesn't not use active radar for tracking flight paths, rather a passive radio contact system, Traffic Collision Avoidance System (TCAS). NORAD's emphasis had previously been to only concern itself with inbound threats. outward looking it does not track aircraft inside the continent.
not only were the transponders turned off, so that ATC could not track the airliners, even if you put primary radar on the area with as many flights that would be in the air, it would still be quite difficult to determine which planes were where they were not supposed to be. the northeast corridor is loaded with commuter flights, long distance domestic flights, international flights, etc. even using the powerful radars that the F15 uses, it would have been rather tough to find the aircraft in all that clutter.
in the end it was an attack on this country that used a new tactic that we had not seen before, and there were no protocols in place to determine if an airliner should be shot down or not. and how many airliners lose their transponder signals on a regular basis? ever listen to ATC communications? it happens more often than you might think.
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Why do I get the feeling that I ma wasting my time?
because you are. and so am i. conspiracy types only see the conspiracy, not the real facts.
the black boxes are not indestructible, they too have their limits on how much damage they can absorb, and how long they can last in a fire.
As far as I have heard they haven't even found pieces or ashes from the boxes but, many months later they did find enough ash evidence to do DNA & be able to locate exactly where some of the people were when they died.
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