Response to hijacking by fighters...
 

The standard response to an airplane hijacking in America is to send fighters to intercept, either to assist, or (as a last resort) to shoot them down. This happens within four minutes of the conformation of the hijacking itslef. That is the official response by the Airforce.

Unfortunatally, on September 11, 2001, the fighers never left the ground. The United States government knew about the hijackings, but the planes stayed on the ground. Could the fighters have intercepted the planes hijacked? Yes. Could they have dissuaded the hijackers from their misson? Who knows. Could they have saved the lives of those in and around the twin towers and in the pentagon on 9/11 by forcing the planes down, one way or another? Yes.

Now I realize that some peoples conclusions drawn from that information may be considered by some to be paranoia, but you have to wonder why the planes didn't leave the ground. The fighters were sitting in the field for the 2 hours between the strikes on the North and South towers.

This issue, along with numerous others, were not addressed by the 9/11 commission, a commission that was created to determine why the terrorist acts on 9/11 were a success. According to the 9/11 Commission Report ( available at http://www.gpoaccess.gov/911/ ) at 8:26 AM eastern time, the hijacking was confimed. That was American flight 11. At 8:46 (20 minutes later) that plane crashed into the North tower. At 8:47, after the initial strike, United flight 175 changed beacon codes twice within a minute and deviated from the assigned altitude. At 9:03 United flight 175 struck the South Tower. At 9:10 American flight 77 was confirmed hijacked. The only person to take action was American Airlines Executive Vice President Gereard Arpey, who grounded all American flights after learning of the hijacking. At 9:37 American flight 77 hit the Pentagon (according to the press and government). NORAD, who was aparently looking for cruise missles or something, completly ignored the hijackings.

I have to ask: Why did the planes sit on the ground? Why did the 4 minute or less response turn into almost an hour (8:26 to after 9:37)?

Note: to all those who would claim this is for Tilted Paranoia, these facts and questions are all based solely on the NORAD Response to Hijacking and the 9/11 Commission Reoprt Sec 1 "We Have Some Planes". Both of these sources are offocial government documents that are supported and recognized internationally.

Where does it say there were no fighters launched?

I will list some good articles from mainstream media outlets, who were the source of information on most of the information generally accepted about 9/11. I am trying to keep this as mainstream as possible so that it will not be moved to paranoia.

This site shows the head of NORAD admitting that the planes could have shot down the planes. http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp...nguage=printer
This site has a blow by blow http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/...11.transcript/
Here we see that NORAD was ready for a hijacking for the use of a crash http://www.usatoday.com/news/washing...18-norad_x.htm

I would say that you've answered your own question.


You are basing your question on limited information.

Questions I would ask are:

1) Did they know that the planes were hijacked?
2) Did the NORAD know the planes were hijacked?

Without these two pieces of information, I don't see that you can really go further, as subsequent investigation requires you know the answer.

1) Addressed in the original post. "According to the 9/11 Commission Report ... at 8:26 AM eastern time, the hijacking was confimed." "At 9:10 American flight 77 was confirmed hijacked." This was confirmed both by the FAA, and NORAD, who were contacted at the same time in both cases.
2) Yes, NORAD was aware only a few minutes after the control towers in contact with the planes were aware. The times were listed above.

Both of these you can find in the official copy of the 9/11 Comission Report. I hope this opens up the information so that it is not limited.

Edit: the 9/11 Commision Report, and the FEMA report on the crash sites are the most complete sources of official information approved by the government about the 9/11 attacks. All other sources are media based, and I would like to keep it as official as possible.

Ok, fair enough.

So the logical next question is, what were the listed reasons for not launching planes?

(If you want me to just read the report, that's fine, but I probably won't as I've got other things going on)

Unfortunatally, there is no official reason to explain the late response by NORAD. I would like to explore that in this thread.

reread everything you wrote. 8:47 the north tower, 9:03 the south tower, and the whenever the pentagon.

this boils down to you trying to suggest we sat on our asses for an hour while we "let" terroists complete their mission. 8:47, 9:03, and 9:37 at the pentagon. That's an hour from a confirmed hijacking to the most horrific attack our country has ever seen. Even with the benefit of hindsight, 4 years later, you're still trying to find a way to point the blame to ourselves. Why else would you ask the question:

" I have to ask: Why did the planes sit on the ground? Why did the 4 minute or less response turn into almost an hour (8:26 to after 9:37)? "

Apparently this is still nothing more than a mystery novel to you folks in silicon valley, who are apparently rooting for the underdog, but the short answer to your question...."MASS MOTHER FUCKING CONFUSION."

The way you phrase the questions and your "facts", it's clear what answer you want.
Sorry to dissapoint.

The only dissapointment I get from your post, matthew, is that your answer was vague. I realize that people can be confused, but this is their job. In prior hijacking situations, NORAD was able to intercept in under 4 minutes with out incedent. The difference between 4 minutes and over an hour is not neglagable.

As for the way my facts are organized, they are coming from someone who wants to know the answers to the questions. I cited real facts and tried to aviod drawing my own conclusions.

Now that was an attack if I've ever seen one. Yes, I live in the 'silicon valley' (a term that is about 2 years too late), and yes I see that there are unanswered questions in this horrrible situation, but what the hell is wrong with that? I'm really sorry that I live in a liberal area. I'll bet that bothers you a lot. I'm proud of my city, and I appreciate that fact that the people that live around me can keep an open mind, although I really don't see how it's relavent to my thread.

What if there were another attack? Are you happy with the mass confusion response? Would you like to see this happen again without NORAD's help? The 9/11 Commission was set up to solve the problems that allowed the 9/11 attacks. It's job was seek out and fix the system so that this won't happen again. This is going to be a problem unless we fix it.

Saying that the response had a window of an hour is just playing with the facts.
A fighter launched to intercept any particular plane had 20, 16 and 27 minutes respectively.
I don't know about validity, but this link seems to suggest that fighters were launched, but the response was shoddy from all parties involved.
http://www.attackonamerica.net/order...eofimpact.html

I should have been more clear, by response in pertaining to the hour I meant that the jets didn't reach the airliners between the first knowledge of a hijacking, and the final crash. Yes, fighters were launched, but the 4 minute or less rule was blatently broken.
In response to the link, according to the commission's new staff report, Vice President Cheney did not issue orders to shoot down hostile aircraft on Sept. 11, 2001, until long after the last hijacked airliner had already crashed, and that the order was never passed along to military fighter pilots searching for errant aircraft that morning. Both Cheny and Bush were aprised minute by minute after the initial impact with the North tower.