Next 9/11 Panel Hearing Delayed a Week (focus on bush* &shootdown order)

[maddezmom]

~snip~
The commission's 12th and final hearing is expected to delve into how quickly the Federal Aviation Administration (news - web sites) notified U.S. air defenses about hijacked planes on the day of the 2001 attacks. Officials of the FAA and the North American Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD, are scheduled to testify.


Details of the Sept. 11 plot also will be examined, with testimony from intelligence and law enforcement officials.


Family members and critics long have charged that if military jets had been scrambled sooner after the first hijacked plane hit the World Trade Center at 8:46 a.m., they might have prevented American Airlines Flight 77 from crashing into the Pentagon (news - web sites) more than 50 minutes later, killing 184 people.


At the commission's hearing on aviation safety last May, Maj. Gen. Larry Arnold, a retired NORAD commander, acknowledged under questioning that the jets could have intercepted Flight 77 if they had been sent sooner.


Felzenberg said the June hearing will focus on tracing the timeline of the FAA's notification, as well as when President Bush (news - web sites) delivered the order to NORAD to shoot down any hijacked planes.

~snip~
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=519&ncid=718&e=10&u=/ap/20040526/ap_on_re_us/sept_11_commission

[Stew225]

1. this is the first time that I've seen at least

an allusion to a stand down in the mainstream press. Thank God that there might be a God.

[Beetwasher]

2. This Is The Key to the Whole Thing

These should produce the questions that we MUST have answers to, though I doubt they'll be forthcoming...

[maddezmom]

3. it calls into question cheney's comments about the shootdown order

~~~~

In the days after the attacks, officials said NORAD had been notified of the hijacking of an American Airlines jetliner 12 minutes before it slammed into the Pentagon. Vice President Dick Cheney (news - web sites) said Bush had authorized the Air Force after the World Trade Center attacks to shoot down any plane that entered and refused to leave Washington area airspace. Cheney left unclear whether Bush's decision came before the Pentagon was hit.

~~~~~~

[SpiralHawk]

4. But, but, but...The Commander-in-Chief* was reading "My Pet Goat"

to schoolkids, And could not take time to order the defense of America. He had to sit there on his butt and waste time doing nothing.

Some people feel this is when Bush failed America tragically and pathetically. But they fail to take into account how interesting the book was.

http://mathewgross.com/blog/archives/000351.html

"Moore has a terrifying and funny sequence when he shows the rabbit-in-car-headlights expression on the president's face when he is told about the second plane hitting the towers while at a children's literacy event. A stopwatch appears in the corner of the screen, as the minutes tick by and the president keeps reading My Pet Goat, not knowing what to do without his advisers to tell him."


* AWOL for over a year while honor-bound by solemn oath to be serving with the Texas National Guard in the 1970s; defeated by a clear majority of patriotic and discerning American voters in the 2000 election; selected to office by the "legal" system.

[denverbill]

5. It was my impression (probably false),

that there is almost a continuous air-cover around Washington DC.

I mean, if some dude in a single engine Cessna starts heading towards the Whitehouse, fighters are almost immediately sent to intercept, aren't they?

50 minutes is an outrageously long time to prepare. 5 minutes would be more than enough, I would think.

[Kira]

6. Couldn't the others before the Pentagon

plane hit be shot down as well. How long did from take off did it take for them to realize that the planes that hit the towers were off course? At least after the first one the second one should have been shot down. Or not? This questioning is so important. Everyone has been waiting for it. They better not blow it. And Hamilton better not do what he did with Gulianni and not even bother to use his time!

[TomNickell]

10. No, not possible. Think about it...

Possibly, fighter planes could have 'intercepted' the two airliners. Then what?

The greater problem was the decision to shoot down two planes full of people. Planes are 'off course'. Where are they going? What do they intend to do? There is no communication from the cockpit. Previous hijackings have landed somewhere and made ransom demands. Maybe these people will, too.

They -couldn't- shoot them down--kill hundreds of innocent people--on suspicion.

Even if they could have figured out what was going to happen, it would take time to collect the informtion, relay to decision makers, communicate to the President's staff, explain the situation to the President, get the order, relay back down to the pilots, make positive identification, confirm positive identification, etc.

The Pentagon plane -could- have been stopped. It will be interesting to see what actually was happening. Remember there were -thousands- of planes 'off course' trying to get to ground somewhere.

The more useful action would have been to evacuate gov't buildings after WTC. Didn't happen until after the Pentagon.

This thread will be very soon overrun by Conspiracy hobbyists who are very sure that Bush ordered the military to assist the hijackers and that the military complied happily. End of useful discussion.

[Parche]

7. FAA

All planes that travel must prepare a flight plan, if you deviate
even 1 degree from that, ATC calls you and if no answers then
they alert the AirForc,Norad, and they investigate.
They are supposed to be up in the air within minutes, they have
fighters on 24hour standby, they should have been up there in 10minutes.
There is something fishy, just on this day that this happens.
Only 1 person in this country can order them to "stand down"
and we all know which moron that is.

A friend of mine is retired FAA, I have not talked to him in a while
I wonder what he thinks of all this

[Kira]

8. I think that says it all

I would love to know his opinion. I can't wait for these hearings even though I don't trust the commission.

[maddezmom]

9. kick

:kick:

[LastLiberal in PalmSprings]

11. Huh?

Did they change the rules lately?

When I flew as an Air Force navigator and a civilian instructor pilot, you were only required to file a flight plan if you were flying by instrument flight rules (IFR). This provides for flight tracking and guidance by ATC, and lets you fly into the clouds while insuring you don't run into other airplanes or cumulogranite. Airlines and military fly IFR, usually.

If you fly under visual flight rules (VFR), you can choose to file a flight plan or not. You don't even have to have a radio! VFR works on a see-and-be-seen principle, and requires that you remain certain distances away from clouds and out of controlled airspace. Even if you choose to file a VFR flight plan, its only purpose is to serve as a starting point for the search-and-rescue crews in case you don't show up when you said you would. (Failing to "close" your flight plan will get you a friendly call from the FAA to make sure you arrived o.k.

If you're flying VFR and the weather at your destination crumps, you can file an IFR flight plan in the air if you're instrument rated, have met currency requirements and your aircraft is appropriately equipped.

As for the "one degree" off course tolerance, I've never heard or read about that resulting in an automatic intercept by fighters. The ground based radio aids (VORTACs) aren't that accurate, especially as you get further from the station. If we wandered off course (it happens), we'd get a call that "We show you four miles north of course." We'd tell them we were correcting back to course, figure out why it happened, and that was the end of that.

Major changes of heading, like those that occurred on 9-11, would trigger a whole set of different procedures, and the questions the commission should ask are (1) why weren't the procedures followed, and (2) why did Rumsfeld change the existing procedures to transfer decision-making powers from the on-scene commander to himself several months before?

[TomNickell]

12. But remember,

At some point -all- the 1000s of planes were deviating from their flight plans. They were ordered to ground immediately.

Mass confusion.

There needs to be an open accounting of the events of that day. The likely story will be of confusion and disorganization and inadequate preparation.