Two Pilots Revisit Their 9/11 (Boston Globe)

[paulthompson]

Here's an article today that doesn't say much new. But some people might find it interesting. Anyone living in Boston - does the paper version have pictures of these guys? I'd like to add their pics to my timeline.

Two Pilots Revisit Their 9/11

'Like being in the middle of a bad movie': Otis fighters scrambled; airmen watched as the twin towers burned, then collapsed

by Matt Viser
The Boston Globe
September 11, 2005
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2005/09/11/two_pilots_revisit_their_911?mode=PF



Flying 4,000 feet above Manhattan four years ago today, F-15 pilot Timothy Duffy peered down to the World Trade Center's North Tower with an eerie mix of disbelief and hope. It was on fire, but, Duffy said, he still thought the tower would survive.

''I was thinking they were going to save this building," said Duffy, one of two pilots who had been scrambled from Otis Air National Guard Base that morning. ''As I was looking at the square of the roof, and all of a sudden it starts getting smaller. I didn't have a reference point to compare it to, so it really didn't make sense to me what I was looking at for a couple of seconds. Until I saw a plume coming out of the bottom and I realized it was imploding."

''It was like being in the middle of a bad movie," Duffy said. ''You're up there, you're flying over the city, the towers are on fire. It was just wrong, the whole thing."

In their most extensive interviews since the attacks, Duffy and his wingman, Major Daniel Nash, detailed their doubts, frustrations, and personal emotions and the roles they played on one of the most awful days in US history. And Nash expressed dismay that Otis, one of the forward defense bases, is threatened with closure.

[Make7]

1. There are pictures in archived articles of the Cape Cod Times.

The only pictures I remember seeing are in these articles:

http://web.archive.org/web/20020828194341/www.capecodonline.com/special/terror/ithought21.htm

and

http://web.archive.org/web/20021020054053/www.capecodonline.com/special/terror/sickestxz27.htm

-Make7

[paulthompson]

3. Thanks

I didn't have one of those.

[Woody Box]

2. "A process that takes about five minutes" ?????

This here makes me thinking :wtf:


At 8:46, just at the time the first tower was hit, Nash and Duffy were ordered to start their engines, a process that takes about five minutes.

You need FIVE minutes to start the engines of a F-15 and get in the air? Sorry, I'm no flight engineer, but I can't believe that.

Does anyone share my doubts? Or is a F-15 expert here?

[paulthompson]

4. Doubtful

Given that early in the 1990s NORAD promised a five minute scramble response time for fighters including this type of fighter, there's no way just turning on the engines can take five minutes. In fact, as David Ray Griffin has pointed out, one claim even stated 2 and 1/2 minutes from phone call to liftoff, thought that was for a different type of fighter.

[AZCat]

5. Hmm... This interview might offer some insight.

I have no idea who "Code One Magazine" is, but they have an interview here with a Lt. Col. David Nelson, a test pilot on the F-22 with several thousand hours in the F-15. The part of the interview that applies here is below.

Quote:
The airplane is very simple to start. The pilot turns on the battery and auxiliary power unit, puts the throttles in idle, and he's done. The F-15 and F-16 are also fairly simple to start, but the F-22 beats both of them. It also starts faster. We need to demonstrate that sometime. After parking at the end of the runway, I can take off in a minute and a half with full alignments on both of my inertial navigation systems. This is very fast, probably twice as fast as an F-15.
End Quote

[Kevin Fenton]

8. 2 and 1/2 minutes

I think the 2 and 1/2 minutes was from scramble order to 29,000 feet. I guess a plane which received a scramble order should already have gone to battle stations and be outside the hangar with its engine warmed up, sitting at the end of the runway ready to go.

The response to American 11 and United 175 was poor, but not suspiciously so. I'm sure Duffy and Nash could be persuaded to lie, but to my mind they're telling the truth and I really don't think there was any standdown order.

What amazes me is that the response got worse, not better, when the higher-ups got involved. Surely, it should be the other way around? Was there no one in Washington who could figure out it would be a target?

[philb]

6. Seems to me there was plenty of time to intercept- I don't understand why

they didn't. And I've looked at the transcripts, statements, etc.

Note: The impact with WTC2 was 43 minutes after Flight 11 first went off course, 21 minutes after Flight 175 went off course, and 17 minutes after the North Tower impact, yet the jet was not intercepted.

Do the on-call pilots really stay 1/2 mile from the planes and not ready to fly? Seems to me they got a slow start for some reason. And weren't the Andrews fighters closer?

Flying at 30 miles per minute NY is 10 minute trip.
But even at 20 miles per minute its a 15 minute trip. They can easily do 20 mpm and this seems important enough to warrent it.

NEADS couldn't give them any instructions even after WTC1 had been hit by a hijacked plane? And it was known that another plane was hijacked?
http://www.flcv.com/offco175.html

[philb]

7. They got the right site; in emergency is bureaucracy more important than r

results? How long does it take Otis to confirm from NORAD? Not more than 2 minutes hopefully? The problem seems to be controllers and NORAD more than the pilots.

I agree that the first plane likely couldn't have been intercepted if there really was no pilots on call closer than Otis. (which I don't believe based on the evidence). But regarding Fl 175:

Nash:
"The tower had initially tried to contact a former alert site in Atlantic City, unaware that it had been phased out. They also called Otis, which cannot take orders from the FAA without the approval of NORAD, the North American Aerospace Defense Command, which controls military air defense over the United States. The 9/11 Commission Report also found that the Boston Center had not followed the proper chain of command."

"While in the air, Duffy radioed for information about the unidentified aircraft. No one knew what to tell him because the transponder on the hijacked airplanes had been turned off. Duffy and Nash were ordered to stay in a holding pattern off Long Island"

(So all that is required to totally buffalo NORAD is to turn off the transponder?? Actually that is an automatic indicator of hijack and immediate intercept. Both FAA and NORAD have radar that would show the planes. )


There obviously was more interaction between FAA, NORAD, and others than the 9/11 Commission has admitted. But for some reason there was slow reaction. And for the other 2 planes that were much later it appears they clearly should have been intercepted; though it is also clear that Fl 93 was- contrary to 9/11 report.

http://www.flcv.com/offcom77.html
http://www.flcv.com/offcom93.html