11 Airplanes Astray On September 11,

[LARED]

http://www.findarticles.com/cf_0/m0EIN/2001_Dec_17/80839137/p1/article.jhtml

According to Exclusive Aviation Week & Space Technology Report On FAA Air Traffic Control Command Center.
Business Wire, Dec 17, 2001

Business Editors

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 17, 2001

Suspicions Lead To Nationwide Grounding

An exclusive examination of the activities at the FAA air traffic control command center on September 11 reveals that in the minutes following the attack on the World Trade Center, 11 airplanes had either flown off course or were out of communication, leading the FAA to ground all air traffic for the first time in US history.

The in-depth analysis, in the December 17 issue of Aviation Week & Space Technology, also reveals the air traffic control system responded quickly, decisively, professionally and with surprising cooperation among government and industry groups.

Just minutes after the second of two hijacked airliners had flown into the World Trade Center at 9:03 a.m. EDT the air traffic control command center in Herndon, Va., asked field facilities to advise it of any aircraft that weren't in communication or were flying unexpected routes. The facilities reported 11 such aircraft, according to AW&ST. As the reports of unusual operations grew, Herndon issued a ground-stop order at 9:26 a.m. "We just thought, OK, enough is enough, let's keep them on the ground and see what we've got," Linda Schuessler, manager of tactical operations at the command center told AW&ST.

Two of the 11 aircraft were American Airlines Flight 77, which was flown into the Pentagon at 9:41 a.m., and United Airlines Flight 93, which crashed in southwestern Pennsylvania at 10:10. The anomalies that caused controllers to flag the other nine aircraft were explained later to Herndon's satisfaction. "We followed up on that, at the end of the day and the following day," said Schuessler, "People here continued to say (they had) a little discomfort about the information (they) received.

......


I have an original copy the Aviation Week & Space Technology article which goes into more detail. I can't post it because of copyright issues, but I will be more than willing to fill in information where I can.

[SheilaT]

1. Is the presumption that all

11 of those planes had been hijacked? Or were the other 7 just the normal kind of being slightly off-course that happens all the time?

[LARED]

14. Is the presumption that all 11 of those planes had been hijacked?

I don't think the article implied that at all. There were 11 planes that had various problems that caused concern. I think the article is pretty clear about that.

[DuctapeFatwa]

2. I remember CNN saying something about a 5th plane that morning

They just said it once, though.

[SheilaT]

3. I find it completely unlikely

that any other planes had been taken over and nothing at all happened, and none of the passengers ever reported the takeover or any information at all came out.

I also recall various claims that additional planes had been hijacked that morning, but I feel very confident that didn't happened.

All of the networks also reported that a car bomb went off in front of the State Department and there were several fires on the mall. They all reported that for a good half hour, and then those reports mysteriously disappeared.

There was a lot of confusion and misinformation out there that day. Remember the eye-witnesses who were utterly convinced that small airplanes were the ones flown into the WTC and later the Pentagon? Eyewitness reports are notoriously unreliable. In this case, most people don't correctly recognize aircraft, and they don't understand that the plane they're looking at may be a mile or more away and therefore looks small to them.

It simply strikes me as completely beyond believability that any other planes were taken over, and then control given back to the pilots and no one ever said anything in public about it.

[DuctapeFatwa]

4. On Sept 10th would you have found it likely that the next morning

You would be watching the twin towers implode so perfectly?

[Bolo Boffin]

7. What does this have to do with the subject?

Why should your post be considered anything but an attempt to distract the discussion into something controversial?

[DuctapeFatwa]

12. I'm not sure what the non-controversial aspects of the 9-11 events are

I think that it is tempting for many people, because some of the questions raised are troubling, to take refuge in the lulling chant of "evildoers who hate freedom."

I am not among them. The regime prefers that the 9-11 events not be looked into too closely.

This is not the only issue on which I disagree with the regime.

I am in favor of a throrough investigation of every aspect of the 9-11 events, and holding responsible all who planned it, knew about it, and profited from it.

[RH]

17. Context.

Presumably.

[SheilaT]

11. I take it from this comment

(twin towers imploding perfectly) you're one of those who doesn't believe a fully fueled jumbo jet can do enough destruction to cause the towers to collapse.

Well, I have no difficulty believing a fully fueled jumbo jet can bring down a large building. And no, on September 10 I could not have imagined I'd be watching what I watched on the 11th.

That said, the implication in the original post that more airplanes were hijacked is dishonest. I'm under the distinct impression that airplanes veer off course more or less regularly. There are various reasons for this, and they're usually not too far astray, but when I was an airline employee I heard more than one story (most of which sounded quite reliable) of airplanes actually landing at the wrong airport.

Going astray is not the equivalent of being hijacked, and I'm bothered by the pretense that it might be.

[DuctapeFatwa]

13. Please see Post 12 (nt)

[Bolo Boffin]

6. I don't think the article is saying that.

As MercutioATC has said in other threads, things like lost transponders and off-course airplanes happen with a degree of frequency every day. On September 11th, some of these airplanes started crashing into buildings, and the decision was made to ground air traffic.

I'd expect the other planes to have had regular reasons for their discrepancies. Under the circumstances of that day, grounding air traffic was the only responsible thing to do.

[RH]

15. No I do not recall

that eye-witnesses were utterly convinced that a small airplane was flown into the Pentagon.

:eyes:

[SheilaT]

18. But eyewitnesses

were utterly convinced that small airplanes had flown into the WTC.

And there are those who are convinced, despite eyewitnesses who saw actual airplanes fly into buildings, that missiles were involved.

[RH]

21. Some eyewitnesses

thought so. Others made no such mistake.

Charley Heinz, an eye witness interviewed live on AM radio described the first plane as a

"commercial airliner.. 'AA' on the tail. ... engines under the wing.
...coming from the north ... It appeared to be waggling the wings. ... evasive manouvers .. it didn't look like the plane was totally in control."

http://911digitalarchive.org/sonicmedia//repository/media/child_618.mp3

[Woody Box]

22. Here's the 5th plane (chicago tribune)

But it didn't take off.

http://www.geocities.com/itsinsanity2001/fbireport91801.html

[DuctapeFatwa]

24. Thanks. The one I heard them mention, they were looking for

And this was after all 4 had crashed, so I don't think that one is the same one, since it never took off. It could have been one of the 11 that "went astray" or just an error.

What I noticed most about it was that it was never clarified or mentioned again.

[Woody Box]

25. Flight AA 43

I'm doing a bit research concerning AA 43 at the moment, so I tell you what I know.

First they said AA 43's departure in Boston was scheduled at 8:10, but the flight was cancelled before start due to a mechanical problem. The FBI was looking for some passengers who left the plane and took other (unknown) flights. (This is the version of the chicago tribune).

Then the story changed. AA 43 flew every day from Newark to Los Angeles, not from Boston, and it was scheduled for 8:10 (there is no doubt about that). So they said they were mixung up Boston and Newark.

The problem is: AA 43 was not cancelled, it took off normally from Newark, there was no delay, so what's about the passengers they were looking for? Didn' they exist? So they said, we are looking for passengers on this flight who disappeared after the plane was grounded in St. Louis. And finally they raided a train going to texas and arrested two suspect Indians (they found box-cutters...).

STOP!

Do you still remember the plane with the mechanical problem? What's about that? And the passengers leaving the plane in Boston?

What I want to say is that AA 43, the "5th plane", is a piece of disinformation. There was a plane in Boston with a mechanical problem, there was a cancelled flight and there have been passengers moving from one plane to another, but it was not AA 43.

And now my theory: they couldn't tell the people that this cancelled flight was AA 11, that the passengers were moved to another plane (UA 175, very likely), so they took simply number 43, creating confusion and distraction including chasing some innocent Indians in Texas.

I know this sounds a bit complicated. What I want to say is that nobody kept asking for this cancelled flight and the disappearing passengers in Boston. They are forgotten.

And that raises suspicion.

[JailForBush]

5. Possible Interpretations

First, it would be helpful to know what air traffis is normally like. Assuming this report is abnormal, here are some pertinent questions:

1. Were the pilots at fault, or air traffic control?

2. If the fault lie with air traffic control, was it because it was being manipulated by the federal government?

3. Or were the planes disrupted by some sort of secret weapon which was being used to steer the four "hijacked" airliners?

[stickdog]

8. 11 planes astray, 0 intercepted.

:wtf:

[LARED]

9. Some additiional information from the original report

that may provide some answers. I don't feel comfortable posting anymore than this as it is copywrited and I cannot provide a link to it. I have not edited it in anyway

...........

The kind of government-industry coordination Herndon relies on to deal with bad weather turned instead to crisis management. As usual, the Air Transport Assn. (ATA) and the National Business Aircraft Assn. were represented on the operational floor. In a fluke, so was what Herndon calls ''the military cell'' -- the Air Traffic Services Cell, created by the FAA and the Defense Dept. for use when needed to coordinate priority aircraft movement during warfare or emergencies. The Pentagon staffs it only three days per month for refresher training, but Sept. 11 happened to be one of those days.

Schuessler secured the command center, ''because we didn't know exactly what the situation was and what was going on.'' Non-Herndon, non-FAA people were asked to leave.

''We were continuing to call the air traffic facilities, and at one point we asked them to advise the command center if they had any radar targets that started dropping off the radar scope, or any deviations from their route of flight, or any loss of communication. These things happen routinely, and usually the facilities handle it. But we felt that we had an unusual situation, so we were reaching out to them, saying, Let us know in a very timely manner of anything unusual, whatsoever.

''Once we started putting those feelers out, we started getting more and more calls about bomb threats, about aircraft that we had lost communication or radar identification with . . . We had a on the operational floor, and we used it to put down the call signs of various aircraft that we had gotten reports on . . . We were tracking 11 aircraft that we had gotten unusual information on, that we thought seemed worthy of keeping a closer eye on.''


........

[RH]

16. So

are you therefore in Dulce Decorum mode or do you have a point to make, an opinion, or a case to make out?

[LARED]

19. Simple

I thought the information I posted was new to many folks. I had no idea the ATC folks were tracking 11 planes that morning?

Or this;

In a fluke, so was what Herndon calls ''the military cell'' -- the Air Traffic Services Cell, created by the FAA and the Defense Dept. for use when needed to coordinate priority aircraft movement during warfare or emergencies. The Pentagon staffs it only three days per month for refresher training, but Sept. 11 happened to be one of those days.

Is this OK with you?

[RH]

20. Just fishing hopefully

for a meaning.

What would the usual incidence of stray planes be?

I hadn't seen the stuff before.

:loveya: All good information is welcome. :thumbsup:

[LARED]

27. What would the usual incidence of stray planes be?

From the Aviation Week & Space Technology article


Schuessler secured the command center, ''because we didn't know exactly what the situation was and what was going on.'' Non-Herndon, non-FAA people were asked to leave.

''We were continuing to call the air traffic facilities, and at one point we asked them to advise the command center if they had any radar targets that started dropping off the radar scope, or any deviations from their route of flight, or any loss of communication. These things happen routinely, and usually the facilities handle it. But we felt that we had an unusual situation, so we were reaching out to them, saying, Let us know in a very timely manner of anything unusual, whatsoever.

[paulthompson]

10. interesting article

USA Today also talks about the 11 confused flights in a couple articles:

http://www.usatoday.com/news/sept11/2002-08-12-clearskies_x.htm

http://www.usatoday.com/news/sept11/2002-08-12-hijacker-daytwo_x.htm

http://www.usatoday.com/news/sept11/2002-08-12-koreanair_x.htm

Lared,
Since you may subscribe to AV&ST, do you know of any other articles in there that bear upon 9/11? I only know of 4:

3/25/02
6/03/02
6/10/02
9/09/02

But they go into more detail that most news articles, so I'd be glad to know of more.

[Woody Box]

23. explanation

The passenger planes were substituted by remote control devices to hit the WTC and the pentagon, as many believe. They didn't send transponder signals after the swapping procedure, so the controllers had to deal with unknown objects. This accounts for 3 unidentified planes.

And maybe some (military) planes flew home after the job was done. Without revealing their identity, of course.

[Woody Box]

26. confirmation

FAA Controllers Detail 9/11 Events

In the tense minutes after two hijacked jetliners smashed into New York's World Trade Center and another hit the Pentagon, air traffic controllers had as many as 11 other suspect aircraft on their screens, federal aviation officials said Monday.

The concern over possible additional hijackings did not end until 12:15 p.m. on Sept. 11 - 3½ hours after the first attack on the twin towers - when the last of 4,546 commercial aircraft were safely on the ground nationwide.

"Somewhere in the first hour after the first plane hit, we were receiving reports of additional confirmed hijackings. The list at that point in time started to grow," said Frank Hatfield, Eastern Region division manager for FAA air traffic control operations.

"All reports were treated as unconfirmed hijackings until we eliminated that as a possibility. We were not satisfied that the last number was four until 12:15 p.m., and every airplane in the country was on the ground," he said.

"No one had ever envisioned a scenario where the United States would land every plane in the sky."

Airports became jammed with the unexpected aircraft, yet there were no mishaps, he said.


http://www.public-action.com/911/faa-many-planes/index.html