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NORAD and USAF respond to the Payne Stewart incident within moments, but they cannot find their ass with both hands on that Tuesday morning because of VG and related activities.
Death Ends 1,600-Mile Flight Of Learjet Stolen by Mechanic
DENVER, May 25— A flight mechanic who did not have a pilot's license stole a private jet in Virginia early today and flew it 1,600 miles to Denver, where he shot himself to death as the authorities closed in, officials said.
www.nytimes.com...
Mind If I Borrow It?
The day an Air Force mechanic commandeered a North American F-86
And then there was Airman First Class George R. Johnson. A 20-year-old mechanic at Williams Air Force Base in Arizona, Johnson skipped the preliminaries; on the evening of September 20, 1956, he took a Sabrejet up for a ride. Up to then, Johnson’s piloting experience amounted to two hours with an instructor in a Piper Cub.
www.airspacemag.com...
9-11 Fighter Pilot: We Wouldn't Have Shot Down Hijackers
The pilot of one of two U.S. military jets that were scrambled on 9-11 moments after kamikaze hijacker Mohamed Atta slammed American Airlines Flight 11 into Tower One of the World Trade Center said Wednesday that he wouldn't have been able to stop the attack even if he intercepted the plane.
"If we had intercepted American 11, we probably would have watched it crash," the pilot, identified only by his military codename "Nasty," told the Cape Cod Times. "We didn't have the authority to (shoot it down)."
As part of the 102nd Fighter Wing flying out of Otis Air National Guard Base on Cape Cod, "Nasty" and his partner, codenamed "Duff," were scrambled at 8:46 a.m. as news of Flight 11's hijacking reached the base.
Coincidentally, at the very moment, the plane slammed into Tower One.
"We didn't suspect they would use kamikaze tactics that morning," the pilot told the Times. "We weren't ready for that type of an attack, to quickly shoot down one of our own airplanes."
When United Airlines Flight 175, piloted by Atta's hijack-partner Marwan Al Shehhi, crashed into Tower Two at 9:02 a.m., the two F-15's were about 71 miles - eight minutes away - from Manhattan.
By the time "Nasty" got word of a second hijacked plane, it had already smashed into Tower Two, he told the paper. But the idea that the F-15's, had they been scrambled earlier, might have been able to shoot down the hijackers is pure conjecture, "Nasty" told the paper.
At the time, military pilots had no such standing orders. Absent a presidential directive they had no authority to blow a commercial airliner out of the sky.
www.freerepublic.com...
113th Wing, Andrews AFB
The F-16 pilots from Andrews AFB were not familiar with NORAD techniques and its protocols nor were they in the communication loop of NEADS and NORAD. To further underline that point, Lt. Colonel Phil Thompson said it best when he said:
"We've never been an air defense unit. We practice scrambles, we know how to do intercepts and other things, but there's a lot of protocol in the air defense business. We obviously didn't have that expertise..."He was the chief of safety for the 113th Wing, Andrews AFB.
NEADS personnel expressed considerable confusion over the nature and effect of the order
The NEADS commander told us he did not pass along the order because he was unaware of its ramifications. Both the mission commander and the senior weapons director indicated they did not pass the order to the fighters circling Washington and New York because they were unsure how the pilots would, or should, proceed with this guidance.
...the Langley pilots did not know the threat they were facing, did not know where United 93 was located, and did not have shoot-down authorization before United 93 crashed.
www.democracynow.org...
originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: Salander
Payne Stewart's aircraft had the transponder active the entire flight, and was intercepted by aircraft that were already airborne flying nearby. It also wasn't intercepted "within minutes". The last known radio transmission was at 0927 EDT (1327 Zulu) as they were climbing through 23,000 feet. Six minutes later there was no answer. The first F-16 didn't intercept them until 0954 CDT (1454 Zulu). That's over an hour before it was intercepted.
There is a huge difference between that and losing a transponder in an area that doesn't have primary radar to see the aircraft. If the FAA radar doesn't see the aircraft NORAD doesn't, unless it's near a military base that has a primary radar. The FAA was telling NORAD where to look for the aircraft and they didn't have any more idea than NORAD. Unless you're going to claim they were affected by Vigilant Guardian too.
As for the alert aircraft, it's easily verified by multiple sources, regardless of whether they believe the official story or not.
originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: Salander
First, an hour is NOT quickly. Even if it was by an airborne aircraft an hour is an unacceptably long time for an aircraft to be flying comms out in busy airspace.
Secondly, there WAS an exercise going on in Florida that day. That's why the first aircraft involved was a test pilot. He was part of an ongoing exercise at the time.
The pilot of the Eglin plane was Air Force Capt. Chris Hamilton, 32. He had spent the early morning practicing dog-fights over the Gulf of Mexico against a slower A-10 jet, also from Eglin. This was a normal training exerciseswoops and rolls, imaginary warfareheld two or three times a month. Hamilton was surprised by the order to chase a civilian plane and investigate. He never had done this.
And that means that the single A-10 and single F-16 had eyes on still in Florida airspace, at some point around 20 minutes after NORDO.
originally posted by: Zaphod58
a reply to: Salander
Vigilant Guardian had nothing to do with the FAA control centers that were passing information to NORAD.
"Marr noted that on 9/11 NEADS was not directly connected to national interior radar systems. Those radar systems were and are monitored by the FAA."
"Looking out." posture:
1) the "looking out" mission:
"NEADS primary job is to identify aircraft crossing over the Air Defense Zone (ADZ). The second part of this, according to Marrs, is the "friendly by origin" issue within the ADZ. Anything that was beyond this military responsibility was "in the hands" of civil authorities."
2) physical capabilities:
"Marrs commented that NEADS was using 14 radar, and many radio sites. He noted that the sites are focused around the perimeter of the coast. He noted that the radar coverage varied by the sites themselves. He noted the sites were optimized for their off the coast vision."
"Previous to 9/11, the alert bases were based on the Air Defense mission of looking out over the water."
"Deskins states that since the mission prior to 9/11 was air defense NEADS trackers were actively looking to initiate "symbology" on unknown tracks. But prior to 9/11 this was not applied over the US."
"That location is now covered by radar, but on 9/11 there were not as many radar sites feeding into the sector. According to Deskins, the aircraft was both inland and low, and the NEADS radar did not pick it up at the location the FAA controller gave her."
"Fox understood NORAD's air defense mission as a task to survey and identify all aircraft entering United States airspace."
"By posse commatadus NORAD was not allowed to intercept aircraft internal to the United States. That mission was considered a law enforcement mission. Fox noted that he was trained to that point of understanding."
"On 9/11, the capability for the radars on the coast is to give information at most 150 miles, and the radar will not see below 10,000 feet. There was radar coverage for the Langley fighters on their way to Washington. There was no good low level picture."
" Rountree noted that the radar that was in place on 9/11 did have some coverage on the interior, but did not receive low altitude feeds."
08:52:40
NASYPANY: Send 'em to New York City still. Continue! Go!
NASYPANY: This is what I got. Possible news that a 737 just hit the World Trade Center. This is a real-world. And we're trying to confirm this. Okay. Continue taking the fighters down to the New York City area, J.F.K. area, if you can. Make sure that the F.A.A. clears it— your route all the way through. Do what we gotta do, okay? Let's press with this. It looks like this guy could have hit the World Trade Center.
...
08:57:11
NASYPANY: Think we put the exercise on the hold. What do you think? [Laughter.]
...
09:04:50
—Is this explosion part of that that we're lookin' at now on TV?
—Yes.
—Jesus …
—And there's a possible second hijack also—a United Airlines …
—Two planes?…
—Get the # out …
—I think this is a damn input, to be honest.
...
09:21:50
NASYPANY: O.K. American Airlines is still airborne—11, the first guy. He's heading towards Washington. O.K., I think we need to scramble Langley right now. And I'm—I'm gonna take the fighters from Otis and try to chase this guy down if I can find him.