Would a helicopter rescue have been impossible?

the way I see this is that the reason they did not try a helicopter rescue was because they were not sure if there was another plane on the way(which there was) and if they would have enough time to land and then get out of there as soon as possible. I think it definitely would have bee nworth the effort though, risk 2 or 3 more lives to save 100+. I also think the entire 9/11 attack was just a conspiracy and the government didn't attempt any type of rescue during the action because they had it planned beforehand and all types of officials knew about the attack. Another fact that proves my point even more is that the officials did tell the workers to go back to there offices and continue working. This was obviously a successful attempt to keep the numbers of fatalities up. If anyone has a reply to my conspiracy topic, then make a new thread in 9/11 conspiracies or find a room where I have posted this theory.

I'm inclined to agree with SWAT Life as well.

People don't realize what it was like in person. Most of you only saw it on TV, which while awful in itself, was not like being there in person. Having been there in person, although on the ground, I can tell you that the amount of smoke, pre-collapse, was out of control. Flames were leaping forth from the building and thick plumes of black smoke were just relentlessly coming out.

Maybe you're right... maybe a special helicopter like something from the military could have gotten close, but you're talking about News choppers and NYPD choppers that are used for spotlighting perps, not rescues. These are not military grade, in fact they're quite far from it.

I firmly believe any attempt at landing a chopper would have resulted in absolute disaster.

video.google.com...

In the "9-11 Eyewitness" video you can check out multiple helicopters moving around the towers, and sometimes through the smoke and what looks like ONTO the buildings. I say a rescue attempt would have been impossible with helicopters.

Originally posted by Griff
Didn't they actually tell people to go back to their offices? What fools (not the people who went back in...the officials who told them to go back in). I would think if I was in WTC 2, I wouldn't go back in after WTC 1 was hit.

Yes they were told to return to their offices and luckily some did not pay attention and left. One of my customers was telling me about his ordeal and it was so scary..he was up on the 84th floor or around the 82nd and he said he and a few others just said F_ them and left. Half of his group never made it down due to a simple choice of which stairway they took.

Some idiots like the manager of the IT department at Fiduciary Trust had actually been foolish enough to send his employees back up top to retrieve data and make backups after they were safely downstairs.


If I am not mistaken I believe NYPD helicopters did make at least 1 or 2 rescues from the rooftop or so I thought. Maybe Im wrong.


Pie

Somebody correct me if I am wrong here, but I was under the impression that a helo rescue was not attempted simply due to the fact that there was no one to rescue. If there was no persons on the roof, why would you attempt to fly through the smoke and the severe turb. from the thermal updraft. It was not as if scores of people were on the roof.


BTW Apex...
"sell, i'll sell your memories
for 15 pounds per year
but just the good days" Great Song!

I have worked on almost all RotaryAircraft in the US. Military and ResCue .
I say not for pure damage and heat and shock after initial hit .

landing pad was quite small, built for personal/executive transportation, not mass evacuation.

Oh yes, it does look small, but I thought it might have been possible.

That and the fact that there was not an air rescue plan in place

Why on earth was there no rescue plan? They did it when there was the 1993 bombing, didn't they think it would be a good idea to have a plan for a future event?

Originally posted by Imperium Americana
Somebody correct me if I am wrong here, but I was under the impression that a helo rescue was not attempted simply due to the fact that there was no one to rescue. It was not as if scores of people were on the roof.

I know there wasn't anyone on the roof, apparently they couldn't get to the top or something like that, but I thought it may have been possible to get to the top of the tower ad get in, after all, if the doors were locked or sealed in some way, surely they would have been one so to keep people off the roof, not the other way around?

On a lighter note..

"sell, i'll sell your memories
for 15 pounds per year
but just the good days" Great Song!

Thanks, I think you mentioned it before, but thanks anyway!

Originally posted by Rockpuck
I have wondered that as well... Why not have every TV and Corporate helicopter in NY (there are TONS of them.. ) fly and pick people up... or better yet a chinook or something?..

The other thing I though odd...

If a tower in Ny where to catch fire.. and burn.. is the only way to put it out threw having fire fighters climb the stairs to get to the fire to put it out with hoses? .. They should have had helicopters with water cannons or something..

One of the problems with mass helicopter rescue would have been traffic control. Helicopters occupy a lot of airspace, and getting several of them onto (and off of) the roof heliport would require really good coordination. The likely result of all of those helicopters trying to get into position would be a massive string of mid-air impacts.

As for helicopters with water cannons, where do you put the water? At 8.3 lbs / gallon, water isn't light...and even using nothing but 2.5" lines (never mind a high-capacity water cannon), fire fighters can go through 2,000 gallons in a matter of minutes (and not many minutes, at that...I know...been there and done that).

As for helicopters with water cannons, where do you put the water? At 8.3 lbs / gallon, water isn't light...and even using nothing but 2.5" lines (never mind a high-capacity water cannon), fire fighters can go through 2,000 gallons in a matter of minutes (and not many minutes, at that...I know...been there and done that).

The Los Angeles City FD experimented with a (for lack of a better term) 'contraption' or 'platform' back in the early '80's for fighting high-rise fires that was basically a large metal basket equipted with a small engine and a propeller so that the two man team could somewhat control it's position while it hung underneath a heavy lift chopper beside a blazing skyscraper. Water was to be supplied from ground lines hoisted up.

It failed miserabably and was sold for scrap. I tried to Google it to no avail.

Guess it looked good on paper...

Pity, sounds like something really useful. I really wonder how they are ever going to solve big fires in high rise buildings.

Even the most experienced pilots would have a difficult job landing on top of them buildings. I myself fly light aircraft as a hobby however some of the guys at the air club fly choppers and are ex military pilots etc. We have spoke about this many times and most agree it would be like mission impossible but a few said they would have tried but mainly that it would seem almost impossible due to the smoke.

NYC should have in place a plan for such an incident not just helicopters but anything they could. I could think of a million things ie a emergency spiral chute, Emergency rope ladders, Training for staff in Abseiling even Zip lines to neighbouring buildings id even go as far to say STAR jumps in extreme cases

New buildings in major cities being built should have things like this in plan before they build

[edit on 31-1-2007 by thesaint]

Originally posted by apex
Pity, sounds like something really useful.

After thinking about it I just now emailed the Los Angeles FD Historical Society to see if they had any info on the thing. I'll post if I hear back.[/qoute]

I really wonder how they are ever going to solve big fires in high rise buildings.

Sprinklers (which if you've ever seen one in action, don't 'sprinkle' they flood) and pressurized stairways with fresh air intakes and emergency lighting. Those systems generally work fine under 'normal' circumstances.

Given the extent of the damage to the towers on 9/11 they were probably useless.

I live in NYC and lived 3 minutes from the events of 9/11. I was up out of bed watching as soon as the first plane hit as it was right outside my window. So I can say that I was one of the first people on the scene throughout the day and the helicopters were landing directly in the back of my building as I lived and worked in the building as I am a real estate salesperson in NY. I knew a few people who worked inTowers 1 and 2.

People did get on top of the roof. Another tenant and I had binoculars and cameras while we were outside watching all the sadness and heartache unfold. We also heard and saw the 2nd plane from where it came and where it hit. Let me tell you something for those who did not live it. There was 1 individual on top of WTC 1 roof the entire time waving his white shirt to the helicopters. They (poloice copter) in my opinion could have landed or thrown a rope ladder down to him as the smoke was being blown towards the west. I could imagine this mans agony that he propbably realized they were not going to help, but he stayed up there the entire time. As for the evacuation, well, let me tell you all something!

People in the US have been trained, almost seem robotic and seem incapable of using their innate survival instincts. Also, the illusion of security is deeply embedded in the minds of many people I think. DO YOU KNOW.. while we were standing watching the 1st tower on smoke that workers from my building were walking directly in the direction of this to go to work while the building is smoking? Do you know that workers in Tower 2 were watching tower 1 on fire and smoke while there bosses said - AND I DID TALK TO A FEW PEOPLE who were in Tower 2 because they lived in my building and got out luckily - "stay where you are the fire department will handle it." I'm sorry, nobody knew exactly what had happened if it was an accident or what kind of plane had hit. MORE than half of NYC didn't hear or knew what was going on as this was near the Financial District/Battery Park area of NYC.

Let me tell you something, me and this guy at our building told at least five people "HEY where are you going, the buildings on fire, stay here or call your boss...somethings not right." Those people in Tower 2, I'm sorry, using common sense and the proximity and height of the fire, THERE WAS NO WAY THE FIRE DEPARTMENT WAS GOING TO PUT A FIRE OUT AT THE 80-something floor with high winds. Battery Park is basically on the 1000 yards from the Hudson River.

I personally counted over 67 bodies fall or jump from the sides of the Trade Center I faced and the glass buildings amplified their bodies as they fell. I bet you didn't hear of this one man who was trying to climb his way down outside Tower 2 did you? He looked like a spec through the binoculars, but we estimated he made it down 20-something floors to probably the 40-something floors before the building collapsed on him and this was the 2nd Tower, the second one to get hit came down 5-10minutes before the 1st tower was hit. I gues there were grooves in the tower that were enabling him to climb his way down to freedom (imagine a rock climber without his harness) that was this guy - I cried for that guy because I imagined him being me, trying to survive.

Ask yourselves this -would you ever expect to be at work and thinking what you're going to have for lunch today THEN ALL OF A SUDDEN - you're trying to figure out how to save your life?

Everyone could have gotten out, exept the employees at "Top of The World" which was a hot restaurant/lounge on the 90-something floor of WTC 1. The morning staff didn't have a chance as they were directly hit. My friend managed the WWF Lounge in Times Square and 1 of his staff worked there as well. He told me her parents came to visit her work (his establishment) to see where she was working and he talked and showed them around and was hard for him.

Folks, people were told to stay where they were and HELP was coming.

I lived directly there and watched from beginning to end. The police choppers could have helped 1 individual on the roof as he was the only one waving his white shirt the entire time from WTC I. The winds were blowing West. After both towers were hit, people KNEW it was an attack and chaos ensued.

READ MY POST if interested near the bottom of the page "In response to Helicopters and Evacuation."

Originally posted by godofmen The police choppers could have helped 1 individual on the roof as he was the only one waving his white shirt the entire time from WTC I. The winds were blowing West.

Like I said in my first post, if they had saved one person it would have been worthwhile. That would have been better than what happened.

Good post by the way

Originally posted by Imperium Americana
Somebody correct me if I am wrong here, but I was under the impression that a helo rescue was not attempted simply due to the fact that there was no one to rescue.

There are actually reports that the doors to the roof were locked for some reason that morning, which is why no one was up there.

Personally, I don't understand how some individuals with boxcutters and razor blades could have taken three planes from major airports, disobeyed air trafiic control and crash one plane, then 2 plane and 3 plane. # the 2nd plane circled The Stautute of Liberty twice before it came in our direction.

It's strange to me, but it happened and I don't know enough to say what's the truth. However, for a country this powerful to be attcked in such a manner, especially that early in the morning? Later in the afternoon they would have caused more damage... NY was like a warzone thereafter. No major power has dared to attack mainland U.S. us in such a way; rather desperate, fanatical people.

If they can make a change in such a manner imagine what the U.S. population could to to its own government in changing it huh? That would be the day power came back to the people. I guess we're not desperate enough....

godofmen, you probably don't even understand how 2 men can blow a 40 ft gapping hole on a state of the art American destroyer in 2000, nor a pair of men blowing up 2 American embassies simultaneously back in 1998. Do most people think of terrorists as a bunch of sheperds with camels that lives in caves?

I can post videos of the training they have if you ask.

Originally posted by bsbray11

Originally posted by Imperium Americana
Somebody correct me if I am wrong here, but I was under the impression that a helo rescue was not attempted simply due to the fact that there was no one to rescue.

There are actually reports that the doors to the roof were locked for some reason that morning, which is why no one was up there.

There was 1 man I saw on the roof the entire time waiving his white shirt from the beginning to the police helicopter from WTC I.

Originally posted by deltaboy
godofmen, you probably don't even understand how 2 men can blow a 40 ft gapping hole on a state of the art American destroyer in 2000, nor a pair of men blowing up 2 American embassies simultaneously back in 1998. Do most people think of terrorists as a bunch of sheperds with camels that lives in caves?

I can post videos of the training they have if you ask.

Let me correct "I personally can't understand" - if I were a passenger and I hate flying anyway, I would have taken my chances and others would have joined - That's the "group mentality." (I don't plan on dying passively... that's not how I was brought up).

As for terrorists, that's a "branding" word these days .. I have seen videos and I do know what desperate and fanatical/brainwashed people are capable of. I came from a world torn country and know firsthand what individuals/people are capable of when things aren't right. I've been involved in 3 riots, didn't participate because nobody "f..." with me but I watched and made my way through and guided 2-non english speaking indivduals away from the herd on one occasion while 500 people old-aged and young fought each other in freezing weather to get onto 3 buses when the commuter rail broke down from NY to CT. Civilized people are no different than "uncivilized people" SO ...I do understand perfectly just to be clear. I'm just saying my survival instincts are very alert and I am one indivdual who knows when to act and how, when the situation calls for it.