So why was it norad failed on 911?

Several months back I was watching the news and they were touting how great norad was and why we are protected from attack. These news people did not say anything had been upgraded since 911, they did not even mention 911 just how much safer we were because of norad. If norad was so great how could 911 have even happened?

Anyway I have not really heard why they apparently failed so poorly on 911. I believe what didn't happen on that day is very important. How come on any other day they did a great job, but on that one day they failed? Over 3000 people died that day, was anyone at Norad even fired? Anyone know the official reason?

www.norad.mil...
To accomplish these critically important missions, NORAD continually adjusts its structure to meet the demands of a changing world. The commander is appointed by, and is responsible to, both the President of the United States and the Prime Minister of Canada. The commander maintains his headquarters at Peterson Air Force Base, Colo., and a directorate a short distance away at Cheyenne Mountain Air Force Station. The NORAD-U.S. Northern Command Command Center serves as a central collection and coordination facility for a worldwide system of sensors designed to provide the commander and the leadership of Canada and the U.S. with an accurate picture of any aerospace threat. Three subordinate region headquarters at Elmendorf AFB, Alaska, Canadian Forces Base, Winnipeg, Manitoba, and Tyndall AFB, Florida, receive direction from the commander and control air operations within their respective areas of responsibility.

[edit on 21-2-2007 by goose]

Well from what I understand, and it is covered in several threads here (that I don't have the time to dig up) is that NORAD coincidently had not one, but several exercise going on that day.

These exercises included hijacking scenarios, and many of NORADS resources were many miles away from there originating bases.

In fact, when NORAD was first contacted about the real hijackings, there was much confusion if this was part of the exercises that day, or not.

If you do a search on this, you will find the threads I am thinking about.

This probably isn't much, but it should be enough to steer you in the right direction.

Actually the exercises should have sped up their response time as exercises were also going on in the NE sector on that day.

THey had 1 hour from first hijacking warning to the WTC1 and 2 hours from first warning to the Pentagon and Andrews is only 5 minutes from the air and yet not one fighter was up protecting the Pentagon even though everyone even in the military would have known by 9:20 the nation was under attack.

Even when someone say's incompetence it just doesn't add up. the Pentagon is the military nerve centre. 2 hours and yet nothing was off the tarmac.

Just doesn't add up.

Originally posted by goose
If norad was so great how could 911 have even happened?

Anyway I have not really heard why they apparently failed so poorly on 911. I believe what didn't happen on that day is very important. How come on any other day they did a great job, but on that one day they failed? Over 3000 people died that day, was anyone at Norad even fired? Anyone know the official reason?

The "official" reason is NORAD was not told about any of the hijackings in time to intercept the planes.

However, let's get specific. For the sake of argument, let's just leave the NY flights out of this discussion for now. Let's assume they were hijacked and crashed into the WTCs before NORAD could react.

That still leaves Flight 77 that hit the Pentagon at 9:37 am, and Flight 93 that crashed in Pennsylvania at 10:03 am.

The official reason that NORAD did nothing to intercept these flights is because the FAA gave NEADS false information about a "phantom" Flight 11 that did NOT hit WTC1 and was supposedly heading south from NY towards Washington. This caused the fighters to be scrambled away from the incoming hijacked flights.

Worse yet, NORAD wasn't even told about Flight 77 being a hijacking, and the FAA lost Flight 77 from radar for 30 mintues while it continued unimpeded from somewhere over eastern Kentucky towards the Pentagon.

At 9:49 am, just after Flight 77 hit the Pentagon, the FAA told the air traffic controllers in Cleveland, Pittsburgh, and Johnstown to evacuate their positions in the control tower where they could have tracked Flight 93.

At 9:49 am NORAD was considering scrambling planes to intercept Flight 93, but the FAA told NORAD that the controllers had lost Flight 93 from radar.

So the FAA ordered the ATCs out of the towers then told NORAD that they lost Flight 93 from radar. Duh! No kidding! The controllers were in the parking lots instead of watching their radar screens because the FAA sent them there.


Here's a thread that goes into more details on the FAA's involvement in 9/11, along with links to sources:

www.abovetopsecret.com...

The employees at NORAD are just adorable



Sometimes when things get crazy in US airspace they just start throwin' luggage around.

This is, of course, the only reasonable explanation as to what happened on 911.