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I wonder if Doppler images from Reagan Airport are archived. I'm assuming that such archives, if they exist, would be in the form of digital information on a harddrive somewhere.
What you say is true. But it is a little odd don't you think that there is no tape out there of ATCs at Reagan Airport trying to get in radio contact with an incoming airliner, at low altitude and way off the normal approach flightpath. I'd never thought of it before, but that really makes me wonder.
I have to disagree with you about the Reagan controller trying to contact the unknown, incoming aircraft. Chris Stephenson, Reagan Tower controller, said, "I knew what had just happened in New York. I had a pretty good idea what was up." If he knew what was up, I don't believe he would have wasted time trying to contact Flight 77, he would've been more concerned with the aircraft that he had control of.
Military flights ARE under civilian control under normal flight conditions, until they reach the base they're landing at. So the ATC does talk to them. But in a national emergency the fighters go MARSA, and they talk to military controllers, and not ATC because ATC wouldn't know where they needed to be, or what information they needed quickly enough.
09:36:23
NASYPANY: O.K., Foxy [Major Fox, the Weapons Team head]. I got a aircraft six miles east of the White House! Get your fighters there as soon as possible!
MALE VOICE: That came from Boston?
HUCKABONE: We're gonna turn and burn it—crank it up—
MALE TECH: Six miles!
HUCKABONE: All right, here we go. This is what we're gonna do—
NASYPANY: We've got an aircraft deviating eight [sic] miles east of the White House right now.
FOX: Do you want us to declare A.F.I.O. [emergency military control of the fighters] and run 'em straight in there?
NASYPANY: Take 'em and run 'em to the White House.
FOX: Go directly to Washington.
CITINO: We're going direct D.C. with my guys [Langley fighters]? Okay. Okay.
HUCKABONE: Ma'am, we are going A.F.I.O. right now with Quit 2-5 [the Langley fighters]. They are going direct Washington.Vanity Fair
About 9:30, the phone that connects his tower to the Secret Service rang. A voice on the other end said an unidentified aircraft was speeding toward Washington. Stephenson looked at the radarscope and saw that the jet was about five miles to the west.
The airplane was completely out of place. "I knew what had just happened in New York. I had a pretty good idea what was up," he said.
He looked out the tower window and saw the jet turning to the right and descending. The jet did a full circle and whoever was flying knew what he was doing. The wings never rocked or oscillated, Stephenson said.
The jet disappeared behind a building in nearby Crystal City, Va., and exploded into the Pentagon. A fireball blew several hundred feet into the air. For several minutes, a huge cloud of debris — paper, insulation and pulverized building materials — hung in the air.
Stephenson and the others stood in stunned silence for several seconds. But then the phones started ringing again and they got back to shutting the airport down.
When transponders are deactivated, the plane cannot be identified automatically. It remains visible on the primary radar returns and can be tracked that way if you already know which of the returns it is. I believe on 911 after turning off the transponders, the planes were almost immediately turned around and as such were hard to locate. I know very little about this though, just thought I would chip in with what little I know.
There is a more detailed account in the book: Touching History. The phone call that Stephenson received was not from the Secret Service, it came from the TRACON facility below the tower. Dulles called Reagan departure then the departure controllers called Stephenson after Flight 77 turned back to the northeast.
I think this portion of the account speaks for itself. It's very difficult to accept this as a plausible sequence of events.
I'll post more about this later.
It's worth noting that he doesn't claim to have actually seen the impact. The whole point of CIT's investigations being that something of an illusion was pulled off that day.
Reagan National Airport has an Airport Surveillance Radar (ASR-9) at the field and it is weather capable.
I still have lingering questions about the radar issue, but I don't have the technical education to pursue them intelligently or to understand responses I might hear.
It's worth noting that he doesn't claim to have actually seen the impact. The whole point of CIT's investigations being that something of an illusion was pulled off that day.