Full El Al flight took off on 9/11 from JFK to Tel Aviv

onlinejournal.com...

WMR has learned from two El Al sources who worked for the Israeli airline at New York’s John F. Kennedy airport that on 9/11, hours after the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) grounded all civilian domestic and international incoming and outgoing flights to and from the United States, a full El Al Boeing 747 took off from JFK bound for Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion International Airport.

The two El Al employee sources are not Israeli nationals but legal immigrants from Ecuador who were working in the United States for the airline.

The flight departed JFK at 4:11 pm and its departure was, according to the El Al sources, authorized by the direct intervention of the U.S. Department of Defense. U.S. military officials were on the scene at JFK and were personally involved with the airport and air traffic control authorities to clear the flight for take-off.

According to the 9/11 Commission report, Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta ordered all civilian flights to be grounded at 9:45 am on September 11.

The New York Air Traffic control center’s audio tape of recollections of air traffic controllers made an hour and a half after the 9/11 attacks were destroyed by an air traffic control manager who did not face criminal charges for destroying physical evidence on the worst terrorist attack in American history. The Transportation Department later claimed the destruction of the tape was the result of mere “poor judgment.”

The El Al flight took off two days before commercial flights were permitted to resume on September 13. Private flights were only permitted to resume on September 14. On September 13, a chartered Lear jet flew three Saudis, including a member of the Saudi royal family, from Tampa to Lexington, Kentucky. On September 14, a chartered Northstar Aviation flight flew four Saudis from Providence, Rhode Island to Paris.

On August 22, 2005, WMR reported: “Four Americans flew with ‘Air Bin Laden’ flight transporting Bin Laden family members to Saudi Arabia and Europe nine days after 911. The post-911 domestic flights of Bin Laden family members out of the United States with the sanction of the Bush White House were not the only instances where Americans have flown with the family that spawned “Al Qaeda” leader Osama Bin Laden. WMR has obtained a passenger list from a September 20, 2001, Aero Services private charter flight from Le Bourget Airport, north of Paris, to Geneva, and on to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia (King Abdulaziz International Airport-OEJN). On the list are a number of Bin Ladens, as well as four Americans, including a Los Angeles Police Department officer named Jason Blum who flew to Le Bourget from Los Angeles. A previous list provided to Sen. Frank Lautenberg showed Mr. Blum departing from the Bin Laden party in Boston. The newly obtained list shows he accompanied the Bin Ladens to Paris Le Bourget. The other three Americans on the passenger list are J.P. Buonono, Joseph Allen Wyka and Ricardo V. Pascetta.”

Although much has been written about the “Bin Laden” and other Saudi flights in the days after 9/11, the El Al flight on the afternoon of September 11 is the first instance of Israelis departing the United States while commercial traffic was grounded.

There have also been reports that the FBI seized FAA records concerning the events of 9/11 from the New York Air Route Traffic Control Center in Islip, Long Island. The ARTCC has responsibility for flights out of JFK.

Hmmm, interesting. Why were Israeli flights allowed to fly when every other flight was grounded except the Bin Laden airbuses?

reply to post by seattletruth


Who the hell is Wayne Madsen and why should I believe anything he says?

And don't you love the way he lumps in the Bin Laden flights without mentioning those flights all happened after the flight ban was lifted.

Hmmm, never heard of this before. If this is confirmed as coming from a reliable source it will be interesting to see what snakes come crawling out of the grass.

Passenger lists, anyone?

As for this:

The Transportation Department later claimed the destruction of the tape was the result of mere “poor judgment.”

Oh, ok, no problem then. I will see if that stands up in court in tyhe same way if I ever get a DUI 'out of poor judgement'...

Sometimes it's hard to tell whether to laugh or cry after hearing staments from the authorities.

There are lots of reports of flights taking off AFTER the grounding order. This was done to protect family members specially memebrs of the royal Saudi family from any backlash from what happened on 9/11.

Click here to learn more about this warning.

Did you think we were kidding?

You all will post according to ATS rules. Which means on topic and with civility. No more jabs, and pokes at other members.

Post bans will follow.

Boys, and girls, it's a whole new world in this forum.

Here is a link to Wayne Madsen's bio on Wikipedia:

en.wikipedia.org...

There is plenty of fodder there for people who want to belittle or besmirch him. Unfortunately nothing there helps one to decide if he is telling the truth or not in his column.

Nothing in the column helps one decide it either.

Interesting claim. I would like to see some verification. There might be an important story here, but it is too early to tell.

Thanks to the OP for the heads up though.

Originally posted by seattletruth
The flight departed JFK at 4:11 pm and its departure was, according to the El Al sources, authorized by the direct intervention of the U.S. Department of Defense. U.S. military officials were on the scene at JFK and were personally involved with the airport and air traffic control authorities to clear the flight for take-off.

Well well.

Department of Defense. Rumsfeld.

This sounds like a real good candidate for a FOIA request. Any and all records, including passenger list, of who was on that flight and why it was given the authority to take off when EVERY SINGLE OTHER PLANE was grounded. Now if this isn't suspicious, I don't know what is!

Of course with the FAA tapes destroyed, they have an alibi. And of all places for an airplane to go, is it any surprise that Tel Aviv was the destination? I am just wondering if there is any chance the Israelis who were observed filming and "documenting" the attacks on the WTC- and who were detained- might have been on that plane, along with a whole host of other "documenters" and/or planners. Yeah, uh-huh, let's see what the government says about THAT plane!

You know, this looks like a good thread to FLAG THE HELL OUT OF!

[edit on Wed Mar 17th 2010 by TrueAmerican]

reply to post by TrueAmerican


Before this gets blown out of proportion.....

Of course with the FAA tapes destroyed, they have an alibi.

It is extremely important to be certain we know what we're talking about, here, when the phrase "FAA tapes destroyed" is used.....

Again, for clarity: The tapes that were destroyed were NOT official FAA ATC recordings!

This is how rumours start, and spread like a virus on the Web.

The tapes mentioned as being destroyed were nothing but recorded recollections of the controllers involved at ONE ATC facility, on the same day of the attacks...that afternoon. Someone thought it good for posterity, while memories were fresh.

Thing is, someone else in a supervisory position feared that ANY little procedural mistake made by anyone under his authority, no matter how slight a mistake, would be jumped on by higher-ups. Everyone knows that corners get cut, procedures are short-cut...there is no way in the ATC bureaucracy to follow the "rule book" to the letter, not if you want to be efficient and keep the traffic moving. The job gets done, it stays safe....BUT, in the event a controller wanted to conduct a job action, to protest a slow contract negotiation, for instance, simply going "by-the-book" exactly as written will slow things down considerably.

The recollections of the controllers were written down, in their own handwriting. So no extra words were there to be misinterpreted by Monday-morning-quarterbacks later.......

Here, more clarity:

Six air traffic controllers provided accounts of their communications with hijacked planes on Sept. 11, 2001, on a tape recording that was later destroyed by Federal Aviation Administration managers, according to a government investigative report issued today.

..........

"We believe the audiotape in question appears to be consistent with written statements and other materials provided to FBI investigators and would not have added in any significant way to the information contained in what has already been provided to investigators and members of the 9/11 commission," said FAA spokesman Greg Martin.

Hours after the hijacked planes flew into the World Trade Center Towers, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field, an FAA manager at the New York Air Route Traffic Control Center gathered six controllers who communicated or tracked two of the hijacked planes and recorded in a one-hour interviewtheir personal accounts of what occurred, the report stated.

The manager, who is not named in the report, said that his intentions were to provide quick information to federal officials investigating the attack before the air traffic controllers involved took sick leave for the stress of their experiences, as is common practice.

According to the report, a second manager at the New York center promised a union official representing the controllers that he would "get rid of" the tape after controllers used it to provide written statements to federal officials about the events of the day.

.........

But the managers decided not to include the tape in a November 2001 "Formal Accident Package" report the office prepared because one manager said he did not want to break his word to the union official and he did not think the tape should ever have been made.

www.washingtonpost.com...

reply to post by weedwhacker


Ok, well great then. That means the records of this "special" flight to Tel Aviv are likely still in existence. FOIA FOIA FOIA!

We wanna know who the heck was authorized to take off to a foreign country, when our own citizens were totally grounded. Even YOU have to admit, WW, something is definitely not right with this. It stinks to high heaven if you ask me...

reply to post by TrueAmerican


I agree...IF this is true. However, a thought occurred to me...

Has anyone thought to research to find out how many foreign heads of state and/or other diplomatic dignitaries were visiting in the US for any reason, and were therefore "stuck"?

This comes to mind because, in case y'all aren't aware, EL-AL has THE most security of any airline, bar none.

Their airplanes are guarded, when on the ground, by armed guards with Uzis. Everything is checked stringently...given the circumstances, that airline would be well suited for a one-off mission to extricate the stranded foreign nationals who were simply trapped here through no fault of their own.


Of course, they could have been taken home on military transports...but, in case you didn't know, those airplanes don't exactly have any creature comforts. Not a nice way to treat a friendly foreign diplomat.

Originally posted by weedwhacker
Has anyone thought to research to find out how many foreign heads of state and/or other diplomatic dignitaries were visiting in the US for any reason, and were therefore "stuck"?

Their airplanes are guarded, when on the ground, by armed guards with Uzis. Everything is checked stringently...given the circumstances, that airline would be well suited for a one-off mission to extricate the stranded foreign nationals who were simply trapped here through no fault of their own.

Yeah, well maybe we should find out how many foreign heads of state there were, because if there were more, from other countries, then why was it that ISRAELI nationals were the ones let out on special orders from the DoD? What, were all foreign heads of state rounded up and flown to Tel Aviv? Now why do I seriously doubt that, huh?

The bottom line is if everything was above board with that flight, then there should be no problem getting the passenger list. And of course once we have that, you better believe we wanna know what in the heck they were doing here. Now even I will bet you, with all of the rest of the coverup that there is about Israeli involvement on 9/11, that NO ONE will be able to get a damn THING from the government about this flight.

Originally posted by weedwhacker
Again, for clarity: The tapes that were destroyed were NOT official FAA ATC recordings!

But they were still evidence that was destroyed.

reply to post by REMISNE



For the last time, it's in the Washington Post article I linked, up above ---

Anything that was on the tape recordings, of the recollections of the controllers IS in public record via their written statements. There is no substantial difference between what they said, and what they wrote down, except that having it in written form is far better for all concerned.

Originally posted by weedwhacker
Anything that was on the tape recordings, of the recollections of the controllers IS in public record via their written statements.

How do we know for sure since the tapes were destroyed?