Originally posted by: IcebergSlim
You missed the part of the video where miraculously the air force interceptors stood down for 45 minutes after the first hi jack alert.....wierd coincidence....NOT. Im sure they haxor'd the compooters.
Originally posted by: manowar821
It's not misinformation, I never said that they had a special protected air space associated with the WTC. What I meant to say was that their airspace was as protected as any other metropolis in the USA, there are airbases that can scramble fighters into the air very quickly... IcebergSlim is exactly right.
On September 11th, NORAD had somewhere around 15 aircraft on emergency standby across the United States. These aircraft were traditionally kept at-the-ready to intercept foreign threats flying into American airspace. 15 aircraft, by the way, was not unusually low or abnormal.
On that day, NORAD received four calls from air traffic control on September 11th. Prior to these calls they had no way of knowing there were hijacked planes in the air.
Three calls originated from an FAA administration site in Boston. Two of these calls incorrectly reported (first) that Flight 11 was headed to Washington, DC and (second that a Delta flight had been hijacked. The Flight 11 call was received after the plane had slammed into the North Tower. The third call came at 8:37 am and correctly reported that Flight 11 had been hijacked.
The other call came from the New York FAA office and reported that Flight 175 had also been hijacked. By the time the FAA had dialed NORAD, 175 had already hit the South Tower.
Looking back at NORAD reports, they scrambled fighters from the nearest available bases within minutes of receiving the hijacking calls. F15s took off from Otis AFB in Falmouth, MA and F16s took off from Langley Air National Guard Base in VA.
Why didn't NORAD 'know' the planes were hijacked prior to the phone calls? In 2001, NORAD was an antiquated organization. It was only concerned with threats from abroad - aircraft, missiles, whatever coming across the Atlantic or Pacific Oceans and attack targets within the United States. No NORAD radar tracked domestic flights inside the US and NORAD could only be made aware of hijackings via the FAA.
To make things more complicated, the hijackers turned off the planes transponders (which communicate to air traffic control the plane's designation). Once the FAA realized the planes were hijacked, they had to then search through thousands of radar spots to find the two missing planes. Hence why they were unaware the planes had slammed into the towers.
Originally posted by: IcebergSlimDoesn't matter. They track all commercial flights regardless of where they are flying for hi jacks.
Like i said above, this was NOT true on or before September 11, 2001. NORAD did NOT track ANY flights within the United States. Only after September 11th, when they realized that civilian aircraft could pose a significant threat to national security, did NORAD establish better FAA communications, establish better interceptor coverage, and install radar to monitor flights within the country.
By NORAD's own admission they did not have the capability to track or intercept the hijacked flights on 9/11. So, we're at a crossroads. You can either believe the organization whose ineptitude and lack of preparedness ensured that no planes would be ready to handle a rogue, hijacked plane, or you can continue to believe they are all-powerful, able to do anything. The evidence, unfortunately, points to the former, not the latter case.