that sphire on the Empire State is pretty strong. It supported King Kong didn't it.

That was a put up job as well. Why wasn't the entire airforce used, and I heard that one guy who knows these things reckons the planes weren't firing real bullets. My mate who is a fireman who helped catch an escaped chimp once reckons gorillas can't climb that high, so there is no way it was a real gorilla....

...and before you know it, we have people thinking that King Kong didn't climb the ESB at all and the whole thing was just special effects from Hollywood!

King Kong was a very SPECIAL gorilla, silly.

The air strike thing is another red herring. The claim that the twin towers were "designed to be resistant" is false. This is addressed in the FEMA report.

The buildings were designed in the 1960s, before the outbreak of hijackings, and well before suicide bombings became commonplace. Terrorist activity wasn't on the radar. What was considered was the impact of a lost 707 flying slowly and pretty much empty of fuel at the end of its flight. Not loaded with fuel and at cruising speed. This consideration was obviously rejected, because there is nothing in the design or construction of the twin towers which indicates any attempt to "aircraft proof" them. This is an important point because all the 9/11 conspiracy theories are predicated on the claim that the towers shouldn't have collapsed.

This is where some understanding of engineering is useful. The twin towers were lightweight structures. The columns were all hollow box sections. The floor beams were all trusses. A truss is a triangulated open beam made from rod and strip, not a massive "I" section. The trusses rested on brackets welded to the columns and were located by two bolts at each end. The internal space of each floor was completely open, other than the service section of the central core. The core itself was walled with plasterboard.

This is where it becomes a frustrating dialogue of the deaf because there is nothing whatsoever in the design of the twin towers to suggest they were built to be aircraft proof. However, the 9/11 conspiracists refuse to look at the evidence in front of them, preferring to chant the mantra "they were designed to resist aircraft strike". They were not.

How about if anyone wants to make a claim on this subject, they first verify their info before posting, then publish the source(s) along with the claim. For example, it shouldn't be hard to find out where the planes that hit the twin towers came from.

I decided I'd pick up on the Pentagon story, as it was one of the conspiracy theories I have wondered about. Rag Doll mentioning there were eye witnesses was news to me. It took me about 10 minutes to be sure it was a plane. Too many eye witnesses. The CNN transcript was the clincher:

About.com Normally a legit site.
What Really Happened Hysterical sounding name for balance

CNN Normally reliable

Very good.

fema403_ch2.pdf is here:

http://www.fema.gov/pdf/library/fema403_ch2.pdf

I strongly recommend that anyone interested in this topic look at this report. Specifically the section on potential plane crashes, the diagrams of the floor structure and plane crashes, and the vulnerability of the services.

My eyes hurt! Interesting reading tho.

Rather than arm waving and making unstabstantiated claims, I thought it might be helpful to look at some real information. The Building Research Establishment is a consultancy and test establishment in the UK. http://www.bre.co.uk/ They built a test structure at Cardington and set fire to it in order to measure what actually happens when a steel frame building burns. You can find the results here.

http://www.mace.manchester.ac.uk/project...ta/default1.htm

Firstly, this is how steel behaves when it is heated. You can see that at 500C, it has lost half its strength, and at 1000C about 95% of the strength has gone.



In the Cardington tests, The BRE loaded the cells with a fire load typical of an office, and instrumented the steel to find the temperature response. Some steel was protected by insulation, and some was left exposed. These are results from an unprotected beam. Note they actually measured 1088C in 57 minutes. That means the beam was working at about 5% of its design strength.



See here that the beam has failed (sagged). It has gone from being a beam, to being a catenary. You get a catenary when you string a rope between two poles. The rope pulls IN as well as DOWN. This is important.



Here are a couple of details. Where the vertical column is protected by insulation, there is no damage. Compare it with the beam distortion. Note also that the weld where the end-plate is fixed to the beam. The failure is due to softening, and the beam moving from shear to tension (catenary)



Also note that the column itself has also buckled where it was unprotected by insulation.



So. Conventional steel frame building with a standard fire load. Standard insulation works, the standard is correct. Unprotected steel will fail. Nothing controversial here.

The twin towers. They were lightweight structures. They used trusses rather than I section beams, and lack the massive redundancy of the Cardington test structure. This is all taken from the FEMA report.

Here are details from the twin towers construction. Each end of each truss sat on a bracket welded to the columns (see the effect of a catenary on the Cardington welds above). The trusses were located by 2 5/8" bolts at each end.



Here are two images of the construction. You can the brackets welded to the exterior columns, and in the right hand picture the floor trusses going in. You don't have to accept my word that these were lightweight structures lacking in redundancy. You can see it.



Here in scale is an outline of a B767-200ER and WTC 1. The aircraft weighed about 350,000 lb (about 160 tonnes), was carrying enough fuel to get to LA, and was travelling at about 530mph when it struck. The diagram also shows the internal core where all of the services were located. The walling of that core was made from plasterboard, the stuff you can punch your fist through if you are stupid enough.



Here's an image and diagram of the exterior damage. Five floors have been damaged and are on fire. We know the services, including the sprinkler system were cut. We also know that the the spray on insulation of the floor trusses, their locating brackets and the vertical columns have been blasted by 150 tonnes of stuff travelling at about 500mph. Right in the centre of the photograph you can see the floor hanging in tension: a catenary.



Nothing controversial above.

Everything in the conspiracy theory is predicated on the assertion that the twin towers were designed to be aircraft impact proof, and therefore should not have collapsed. I am satisfied that the twin towers were lightweight structures, and not aircraft-proof. I am also satisfied that the combination of the impact, resultant damage to the fire protection systems, and exposure to an uncontrolled fire is sufficient to explain the collapse without recourse to outside agents.

Is that new tower going up there aircraft impact proof?

No. It's not really possible with a high rise.

Thats fine, what about building 7?

And the debris from the explosion, caused by shooting down an airliner fully fueled, would have mysteriously disappeared without causing any damage to anyone?? I don't think so!

Goodness, gracious me! we just shot down an airplane with a full passenger load and fully fueled, oops! where did that all go? Oh, dear, it fell on the city, too bad!

Time to quit, oyuki kigan.

There is a lot of 911 stuff about the delays in getting fighters over NY. Lots of stuff about an F-15's max speed and the distance from Otis to NY. Lots of pretty simple stuff that sounds convincing. Here is an interview with one of the two pilots scrambled fro Otis. It's not quite as mysterious as some would have us beleive. I particularly like the bit about how long it takes to get a plane in the air. It might come as a surprise to some that on 911 there weren't pilots sitting in jets reving their engines waiting to be scrambled to defend the pentagon or anything else.



Two pilots revisit their 9/11
'Like being in the middle of a bad movie': Otis fighters scrambled; airmen watched as the twin towers burned, then collapsed
By Matt Viser, Globe Staff | September 11, 2005

Flying 4,000 feet above Manhattan four years ago today, F-15 pilot Timothy Duffy peered down to the World Trade Center's North Tower with an eerie mix of disbelief and hope. It was on fire, but, Duffy said, he still thought the tower would survive.

''I was thinking they were going to save this building," said Duffy, one of two pilots who had been scrambled from Otis Air National Guard Base that morning. ''As I was looking at the square of the roof, and all of a sudden it starts getting smaller. I didn't have a reference point to compare it to, so it really didn't make sense to me what I was looking at for a couple of seconds. Until I saw a plume coming out of the bottom and I realized it was imploding."

''It was like being in the middle of a bad movie," Duffy said. ''You're up there, you're flying over the city, the towers are on fire. It was just wrong, the whole thing."

In their most extensive interviews since the attacks, Duffy and his wingman, Major Daniel Nash, detailed their doubts, frustrations, and personal emotions and the roles they played on one of the most awful days in US history. And Nash expressed dismay that Otis, one of the forward defense bases, is threatened with closure.

In short, both pilots said in interviews that they have concluded they did everything they could. They were first on the scene, but by the time they arrived, both World Trade Center towers had been hit. The pilots said they had never been given orders to shoot down any other planes, but that they would have if called upon. Nash also complained that the Boston Center, administered by the FAA, was slow to get them moving.

''I know it changed something in me . . . I thought about it continuously for a long time," Nash said. ''But I finally came to the realization that we probably wouldn't have done anything, definitely for the first plane."

Nash, 38, still has not spoken to his three children about his role on Sept. 11. His oldest is now 9.

''We did what we could. It wasn't much," Nash said. ''Nobody would be calling us heroes if we shot down four airliners on September 11. You can imagine the stuff that would have gone on if the military had done that. It was a lose-lose situation as soon as they took hold of the airplanes."

Duffy, who was close friends with the copilot on United Flight 93 before it was hijacked and later crashed into a field in Pennsylvania, came to a similar conclusion.

''I've flown this thing a thousand times over in my mind, you know?" said Duffy, a lieutenant colonel. ''What if we had done this? What if we had done that? I don't think I would have changed anything from what we did."

For Duffy, 44, the day started at about 6 a.m. He had a Diet Pepsi for breakfast and drove 45 minutes down Route 3 to Otis, leaving his wife and five children in their Duxbury home. He was supervising the morning training missions when a message at 8:34 was relayed from Federal Aviation Administration officials in Boston. An American Airlines flight had been hijacked.

Otis fighters cannot take orders from the FAA, but they started getting ready while they awaited instruction from the Northeast Air Defense Sector, or NEADS, which controls military air defense over the Northeast.

Duffy alerted Nash, the other pilot on alert that day, and they both ran into a brightly lit locker room nearby and began putting on their G-suits and helmets.

They jumped into a Ford pickup and drove the half-mile to the barn-like hangars where the alert F-15s are stored. A siren started blaring and a voice came over the public address system: ''Alpha kilo one and two, battle stations."

This was a signal for them to get strapped into the jets and to await orders.

At 8:46, just at the time the first tower was hit, Nash and Duffy were ordered to start their engines, a process that takes about five minutes.

They were airborne by 8:53, and without permission to break the speed of sound, Duffy started going about Mach 1.4 -- more than 1,000 miles per hour -- toward John F. Kennedy International Airport. ''We had no idea that anything was transpiring like it was," Duffy said.

While in the air, Duffy radioed for information about the unidentified aircraft. No one knew what to tell him because the transponder on the hijacked airplanes had been turned off. Duffy and Nash were ordered to stay in a holding pattern off Long Island.

At 9:13 -- by the time both towers had been hit -- they were ordered to establish combat air patrol over Manhattan. They spent the next several hours sending away news helicopters and private airplanes to keep the airspace clear. A KC-135 tanker from Bangor brought fuel until Duffy and Nash were relieved by two other F-15s from Otis.

When Daniel Nash got home that night, he found his wife nervously drinking a glass of wine -- something she rarely does. Nash said he watched television nonstop. He was angry and hurt.

One acquaintance said Nash had tears in his eyes on several occasions when he spoke about flying that day, contradicting his nickname -- Nasty.

''There was a lot of frustration," Nash said. ''I maybe even felt guilty, even though logically I knew that we would have watched it happen.

''We're still supposed to be there to defend the country, and we were powerless because of the way they did it. It was a pretty emotional day."

Some critics have questioned why they did not arrive sooner.

Duffy and Nash were flying F-15 Eagles that were built in 1977. In their prime, the planes can go Mach 2.5; they could have been to New York in less than 10 minutes. Because of their age and the three large fuel tanks they were carrying, though, the planes couldn't attain that speed, both pilots said.

Still, the pilots stressed that they never had orders to shoot down any of the planes.

''That's not a decision that we would get to make, or that I would even want to make if I had to," Duffy said. ''I'm happy I didn't have to, in the long run. But people have said, 'Would you have done it?' Absolutely, that's my job."

Nash is critical of the way the Boston Center handled the situation in the early minutes.

The tower had initially tried to contact a former alert site in Atlantic City, unaware that it had been phased out. They also called Otis, which cannot take orders from the FAA without the approval of NORAD, the North American Aerospace Defense Command, which controls military air defense over the United States. The 9/11 Commission Report also found that the Boston Center had not followed the proper chain of command.

''It sounds like the FAA didn't have their [act] together at all when they were calling the [Otis] tower," Nash said. ''That has been explained away. . . . To me, it sounded like there was someone who didn't know what they were doing."

Nash has scrambled to escort three commercial airliners since Sept. 11, 2001, all false alarms. Two fighters from Otis also scrambled to bring a plane carrying Richard Reid, the ''shoe bomber," to Boston.

The base realignment commission recommended sending the Otis fighters 130 miles away to Barnes Air National Guard Base in Westfield. The recommendation is expected to gain the approval of President Bush and Congress.

Duffy called the decision ''unconscionable."

''Do I think they should keep this base open just because of 9/11? No," Nash said. ''But I think this is an ideal location to prevent something like that from happening again."

Nash is still active in the Air National Guard, working as an administrator and still flying training missions several times a week.

Duffy, who was a part-time reservist in the National Guard, flew his last mission in December. Around the same time, he went on an extended leave of absence from United for a shoulder injury that may prohibit him from flying again.

He is the president and CEO of Fighter Associates, a consulting firm that trains companies to use fighter squadron methods in the business world.

He is also the director of managed services in New England for Siemens, and he serves as the Air Force liaison in New England to the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

In the halls of the 102d Fighter Wing, their colleagues still call them ''the 9/11 heroes."

''That was one of the events that has been a part of my life, and you move on. It is what it is," Duffy said. ''You don't have to like it, you don't have to agree with it. That's what it is, so you move on."

Oyuki, I know you're being assailed from all sides here, but it's nothing personal. Having someone with a different view makes things interesting. In answer to your question, I think the response is, it doesn't matter. If it can be adquately explained that the Towers fell as a result of the aircraft strike and not due to some action by the government it means, logically, that the other buildings collapsed on their own. The idea that building 7 was wired for demolition in anticipation of the aircraft hitting the Towers AND the Towers collapsing really is too remote a probability to be entertained. I think it has to be an all or nothing scenario, remove one piece and the rest of the argument can not stand. That said, I'm sure Soubs will quickly explain quite clearly the engineering behind building 7's collapse.

Touche

September 11, 2001—Timeline for the Day of the Attacks

Department of Defense (6/1/01) and FAA (7/12/01) procedure: In the event of a hijacking, the FAA hijack coordinator on duty at Washington headquarters requests the military to provide escort aircraft. Normally, NORAD escort aircraft take the required action. The FAA notifies the National Military Command Center by the most expeditious means. [DOD/, 6/1/01, FAA, 7/12/01, FAA 7/12/01]

If NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command) hears of any difficulties in the skies, they begin the work to scramble jet fighters [take off and intercept aircraft that are off course]. Between Sep 2000 and June 2001 fighters were scrambled 67 times. [AP, 8/12/02] When the Lear jet of golfer Payne Stewart didn’t respond in 1999, F-16 interceptors were quickly dispatched. According to an Air Force timeline, a series of military planes provided an emergency escort to Payne’s stricken Lear about 20 minutes after ground controllers lost contact with his plane.[Dallas Morning News, 10/26/99, more]

8:20 AM (approx.): Air traffic controllers suspect Flight 11 has been hijacked. [NY Times, 9/15/01, more]

8:40 AM: NORAD is notified of hijacking. [NY Times, 10/16/01, 8:38 AM Washington Post, 9/15/01]

8:46 AM: Flight 11 crashes into the WTC (World Trade Center) north tower. [approximately 26 minutes after controllers lost contact][New York Times, 9/12/01]

8:46 AM: President Bush later states, "I was sitting outside the classroom and I saw an airplane hit the tower. The TV was on.” [CNN, 12/4/01] “When we walked into the classroom, I had seen this plane fly into the first building.” [White House, 1/5/02] There was no live coverage of the first crash on TV and President Bush was in a classroom reading with children at the time of the second crash. How could he forget this?

8:52 AM: Two F-15s take off from Otis Air Force Base. [Washington Post, 9/15/01] They go after Flight 175. Major General Paul Weaver, director of the Air National Guard, states "the pilots flew like a scalded ape, topping 500 mph but were unable to catch up to the airliner. We had a nine-minute window, and in excess of 100 miles to intercept 175,'' he said. ''There was just literally no way.'' [Dallas Morning News, 9/15/01] F-15's fly at up to 2.5 times the speed of sound [1875 mph or 30+ miles a minute or 270+ miles in nine minutes] and are designed for low-altitude, high-speed, precision attacks. [BBC]

8:56 AM: By this time, it is evident that Flight 77 is lost. The FAA, already in contact with the Pentagon about the two hijackings out of Boston, reportedly doesn’t notify NORAD of this until 9:24, 28 minutes later. [see 9:10 AM for comparison, New York Times, 10/16/01]

9:03 AM: Flight 175 crashes into the south WTC tower. [23 minutes after NORAD notified, 43 minutes after air traffic control lost contact with pilots][New York Times, 9/12/01, CNN, 9/12/01]

9:10 AM: Major General Paul Weaver states Flight 77 came back on the (radar) scope at 9:10 in West Virginia. [Dallas Morning News, 9/15/01] Another report states the military was notified of Flight 77 several minutes after 9:03. [Washington Post, 9/15/01]

9:24 AM [? – see above]: The FAA, who 28 minutes earlier had discovered Flight 77 off course and heading east over West Virginia, reportedly notifies NORAD. A Pentagon spokesman says, "The Pentagon was simply not aware that this aircraft was coming our way." [Newsday, 9/23/01, New York Times, 10/16/01] Yet since the first crash, military officials in a Pentagon command center were urgently talking to law enforcement and air traffic control officials about what to do. [New York Times, 9/15/01]

9:28 AM: Air traffic control learns that Flight 93 has been hijacked. [MSNBC, 7/30/02]

9:38 AM: Flight 77 crashes into the Pentagon. [42 minutes or more after contact was lost, one hour after NORAD notification of first hijacking][New York Times, 10/16/01, 9:43 CNN, 9/12/01]

9:59 AM: The south tower of the World Trade Center collapses. [New York Times, 9/12/01]

10:10 AM: Flight 93 crashes in Pennsylvania. [42 minutes after contact was lost, 90 minutes after NORAD notification of first hijacking. What happened to sophisticated military radar systems and jet fighter scramble procedures? ][CNN, 9/12/02]

10:28 AM: The World Trade Center north tower collapses. [CNN, 9/12/01, NY Times, 9/12/01]

5:20 PM: Building 7 of the World Trade Center collapses. [CNN, 9/12/01] Though the media claims fires brought the building down, the building's owner Larry Silverstein later recounts the story of the collapse of this 47-story skyscraper in a PBS documentary America Rebuilds, "I remember getting a call from the fire department commander. ... I said ... maybe the smartest thing to do is to pull it. And they made that decision to pull, and then we watched the building collapse." [PBS Documentary]

Sept 11, 2001: Did the Air Force send up planes after the hijacked aircraft? The Air Force won't say. It says they keep about 20 F-15 and F-16 fighters on duty with Air National Guards along the nation's coastline, ready to inspect unknown aircraft entering U.S. airspace. "We can scramble and be airborne in a matter of minutes," said an Air Force spokesperson. Some airline pilots are wondering whether the FAA did enough to try to prevent the crashes. [Wall Street Journal, 09/14/01]

Sept 11, 2001: Six air traffic controllers who dealt with two of the hijacked airliners make a tape recording describing the events, but the tape is later destroyed by a supervisor without anyone making a transcript or even listening to it. [Washington Post, 5/6/04, New York Times, 5/6/04]

\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

It is a fact that standard intercept procedures for dealing with these kinds of situations are totally established, in force and online in these United States 365 days a year, 7 days a week, 24 hours a day.

Regarding rules governing IFR requirements, see FAA Order 7400.2E

'Procedures for Handling Airspace Matters,' Effective Date: December 7, 2000
(Includes Change 1, effective July 7, 2001), Chapter 14-1-2. Full text posted at: http://www.faa.gov/ATpubs/AIR/air1401.html#14-1-2FAA

Guide to Basic Flight Information and Air Traffic Control (ATC) Procedures,'
(Includes Change 3, Effective: July 12, 2001) Chapter 5-6-4 "Interception Signals"
Full text posted at: http://www.faa.gov/ATpubs/AIM/Chap5/aim0506.html#5-6-4

FAA Order 7110.65M 'Air Traffic Control' (Includes Change 3, Effective: July 12, 2001), Chapter 10-2-5 "Emergency Situations" Full text posted at: http://www.faa.gov/ATpubs/ATC/Chp10/atc1002.html#10-2-5

FAA Order 7110.65M 'Air Traffic Control' (Includes Change 3, Effective: July 12, 2001), Chapter 10-1-1 "Emergency Determinations" Full text posted at: http://www.faa.gov/ATpubs/ATC/Chp10/atc1001.html#10-1-1

FAA Order 7610.4J 'Special Military Operations' (Effective Date: November 3, 1998; Includes: Change 1, effective July 3, 2000; Change 2, effective July 12, 2001), Chapter 4, Section 5, "Air Defense Liaison Officers (ADLO's)" Full text posted at: http://www.faa.gov/ATpubs/MIL/Ch4/mil0405.html#Section%205

FAA Order 7610.4J 'Special Military Operations' (Effective Date: November 3, 1998; Includes: Change 1, effective July 3, 2000; Change 2, effective July 12, 2001), Chapter 7, Section 1-2, "Escort of Hijacked Aircraft: Requests for Service" Full text posted at: http://faa.gov/ATpubs/MIL/Ch7/mil0701.html#7-1-2

'Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Instruction 3610.01A,' 1 June 2001, "Aircraft Piracy (Hijacking) and Destruction of Derelict Airborne Objects," 4. Policy (page 1) PDF available at: http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/jel/cjcsd/cjcsi/3610_01a.pdf
The Air National Guard and Air Force air defense units of the United States were prohibited from carrying out their standard intercept procedures as detailed above on the morning of 911; after they had received the alerts from ATC and FAA. Absolutely no executive-level input of any kind is required for standard intercepts to be scrambled.

There wasn't any indication in any alerts received by air defense units that "shoot-downs" may be required as opposed to intercepts -- i.e.; that the planes were definitely under control of "hostile" forces -- because ATC/FAA could not have known that.

When the first alerts were received from Air Traffic Control, all that air defense units were required to do was scramble standard interceptors to make contact with the incommunicado and off-course jets. F-16s and other fighter planes would have overtaken every single hijacked plane on September 11, before they had reached their targets. To view locations of air bases: http://www.StandDown.net/USAFbases.htm

If, at the time of interception, it was determined the aircraft were under hostile control and likely to impact targets, high-level air defense commanders at the Pentagon's National Military Command Center (NMCC) are fully authorized under existing and established regulations and procedures to authorize a shoot-down, in order to protect the United States of America from attack.

Yet air defense units that were ready and able on 911 at at least 35 nearby installations were ordered not to scramble interceptors: they were ordered to stand down from carrying out even the first stage of standard intercept procedures.

These orders came from the executive office of the president as well as from complicit individuals in the aforementioned NMCC.

There is no question that if these interceptors had been scrambled at the time alerts were received, they would have intercepted the hijacked planes before targets were approached in every instance.

And there is no way that the office of the President or the NMCC could have known through any standard means that these incommunicado flights required anything other than standard interceptions, because ATC and FAA alerts did not relay any such information. The alerts simply requested that standard intercept procedures be implemented and that interceptors be scrambled forthwith.

Some disingenuous excuse-makers say things like: "Well, there was no air defense response because the U.S. had no procedures for dealing with such 'attacks,' because the U.S. had never been 'attacked' this way before."

This sheer, complete nonsense: fully established procedures for dealing with intercepts of all kinds, including of hostile aircraft, existed on September 11, as detailed above.

Furthermore: when those first alerts were received from ATC/FAA, there was no mention of any "attack" and no need for "unusual" procedures. There was only a need for standard, first-stage interceptions to be scrambled, and higher authorities prevented that.

Other disingenuous excuse-makers then say: "Well, of course higher authorities stepped in, because they had to see what was going on with the whole situation, as 'America was under attack.' "

America was not "under attack" when those first alerts were received; certainly ATC and FAA had no way of knowing so early in the proceedings that the jets which had broken communications and gone off-course were part of any "attack."

So why did the executive branch and high-level military authorities deliberately order the air defense interceptors to stand down? Nobody could have known that early in the proceedings that 'America was under attack"... or could they have known?"

Building ' is extremely important, Even teh FEMA report doesnT explin it sufficiently, and allows "a low probability of occurance" of the building failing the way it was claimed to.

That building had fires, not widespread, concentrated on one corner. Even if they were hot enough to make it the 3rd steel-framed buiding to collapse from fire (first 2 being the twin towers), there is no explanation on why they fell into their own footprint, in classic demolition style (sag in middle, collapse in on itself).

This is RAF Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for scrambling the Vulcan nuclear bombers. Different aircraft, different country, but it gives some insight into getting a jet off the ground.

"RS15 - The "normal" state; crews able to be airborne within 15 minutes. This implied the crews either being close to the aircraft of having dedicated transport available. This RS could be held for days.

RS05 - Airborne within 5 minutes; crew in aircraft all systems and AAPP (auxiliary power unit) running but engines not started. This RS could be held for hours.

RS02 - Airborne within 2 minutes; engines running and in position on the ORP or at the holding point for the runway. If the aircraft was not on the ORP then they would taxi when the RS was raised from 05 to 02. This RS would not be expected to be held for longer than minutes.

There was also an exercise only state of "Start Engines", this was exactly what it said, you started and then shut down the engines. This was introduced because of restrictions on taxying the Blue Steel armed aircraft when they had an armed and fuelled missile. As stated above, we never got airborne with live weapons.

The procedures were practiced on a regular basis, the monthly Group exercise always had the first wave launched from the ORP and subsequent waves from their dispersals; all using the alert procedures. The Kinsman or Candella exercises to keep the dispersal airfields used also involved a launch of the flown in aircraft on the subsequent day. The generation exercises such as Mick or Mickey Finn always ended in an alert call out and launch where appropriate. As you may surmise, with that amount of practise we were actually quite good at it!"

Even if they were hot enough to make it the 3rd steel-framed buiding to collapse from fire (first 2 being the twin towers), there is no explanation on why they fell into their own footprint, in classic demolition style (sag in middle, collapse in on itself).

Why should they not collapse in on themselves? Gravity point down, not sideways. The upper parts went straight down the hole.

I was going to go for a swim, but this is more fun!
I really can't argue on facts. Mainly because I don't have the time to go digging around for the exact info, but some of the seemly convincing information here is actually of very limited value, without greater detail. Some examples:

September 11, 2001—Timeline for the Day of the Attacks



If NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command) hears of any difficulties in the skies, they begin the work to scramble jet fighters [take off and intercept aircraft that are off course]. Between Sep 2000 and June 2001 fighters were scrambled 67 times. [AP, 8/12/02] When the Lear jet of golfer Payne Stewart didn’t respond in 1999, F-16 interceptors were quickly dispatched. According to an Air Force timeline, a series of military planes provided an emergency escort to Payne’s stricken Lear about 20 minutes after ground controllers lost contact with his plane.[Dallas Morning News, 10/26/99, more] - This event is being used to establish how a possible response to the 911 events should have occurred, but doesn't provide any meaningful comparison without a lot more information. Were the first planes dispatched in the Stewart instance on the ground or were they in the air when ordered to intercept? In the other 67 times aircraft were scrambled, what was the timeframe between controllers noting a problem and the jets being launched? This information would be useful to provide comparison with events on 911 and confirm whether anything that happened with the Otis jets and the timeframe involved was in anyway out of ordinary. Absent that context, this information isn't very useful in proving anything - creating suspicion with no real substance.


8:52 AM: Two F-15s take off from Otis Air Force Base. [Washington Post, 9/15/01] They go after Flight 175. Major General Paul Weaver, director of the Air National Guard, states "the pilots flew like a scalded ape, topping 500 mph but were unable to catch up to the airliner. We had a nine-minute window, and in excess of 100 miles to intercept 175,'' he said. ''There was just literally no way.'' [Dallas Morning News, 9/15/01] F-15's fly at up to 2.5 times the speed of sound [1875 mph or 30+ miles a minute or 270+ miles in nine minutes] and are designed for low-altitude, high-speed, precision attacks. [BBC] Firstly the accuracy of the times given here and in many other 911 instances- looking around my desk, my computer shows 1:56pm, my phone shows 2:01pm, my watch shows 1:55pm - it would be amazing if all US government clocks are exactly synchronised - they almost certainly aren't. So minute by minute calculations are not going to be all that informative. These calculations are childishly simple and make no allowances for taxi time - did the planes have wheels up at 8:52 or were they taxiing or was this the time they actually got the order to take off, meaning the pilots were in the planes in a staging area. It also doesn't include course changes, acceleration, de-accelltion (presumably the pilots don't want to shoot past the target plane at 2.5 times the speed of sound!). So implications drawn from the supposed flight time math here is completely wrong. On top of that we have the pilots saying that in 25yr old jets with fuel tanks on, they don't go that fast.

8:56 AM: By this time, it is evident that Flight 77 is lost. The FAA, already in contact with the Pentagon about the two hijackings out of Boston, reportedly doesn’t notify NORAD of this until 9:24, 28 minutes later. [see 9:10 AM for comparison, New York Times, 10/16/01] - People make mistakes.

9:03 AM: Flight 175 crashes into the south WTC tower. [23 minutes after NORAD notified, 43 minutes after air traffic control lost contact with pilots][New York Times, 9/12/01, CNN, 9/12/01] - In the Stewart example used above, the planes made the interception in 20 min. NORAD in this instance has known of the situation for 23 min. Again, the reasonableness of the F-15 timeline can only be ascertained by any understanding of the circumstances surrounding Stewart's situation. If those first planes were already in the air, a response time by the F-15s on 911 isn't all that suspicious.

9:10 AM: Major General Paul Weaver states Flight 77 came back on the (radar) scope at 9:10 in West Virginia. [Dallas Morning News, 9/15/01] Another report states the military was notified of Flight 77 several minutes after 9:03. [Washington Post, 9/15/01] - Those government supplied clocks - a couple of minutes here, a couple of minutes there...

9:24 AM [? – see above]: The FAA, who 28 minutes earlier had discovered Flight 77 off course and heading east over West Virginia, reportedly notifies NORAD. A Pentagon spokesman says, "The Pentagon was simply not aware that this aircraft was coming our way." [Newsday, 9/23/01, New York Times, 10/16/01] Yet since the first crash, military officials in a Pentagon command center were urgently talking to law enforcement and air traffic control officials about what to do. [New York Times, 9/15/01] What to do about what? That plane or the other planes? If that plane, was the conversation couched in terms of, "when we find it again, do we yada yada yada......" This is a good example of the selective use of the information to present a more sinister picture than is necessarily the case.


10:10 AM: Flight 93 crashes in Pennsylvania. [42 minutes after contact was lost, 90 minutes after NORAD notification of first hijacking. What happened to sophisticated military radar systems and jet fighter scramble procedures? ][CNN, 9/12/02] What sophisticated military radar systems? How do they work and how would they have been used in this instance? Maybe they're not designed or intended to track missing civilian aircraft - it bit like the pentagon defence question. Only after we have the answer to these two questions can we know what happened to them.



Sept 11, 2001: Did the Air Force send up planes after the hijacked aircraft? The Air Force won't say. It says they keep about 20 F-15 and F-16 fighters on duty with Air National Guards along the nation's coastline, ready to inspect unknown aircraft entering U.S. airspace. "We can scramble and be airborne in a matter of minutes," said an Air Force spokesperson. Some airline pilots are wondering whether the FAA did enough to try to prevent the crashes. [Wall Street Journal, 09/14/01] This is great 911 stuff. We've already had a discussion as to the questionable actions of the F-15, now even their involved is being questioned. Which is it? Either they were launched, in which case this question is nonsensical or they weren't in which case, where does all guff about distance to NY and mach 2.5 come from? The planes were launched, we know that because the pilots who flew them say so. 20 planes along the nation's coast line - is that both coasts or just the East coast? Are they all on the ground or are some of them doing scheduled flights and patrols? A plane coming to the end of its scheduled flight and close to bingo fuel isn't going to be in a position to kick in the afterburners to catch a plane, whose location may be uncertain. These 20 planes would be stationed in pairs (presumably) so they would be pretty well spread out (the US is a big place) and meaning that probably only a couple of locations would be close enough to get involved, which Otis did. And of course, a commander isn't going to throw absolutely everything he has into the first situation that develops. So, this entire statement really doesn't provide a lot of insight into anything. Very typical 911 stuff - it gives the impression that there were heaps of jets available and that they were possibly even at a high state of readiness when it may well have been simply that at a handful of airbases around the country certain pilots on that day were designated as the intercept crew for that day - which is pretty much what the Otis pilots describe.

Sept 11, 2001: Six air traffic controllers who dealt with two of the hijacked airliners make a tape recording describing the events, but the tape is later destroyed by a supervisor without anyone making a transcript or even listening to it. [Washington Post, 5/6/04, New York Times, 5/6/04] So? Let's get these 6 people back together and ask them what they talked about. Big deal that the tape was destroyed. I like how "no one listened to it". The automatic assumption is that there was something inflammatory on it when there really are no grounds to suspect this at all.