911-Videos, Phone calls, Flight Theories

Airport Video

No Video Shows Hijackers Boarding Targeted Flights

Until 2004, the only video available to the public showing the alleged hijackers at any airport was a clip from a security camera at the Portland, Maine airport showing Mohammed Atta and Abdulaziz Alomari going through security. ¹   The public has not been treated to any video showing any of the alleged hijackers at Boston Logan Airport, the origin of Flights 11 and 175, or Newark Airport, the origin of Flight 93. Video allegedly showing four hijackers boarding Flight 77 at Dulles Airport was released by a law firm representing some survivors' families in July of 2004, on the same day that the Kean Commission released its report. ²  

At a time when most convenience stores across the country had security cameras, Logan, a major international airport, supposedly had no security cameras in its departure lounges. ³  According to Michael Taylor, president of American International Security Corp, the Newark airport does have video cameras in its departure lounges. So does Dulles International Airport.⁴   However, the FBI has refused to release any video from these airports that might prove that the alleged hijackers boarded the flights.

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Phone Calls

Missing Evidence About the September 11th Flights

There were a number of alleged voice communications from pilots, flight attendants, and passengers on the doomed flights. Prior to the publication of prosecution exhibits for the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui, a recording of only one call had been released to the public. Four and a half minutes of Betty Ong's call from Flight 11, which supposedly lasted 23 minutes, was played during a public hearing of the 9/11 Commission on January 27, 2004. ¹   The following list describes phone calls from flight crews and passengers reported in mainstream news sources. More information is contained in Zacarias Moussaoui Prosecution Trial Exhibit number P200055, a multimedia presentation showing details of calls of passengers and flight attendants, including seat locations, call times, and, in a few cases, recordings. ²   Most of the information in that presentation is captured in images archived on the Phone Call Detail page.

• Flight 11
  • Madeline Sweeney's phone call: Flight attendant Sweeney allegedly placed a cell phone call to her ground manager Michael Woodward starting at 8:21 and talked for 25 minutes, until the plane crashed. The caller related many details such as wounds by victims of the hijackers to seat numbers of the hijackers. ³   There are conflicting reports on whether the call was recorded.
  • Betty Ong's phone call: Flight attendant Betty Ong allegedly called Vanessa Minter at American Airlines reservations at 8:21, and talked for 23 minutes, until the plane crashed. Nydia Gonzalez also listened in from 8:27. The FBI refused to release a recording of the first 4-1/2 minutes of the conversation, but during the 9/11 Commission's January 27, 2004 hearing, the recording was played. ^4   5  
• Flight 175
  • Peter Burton Hanson's phone calls: Passenger Peter Burton Hanson called his father and reported details of the hijacking starting at 8:52. Hanson made several calls as he was cut off several times. ⁶  
  • Brian Sweeney's phone call: Passenger Brian Sweeney attempted to call his wife but could only leave a message. ⁷  
  • unnamed female flight attendant call: There appears to be no public evidence of this call.
• Flight 77
  • Renee May's phone call: Flight attendant Renee May uses a cell phone to call her mother at 9:12. May's mother then calls American Airlines to inform them that the flight has been hijacked. ^8   9  
  • Barbara Olson's calls: Barbara Olson allegedly placed two calls to her husband, Ted Olson, at some time between 9:16 and 9:26. The only known evidence of these calls are statements by Olson, the first on September 12th. ^10   11  
• Flight 93
  • calls to family members and friends: at least thirteen passengers made more than 30 phone calls, most of them short and some repeated, where at least some were reportedly made from cell phones. ¹²  
  • the last call: At 9:58, a frantic passenger called from a bathroom to report an explosion and smoke. The tape of this 911 call was seized by the FBI. The 911 operator who took the call, Glenn Cramer, was told by the FBI not to discuss the call.

Analysis of the distribution of the calls shows Flight 93 to be the exception.

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References

1. Betty Ong's Call from 9/11 Flight 11, TheMemoryHole.org, 
2. United States v. Zacarias Moussaoui, Exhibit Number P200055, vaed.uscourts.gov, 
3. FBI affidavit: Flight attendant made call to report hijacking, AP, 10/5/01 [cached]
4. Calm Before the Crash, abcnews.com, [cached]
5. Probe Reconstructs Horror, Calculated Attacks on Planes, Boston Globe, 11/23/01 [cached]
6. Investigating 9-11 -- The Doomed Flights, San Francisco Chronicle, 7/23/04
7. Another Workday Becomes a Surreal Plane of Terror, Washington Post, 9/21/01 [cached]
8. Public Hearing, 9-11commission.gov, 1/27/04
9. Investigating 9-11 ..., 7/23/04
10. Another Workday Becomes a Surreal Plane of Terror, Washington Post, 9/12/01
11. America's New War: Recovering From Tragedy, cnn.com, 9/14/01
12. Heroes of Flight 93, MSNBC, 12/8/03 [cached] 

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Phone Calls

Alleged Oddities of Phone Calls from Doomed Flights

Examining the distribution of the phone calls on the flights commandeered on 9/11/01 reveals an interesting pattern. There are reports of phone calls from thirteen Flight 93 passengers, but only one to three from passengers on any of the other flights. If passengers on Flight 93 were able to complete so many cell phone calls, why were they so rare on the other flights? Presumably the teams of four or five hijackers would have been too busy flying the airplanes to police passengers. The airphone calls attributed to Flight 11 attendants Betty Ong and Madeline Sweeney both went on for a number of minutes.

Some researchers have noted that the reported contents of some of the phone conversations suggest that the calls were not really from victims on the planes. Two of the more striking examples are the calls attributed to Barbara Olsen and Madeline Sweeney.

• In one of two calls Ted Olsen said he received from his wife on Flight 77, she reportedly asked "What should I tell the pilot?," referring to Chic Burlingame, the captain, who was then supposedly seated in the rear with Barbara. Burlingame was a graduate of Naval Academy and flew F-4s in Vietnam. How could Burlingame have been persuaded to hand over the stick and agree to sit in the back of the plane -- especially when controllers had been broadcasting to pilots that Flight 11 had been hijacked?
• Madeline Sweeney, who called her supervisor from Flight 11, reportedly stated: "I see, buildings, water, ... Oh my God!", immediately before the crash. Why would Sweeney -- a Massachusetts-based flight attendant of 12 years -- speak as though she had never seen the Manhattan skyline before?

Other alleged anomalies appear less than compelling when one considers the natural inclinations of the passengers making the calls in such circumstances.

The Faked Cell Phone Calls Theory

Some researchers have asserted that several of the phone calls attributed to Flight 93 passengers must have been faked because they were reportedly made from cell phones, which, according to the theory, aren't possible from high-flying aircraft. This theory is controversial because it holds that call recipients who believed they had spoken with family members had been duped, is based on questionable conclusions about cell phone functioning, and overlooks an alternative hypothesis that explains the alleged oddity.

Canadian writer A.K. Dewdney built his reputation as a 9/11 researcher on the idea that the cell-phone calls from aircraft above a few thousand feet aren't generally possible, and therefore the calls attributed to Flight 93 passengers were faked. In an article entitled Ghost Riders in the Sky, Dewdney gives expert-sounding explanations of reasons cell phone calls from jetliners wouldn't work. At altitude, he states, the signal would be too weak, and below 10,000 feet, calls made from a jet would cause problematic "cascades" in networks of cellsites on the ground. (Dewdney cites "Frazer 2002" for this.)

Contrary to Dewdney's findings, we have received reports that cell phones do work from aircraft. Other evidence that cell phone calls are possible from jetliners in flight comes from a study by Carnegie Mellon researchers that monitored spectrum frequencies generated by cell phone transmissions during commercial passenger flights. They found that an average of one to four cell phone calls are made during a typical flight. ¹   It may be, however, that such calls are not made at high altitudes.

In an apparent tacit acknowledgement of the difficulty of making cell phone calls from a jetliner at altitude, the FBI's 2006 report describing phone calls from Flight 93 explicitly attributes only two calls to cell phones, both of which occurred late in the flight when the plane's altitude was low.

Technical Challenges of the Faked Calls Theory

In Ghost Riders in the Sky Dewdney provides an elaborate scenario to explain how the Flight 93 cell phone calls could have been faked. It goes something like this:

The operatives first gathered personal data on regulars of the flight through a combination of data mining and human engineering. Then they leveraged that information by repeatedly taking the flight and engaging flight regulars in conversation to get personal details and record voice samples for study and practice.

On the big day, the operatives worked in a single "war room" with a big screen to keep them on the same page. Calls (except to strangers) were kept brief so that the callers could report details of the flight but not get into personal conversation that might alert family members to the fraud. Calls that went poorly (like the one to Mark Bingham's mother) were not repeated.

The quality of acting necessary to convince family members they were talking to their loved ones was lower than in a normal situation, given the allowance people naturally make for voice distress in stressful situations.

Such an undertaking would have been very complex and risky for the perpetrators, as it would have required, presumably, a large number of skilled operatives, and it would have made the whole operation vulnerable to exposure. Supposing the employment of advanced technologies such as voice-morphing fails to address the inherent uncertainties involved in relying on such to fool all of the call recipients into believing they are talking to loved ones.

The no-cell-phone-calls theory is difficult to evaluate because we lack verifiable data on the performance of cell phones on aircraft. However, it appears to have value in alienating the public, and particularly families of the victims, from skeptics of the official story.

The Cell Phone Repeater Hypothesis

To review, the main argument used to support the theory that the cell phone calls attributed to Flight 93 passengers were faked goes like this:

Given that several calls from the jetliner when at altitude were reportedly from cell phones; and that cell phone calls on a plane above 10,000 feet cannot communicate with ground cell stations; it follows that the reported calls were not made by the victims but were faked.

A fatal flaw in this syllogism is exposed by the following simple hypothesis, apparently first published on this page in June of 2009.

HYPOTHESIS:
A self-powered cell phone repeater the size of a shoe box is placed on board Flight 93 within a piece of luggage. The repeater is sufficiently powerful to establish reliable connections with ground stations for several minutes at a time, and forwards all the communications between the cell phones aboard the plane and ground stations. The repeater is programmed to broadcast on a separate encrypted channel a duplicate of all the call data in real time, which is monitored by operatives who have ability to block any of the calls at any time.

Besides being technically straightforward, this method would have afforded the attack planners great benefits with little risk of exposure. Genuine reports of the theatrics of the red-bandanna-wearing bomb-displaying Arabic-looking patsies aboard Flight 93 could be allowed to get through as long as the operatives wanted, adding realism to the hijackings so central to the official account. But the same operatives could "cut the feed" at the moment events took a turn threatening to evince something other than that account.

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References

1. Unsafe At Any Airspeed?, spectrum.ieee.org, 03/2006 [cached] 

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Flight Theories

Alternatives to the Official Hijacking Scenario

The official story of the fates of the four jetliners comandeered on September 11th, 2001, asks us to believe a long series of highly improbable events. But if Flights 11 175, and 77 were not flown by hijackers into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon, or if the alleged hijackers were not even on board the flights, then how were they flown into those targets or otherwise disposed of? To answer these questions, a number of theories have emerged and been debated by skeptics of the official story. The theories, including the official one, can be roughly divided into four main ones.

• The four flights were hijacked by teams of terrorists, who flew three of the jets into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon.
• The planes were flown to their targets through some form of remote or programmed flight control. There are several such theories, and most suppose that the crew and passengers were disabled by some means, such as cabin decompression or the dispersal of a decapacitating gas.
  • Each of the planes used on 9/11/01 was sabotaged so that they could be remotely controlled or made to execute pre-programmed flight paths to their targets. Poison gas or decompression was used to disable the people on board.
  • The home run system or equivalent system, with which the planes were already equipped, was used to remotely fly the planes into their targets.
  • The programing features of the Boeings' FMCSs was exploited to insert a program to fly each plane to its selected target on the day of the attack.
• Flights 11, 175, and 77 were all instructed to turn off their transponders, maintain radio silence, and land at a military airport, such as Stewart International Airport, using an official communication channel and giving the reason as a terrorist attack. The passengers of all three flights were then loaded on Flight 77 which was then disposed of. Before the jets landed, look-alike remote-controlled aircraft were sent up as decoys, matching the flight paths of the passenger jets so that air controllers would mistake the radar blips of the decoys for the original flights. The decoys then proceeded to their targets.

There are variations on the second and third theories with regard to what happened to Flight 77, which controllers were supposedly unable to find once its transponder was turned off and it turned around. Many people who reject the suicide pilots theory also believe that the Pentagon was not hit by Flight 77 (even though remote control at least answers the one objection that the alleged hijackers' skills were not up to the precision aerobatic approach). The theories about Flight 77 can be summarized as follows, again including the official theory first. (For details of theories of the actual Pentagon attack, see Pentagon Strike Theories.)

• The plane turned around over Ohio and flew back to the capital, crashing into the Pentagon.
• The plane turned around over Ohio and flew back to the capital, but flew over the Pentagon at the same moment as an attack jet and missile hit it. The flight then landed at Reagan Airport and the people onboard became secret wards of the government.
• The plane was shot down over Ohio. Some other jet was used in the Pentagon attack.
• The plane was forced to land at a base (in the same manner as described above) and the people onboard were killed. A drone such as a Global Hawk was sent up in its place, and it struck the Pentagon.

The fact that most of the alternative theories sound highly implausible to even someone open to questioning the official theories is probably by design.

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Suicide Pilots

The Official Story of the Flight Takeovers

According to the official story, four teams of four or five hijackers each were able to take over four jetliners with 100% success, with the pilots of only one of the four aircraft, Flight 93, managing to press the distress button. We were told that the failures of the crews to put up a fight was not surprising, since September 11th was the first time hijacked planes had been used for suicide attacks in the US. However it seems highly unlikely that the hijacking teams would be able to take over all four aircraft for the following reasons.

• The takeovers of the four flights were staggered, and news of the hijacking of Flight 11 was relayed to the pilots of Flight 175, and probably to the pilots of the other flights. Awareness of hijackings in progress would have raised the guard of the flight crews.
• Since the hijackers were not armed with firearms, the flight crews would have been much more likely to resist.
• A pilot's grasp of the control stick is an effective defense against would-be hijackers. In an instant a pilot can commence a roll. A barrel roll would knock off their feet anyone standing and disorient them. (A barrel roll is a combination between a loop and a roll, which results in the aircraft tracing out a corkscrew path. This maneuver can produce high G-forces inside the plane.) ¹  
• At least one of the two pilots of all four of the flights were formerly in the military, and some had combat experience in Vietnam. According to Col. Donn de Grand Pre, each flight's pilots were physically fit and strong. ²  
  John Ogonowski was captain of American Airlines flight 11. Ogonowski was an Air Force fighter pilot in Vietnam and joined American Airlines in 1979. His co-pilot, Tom McGuinness, flew F-14 fighters for the Navy. ³  
  Victor Saracini was captain of United Airlines Flight 175. Saracini was a former Navy fighter pilot of the Vietnam era.

  Chic Burlingame

  Chic Burlingame was captain of American Airlines Flight 77. Burlingame was a graduate of the Naval Academy and honor graduate of the Navy "Top Gun" school, in Miramar, CA. He flew F-4 Phantoms for the Navy, where he landed the fighter jets on aircraft carriers in stormy conditions. He then left the Navy in 1979 to join American Airlines. ⁴  
  LeRoy Homer was the first officer of United Airlines Flight 93. It crashed in Somerset County, PA, at 10:10 am. Homer was an Air Force Academy graduate and a former Air Force pilot. ⁵  
  Given the experience of these pilots, it is very difficult to imagine a forced takeover of any of their cockpits.

Billie Vincent, a former FAA security director, found it implausible that the hijackers could have taken over the flights without firearms.

These people had to have the means to take control of the aircrafts. And that means they had to have weapons in order for those pilots to relinquish control. Think about it, they planned this thing out to the last detail for months. They are not going to take any risks at the front end. They knew they were going to be successful before they started... It's the only thing that really makes sense to me. ⁶  

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"Home Run" System

Hijacking Recovery Systems Alleged on 757s and 767s

One theory of the electronic takeover of the jetliners on 9/11/01 alleges that 757s and 767s were equipped with a flight termination system, by which a plane's control would be transferred from the cockpit controls to a remote control station or pre-programmed flight plan.

According to Joe Vialls, who describes himself as a British aeronautical engineer, the flight control computers of all 757s and 767s have a feature that enables them to be remotely controlled, for the purpose of aborting hijackings. Former German secretary of defense, Von Buelow, mentioned this theory in passing in a January, 2002 interview. The technology required for such systems has existed for decades. If such systems were operative on 9-11, they should have been used to take control of and land the hijacked jets.

The following was added to the Vialls web site, January 20, 2002:

Former German Minister Von Buelow Already Knew About Remote Control. In his interview with the German daily "Tagesspiegel" on January 13th, former German Secretary of Defence Andreas Von Buelow made the following statement:

"There is also the theory of one British flight engineer: according to this, the steering of the planes was perhaps taken out of the pilots' hands, from outside. The Americans had developed a method in the 1970s, whereby they could rescue hijacked planes by intervening into the computer piloting [automatic pilot system]. This theory says, this technique was abused in this case..."

Not quite so much a theory as might first appear. When I released the above report about "Home Run" remote control in October 2001, I mentioned that one European flag carrier was aware of the technology, though at that precise point in time I thought it prudent not to name the actual airline:

"As long ago as the early nineties, a major European flag carrier acquired the information and was seriously alarmed that one of its own aircraft might be "rescued" by the Americans without its authority. Accordingly, this flag carrier completely stripped the American flight control computers out of its entire fleet, and replaced them with a home grown version. These aircraft are now effectively impregnable to penetration by Home Run, but that is more than can be said for the American aircraft fleet..."

The European flag carrier which completely stripped the American flight computers out of its aircraft was Lufthansa, the German national airline. Bearing in mind his former posts as Secretary of Defence and Minister of Science and Technology, Herr Von Buelow would have known all about this mammoth but secretive task.

How very clever (and discreet) of Von Buelow to sort of "drop the information" into the middle of an interview about the 9/11 attacks! ¹  

An english translation of the Von Buelow interview is available here. Vialls quotes himself stating that Lufthansa de-installed the "home run" system from its Boeings, and then notes that von Buelow referred to his theory. Vialls cites no other source for his theory than Von Beulow, who goes on to state in the interview: "You see! I do not accept this theory, but I find it worth considering."

Without any verifiable evidence to support it, the "home-run" theory seems unlikely. It supposes that all 757s an 767s come with a special system contradicted by Boeing's published specifications. It also fails to explain how the pilots were silenced without the help of another theory, since any flight recovery system would not block communications, and calls might be made using cell phones. The theory that upgrades to the FMCS were used to program them to fly to their targets is simpler and more plausible.

Incidentally, Vialls' description of Von Buelow may be inaccurate, a reader noting:

This title [German Secretary of Defense] assigned to Herr von Buelow, however, can be misleading: he was a "Staatssekretar" (i.e. a senior official) at the German ministry of Defence (then headed by Herr Hans Apel) from 1978-1980.

In 1980, however, Herr von Buelow became the Minister of scientific research and technology, until his resignation in 1982.

Having ultimately left the Bundestag (the German parliament) in 1994, he has been a freelance writer since then.

Boeing has a patent pending for a system that will automatically fly and land airliners if the crew is disabled. ²  

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References

1. 'Home Run' Electronically Hijacking the World Trade Center Attack Aircraft, 
2. High-tech systems aspire to render airliners 'hijack-proof', [cached] 

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Programmed Flight Control

Hacking the Flight Computers to Take Control of the Targeted Jetliners

The most popular alternative to the official conspiracy theory that Islamic terrorists commandeered the four jetliners on 9/11/01 is that flight control computers were taken over and directed to fly the planes into the targets.

Boeing 757s and 767s apparently use hydraulic systems to drive the control surfaces, like the elevators, ailerons, and rudder. Thus they are not 'fly-by-wire' in the same sense as the more recent 777s. However, 757s and 767s can be flown entirely under the control of their flight management computer systems (FMCS), according to Boeing.

A fully integrated flight management computer system (FMCS) provides for automatic guidance and control of the 757-200 from immediately after takeoff to final approach and landing. Linking together digital processors controlling navigation, guidance and engine thrust, the flight management system ensures that the aircraft flies the most efficient route and flight profile for reduced fuel consumption, flight time and crew workload.

The precision of global positioning satellite system (GPS) navigation, automated air traffic control functions, and advanced guidance and communications features are now available as part of the new Future Air Navigation System (FANS) flight management computer. ¹  

Boeing also provides information on the ease of reprogramming various systems including the FMCS.

Airplane systems that can be modified with loadable software are standard on several later-model Boeing airplanes (see table 1). This feature allows operators to change the configuration of loadable systems without physically modifying or replacing hardware components. Benefits include the ability to meet new requirements, incorporate design improvements, and correct errors. In addition, software often can be loaded just in the time required to turn an airplane around for the next flight. A major advantage of changing system functionality without changing hardware is the reduced number of line replaceable unit (LRU) spares both operators and Boeing must keep in stock. ²  

There is a question of whether the takeover of the FMCS by some means would disable the cockpit controls, preventing the flight crew from regaining control of the aircraft. If the controls have direct mechanical linkages to the hydraulic systems, then the crew could probably overcome automated control by simply applying more force to the controls. However, if something had incapacitated or killed the flight crew and passengers first, then the FMCS presumably could have flown the planes into the targets without interference. It is not difficult to imagine a scenario by which the cabin could have been filled with a potent gas at a predetermined point in its flight. For example, the fact that cabin pressure varies as a predictable function of altitude would allow a barometric-triggered device to go off at a predetermined point in a flight.

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References

1. 757-200 Background, boeing.com, [cached]
2. Onboard Loadable Software, boeing.com, [cached] 

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Bumble Planes

A Theory Accounting for the Fates of Flights 11, 175, and 77

The "Bumble Planes" theory is attributed to Snake Plissken and appears on the Public-Action.com website. ¹   The theory basically goes as follows:

• The number of passengers on each of the four flights was kept artificially low.
• All four planes were commanded to turn off their transponders, maintain radio silence, and land at a military base. The caller explained the order as a response to a terrorist attack.
• Before each of the planes landed, a decoy was sent up to match its flight path, either above or below it, so as to fool air controllers into thinking that the decoy's radar blip was from the original flight.
• Once all of the planes had landed, all the passengers were herded onto Flight 93, which then took off and was destroyed over Pennsylvania.
• The Twin Towers and Pentagon were hit by the remote-controlled decoys.

Most of the plane-swap theories embrace the idea that the North Tower was hit by something smaller than a Boeing 767, ignoring the match between the impact hole and a 767's profile.

Although certain details of the theory may be correct, on the whole it is highly dubious. Most of the "clues" the article cites amplify small anomalies that are easily explained without resorting to plane substitution theories. Some of the "clues" are not even plausible. One clue holds that the North Tower crash involved a small commuter jet rather than a 767, ignoring the obvious match between the shape of the hole and the profile of a 767. Another clue holds that the off-center South Towerimpact suggests that the remote-control operators had difficulty flying the large jet, when it seems more likely that the core-sparing impact was part of a calculated strategy to minimize fatalities and to produce a spectacular fireball. Beyond that there are several serious problems with the theory.

• It is inconsistent with the timeline and known portions of the flight paths of the four jets. Flights 77 and 93 would both have to fly far from their alleged flight paths to rendezvous with Flights 11 and 175. Numerous air traffic controllers would have to be part of the conspiracy.
• Covering up the identities of the passengers from the other three flights at the Flight 93 crash site would have presented a major challenge.
• The medical examiner of New York City would need to have conspired or been fooled into identifying remains of Flight 11 and 175 victims at the World Trade Center site.

The Bumble Planes theory was the first of a series of variants based on the idea of plane substitution -- theories for which there is no direct evidence. Two such theories are:

• Prof. Dewdney's "Operation Pearl"
• Leonard Spencer's scenario

The Bumble Planes theory and its variants all seem designed to strike ordinary people as ridiculous and offensive to the victims. All deny burial to the victims on the planes, and most have them being herded like cattle between planes in operations that would have involved large numbers of conspirators. Operation Pearl describes a scenario of a group of jetliners being "electronically towed" over the ocean and dumped. Valentine's article insults Pentagon eyewitnesses as being "a dime a dozen."

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References

1. Flight Of The Bumble Planes, www.public-action.com, [cached] 

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