Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Where was Flight 77 after 8:56?
This
article has been published on the Loose Change forum a while ago. I was
surprised that the fate of Flight 77 is widely unknown, so I re-post it
here.
I
would like to illuminate the fate of Flight 77 after it vanished from
radar because it looks to me that many people don't know much about it,
despite its importance.
At
8:56, the blip of Flight 77 vanished from the radar screens of
Indianapolis Center, the responsible ATC facility, and at the same time
radio communication was lost. This is a well known and well confirmed
fact. Just take a look at the ATC transcript:
The
controllers thought it had crashed and submitted their assessment to
other ATC centers, FAA headquarters and American Airlines. This caused
the top AA management to believe that Flight 77 crashed into the South
Tower - they believed it until the Pentagon strike! There were also
rumors going around that a plane crashed near the Ohio-Kentucky border
(as confirmed in Richard Clarke's "Against all enemies"), which is
exactly the area where Flight 77 vanished (take a look at the Flight
Explorer animation in the transcript link).
For
sure, the controllers activated primary radar as soon as they lost
Flight 77 to look for him, but this measure was obviously not
successful. Flight 77 was not detected by any controller until it was
picked up at 9:32 by Dulles TRACON controllers. (The only man who knew
its position at 9:25 was Norman Mineta...)
For
someone who's aware of Operation Northwoods this stinks of a plane
swap: Flight 77 crashed or landed somewhere near the Ohio-Kentucky
border, and the plane that was detected by the Dulles controllers was
not Flight 77.
The 9/11 Commissioners are surely aware of Operation Northwoods, but advocate another theory:
The
failure to find a primary radar return for American 77 led us to
investigate this issue further. Radar reconstructions performed after
9/11 reveal that FAA radar equipment tracked the flight from the moment
its transponder was turned off at 8:56. But for 8 minutes and 13
seconds, between 8:56 and 9:05, this primary radar information on
American 77 was not displayed to controllers at Indianapolis Center.142
The reasons are technical, arising from the way the software processed
radar information, as well as from poor primary radar coverage where
American 77 was flying.
According
to the radar reconstruction, American 77 reemerged as a primary target
on Indianapolis Center radar scopes at 9:05, east of its last known
posi-tion. The target remained in Indianapolis Center's airspace for
another six minutes, then crossed into the western portion of Washington
Center's airspace at 9:10.As Indianapolis Center continued searching
for the aircraft, two managers and the controller responsible for
American 77 looked to the west and southwest along the flight's
projected path, not east-where the aircraft was now heading. Managers
did not instruct other controllers at Indianapolis Center to turn on
their primary radar coverage to join in the search for American 77.143
In
sum, Indianapolis Center never saw Flight 77 turn around. By the time
it reappeared in primary radar coverage, controllers had either stopped
looking for the aircraft because they thought it had crashed or were
looking toward the west. Although the Command Center learned Flight 77
was missing, neither it nor FAA headquarters issued an all points
bulletin to surrounding centers to search for primary radar targets.
American 77 traveled undetected for 36 minutes on a course heading due
east for Washington, D.C.144
So
the Commission thinks that at first, Flight 77 slided into a radar hole
and was therefore not visible to controllers. This raises the question
why the controllers, who surely were familiar with the position and
extent of this alleged radar hole, were so quickly convinced that Flight
77 had crashed.
After
that, the Commissions surprises us with their finding, obtained through
"radar reconstruction", that Flight 77 reemerged at the radar screens
of Indianapolis controllers, but was missed by them, because they were
looking into the wrong direction.
Someone here who has the same little trust in the competence of professional controllers?
Then
the Commission continues with the claim that Flight 77 crossed the
border to Washington Center at 9:10, heading eastwards. But the
Washington controllers didn't detect the plane either, because they were
"not told to look for primary targets."
This
is a breathtaking claim. Of course, Washington Center was informed by
Indianapolis pretty early about the loss of Flight 77. Did the
controllers expect it to reappear with full transponder data, and did
they refrain from activating the primary radar routine for this reason?
The
claim is not only an insult to the intelligence of the controllers, it
is also wrong. Here is a transcript snippet between Washington Center
and NEADS which proves that they were indeed looking for AA 77 for a
long time:
09:34:01
WASHINGTON CENTER: Now, let me tell you this. I—I'll—we've been looking. We're—also lost American 77—
WATSON: American 77?
DOOLEY: American 77's lost—
WATSON: Where was it proposed to head, sir?
WASHINGTON CENTER: Okay, he was going to L.A. also—
WATSON: From where, sir?
WASHINGTON
CENTER: I think he was from Boston also. Now let me tell you this story
here. Indianapolis Center was working this guy—
WATSON: What guy?
WASHINGTON
CENTER: American 77, at flight level 3-5-0 [35,000 feet]. However, they
lost radar with him. They lost contact with him. They lost everything.
And they don't have any idea where he is or what happened.
Bottom
line: Whatever happened to Flight 77, it's official flight path after
8:56 is pure speculation, and the evidence suggests that it didn't fly
back to Washington at all. To those who say that Flight 77 hit the
Pentagon or are agnostic on this question, this is another serious blow.
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