Posted on 10/15/2001 8:24:43 PM PDT by AC86UT89
'We Have Some Planes,' Hijacker Told Controller By MATTHEW L. WALD with KEVIN SACK ASHINGTON, Oct. 15 — American Airlines Flight 11 had fallen mysteriously silent. The air traffic controller called over and over for a response. None came. Then he heard an unidentified voice from the cockpit: "We have some planes. Just stay quiet and you'll be OK. We are returning to the airport." The controller, confused, asked, "Who's trying to call me?" No response. Then he heard the voice again: "Nobody move please, we are going back to the airport. Don't try to make any stupid moves." The man was apparently trying to talk to the passengers, but he was transmitting on the frequency monitored by pilots and air traffic controllers, and his voice was the first hint of the horror of Sept. 11. Transcripts of the communications between pilots and controllers, obtained by The New York Times, capture the dawning awareness of the terror in cockpits and control centers. Knitted together with interviews and other documents, they offer a previously unseen view of how, moment by moment, a bell-clear and routine morning turned to confusion and then to horrific inevitability.
Oops, and I had him on mute. He actually did okay in a tribute to William F. Buckley a few weeks ago but I admit it's few and far between. I'll catch the transcript tomorrow.
The planes, each loaded with six missiles, had slowed slightly to just under supersonic speed, flying at about 25,000 feet, when they heard over their radio headsets that the F.A.A. had ordered all civilian aircraft to land. The next sign of how serious the situation had become arrived in the form of a squawk over the plane's transponder, a code that suggests almost an emergency wartime situation.
"They get the squawk and they've heard that planes are supposed to land and then Huntress says, `Hooligan flight, can you confirm that the Pentagon is on fire?' " General Haugen said, adding that the lead flier looked down and confirmed that the Pentagon was on fire.
Then the pilots received the most surreal order of the awful morning. "A person came on the radio," General Haugen said, "and identified themselves as being with the Secret Service and he said, `I want you to protect the White House at all costs.' "
Now the NYT is reporting that the plane that crashed into the Pentagon was on autopilot, which presumably means that the hijackers would have had to program the autopilot after hijacking the plane--something I doubt they were trained for. Are there any Freepers who can tell us how hard it is to reprogram an autopilot?
Carol Valentine's piece and other by Joel Skousen complain about the absence of control tower tapes. Now the New York Times reports that it has obtained transcripts of the tower communications, yet none of the pilots ever even signalled the hijacking (compare discussion in Skousen's piece).
Does it seem odd to anyone else that not one pilot on any flight managed to call in a hijacking in process, in a context where the hijackers didn't even have guns, and were reportedly stabbing stewardesses to get the pilots to open the doors.
Like so many, many things, it just doesn't add up, and not one journalist bothers to ask the obvious questions.
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