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To: Polycarp
Greetings Polycarp, FReepers, et al:
Or - and this is proving to be the most uncomfortable question of all - in the moments before the airliner piled into the black, spongey earth at 575mph did an American fighter pilot have to do the unthinkable and shoot down a US civil airliner?

Seems there was a pilot's story posted from one the USAF or ANG pilots who scrambled for the hijacked airliners that day. Shoot down was not unthinkable, but embarrassingly impossible. The pilots report the fighter aircraft were unarmed September 11. (One big happy post-cold war new world order family.)

The pilot's takedown plan was to slice the hijacked aircraft wing off with the fighter aircraft wing in a daring midair collision. Rotating the fighter aircraft into a 90 degree tilt, then pulling the eject lever right before impact. Sure wish I knew where the story was.

20 posted on 01/26/2003 10:07:09 PM PST by OneLoyalAmerican (Convict pedophile wannabe traitor Ritter thread: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/829655/posts)
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To: OneLoyalAmerican
US considered 'suicide jet missions'

US Air Force commanders considered crashing fighter jets into hijacked planes on 11 September because of a lack of armed planes, a BBC investigation reveals.

In the immediate aftermath of the terror attacks US fighter planes took to the skies to defend America from any further attacks.

Their mission was to protect President George W Bush and to intercept any hijacked aircraft heading to other targets in the US.

But, as a new BBC programme Clear The Skies reveals, the threat of an attack from within America had been considered so small that the entire US mainland was being defended by only 14 planes.

As a result unarmed planes were diverted from training missions in a desperate bid to increase the number of fighter planes patrolling American airspace.

Colonel Robert Marr was Commander of the North East Defence Sector and remembers the words that came over the secure phone "we will take lives in the air to preserve lives on the ground".

However, at the time of the attacks the US had just four fighter pilots on alert covering the north eastern United States.

In other words, there were indeed 4 armed planes guarding the north eastern United States, and the word came over the secure phone "we will take lives in the air to preserve lives on the ground".

Where do you think the armed planes would be? More than likely near Washington DC, only 10 minutes from the crash site by fighter jet.

I'm not sure why the critics here are so vehemently insulting.

I'm much more at ease knowing they were willing to do what was necessary at the time, if that is what happened.

37 posted on 01/26/2003 10:22:05 PM PST by Polycarp
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To: OneLoyalAmerican
Seems there was a pilot's story posted from one the USAF or ANG pilots

Posted here?

Wouldn't that sort of thing fall under the "loose lips" prohibition?

141 posted on 01/28/2003 7:41:00 PM PST by Askel5
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