Stewart's Learjet veered sharply off-course just after takeoff on Oct. 26, 1999. All contact with air traffic controllers was lost.
Within 15 minutes, US fighter jets had already intercepted the jet. Everyone on board was likely dead due to depressurization. NORAD fighters escorted the Stewart plane until another group of Air National Guard jets took over and followed Stewart's plane until it ran out of fuel and crashed in South Dakota.
These fighter jets were dispatched by NORAD. NORAD's job is to monitor and defend US airspace 24 hours a day. It maintains a huge array of land-based radar systems and has fighter jets on alert at all times to respond to a crisis.
The response to the Stewart tragedy is exactly what one expects of the greatest -- and most expensive -- military power in world history.
So, once again, why on 9-11 was the same NORAD that so effortlessly intercepted Stewart's jet two years before in 1999, nowhere to be found in the two-hour period between the first planes going off course and the last one crashing into the field in Pennsylvania?
How is it possible that the airspace between Boston and Washington DC, the political and economic heart of the country, was left completely defenseless? The second plane to hit the WTC had flown off course without communication for 40 minutes. On its way to New York, it actually flew within a few miles of McGuire Air Force base in New Jersey, after the first tower had already been hit.
And how is it possible that Washington DC was left undefended (long after the New York attacks) when Andrews Air Force base is within car driving distance? The jets which did finally arrive were far too late.
Incompetence by NORAD??? This is not "post 9-11" stuff. Get real.