Free Republic

Today, Ed Ballinger will speak to a roomful of strangers about the one subject he doesn't care to discuss: The first two hours of his shift as a flight dispatcher for United Airlines on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001. The Arlington Heights resident and former United Airlines employee will meet with a sub-committee of the 9/11 commission in Washington, D.C., so panel members can decide whether his testimony warrants his appearance before the full commission. Ballinger is there because he was in charge of United flights 175 and 93 when they crashed into the World Trade Center and a...

Saw a documentary, "Grounded on 9-11" on the History Channel a few days ago that mentioned something major about 9-11 that I have not heard before. At 9:00AM on 9-11 United Airlines sent to all planes a warning message regarding the other hijacks. On United Flight 23, that was on the runway, the captain decided on his own not to take off. He fakes a mechanical problem and returns to the gate! When the passengers were asked to exit the plan three Middle Eastern men, or possibly as many as six, refuse to follow the request to deplane. Security is...

Have you heard about the airliner which was ordered back to the gate on 9/11 when the terrorist attacks began, only to have four young Arab passengers jump off the plane, after which box cutters and Al Qaeda documents were found in their abandoned bags?

ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) -- Al-Qaida conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui testified Monday that he and would-be shoe bomber Richard Reid were supposed to hijack a fifth airplane on Sept. 11, 2001, and fly it into the White House. Moussaoui's testimony on his own behalf stunned the courtroom as he disclosed details he had never revealed before. It was in stark contrast to Moussaoui's previous statements in which he said the White House attack was to come later if the United States refused to release a radical Egyptian sheik imprisoned on earlier terrorist convictions. Moussaoui testified Monday he lied to investigators when arrested...

Defense lawyers for confessed Al-Qaida conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui have asked a judge to subpoena testimony from shoe-bomber Richard Reid. Moussaoui’s court-appointed lawyers, trying to spare him from a death sentence, are seeking to show that Moussaoui was lying when he testified he was training to pilot a fifth plane as part of the Sept. 11 operation. They asked U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema to issue the subpoena late Monday. Moussaoui told the jury at his death-penalty trial that Reid, who later was convicted of trying to ignite a shoe bomb aboard a trans-Atlantic flight, was to be part of his...