- Sept. 11, 2001: American Airlines Flight 77 streaked
toward Washington, D.C., after being hijacked. NEADS ñ the North
East Air Defense Sector of NORAD, received notice of the hijacking at 9:24
a.m. EST. Six minutes later, two F-16s were airborne from Hampton, Va.
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- The pilots, however, had not received permission to engage
and destroy ñ just head for Washington, D.C. Seven minutes after
wheels up, the American Airlines passenger jet crashed into the Pentagon.
This was the third hijacked flight used as a missile to kill and maim that
morning. So far, the air defense was playing catch-up.
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- Two minutes before the F-16s were airborne, the Federal
Aviation Administration learned United Airlines Flight 93 had also been
hijacked. Approximately 9:35 a.m., the hijacked plane began a left turn
to the south near Cleveland, Ohio. By 9:39 a.m., it completed the turn
and was aimed at Washington, D.C.
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- There would be no excuse for not stopping what had become
a terrorist missile aimed at the seat of federal government. Plenty of
supersonic, armed F-15s and F-16s were now in the air and within minutes
of Flight 93, which would remain in the air for another 29 minutes.
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- Unprecedented political decisions were in the process
of being made as Flight 93 and multiple United States F-16 fighters headed
for a showdown near Shanksville, a small town in Pennsylvania. In Washington,
D.C., an electronic conference was in progress.
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- The conference focused on Flight 93. A White House staffer
would keep coming in with updates on Flight 93's progress towards D.C.,
according to a Sept. 11, 2002, ABC News program. ABC's Charles Gibson asked
what "the target of that airplane might be?" Vice President Dick
Cheney responded, "I thought probably White House or Capitol."
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- Brig. Gen. W. Montague Winfield (U.S. Army) revealed
that a "decision was made to try to intercept Flight 93. Gen. Winfield
told ABC News that, "... the president had given us permission to
shoot down innocent civilian aircraft that threatened Washington, D.C.
..." The order was passed on to the pilots intercepting Flight 93.
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- "We started receiving reports from the fighters
that were heading to, to intercept. The FAA kept us informed with their
time estimates as the aircraft got closer and closer," according to
Gen. Winfield. Then, the picture presented to the ABC audience begins to
blur. It seems that no one knows what happened next.
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- Gen. Winfield bravely attempted to give an explanation
that said nothing: "And at some point, the closure time came and went,
and nothing happened. So you can imagine everything was very tense in the
NMCC. We had basically lost institutional awareness of where this airplane
was."
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- This terrorist missile in the form of a commercial airplane
just seems to fade from institutional memory. One more telling quote comes
from the ABC program, by Gen. Winfield: "It was about, you know, 10:03
that the fighters reported that Flight 93 had crashed." The FBI seized
Flight 93's CVR (Cockpit Voice Recorder) and claims the tape stopped at
10:03 a.m.
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- But NORAD's own timeline says the F-16s were still 11
minutes away from intercept when Flight 93 crashed. And, "Several
leading seismologists agree that Flight 93 crashed last Sept. 11 at 10:06:05
a.m., give or take a couple of seconds," according to a Sept. 16,
2002, Philadelphia Daily News article. Three minutes are not accounted
for. When the feds begin dissembling as they did in the case of Flight
93, it is reasonable to infer that something occurred during those three
minutes they wish to hide from the public.
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- Perhaps the fog descended on the feds because military
aircraft were in the immediate area when Flight 93 crashed. Witness Susan
Mcelwain told a reporter she observed a small jet: "It came right
over me, I reckon just 40 or 50 feet above my minivan ... it was so low,
I ducked instinctively. It was traveling real fast, but hardly made any
sound." So from a vantage point of perhaps 50 feet from the airplane,
she observed that "it had two rear engines, a big fin on the back
like a spoiler on the back of a car and with two upright fins at the side
..." Her statement makes it clear she observed this twin-engine jet
on the deck just prior to Flight 93 crashing.
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- At least five other witnesses to this low-flying jet
came forward and told their story to journalists. One witness, less than
a half mile from the crash site, observed Flight 93 as it streaked toward
the ground and crashed. He then, almost immediately, observed a small,
white jet fly low to the ground over the crash scene, circle and immediately
leave the area.
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- Shortly thereafter, the FBI began to attack the witnesses
with perhaps the most inane disinformation ever ñ alleging the witnesses
actually observed a private jet at 34,000 feet. The FBI says the jet was
asked to come down to 5,000 feet and try to find the crash site. This would
require about 20 minutes to descend and get over the crash, assuming the
pilot immediately found it. The local fire and rescue found the site within
minutes ñ so the FBI statement is nothing more than poorly thought
out disinformation.
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- Several passengers ñ perhaps all ñ put
into action an attempt to take back control of the airplane. By 10:03 a.m.,
they succeeded in fighting their way into the cockpit. It is at this point
where the CVR recorded what may be a piercing of the fuselage ñ
a wind or sucking noise.
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- On Sept. 13, 2001, barely 48 hours after the Twin Towers
came down, the Nashua, N.H., Telegraph Newspaper reported that: "FAA
air traffic controllers in Nashua have learned through discussions with
other controllers than an F-16 fighter stayed in hot pursuit of another
hijacked commercial airliner until it crashed in Pennsylvania ..."
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- John Fleegle, Jim Brant and Carol Delasko were about
two-and-a-half miles from what would soon become the Flight 93 crash site.
According to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, they "heard engines screaming
close overhead. The building shook. We ran out, heard the explosion and
saw a fireball mushroom ..."
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- Delasko, "... said she thought someone had blown
up a boat on the lake. 'It just looked like confetti raining down all over
the air above the lake.'"
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- This is probably the single most important observation.
Within a second or two after Flight 93 passed over the Indian Lake Marina
where Delasko, Brant and Fleegle stood, debris from the stricken plane
began to fall into the lake. Lots of debris. Some of it on fire. And it
was deposited in a compact area rather than as a continuous trail for some
period of time.
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- Seismologists determined that Flight 93 crashed at 10:06
a.m. and 5 seconds. The 757 was perhaps 20 seconds from crashing when observed
by Fleegle, Brant and Delasko. Its cargo area and passenger area had been
opened by an explosion. News reports describe a large number of cancelled
checks, stock broker documents, pieces of seats, small chunks of melted
plastic and small human parts.
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- Also adding to the evidence is the fact that a 1,000-pound
section of an engine fan was found 6,000 feet from the crash site. So,
an external explosive event occurred that separated 1,000 pounds of engine,
opened up a hole in the passenger cabin and cargo hold. The power of the
explosion ñ or, more likely, the disintegration of the engine ñ
sucked things out of the fuselage, through the jet engine ñ shredding
seats, passengers and cargo.
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- When all the evidence is lined up, it is highly consistent
with a heat-seeking missile striking Flight 93, probably around 10:05:30.
The evidence strongly infers that the terrorists did not fly that jet into
the ground, at least not without help from an external event. The evidence
becomes compelling when the federal government's factually false propaganda
is factored in.
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- The president gave the vice president authority to issue
the order to shoot down Flight 93. Col. Robert Marr, United States Air
Force, when interviewed by ABC News remembered getting the orders: "The
rules have changed. We could do something about it now." The words
he heard included: "We will take lives in the air to save lives on
the ground."
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- Col. Marr ordered his air controllers to intercept Flight
93. At this stage of the story, the Air Force falsely alleges that "The
closest fighters are two F-16 pilots on a training mission from Selfridge
Air National Guard Base near Detroit." Col. Marr tells ABC News: "The
real scary part is that those guys are up there on a training mission.
They don't have any weapons on board they can use."
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- So, of course, the colonel is asked by someone down the
chain of command how F-16s with no means of destroying a civilian aircraft
are going to accomplish the mission. Colonel Marr's answer: "We're
gonna put them as close to that airplane [as] they can get, in view of
the cockpit, and convince that guy in that airplane that he needs to land."
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- The transcript does not indicate anyone at ABC laughing
at this point, so presumably it was a serious answer. An F-16 pilot is
going eyeball-to-eyeball with a suicide pilot.
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- At least three F-16s were circling Washington, D.C.,
with nothing to do but burn fuel and do an aerial tour of the nation's
capitol. Each F-16 had six air-to-air missiles and plenty of fuel. Even
more fortunate was the fact that Flight 93 was closing on these F-16s at
9-miles per minute, significantly reducing the time required to intercept
Flight 93.
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- Common sense clearly indicates that if armed F-16s are
available and in an advantageous position to intercept, these F-16s will
be the primary dispatch ñ whether from the skies over Washington,
D.C., or another location never revealed by the military.
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- Why would the president and his staff not admit the shoot-down?
It was an extraordinarily difficult time in which to make political decisions.
But it may have been much more than that. There is no reason to believe
the CVR did not continue running until the plane crashed.
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- What if, when the Cockpit Voice Recorder was first played
back, the missing three minutes were not missing? What if the CVR recorded
the heroic passengers succeeding in taking over the cockpit? They were
definitely on the offense when the CVR allegedly stopped. They had penetrated
into the cockpit.
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- What if, in the cruelest of fates, just as these Americans
win the fight and begin to fly the plane, a heat-seeking missile slams
into an engine?
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- What if that is what the missing three minutes actually
revealed? No president, no administration, would willingly destroy itself
by releasing that CVR transcript.
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- - James Sanders, a former police officer turned investigative
reporter, is the co-author of "First Strike: TWA Flight 800 and the
Attack on America, among other books.
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- © 2004 WorldNetDaily.com, Inc. http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=38207
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