9/11: Accountability in the Skies

I am a retired Federal Aviation Administration Special Agent from the Boston
area.

I was heartsick for my home town on Monday, April 15th when terrorists exploded
two bombs killing 3 people and injuring 264. It was the same feeling I had on
September 11, 2001 when ten terrorists bypassed Logan Airport airline
security, boarded American Airlines flight 11 and United Airlines flight 175 and
crashed two large Boeing passenger jets into the World Trade Center.

On Friday May 10, 2013 in New York City, hundreds of construction workers – along with
politicians from both sides of the aisle – protested that nearly 12 years
after 9/11, American Airlines and United Airlines still have not been held
accountable for letting terrorists onto their planes with prohibited
weapons and allowing them to turn the planes into weapons of mass
destruction. These workers voiced their anger that more than a decade has
come and gone without the airlines or their insurers being held accountable for
failed security in the lead up to and on 9/11. The airlines have not owned
up to their responsibility and have never paid what they owe. What does that
say about our country, and our ability to acknowledge and learn from a terrorist
attack?

Make no mistake about it, aviation security failed on 9/11. I know. As a
citizen and as a FAA Special Agent, I sought to call attention to obvious
security failings prior to 9/11. On 9/11, aviation security, then run by the
airports and airlines, failed to stop flagged individuals from circumventing
security and it failed to prevent weapons, such as knives and pepper spray, from
getting on those aircraft.

The American people haven’t heard the full story about that fateful day,
because the 9/11 Commission Report never fully investigated the airlines’ role.
Nor has the full story come out through litigation yet. Not a single wrongful death
case ever went to trial, so the litigation being pursued against the airlines
may be the last chance to fully understand the failures that led to 9/11 and
to acquire the knowledge which will allow us to protect ourselves against future
attacks.

I have closely followed the legal and political developments since 9/11 with
great dismay. The insurance industry has skillfully avoided its day of
reckoning. In the weeks following 9/11, their representatives repeatedly
proclaimed that each insurer would meet its responsibilities and pay out on
liability claims at the World Trade Center. This promise was made to the
President, to Congress, to the New York State Insurance Department, to the media
and – most important – to the American people.

Based on these promises, the airlines and the insurance companies got a massive
federal bailout worth upwards of $14 billion. And what did the insurance
companies do once they got their bailout and the media turned its attention
elsewhere? They went right back to stonewalling and refusing to pay their
claims. Of the $12 billion of insurance held by defendants in 9/11 litigation
on September 11, the insurers have only paid out $1.5 billion, or 12.5 percent.
Amazingly, 93% of property damage settlements simply went to other insurers.
Out one pocket and into the other. By refusing to take responsibility and pay
their claims, the airlines and their insurance companies have become the most
significant obstacle to rebuilding the World Trade Center.

The rebuilding of the World Trade Center is an important symbol of America’s
resilience, determination, and wherewithal. IEarlier this month, the world watched as
construction workers celebrated the topping out of One World Trade Center. 7
World Trade Center is a proven success, and another tower, 4 World Trade Center,
will open this fall. But even with all that success, there is no
readily-available funding left to finish the important job of rebuilding the
World Trade Center. The only possible money is from insurance proceeds.
Finishing the World Trade Center project would create thousands of union
construction jobs and ensure the revitalization of Lower Manhattan. It would
show the terrorists that New Yorkers – like Bostonians – will never surrender.

That’s why on May 10th, in Downtown Manhattan, New York’s leaders – elected officials,
unions, and business leaders – came together to demand that the airlines
stop delaying and that the insurers meet their obligations and pay up. Hopefully Judge Alvin Hellerstein, the presiding judge in the remaining 9/11 property cases, will expedite a trial during which the gaps in the 9/11 Commission report can be filled in and the airlines can finally be held accountable for the security shortcomings which facilitated the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center.

With All Due Respect, Official 9/11 Flight Story Is Unproven

There is little to no evidence that the accused in fact piloted the 9/11 aircraft.

Research has shown that there was more than one way to crash an airliner into a target on 9/11. The ability for select parties with remote access capability to abuse the automated systems of the 9/11 flights existed circa 9/11/2001.

If these points of view are in error, I invite any input explaining why.

With All Due Respect...

Aidan Monghan's 9/11 Flight Story is unproven, a theory, and questionable. Questionable because when you take the hijackers out of the equation, you take most of the incriminating information about the attacks out of the equation as well. I never understood why someone would want to do that.

No one knows exactly what happened on those planes because no one here was on them (so it's great to put forward theories that people could argue about for decades, thereby taking the focus off of other things that don't require debate).

Is there information to suggest the alleged hijackers were on those planes? Phone calls? They were fake, right? Purchased plane tickets? They were fake, right? Boarding passes from Flight 93? They were fake, right? No one from a "cave" could EVER hijack multiple planes, right? It's just inconceivable.

There are better things to focus on than theories.

Focus

on the big picture. 9/11 was and is false flag terror, NY, DC, and?, and? What is next?

RISK

If you were planning this operation, if Bin Laden were planning this operation, would you, or he, risk human error or a last minute change of heart? Honestly.

It has been proven to me that the accuracy at the reported speeds is critical. You fail to compensate for the cross wind or make a slight error half-mile out and you miss the tower.

Another way of looking at this: Try to fly a 156 wide 767 through a 208 foot wide opening and not touch the wing tips. The jets that hit the target did so in such a way that the wings hit the 208 foot wide target without any overlap. Not one foot fell outside the the face of the tower. That is amazing accuracy. Too amazing for human control.

Would you risk flying through the most densely packed airspace on the planet without assistance from air traffic controllers? ATCs are constantly advising pilots to avoid traffic, change altitude and heading to get them safely through their sectors.

There are so many reasons why remote control is the only way to fly. Next time you prepare to disembark, ask the captain how many minutes out of the total he was actually in control of the ship. The answer will probably surprise you.

Do we need to get into listing all the logistical and physical reasons why a human takeover of a cramped cockpit was unlikely?

Attn: Jon Gold: Official Story Is Original Theory

Based on all that is known about the 9/11 flights, the official story is simply an unproven theory.

As always, its interesting that certain parties who claim to seek the truth about 9/11 can always be found defending so much of the official story.

Being on a plane does not equal being behind the controls.

The accused were almost certainly on the 9/11 flights, if for no other reason than to eliminate them.

Not "defending so much of the official story..."

I just don't like to make assertions that have contradictions. See, unlike most people in the 9/11 Truth Movement, I can openly admit that I don't know what happened on 9/11 or who was ultimately responsible. So, I decide to focus on every effort made to create a cover-up, because it's not the crime that gets you, it's the cover-up. I decide to show people that each investigation into 9/11 had its own version of compromise and corruption. These are easy, provable things with so much information to back it up that there is no debate. I do not choose to promote theories like the hijackers being on the planes "if for no other reason than to eliminate them." The phone calls, which were not fake, indicate that there were actual hijackers on the plane. What do hijackers do on a plane? They hijack the plane and are "behind the controls." In other words, there is evidence that the accused in fact piloted the 9/11 aircraft.

What he is saying is not a

What he is saying is not a contradiction; in fact he is offering an explanation for the contradiction in the official story: hijackers that could not really fly, let alone complete difficult and unlikely maneuvers. Why risk that circle-maneuver before hitting the Pentagon? The possible explanation is that these people were on board for show and that the planes were actually remote controlled. The technology was there, and it would explain that strange behavior.

I do agree, however, that this is not really the important issue, not worth fighting over, especially since exotic stuff like "remote control" that is hard to prove, is destined to put most people off any and all alternative theories of what happened.

Easier and safer routes exist, such as asking why no-one investigated who those guys really were? That is, in the context of them getting their US visas through the CIA friendly Jeddah consulate like previous US sponsored terrorists(given whistle-blower testimony), and the fact that another whistle-blower has verified that this was no coincidence because the whole A-Q operation was still being run by the US government, as a "Gladio plan B". Those two facts make a nice little package together, that makes a very presentable case for an "inside job".

I just can't believe that... That is a fairy tale.

Jon,
There is no way I could ever believe the following fairy tale...

Jon Gold: "...What do hijackers do on a plane? They hijack the plane and are "behind the controls." In other words, there is evidence that the accused in fact piloted the 9/11 aircraft...."

That's fine...

But it is possible that they did. The point I was trying to make is that hijackers HIJACK planes. So if there were hijackers on the plane, then chances are they were there to HIJACK the plane. Meaning they would be behind the controls once the HIJACKING took place.

How many hijackings took place during the 70's? So many that Archie Bunker talked about them (which incidentally is an indication that our Government would have been writing procedures to deal with hijackings as far back as then).

Even Aidan Monaghan admitted that they were most likely on the planes.

Just because they may have been real hijackings doesn't mean there wasn't complicity on the part of our Government and others. Anyone who suggests that I am trying to "support the official story" is just being ludicrous.

Not Hijackers, Accused Hijackers

Accused hijacker guilt is not proven.

As for the in flight phone calls that official story proponents rely on:

1.) The evidence surrounding them is contradictory, particularly with the Burnett, Lyles and Olsen calls.

2.) The ability to fake such calls existed circa 2001

So it seems, the official story is just an official theory.

Additionally

I never take Aidan's statements as saying there were no hijackers. I certainly feel the preponderance of the available evidence indicates there were. However, their role may not have been to fly the planes but to possibly (and I do wish to emphasize possibly since this is pure conjecture) aid in facilitating remote access. It is also quite possible that the hijackers were being duped as well.

I do fail to see how the airlines were at all culpable however. Airport security and screenings are not done by the airlines. I believe Stratesec was in charge of security at Dulles. I am not sure about Newark or Logan airports and its purported that two of the hijackers took an enormous risk by driving to Portland, Maine and boarding there.

Whatever the case, it is very difficult to conclude what officials claim to have happened with the available evidence in the public domain. Much of it doesn't add up. Just food for thought.

peace everyone.

dtg

The FAILURE of IMAGINATION

That
in 2013,
after all is said and done;

a 'special agent' could find himself even remotely contesting expedition of truth and justice - with 'gaps' in the 911 commission report being 'filled',
rests upon judgment of Alvin Hellerstein,
A man by precedent ensuring no contest of ANY kind reaches the light of cross-examination by experts with alternate forensic evidence,

places the whole post in parody.

It is ludicrous to think 19 guys pulled off the 9/11 flights...

The 9/11 "hijacking planes" story is so silly... ...no one who really researches can believe that...

http://www.corbettreport.com/911-a-conspiracy-theory/

TRANSCRIPT: On the morning of September 11, 2001, 19 men armed with boxcutters directed by a man on dialysis in a cave fortress halfway around the world using a satellite phone and a laptop directed the most sophisticated penetration of the most heavily-defended airspace in the world, overpowering the passengers and the military combat-trained pilots on 4 commercial aircraft before flying those planes wildly off course for over an hour without being molested by a single fighter interceptor.

These 19 hijackers, devout religious fundamentalists who liked to drink alcohol, snort cocaine, and live with pink-haired strippers, managed to knock down 3 buildings with 2 planes in New York, while in Washington a pilot who couldn’t handle a single engine Cessna was able to fly a 757 in an 8,000 foot descending 270 degree corskscrew turn to come exactly level with the ground, hitting the Pentagon in the budget analyst office where DoD staffers were working on the mystery of the 2.3 trillion dollars that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had announced “missing” from the Pentagon’s coffers in a press conference the day before, on September 10, 2001.

Luckily, the news anchors knew who did it within minutes, the pundits knew within hours, the Administration knew within the day, and the evidence literally fell into the FBI’s lap....


http://youtu.be/yuC_4mGTs98

kawika,can you explain, in

kawika,

can you explain, in brief but with mention of technical systems involved, how pilots land planes like the 767? Is that an impossible task for human control? What level of accuracy could you achieve there manually? What level of accuracy do remote controlled landings achieve - and how do they do it at airports?

Also, talking about lateral wind: Are wind gusts more of a problem when you fly slowly, or when you fly fast?

I think that these questions help you understand that pointing a fast plane at a huge tower manually and hitting it is really quite easy. If you can't hit a tower 208 feet wide while cruising, you can't hope to ever hit a landing strip while going slow, let alone actually land without crashing.

Crashing is a lot easier than landing. Landing can be done by any pilot manually on any plane. Crashing can be done even by non-pilots.