ATC

Implications of September 11 Flight Transponder Activity - Aidan Managhan

(from Kevin Ryan, editor J911S)

A new article has been published at the Journal of 9/11 Studies. It's by Aidan Managhan and is called Implications of September 11 Flight Transponder Activity.

Aidan Monaghan is an engineer and an open records researcher of the 9/11 attacks. He is the author of the book Declassifying 9/11: A Between the Lines and Behind the Scenes Look at the September 11 Attacks.

Here's the abstract:
It has been the consensus of informed observers that the loss or alteration of Secondary Surveillance Radar (SSR) information for the four September 11 flights was caused by accused hijackers allegedly seizing control of the aircraft flight decks and manually turning off or adjusting each plane’s Mode S (Mode Select) transponder. This was presumably for the purpose of evading detection and interception by U.S. air defense systems. However, this view appears to be based only on circumstantial information - the simple loss or change of SSR flight data to Air Traffic Control (ATC) – and seems unsupported by conclusive facts. Following these transponder operation changes, ATC was still able to tag and track the primary radar returns of three flights and estimate their locations, directions, ground speeds, and even altitude changes.

http://www.journalof911studies.com/implications-of-september-11-flight-transponder-activity/

Robin Hordon interview & OCEJ 14 Points UK edn booklet PDFs

Some more A5 booklet PDFs free to download:

The First 15 Minutes of September 11th. Former Air Traffic Controller Robin Hordon tells Jeremy Baker

what should have happened. US and UK editions available.

Open Civil Engineering Journal - 14 Points scholars' paper. UK edition. US edn. to follow.

Usual URL: http://www.mediafire.com/?sharekey=ac1039fd00817eecd2db6fb9a8902bda

"Mayday! Mayday!"-- What Really Happened in the Cockpit of United 93?

The official story of what happened aboard UAL93 is depicted graphically in the film, “United 93"– the pilots are attacked by knife-wielding hijackers who stab them to death and thus take over the cockpit. I’ve always been suspicious of this story, especially since one of the passengers, Tom Burnett, reported in a phone call to his wife that the hijackers had a gun. When Burnett’s wife Deena was questioned about the gun report, this is what she said:

“He told me one of the hijackers had a gun. He wouldn’t have made it up. Tom grew up around guns. He was an avid hunter and we have guns in our home. If he said there was a gun on board, there was.”

That’s pretty convincing to me. The guns would also explain why the crew on only one of the four flights (allegedly) were able to make any kind of a distress call to ATC. Finally, there is documentary evidence that Betty Ong reported a shooting aboard AAL11 in her phone call, which was subsequently covered up. (I would be happy to go into detail about this evidence for anyone who is interested.)

The First Fifteen Minutes of September 11th - Former Air Traffic Controller Robin Hordon speaks out.

The First Fifteen Minutes of September 11th
Former Air Traffic Controller Robin Hordon speaks out
on 9/11, NORAD and what should have happened on 9/11.
By Jeremy Baker

Former Air Traffic Controller Robin Hordon

Within three hours of the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, Robin Hordon knew it was an inside job. He had been an Air Traffic Controller (ATC) for eleven years before Reagan fired him and hundreds of his colleagues after they went on strike in the eighties. Having handled in-flight emergencies and two actual hijackings in his career, he is well qualified to comment on what NORAD should have been able to achieve in its response to the near simultaneous hijacking of four domestic passenger carriers on the morning of September 11th, 2001.

“There had to be something huge to explain why those aircraft weren’t shot down out of the sky. We have fighters on the ready to handle these situations twenty-four-seven. We have NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command) monitors monitoring our skies twenty-four-seven. We have a lot of human beings, civilian and military, who care about doing their jobs.”

Robin Hordon and David Ray Griffin on Carol Brouillet's show Monday

Robin Hordon and David Ray Griffin appeared on Carol Brouillet's show last night. Griffin was on air for just a few minutes, plugging his new book; most of the show was Hordon's. For those who are not familiar with Robin Hordon, he is an ex-pilot and ex-flight controller (fired when he went on strike during the Reagan years). Robin Hordon is very level-headed and it seems to me he brings a number of valid points to the debate. He explains in detail how the scramble protocols used to work, how they were changed in June 2001 and exactly what effect it had on the morning of 9-11. He also discusses what the FAA would normally do in the case of a hijacking, and what they were doing on 9-11.

Hordon also discusses the wargames, and how they would affect procedures that day (according to Hordon, they wouldn't). Plenty of other interesting stuff from a guy who knows first-hand how air traffic control works.

The show is already available as a podcast:

1st hour
http://xml.wtprn.com/Brouillet/0705/20070507_Mon_Brouillet1.mp3
2nd hour
http://xml.wtprn.com/Brouillet/0705/20070507_Mon_Brouillet2.mp3
(7 megs each)

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