Listening to msnbc 9/11 coverage, something really bothering me

[Whiskeytide]

72. I agree with pretty much all of what you say...

...The admin was certainly incompetent, and deserves to be vilified for it. But the story of what happened on the ground and in the offices of air traffic controllers is a different story - and that's what I was referring to. As I said - been a few years since I read the book - but from memory consider the following:

The terrorists turned off transponders on most of the planes. That means the planes were erratic radar blips, and not transmitting identification numbers, etc... They were easily lost in the screen clutter.

An air traffic controller might notice something odd about a course change - but he/she is also responsible for and watching a screen full of planes. There was no one - at least initially - to take over handling an anomaly in real time.

Losing communication with a plane, losing transponder info, and planes turning back - while odd - are not necessarily red flares in and of themselves. They happen sometimes. It was a while before the ATCs realized they couldn't get the pilots on the radio - signaling a real problem. One ATC did actually hear the terrorists over the radio - and he realized something was really going on - but his warnings had to make their way up the chain and out over the system - and none of these people knew what was unfolding well enough to connect the dots until time had run out.

The hijack playbook for pilots and ATCs didn't yet have a chapter on terrorists flying planes into buildings. Hijackers usually wanted money or transport out of the country, and didn't usually want to die themselves. The first reaction to the recognition that there was a hijacking taking place wasn't "we gotta shoot them down". They were not trained for this scenario.

ATCs don't have a TV in their office playing CNN - for obvious reasons. Most of those watching the hijacked planes on their screens didn't know the first plane had hit the WTC until it was too late.

Fighters went up - but were not armed. One pilot received orders to collide. Initially some of the fighters were sent in the wrong direction due to a mis-communication. Some were not fully fueled and had to land too quickly. Also, there was no way for the military controllers to communicate directly with the civilian ATCs who by then knew what was happening.

A pilot is sent toward DC with orders to shoot down a commercial airliner. And when he gets there, there are 37 blips on his radar (civilian airliners, UPS, Fed-Ex, private commuter planes, etc...). He's not picking up transponder signals - so who does he shoot? And, assuming he gets on the tail of a civilian airliner he "thinks" is the rouge plane - does he shoot? What does he have to do to confirm the target before he incinerates 80+ Americans?

It was a clusterfuck, for sure - but there was never any evidence that the real time guys were letting it happen. They were simply not ready for it. I wish there was more to it (actually, maybe I don't since that would be beyond comprehension), but I don't believe there is. Just my HO.