Where can I find all the facts concerning Delta 1989 on 9/11?

[mhatrw]

Specifically, exactly how long did it take the USAF to intercept Delta 1989 once the military was apprised of its (supposed) threat?

Are there any contradictory reports about the USAF's response to Delta 1989 as is the case with every actual 9/11 hijacking or did our military, FAA and 9/11 Commission actually somehow manage to stick to a single narrative explanation in this one case?

Here's what I know from the 9/11 Omission Report (http://www.9-11commission.gov/archive/hearing12/9-11Commission_Hearing_2004-06-17.htm ):

9:41 Boston Center called NEADS and identified Delta 1989 as a possible hijack.

9:44 NORAD briefed the conference on the possible hijacking of Delta Flight 1989.

But exactly when was Delta 1989 intercepted?

[KJF]

1. Timeline of a Red Herring

You could try starting here:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=125x25173

It's been a while since I read it. I don't remember that much.

[mhatrw]

2. Good thread, but it's missing the critical information that I'm looking for --

which are any and all official descriptions of the USAF's response to the threat of Delta 1989. I know when NEADS and NORAD were supposedly warned and I know when Delta 1989 landed. But exactly what happened in terms of the USAF's response to Delta 1989 in between?

[KJF]

12. There was a bit in Vanity Fair

Is this part of what you're looking for?

"The more it went on, the more unbelievable it got, and then the one that did the Pentagon," Dooley told me, "we just couldn't believe it. You were just so mad that you couldn't stop these guys and so you're looking for the next one. Where are they going next?"

It looks like Washington again. Three minutes after the Pentagon is hit, Scoggins, at Boston Center, is back on the phone. The Boston controllers are now tracking Delta 1989—Boston to Las Vegas—which fits the same profile as the other hijackings: cross-country, out of Boston, lots of fuel, and possibly off course. But this one's different from the others in one key respect: the plane's beacon code is still working. In this chase, neads will have a chance, as the excitement in Dooley's last line reflects:

09:40:57
ROUNTREE: Delta 89, that's the hijack. They think it's possible hijack.
DOOLEY: Fuck!
ROUNTREE: South of Cleveland. We have a code on him now.
DOOLEY: Good. Pick it up! Find it!
MALE TECH: Delta what?
ROUNTREE: Eight nine—a Boeing 767.
DOOLEY: Fuck, another one—

PLAY | PAUSE | STOP

They quickly find the plane on radar—it's just south of Toledo—and begin alerting other F.A.A. centers. They're not sure where the plane is headed. If it's Chicago, they're in big trouble, because they don't have any planes close enough to cut it off. Marr and Nasypany order troops to call Air National Guard bases in that area to see if anyone can launch fighters. A base in Selfridge, Michigan, offers up two unarmed fighters that are already flying, on their way back from a training mission.

09:54:54
SELFRIDGE FLIGHT OFFICER: Here—here's what we can do. At a minimum, we can keep our guys airborne. I mean, they don't have—they don't have any guns or missiles or anything on board. But we—
neads TECH: It's a presence, though.

PLAY | PAUSE | STOP

But neads is victim again to an increasingly long information lag. Even before Rountree gets the urgent call that Delta 1989 is hijacked, a civilian air-traffic controller in Cleveland in contact with the pilot has determined that the flight is fine—that Delta 1989 isn't a hijacking after all.
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2006/08/norad200608?currentPage=8

Cleveland Center called NEADS about Delta 1989 at a time Cleveland already thought United 93 was hijacked. However, allegedly, United 93 was not mentioned in this call or any other call to NEADS from Cleveland, although the FAA told the secret service United 93 was hijacked (about 9:35-9:40) and the secret service spoke to the pilots in the planes over DC (not sure exactly when, United 93 was supposedly not specified as an inbound hostile aircraft), and informed the NMCC of United 93's hijack (around 10:00 at the latest). Bizarrely, having learned of the hijacking, the NMCC supposedly failed to pass the information on to NEADS.

[mhatrw]

20. Yep. Everybody and his brother knew about Flight 93 except

(supposedly) NEADS and NORAD -- the only agencies who could do anything about it.

[Bolo Boffin]

3. Dupe - bad link n/t

[Bolo Boffin]

4. Oh, dear God.

Haven't you checked Cooperative Research yet?

Link

Admittedly, it doesn't have intercept time. It does have NEADS notification (941) and scramble time (1001), but not intercept time. And those jets were already in the air, weren't they? Tracking a plane WITH its transponder on?

[Bolo Boffin]

5. PS: Nice to know that this is all a big bluff on your part. n/t

[mhatrw]

7. What is that supposed to mean?

Seriously.

:wtf: is that supposed to mean?

[Bolo Boffin]

9. It's not a bluff if you don't have the info, is it?

Bluffs mean you know you have nothing, but you pretend that you do.

You aren't doing that in this situation. You don't have the relevant information to our discussion. You're gambling that the information will pan out for you, but you don't actually know if it will or not.

So it's not a bluff. My apologies.

[mhatrw]

10. I'm hoping what will "pan out" for me?

My purpose is not to "prove" a 9/11 conspiracy, but to discover the truth about 9/11, demand accountability about 9/11 and keep mass US casualty events like 9/11 from ever happening again. Why else would anyone possibly want to spend his or her time continually discussing the subject of 9/11 on a 9/11 message board?

Isn't that your purpose here as well?

[mhatrw]

6. No, they weren't.

The 10:01 order was to scramble fighters from the non-alert Toledo ANG, who managed to get armed fighters in the air within 16 minutes.

Here's the information about the diverted Michigan fighters:

9:40:57
ROUNTREE: Delta 89, that’s the hijack. They think it’s possible hijack.
DOOLEY: ****!
ROUNTREE: South of Cleveland. We have a code on him now.
DOOLEY: Good. Pick it up! Find it!
MALE TECH: Delta what?
ROUNTREE: Eight nine—a Boeing 767.
DOOLEY: ****, another one—

NEADS begin contacting ANG bases along the aircraft’s path, as there are no NORAD aircraft in a position to intercept.

0954 A base in Selfridge, Michigan offers up fighters to intercept Delta 1989.

9:54:54
SELFRIDGE FLIGHT OFFICER: Here—here’s what we can do. At a minimum, we can keep our guys airborne. I mean, they don’t have—they don’t have any guns or missiles or anything on board. But we—
NEADS TECH: It’s a presence, though.

I'm still looking for that interception time. Can you help me? You know, without the heaping serving of disinfo this time.

[Bolo Boffin]

8. This says that Delta landed at Cleveland at 10:10.

http://www.usatoday.com/travel/news/2002/2002-08-13-clear-skies.htm

So if the Toledo ANG got jets in the air at 10:17 in response to 1989, they couldn't have intercepted it.

How do we know that an intercept happened?

[mhatrw]

11. Good question. The Michigan fighters already in the air

had about 15 minutes to intercept Delta 1989 before it landed. Did they?

[Bolo Boffin]

13. I can't see that they did.

I don't see that Delta 1989 was ever intercepted on 9/11.

[mhatrw]

16. OK, so what happened with the Michigan fighters during that 15 minutes?

Where were the Michigan fighters vectored to instead? Flight 93?

[Bolo Boffin]

18. I haven't been able to find out.

Woody seems convinced (but he shouldn't be) that the intercept didn't happen. I'm inclined to agree with him, but we're looking for the facts, right?

[Woody Box]

14. Delta 1989 was NEVER intercepted

According to the pilot, it was more kind of a misunderstanding between the crew and Ground Control:

http://www.3dlanguage.net/9-11_story.html

However, Gen. Alan Scott of NORAD tells a different and bizarre story. He says Delta landed at 9:47 in Cleveland.

At 9:49, FAA reports that Delta 89, which had been reported as missing, is now reported as a possible hijacking. So again he is --

MR.: That's 9:41, sir.

MR. SCOTT: I'm sorry, 9:41. Again, he is in the system. He is kind of a red herring for us.

Now, the only thing that I would point out on this chart is this says 9:43, American Airlines 77 impacts the Pentagon. The timeline on the impact of the Pentagon was changed to 9:37 -- 9:43 is the time that was reported that day, it was the time we used. And it took about two weeks to discover in the parking lot of the Pentagon this entry camera for the parking lot, which happened to be oriented towards the Pentagon at the time of impact, and the recorded time is 9:37. And that's why the timeline went from 9:43 to 9:37, because it is the best documented evidence for the impact time that we have. Getting toward the end now, 9:47 is when Delta 89 clears the system by landing in Cleveland. So he is not a hijack. Lots of things are going on now in the system as the sectors begin to call both units that are part of 1st Air Force and NORAD, as well as units that have nothing to do with us. We are beginning to call everyone now and the 103rd Air Control Squadron, for instance, stationed in Connecticut, is an air control squadron, a radar squadron, and they got their radar online, operational, and begin to link their radar picture into the Northeast system. They are not normally part of NORAD. This is really the initial part of a huge push the rest of that day to link as many radars in on the interior as we can, and to get as many fighters on alert as we can.

http://www.9-11commission.gov/archive/hearing2/9-11Commission_Hearing_2003-05-23.htm

The case of Delta 1989 is very strange, to say the least.

[Bolo Boffin]

15. Can't say I agree with your police work there, woody.

From your link:

I heard the next day (and read in the newspaper) that we were escorted by a couple of F16s. I can’t confirm that, although I fly with a lot of fighter pilots and it won’t surprise me if I fly with the one who was “escorting” me.

I'll go ahead and accept that this is the pilot of Delta 1989 talking. The only reason not to is the nature of the webpage it's on, and that's only a superficial reason. It reads well.

But Dunlap here doesn't say that he wasn't escorted. He says he wasn't aware of being escorted. I'm sure he would have known if fighter jets were right beside his plane, but escorting can mean a lot of things. The sky is a big place, and as long as a fighter has you in optical range, it can probably count as escorting.

So Dunlap doesn't know. The intercept, if it happened, wasn't one he was aware of. I'm afraid we're still back at "Did it actually happen?"

But the evidence is mounting up.

[mhatrw]

19. The evidence is mounting up for what?

Was Delta 1989 or was it not intercepted by two F-16s?

[Bolo Boffin]

23. That Delta 1989 wasn't intercepted.

We don't have a catagorical statement one way or the other. But what we do have right now is that the evidence strongly suggests that it was not. There doesn't appear to have been enough time.

Which is my overarching point about the day, isn't it? Given time, planes like Payne Stewart's can be intercepted. On 9/11, the attacks happened more quickly than the system could react to them.

All of this suggests to me that the Payne Stewart incident was used by al-Qaeda in the planning of the 9/11 attacks. That is my conjecture. I have no solid evidence for it. But if they did, it seems to have worked well for them.

[mhatrw]

24. What about the reports that said it WAS intercepted?

And isn't there another obvious explanation if Delta 1989 wasn't intercepted, namely that Delta 1989 was not a threat and anybody who wanted to could reach the pilot to confirm as much?

[Bolo Boffin]

Produce them. n/t

[mhatrw]

26. So the pilot's word about these reports isn't good enough for you?

Why not?

[Bolo Boffin]

28. As the pilot said, he couldn't confirm an intercept.

So yes, the pilot's word is good enough for me.

Why isn't it good enough for you?

[mhatrw]

29. He said that he read he had two F16s escorting him in the paper.

Do you believe him?

[Bolo Boffin]

31. Again you demonstrate your egregious lack of good faith in discussion.

He also said he could not confirm that.

The number of games you are playing shows clearly you are NOT here to have a good faith discussion. It's just more of the same toying crap that has no place here at Democratic Underground.

[mhatrw]

34. Yes, he also said he could not confirm it. Does that change the

fact that he said he read as much in the newspaper? Please reread this entire subthread if you don't understand.

I said there were reports that F-16's escorted Delta 1989 because that's what the pilot said. You asked me to produce these reports. So I said, what, isn't the pilot's word good enough for you? Well, is it or isn't it? This isn't a game. Do you or do you not question the existence of the reports the pilot described?

[Woody Box]

21. Oh, bolo

I didn't quote the pilot as proof that Delta 1989 was not intercepted. There is better evidence, for instance Gen. Scott's account. The pilot's story is a must read for everybody researching Delta 1989. That's why I cited him.

There is no source for an intercepting of Delta 1989. There is simply no reason to assume that the plane was intercepted. The available sources suggest strongly it was not.

[Bolo Boffin]

22. Woody

You stated in your title that Delta 1989 NEVER (and the caps are yours) was intercepted. You provided two sources, one of which doesn't deny that an interception could have taken place, and the other, which is wrong about the time of landing (Delta 1989 clearly didn't clear the system at 9:47 - jets were still being scrambled to intercept after 10) and says nothing about the jets we KNOW were scrambled.

Your statements in the first post were not supported by your sources. I agree with you that there's no reason to assume that the plane was intercepted. The available sources DO strongly suggest it was not.

But those statements of yours are in response to my chiding of your "police work." I wish you felt the obligation to be that precise without chiding.

[mhatrw]

25. Really? How do we KNOW any jets were scrambled?

The evidence is thin all around.

[Bolo Boffin]

27. You've been bringing up the scrambled jets, mhatrw.

Are you saying that you don't have any confidence in things you've been posting here?

Why would you do that?

[mhatrw]

30. What I'm saying is that I'd like to hear the whole official story of Delta 1989

before judging its merits.

Just because we are told something doesn't mean we KNOW it, especially when we've been told so little, so late.

[Bolo Boffin]

32. Bullshit.

What you are doing is playing games. Produce your sources.

[mhatrw]

33. My sources about what?

What are you talking about? If your only intention in posting is to insult me, please send me a personal message instead.

[Woody Box]

35. *SIGH*

Sorry, bolo, you are flatly wrong.

Regarding source #1: I'm not a native English speaker, but to my knowledge, "intercepting" has a different meaning then "escorting". A plane can be escorted without the pilots noticing the escort, but a fighter intercepting a plane implies a certain kind of communication between the planes, doesn't it? According to the pilot, there was no such communication.

Look, my post was not really a big deal. I didn't want to nail down the non-intercepting of Delta 1989, just provide the poster with info he was looking for and maybe useful for him. I just wanted to do him a favour.

That's why I was so surprised about your aggressive replies, which caused me to take a new look at Delta 1989, especially source #2. So in a sense you're the father of the detection of Delta 89:

www.911woodybox.blogspot.com

Thanks a lot for that.

[Bolo Boffin]

36. And we would have gotten away with it if it weren't for you meddling truthers.

:sarcasm:

My inspiration of your further flight into irrelevance and poppycock pleases me to no end, woody. Have fun storming the castle.

[wildbilln864]

17. mybe here...

link!