Heather “Lucky” Penney, 9/11 Air Force Kamikaze Pilot

[Are_grits_groceries]

Late in the morning of the Tuesday that changed everything, Lt. Heather “Lucky” Penney was on a runway at Andrews Air Force Base and ready to fly. She had her hand on the throttle of an F-16 and she had her orders: Bring down United Airlines Flight 93. The day’s fourth hijacked airliner seemed to be hurtling toward Washington. Penney, one of the first two combat pilots in the air that morning, was told to stop it.

The one thing she didn’t have as she roared into the crystalline sky was live ammunition. Or missiles. Or anything at all to throw at a hostile aircraft.

Except her own plane. So that was the plan.

Because the surprise attacks were unfolding, in that innocent age, faster than they could arm war planes, Penney and her commanding officer went up to fly their jets straight into a Boeing 757.
<snip>
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/f-16-pilot-was-ready-to-give-her-life-on-sept-11/2011/09/06/gIQAMpcODK_story.html


Didn't know this.......

[Pirate Smile]

1. K&R

Great article.

[brendan120678]

2. You know, when the first stories....

came out about United Flight 93, I wondered if in fact the plane had actually been taken down with a missile or other similar means, and the government just didn't report the "true" story.

After all, which is the better story - a USAF pilot saved the Capitol by bringing down a jet full of American citizens, or a bunch of American citizens banded together and sacrificed their own lives to thwart a terrorist attack on D.C.

I'm not trying to raise any conspiracies or anything - it was just a brief thought that floated through my mind.

[Ian David]

3. “There was no perceived threat at the time, especially one coming from the homeland like that,”

“There was no perceived threat at the time, especially one coming from the homeland like that,” says Col. George Degnon, vice commander of the 113th Wing at Andrews. “It was a little bit of a helpless feeling, but we did everything humanly possible to get the aircraft armed and in the air. It was amazing to see people react.”

[Plucketeer]

4. Wow!

I had never heard of this. Imagine what else must've gone thru her head as they sought their target.

[MicaelS]

5. "Every fighter pilot knows there is one way to be sure you don't miss"

Aerial ramming http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerial_ramming

Especially Soviet pilots in WWII

Soviet Union

In World War II, ramming became a legendary technique of VVS pilots against the Luftwaffe, especially in the early days of the hostilities in the war's Eastern Front. In the first year of the war, most available Soviet machines were considerably inferior to the German ones and the taran was sometimes perceived as the only way to guarantee the destruction of the enemy. Trading an outdated fighter for a technologically advanced bomber was considered economically sound. In some cases, pilots who were heavily wounded or in damaged aircraft, or out of ammo, decided to perform a suicidal taran attack against air, ground or naval targets. In this instance, taran becomes more like an unpremeditated kamikaze attack (see Nikolai Gastello).

Nine rammings took place on the very first day of the German invasion of the Soviet Union, one within the first hour. At 0425 hours on 22 June 1941, Lieutenant I. I. Ivanov drove his Polikarpov I-16 into the tail of an invading Heinkel He 111. Ivanov did not survive but was posthumously awarded the gold star, Hero of the Soviet Union. Yekaterina Zelenko, who dove her Sukhoi Su-2 into a Messerschmitt Bf 109 in the third month of battle, an action fatal to both pilots, is the only woman known to have performed an aerial ramming. The Soviets eventually developed tactics that gave attacking pilots at least a small chance of survival, including targeting an enemy plane's tail, rudder, and other horizontal control surfaces with their own plane's propeller. A few planes were even equipped with special steel propellers for such attacks. Lieutenant Boris Kobzan survived a record four ramming attacks in the war. Alexander Khlobystov made three. Seventeen other Soviet pilots were credited with two successful ramming attacks. About 200 taran attacks were made by Soviets between the beginning of Operation Barbarossa and the middle of 1943, when enough modern aircraft had been produced to make the tactic obsolete (even if Soviet fighter pilots were still trained to perform it). However, Evgeny Stepanov stated in an interview that more than 580 taran attacks were made by VVS pilots in WWII.

[Politicalboi]

6. That's ridiculous

We don't use Kamikaze pilots. I guess it was faster than the Pentagon had time to attack with SAMS too. 40 minutes. I talked to people who think even if the Pentagon set up SAMS, they wouldn't use them and kill all those passengers. LOL! So with this story, I guess we're willing to lose a pilot and an aircraft instead of being prepared. Isn't that what the military is all about. Preparedness. 9/11 is inexcusable with our military and what we pay to be safe. It's a fantasy story.

[Hart2008]

8. Montreal Gazette headline September 6, 2001: "Hart Predicts Terrorist Attacks on America."

Gary Hart was under a media blackout after 1988. This was true even after he had co-chaired the commission which had conducted the first comprehensive review of U.S. security since the end of WWII, and after Canadian newspapers screamed headlines of Hart predicting a terrorist at on America on September 6, 2001:

The Canadian headlines read, "Hart predicts a terrorist attack"–that’s Gary Hart, the former Colorado senator and two-time democratic presidential candidate who co-chaired the U.S. Commission on National Security with former Republican senator Warren Rudman. Hart had given his speech in Montreal. Interestingly enough, he was addressing the Air Transportation Association.

http://www.democracynow.org/2006/3/28/fmr_democratic_se...

I would point out also that the so-called newspaper of record, the New York Times, didn't print one word about that final report. Keep in mind this wasn't just another federal commission. This was the most comprehensive review of U.S. national security since 1947. And so we weren't competing with a thousand other federal commissions. This was groundbreaking stuff, and we had spent two and a half years putting these recommendations and findings together.

http://www.buzzflash.com/interviews/03/08/04_hart.html

By the way, when our final report came out in 2001, it did not receive word one in the New York Times. Zero. The Washington Post put it on Page 3 or 4, below the fold...
...I went out on my own throughout the spring and summer of 2001 saying, "The terrorists are coming, the terrorists are coming." One of the speeches I gave was, ironically enough, to the International Air Transportation Association in Montreal. And the Montreal newspapers headlined the story, "Hart predicts terrorist attacks on America."

By pre-arrangement I had gotten an appointment with Condi Rice the following day and had gone straight from Montreal to Washington to meet with her. And my brief message to her was, "Get going on homeland security, you don't have all the time in the world." This was on Sept. 6, 2001.

Condi Rice's other wake-up call
http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feature/2004/04/02/hart...

[AverageJoe90]

9. Could Hart have known something that the public didn't? n/t

[Hart2008]

13. Gary Hart knows Poppy Bush and what he is capable of doing. NT

[eppur_se_muova]

16. Now, that deserves its own thread -- esp. about meeting with Rice. nt

[Hart2008]

18. On the appropriate day! NT

[Uncle Joe]

7. This Kamikaze story doesn't square up with this thread, wherein the military ignored Cheney's order?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=125x320799

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/09/08/military-officials-ignored-cheneys-911-shoot-down-order/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheRawStory+%28The+Raw+Story%29#?site=rawstory&adSpace=ros&tagKey=1316410918&th=13860892902&tKey=undefined&size=300x250&flashVer=9&ver=1.21¢er=1

Newly published audio this week reveals that Vice President Dick Cheney's infamous Sept. 11, 2001 order to shoot down rogue civilian aircraft was ignored by military officials, who instead ordered pilots to only identify suspect aircraft.

That revelation is one of many in newly released audio recordings compiled by investigators for the 9/11 Commission, published this week by The Rutgers Law Review. Featuring voices from employees at the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) and American Airlines, the newly released multimedia provides a glimpse at the chaos that emerged as the attack progressed

Edit for P.S. They; ignored Cheney's order because as Vice-President; he wasn't in the chain of command.

Thanks for the thread, Are_grits_groceries.

[MadHound]

10. Sorry, but this is a bullshit story,

Having know somebody who has flown domestic defense, you are ready to go at a moments notice. This not only means kick the tires and light fires, but with live ammo on board. You don't, repeat don't go up with live rounds with your only defense being a suicide mission.

This is more bullshit designed to obfuscate the simple fact that, for whatever reason, NORAD didn't put any sort of air defense, even though they had the time and manpower to do so.

[Blue_Tires]

15. I agree; it reeks

[Missy Vixen]

17. Paging DemoTex

I am hoping that DemoTex or some other esteemed DU'er will weigh in on this one.

I know nothing about fighter pilots or planes, and I'm calling BS. I'm sure she's a wonderful pilot, but I really question why this is being discussed right now.

[Robb]

11. What an odd story. An unarmed aircraft escorting AF1??

[dtexdem]

12. And why wouldn't already-armed warplanes be available to meet real threats?

Moreover, wouldn't there be possible techniques such as using a warplane to try to tip over another plane or otherwise damage it while still giving the warplane's pilot at least the chance of trying to eject? Didn't some WWII German pilots try such techniques against Allied bombers (that is, military rather than softer-target civilian aircraft), with the German pilots sometimes surviving successful attempts to bring down the bombers? (And WWII planes did not have ejection seats, so a military pilot had to try to jump out without such aid.)

[Blue_Tires]

14. Oh, FFS this is getting to be too much

I'm just going to have to avoid all media for the next new days, because I know this story is just the tip of the iceberg of outrageousness...