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The Soon Coming Judgment Of God Upon America and How To Escape It 433
reported: “[T]he command did not immediately scramble any fighters even though it was alerted
to a high jacking 10 minutes before the first plane… slammed into the first World Trade Center
tower… The (NORAD) spokesman said the fighters remained on the ground until after the
Pentagon was hit…” Snyder also admitted that the “fighters routinely intercept aircraft.”
On NBC’s ‘Meet the Press’ on September 16th, Tim Russert recounted the above facts in
front of Vice President Dick Cheney. Cheney did not dispute these but stated it was the President
who gave the order to scramble the jets after the Pentagon was hit.
The story soon changed. The new version was that two F-15 fighters were scrambled
from Otis AFB in Cape Cod, MA but no time of departure was given. The last and official
version is that US air defense was alerted of a hijacking at 8:40 and that F-15 fighters were
scrambled from Otis at 8:44 and on their way to New York at 8:56 but were still 70 miles away
when the second plane hit the WTC.
I believe these revised accounts are fabricated. But even given the benefit of the doubt,
they took 18 minutes to respond when the average is 3.
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According to this account it still took
a total of 24 minutes to get a fighter in the air. This is 4 days after the State Department had
issued a Worldwide travel warning.
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Additionally, according to this account, three F-16
fighters were in the air out of Langley AFB, 150 miles South of Washington DC. These jets were
not able to reach the Pentagon before it was hit at 9:38.
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The fact that these stories changed so drastically makes them highly unbelievable. I
believe that when the facts of a story change over time without a reasonable explanation, they are
not credible. Second, this story still doesn’t make sense. Why did 20 minutes elapse between the
time that US air defense was alerted and 24-minutes before the F-15’s were in the air out of Otis?
At its cruising speed of 570 mph, an F-15 can fly 171 miles in 18 minutes. If these F-15’s were
70 miles out from New York City when the second WTC building was hit, why didn't they fly on
to Washington DC? At a top speed of 1,665 mph they could have been in Washington DC in 10
minutes. Flying at 624 mph, only 37% of their capability, they could have still reached
Washington DC in less than 25 minutes. This would have given them 12 minutes to try and force
flight 77 to change course.
In figure 1 below are the reported times for several of the events surrounding the four
hijacked flights on 9/11. These include: time of departure; the time the transponders were
disconnected; the time when the FAA determined hijacking to be likely; the time when flight
attendants first reported the hijackings; the time when the planes first veered of course; the time
that the NAADC reported that they were first notified of each hijacking; the time the planes hit
their targets and the elapsed times between when the FAA determined the hijackings to be likely
and when they hit their targets. Please note that these are the best estimates from the reports. In
some instances the reported times vary widely from different government sources.
Expert Analysis
All the reported times and evidence was examined by an experienced combat pilot, Dr.
Bowman, who determined that all the planes should have been intercepted. Dr. Bowman is a
former combat pilot who flew 100 combat missions in Vietnam and who has intercept
experience; he has carefully examined the time-line from the morning of 9/11 has made the
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