Very interesting 2002 interview w/ AWACS pilot, flying towards Pittsburg- shoot down Options

[waterdancer]

I just learned of this interview (archive). It's probably not new to those who know everything about 9/11, but somehow it slipped through the cracks for me. It helps me keep track of the AWACS, for one thing. A few choice quotes follow:

Unlike most Americans on the morning of Sept. 11, St. Thomas graduate Anthony Kuczynski wasnít watching the news. He was flying toward Pittsburgh alongside two F-16 fighter jets.

ìI was given direct orders to shoot down an airliner,î said Kuczynski, a first lieutenant in the Air Force and an E-3 Sentry pilot. ìIt was one of those things where it was an absolutely surreal experience.î

E-3 Sentries, also called Airborne Warning and Control Systems, are modified Boeing 707s with advanced radar and surveillance tools, technologies that Kuczynski and his crew use to direct fighter jets to their targets. Kuczynskiís E-3 Sentry was one of the few military planes in the sky during the opening moments of the terrorist attacks.

Earlier that morning, when he first heard about the first World Trade Center crash, Kuczynski thought he was involved in a planned military simulation. It didnít take him long to realize it was real.

Hmm, I wonder what exercise that could have been? Perhaps the same one that Larry Arnold mentioned in a Code One interview? (quote below)

Another AWACS was flying a training mission off the coast of Florida. President Bush was in Sarasota. We moved the AWACS towards the president. Then we received tasking from the Secret Service through the Joint Staff and NORAD to follow the president and protect him. I had set up an arrangement with their wing commander at Tinker some months earlier for us to divert their AWACS off a normal training mission to go into an exercise scenario simulating an attack on the United States. The AWACS crew initially thought we were going into one of those simulations.

source archive

Now what plane could we be talking about here? Surely not Flight 93. After all, David Ray Griffin says that the 9/11 Ommission report tells us that

On the basis of the tapes, the 9/11 Commission argues that the military did not learn about the hijacking of UA at 9:16 or at any other time prior to its crash at 10:03.

I'll take his word on it at this point, since I don't want to go wading through their muck to find the quote right this minute.

This post has been edited by waterdancer: Nov 5 2006, 12:51 AM

[waterdancer]

More supporting evidence of military knowldege of Flight 93 prior to 10:03 or 10:06 (contrary to the 9/11 Ommission account) and for the possibility of a shootdown:

As soon as he climbed off his jet, Nasty was told by a crew member on the ground that another airliner had smashed into the Pentagon. And he was told that a military F-16 had shot down a fourth airliner in Pennsylvania, a report that turned out to be incorrect.

Cape Cod Times archive

In this case, if my memory serves me -- and I'll have to get back to you for the record -- my memory says that we had launched on the one that eventually crashed in Pennsylvania. I mean, we had gotten somebody close to it, as I recall. I'll have to check that out.

Myers confirmation hearing (archive). I guess it all depends on what the definition of "launched" is.

Rumsfeld video

United Flight 93 ? Newark to San Francisco

FAA Notification to NEADS???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? N/A *****

Fighter Scramble?????????? Order (Langley F-16s already airborne for AA Flt 77)

Fighters Airborne (Langley F-16 CAP remains in place to protect DC)

Airline Impact Time (Pennsylvania)????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? 1003 (estimated)

Fighter Time/Distance from Airline Impact Location?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? approx 11 min/100 miles

NORAD timeline archive

At the time, there were two F-16s armed with air-to-air missiles within 60 miles of Flight 93. But the fighters were still out of missile range when the jetliner crashed, sources said.

CBS News archive


But David Ray Griffin goes into most of this (and more) in his great essay here.

This post has been edited by waterdancer: Nov 5 2006, 04:08 AM