Hole in radar coverage of CONUS, Inability of military to track aircraft Options

[MarkTheMadMan]

I am an ex, low-time VFR pilot who drinks beer (IMG:http://pilotsfor911truth.org/forum/style_emoticons/default/cheers.gif) with multiple high-time pilots. A major issue in our discussion is the subject of whether the military can track airliners over the continental United States if the airliner's transponder is turned off.

My buddies accept the explanation that the military radar system is arranged "like a donut, with a hole in the middle." In this view, it is reasonable that 4 hijacked airliners could wander around over the continental united states for an hour and a half without being molested by NORAD.

Is anyone aware of a specific system or can document that the military CAN track airliners without transponders over the continental united states? Does PAVE-PAWS do this? (the official PAVE PAWS web site doesn't specifically adress the CONUS issue).

I would much appreciate your help with this question as I fear that our constitutional democracy is VERY RAPIDLY being transformed into dictatorship, and that the attacks of 9/11 are key to stopping this. (Plus, I'll win a free round if I'm right.)

Thank you.

[waterdancer]

Perhaps someone with more inside knowledge (on PAVE-PAWS, etc.) will weigh in on this as well, but here's a bit of what I know: turned off transponders are one of the signs that the FAA used to determine that an airline had been hijacked. Once that determination had been made (when in doubt, assume that it is an emergency situation is how the wording reads, I believe) the hijack coordinator of the FAA was supposed to notify the NMCC who would then assign assets (NORAD or non NORAD) to follow the plane. This was all on the books before 9/11. Now, the outward looking donut story might have been true to some extent, but really, are ICBMs, Russian fighter planes, etc. really going to have transponders that they leave on for tracking purposes? When the FAA saw a potential hijack (without transponder) and reported it to the NMCC for them to track it, how was that all supposed to happen, assuming a donut scenario? NORAD did plan exercises for domestic hijackings prior to 9/11. Also, the Secret Service had the ability to see what the FAA sees in real time, according to Richard Clarke, Dick Cheney and another source or two.

Tigerwall System. Tigerwall is an air surveillance system currently used by the U.S. Secret Service to ensure enhanced physical security at a high-value asset location by providing early warning of airborne threats. SSC San Diego has assisted the Secret Service in implementing and maintaining the Tigerwall system by providing expertise gained from other SSC San Diego surveillance and physical security programs.

from the internet archive page of http://www.scitechweb.com/inhousereport/00navy/00spawar.html

http://www.spawar.navy.mil/sti/publication...3105/td3105.pdf for another source on Tigerwall (well, it used to be anyway- now all I get is a white screen which freezes, but I screenshotted my googling of it for you; hope that doesn't go away as well, huh?)
more Tigerwall

Now the Secret Service was in Florida (obviously, but why was an AWACS circling overhead as Bush slept, yet Air Force one took off without a military escort on 9/11?!) and had a heightened presence in NYC (100 extra personnel with military units assigned- the United Nations General Assembly was scheduled to open on 9/11; sand filled garbage trucks blocked off an 8 block stretch of First Avenue, beginning sometime on 9/11- would that have prevented a plane hit?) and a presence at the Pentagon before Flight 77 hit (Bush was scheduled to arrive there later in the day, they had the firetruck out by the helipad). Apparently, the Secret Service was also in contact with Andrews AFB (more on Andrews AFB here and here and here) in the early AM, ordering protection over DC. The Secret Service had been concerned with protection against airborne attacks at least as far back as 1994, when some idiot flew a plane onto the White House grounds to commit suicide (taking off on the night of September 11th). See also: Atlanta Olympics and Genoa Summit for more recent (pre 9/11) examples.

Without knowing the precise defenses which the Pentagon may or may not have had installed prior to 9/11 I can't say anything on whether or not that might have been another line of defense as well.

Those are just a few of my offerings as food for thought. Oh, yeah, no one can get answers to the questions of whether 9/11 was a NSSE in NYC (putting the Secret Service in charge) or find out who the FAA's designated hijack coordinator was on 9/11 (Mike Canavan was in Puerto Rico).

I think Dick Myers also claimed (to the 9/11 Commission) that the military could have shot down all four planes if the FAA had given them timely information.

Here are a few more sources on what I've just written here (as well as some peripheral issues), just so you don't think I'm blowing smoke at you by not citing and quoting everything above.

http://web.archive.org/web/20010603195610/...gov/ATPubs/AIM/

A paste of an article I wrote awhile back and posted at Loose Change:

A brief sampling of exactly how lucky the terrorists responsible for 9/11 must have been. This is by no means complete, just a somewhat random sampling with sourced material on some the FAA/DoD connecting dots.

So... Ben Sliney's first day on the job¹ at the FAA, John Jumper's first day on his new job as Air Force Chief of Staff at the Pentagon ²³, Capt. Leidig fills in for Winfield during the key time period at the NMCC⁴ (after qualifying to stand in in August; was it his first time as well?), Mike Canavan, the FAA's hijack coordinator⁵, is in Puerto Rico and no one can get a straight answer on who the designated hijack coordinator was on 9/11. The NEADS audiotape won't play. Then an outside contractor gets it to play, giving us a whole new "official story".⁶ An anonymous FAA Quality Assurance offical crushes, cuts up and distributes into several trash cans a tape of ATC's experiences on 9/11, which reportedly had never been listened to, transcribed or duplicated.⁷ I guess that's a pretty final statement, huh?

Additionally,
QUOTE
The lack of adequate forensic capabilities for maintaining logs, video
and audio recordings, and storing radar information was a contributing factor to the inaccurate
testimony. Individuals responsible for reporting on the response to the attacks were impeded
because there were no standardized logs. The ability of DoD to accurately report on events was
also affected by inadequate audio recording capabilities. Within DoD, available audio
recordings of activities within the Air Defense Command centers were not easily accessible for
review. In addition, DoD officials did not use the transcripts, even when available, to prepare the
press releases and subsequent testimony to the Commission.⁸



War games and exercises all over the place- including the NRO (whose employees are conveniently sent home before the Pentagon gets hit), UN General Assembly scheduled to open in NYC on 9/11, IMF World Bank NSSE coming up in a week or two in DC... and to top it all off, the Pentagon has inadequate forensic capabilities... I wonder why those lucky terrorists picked the 60th anniversary of ground breaking on the Pentagon instead of waiting a couple of weeks and trying to hit the IMF/World Bank meeting and the UN General Assembly's General debate while Bush and Powell were there.

I guess the terrorists must have known just how far they could push their luck, huh? Bringing down 3 skyscrapers with only 2 planes and hitting the accountants and budget analysts in the Pentagon is pretty darned lucky if you ask me... the match begins tomorrow⁹....

Notes:
1 http://www.usatoday.com/news/sept11/2002-0...er-daytwo_x.htm
2 http://www.af.mil/bios/bio.asp?bioID=5986
3 http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/...1001324,00.html
4 http://www.9-11commission.gov/hearings/hea...%20leidig%22%22
5 http://s15.invisionfree.com/Loose_Change_F...showtopic=13559
6 http://www.9-11commission.gov/archive/hear..._2004-06-17.htm
7 http://www.oig.dot.gov/StreamFile?file=/da...s/cc2004003.pdf
8 http://www.dodig.osd.mil/Ir/reports/DoDIG_...06_INTEL_12.pdf
9 http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/20...ro-day-usat.htm

and note 5 links to this thread which I will paste below:

Who Was The Faa's Hijack Coordinator On 9/11?

I've pulled this information together from various searches, since I haven't seen it thoroughly laid out and documented elsewhere. Feel free to add any more information you may come across that looks relevant to the topic.

Links are to webcitation.org archives of the pages (in case they go 404)

According to FAA employee Jackson Smith who was with the Civil Aviation Security Division of the FAA, his boss, Mike Canavan was the

Director of Civil Aviation Security for FAA

on 9/11. They were in Puerto Rico on the morning of 9/11. The 9/11 Ommission heard testimony from Mike Canavan. He would not have been the only person who they recieved testimony from on more than one occassion, if they found that they had more questions at a later date for someone.

According to archived material from the FAA, Order 7610.4 - Special Military Operations Chapter 7 states in part before and after 9/11 as follows:

The FAA hijack coordinator (the Director or his designate of the FAA Office of Civil Aviation Security) on duty at Washington headquarters will request the military to provide an escort aircraft for a confirmed hijacked aircraft to:

a. Assure positive flight following.

b. Report unusual observances.

c. Aid search and rescue in the event of an emergency.

7-1-2. REQUESTS FOR SERVICE

The escort service will be requested by the FAA hijack coordinator by direct contact with the National Military Command Center (NMCC).  Normally, NORAD escort aircraft will take the required action.  However, for the purpose of these procedures, the term "escort aircraft" applies to any military aircraft assigned to the escort mission.  When the military can provide escort aircraft, the NMCC will advise the FAA hijack coordinator the identification and location of the squadron tasked to provide escort aircraft.  NMCC will then authorize direct coordination between FAA and the designated military unit.  When a NORAD resource is tasked, FAA will coordinate through the appropriate SOCC/ROCC.

Canavan quit his job as the "top FAA security official" after 10 months in that position shortly after 9/11 according to CNN. According to that article,

Shortly after the attacks, Lee Longmire -- who worked under Canavan as the head of civil aviation security operations -- in charge of airport operations -- was transferred from that job to the head of the FAA's aviation security, policy and planning.

Longmire also held his job for less than a year.

More on Canavan's appointment to that post in this press release from the FAA.

So what we appear to have here is two people (Canavan and Longmire) who would seem likely to have a pretty good idea on who was acting as the designated hijack coordinator on 9/11, both of whom were interviewed by the 9/11 Ommission. (54. On the threat to civil aviation, see Lee Longmire interview (Oct. 28, 2003). )

Seems just a little odd, then, that we read the following in the 9/11 Ommission report:

MR. GORTON: Mr. Belger, I want to go back to one of Commissioner Gorelick's subjects. You very clearly describe the protocol with respect to hijacking that was in effect on 9/11. But we have a rather troubling note from the staff that I will share with you and ask you to comment on. Most managers at FAA headquarters have little or no recollection of the protocols in place on 9/11 with respect to their roles and responsibilities on a hijacking. With the exception of a few individuals from the Security Division, there appear to be little or no training at FAA headquarters or Command Center regarding hijacking procedures. Indeed, when asked to identify who the hijack coordinator was on 9/11, it was difficult to find two witnesses who identified the same individual.

Hmm...

I followed that post with this one:

Interesting quote here re: Lee Longmire:

One FAA fax that Cox didn't get that morning, but which made him angry when he heard about it months later, was one the agency sent to the airlines. It was a list of about 300 people who the airlines were told were considered dangerous by the FBI, the CIA, or the FAA. When flights resumed, the directive said, these people were not to be allowed on board.

One top American Airlines executive, who had been up all night helping to get the airline's planes back in the air (plus tending to the human and legal issues beginning to emerge from the fact that two of American's planes had been used by the hijackers), was incredulous. Why had they waited until September 12 to send us that, he wondered. They must have had a list on September 10.

Indeed, they would have had such a list had the FAA simply compiled and sent, as they now had done on September 12, the separate lists that the FBI and the CIA had been sending the FAA for at least the prior six months, naming people who were flight risks. The lists were sent to Lee Longmire, a longtime FAA official, who was Director of Civil Aviation Security Policy. They were on his desk on September 10, Longmire acknowledges, although he would refuse to comment about what he did with them or who was on them. But according to an FAA official and a Justice Department official, two of the hijackers were on those September 10 lists -- something that Ashcroft would later say he could not confirm or deny. In fact, says the FAA official, his agency had crossed those names off on September 12 to avoid embarrassment. "We just never got around to setting up a protocol for who would control the list and how we would get the airlines to implement it," says the FAA person.

http://www.webcitation.org/5IrWtbfMa

more stuff which I pulled together from various sources (mostly pretty similar to the above, I think) can be found here. Really, I couldn't make this stuff up if I wanted to.

This post has been edited by waterdancer: Nov 6 2006, 01:03 AM

[jimbo]

Perhaps someone with more inside knowledge (on PAVE-PAWS, etc.) will weigh in on this as well, but here's a bit of what I know: turned off transponders are one of the signs that the FAA used to determine that an airline had been hijacked. Once that determination had been made (when in doubt, assume that it is an emergency situation is how the wording reads, I believe) the hijack coordinator of the FAA was supposed to notify the NMCC who would then assign assets (NORAD or non NORAD) to follow the plane. This was all on the books before 9/11. Now, the outward looking donut story might have been true to some extent, but really, are ICBMs, Russian fighter planes, etc. really going to have transponders that they leave on for tracking purposes? When the FAA saw a potential hijack (without transponder) and reported it to the NMCC for them to track it, how was that all supposed to happen, assuming a donut scenario? NORAD did plan exercises for domestic hijackings prior to 9/11. Also, the Secret Service had the ability to see what the FAA sees in real time, according to Richard Clarke, Dick Cheney and another source or two.

Tigerwall System. Tigerwall is an air surveillance system currently used by the U.S. Secret Service to ensure enhanced physical security at a high-value asset location by providing early warning of airborne threats. SSC San Diego has assisted the Secret Service in implementing and maintaining the Tigerwall system by providing expertise gained from other SSC San Diego surveillance and physical security programs.

from the internet archive page of http://www.scitechweb.com/inhousereport/00navy/00spawar.html

http://www.spawar.navy.mil/sti/publication...3105/td3105.pdf for another source on Tigerwall (well, it used to be anyway- now all I get is a white screen which freezes, but I screenshotted my googling of it for you; hope that doesn't go away as well, huh?)
more Tigerwall

Now the Secret Service was in Florida (obviously, but why was an AWACS circling overhead as Bush slept, yet Air Force one took off without a military escort on 9/11?!) and had a heightened presence in NYC (100 extra personnel with military units assigned- the United Nations General Assembly was scheduled to open on 9/11; sand filled garbage trucks blocked off an 8 block stretch of First Avenue, beginning sometime on 9/11- would that have prevented a plane hit?) and a presence at the Pentagon before Flight 77 hit (Bush was scheduled to arrive there later in the day, they had the firetruck out by the helipad). Apparently, the Secret Service was also in contact with Andrews AFB (more on Andrews AFB here and here and here) in the early AM, ordering protection over DC. The Secret Service had been concerned with protection against airborne attacks at least as far back as 1994, when some idiot flew a plane onto the White House grounds to commit suicide (taking off on the night of September 11th). See also: Atlanta Olympics and Genoa Summit for more recent (pre 9/11) examples.

Without knowing the precise defenses which the Pentagon may or may not have had installed prior to 9/11 I can't say anything on whether or not that might have been another line of defense as well.

Those are just a few of my offerings as food for thought. Oh, yeah, no one can get answers to the questions of whether 9/11 was a NSSE in NYC (putting the Secret Service in charge) or find out who the FAA's designated hijack coordinator was on 9/11 (Mike Canavan was in Puerto Rico).

I think Dick Myers also claimed (to the 9/11 Commission) that the military could have shot down all four planes if the FAA had given them timely information.

Here are a few more sources on what I've just written here (as well as some peripheral issues), just so you don't think I'm blowing smoke at you by not citing and quoting everything above.

http://web.archive.org/web/20010603195610/...gov/ATPubs/AIM/

A paste of an article I wrote awhile back and posted at Loose Change:

A brief sampling of exactly how lucky the terrorists responsible for 9/11 must have been. This is by no means complete, just a somewhat random sampling with sourced material on some the FAA/DoD connecting dots.

So... Ben Sliney's first day on the job¹ at the FAA, John Jumper's first day on his new job as Air Force Chief of Staff at the Pentagon ²³, Capt. Leidig fills in for Winfield during the key time period at the NMCC⁴ (after qualifying to stand in in August; was it his first time as well?), Mike Canavan, the FAA's hijack coordinator⁵, is in Puerto Rico and no one can get a straight answer on who the designated hijack coordinator was on 9/11. The NEADS audiotape won't play. Then an outside contractor gets it to play, giving us a whole new "official story".⁶ An anonymous FAA Quality Assurance offical crushes, cuts up and distributes into several trash cans a tape of ATC's experiences on 9/11, which reportedly had never been listened to, transcribed or duplicated.⁷ I guess that's a pretty final statement, huh?

Additionally,
QUOTE
The lack of adequate forensic capabilities for maintaining logs, video
and audio recordings, and storing radar information was a contributing factor to the inaccurate
testimony. Individuals responsible for reporting on the response to the attacks were impeded
because there were no standardized logs. The ability of DoD to accurately report on events was
also affected by inadequate audio recording capabilities. Within DoD, available audio
recordings of activities within the Air Defense Command centers were not easily accessible for
review. In addition, DoD officials did not use the transcripts, even when available, to prepare the
press releases and subsequent testimony to the Commission.⁸



War games and exercises all over the place- including the NRO (whose employees are conveniently sent home before the Pentagon gets hit), UN General Assembly scheduled to open in NYC on 9/11, IMF World Bank NSSE coming up in a week or two in DC... and to top it all off, the Pentagon has inadequate forensic capabilities... I wonder why those lucky terrorists picked the 60th anniversary of ground breaking on the Pentagon instead of waiting a couple of weeks and trying to hit the IMF/World Bank meeting and the UN General Assembly's General debate while Bush and Powell were there.

I guess the terrorists must have known just how far they could push their luck, huh? Bringing down 3 skyscrapers with only 2 planes and hitting the accountants and budget analysts in the Pentagon is pretty darned lucky if you ask me... the match begins tomorrow⁹....

Notes:
1 http://www.usatoday.com/news/sept11/2002-0...er-daytwo_x.htm
2 http://www.af.mil/bios/bio.asp?bioID=5986
3 http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/...1001324,00.html
4 http://www.9-11commission.gov/hearings/hea...%20leidig%22%22
5 http://s15.invisionfree.com/Loose_Change_F...showtopic=13559
6 http://www.9-11commission.gov/archive/hear..._2004-06-17.htm
7 http://www.oig.dot.gov/StreamFile?file=/da...s/cc2004003.pdf
8 http://www.dodig.osd.mil/Ir/reports/DoDIG_...06_INTEL_12.pdf
9 http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/20...ro-day-usat.htm

and note 5 links to this thread which I will paste below:

Who Was The Faa's Hijack Coordinator On 9/11?

I've pulled this information together from various searches, since I haven't seen it thoroughly laid out and documented elsewhere. Feel free to add any more information you may come across that looks relevant to the topic.

Links are to webcitation.org archives of the pages (in case they go 404)

According to FAA employee Jackson Smith who was with the Civil Aviation Security Division of the FAA, his boss, Mike Canavan was the

Director of Civil Aviation Security for FAA

on 9/11. They were in Puerto Rico on the morning of 9/11. The 9/11 Ommission heard testimony from Mike Canavan. He would not have been the only person who they recieved testimony from on more than one occassion, if they found that they had more questions at a later date for someone.

According to archived material from the FAA, Order 7610.4 - Special Military Operations Chapter 7 states in part before and after 9/11 as follows:

The FAA hijack coordinator (the Director or his designate of the FAA Office of Civil Aviation Security) on duty at Washington headquarters will request the military to provide an escort aircraft for a confirmed hijacked aircraft to:

a. Assure positive flight following.

b. Report unusual observances.

c. Aid search and rescue in the event of an emergency.

7-1-2. REQUESTS FOR SERVICE

The escort service will be requested by the FAA hijack coordinator by direct contact with the National Military Command Center (NMCC).  Normally, NORAD escort aircraft will take the required action.  However, for the purpose of these procedures, the term "escort aircraft" applies to any military aircraft assigned to the escort mission.  When the military can provide escort aircraft, the NMCC will advise the FAA hijack coordinator the identification and location of the squadron tasked to provide escort aircraft.  NMCC will then authorize direct coordination between FAA and the designated military unit.  When a NORAD resource is tasked, FAA will coordinate through the appropriate SOCC/ROCC.

Canavan quit his job as the "top FAA security official" after 10 months in that position shortly after 9/11 according to CNN. According to that article,

Shortly after the attacks, Lee Longmire -- who worked under Canavan as the head of civil aviation security operations -- in charge of airport operations -- was transferred from that job to the head of the FAA's aviation security, policy and planning.

Longmire also held his job for less than a year.

More on Canavan's appointment to that post in this press release from the FAA.

So what we appear to have here is two people (Canavan and Longmire) who would seem likely to have a pretty good idea on who was acting as the designated hijack coordinator on 9/11, both of whom were interviewed by the 9/11 Ommission. (54. On the threat to civil aviation, see Lee Longmire interview (Oct. 28, 2003). )

Seems just a little odd, then, that we read the following in the 9/11 Ommission report:

MR. GORTON: Mr. Belger, I want to go back to one of Commissioner Gorelick's subjects. You very clearly describe the protocol with respect to hijacking that was in effect on 9/11. But we have a rather troubling note from the staff that I will share with you and ask you to comment on. Most managers at FAA headquarters have little or no recollection of the protocols in place on 9/11 with respect to their roles and responsibilities on a hijacking. With the exception of a few individuals from the Security Division, there appear to be little or no training at FAA headquarters or Command Center regarding hijacking procedures. Indeed, when asked to identify who the hijack coordinator was on 9/11, it was difficult to find two witnesses who identified the same individual.

Hmm...

I followed that post with this one:

Interesting quote here re: Lee Longmire:

One FAA fax that Cox didn't get that morning, but which made him angry when he heard about it months later, was one the agency sent to the airlines. It was a list of about 300 people who the airlines were told were considered dangerous by the FBI, the CIA, or the FAA. When flights resumed, the directive said, these people were not to be allowed on board.

One top American Airlines executive, who had been up all night helping to get the airline's planes back in the air (plus tending to the human and legal issues beginning to emerge from the fact that two of American's planes had been used by the hijackers), was incredulous. Why had they waited until September 12 to send us that, he wondered. They must have had a list on September 10.

Indeed, they would have had such a list had the FAA simply compiled and sent, as they now had done on September 12, the separate lists that the FBI and the CIA had been sending the FAA for at least the prior six months, naming people who were flight risks. The lists were sent to Lee Longmire, a longtime FAA official, who was Director of Civil Aviation Security Policy. They were on his desk on September 10, Longmire acknowledges, although he would refuse to comment about what he did with them or who was on them. But according to an FAA official and a Justice Department official, two of the hijackers were on those September 10 lists -- something that Ashcroft would later say he could not confirm or deny. In fact, says the FAA official, his agency had crossed those names off on September 12 to avoid embarrassment. "We just never got around to setting up a protocol for who would control the list and how we would get the airlines to implement it," says the FAA person.

http://www.webcitation.org/5IrWtbfMa

more stuff which I pulled together from various sources (mostly pretty similar to the above, I think) can be found here. Really, I couldn't make this stuff up if I wanted to.

I'll weigh in here on a few FAA things and to be upfront, I'm only goin gto talk about pre 9/11 and on things readily available to the public:

quote: turned off transponders are one of the signs that the FAA used to determine that an airline had been hijacked.

true statement but it would differ from scenario to scenario. Pre-9/11, the first hijacked aircraft would probably not have been treated or presumed to be hijacked just because the transponder was lost. Transponders go off fairly regularly, it could take a minute, even more for the controller to even call his supervisor over to report it. First thing the controller would do is attempt to contact the aircraft several times in several ways. He would transmit, repeat the transmission, and repeat it again. After that he might have another aircraft relay in case the lost aircraft were out of range. If he lost the transponder but continued to track a primary target he might assume the arcraft could be having a variety of problems, even if the aircraft changed course he would still not necessarily think "hijack." He might assume the aircraft was diverting to land because of electrical problems affecting radios and transponder. If he lost both primary and transponder he would probably presume the aircraft had gone down. At that point he would advise the supervisor and call other pilots and ask for an ELT report. Probably the last thing to go through the supervisors mind would be hijack. Pre-9/11, you'd be lucky to find a single controller, supervisor, or manager in the entire FAA who had ever worked an actual hijack scenario. Why? Because on 9/11, almost every single controller who may have been familiar with actual hijackings was gone. Reagan fired all those guys in 1981 for striking. The majority of controllers who didn't strike were older controllers who didn't strike because they were supervisors and controllers on staff. Or they were close to retirement...or they simply didn't agree with what PATCO was doing. Most of the older guys who kept the system going in 1981/1982 were long gone on 9/11. Bottom line, anyone who had ever worked a hijack in the 70's was gone. Even training for a hijack scenario was very minimal. Drills to practice hijack scenarios were absent from what I saw. And just because you carry the title "hijack coordinator" doesn't mean you know your responsibilities and have the steps to take in the forefront of your mind. Most people on staff and management carry many titles not just one. It goes, "OK, you're responsible for this, this, this, and this and this." For some of those titles you aren't given training. You may just get a reference to an order and if you can find the order and can find the time to read it and re read it and stay current, you're lucky. If you have a reference manual nearby and you know where it is, you're lucky.

Once the fact was established that an aircraft had been hijacked, the information was only good to those who had the information. Any other controller not knowing an aircraft had been hijacked would do the exact same thing as the first controller mentioned above. He likely wouldn't assume there was a hijacking. Pre 9/11, getting the word out to every agency, every control facility, every controller int he facility was just what the reports said they were. A giant, jumbled mess. Yes, this was the FAA pre-9/11. I was there on teleconferences and witnessed first hand the confusion.

As far as NORAD goes, yes, pre-9/11 design was to protect the borders, not so much to look inward. They had holes. There are many radars out there owned by many govt. departments and branches. Pre 9/11, sharing radars and radar data was not universal. You've got military radars, other defense radars, FAA radars, National WX Svc radars. There are numerous types of radars, some old, some newer, each with their own characteristics. Radar placement is an issue, tilt is an issue, line of site is an issue, rate of turn which determines the maximum distance the radar can see is an issue. Software adaptation is an issue...sometimes you don't want to see certain areas. There are settings on radars, filtering out clutter. Pre 9/11, many FAA radars were purposely set to ignore some portions and areas of primary/raw radar data. Too much raw data makes for too many targets and the purpose wasn't about finding hostile enemies, it was for control of domestic air travel and to provide support to the military. Not necessarily surveilance reports and intruder detection, support to missions, training, and transit from one base to another. This is not cookie cutter stuff and broad assessments don't work.

Pre-9/11 Secret service obtaining FAA radar data: Only partially true. If you're talking about all radar data from transponders and raw targets from coast to coast, definitely a no. Pre-911, there was no delivery system for the FAA to do that. Re-emphasize, all data...coast to coast. There was a delivery system that could send some data on aircraft with transponders but it's not real time as with radar at a control position with instant updates as far as I know. So could they get scattered feeds over high security areas. Yes, to a degree. What they had access to back then, I can't say. But I can say what they didn't have and that is a comprehensive look across the entire nation. What did all the other agencies have? They had what they deemed necessary at the time...right or wrong. There were no mandates back then and most departments assessed their own individual needs and worked within the budgets congress gives them, and let me tell you, the budgets NEVER cover everything you need. I've gotta run, I'll try to get back and post a bit more. I'm not poo pooing (hate saying that) everything people write here, just giving a few facts, none of them are secret, they're to be had if you talk to various controllers. You can get them through a bit of research. I have no idea personally if there was a conspiracy of sorts at various levels in government. I'm as interested as anyone, but one thing I will say is that you shouldn't be overly surprised or suspicious on many things...the air traffic system and defense systems are extremely complex. The integration of thousands of people in the system is also very complex. It's huge. The left hand in these agencies simply can't always know what the right hand is doing. It's too much overload for any given person. And as mentioned in this post, job turnover is tremendous. Outside of controllers, rarely does anyone sit still in one position in the FAA. If you don't have a detailed precise plan and you don't practice
that plan, there will be confusion, doubts, misteps and all sorts of things. Some people performed well on 9/11. The controllers all in all performed nothing short of a miracle. Varying levels of management performed at varying level of preparedness and competence, I'm not about to give my opinion on any given person...I value my job too much. I'll write more if and when I get time and I hope no-one takes any of this as an offense. I haven't researched the entire 9/11 thing and some of it gets a bit overwhelming. This is just one perspective from one person in a huge system. I'm not trying to rain on anyone's parade.

[rob balsamo]

I didnt get a chance to read this whole thread.. .but Washington Class Bravo is covered by NORAD Radar as well as NYC.

Red is NORAD, Orange is Primary.
(IMG:http://www.team8plus.org/the-movement/radar/images/radar_coverage.jpg)

JSS ARSR-4 Air Route Surveillance Radar
The Joint Surveillance System is a network of long range surveillance radars, primarily operated and maintained by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), but providing communication and radar data to both FAA and USAF control centers. The newest long-range search radar in the Joint Surveillance System (JSS) that has recently been fielded is the Air Route Surveillance Radar Model 4 (ARSR-4). Providing air defense and air traffic control for the continental United States, Guam, and Hawaii, forty joint radar sites were installed during the 1992-1995 period. The ARSR-4 was fielded through a $1 billion Congressionally mandated joint FAA and Air Force program, and each station costs over $12 million. http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/usa/airdef/arsr-4.htm

[waterdancer]

Thanks for that post, JDX!

Here is a bit more source info on what JDX posted:
(good stuff which I hadn't encountered yet)

http://spacecom.grc.nasa.gov/icnsconf/docs...4_Bussolari.pdf archive
http://web.archive.org/web/20000517150813/...rdef/arsr-4.htm archive
http://www.team8plus.org/the-movement/radar/Radar.htm archive

This post has been edited by waterdancer: Oct 31 2006, 05:48 AM

[pinnacle]

According to the NTSB radar study NORAD JSS radar tracked all four hijacked planes from take off to impact. They also say NORAD radar covered the
entire east coast of the United states so I don't see where the "holes" were in the coverage.
Ironically the ARSR-4 radar that covered Washington DC is in Oceana, Virginia,
about a mile from Oceana Naval Air Station which had about 200 F-18 and F-14
aircraft carrier jets and crews sitting on the ground during the attacks. They also had several Navy radar planes that would have been more useful in the air that day. Another Naval Air Station in Pennsylavania also had numerous planes in easy
flying range of New York. You never hear about all the Navy aircraft that might have been sent up on 9/11 as if the Air Force was the only option in an emergency.
Check out NAS Oceana on Google World. All those expensive long range combat jets and only four Air National Guard planes to defend the entire Continental US that day. It really was like Pearl Harbor all over again.

[rob balsamo]

Hi pinnacle.. welcome to the forums!

Dont forget about Atlantic City Air National Guard just a few miles south of NYC. They have F-16's that could have been in NY in less than 5 mins.

[pinnacle]

One thing I have not heard discussed is the capability of the F-16 and
F-15s on-board radar to track the hijacked planes once they were in the air and looking down on them.
If they can track enemy fighters and even missiles at 100 plus miles why would they not have been able to locate and lock onto airliners flying erratically
even if ground radar could not see anything?
Anyone who has read the air force's own accounts from the 1980s and 90s of NORAD intercepting small low flying drug smuggling planes has to find this total radar blindness when it comes to jumbo jets is a bit hard to swallow.
The General Accounting Office details over 1500 NORAD drug intercepts, many from Atlantic City and Langley, in the early 1990s so the procedure should have been well practiced by 2001.
In fact the Department of Defense added additional funding for drug intercept operations in 1999 after Congress passed a resolution making the "drug
interdiction mission" second only to actual warfare in importance. So NORAD should have had even more capabilities for carrying such operations.

[Robin Hordon]

Robin Hordon checking in...

Jimbo, how ya doin "brother"

Folks, Jimbo is the real deal...he is 9/11's FAA "Deep Throat"...

JIMBO. here's some advice...drink bottled water...

And for the rest of us...protect him/her how you can...and definitely get his special: "and if I am killed" letter...

Pilots, don't think that I'm overstating any of this, nor that I'm troubling Jimbo...he knows EXACTLY what's at stake...and what he's doing.

BALLS...and he loves his country too...

Love, Peace and Justice...

Hordon

[Robin Hordon]

The donught hole...

OK, so here is the basic description of a multi-million dollar radar site installation. It has two parts:

1. A plug to plug it in...

2. A rotating antenna...

OBVIOUSLY the US MILITARY would see no reason to place an electronic transponder reading antenna on top of the HUGE primary radar antenna. After all, the military does have a budget!

Doghnut hole "this!"

The military NEVER tells you what they have...they tell you what they want to THINK they have...

Well, upon second thought, perhaps the "hole" in northern Montana was needed to sneak CHENEY in and out of the north country...

Hey guys...here's a more realistic way to look at some things..."who NOT to trust"

NEVER...trust a government...they lie to the people to keep their power and influence...

NEVER, EVER...trust a corporation...they lie to the government AND lie to the people...to keep ther position, influences and profits..

NEVER, EVER, EVER...trust the military...they lie to corporations...they lie to governments...they lie to "civilians"...they even lie TO THEMSELVES...to keep their position, their power, their friend's profits, and to keep their "war toys"...

Man, can we have some healthy SKEPTICISM AROUND HERE?

Hey troops, I've spent some time in politiacl humor, so, don't take me to unseriously...

Q...if you were in charge of secret military ops, how often would you "spill the beans"?

My general rule of thumb...if everything seems plausible with a secretive governmental organizations explanation...most likely the truth lies in the rear view mirror.

Keep the faith though...CIVILIANS eventually get to the military mind...it just takes a while...and we will get there...we always have...

Love, Peace and Progress..

Robin Hordon
Hordon

[Robin Hordon]

Pinnacle...a coupla points,

Military operations worldwide use lat-longs for positioning and targeting [surely enscripted]...thus, they don't have to find anybody "1/2 mile east of 12th and Vine in East LA"...if you know what I mean. One of the only valid points in the Vanity Fair smoke screen was when the chief liar told us that in order for NORAD to "find" and aircraft, it needed its lats and longs". [Its only partially true...I'll finish this later.] The reason that a target aircraft has to be located with lat/longs is because the on board weapons and TRACKING systems are programmed for the lat/long "world" that we live in. This makes it possible for any aircraft to function in any part of the world. So, target aircraft lat/longs are given to the pilot, or the weapons guy, or, the NORAD outfit itself electronically sends the info to the fighter's "where am I, where are they" flight director, weapons manager, radar detector, anti-missle defense system, kitchen sink drainpipe on board computer system. Then the onboard radar looks EXACTLY at that coordinate for an aircraft. Of course, then, these multi-BILLION dollar radar tracking systems immediately loose the target...yeah right. However, should the squirrely aircraft, like a highly aerobatic "transponderless" B757, conduct exquisite acrobatic manuevers as they are wont to do, well THEN the onboard tracking system looses the B757...YEAH RIGHT! Primary tracking, and target aquisition and holding are GOOD!

Seriously, there may be a "range issue" for such fighter radar locking and tracking systems, and surely they are classified, and therefore I don't "know". But here are a few numbers to mull over and then MY answer. Let's see...

...fighter "A" travelling eastbound at 1800mph is west of fighter "B" travelling westbound at 1800mph...how many miles are required between them before their on board radars see the other fighter? Lets see...30 miles per minute...times two is 60 miles per minute closure...so, two minutes is 120 miles away, three minutes is 180 miles away, four minutes is 240 miles away...OK, I only need 100 mile range radar...that gives me about a 100 seconds to work with...PLENTY of time...

My pertinent answer...the fighter's max radar range is more miles than there are between Cape Cod and Manhattan...

And a follow-up question whose answer has already ben hinted at by Jimbo in his brilliant writing...

So, what code do you think fighter "A" asks fighter "B" to squawk when they get ready to do the mid-air TANGO?...

or, asked differently...

Do you really think that they would desgin an airbourne fighter, bomber, AWACS, flying kite radar/tracking system to NOT be able to follow a primary target...a teeny, tiny, sleek primary target pulling 8G turns, loops, emmelmans all over the sky like, let's say...what a pesky Boeing 757 is known to do?

The US military has the stuff man...if the ZBW controllers had been able to "locate" AA11 for the Otis fighters through NORAD when they were just airbourne and when AA11 was just north of Albany headed southbound...RUMMIE'S ATTACK IS OVER!

Those fighters would have set up their tracking systems to follow AA11 [even if it were a small tinfoil hat, like ours], and the weapons systems would have set a course for intercept just north of Manhattan, and the pilots would have let'um rip because they are smart and would have done the... "NYC vs Hudson River" AIRCRAFT FALLING DEBRIS math...and BOOM...passengers and all!

One of the things that's not very often mentioned is the competency, patriotism, quick and clear thinking skills, the outright cold discipline, and the BALLS that these intercept fighter pilots posses. Put yourselves in their seats...with all of their training...and with the adrenaline [and other stuff] flowing.

NOW...you/they have a REAL MISSION...its EXACTLY what these dogs hunt for...till they are called off...

Do you think that you would do the math and pull the trigger? I would.

Again, these guys are GOOOOOD...and they really know how to do what they do...

THEREFORE...Rummie HAD to hold'm back or distract them somehow...


Regarding the lat/long target locating processes noted above...here's the scoop.

When you guys fly and first ask ATC for flight tracking [say you are VFR today], how often do you inform ATC of your location using lats/long in lieu of using a relationship to a known visual landmark, or a specific navaid or intersection? Not often you say? At least that's the way it was when I was flying. Sooooo...

The same goes for "location communication" betyween ATC and ADC/NORAD. We do not try to locate missing, or troubled aircraft using lats/longs because FAA ATC don't have them readily accessible, and ADC/NORAD does have navaids, airports, airways, and intersections available to them. Consequently...here would be a typical ATC-ADC/NORAD communication to find a transponderless jetliner...saaaayyyy, an American Airlines B757 who just radio too:

"NORAD/NEADS/ADC...this is Boston Center Athen's sector with a priority request"..."this is NORAD go ahead"...I just lost the transponder on an American Airlines Boeing757 35 miles northeast of Albany, he was westbound and turned northwest on his own and then lost the squawk, I had a primary for a few hits and seem to have lost him for a sweep or two, do you see anything out there...450 knots...last reported at 350?"..."Roger, I do have a high speed primary target but he's in a left turn toward the southwest, how can I help?"

OK, OK, OK...that's just exactly how I THINK it all went that day...but here is my point in this. Both ADC/NORAD would not use lats/longs to locate this target...we use commonly known points.

What ADC/NORAD does after that is to begin to track the aircraft with their system, or, he/she can just "slewball" over the target and hit enter...and then their computer has this position in lats/longs for tracking or interception.

So, when, in the Vanity Fair article the chief liar made his statement about "we can't find anything without knowing its lats/longs", he is deliberately making it sound REALLY, REALLY complicated to John Doe the public believer. However, Rummie's principal NEADS whore forgot the "lets complicate it" rule when he talked about knowing that AA11 was thirty five miles north of JFK! Guess he forgot those exact lats/longs THAT time!

Its these types of statements, stories, explanations, which are all over the place, us "both-sides-of-the-mike" pros will be able to untangle it all in a while. Rummie's boys have done a pretty good job at this scam...but its not gonna be good enough.

PAVE PAWS...

I do have a few bits on Pave-Paws radar because one is located at Otis AFB on Cape Cod in my old jurisdiction...here is what the military wants me to tell you about this radar.

1. its very low frequency radar which allows the tramsmitted signal to curve and hug the surface of the earth over the horizon [mostly ocean] allowing a few VERY LONG DISTANCE RADAR SITES to cover HUGE oceanic areas...

2. the transmitting/receiving antenna is HUGE...very tall and very wide, matching the height of the tramsmitted and received low frequency signal "wave heights/lengths" [Hey, my VCR is still flashing...I don't know electronics...so I don't really know what I just said?]

3. the startionary antenna looks like a HUGE outdoor movie screen...but curved...

4. Dr. Strangelove is always playing...

5. Didn't really mean #4...but it was let out that the radar system could pick up a submarine's periscope 1500 miles away...if so, that's pretty good stuff...if its a lie, lets hope the "Ruskies" think it. See, I AM old...

6. not too much to do with overland coverage...the ground hugging radar would see the ground...

Please forgive the bad joke...and if you think that I'm not taking this seriusly, this government fired my ass when my third child was one month old, they screwed up a National B737 out of National and bounced it off a bridge into the Potomac because of incompetent controlers...ruthless...and I take them very, very seriously!

Love, Peace and Progress

Hordon