I was discussing/Arguing about Norad & USAF scambled jets. Typical Reich Wing response, is to answer with Altered Facts and distortions. I mentioned Payne Stewarts Learjet Intercept, all the USAF fighter jets, Awac support and Re-fueler. The Recih Winger produces a timeline which states that the intercept was 1 hour and 18 minutes, not 18 minutes because of the difference in EST & CST. Also made reference to David Griffinn deceptivly ommitting the 1 hour difference in time zones.

I did a Google Search.. Pyne stewart scrambled jets. Many conflicting Information

Is there a Link or information I can find to settle this Argument. Actually you cannot solve an agrument with these folks, but I would be curious to get the facts straight. Thanks

JohnnyAngel:
Is there a Link or information I can find to settle this Argument. Actually you cannot solve an agrument with these folks, but I would be curious to get the facts straight. Thanks

I followed the story at it's inception - I thought the fighter jets met Stewart's plane within 1/2 an hour.

I found this main stream media story that says they were aware....but did not intercept until...
Even still, it was well known to be a civilian, private jet - not a passenger airline being hijacked.
* Lost contact at 9:44 AM - began pursuit at 10:08 AM - contact - site made at 11:09 AM - according to this article.

Source: Washington Post (.com)
fair use
link:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/natio...t99/crash26.htm

By Edward Walsh and William Claiborne
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, October 26, 1999; Page A1

MINA, S.D., Oct. 25—A Learjet carrying professional golfer Payne Stewart and at least four others streaked uncontrolled for thousands of miles across the heart of the country today, its occupants apparently unconscious or already dead, before it plunged nose first and crashed in a field near this north-central South Dakota hamlet.

No one on the ground was hurt and there were no survivors aboard the aircraft, which came down in a marshy area about two miles southwest of here.

The cause of the uncontrolled flight and crash after the Learjet 35 apparently ran out of fuel were not known, but aviation experts speculated that the aircraft may have lost pressurization and that emergency backup systems failed as the plane's autopilot kept it in the air. Loss of pressurization above 30,000 feet would cause occupants of the aircraft to lose consciousness from oxygen deficiency in one to two minutes, the experts said.

During some of its eerie, almost four-hour journey from Orlando to a swampy grassland in South Dakota, the Learjet was shadowed by Air Force and Air National Guard jet fighters, whose pilots reported that the aircraft's windows were frosted over, suggesting that it had lost pressurization. The Air Force pilots also reported that the Learjet meandered from as low as 22,000 feet to as high as 51,000 feet, but never strayed from a northwest heading.

The military aircraft were not armed with air-to-air missiles, and Pentagon officials said they never considered shooting down the Learjet.

"The [Federal Aviation Administration] said this thing was headed to a sparsely populated part of the country, so let it go," a senior defense official said.

According to the FAA, the plane left Orlando, where Stewart lived, at 9:19 a.m. Eastern time today and was bound for Dallas. Stewart, a two-time U.S. Open champion, was scheduled to play later this week in the PGA Championship in Houston, the tour's final event of the year.

The FAA said air traffic controllers lost radio contact with the plane at 9:44 a.m., just after they had cleared the twin-engine jet to climb to 39,000 feet northwest of Gainesville, Fla. An FAA spokesman said that air traffic controllers noted "significant changes in altitude" by the plane, but that the aircraft's crew did not respond to repeated radio calls from the ground.

Pentagon officials said the military began its pursuit of the ghostly civilian aircraft at 10:08 a.m., when two Air Force F-16 fighters from Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida that were on a routine training mission were asked by the FAA to intercept it. The F-16s did not reach the Learjet, but an Air Force F-15 fighter from Eglin Air Force Base in Florida that also was asked to locate it got within sight of the aircraft and stayed with it from 11:09 a.m. to 11:44 a.m., when the military fighter was diverted to St. Louis for fuel.

Fifteen minutes later, four Air National Guard F-16s and a KC-135 tanker from Tulsa were ordered to try to catch up with the Learjet but got only within 100 miles. But two other Air National Guard F-16s from Fargo, N.D., intercepted the Learjet at 12:54 p.m, reporting that the aircraft's windows were fogged with ice and that no flight control movement could be seen. At 1:14 p.m., the F-16s reported that the Learjet was beginning to spiral toward the ground.

The Learjet 35 is a pressurized aircraft that also is equipped with individual emergency oxygen masks for the passengers and crew if the pressurization system fails above about 12,000 feet.

Tom Baum, a Learjet pilot instructor, told CNN that a panel light in the cockpit of the plane goes on if there is a problem with the pressurization and that a backup system should then automatically begin to function. He said Learjet pilots are required to wear oxygen masks around their necks.

In nearby Aberdeen, South Dakota Highway Patrol Sgt. Scott Wherry said he and other troopers were alerted that the aircraft was headed their way. They went outside their headquarters and spotted the jet in the air.

"It appeared to be flying not in a straight line," Wherry said. "It was wavering. You could see by its trail it was not going in a straight line. Then it headed straight down, nose first."

Terry Jundt, who came upon the aircraft wreckage while on horseback in this sparsely populated region, said, "They are going to have a hard time finding anything or anybody in there."

Investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board arrived after dark and said a full investigation would begin on Tuesday morning.

Bill Curry, a spokesman for Stewart's family, said the four others who were killed were the two pilots and Stewart's agents, Robert Fraley and Van Ardan. Fraley was chief executive officer and Ardan was president of Leader Enterprises Inc., a sports management company. The Associated Press said the pilots were Michael King, 43, and Stephanie Bellegarrigue, 27. The AP also reported that a sixth person, a golf course designer, might have been on board.

Learjet's parent company, Bombardier Aerospace of Montreal, said the aircraft was being operated by charter service Sunjet Aviation Inc., of Sanford, Fla. It said the Learjet 35 had logged more than 10,000 flying hours and 7,500 takeoffs and landings since originally being delivered in April 1976. Its range when carrying four passengers and a maximum fuel load is 2,527 miles.

Stewart, 42, won his first major PGA championship in 1989 and his first U.S. Open two years later. But his most dramatic victory in a major tournament occurred in June on the final hole at Pinehurst No. 2 in North Carolina, where he sank a 15-foot par putt to win the U.S. Open by one stroke over Phil Mickelson.

Widely known for his colorful golfing attire of "plus fours"--pants that resemble knickers--and tam-o'-shanter hat, Stewart won 18 tournaments around the world, including three major championships, and $11.7 million during his career. He once endured a major slump, going eight years with only one victory.

More recently, Stewart credited a newfound faith he said he gained through his children for improvements in his play and attitude. "I'm so much more at peace with myself than I've ever been in my life," he said after winning this year's U.S. Open.

In a statement, PGA Tour Commissioner Tim Finchem expressed "our sense of shock and sadness" over the death of one of the organization's most prominent members.

"This is a tremendous loss for the entire golfing community and all sports," Finchem said. "Payne was a great champion, a gentleman, and a devoted husband and father."

News of Stewart's sudden death also left other professional golfers reeling. "It is shocking; it's a tragedy," said Tiger Woods, the PGA's top money winner this year. "There is an enormous void and emptiness I feel right now."

Stewart is survived by his wife, Tracey Ferguson, a daughter, Chelsea, 13, and a son, Aaron, 10.

Walsh and staff writer Bradley Graham reported from Washington; Claiborne and special correspondent Jason Lemke reported from Mina. Research editor Margot Williams and researcher Richard Drezen also contributed to this report.

Here is the Section about it from David Ray Griffin's "Debunking 9/11 Debunking" -


Military Intercepts


In its final effort to debunk the idea that on 9/11 a stand-down order had been issued (which was not rescinded until shortly before the downing of Flight 93), PM disputes the 9/11 truth movement’s claim that NORAD’s fighter jets routinely intercepted planes and usually did so in a matter of minutes. PM’s contrary “fact” is that, “In the decade before 9/11, NORAD intercepted only one civilian plane over North America: golfer Payne Stewart’s Learjet in October 1999.”[1]



No “Routine” Interceptions: One impediment to their claim was a Boston Globe article, quoted in The New Pearl Harbor, in which the author, Glen Johnson, reported that NORAD spokesman Mike Snyder, speaking a few days after 9/11, said that NORAD’s fighters, in Johnson’s paraphrase, “routinely intercept aircraft.”[2] To rebut this claim, our authors do not cite any documentary evidence. They simply say: “When contacted by Popular Mechanics, spokesmen for NORAD and the FAA clarified their remarks by noting that scrambles were routine, but intercepts were not---especially over the continental United States.”[3] But these alleged “spokesmen” remain anonymous, a fact suggesting that PM could not find anyone in either NORAD or the FAA willing to have his or her name associated with this claim. PM has not really, therefore, undermined the statement made by NORAD spokesman Mike Snyder, a few days after 9/11, that NORAD makes interceptions routinely.

The idea that interceptions occur regularly has not, of course, been based solely or even primarily on Snyder’s statement. It has also been based on reports that fighters have been scrambled about a hundred times a year. A 2001 story in the Calgary Herald reported that NORAD had scrambled fighters 129 times in 2000; an Associated Press story in 2002 referred to NORAD’s “67 scrambles from September 2000 to June 2001.”[4] By extrapolation, one can infer that NORAD had scrambled fighters about a thousand times in the decade prior to 9/11. This figure makes it very hard for Popular Mechanics, by claiming that most scrambles do not result in interceptions (a claim made by Benjamin Chertoff during a radio show debate with me when he was still a PM spokesperson), to claim that only one civilian plane had been intercepted in North America during the decade before 9/11. As I argued in print, this claim could be true “only if in all of these cases, except for the Payne incident, the fighters were called back to base before they actually intercepted the aircraft in question. . . , a most unlikely possibility.”[5]

PM’s solution to this problem is to argue not only that interceptions are rare but also that scrambles are---at least scrambles within the continental United States. But this solution faced a problem: Major Douglas Martin, who on other issues has been quoted in support of PM’s position, was the person who had been quoted in the Associated Press story, mentioned above, about NORAD’s “67 scrambles from September 2000 to June 2001.” Martin himself had implied, in other words, that NORAD had been scrambling jets about 100 times a year. PM tries to neutralize this statement by saying:



However, the Knight-Ridder/Tribune News Service produced a more complete account, which included an important qualification. Here’s how the Knight Ridder story appeared in the September 28, 2002, edition of the Colorado Springs Gazette: “From June 2000 to September 2001 [sic][6], NORAD scrambled fighters 67 times but not over the continental United States. . . . Before September 11, the only time officials recall scrambling jets over the United States was when golfer Payne Stewart’s plane veered off course and crashed in South Dakota in 1999.”

Except for that lone, tragic anomaly, all NORAD interceptions from the end of the Cold war in 1989 until 9/11 took place in offshore Air Defense Identification Zones (ADIZ). . . . The planes intercepted in these zones were primarily being used for drug smuggling.[7]



There are several problems with this response. Two of them involve inconsistencies in PM’s argument. For one thing, PM is supposed to be defending its claim that in the decade prior to 9/11 there had been only one interception “over North America,” but the qualification in this Knight-Ridder story speaks only of “the continental United States.” The PM authors have thereby ignored Canada, that other North American country that is protected by NORAD, and Alaska. A second inconsistency is that, after having emphasized the distinction between scrambles and interceptions, the PM authors then conflate them. We can, however, set aside these inconsistencies in order to focus on more serious problems.

First, given the fact that the Knight-Ridder story not only appeared several months after the AP story but also appeared in a newspaper in Colorado Springs, near NORAD headquarters, it could be disinformation put out to provide the basis for exactly the case that PM is now making---that NORAD’s failure to intercept the airliners on 9/11 was not a failure to do something that it had been doing routinely.

Second, given this possibility, PM’s description of the Knight-Ridder story as a “more complete account” begs the question, because of the possibility that it is a distortion, rather than simply a more complete account, of the truth. An indication that it does involve distortion, moreover, is provided by the fact that Martin, in illustrating the increased number of scrambles after 9/11, said: “In June [2002], Air Force jets scrambled three times to intercept small private planes that had wandered into restricted airspace around the White House and around Camp David.” These clearly were over the continental United States. If the Knight-Ridder qualification were true, we would expect Martin to have said: “After 9/11, not only have there been more interceptions, but now some of them are within the continental United States.” But there is no indication in the AP story that he made any such statement. Also, although PM interviewed Martin in 2004, it gives no sign that he endorsed the Knight-Ridder qualification.

A third problem with PM’s defense is that, even if it were true that all the interceptions had been offshore instead of over American or Canadian soil, that would do little to defend the military against the charge that it had stood down on 9/11. The issue at hand is whether the military had regularly intercepted planes. It matters not whether these interceptions were over the land or over the water.

A fourth problem is the existence of reports that fighter jets had indeed intercepted civilian planes quite regularly in the decades prior to 9/11. I had quoted, for example, a 1998 document warning pilots that any airplanes persisting in unusual behavior “will likely find two [jet fighters] on their tail within 10 or so minutes.”[8] Also, the above-cited story in the Calgary Herald, which reported that NORAD had scrambled fighter jets 129 times in 2000, also said: “Fighter jets are scrambled to babysit suspect aircraft or ‘unknowns’ three or four times a day. Before Sept. 11, that happened twice a week.”[9] Twice a week would be about 100 times per year, and “babysitting” is not what jets would do with planes suspected of smuggling drugs into the country.

A fifth problem for PM’s claim---that in the decade before 9/11, all of NORAD’s interceptions except one were offshore and primarily involved drug smuggling---is a 1994 report from the General Accounting Office, which strongly contradicts this claim. It said:



Overall, during the past 4 years, NORAD's alert fighters took off to intercept aircraft (referred to as scrambled) 1,518 times. . . . Of these incidents, the number of suspected drug smuggling aircraft averaged . . . less than 7 percent of all of the alert sites' total activity. The remaining activity generally involved visually inspecting unidentified aircraft and assisting aircraft in distress.[10]



In the period from 1989 through 1992, according to this account, NORAD made an average of 379 interceptions per year, 354 of which “involved visually inspecting unidentified aircraft and assisting aircraft in distress,” not intercepting planes suspected of smuggling drugs. Besides the fact that 1992 was part of “the decade before 9/11,” it is doubtful that the pattern of interceptions would have changed radically after that.

With regard to NEADS in particular, Colonel John K. Scott, the commander from March 1996 to June 1998, said: "We probably 'scramble' fighters once a week. When unknowns come up you have to make the decision to launch or not.”[11]

PM has clearly not, therefore, debunked the idea that NORAD routinely intercepted planes over the continental United States. The question remains, therefore, why this routine activity did not occur on 9/11.



No Interceptions “Within Minutes”: “Some conspiracy theorists,” the PM authors say, “mistakenly believe the Stewart case bolsters their argument that fighters can reach wayward passenger planes within minutes.”[12] In attempting to refute this belief, they argue that, because of a crossing of a time zone, Stewart’s plane was not really intercepted within 19 minutes, as widely believed, but an hour and 19 minutes. Be that as it may (I have elsewhere suggested that the documents are too confused to make a firm judgment[13]), the important issue is whether, prior to 9/11, scrambled fighters regularly intercepted aircraft within minutes.

There is evidence that they did. Above, I quoted a 1998 document stating that fighters commonly intercept aircraft “within 10 or so minutes.” Also, in a 1999 story, a full-time alert pilot at Homestead Air Reserve Base (near Miami) was quoted as saying, “If needed, we could be killing things in five minutes or less.”[14]

These reports suggest that unless there had been a stand-down order on 9/11, any hijacked airliners would have been intercepted within 10 minutes or so. This contention is supported by former Air Force Colonel Robert Bowman, who was an interceptor pilot before becoming head of the “Star Wars” program during the Ford and Carter administrations. He has said:



If our government had merely done nothing---and I say that as an old interceptor pilot and I know the drill, I know what it takes, I know how long it takes, I know what the procedures are . . . ---if our government had merely done nothing and allowed normal procedures to happen on that morning of 9/11, the twin towers would still be standing and thousands of Americans would still be alive.[15]



No Armed Fighters on Alert: The PM authors argue at the end of their section on military intercepts---evidently intending this as their knockout punch---that between the end of the Cold War and 9/11, the US did not even keep armed fighters on alert. To support this astounding claim, our authors again cite no documentary evidence. They do not even quote anyone from the U.S. military. They rely entirely on a statement from former Senator Warren Rudman (Republican from New Hampshire), who was quoted in Glen Johnson’s 2001 Boston Globe article as saying:



We don’t have capable fighter aircraft loaded with missiles sitting on runways in this country. We just don’t do that anymore. . . . [T]o expect American fighter aircraft to intercept commercial airliners . . . is totally unrealistic and makes no sense at all.[16]



However, although this quotation concludes PM’s section on intercepts, it is far from the final word in Johnson’s article. Rather, the very next paragraphs say:



Otis offers something close to that posture, however. Its 102d Fighter Wing is equipped with 18 F-15 Eagles, twin-engine, supersonic, air-to-air combat aircraft. . . .

The planes, which can fly at more than twice the speed of sound, . . . [have] responsibility for protecting Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Washington . . . .

To complete that mission, the unit has two armed and fueled aircraft ready to fly around the clock, each day of the year, a unit spokeswoman said.[17] (Emphasis added)



So much for PM’s knockout punch. And so much, once again, for its reportorial honesty.

The falsity of PM’s claim is also evident from other sources. For example, Major Steve Saari, an alert pilot at Tyndall Air Force Base, has been quoted as saying: “In practice, we fly with live missiles.”[18] Captain Tom “Pickle” Herring, an alert pilot at Homestead Air Reserve Base near Miami, has been quoted as saying: “[W]e have weapons on our jets. We need to be postured such that no one would dare threaten us.”[19]

Failing with all its claims, Debunking 9/11 Myths has done nothing to debunk the idea that the 9/11 attacks succeeded because there had been a stand-down order.



[1] Debunking 9/11 Myths, 22.



[2] Glen Johnson, "Facing Terror Attack's Aftermath: Otis Fighter Jets Scrambled Too Late to Halt the Attacks," Boston Globe, September 15, 2001 (http://www.fromthewilderness.com/timeline/2001/bostonglobe091501.html).



[3] Debunking 9/11 Myths, 24.



[4]Linda Slobodian, “NORAD on Heightened Alert: Role of Air Defence Agency Rapidly Transformed in Wake of Sept. 11 Terrorist Attacks,” Calgary Herald, October 13, 2001 (http://911research.wtc7.net/cache/planes/analysis/norad/calgaryherald101301_scrables.html); Leslie Miller, “Military Now Notified Immediately of Unusual Air Traffic Events,” Associated Press, August 12, 2002 (http://911research.wtc7.net/cache/planes/analysis/norad/020812ap.html).



[5] Griffin, “The Destruction of the World Trade Center: Why the Official Account Cannot Be True.” This essay was first published in 2005 at 911Review.com (http://911review.com/articles/griffin/nyc1.html). It was next published in Paul Zarembka, ed., The Hidden History of 9-11-2001 (Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2006) and then in my Christian Faith and the Truth Behind 9/11. The quoted statement is in note 35 of the first two versions and note 58 of the third one.



[6] In the statement from Martin cited in the AP story referred to above, the 67 scrambles occurred from “September 2000 to June 2001,” which would be nine months; here the months are reversed, making the period in question sixteen months. Having been unable to locate the Colorado Springs Gazette story, I do not know if PM introduced the error or if it simply did not notice the error in the Gazette story.



[7] Debunking 9/11 Myths, 24-25.



[8]Air Traffic Control Center, “ATCC Controller’s Red Binder” (available at www.xavius.com/080198.htm), quoted in Ahmed, The War on Freedom, 148.



[9] Slobodian, “NORAD on Heightened Alert.”



[10] General Accounting Office, “Continental Air Defense: A Dedicated Force Is No Longer Needed,” May 3, 1994 (http://www.fas.org/man/gao/gao9476.htm).



[11] Leslie Filson, Sovereign Skies: Air National Guard Takes Command of 1st Air Force (Tyndall, Fl.: First Air Force, 1999), 52.



[12] Debunking 9/11 Myths, 23.



[13] Griffin, 9/11CROD 323 n. 31.



[14] “Fangs Bared: Florida’s Eagles Stand Sentry Over Southern Skies,” Airman, December 1999 (http://www.af.mil/news/airman/1299/home.htm).



[15] “Retired Air Force Col: They Lied to Us About the War and About 9/11 Itself,” October 27, 2005 (http://www.benfrank.net/blog/2005/10/27/oil_mafia_treason).



[16] Debunking 9/11 Myths, 25.



[17] Johnson, "Facing Terror Attack's Aftermath.”



[18] Filson, Sovereign Skies, 96-97.



[19] Airman, December, 1999 (http://www.af.mil/news/airman/1299/home2.htm).

It should also be noted that 18 minutes "absolute time" is still 18 minutes regardless of how many time zones are crossed.

Thus, if you flew for 18 minutes, leaving at 9am est, and you crossed a time zone, the time would be recorded in the new time zone as an hour later (10am) or earlier (8am) but the flight would still remain 18 minutes long. Otherwise, the flight would be 1 hour and 18 minutes, but then, flying at 500 mph, why would it not be 500 miles further along its path? Of course it can't be, because the change in how the time is recorded, does nothing to change the actual time of flight.

So the actual time of intercept is to be calculated, not by the change of time in the zones it flys through, but by it's speed, direction and time of departure, matched with any point along it's path of flight.

I read the misinformation they tried to sell, it just doesn't hold water as they say. Plus there's all the data from all those Cuba skyjackings that used to take place with some frequency. That was stopped for some 20 long years, only to have 4 jet liners escape interception on one day, flying into the most restricted airspace and towards the most sensitive targets one could imagine.

I have to imagine that even before it was learned that flights could be skyjacked and crashed into buildings, protocols were designed to protect nuclear installations, most especially those near population centers. The disaster that would ensue if a containment building was damaged by a skyjacked airliner, would be so enormous that it could not be ignored by any force tasked with national security. Notably many lesser threats have protocols assigned to them, so how could it come to not having protocols for this? The answer, of course is, the protocols were there but not followed for some strange reason.

Add to that the hindsight, where we learn that it was intended that the stock market disruption be kept to an absolute minimum (ala: The air is safe to breathe), and you can guess why Indian Point Nuclear Reactor was not considered to be a possible target.
For if IPNR was a possible target, then other provisions would have to be made to get the market re-opened. But getting or keeping or restoring market activity would not have been a concern for terrorists, other than that, they'd want the market closed for a very long time.

OBL is said to have considered a strike at the reactor, but decided not to, because he believed the target was too well "hardened"?!? Yes, but then, why did he not consider that the Pentagon would be just as well hardened? Obviously the "hardness" of the targets were not a real concern. So if all these conflicting informations are to be believed, no one on either side was prepared to do anything at all, and that the attacks were accidents that neither the planners nor the defenders intended.
How silly is that?

Obwon

To further cloud the issue here, as I recall the location of the actual intercept with visual contact with the Lear occured very close to the Alabama-Georgia line, which happens also to be the line between Eastern and Central time zones.

There is no way that it was 1 hour 18, even at 250 knots. As I recall the very first aircraft were out of Eglin, and the next out of Tyndall, an actual NORAD base.

The OCT people are just desperate in making that claim, nothing more.

As we can see there are data points that both side must have and must rely upon, to create their explanations or theories. While a single data point, or even a select few data points, can be extracted and used to build a version of events, only the version that uses the most accepted data points is most likely closest to the truth. Any version that drops a very "high value data point", in terms of the data points reliability, is obviously false.

Thus the versions that move the time one hour ahead, because of the crossed time zone, cannot also move the position of the aircraft the required additional distance for the newly claimed time elapse. When I heard the "explanation" of time zones being bandied about, I remember thinking "Wha??? Do they mean that the aircraft somehow parked itself in mid air for an hour?"

Unfortunately what we don't usually recognize is that when we are "talking" with such people, we are really talking to mentally disturbed persons. Like... Well... Take for example the guy who just crashed his plane into the I.R.S. offices killing himself! I guess the idea of hiring a seasoned tax professional to verify if he really had a claim or issue, and then pursue it in proper ways, never occurred to him? He'd be alive and still have his plane if he'd tried that. My experience with the I.R.S. is that although they make interpretation of their rules and tax law a very difficult matter indeed, their ministrations are not as absolute as people are often wont to make it appear (it being human nature to want a "bad guy" for their narrative(s)). You can't just sit and fume when you get a decision you disagree with, from them. You have to dig into the "rule books" and/or mount appeals of decisions you consider unfair or bad.

Many people with mental issues, however, will insist that their word for matter should be taken, simply because it makes sense to them. Never once stopping to think what kind of system, such tom foolery would make for. Nor can the fool (in the plane crash case) claim to have been oppressed by poverty issues, at least not with a private plane on his balance sheet. Yet, there are many sick minds out there who will, no doubt cheer for him. They will wax emotional on the "issues", never once paying any attention at all, to the fact that neither the I.R.S. examiner(s) position, nor his own, were absolute!

Didn't the previous administration and it's majority in congress claim, that laws merely get in the way of doing things that needed to be done? So why are they now screaming that the law isn't being followed? That is why the previous administrations views were so very dangerous. Either everyone is required to follow the law, or no one is! Because to only hold one side or the other to observance of law, is not law at all, but oppression.

Once we decided to be a "nation of laws", we had to abandon the idea of seeking safety in ignoring the law. No matter how dangerous the situation, the methodologies have to be legal. We cannot tolerate lawlessness and still have a rule of law, and without law the alternative is chaos. Which is what we have now and what we will continue to have, until those who broke the law(s) are held to account for their actions. Major, high profile exceptions, only serve to make law a device of oppression. The idea of a "rule of law" can only accept so much abuse before it breaks down entirely.

Obwon

As George W. Obama has clearly demonstrated, the rule of law in this country is a joke.

Because of the severe complexities of bringing leadership persons to justice, I can't agree with
that yet... Though for sure we seem to be well on our way to that conclusion. But the clock is still ticking, the "jury" is still out, and there is still time. Obviously we (the public) can't be kept abreast of such sensitive investigative matters (if they are actually happening), so, what may seem like status quo, may not actually be status quo at all.

But yes, it is indeed tragic that the "good side" must be constrained and even hamstrung by it's
own observance of law, while the "bad side" gets to act rapaciously and precipitously. Which, of course, is what makes them "bad".

Obwon

Thanks Guys, I appreciate the Information.

I was having an argument with some folks who believe the Official Conspiracy Theory.
some folks just dont want to hear it. There is actually a link they have provided, supposed to be wrtten by one of the actual Air Force pilots who was in on the Intercept of Stewarts Lear jet, claiming he crossed the time zone, and the press got the times mixed up. He states it took him 1 hour & 19 minutes to intercept.

Hey, whats one more Lie in a false flag operation. Ruby said he Killed Oswald so Jackie didnt have to hear the trial..

Thanks..

just trying to clean out some old research thats been hiding away in my files...

the accident report for stewart's crash:
http://libraryonline.erau.edu/online-full-...fs/AAB00-01.pdf

random excerpts that i found noteworthy:

In its review, the FAA found that the Learjet Model 35/36 AFM does not have an emergency
procedure requiring the flight crew to don oxygen masks immediately after the cabin altitude aural
warning is activated. Because the AFM contains an abnormal procedure allowing the flight crew to
troubleshoot the pressurization system before donning oxygen masks, the FAA noted that the flight crew
may delay donning oxygen masks and become incapacitated.



FLIGHT CREW’S FAILURE TO RECEIVE SUPPLEMENTAL OXYGEN
Following the depressurization, the pilots did not receive supplemental oxygen in sufficient time
and/or adequate concentration to avoid hypoxia and incapacitation. The wreckage indicated that the
oxygen bottle pressure regulator/shutoff valve was open on the accident flight. Further, although one
flight crew mask hose connector was found in the wreckage disconnected from its valve receptacle (the
other connector was not recovered), damage to the recovered connector and both receptacles was
consistent with both flight crew masks having been connected to the airplane’s oxygen supply lines at
the time of impact. In addition, both flight crew mask microphones were found plugged in to their
respective crew microphone jacks. Therefore, assuming the oxygen bottle contained an adequate supply
of oxygen, supplemental oxygen should have been available to both pilots’ oxygen masks.

The Safety Board evaluated several explanations for the flight crewmembers’ failure to receive
supplemental oxygen, including an inadequate quantity of oxygen or improper servicing of the oxygen
bottle and the failure (or inability) of the pilots to don their oxygen masks rapidly enough following the
loss of cabin pressure.


Oxygen Quantity
Investigators considered the possibility that there might have been an insufficient quantity of
oxygen on board the accident flight to sustain the flight crewmembers while they addressed the
depressurization. The oxygen bottle was found empty. Witness marks on the cockpit oxygen pressure
gauge caused by the impact were consistent with an indication of no pressure in the oxygen bottle.
A Sunjet Aviation official stated to the Safety Board that the accident captain had reported that
the oxygen pressure gauge was in the green zone, indicating adequate pressure of 1,550 to 1,850 psi,
during preflight checks on the day of the accident. The airplane’s maintenance records indicate that the
oxygen bottle was last serviced with oxygen (by Sunjet Aviation) on September 3, 1999. Between this
date and the date of the accident flight, Sunjet Aviation operated the airplane for about 104.6 flight
hours, on 90 flights. The Board was unable to determine exactly how many of these flight hours were
above 35,000 feet,59 but ATC voice tapes from one of the flights60 indicated that the airplane was
cleared to FL 370 on one leg. Although no radar data for that flight were available, the Board estimated
(using ground speed and distance) that the airplane would have cruised above 35,000 feet for at least
30 to 40 minutes during that round trip flight. The captain from that flight told investigators that when the
airplane was above 35,000 feet during that flight, he used supplemental oxygen. Board calculations
indicated that the flight crew’s reported oxygen usage that day would have depleted the airplane’s
oxygen supply by up to 14 to 25 percent, depending on which mask was used. Even though oxygen use
was required on this flight (and perhaps others) and was reported to have been used, the Board is
aware that pilots do not always use oxygen when required by regulation.

The Safety Board contacted fixed-based operators (FBO) at 15 known destination airports
visited by the accident airplane between September 26 and October 20, 1999, and none had any
record of charges for oxygen servicing of the accident airplane. However, the Board cannot exclude the
possibility that the airplane was serviced with oxygen after September 3, 1999, at a different airport or
at no charge to Sunjet Aviation61 and that no record was made.62

However, even if the oxygen bottle had been full at the beginning of the accident flight, the
oxygen supply would have been completely depleted before impact because the Rogers regulator
installed on one of the two flight crew masks would have automatically supplied 100 percent oxygen
when the cabin altitude increased beyond 39,000 feet. This oxygen would have been released at
130 liters per minute at a pressure of approximately 0.5 psi even if the mask was not being worn by a
flight crewmember, depleting a fully charged oxygen bottle in about 8 minutes. Therefore, the
postimpact reading on the oxygen pressure gauge is not necessarily indicative of an inadequate
predeparture oxygen supply on the accident flight.

In summary, the Safety Board could not determine the quantity of oxygen that was on board the
accident flight.


Oxygen Quality
If the airplane’s oxygen bottle had been improperly serviced with air, rather than oxygen, there
would have been insufficient partial pressure of oxygen in the supplied mixture to avoid hypoxia at high
cabin altitudes after a depressurization. The Safety Board is aware of an accident involving pilot
incapacitation from hypoxia as a result of improper servicing of an oxygen bottle with compressed air.63
The oxygen source from which the accident airplane’s oxygen bottle was serviced on September 3,
1999, was tested after the accident and found to contain 99.8 percent pure oxygen. However, because
of the possibility that the oxygen bottle might have been serviced elsewhere after that, the Board could
not rule out the possibility that the oxygen bottle contained air instead of oxygen.

Timeliness in Donning Oxygen Masks
Another possible explanation for the failure of the pilots to receive emergency oxygen is that
their ability to think and act decisively was impaired because of hypoxia before they could don their
oxygen masks. No definitive evidence exists that indicates the rate at which the accident flight lost its
cabin pressure; therefore, the Safety Board evaluated conditions of both rapid and gradual
depressurization.

If there had been a breach in the fuselage (even a small one that could not be visually detected
by the in-flight observers) or a seal failure, the cabin could have depressurized gradually, rapidly, or
even explosively.64 Research has shown that a period of as little as 8 seconds without supplemental
oxygen following rapid depressurization to about 30,000 feet may cause a drop in oxygen saturation
that can significantly impair cognitive functioning and increase the amount of time required to complete
complex tasks.65

A more gradual decompression could have resulted from other possible causes, such as a
smaller leak in the pressure vessel or a closed flow control valve. Safety Board testing determined that a
closed flow control valve would cause complete depressurization to the airplane’s flight altitude over a
period of several minutes. However, without supplemental oxygen, substantial adverse effects on
cognitive and motor skills would have been expected soon after the first clear indication of
decompression (the cabin altitude warning), when the cabin altitude reached 10,000 feet (which could
have occurred in about 30 seconds).

Investigations of other accidents66 in which flight crews attempted to diagnose a pressurization
problem or initiate emergency pressurization instead of immediately donning oxygen masks following a
cabin altitude alert have revealed that, even with a relatively gradual rate of depressurization, pilots have
rapidly lost cognitive or motor abilities to effectively troubleshoot the problem or don their masks shortly
thereafter. In this accident, the flight crew’s failure to obtain supplemental oxygen in time to avoid
incapacitation could be explained by a delay in donning oxygen masks of only a few seconds in the case
of an explosive or rapid decompression or a slightly longer delay in the case of a gradual
decompression.

In summary, the Safety Board was unable to determine why the flight crew could not, or did
not, receive supplemental oxygen in sufficient time and/or adequate concentration to avoid hypoxia and
incapacitation.

PROBABLE CAUSE
The National Transportation Safety Board determines the probable cause of this accident was
incapacitation of the flight crewmembers as a result of their failure to receive supplemental oxygen
following a loss of cabin pressurization, for undetermined reasons.


***


UPDATES - not directly related to the above, but for posterity:

"FAA: Pilots of Stewart's Plane Had False Records"
http://abcnews.go.com/Sports/story?id=99914&page=1




"FAA relies on pilots to oversee other pilots"
http://archives.californiaaviation.org/pilot/msg00006.html



official response timelines as told in this article:
Golfer Payne Stewart Dies in Jet Crash
By Edward Walsh and William Claiborne
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, October 26, 1999; Page A1
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/natio...t99/crash26.htm



9/11 commission Richard Myers interview (2004) makes reference to stewart crash:
http://media.nara.gov/9-11/MFR/t-0148-911MFR-00751.pdf

Only a fool would NOT don the crew oxygen mask if the aural cabin altitude warning sounded. Put it on first, worry about the details next.

Going back a year or 2, it seems to me the Wikipedia version of the Stewart intercept was edited to support the notion that the intercept took a long time. When this incident happened, I calculated the times involved by converting all times to GMT, and that showed that the initial intercept was quite fast.

Years later, it appears that they changed the local times to make it appear the intercept took a long time.

Modern problems? It's why I don't trust Wikipedia that much.