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DISAPPEARANCE OF AN AIRPLANE On Tuesday, 11 September 2001 at 8:55 am, an airliner of the American Airlines company disappeared with sixty-four people on board. Forty-two minutes later, at 9:37 am, the defense headquarters of the United States was struck by a flying vehicle. During the day, these two events were associated: American Airlines flight 77 is said to have crashed into the Pentagon. This version of events appears to be logical. However, when one traces back to the sources of the various items of "information" disseminated about these two events, one finds that one has no means of crosschecking them. Indeed, in tracing the threads of all the available information, one inevitably comes across one single source: the military. A plane takes off Information about the hijacking of the American Airlines plane linking Dulles airport in Washington to Los Angeles was not released until 10:32 am, an hour after the attack on the Pentagon, by the ABC television network. [1] No one thought at that point that this plane had crashed at the Pentagon. Ten minutes later, Fox TV claimed in fact that the Department of Defense had been struck by a US Air Force flight. It would be another hour before the airline company confirmed the disappearance of flight 77. American Airlines announced at 11:38 am that it had lost two airliners transporting a total of 156 persons. One connected Washington to Los Angeles, and the other Boston to LA. [2] At 1:10 pm, it distributed lists of the passengers and crew members. [3] The civilian air traffic controllers thought that a crash had occurred involving the plane that had taken off at 8:20 am. At 8:50, the pilot had his last routine communication with the control tower and, "at 9:09 am, being unable to reach the plane by radar, the Indianapolis air controllers warned of a possible crash", the Washington Post reported. [4] The terrorists, Vice-President Dick Cheney would later explain, "turned off the transponder, which led to a later report that a plane had gone down over Ohio, but it really hadn't." [5] On 12 September, it was learned that the transponder had been cut off at about 8:55 am, rendering the plane invisible to civilian air controllers who did not dispose of radars capable of picking it up in this region. The plane is said to have made a U-turn back to Washington. The source of this information is generally understood to be the civilian agency responsible for air traffic control (the Federal Aviation Authority -- FAA). But the FAA could not have known that the plane turned back since it had become, by the agency's own admission, invisible to its eyes, having cut off the transponder. The "information" concerning the U-turn carried out by flight AA 77 has thus no known source. But why did the hijackers "cut off the transponder" of the aircraft, as we are told ingenuously? This operation is not only unusual during a plane hijacking: it's unheard-of. Rendering the plane's transponder inoperative is in fact the best way of raising an alert. The procedures are very strict in the case of a problem with a transponder, both on the civilian side and the military. The FAA's regulations describe exactly how to proceed when a transponder is not functioning properly: the control tower should enter into radio contact at once with the pilot and, if it fails, immediately warn the military who would then send fighters to establish visual contact with the crew. [6] But the interruption of a transponder also directly sets off an alert with the military body responsible for the air defenses of the United States and Canada, the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD). The transponder is the plane's identity card. An aircraft that does not dispose of this identification is immediately monitored. "If an object has not been identified in less than two minutes or appears suspect, it is considered to be an eventual threat," officials explain. "Unidentified planes, planes in distress and planes we suspect are being used for illegal activities can then be intercepted by a fighter from NORAD." [7] The interception of airplanes was part of the "routine", added a spokesman of this organization. [8] According to the official version, the pirates thus gave the alert themselves by cutting off the Boeing's transponder forty minutes before they struck the Pentagon. No one has been capable of explaining the reasons for this curious tactic. The interruption of a transponder can eventually produce another effect beyond setting off alarms: it renders the plane invisible to civilian air controllers. In certain regions, these controllers do have radars, called "primaries", that are able to detect air movements. The radars they normally use are called "secondaries" and limit themselves to recording the signals emitted by the transponders of airplanes (registration, altitude, etc.). Cutting off the transponder thus permits one to vanish from these "secondary" radars, and only appear on the primary ones. According to the FAA, the air controllers did not have access to primary radars in Ohio. [9] That's why the plane totally disappeared from their screens. Why then deactivate the aircraft's transponder? To set off an alert or to make the plane invisible to civilians alone? From the moment flight AA 77 disappeared, officially at around 8:55 am, all information about it comes exclusively from military sources. The FBI even ordered the civil aviation authorities not to divulge any information concerning this plane. "Details about who was on flight 77, when it took off and what happened on board were tightly held by airline, airport and security officials last night," the Washington Post explained. "All said that the FBI had asked them not to divulge details." [10] From civilian sources we thus know very few things: an American Airlines plane took off from Dulles airport in Washington at 8:20 am bound for Los Angeles on the other side of the country. The last radio contact with the pilot took place at 8:50. The air traffic controllers lost all contact with the aircraft before 9:09, the time when they raised the alert of a possible crash. From military sources, we learn all the rest: the air traffic controllers had lost radar contact with the plane, because its transponder was turned off at 8:55. Out of their sight, the plane turned around and finally plunged into the Pentagon, a few miles from its point of departure, one hour and seventeen minutes later, after having traveled nearly 600 miles. Yet, nothing indicated at the start that an eventual link existed between the vehicle that struck the Pentagon and flight AA77. The attack on the Pentagon: plane, helicopter or bomb? Nearly three-quarters of an hour after the crashes of two planes into the World Trade Center in New York, the federal capital, Washington, was also hit. A first attack seems to have taken place in an annex of the White House, the Old Executive Office Building. At 9:42 am, the ABC television network showed pictures of thick smoke coming out of this US presidential building. These furtive pictures were soon forgotten, eclipsed two minutes later by the announcement of a second fire, this time at the American defense headquarters, the Pentagon. The information released at the time by the television networks and press agencies was contradictory. For some, the fire was caused by a booby-trapped vehicle, others believed it was another plane hijacking, and a third group announced a helicopter crash. Shortly before 10 am, the first press release from the Department of Defense mentions an "attack" but does not give details as to its nature. [11] At the White House, the situation was not any clearer. In the first hours, the National Security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, only knew that "something" had struck the Pentagon. "It was pretty remarkable in those first few hours, coming out of the Situation Room. We had just heard that there was a second plane [that flew] into the World Trade Tower. And coming out, we heard something had hit the Pentagon and that something was likely headed for the White House." [12] Vice President Cheney was not better informed. He explained that "the first reports on the Pentagon attack suggested a helicopter and then later a private jet." [13] The first to speak of an airplane was the Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld. Just after the attack, he left his office to observe the damage. "When he came back in the building about half an hour later," his assistant, Victoria Clarke said, "he was the first one that told us he was quite sure it was a plane. Based on the wreckage and based on the thousands and thousands of pieces of metal. He was the one that told us, the staff that was in the room. So he was really the first one who told us that it was most likely a plane." [14] Strange. The highest political leaders of the land are placed under shelter in protected chambers, like Condoleezza Rice and Dick Cheney, who were taken to the underground bunker of the White House. The American defense headquarters is attacked without anyone being able to say how it happened. The situation is confusing, and dangerous. Yet the Secretary of Defense goes outside immediately after the attack to inspect the damage and explain that it's an airplane that crashed into the Pentagon. The information service of the armed forces rapidly lets it be known, on the Pentagon's Web site, that was a "commercial airliner, possibly hijacked." [15] But during the first official press conference at the Department of Defense, the spokesman for the Navy, Rear Admiral Craig Quigley, said he did not have information concerning what was termed the "allegedly hijacked commercial aircraft." [16] In the afternoon, the connection with American Airlines flight 77 was suggested to the press by anonymous military personnel. This "information" then spread among the media like a rumor. Only the Los Angeles Times specified its sources: it reported that officials "speaking under the condition of anonymity" explained to journalists that the Pentagon had been hit by flight 77. [17] However, no civilian source came to confirm these off-the-record remarks by the military. The air traffic controllers at Dulles airport in Washington disposed of primary radars but could only state that they had picked up an unidentified aircraft flying at high speed towards the capital." The first Dulles controller noticed the fast-moving plane at 9:25 a.m. Moments later, controllers sounded an alert that an aircraft appeared to be headed directly toward the White House." [18] One of them, Danielle O'Brien, then explained that, "The speed, the maneuverability, the way that he turned, we all thought in the radar room, all of us experienced air traffic controllers, that that was a military plane." [19] These civilian sources thus confirmed that an unidentified aircraft, flying at high speed and with great maneuverability was headed for Washington. But on the other hand, they didn't say that it was a Boeing 757-200 and still less that it belonged to the American Airlines company. On the contrary, they thought it was a military aircraft. It was therefore neither the civilian air traffic controllers nor the airline company that identified this vehicle as being flight AA 77. The identification of the aircraft was made entirely by the army. Once again, the sole source is military. Official testimony On 12 September, however, a civilian source did seem to come forward to confirm the vision of military officials. It was learned that Barbara Olsen, former federal prosecutor and star commentator on CNN during Bill Clinton's impeachment proceedings, was in the plane and contacted her husband, Theodore, twice in the moments before the attack on the Pentagon. The testimony is succinct, but it confirms that the plane was hijacked and had not crashed in Ohio as the air traffic controllers initially believed. This testimony nevertheless requires caution. In the first place, it's third-hand testimony: it was not initially reported by the person who received it, but by a friend of the family and CNN journalist, Tim O'Brien. The latter reported what Theodore Olson said his wife had told him. Secondly, Theodore Olson, Solicitor General of the United States, is very close to the Bush administration, of which he constitutes an essential support each time a major legal difficulty arises. For example, it was he who pleaded George W. Bush's cause when the Supreme Court had to rule on the Presidential elections of 2000. It was again he who defended Vice President Cheney over refusing to transmit documents to Congress in the investigation of the Enron scandal. And Mr. Olson himself declared before the Supreme Court of the United States that, "It is easy to imagine an infinite number of situations ... where government officials might quite legitimately have reasons to give false information out." [20] Many people have interpreted this testimony as being a confirmation of the crash of flight AA 77 at the Pentagon. However, nothing in Barbara Olson's words permit such conclusions to be drawn. The testimony is cited a first time in an article by Tim O'Brien published on CNN's Internet site, on 12 September at 2:06 am. One only learns from this that the plane was hijacked and the pirates were armed with cutters: "Barbara Olson, a conservative commentator and attorney, alerted her husband, Solicitor General Ted Olson, that the plane she was on was being hijacked Tuesday morning, Ted Olson told CNN. [...] Her husband said she called him twice on a cell phone from American Airlines Flight 77, which was en route from Washington Dulles International Airport to Los Angeles. [...] Ted Olson old CNN that his wife said all passengers and flight personnel, including the pilots, were herded to the back of the plane by armed hijackers. The only weapons she mentioned were knives and cardboard cutters. [...] She felt nobody was in charge and asked her husband to tell the pilot what to do." [21] Barbara Olson's testimony was reported a second time in the Washington Post of 12 September 2001. One didn't learn anything new, except that she hadn't given any details as to the identity or number of hijackers: "Her last words to him were, 'What do I tell the pilot to do?' [...] 'She called from the plane while it was being hijacked,' Theodore Olson said. 'I wish it wasn't so, but it is.' [...] The two conversations each lasted about a minute, said Tim O'Brien, a CNN reporter and friend of the Olsons. In the first call, Barbara Olson told her husband, 'Our plane is being hijacked.' She described how hijackers forced passengers and the flight's pilot to the rear of the aircraft. She said nothing about the number of hijackers or their nationality. [...] Olson's first call was cut off, and her husband immediately called the Justice Department's command center, where he was told officials knew nothing about the Flight 77 hijacking. [...] Moments later, his wife called again. And again, she wanted to know, 'What should I tell the pilot?' 'She was composed, as composed as you can be under the circumstances,' O'Brien said. [...] But her second call was cut off, too." [22] Six months later, on 5 March 2002, Theodore Olson himself quoted his wife's words in a British newspaper, the Family Telegraph. He was watching the attacks on the World Trade Center when his wife phoned. "Someone rushed in and told me what had happened. I went into the other room, where there's a television," Olson says. "It went through my mind, "My God, maybe -- Barbara's on an airplane, and two airplanes have been crashed," you know.' Then his secretary told him that Barbara was on the line.' My first reaction when I heard she was on the phone was relief, because I knew that she wasn't on one of those two airplanes.' But Barbara then explained calmly that she had been herded to he back of the Boeing 757 she was on, along with the other passengers. 'She had had trouble getting through, because she wasn't using her cellphone, she was using the phone in the passengers' seats,' says Olson. 'I guess she didn't have her purse, because she was calling collect, and she was trying to get through to the Department of Justice, which is never very easy.' He was able to tell her about the World Trade Center attacks before the line went dead, then he called his departmental command center to let them know another plane had been hijacked. The phone rang again and it was Barbara. 'She wanted to know, "What can I tell the pilot? What can I do? How can I stop this?" I tried to find out where she thought she was -- I wanted to know where the airplane was and what direction it was going in, because I thought that was the first step to being able to do something. We both tried to reassure one another that everything was going to be OK, she was still alive, the plane was still up in the air. But I think she knew that it wasn't going to be OK and I knew it wasn't going to be OK.' They were able to have "personal exchanges", he says, before they were cut off in mid-conversation. 'It just stopped. It could be the impact, although I think she would have ... There's no point in speculating.' As soon as he heard a plane had crashed at the Pentagon, he says, 'I knew it was her'." [23] This new version is more precise, but one still doesn't know where the plane was. Theodore Olson explained that he wanted to know "where the airplane was and what direction it was going in". It is possible to suppose that the plane in which Barbara found herself crashed into the Pentagon. It nevertheless remains a supposition. Her husband is convinced of it, but nothing in the testimony that he received points to that. Barbara Olson only indicated one thing: at 8:55 am, the plane had not crashed but had been hijacked. This source thus does not confirm that flight AA 77 was headed for the federal capital, as the army claims. * * * The Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, was the first to declare that a plane had crashed into the Pentagon. Later, military officials told us with greater details the presumed history of flight AA 77. But the army is the sole source that we have. The civilian sources tell us something else: according to the control tower in Indianapolis, the plane and its sixty-four passengers and crew members vanished shortly before 9 am. It seems, according an indirect testimony, that the Boeing hadn't crashed, but had been hijacked. Other than that, at 9:25 am an unidentified aircraft whose speed and maneuverability made the air traffic controllers think of a "military plane" was headed for Washington and struck the Department of Defense. Can one affirm that it was in fact American Airlines flight 77 that hit the Pentagon? Only if one has blind faith in the army of the United States of America. _______________ 1. 'Minute by Minute with the Broadcast News', Pointer.org, 11 September 2001: http://www.poynter.org/Terrorism/Jill1.htm 2. 'Le recit d'un jour terrible' [The Account of a Terrible Day], Le Temps, 12 September 2001: http://www.letemps.ch/dossiers/dossiersarticle.asp?ID=72852 3. The lists released by Associated Press seem to be incomplete (of the 64 persons said to be aboard flight 77, only 58 names are listed). See notably on the Washington Post website: http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A18970-2001Sep12 4. 'Pentagon Crash Highlights a Radar Gap', Washington Post, 3 November 2001 5. Interview of Dick Cheney in' Meet the Press' television broadcast, NBC, 16 September 2001. Transcript in Appendix to 9/11 -- The Big Lie. 6. See FAA regulations: http://faa.gov/ATpubs. And notably those concerning the hijacking of a plane and military operations: http://faa.gov/ATpubs/MIL 7. 'NORAD: Unejournee de mission' [NORAD: A Day's Mission],
Web site of the National Defence of Canada: 8. 'Facing Terror Attack's Aftermath: Otis Fighter Jets Scrambled Too Late to Halt the Attacks', Boston Globe, 15 September 2001, page A1: http://www.boston.com/news/packages/underattack/pdf/091501.pdf 9. See notably 'Pentagon Crash Highlights a Radar Gap', op cit. 10. 'On Flight 77: Our Plane Is Being Hijacked', Washington Post, 12 September 2001: http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A14365-2001Sep11 11. This press release was removed from the DoD website, but can be
consulted on that of the University of Yale: 12. 'Rice gained first-hand experience when front line of terror closed in', Chicago Tribune, 14 September 2001: http://www.chicagotribune.com/templates/misc/printstory.jsp?slug=chi%2D0109140367sep14 13. 'Jets Had Bush OK to Down Airliners " Los Angeles Times, 17 September 2001: http://www.latimes.com/templates/misc/printstory.jsp?slug=la%2DO91701shoot 14. Interview with Victoria Clarke, WBZ Boston Saturday, 15 September 2001: http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Sep2001/t09162001_t0915wbz.html 15. 'Alleged Terrorist Airliner Attack Targets Pentagon', American Forces Information Service, Defense Link, DoD, 11 September 2001: http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Sep2001/n09112001_200109111.html 16. 'DoD Official Provides Briefing After Pentagon Attack', American Forces Information Service, Defense Link, DoD,
11 17. 'Hijacked Jets Fly into Trade Center, Pentagon', Los Angeles Times, 11 September 2001: http://www.latimes.com/templates/misc/printstory.jsp?slug=la%2DO91101leadall 18. 'Pentagon Crash Highlights a Radar Gap', Washington Post, op cit. 19. 'Get These Planes on the Ground', ABCNews, 24 October 2001: 20. 'This president thinks our ignorance is bliss., Yahoo! News, 22
March 2001: 21. 'Wife of Solicitor General alerted him of hijacking from plane', by
Tim O'Brien, CNN, 12 September 2001: 22. 'On Flight 77: "Our Plane Is Being Hijacked"', Washington Post,
12 September 2001: 23. 'She asked me how to stop the plane', Family Telegraph, 5 March
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