9/11 Commission Overlooks the Failures of NORAD
Adam Krause
Contributing columnist
As President Bush is busy trying to get re-elected this fall, we find that the White House is largely focused on digging up dirt about the opponent than solving the problems which allowed 9/11 to occur. The 9/11 Commission, which was largely appointed by Bush, is working to find out whether or not the government had enough information to have prevented the attacks; unfortunately, most average people accept this as a good enough effort. Well, it’s not, for the commission has thus far failed to address other discrepancies in our domestic defense systems.
There exist fail safes in this country which keep not only our borders, but our airspace safe. Our citizens should be made aware that there is a military complex by the name of NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command), located inside of Cheyenne Mountain, outside of Colorado Springs, Colorado. According to NORAD’s Web site, ". . .Thousands of U.S. and Canadian military members have worked side-by-side in both countries for more than 40 years to protect North America against an aerospace attack.(http://www.norad.mil/index.cfm?fuseaction=home.who_we_are)" Apparently, this 40 years of experience failed on 9/11, and it is an issue that has been largely avoided by the President and his 9/11 Commission.
Oddly enough, one of NORAD’s observation centers is located in Rome, New York; the fact that New York City was the first location to be hit by the terrorist attack shows that either our defense systems are incredibly inferior, or it shows a lack of interest or priority on the situation. Combined with the capabilities of the other eight observation centers(four of them within 1,000 miles of New York City.), there is no feasible reason why these planes should not have been noticed.
Although our aerospace surveillance may not have been able to easily prevent the first attack on the World Trade Center--or even the second--there remains a gap in logic in regards to not only NORAD, but with ATC(Air Traffic Control). According the FAA Order 7110, "When you observe a Mode 3/A Code 7500, an unexplained loss of beacon code, change in direction of flight or altitude, and/or a loss of communications, notify supervisory personnel immediately.(http://www.faa.gov/ATpubs/ATC/Chp10/atc1002.html)
At 8:25 AM, Boston air traffic controllers reported that Flight 11 had been hijacked to other ATC centers, but they failed to report the hijacking to NORAD. Although NORAD wasn’t contacted until approximately 8:45, the air traffic controllers responsible for Flights 77 and 93 knew about the hijackings of Flights 11 and 175, due to the fact that NEADS(Northeast Air Defense Sector) was listening in to the ATC’s radio.
Therefore, NORAD didn’t have to be notified directly by the ATC in Boston, because they would have already known of the hijacking from NEADS. If NORAD had no way of being informed by NEADS, then that is a problem in the system which needs to be addressed by the 9/11 Commission. It is more likely that those responsible for passing on this information failed to take it seriously until the planes had actually slammed into the Twin Towers. By the time Flights 11 and 175 had crashed, there would have been ample reason to be on the lookout for suspicious behavior with other planes in the skies.
While the first two hijacked planes had already crashed by 9:06 AM, Flight 77--which took of from Washington, D.C.--would not crash into the Pentagon for another 32 minutes. At around 8:50, the radio contact is lost with Flight 77, which according to FAA regulations, would warrant the Air Force scrambling jets to investigate. This was not done in a timely manner, and in fact no jets were ever in pursuit of Flight 77, even though Washington D.C. is situated near several military installations, namely Andrews Air Force Base. NORAD was supposedly not notified until 9:24, even though the loss of radio contact with Flight 77 at 8:50 would have indicated an emergency situation.
If the loss of radio contact with Flight 77 was not enough of an indicator, then one can look at the fact that Flight 77 was in the air for nearly an hour before it hit the Pentagon. In that period of time, the airplane flew out as far as Kentucky, making several erratic course changes before turning around and heading back to Washington, D.C. In that period, jets scrambled could have easily made it to Washington, D.C. airspace, which is approximately 10 miles away.
To top it off, the plane’s transponder was shut off minutes before 9:00 AM. Loss of a transponder signal is also grounds for scrambling jets to investigate, according to FAA regulations; either ATC or NORAD is responsible for ignoring these emergency regulations in three cases. To add insult to injury, ATC should have been on the lookout for other hijacked planes after the Twin Towers were hit.
As for Flight 93, there were reports made at around 9:24 that the plane may have been hijacked. Jets were never scrambled to intercept it, and it later crashed into the ground in Pennsylvania, killing only those on board. If the three previous crashes hadn’t tipped off ATC or NORAD, then it is hard to imagine how much more evidence they would have required to intercept the last flight. This shows how bureaucracy which exists in all levels of government sometimes proves to be more of a hassle than anything.
It is an insult to the American public--as well as to the United States Air Force--to say that our aerospace defense systems had no way of noticing the erratic flight patterns of the hijacked planes on 9/11. Add into the mix the loss of radio contact and transponder signals, it is hard to imagine that any air traffic controller with a sense of duty and basic logic would not have noticed anything strange.
It is hard to say which is more frustrating: having the 9/11 Commission overlook the failures of ATC, NORAD, and the Air Force, or for the government to try and convince the American public that they had no way of preventing any of the attacks. While President Bush may not have been able to do much himself, his lack of sincerity and effort to truly investigate and fix our failures is something to be seriously considered when you’re at the election booth this November.
Source of timeline information:
http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/timeline.jsp?timeline=complete_911_timeline&day_of_911=aa77