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9/11
See other 9/11 Articles

Title: Flight 77 Cockpit Door Never Opened During 9/11 “Hijack”
Source: Rock Creek Free Press
URL Source: http://rockcreekfreepress.tumblr.com/post/285492999/flt77fdr
Published: Dec 15, 2009
Author: Sheila Casey
Post Date: 2010-07-14 02:07:35 by FormerLurker
Ping List: *9-11*     Subscribe to *9-11*
Keywords: Flight 77, 9/11, Black Box
Views: 28619
Comments: 913


Flight 77 Cockpit Door Never Opened During 9/11 “Hijack"


Flight Data Recorder By Sheila Casey / Rock Creek Free Press

Pilots for 9/11 Truth has reported that the data stream from the flight data recorder (FDR) for American Airlines flight 77, which allegedly struck the Pentagon on 9/11, shows that the cockpit door never opened during the entire 90 minute flight. The data was provided by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), which has refused to comment.

The FDR is one of two “black boxes” in every commercial airliner, which are used after accidents to help determine the cause of a crash. One black box records flight data, the other records voice data (everything said in the cockpit during the flight). With those two sets of data, NTSB investigators can usually piece together the events that led to a crash. The status of the door to the cockpit is checked every four seconds throughout a flight and relayed as a simple 0 or 1, where 0=closed and 1=open, with approximately 1,300 door status checks performed during AA77’s 90 minute flight. Every one of those door status checks shows as a 0, indicating that the door to the cockpit never opened during the entire flight.

Accident investigators monitor the cockpit door with the FDR because it may yield clues to pilot error in a crash. The FDR begins recording once the pilots are in their seats and readying for takeoff, and the plane cannot take off unless the FDR is working.

The official story about flight 77 is that five Muslim terrorists brandishing box cutters forced their way into the cockpit and herded two pilots, four flight attendants and all the passengers to the back of the plane. This story came into being via Ted Olson, US Solicitor General, who told CNN — that he received two phone calls from his wife Barbara Olson, a passenger on the doomed flight. Ted Olson’s story changed several times. Sometimes he claimed that the calls from his wife were made from seat back phones, other times that she used her cell phone.

According to American Airlines customer service, the American Airlines maintenance manual for that aircraft, and American Airlines Captain Ralph Kolstad, seatback phones on 757s had been deactivated prior to 9/11/01. (They were later removed entirely, as they never worked well.)

Barbara Olson couldn’t have used a cell phone either: numerous 9/11 researchers, most notably David Ray Griffin, have pointed out that cell phones did not work on airplanes on 9/11. The speed and altitude of a commercial airliner both present overwhelming obstacles to a cell phone’s need to lock onto a cell tower and then hand off to another tower in a new location.

It was the FBI that revealed the evidence that decisively disproves Ted Olson’s story. In the Zacarias Moussaoui trial in 2006, the FBI presented a report on the cell phone calls from all four 9/11 flights. Their report on AA77 shows that there was only one phone call from Barbara Olson, but that it was an unconnected call lasting zero seconds. So Ted Olson either lied about receiving calls from his wife or was deceived into believing he received calls from her.

According to the UK Telegraph, Barbara Olson delayed her flight on 9/11 so that she could have breakfast with her husband on his birthday. That delay put her on the doomed flight. Ted Olson remarried in 2006 to tax attorney Lady Booth, whom he reportedly met the year after Barbara died.

There are numerous oddities and contradictions about AA77’s black boxes.

The government claims that the voice data recorder was damaged during the crash and that no usable data was retrieved from it. If true, this would be the first time in aviation history that a solid-state data recorder was destroyed during a crash.

While it was widely reported in the media that the FDR for AA77 was found at 4 am on September 14, 2001, the file containing the FDR data was dated over four hours earlier. In other words, we are asked to believe that the data from the FDR was downloaded prior to the FDR being found.

Researcher Aidan Monagahan has established that the NTSB does not have either serial or part numbers for the FDRs from AA77. The NTSB’s own handbook indicates that the part number and serial number of the FDR are required for data readout of the FDR. The NTSB did not have this information, giving us another reason to question how the FDR data was created.

Structural engineer Allyn Kilsheimer claimed that he personally found AA77’s black box on 9/11. But in the Popular Mechanics book Debunking 9/11 Myths, Kilsheimer is quoted as saying, “I stood on a pile of debris that we later found contained the black box 70;”

Kilsheimer’s story changes again in August 2007 in a piece done by the History Channel, “The 9/11 Conspiracies,” where he claims “I tripped over something; it was the black box.”

In earlier work, Pilots for 9/11 Truth (P4T) has determined that the same data set provided by the NTSB shows the plane too high to hit the Pentagon, based on an altimeter that uses air pressure to calibrate altitude.

As reported in the April 2009 Rock Creek Free Press, Citizen Investigation Team, citizen journalists from southern California, has collected evidence from 14 eyewitnesses that shows that the plane seen that morning near the Pentagon did not hit the building, but flew over it at the moment explosives detonated in the Pentagon, leading observers to conclude that the plane had crashed into the Pentagon.

Questions about what happened at the Pentagon have intrigued 9/11 researchers for years, beginning with photos from the alleged crash scene which do not show the wreckage of a plane.

This new evidence, showing that the cockpit door never opened during flight, is another nail in the coffin of the official story about flight 77. Clearly, if the cockpit door never opened, then hijackers did not storm the cockpit and herd the pilots to the back of the plane. The data, which originated from the government, does not support the government’s story.

Why would the government release data which contradicts its own version of events? It is possible they were just sloppy, or that they never anticipated that anyone would parse the data as carefully as Pilots for 9/11 Truth have. They may have also felt secure, that regardless of what damning revelations were contained in the FDR data, no mainstream media outlet would give them ink or air time, keeping the official story intact for the vast majority of Americans who receive their news from mainstream sources.

Rob Balsamo, founder of Pilots for 9/11 Truth, stated: “We have not located any independently verified data which confirms the government’s story. The FBI and NTSB refuse to comment.” Founded in August 2006, Pilots For 9/11 Truth is an organization of aviation professionals from around the globe who are investigating the government’s claims about the attacks of 9/11.

Sheila Casey is a DC based journalist. Her work has appeared in The Denver Post, Reuters, Chicago Sun-Times, Dissident Voice and Common Dreams.


Poster Comment: Here's a link to the Pilots for 9/11 Truth articles on the matter. 9/11: PENTAGON AIRCRAFT HIJACK IMPOSSIBLE (1 image)

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Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 250.

#18. To: All (#0)

Did you know that the cockpit door was NOT opened during all of Flight 77's doomed flight?

Flight 77 Cockpit Door Never Opened During 9/11 “Hijack”

Once again a CT site fails to report all the information, holding back full disclosure of facts that will fail to support wild non-hijacking theories. Thereby serving as an instigator for conflict between Six Percenters hardliners and the much larger "certain elements within USG allowed 911 to happen" group.

The flight data recorder was at least partially melted, and not only did not indicate any movement of Flight 75's cabin door on September 11, it also did not show any movement for 40 hours and 11 flights prior to Flight 75 on September 11.

Why aren't the CT sites saying this?

This information was submitted as evidence at the Massoui trial in Virginia.

Why aren't the weasely "Scholars" and "Truthers" disclosing it?

American Airlines Flight 77

The NTSB reported that "The majority of the recording tape was fused into a solid block of charred plastic." No usable segments of tape were found inside the recorder.[85]

The Flight Data Recorder failed to record certain parameters with certainty. Among the uncertain parameters was the status of the cockpit door, which showed no sign of having been opened during the hijacking or previous 40 hours, including 11 flights prior to the hijacking."

AGAviator  posted on  2010-07-14   11:00:30 ET  (1 image) Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#21. To: AGAviator (#18)

Isn't it just so awful that all these intelligent and well educated people refuse to believe the gubbermint and insist on forming conclusions based on the evidence.

Of course you are paid to try and explain all the evidence away as something else. What's your back up career? Guard in a Snuff Camp?

Original_Intent  posted on  2010-07-14   14:07:12 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#39. To: Original_Intent, buckeroo, turtle, x-15, christine (#21) (Edited)

Isn't it just so awful that all these intelligent and well educated people refuse to believe the gubbermint and insist on forming conclusions based on the evidence.

Of course you are paid to try and explain all the evidence away as something else. What's your back up career? Guard in a Snuff Camp?

On these exchanges you've been slowly but inexorably exposing yourself as a pompous windbag, devoid of real research skills or ability to analyze complex information, devoid of ability to consider additional information that upends existing rigidly held beliefs, a self-righteous ideologue unwilling to focus on common factors, and a codependent with the whatever "evil government" is the cornerstone of all your k00ky, $hitbrain, long-debunked beliefs that 94% of the country rejects out of hand.

What evidence, fuckwit?

The false claim was made that the doors to the cabin did not open, based on amateur cherry-picking of government reports and pointedly excluding statements that don't support k00k blather.

The doors were not reported opened on damaged recording equipment does not equal the doors not opening at all. Especially when there is zero evidence doors opening on 11 flights and 40 hours previous to 911. The doors did open and close. The information on their opening and closing, along with certain other information, could not be recovered from seriously damaged equipment.

So what does that make you? A classic divisive "False Front Operator" focused on turmoil and strife instead of workable solutions. Just like 1917 commie double agents who accused everyone they couldn't control of being counter- revolutionary conspirators. Not that you'll ever become that important.

Once again, fool. As brainless as certain elements in the USG are, even they won't pay good money to attempt to divert dissenters from hare-brained k00kologies that less than 94% of the population accepts anyway.

I'm here because I have a little extra time on my hands, and I hate liars, k00k groupthink, and people who think they can shout me down with recycled lame accusations, and windy off-topic dissertations.

You've been rebutted above with complete info about how the false info about Flight 77 cabin doors not being opened, comes from k00kigarchs' dishonest selective quoting of reports, and incompetent failure to completely do research. So now all you have left is your dickless insults and your crackpot "I'm important enough that 'they' need to pay someone to post to me.'"

No, idiot. You're just a target for my debunking skills. On every exchange you've been rebutted with specific facts, and you then reply with stale recycled insults.

You're pwned and terminal case loser.

So what's left? Not willing to shut your pompous utterances, you go to hyperbole, mocking, gaybanter, scatology, and accusations of being paid by "them."

No loser. You're not worth spending money on and your arm-waving "great conspiracy" replies to specific factual rebuttals speak for themselves.

Anybody with an ounce of brains can see the entire WOT is a disaster that's headed toward spectacular failure. "They" got their war but can't manage it. But "they're" supposed to be so good at running operations they pulled off the mother of all conspiracies without a single defector, or single piece of forensic evidence, coming forth to spill the beans for 8 1/2 years running.

Enjoy your fantasy world "Useful Idiot."

AGAviator  posted on  2010-07-14   15:47:41 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#40. To: AGAviator, Original_Intent, buckeroo, turtle, x-15, christine (#39)

The false claim was made that the doors to the cabin did not open, based on amateur cherry-picking of government reports and pointedly excluding statements that don't support k00k blather.

The REAL k00k blather is coming from you, in that you're trying to pass off the damaged cockpit voice recorder from Flight 77 as the flight data recorder.

FormerLurker  posted on  2010-07-14   16:00:31 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#42. To: FormerLurker, turtle, buckeroo, X-15 (#40) (Edited)

you're trying to pass off the damaged cockpit voice recorder from Flight 77 as the flight data recorder.

Your original statement, Post #859 on other thread, was the cabin doors were not opened and closed during Flight 77.

This is a false k00ksite claim.

The facts are, no evidence is reported on crash-damaged equipment, of doors opening and closing for Flight 77, or of 40 hours and 11 flights previous to it. Which does not equal doors did not open or close at all.

Instead of acknowledging that error you shift the discussion to quibbling over voice reporters vs. flight data recorders, even though both were damaged and found at the same time, and neither shows any information about cabin doors to make your case.

AGAviator  posted on  2010-07-14   16:14:34 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#44. To: AGAviator, turtle, buckeroo, X-15, Original_Intent, christine, ALL (#42) (Edited)

Your original statement, Post #859 on other thread, was the cabin doors were not opened and closed during Flight 77.

You are a deceptive and dishonest individual. The article here states that researchers who are members of "Pilots for 9/11 Truth" have determined that the FDR data provided by the NTSB indicates that the cockpit door was NOT opened during the entire flight. That is NOT unusual, as the door normally remains closed during flight, except that it WOULD indicate that Flight 77 was NOT hijacked.

Secondly, and you need to get this through your thick skull, the fact is that the flight data recorder ONLY records data while the engines are running. Once the plane lands and the engines are shutdown between flights, the flight data recorder STOPS recording, so the fact that ALL of the flights recorded on the FDR indicate the door was closed is NOT unusual AT ALL, in fact it is to be expected.

This is a false k00ksite claim.

You engage in posting images with deceptive text in an effort to "debunk" what is reported here. YOU are the k00kaburger here bud, not any of the pilots at the Pilots for 9/11 Truth website.

The facts are, no evidence is reported on crash-damaged equipment, of doors opening and closing for Flight 77, or of 40 hours and 11 flights previous to it. Which does not equal doors did not open or close at all.

The FDR uses a MEMORY CHIP, and it was NOT "crash-damaged", in fact the NTSB itself reports that the FDR was working properly.

Instead of acknowledging that error you shift the discussion to quibbling over voice reporters vs. flight data recorders, even though both were damaged and found at the same time, and neither showed any information about cabin doors to make your case.

Again, you attempt to muddy the water and claim the damaged cockpit voice recorder TAPE is actually the UNDAMAGED solid state FLIGHT DATA RECORDER MEMORY MODULE, where the voice recorder simply records conversations in the cockpit onto tape, the FDR records AIRCRAFT PARAMETERS onto a memory module, and is contained in a crash proof box.

The BOX which CONTAINED the memory module had impact, smoke, and fire damage, but the MEMORY MODULE itself was intact and functional.

FormerLurker  posted on  2010-07-14   16:30:06 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#45. To: FormerLurker (#44)

You originally made the claim, quoting a half-baked Six Percenter k00ksite, that data shows Flight 77 cabin doors weren't opened or closed at all during its flight.

I rebutted that by showing flight reports citing unavailability of any information whatsoever about the cabin doors, which isn't the same as data that does exist and accurately shows the workings or non workings of cabin doors.

All your subsequent statements are attempts to evade acknowleging that in fact you have no basis to make your claims of supporting evidence for doors not opening. You are of course free to cite your usual bogeyman of eebil gubmint conspiracies and personal asides as part of your SOP smokescreen.

AGAviator  posted on  2010-07-14   16:41:47 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#46. To: AGAviator (#45)

You originally made the claim, quoting a half-baked Six Percenter k00ksite, that data shows Flight 77 cabin doors weren't opened or closed at all during its flight.

I have no idea what you mean by 6-percenter kooksite, other than the sources YOU use to base your claims. The individuals who operate the Pilots for 9/11 Truth website are aviation experts and airline pilots with decades of experience flying commerical aircraft.

YOU are the KOOK, not them.

The NTSB data indicates that the COCKPIT DOOR was NOT OPENED during Flight 77's entire flight leading to the Pentagon on 9/11, that is true.

I rebutted that by showing flight reports citing unavailability of any information whatsoever about the cabin doors, which isn't the same as data that does exist and accurately shows the workings or non workings of cabin doors.

Cockpit door status IS collected on 757's, and IS a valid parameter in regards to the Boing technical documentation. The door is SUPPOSED to be CLOSED during flight, which the FDR indicates IS in fact the case.

All your subsequent statements are attempts to evade acknowleging that in fact you have no basis to make your claims of supporting evidence for doors not opening. You are of course free to cite your usual bogeyman of eebil gubmint conspiracies and personal asides as part of your SOP smokescreen

You are a shillster, that much is obvious. C'mon, posting pictures of a damaged COCKPIT VOICE RECORDER and trying pass it off as the FLIGHT DATA RECORDER? Are you some low level worker they found on a H1-B visa or something?

FormerLurker  posted on  2010-07-14   16:50:42 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#48. To: FormerLurker (#46) (Edited)

The NTSB data indicates that the COCKPIT DOOR was NOT OPENED during Flight 77's entire flight leading to the Pentagon on 9/11, that is true.

False enough to be an outright lie after you've been pointed to the supporting reports 3 different times.

The NTSB report says there is "NO DATA AVAILABLE" for the cockpit doors or for 40 hours and 11 flights before the 911 flight 75.

C'mon, posting pictures of a damaged COCKPIT VOICE RECORDER and trying pass it off as the FLIGHT DATA RECORDER?

Again.

Both black boxes were recovered the same place, same time, seriously damaged.

Neither shows any evidence of cockpit activities. As in zero evidence.

You can't use the data from either device to claim the NTSB says the doors didn't open.

The NTSB says they don't have that data from either device, not that they have it, but it shows no activity.

CVR, FDR, or a combination are equally unable to support your k00kclaims.

AGAviator  posted on  2010-07-14   17:08:13 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#50. To: AGAviator (#48)

Neither shows any evidence of cockpit activities. As in zero evidence.

The cockpit voice recorder WAS damaged and unusable. The BOX THAT CONTAINED the FLIGHT DATA RECORDER was damaged, but the MEMORY MODULE stored WITHIN the BOX was NOT damaged.

The data within the MEMORY MODULE was PRESENTED by the NTSB as EVIDENCE of the aircraft's flight data and parameters.

FormerLurker  posted on  2010-07-14   17:16:03 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#54. To: FormerLurker (#50)

The data within the MEMORY MODULE was PRESENTED by the NTSB as EVIDENCE of the aircraft's flight data and parameters.

The NTSB listed specific exclusions from the data and parameters.

Two exclusions listed - there are others in addition - are any data whatsoever about either cabin door movement, or about cabin conversations.

On reports that you youself cut, pasted, and posted. Without comprehending.

Furthermore a Flight 11 stewardess did make a call after the hijackers entered the cabin and took over, giving names, seat numers, and descriptions of the attackers. The calls were recorded and transcripts are available. Yet another disbunking of the "cabin doors were never opened" lie.

You're illiterate.

AGAviator  posted on  2010-07-14   17:42:37 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#55. To: AGAviator (#54)

The NTSB listed specific exclusions from the data and parameters.

Did you truly think they would state that the parameter is confirmed, being that it would indicate the hijacking never took place?

The plane wouldn't have taken off if the sensor wasn't working, that is a safety measure programmed into the aircraft flight computers, where if there's a fault with the flight data recorder or any of its sensors, the aircraft will not be able to takeoff.

Two exclusions listed - there are others in addition - are any data whatsoever about either cabin door movement, or about cabin conversations.

As far as your habit of mixing apples with oranges, the cockpit voice recorder tape being damaged has nothing to do with the digital information stored on the flight recorder's memory module. It's obvious you're tap dancing here, sorry, but I'm not that easily amused or distracted.

Furthermore a Flight 11 stewardess did make a call after the hijackers entered the cabin and took over, giving names, seat numers, and descriptions of the attackers. The calls were recorded and transcripts are available. Yet another disbunking of the "cabin doors were never opened" lie.

The flight data indicates the door was NOT opened, and not only is the cockpit door opened by a switch INSIDE the cockpit, and the pilot a burly Navy vet who flew fighter jets in the Navy who would NOT have been overcome by a scrawny arab with a box cutter, and the fact that cell phone calls were next to impossible from an aircraft at cruising altitude in 2001, the fact remains that the supposed "hijacker", Hani Hanjour, couldn't even fly a Cessna, never mind a large heavy multi-engine jet.

Even the FBI has indicated that Ted Olzon's wife never spoke to her husband on her cellphone during the flight.

It's obvious that YOU are perpetrating a lie, and are part of the 9/11 coverup. You are in fact a traitor to this nation.

FormerLurker  posted on  2010-07-14   17:55:00 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#58. To: FormerLurker, buckeroo, turtle (#55) (Edited)

The flight data indicates the door was NOT opened, and not only is the cockpit door opened

A lie.

The NTSB flight data report says there is no information available for cabin doors on Flight 175 or 11 other flights going back 40 hours.

Furthermore a stewardess made a phone call during the hijacking after the hijackers entered the cabin and took over, giving names, seat numbers, physical descriptions, and summaries of conditions and injuries to passengers and crew.

Even the FBI has indicated that Ted Olzon's wife never spoke to her husband on her cellphone during the flight.

Another lie. There are over 30 phone calls from Flight 75 logged and listed. There are also phone calls from Flights 11, 175, and 77 logged and listed.

Some of the receivers of these calls presumed they were from cell phones when they actually were actually from on board satellite phones. Wow, what evidence of a conspiracy, calling a satellite phone a cell phone when you get incoming.

Ted Olson's wife calling her husband is one such logged call. Her husband says she called collect, presumably from a satellite phone he first identified as a cell phone - which could still make calls although with less than 100% service.

911 Conspiracy Theories

According to the 9/11 Commission Report, 13 passengers from Flight 93 made a total of over 30 calls to both family and emergency personnel (twenty-two confirmed air phone calls, two confirmed cell phone and eight not specified in the report).

According to Debunk911myths.org, all but two calls from Flight 93 were made on air phones, not cell phones, and both calls lasted about a minute before being dropped.[119]

Brenda Raney, Verizon Wireless spokesperson, said that Flight 93 was supported by several cell sites.[117]

There were reportedly three phone calls from Flight 11, five from Flight 175, and three calls from Flight 77. Two calls from these flights were recorded, placed by flight attendants Madeleine Sweeney and Betty Ong on Flight 11.

AGAviator  posted on  2010-07-14   19:51:32 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#69. To: AGAviator (#58)

Me: Even the FBI has indicated that Ted Olzon's wife never spoke to her husband on her cellphone during the flight.

You: Another lie.

At the Moussaoui trial, the fact that there was only 1 call to Ted Olson from his wife that lasted 0 seconds was presented.

FormerLurker  posted on  2010-07-14   20:44:04 ET  (1 image) Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#83. To: FormerLurker, buckeroo, turtle (#69)

At the Moussaoui trial, the fact that there was only 1 call to Ted Olson from his wife that lasted 0 seconds was presented

During the FBI investigation and press release phase, the terms "aircraft onboard phone" and "cell phone" were frequently interchanged. Like someone who gets an incoming cell call is going to instantly know what precise phone type it's coming from.

So there are the phone calls whether "onboard" or cell," and their recipients logged and documented. What conversations went on with those calls? How to continue executing the Mother of All Conspiracies without anybody finding out?

Phone Calls from the 9/11 Airliners ...by Prof David Ray Griffin

Having concluded that I had probably made an error, I wrote a retraction, entitled “Barbara Olson’s Alleged Call from AA 77: A Correction About Onboard Phones,” which was posted May 7, 2007.

Having said that my earlier claim that AA 757s did not have onboard phones was “wrong, at least probably,” I concluded this essay by saying: “In this brief essay, I have tried to exemplify what I have always said people should do when they find that they have made errors, especially about issues of great importance: Correct them quickly, forthrightly, and publicly,"

AGAviator  posted on  2010-07-14   21:53:40 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#84. To: AGAviator (#83)

Having said that my earlier claim that AA 757s did not have onboard phones was “wrong, at least probably

From Could Barbara Olson Have Made Those Calls?

The 757 Aircraft Maintenance Manual: Besides learning about and confirming this letter from Kinder, we also obtained another piece of evidence supporting the conclusion that passengers on AA 77 could not have used onboard phones. One of RB’s colleagues sent him a page from the Boeing 757 Aircraft Maintenance Manual (757 AMM) dated January 28, 2001. This page states that the passenger phone system for the AA 757 fleet had (by that date) been deactivated.24 According to the 757 AMM, in other words, the onboard phones had been deactivated at least seven and a half months prior to 9/11.

Futhermore...

United States v. Ted Olson

In the course of doing research for this article, we learned, to our amazement, that even if, contrary to our evidence, Flight 77 did have functioning onboard phones, the US government has now said, implicitly, that Ted Olson’s claim about receiving two calls from his wife that morning is untrue.

As we mentioned earlier, the FBI report on phone calls from AA planes on 9/11 does not cite records from the DOJ showing that any calls from AA 77 were received that morning. Instead, the FBI report refers merely to four “connected calls to unknown numbers.” The 9/11 Commission, putting the best possible spin on this report, commented: “The records available for the phone calls from American 77 do not allow for a determination of which of [these four calls] represent the two between Barbara and Ted Olson, although the FBI and DOJ believe that all four represent communications between Barbara Olson and her husband’s office.”27 That is, it must be said, a very strange conclusion: If Ted Olson reported receiving only two calls, why would the Commission conclude that the DOJ had received four connected calls from his wife?

That conclusion is, in any case, starkly contradicted by evidence about phone calls from Flight 77 presented by the US government at the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui in 2006.28 Far from attributing all four of the “connected calls to unknown numbers” to Barbara Olson, as the 9/11 Commission suggested, the government’s evidence here attributes none of them to her, saying instead that each of them was from an “unknown caller.” The only call attributed to Barbara Olson, moreover, is an “unconnected call” to the Department of Justice, which was said to have been attempted at “9:18:58” and to have lasted “0 seconds.” According to the US government in 2006, in other words, Barbara Olson attempted a call to the DOJ, but it did not go through.29 The government itself has presented evidence in a court of law, therefore, that implies that unless its former solicitor general was the victim of two faked phone calls, he was lying.

It may seem beyond belief that the US government would have failed to support Ted Olson’s claim. We ourselves, as we indicated, were amazed at this development. However, it would not be the first time that the FBI---surely the agency that prepared this report about phone calls from the flights30---had failed to support the official story about 9/11. We refer to the fact that when Rex Tomb, the FBI’s chief of investigative publicity, was asked why the bureau’s website on “Usama bin Laden” does not list 9/11 as one of the terrorist acts for which he is wanted, he replied: “[T]he FBI has no hard evidence connecting Bin Laden to 9/11.”31

FormerLurker  posted on  2010-07-14   22:12:20 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#106. To: FormerLurker, buckeroo, turtle (#84) (Edited)

“The records available for the phone calls from American 77 do not allow for a determination of which of [these four calls] represent the two between Barbara and Ted Olson, although the FBI and DOJ believe that all four represent communications between Barbara Olson and her husband’s office."

All this arm-waving about cell phones, is to try to obfuscate the voluminous evidence that Flight 11 was hijacked, both because the cabin security was breached and calls were logged and recorded, regardless of what amateurs selectively pick from research reports, and also because those calls describe the people doing the hijackings.

So you're left fighting a rear guard action while getting pushed back, your resistance consisting of deny, deny, deny without bringing anything new of your own to the discussion.

In other words, per k00kology, we now have 5 separate conspiracies for just 1 flight out of 4 on Sept 11 2001. And the other 3 flights have at least 5 more of their own conspiracies, making a total of 4 x 5 = 20 conspiracies that must be maintained at all costs.

(1) The conspiracy to send something other than Fight 77 to hit the Pentagon,
(2) The conspiracy to kill the people on Flight 77 some other way, then mis-identify their DNA remains,
(3) The conspiracy to scatter shredded and burnt 757 American parts over the Pentagon grounds and crash site, directly under the cameras of worldwide coverage without getting detected,
(4) The conspiracy to hide information showing the cabin and voice recorder data of Flight 77 is not available, and
(5) The conspiracy to generate ficticious onboard and cell phone logs and entries showing staff and passenger conversations during the hijackings.
And these 5 conspiracies for Flight 11, and the 20+ for all anti war hijacking issues and building destructions, must be maintained at all costs with no dissenting witnesses even among people classified as anti government.

And yet the same people who produce and manage 20+ stageshow presentations perfectly for 8 years, can't even get enough regular session funds to pay for the war they wanted and which they've made the longest and costliest in American history.

Riiight.

AGAviator  posted on  2010-07-15   1:52:09 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#107. To: AGAviator (#106)

All this arm-waving about cell phones, is to try to obfuscate the voluminous evidence that Flight 11 was hijacked, both because the cabin security was breached and calls were logged and recorded, regardless of what amateurs selectively pick from research reports, and also because those calls describe the people doing the hijackings.

PROVE that cabin security was breached. It's not impossible to fake phone calls, hell, I can set my caller ID to display any number I want. An intelligence agency with tons of money could utilize voice synthesis technology to make anyone's voice sound like somebody else's.

As far as Olson, it's clear as day that either somebody other than his wife called him, or he's lying.

FormerLurker  posted on  2010-07-15   1:58:13 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#108. To: FormerLurker (#107)

PROVE that cabin security was breached....An intelligence agency with tons of money could utilize voice synthesis technology to make anyone's voice sound like somebody else's.

Just how many conspiracies are you Six Percenters going to claim are being managed with zero defections, even though the war the conspiracies are supposed to be done for, is lurching towards stagnation, failure, and possibly even world wide defeat.

AGAviator  posted on  2010-07-15   2:04:29 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#128. To: AGAviator (#108)

even though the war the conspiracies are supposed to be done for, is lurching towards stagnation, failure, and possibly even world wide defeat.

huh? anyone here capable of translating this to English?

RickyJ  posted on  2010-07-15   2:40:02 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#131. To: RickyJ (#128)

(1) Just how many conspiracies are you Six Percenters going to claim are being managed with zero defections?
(2) Even though the war the conspiracies are supposed to be done for?
(3) Is lurching towards stagnation, failure, and possibly even world wide defeat.

Just a wee bit more complicated than mindlessly repeating "911 was an inside job, 911 was an inside job, 911 is an inside job" over and over.

AGAviator  posted on  2010-07-15   2:47:17 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#133. To: AGAviator (#131)

FormerLurker  posted on  2010-07-15   2:51:01 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#136. To: FormerLurker (#133)

AGAviator  posted on  2010-07-15   3:02:56 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#140. To: AGAviator (#136)

Seriously, still trying to debunk the controlled demolition of the towers? That is akin to debunking the laws of physics, good luck with that.

RickyJ  posted on  2010-07-15   3:10:31 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#167. To: RickyJ, AGAviator, FormerLurker (#140)

Seriously, still trying to debunk the controlled demolition of the towers? That is akin to debunking the laws of physics, good luck with that.

Oh, he'd do that too if his boss told him to. Suddenly Sir Isaac Newton would become a lazy crank who sat under a tree, was hit in the head with an apple of all things, and then thought it mean't something. Another typical "Conspiracy Theorist". A k00k. And what's with this rate of change stuff? A bunch of gobblydegook that he even had to invent his own mystic symbols to describe. And the Earth is flat "everybody can see that", and rocks don't fall from the sky either.

Original_Intent  posted on  2010-07-15   11:35:41 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#172. To: Original_Intent aka Original_Indent, buckeroo, turtle (#167) (Edited)

Seriously, still trying to debunk the controlled demolition of the towers? That is akin to debunking the laws of physics, good luck with that. Oh, he'd do that too if his boss told him to. Suddenly Sir Isaac Newton would become a lazy crank.

You flockwits are about as far as being from "Sir Isaac Newton" as you can get except for 1 factor - something did bounce off your noggins.

I cannot think of a greater exercise in Western civ denying reality and wasting time this side of the Middle Age superstitions.

On 911 we have

(1) A man who played an instrumental role in the guerilla fighting that eventually forced the communists to leave Afghanistan, saying he will do the same thing to the US as to the Russians, following through on his threats by destroying 2 US embassies and several US military facilities over the next decade. But somehow not playing any role in the 911 attacks, because he stayed in some bomb-resistant mountain bases after escaping several volleys of cruise missiles sent to his regular living places, and because briefly he denied being behind the attacks
(2) Four aircraft reporting hijackings, with 3 of them observed crashing into buildings by hundreds to thousands of observers, not playing any roles in building collapses happening within a few hours, which collapses were instead done by alternative methods,
(3) Major damage to other buildings from the crash debis that happened in New York City,
(4) The release of these 3 crashes of gigajoules of energy which somehow had no effect on the buildings, which are alleged to have been brought down by alternative totally unconnected and difficult to fully explain in detail methods,
(5) Firemen saying they will be "pulling" away from one crash damaged building because "the structural stability is not there,"
(6) Saying that dozens of phone calls recorded and recollected by people during the hijackings didn't ever happen, and
(7) Saying the people who got the remains from forensic DNA analysis didn't actually receive the bodies or body parts of people dying according to the detailed autopsy reports.
What a pantload to think that hijacked planes had no consequenes and expect people other than Six Percenters to believe!

AGAviator  posted on  2010-07-15   11:57:44 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#200. To: AGAviator, FormerLurker, wudidiz, critter, HOUNDDAWG, farmfriend, christine, all (#172)

Seriously, still trying to debunk the controlled demolition of the towers? That is akin to debunking the laws of physics, good luck with that. Oh, he'd do that too if his boss told him to. Suddenly Sir Isaac Newton would become a lazy crank.

You flockwits are about as far as being from "Sir Isaac Newton" as you can get except for 1 factor - something did bounce off your noggins.

I cannot think of a greater exercise in Western civ denying reality and wasting time this side of the Middle Age superstitions.

On 911 we have

(1) A man who played an instrumental role in the guerilla fighting that eventually forced the communists to leave Afghanistan, saying he will do the same thing to the US as to the Russians, following through on his threats by destroying 2 US embassies and several US military facilities over the next decade. But somehow not playing any role in the 911 attacks, because he stayed in some bomb-resistance mountain bases after escaping several volleys of cruise missiles sent to his regular living place and because briefly he denied being behind them (2) Four aircraft reporting hijackings, with 3 of them observed crashing into buildings by hundreds to thousands of observers, (3) Major damage to other buildings from the crashes that happened in New York City, (4) The release of these 3 crashes of gigajoules of energy which somehow had no effect on the buildings, which are alleged to have been brought down by alternative totally unconnected and difficult to fully explain in detail methods, (5) Firemen saying they will be "pulling" away from one crash damaged building because "the structural stability is not there," (6) Saying that dozens of phone calls recorded and recollected by people during the jijackings didn't ever happen, and (7) Saying the people who got the remains from forensic DNA analysis didn't actually receive the bodies or body parts of people dying according to the detailed autopsy reports.

What a pantload to expect people other than dingbat Six Percenters to believe!

Speaking of Pantloads how's the weather in Virginia today?

1. The fact that someone is hostile does not bequeath upon them magic powers to cause cover exercises to occur, the FBI to secure and sequester all of the 32 or so videotapes from sites around the Pentagon the afternoon of the attack (which 9 years later are still under lock and key), nor does it explain how that same CIA Contract Agent was able to shut down NORAD. Blowing Osama Ben Forgotten up into some mythical bogeyman does not vitiate obvious facts such as that the Air Traffic Controllers who watched this all unfold on their scopes are still under a gag order 9 years later.

2. None of the Aircraft reported a hijacking and to assert otherwise is simply a lie. None of the pilots or co-pilots (8 people on 4 aircraft) reported being hijacked or, very telling, sent the four digit hijack code which takes about 2 seconds to tap out. Once it is possible, twice is stretching it, but 4 out 4? I don't think so. These were highly trained ex-military pilots who were used to operating under deadly stress. That not 1 of them sent the code is preposterous UNLESS the avionics had been tampered with. That a madman in a cave in the vastness of far Tora Bora could do that on 4 aircraft would require a very sophisticated technical team and the logistics of which would make "Mission Impossible" look like a Cake Walk.

3. No one has maintained that the aircraft did not do damage to the buildings in New York. That is a Strawman Argument. However, there is no evidence which supports the stupid theory that 2 airplanes can make 3 buildings collapse in a manner identical to a controlled demolition. I know several implausible scenarios have been tried to force the evidence into that box, but for some strange reason it keeps squeezing out. Imagine that.

4. First a "Joule" is an extremely small amount of energy so even a gigajoule or two, while large, is only a fraction of the energy released in a nuclear explosion. For comparison a standard stick of dynamite releases 2.1 Megajoules of energy (7.5 MJ/Kg). It sounds bigger than it is because most people are not familiar with the tiny amount of energy represented by 1 Joule. And the size of the energy is not as important as how the energy is directed and into what. Here is where scale becomes important. A gigajoule of energy released into an ant hill is going to obliterate it out of existence, that same amount of energy released into the side of an open pit mine is going to create a lot of work for the men hauling the ore out, but a gigajoule released into an open structure with plenty of avenues for the compression wave to escape is not as significant. Its still not good, but not enough to knock down a structure as beefy as the the twin towers. In the case of the towers they were designed to withstand that level of impact and remain standing. However, that is almost beside the point as the series of unlikely events, and the strained reasoning of the "Official Conspiracy Theory™" do not account for the observed phenomena.

If one takes the time to study a few catastrophic collapses of built structures then the one thing that stands out is that there is always one point where the failure of the structure begins i.e., a weak point that gives way first. So, in a normal failure the structure collapses in the direction of the point of failure. That is not what is observed at WTC 1,2, and 7. No, instead they collapse simultaneously in 360 degrees, SYMMETRICALLY, and subside into their own footprint at a rate of collapse approaching free fall - also not a typical phenomena associated with a normal catastrophic engineering failure. What is the closest simile to the observed phenomena is a controlled demolition wherein the underlying structure is removed by demolition charges thus allowing gravity to uniformly collapse the structure in a controlled linear collapse into its own footprint.

5. Structural instability does not equal a symmetrical, initiated at the same instant at all 4 corners, 360 degree collapse of a structure into its own footprint. Your comment is intentionally misleading so as to imply that reports of localized instability equals a collapse of the structure in the manner observed.

6. The only evidence of the alleged phone calls is insubstantial. The known operating charateristics of analog cellphones makes it very tenuous to assert that even one call was made. As you well know the famous "Barbara Olson" "calls" did not occur. You are simply blustering and trying to divert in a maze of confusion.

7. I have never argued that. I have not commented on it at all as a matter of fact.

It is quite a "Pantload" to presume that people will stop observing, thinking, and drawing logical conclusions from the observed evidence just because you write a spittle flecked post and hold your breath until you turn blue. Childish temper tantrums are not evidence. Public Meltdowns and the use of shaky evidence and outright lies is not a valid argument. I would say you are so full of shit that your eyes are brown but that would be rude.

Instead I'll just shake my head and laugh at your infantile antics.

Original_Intent  posted on  2010-07-15   12:50:01 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#209. To: Original_Intent (#200)

Public Meltdowns and the use of shaky evidence and outright lies

You're the windbag who's alleging no connections between a guerilla leader who made violent threats against the US and carried them out over a decade, the hijackings of 3 aircraft by people identified as his followers, the plane crashes into buildings that subsequently experienced major or complete collapses within a few hours of their crashes, and unspecified details of alleged massive conspiracy plots, from an unspecified cabal of people who convincingly have shown themselves unable to to manage the very war they wanted.

Those all are symptoms of a major reality block. Get your own head on straight before you infer anything wrong with people trying to help you get your bearings in the real world.

AGAviator  posted on  2010-07-15   13:05:38 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#218. To: AGAviator (#209)

the hijackings of 3 aircraft by people identified as his followers

You mean the ones that are alive and well and have stated publically that they weren't involved, with the obvious proof being that they're still alive?

There were 4 aircraft BTW.

FormerLurker  posted on  2010-07-15   13:23:02 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#222. To: FormerLurker, AGAviator, all (#218)

'Boy seems a bit wound too tight. I think he needs to relax a bit, but the Sgt. in charge of his PsyOps Unit probably won't let him. Slave driver. Well, you know what they say about Sergeants - "they reproduce by fission - like all bacteria".

Original_Intent  posted on  2010-07-15   13:28:30 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#228. To: Original_Intent (#222)

I think he needs to relax a bit, but the Sgt. in charge of his PsyOps Unit probably won't let him. Slave driver.

They probaly have some AI program analyze his comments and responses for "win/fail" scores, and he's not allowed to go to lunch until his score hits a certain level, or drops so low he's given a mandatory timeout.

FormerLurker  posted on  2010-07-15   13:37:12 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#230. To: FormerLurker (#228)

They probaly have some AI program analyze his comments and responses for "win/fail" scores, and he's not allowed to go to lunch until his score hits a certain level, or drops so low he's given a mandatory timeout.

The people who believe the government's insane conspiracy theory MAY be subjects of an Artificial Stupidity program that succeeded beyond the wildest dreams of its creator.

James Deffenbach  posted on  2010-07-15   13:39:34 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#235. To: James Deffenbach (#230)

The people who believe the government's insane conspiracy theory MAY be subjects of an Artificial Stupidity program that succeeded beyond the wildest dreams of its creator.

ROTFL .... even the president's wife was in the WH on the morning of 9/11; GWBush couldn't find her there was so much pandemonium.

Laura Bush recalls 9/11 panic at White House

Former first lady details problems with communication system TODAY books
updated 9:15 a.m. ET, Wed., May 5, 2010

In her memoir, "Spoken from the Heart," former first lady Laura Bush shares a detailed account of being in the White House during the terrorist attacks. An excerpt.

Goodness in the land of the living Tuesday morning, September 11, was sunny and warm, the sky a brilliant cerulean blue. The day before, I had hosted a lunch for Janette Howard, wife of the Australian prime minister, while George met with her husband, John. My friends who had come for the National Book Festival had all flown home, and even George was gone, in Florida for a school visit. George H. W. Bush and Bar had spent the night, but they had already left at 7:00 a.m. to catch an early flight. And I had what I considered a big day planned. I was set to arrive at the Capitol at 9:15 to brief the Senate Education Committee, chaired by Edward M. Kennedy, on the findings of the early childhood development conference that I’d held in July. In the afternoon, we were hosting the entire Congress and their families for the annual Congressional Picnic. The South Lawn of the White House was already covered with picnic tables awaiting their fluttering cloths, and Tom Perini from Buffalo Gap, Texas, was setting up his chuckwagons. Our entertainment would be old-fashioned square dancing and Texas swing music by Ray Benson and his classic band, Asleep at the Wheel.

I finished dressing in silence, going over my statement again in my mind. I was very nervous about appearing before a Senate committee and having news cameras trained on me. Had the TV been turned on, I might have heard the first fleeting report of a plane hitting the North Tower of the World Trade Center at the tip of Manhattan as I walked out the door to the elevator. Instead, it was the head of my Secret Service detail, Ron Sprinkle, who leaned over and whispered the news in my ear as I entered the car a few minutes after 9:00 a.m. for the ride to the Russell Senate Office Building, adjacent to the Capitol. Andi Ball, now my chief of staff at the White House; Domestic Policy Advisor Margaret Spellings; and I speculated about what could have happened: a small plane, a Cessna perhaps, running into one of those massive towers on this perfect September morning. We wondered too if Hillary Clinton might decide not to attend the committee briefing, since the World Trade Center was in New York. We were driving up Pennsylvania Avenue when word came that the South Tower had been hit. The car fell silent; we sat in mute disbelief. One plane might be a strange accident; two planes were clearly an attack. I thought about George and wondered if the Secret Service had already hustled him to the motorcade and begun the race to Air Force One to return home. Two minutes later, at 9:16 a.m., we pulled up at the entrance to the Russell Building. In the time it had taken to drive the less than two miles between the White House and the Capitol, the world as I knew it had irrevocably changed.

Senator Kennedy was waiting to greet me, according to plan. We both knew when we met that the towers had been hit and, without a word being spoken, knew that there would be no briefing that morning. Together, we walked the short distance to his office. He began by presenting me with a limited-edition print; it was a vase of bright daffodils, a copy of a painting he had created for his wife, Victoria, and given to her on their wedding day. The print was inscribed to me and dated September 11, 2001.

An old television was turned on in a corner of the room, and I glanced over to see the plumes of smoke billowing from the Twin Towers. Senator Kennedy kept his eyes averted from the screen. Instead he led me on a tour of his office, pointing out various pictures, furniture, pieces of memorabilia, even a framed note that his brother Jack had sent to their mother when he was a child, in which he wrote, “Teddy is getting fat.” The senator, who would outlive all his brothers by more than forty years, laughed at the note as he showed it to me, still finding it amusing.

All the while, I kept glancing over at the glowing television screen. My skin was starting to crawl, I wanted to leave, to find out what was going on, to process what I was seeing, but I felt trapped in an endless cycle of pleasantries. It did not occur to me to say, “Senator Kennedy, what about the towers?” I simply followed his lead, and he may have feared that if we actually began to contemplate what had happened in New York, I might dissolve into tears.

Senator Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, the ranking Republican on the committee and one of our very good friends in the Senate—Judd had played Al Gore for George during mock debates at the ranch the previous fall—was also designated to escort me to the committee room, and he arrived just as I was completing the tour. Senator Kennedy invited us to sit on the couches, and he continued chatting about anything other than the horrific images unfolding on the tiny screen across the room. I looked around his shoulder but could see very little, and I was still trying to pay attention to him and the thread of his conversation. It seemed completely unreal, sitting in this elegant, sunlit office as an immense tragedy unfolded. We sat as human beings driven by smoke, flame, and searing heat jumped from the tops of the Twin Towers to end their lives and as firemen in full gear began the climb up the towers’ stairs.

I have often wondered if the small talk that morning was Ted Kennedy’s defense mechanism, if after so much tragedy—the combat death of his oldest brother in World War II, the assassinations of his brothers Jack and Robert, and the deaths of nephews, including John Jr., whose body he identified when it was pulled from the cold, dark waters off Martha’s Vineyard—if after all of those things, he simply could not look upon another grievous tragedy.

At about 9:45, after George had made a brief statement to the nation, which we watched, clustered around a small television that was perched on the receptionist’s desk, Ted Kennedy, Judd Gregg, and I walked out to tell reporters that my briefing had been postponed. I said, “You heard from the president this morning, and Senator Kennedy and Senator Gregg and I both join his statement in saying that our hearts and our prayers go out to the victims of this act of terrorism, and that our support goes to the rescue workers. And all of our prayers are with everyone there right now.” As I turned to exit, Laurence McQuillan of USA Today asked a question. “Mrs. Bush, you know, children are kind of struck by all this. Is there a message you could tell to the nation’s—” I didn’t even wait for him to finish but began, “Well, parents need to reassure their children everywhere in our country that they’re safe.”

As we walked out of the briefing room, the cell phone of my advance man, John Meyers, rang. A friend told him that CNN was reporting that an airplane had crashed into the Pentagon. Within minutes, the order would be given to evacuate the White House and the Capitol.

I walked back to Senator Kennedy’s office and then began moving quickly toward the stairs, to reach my car to return to the White House. Suddenly, the lead Secret Service agent turned to me and my staff and said that we needed to head to the basement immediately. We took off at a run; Judd Gregg suggested his private office, which was in the lower level and was an interior room. The Secret Service then told John that they were waiting for an Emergency Response Team to reach the Capitol. The team would take me, but my staff would be left behind. Overhearing the conversation, I turned back and said, “No, everyone is coming.” We entered Judd’s office, where I tried to call Barbara and Jenna, and Judd tried to call his daughter, who was in New York. Then we sat and talked quietly about our families and our worries for them, and the overwhelming shock we both felt.

Sometime after 10:00 a.m., when the entire Capitol was being emptied, when White House staffers had fled barefoot and sobbing through the heavy iron gates with Secret Service agents shouting at them to “Run, run!” my agents collected me. They now included an additional Secret Service detail and an Emergency Response Team, dressed in black tactical clothing like a SWAT force and moving with guns drawn. As we raced through the dim hallways of the Russell Building, past panicked staffers emptying from their offices, the ERT team shouted “GET BACK” and covered my every move with their guns. We reached the underground entrance; the doors on the motorcade slammed shut, and we sped off. The Secret Service had decided to take me temporarily to their headquarters, located in a nondescript federal office building a few blocks from the White House. Following the Oklahoma City bombing, their offices had been reinforced to survive a large-scale blast. Outside our convoy windows, the city streets were clogged with people evacuating their workplaces and trying to reach their own homes.

By the time I had reached my motorcade, Flight 93 had crashed in a Pennsylvania field and the west side of the Pentagon had begun to collapse. Judd Gregg walked alone to the underground Senate parking garage and retrieved his car, the last one left there. He pulled out of the garage and headed home, across the Fourteenth Street Bridge and past the Pentagon, thick with smoke and flame.

In the intervening years, Judd and I, and many others, were left to contemplate what if Flight 93 had not been forced down by its passengers into an empty field; what if, shortly after 10:00 a.m., it had reached the Capitol Dome?

We arrived at the Secret Service building via an underground entrance and were escorted first to the director’s office and then belowground to a windowless conference room with blank walls and a mustard yellow table. A large display screen with a constant TV feed took up most of one wall. Walking through the hallways, I saw a sign emblazoned with the emergency number 9-1-1. Had the terrorists thought about our iconic number when they picked this date and planned an emergency so overwhelming? For a while, I sat in a small area off the conference room, silently watching the images on television. I watched the replay as the South Tower of the World Trade Center roared with sound and then collapsed into a silent gray plume, offering my personal prayer to God to receive the victims with open arms. The North Tower had given way, live in front of my eyes, sending some 1,500 souls and 110 stories of gypsum and concrete buckling to the ground.

So much happened during those terrible hours at the tip of Manhattan. That morning, as the people who worked in the towers descended, water from the sprinkler system was racing down the darkened stairwells. With their feet soaked, for some the greatest fear was that when they reached the bottom, the rushing water would be too high and they would be drowned. A few walked to safety under a canopy of skylights covered with the bodies of those who had jumped. Over two hundred people jumped to escape the heat, smoke, and flames. I was told that Father Mychal Judge, the chaplain for the New York City Fire Department, who had come to offer aid, comfort, and last rites, was killed that morning by the body of someone who had, in desperation, hurled himself from the upper floors of one of those towers.

Video: Bush memoir to revisit 9/11, 2000 election

The early expectation was for horrific numbers of deaths. Manhattan emergency rooms and hospitals as far away as Dallas were placed on Code Red, expecting to receive airlifted survivors. Some fifty thousand people worked inside the towers; on a beautiful day, as many as eighty thousand tourists would visit an observation deck on the South Tower’s 107th floor, where the vistas stretched for fifty miles. Had those hijacked planes struck the towers thirty or forty or fifty minutes later, the final toll might well have been in the tens of thousands.

Inside Secret Service headquarters, I asked my staff to call their families, and I called the girls, who had been whisked away by Secret Service agents to secure locations. In Austin, Jenna had been awakened by an agent pounding on her dorm door. In her room at Yale, Barbara had heard another student sobbing uncontrollably a few doors down. Then I called my mother, because I wanted her to know that I was safe and I wanted so much to hear the sound of her voice. And I tried to reach George, but my calls could not get through; John Meyers, my advance man, promised to keep trying. I did know from the Secret Service that George had taken off from Florida, safe on board Air Force One. I knew my daughters and my mother were safe. But beyond that, everything was chaos. I was told that Barbara Olson, wife of Solicitor General Ted Olson, had been aboard the plane that hit the Pentagon. At one point, we also received word that Camp David had been attacked and hit. I began thinking of all the people who would have been there, like Bob Williams, the chaplain. Another report had a plane crashing into our ranch in Crawford. It got so that we were living in five-minute increments, wondering if a new plane would emerge from the sky and hit a target. All of us in that basement conference room and many more in the Secret Service building were relying on rumors and on whatever news came from the announcers on television. When there were reports of more errant planes or other targets, it was almost impossible not to believe them.

George had tried to call me from Air Force One. It is stunning now to think that our “state-of-the-art” communications would not allow him to complete a phone call to Secret Service headquarters, or me to reach him on Air Force One. On my second call from the secure line, our third attempt, I was finally able to contact the plane, a little before twelve noon. I was grateful just to hear his voice, to know that he was all right, and to tell him the girls were fine. From the way he spoke, I could hear how starkly his presidency had been transformed.

We remained in that drab conference room for hours, eventually turning off the repetitive horror of the images on the television. Inside, I felt a grief, a loss, a mourning like I had never known.

A few blocks away, in the Chrysler offices near Pennsylvania Avenue, a group of White House senior staff began to gather. After the evacuation, some of those who were new to Washington had been wandering, dazed and shaken, in nearby Lafayette Park. By midafternoon, seventy staff members had congregated inside this office building, attempting to resume work, while Secret Service agents stood in the lobby and forbade anyone without a White House pass from entering. Key presidential and national security staff and Vice President Cheney were still sealed away in the small underground emergency center deep below the White House.

As the skies and streets grew silent, there was a debate over what to do with George and what to do with me. The Secret Service detail told me to be prepared to leave Washington for several days at least. My assistant, Sarah Moss, was sent into the White House to gather some of my clothes. John Meyers accompanied her to retrieve Spot, Barney, and Kitty.

Then we got word that the president was returning to Washington. I would be staying as well. Late in the afternoon, I spoke to George again. At 6:30 we got in a Secret Service caravan to drive to the White House. I gazed out the window; the city had taken on the cast of an abandoned movie set: the sun was shining, but the streets were deserted. We could not see a person on the sidewalk or any vehicles driving on the street. There was no sound at all except for the roll of our wheels over the ground.

We drove at full throttle through the gate, and the agents hopped out. Heavily armed men in black swarmed over the grounds. Before I got out, one of my agents, Dave Saunders, who had been driving, turned around and said, “Mrs. Bush, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.” He said it with the greatest of concern and a hint of emotion in his voice. He knew what this day meant for us.

I was hustled inside and downstairs through a pair of big steel doors that closed behind me with a loud hiss, forming an airtight seal. I was now in one of the unfinished subterranean hallways underneath the White House, heading for the PEOC, the Presidential Emergency Operations Center, built for President Franklin Roosevelt during World War II. We walked along old tile floors with pipes hanging from the ceiling and all kinds of mechanical equipment. The PEOC is designed to be a command center during emergencies, with televisions, phones, and communications facilities.

I was ushered into the conference room adjacent to the PEOC’s nerve center. It’s a small room with a large table. National Security Advisor Condi Rice, Counselor to the President Karen Hughes, Deputy Chief of Staff Josh Bolten, and Dick and Lynne Cheney were already there, where they had been since the morning. Lynne, whose agents had brought her to the White House just after the first attack, came over and hugged me. Then she said quietly into my ear, “The plane that hit the Pentagon circled the White House first.”

I felt a shiver vibrate down my spine. Unlike the major monuments and even the leading government buildings in Washington, the White House sits low to the ground. It is a three-story building, tucked away in a downward slope toward the Potomac. When the White House was first built, visitors complained about the putrid scent rising from the river and the swampy grounds nearby. From the air, the White House is hard to see and hard to reach. A plane could circle it and find no plausible approach. And that is what Lynne Cheney told me had happened that morning, a little past 9:30, before Flight 77 crossed the river and thundered into the Pentagon.

At 7:10 that night, George strode into the PEOC. Early that afternoon, he had conducted a secure videoconference from Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska with the CIA and FBI directors, as well as the military Joint Chiefs of Staff and the vice president and his national security staff, giving instructions and getting briefings on the latest information. Over the objections of the Secret Service, he had insisted upon returning home. We hugged and talked with the Cheneys a bit. Then the Secret Service detail suggested that we spend the night there, belowground. They showed us the bed, a foldout that looked like it had been installed when FDR was president. George and I stared at it, and we both said no, George adding, “We’re not going to sleep down here. We’re going to go upstairs and you can get us if something happens.” He said, “I’ve got to get sleep, in our own bed.” George was preparing to speak to the nation from the Oval Office, to reassure everyone and to show that the president was safely back in Washington, ready to respond.

By 7:30 we were on our way up to the residence. I have no memory of having eaten dinner—George may have eaten on the plane. He tried to call the girls as soon as we were upstairs but couldn’t reach them. Barbara called back close to 8:00 p.m., and then George left to make remarks to the nation.

We did finally climb into our own bed that night, exhausted and emotionally drained. Outside the doors of the residence, the Secret Service detail stood in their usual posts. I fell asleep, but it was a light, fitful rest, and I could feel George staring into the darkness beside me. Then I heard a man screaming as he ran, “Mr. President, Mr. President, you’ve got to get up. The White House is under attack.”

We jumped up, and I grabbed a robe and stuck my feet into my slippers, but I didn’t stop to put in my contacts. George grabbed Barney; I grabbed Kitty. With Spot trailing behind, we started walking down to the PEOC. George had wanted to take the elevator, but the agents didn’t think it was safe, so we had to descend flight after flight of stairs, to the state floor, then the ground floor, and below, while I held George’s hand because I couldn’t see anything. My heart was pounding, and all I could do was count stairwell landings, trying to count off in my mind how many more floors we had to go. When we reached the PEOC, I saw the outline of a military sergeant unfolding the ancient hideaway bed and putting on some sheets.

At that moment, another agent ran up to us and said, “Mr. President, it’s one of our own.” The plane was ours.

For months afterward at night, in bed, we’d hear the military jets thundering overhead, traveling so fast that the ground below quivered and shook. They would make one pass and then, three or five minutes later, make another low-flying loop. I would fall asleep to the roar of the fighters in the skies, hearing in my mind those words, “one of our own.” There was a quiet security in that, in knowing that we slept beneath the watchful cover of our own.

Waking the next morning, I had the sensation of knowing before my eyes opened that something terrible had happened, something beyond comprehension, and I wondered for a brief instant if it had all been a dream. Then I saw George, and I knew, knew that yesterday would be with us, each day, for all of our days to come.

Excerpted from "Spoken from the Heart" by Laura Bush. Copyright © 2010 by Laura Bush. Excerpted with permission by Scribner, a Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

© 2010 MSNBC Interactive

URL: http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/36943246/ns/today-today_books/

MSN Privacy . Legal © 2010 MSNBC.com

buckeroo  posted on  2010-07-15   13:51:08 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


#250. To: buckeroo (#235)

At that moment, another agent ran up to us and said, “Mr. President, it’s one of our own.” The plane was ours.

Hmmm.

FormerLurker  posted on  2010-07-15   14:17:33 ET  Reply   Untrace   Trace   Private Reply  


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