eagleclaw

Rewriting history...........AGAIN




From the Department for Transport, June 25, 2008

The Thirty-Four Minute Gap



"[If the Air Traffic Control Center sector] has no datablock or other information on it, the military will usually scramble an intercept flight. Essentially always they turn out to be private pilots… not talking to anybody, who stray too far outside the boundary, then get picked up on their way back in. But, procedures are procedures, and they will likely find two F-18s on their tail within 10 or so minutes." -- Air Traffic Control Center, ‘ATCC Controller’s Read Binder’, Xavier Software, August 1998.



On October 25, 1999 at 09:19 EDT a Learjet Model 35, registration N47BA, departed Orlando International Airport, Orlando, Florida bound for Dallas-Love Field, Dallas, Texas with four passengers on board, including U.S. Open golf champion Payne Stewart.1 After several radio exchanges with Jacksonville Air Route Traffic Control Center (JARTCC), JARTCC at 09:33 EDT instructed N47BA to change radio frequencies and contact another JARTCC controller. There was no reply. Approximately four hours later the Learjet, off course, nose-dived into the open marshy fields of Edmunds, South Dakota, killing all on board.

Before the crash of the Learjet there ensued a curious four-hour chase conducted by the United States Air Force and units of the Air National Guard (ANG). After several intercepts and pullbacks by military interceptors, the lead pilot of a pair of Oklahoma ANG F-16s maneuvered along side Stewart’s Learjet for a close-up inspection. The pilot reported, "It's looking like the cockpit window is iced over".2 Payne Stewart’s Learjet, it seems, had lost pressurization, killing all on board.

Just as curious was the NTSB Aircraft Accident Brief3 on the tragedy that was adopted three weeks after George W. Bush’s election in 2000, and thirteen months after the crash. The timeline the NTSB provided of the Air Force response to the off course Learjet not only contradicted the initial media reports’ of the Air Force’s own timeline of the crash, but conspicuously omitted one critical entry on the Air Force’s response.

The NTSB timeline on the Air Force’s response begins at 09:52 CDT, one-hour and eighteen minutes after JARTCC lost contact with the craft:

"About 0952 CDT, a USAF F-16 test pilot from the 40th Flight Test Squadron at Eglin Air Force Base (AFB), Florida, was vectored to within 8 nm of N47BA. About 0954 CDT, at a range of 2,000 feet from the accident airplane and an altitude of about 46,400 feet, the test pilot made two radio calls to N47BA but did not receive a response. About 1000 CDT, the test pilot began a visual inspection of N47BA."4

The published media accounts of the Air Force’s timeline paints an altogether different sequence of events for the Air Force’s response, and takes note of another aspect of the Air Force’s response that for some reason the NTSB was reluctant to report on.

ABC News.com on October 25th reported:

"According to an Air Force summary, after contact was initially lost, two F-15s from Tyndall Air Force Base, Fla., were sent to track the Learjet. The F-15s pulled back and two F-16s in the air from Eglin Air Force Base, Fla., moved in to track the aircraft."5

The Dallas Morning News on October 26th reported:

"Instead, according to an Air Force timeline, a series of military planes provided an emergency escort to the stricken Lear, beginning with a pair of F-16 Falcons from the Air National Guard at Tyndall Air Force Base, Fla., about 20 minutes after ground controllers lost contact. An F-16 and an A-10 Warthog attack plane from Eglin Air Force Base, Fla., took up the chase a few minutes later and were trailing the Lear when it climbed abruptly from 39,000 to 44,000 feet at 9:52 a.m. CDT.

Fifteen minutes later, the F-16 intercepted the Lear, the pilot reporting no movement in the cockpit."6

Note the dissimilarities between the Air Force’s timeline and the NTSB’s timeline. The NTSB timeline altogether avoids mentioning an earlier request for assistance to a pair of F-15s from Tyndall Air Force Base, who we learn were actually escorting the Learjet twenty minutes after JARTCC lost contact with it. Now if we say it took five minutes to alert the Eglin fighters once the Tyndall fighters had intercepted the Learjet, and add those five minutes to the twenty minutes it took the Tyndall fighters to initially make contact with the Learjet, then add the remaining fifteen minutes it took the Eglin fighters to actually intercept the Learjet, that gives us an arrival/escort time of 09:18 CDT for the Eglin fighters, not 09:52 CDT as chronicled in the NTSB timeline. That is a thirty-four minute gap!

Is there any official account that would substantiate this thirty-four minute gap; that the Eglin fighters were escorting the Learjet thirty-four minutes earlier than the NTSB timeline admits to? As it happens there is. CNN.com on October 26th reported:

"An Air Force spokesman says two U.S. Air Force F-15s from Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, intercepted the plane shortly after it lost contact with aircraft controllers, and followed it to Missouri."7

The Air Force spokesman said the Eglin fighters intercepted the Learjet shortly after contact was lost with the aircraft. Well, one-hour and eighteen minutes doesn’t register with me as meaning shortly after!

So according to the Air Force timeline we have two interceptions of Payne Stewart’s Learjet before the NTSB chronicled 09:52 CDT interception. The first interception was by a pair of F-15s from Tyndall Air Force Base at approximately 08:58 CDT, with a second interception by Eglin fighters no later than 09:18 CDT, not 09:52 CDT as claimed by the NTSB.

In order to facilitate the Bush administration’s 2001 false flag attacks,8 the bureaucracy within the NTSB purposefully doctored their timeline of the Air Force’s response to Payne Stewart’s Learjet. Longer intercept times were needed in the Payne Stewart incident if the tardy NORAD response times on 9/11 were to be accepted by the public as nothing unusual.

----------------------------------------------------

1. DCA00MA005: Aberdeen, South Dakota, October 25, 1999

2. Ibid (earlier an F-16 from Eglin Air Force Base did a close-up visual of the Learjet and reported that the cockpit windows were opaque, as if condensation or ice covered the inside).

3. NTSB - Publications

4. DCA00MA005: Aberdeen, South Dakota, October 25, 1999

5. ABCNEWS.com : Payne Stewart Dead After Runaway Jet Crashes

6. Payne Stewart

7. CNN - Investigators arrive at Payne Stewart crash site - October 25, 1999

8. See: Rebuilding America’s Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources For a New Century (A Report of The Project for the New American Century, September 2000), whose signatories included four soon to be senior officers in the Bush administration. The key sentence in the report providing motive for the 9/11 attacks reads, "Further, the process of transformation [control of space and cyberspace; global missile defenses; the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf whether or not Saddam Hussein remains in power; precluding the rise of a great power rival, and shaping the international security order in line with American principles and interests'; and for the US to 'fight and decisively win multiple, simultaneous major theatre wars' as a 'core mission'], even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor." Rebuilding Americas Defenses - PNAC, p. 51.

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Ptech

Are you suggesting that the Pentagon would manipulate and fabricate timelines?

I'm shocked! Totally shocked!

eagleclaw

Remember Norman Mineta and his time with cheney in his secret bunker?

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Duvidoo

David Ray Griffin has that all laid out in his 9/11 Contradictions book. There seems to be a three quarter hour window (during which the Pentagon event happened) that it's unclear whether Cheney was or was not in his bunker ... with a number of witnesses who claim he was there at the early time ... the 9/11 Commission Report cast the later time in stone. As Griffin says: they can't all be true.

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Titanium Cat

The only rewriting of history is what is being done by the author of this cut & paste job. What it is is an interesting look at how so many sources can differ in their initial reports of an incident. The author puts a lot of faith in the reliability of those reports and uses them to claim that the NTSB report which took over a year to produce is incorrect. Not just incorrect of course, but deliberately falsified in advance to provide cover for the questionable military responses to 9/11.

However as we will see there are various other initial media reports that provide all sorts of conflicting claims on the flight of Payne Stewart’s Learjet on October 25th, 1999. The conclusions of the author are easily demonstrated as highly speculative, based on the very questionable reliability of specifically chosen news reports while being contradicted by other sources. Those chosen reports also have less detail in them when it comes to actual numbers for establishing the timeline of the flight which is the primary purpose of using them.

It should also be noted that the Learjet had its transponder turned on the entire time allowing it to be tracked as opposed to the four 9/11 flights which had their transponders turned off. This alone would make tracking and interception considerably easier.

Contradicted by initial media reports. But just how accurate were the initial media reports?

Let’s take a look. The first three are sources used by the author of this cut & paste job. ABC News, Dallas Morning News, and CNN. Note that first two are copies of the stories that cannot be located on their original website. The next four are selections of mine from major news sources, PBS, Washington Post, USA Today, and the New York Times.

What do each of them say about the following events? Here is a point summary of their claims up to and including the Elgin AFB military intercept:

ABC News[1]:

• Learjet departed Orlando at 9:09am ET.
• Lost radio contact about half an hour later
• No intercept times given
• Two F-15’s from Tyndall were sent to track the Learjet
• Two F-16’s from Elgin were sent to track the Learjet after the F-15’s pulled back
• No mention of a visual sighting until F-16’s from Fargo, ND moved in

Dallas Morning News[2]:

• No departure time given
• No time given for when radio contract was lost
• Military escort begins about 20 minutes after ground controllers lost contact
• Two F-16’s from Tyndall were sent
• An F-16 and an A-10 from Elgin took up chase a few minutes later and were trailing the Lear when it climbed abruptly to 44,000 feet at 9:52am CDT (10:52am EDT)
• Fifteen minutes later the F-16 intercepted the Lear (~11:07 EDT) and reported no movement in the cockpit

CNN[3]:

• No departure time given
• No time given for loss of radio contact
• No mention of Tyndall
• Two Air Force F-15s from Eglin Air Force Base intercepted the plane shortly after it lost contact with aircraft controllers and reported the plane's crew was "non-responsive" etc.

PBS[4]:

• Departed Orlando shortly after 9:00am EDT
• Last radio contract 25 minutes later.
• No mention of any specific airbases
• An F-16 reached the Learjet just after 11:00am EDT and reported no movement in the cockpit

Washington Post[5]:

• Departed Orlando at 9:19am EDT
• Air traffic controllers lost radio contact at 9:44am EDT
• Two F-16’s from Tyndall AFB on a routine training mission begin pursuit at 10:08am EDT but did not reach the Learjet
• An F-15 from Elgin got within sight of the Learjet and stayed with it from 11:09am EDT to 11:44am EDT
• No movement in the cockpit reported by the F-16 pilots from Fargo, ND

USA Today[6]:

• Learjet departed at 9:19am EDT
• Pilot confirms air traffic controller’s call at 9:44am EDT
• No response to radio calls after 9:44am EDT
• With 24 minutes the FAA asked the Air Force for help in tracking the jet
• Two F-15’s from Tyndall already in flight on a routine training mission were asked to check the Learjet
• An F-16 and an A-10 from Elgin were diverted to follow and escort the Learjet
• Learjet jumps to 44,000 feet nearing 11:00am EDT
• Mentions USAF Captain Chris Hamilton on a training mission in his F-16 pulled close to the Learjet but could not see inside the fogged up windows

New York Times[7]:

• Departed Orlando at 9:19am EDT
• Last routine contact with controllers at 9:44am EDT
• Planes from Tyndall sent at 10:08am EDT
• An F-16 and an A-10 from Elgin already in flight were diverted at 10:22am EDT to catch the Learjet but only the F-16 made it which was piloted by Captain Hamilton

There are a considerable number of discrepancies between the media reports. Some don’t mention planes from Tyndall while some do. Some say F-15’s, some say F-16’s, some say two planes, some only one, some mention an A-10 as well. Some indicate various planes were already in flight, others don’t. Note that the Washington Post explicitly says that the Tyndall fighters did not reach the Learjet and that none of the other reports claim a visual sighting by Tyndall. The departure times don’t all match and some don’t mention the departure time. Some give the last time of radio contact but they don’t all agree and some don’t give a time. Some give an intercept time by the Elgin fighter(s) and some don’t. Some report that the Elgin fighter(s) saw no movement in the cockpit, some don’t report that until later when F-16’s from Fargo, ND have taken over the chase.

With all the discrepancies in the initial reports can one actually be serious about using them as proof that the NTSB report was fraudulent?


The reason the NTSB doesn’t report on the F-16’s that scrambled from Tyndall AFB is that those planes never made contact with the Learjet, this is supported by the Washington Post account and none of the other reports give any account of the Tyndall pilots sighting the plane. They were released from pursuit when the F-16 from Elgin (which was already in the air preparing to return to base when it was notified about a civilian aircraft in trouble) had finished aerial refueling and was now on route after the Learjet. The times provided by the NTSB for the F-16 intercept come from the pilot himself, USAF Captain Chris Hamilton.

One should note that the ABC report incorrectly states the plane departed at 9:09am EDT instead of 9:19am. It also states that radio contact was lost about half an hour later which would put it at 9:39am which is quite close. However the report does not give any scramble or intercept times for any of the fighters.

Note that the author considers the “about 20 minutes after” to be when the Tyndall fighters actually intercepted the Learjet (even though there is no actual interception noted). He takes the 9:38am EDT from the NTSB report and adds 20 minutes to it getting 9:58am EDT (8:58am CDT). This of course is nonsense. It wasn’t until 9:44am EDT (somewhat erroneously reported [5][6][7]) that the FAA officially logged the Learjet as out of contact, no doubt this was the time (~6 minutes) it took for the air traffic controllers to contact their superiors at the FAA and explain the situation to them. It took another 11 minutes (9:55am EDT) before SEADS itself was notified of the wayward plane.[8] The report of the Elgin F-16 Intercept pilot[9][10] confirms this as it was sometime after 9:50am EDT when he contacted his base and was then informed about the Learjet. Both the Washington Post and New York Times articles have the Tyndall fighters scrambling at 10:08am EDT, 13 minutes after SEADS was notified which is in line with interceptors on traditional 15-minute alert status. And then you have to account for the time in the air required to catch up with the Learjet which the Tyndall fighters didn’t get a chance to do. The author’s claim of a 9:58am EDT intercept is ridiculous even if the Tyndall fighters hadn't been called off.

In reality the author has this backwards, the NTSB’s timeline is the actual Air Force timeline. What the author refers to as the Air Force’s timeline are the reporters’ versions of what an Air Force spokesman said shortly after the incident. Not surprisingly all seven stories have significant differences in them on a variety of points in regards to the timeline and details of the pursuit. Yet we are supposed to believe the latter over the NTSB.

The conflicting media reports do not establish that the Tyndall fighters had actually intercepted the Learjet. The Washington Post article in fact explicitly claims otherwise and there are no details whatsoever in any of the other reports in regards to the Tyndall fighters approaching the Learjet and observing it. The F-16 from Elgin was the first one that we are told that got within visible range of the plane.

Except this is completely contradicted by the pilot of the Elgin F-16 himself. The pilot states that he obtained radar contact with the Learjet at 9:43 CDT and was 8 miles away at 9:52 CDT when the Learjet climbed in altitude. The pilot confirms that he moved in for a close inspection of the plane at 10:00 CDT.

Yes there is an official account, it’s the report given by the F-16 pilot who intercepted the Learjet.

Strange that the author would use the CNN account to make his case. The CNN account doesn’t give the Learjet’s departure time or the time when radio contact was lost and it doesn’t even mention the Tyndall fighters. Yet we are to infer something about “shortly after” when the report doesn’t provide the actual time that shortly after refers to? We also know that the CNN report is wrong when it claims that two F-15's from Elgin intercepted it, it was one F-16 which was already in flight at the time which the CNN report also fails to mention.

These are bogus times using cherry picked reports that have numerous errors and contradictions in them and applying faulty logic as well.

Here is a timeline that seems pretty close to certain:

1. The plane departed at 9:19am EDT
2. The last confirmed communication with the plane was at 9:27am EDT
3. At 9:33am EDT there was no response to a request from an air traffic controller.
4. The controller tried to contact the plane again five more time until 9:38am
5. The plane was deemed out of contact by 9:44am EDT
6. SEADS was informed about the Learjet around 9:55am EDT
7. Shortly afterwards the Elgin F-16 pilot who was already in the air was told of the lost plane but needed to refuel before beginning pursuit
8. Sometime afterwards (10:08am EDT), the Tyndall fighters scrambled to pursue the Learjet.
9. Not much after that (<5 minutes) the Elgin F-16 was refueled and on route to intercept.
10. About 10 minutes later (10:22am EDT) the Tyndall fighters were recalled with the Elgin F-16 left in lone pursuit.
11. The Elgin F-16 made visible contact with the Learjet at 10:52am EDT about 8 miles away and had closed within 2000 feet by 10:54am where it attempted to make radio contact with the Learjet.
12. By 10:55am EDT the F-16 had closed to about 400 feet of the Learjet.
13. The time from when the problem with the plane was confirmed (9:38am EDT) to when the first intercept occurred by the F-16 from Elgin (11:54am EDT) is about 76 minutes.

Yet another load of twoofer bullshit folks. Now the NTSB was in on it before Bush even became president. And as expected, the evidence given to demonstrate that the NTSB report is false is not even remotely compelling; it consists of cherry picked initial media reports that are contradicted by other initial media reports and a statement from the F-16 intercept pilot.


References

1. ABCNEWS.com : Payne Stewart Dead After Runaway Jet Crashes
2. Dow Jones Interactive® Publications Library
3. CNN - Investigators arrive at Payne Stewart crash site - October 25, 1999
4. Online NewsHour: Runaway Jet -- October 26, 1999
5. Washingtonpost.com: Golfer Payne Stewart Dies in Jet Crash
6. Final flight
7. GOLF; Pro Golfer and 5 Others Die In a Baffling Jet Accident - New York Times
8. 9/11 Commission Report Notes, #121 National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States
9. USAF Captain Chris Hamilton Report to the NTSB, Page 1*
10. USAF Captain Chris Hamilton Report to the NTSB, Page 2*

*Can be downloaded via zip file from the NTSB

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Ptech

Good research TC, damn good.

But I don't get your point.

I hope it's NOT that the government always tells the truth or does not attempt to cover its ass.

Duvidoo

A+ in cut 'n' paste, Titanium Cat.
Now try cutting to the chase....

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Both phrases are meaningless, if the person(s) who are doing the saying of the phrases are worthless pieces of shit that have nothing better to do in their miserable little empty lives than go on a political board and call other posters Lying Fucksticks or Lying Pieces of Shit....
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Titanium Cat

No it's more about how truthers can't do math. And don't really like actually telling the truth.

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Titanium Cat

You wish, just because truthers are stoned on cut & paste jobs doesn't mean that real people are.

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Duvidoo

Haven't been stoned on a cut & paste job since
rubber cement went the way of the Great Auk.

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Both phrases are meaningless, if the person(s) who are doing the saying of the phrases are worthless pieces of shit that have nothing better to do in their miserable little empty lives than go on a political board and call other posters Lying Fucksticks or Lying Pieces of Shit....
— Anon.