AviationBanter - View Single Post - Former Head of 'Star Wars' Program says 9/11 an Inside Job

Laurence Doering

On 3 May 2006 16:24:15 -0700, wrote:
Dan wrote:

You don't see the difference between tracking domestic commercial
flights and those originating form outside?

It not the tracking, but the response time. The Pentagon was hit a good
45 minutes after NYC, and F-16s weren't launched until later. A soviet
bomber could have been tracked up international airspace and then
headed west, and a similiar response time would have occured.

I doubt it. The reason there were only a few fighter aircraft
on alert (at Langley AFB in Virginia and Otis ANGB in Massachusetts)
on September 11, 2001, was because 2001 was *ten years* after the
Soviet Union ceased to exist.

If 9/11 had happened in 1991, there would have been more fighters
on alert along the East Coast and NORAD would most likely have
responded faster.

As it was, NORAD's timeline says F-15s from Otis ANGB were over New
York 19 minutes after they were ordered to take off at 8:52 am, which
was 15 minutes after NORAD was alerted at 8:37 am.

ljd