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REMOTE CONTROL (like a game !!!)
Electronically Hijacking the World Trade
Center Attack Aircraft
In the mid-seventies America faced a new and escalating crisis, with US commercial jets being hijacked for geopolitical purposes. Determined to gain the upper hand in this new form of aerial warfare, two American multinationals collaborated with the Defense Advanced Projects Agency (DARPA) on a project designed to facilitate the remote recovery of hijacked American aircraft. Brilliant both in concept and operation,Home Run [not its real code name] allowed specialist ground controllers to listen in to cockpit conversations on the target aircraft, then take absolute control of its computerized flight control system by remote means.
From that point onwards, regardless of the wishes of the hijackers or flight deck crew, the hijacked aircraft could be recovered and landed automatically at an airport of choice, with no more difficulty than flying a radio-controlled model plane. The engineers had no idea that almost thirty years after its initial design, Home Run top secret computer codes would be broken, and the system used to facilitate direct ground control of the four aircraft used in the high-profile attacks on New York and Washington on 11th September 2001.
Before moving on to the New York and Washington attacks, we first need to look at the ways in which an aircraft is normally controlled by its pilot, because without this basic knowledge, Home Run would make no sense. In order to control an aircraft in three-dimensional space, the pilot uses the control yoke (joystick) in front of him, rudder pedals under his feet, and a bank of engine throttles located at his side. Without engine thrust the aircraft would not fly at all, so the throttles are largely self explanatory: For more speed or altitude increase throttle, for less speed or altitude decrease throttle.
In order to raise or lower the nose of the aircraft, the pilot pulls or pushes on the control yoke, which in turn raises or lowers the elevators on the horizontal tailplane. To bank the aircraft left or right, the pilot moves the control yoke to the left or right, which in turn operates the ailerons on the outer wings. Lastly, to turn left or right at low speed or counter-balance with turns at high speed, the pilot presses the left or right rudder pedals as required, which in turn move the rudder on the vertical stabilizer.
Back in the early days of flight, the control yoke and rudder pedals were connected to the various flight control surfaces by thin cables, meaning the pilot had direct physical control over every movement the aircraft made. This was no great problem for an average man flying a small biplane, but as aircraft grew ever bigger, heavier and faster over the years, the loadings on the control yoke and rudder pedals became huge, certainly well beyond the ability of a single pilot to handle unaided.
By the late fifties we were well into the age of hydraulics, where just like the power steering on your automobile, hydraulic rams were placed in line between the pilot control cables and each individual control surface. Now when the pilot moved the control yoke, the cables activated sensors, which in turn activated one or more hydraulic rams, which in turn moved one or more control surfaces. For the first time since Bleriot and the Wright brothers, pilots were of necessity being steadily distanced from direct control of their own aircraft.
When the multinationals and DARPA finally came on the scene in the mid-seventies, aircraft systems were even more advanced, with computers controlling onboard autopilots, which in turn were capable of controlling all of the onboard hydraulics. In combination these multiple different functions were now known as the Flight Control System or FCS, in turn integrated with sophisticated avionics capable of automatically landing the aircraft in zero visibility conditions. In summary, by the mid-seventies most of the large jets were capable of effectively navigating hundreds of miles and then making automatic landings at a selected airport in zero-zero fog conditions. All of this could be accomplished unaided, but in theory at least, still under the watchful eyes of the flight deck crews.
In order to make Home Run truly effective, it had to be completely integrated with all onboard systems, and this could only be accomplished with a new aircraft design, several of which were on the drawing boards at that time. Under cover of extreme secrecy, the multinationals and DARPA went ahead on this basis and built back doors into the new computer designs. There were two very obvious hard requirements at this stage, the first a primary control channel for use in taking over the flight control system and flying the aircraft back to an airfield of choice, and secondly a covert audio channel for monitoring flight deck conversations. Once the primary channel was activated, all aircraft functions came under direct ground control, permanently removing the hijackers and pilots from the control loop.
Remember here, this was not a system designed to undermine the authority of the flight crews, but was put in place as a doomsday device in the event the hijackers started to shoot passengers or crew members, possibly including the pilots. Using the perfectly reasonable assumption that hijackers only carry a limited number of bullets, and many aircraft nowadays carry in excess of 300 passengers, Home Run could be used to fly all of the survivors to a friendly airport for a safe auto landing. So the system started out in life for the very best of reasons, but finally fell prey to security leaks, and eventually to compromised computer codes. In light of recent high-profile CIA and FBI spying trials, these leaks and compromised codes should come as no great surprise to anyone.
Activating the primary Home Run channel proved to be easy. Most readers will have heard of a transponder, prominent in most news reports immediately following the attacks on New York and Washington. Technically a transponder is a combined radio transmitter and receiver which operates automatically, in this case relaying data between the four aircraft and air traffic control on the ground. The signals sent provide a unique identity for each aircraft, essential in crowded airspace to avoid mid-air collisions, and equally essential for Home Run controllers trying to lock onto the correct aircraft. Once it has located the correct aircraft, Home Run piggy backs a data transmission onto the transponder channel and takes direct control from the ground. This explains why none of the aircraft sent a special signal like :I have been hijacked transponder code, despite multiple activation points on all four aircraft. Because the transponder frequency had already been piggy backed by Home Run, transmission of the special hijack code was rendered impossible. This was the first hard proof that the target aircraft had been hijacked electronically from the ground, rather than by [FBI-inspired] motley crews of Arabs toting penknives.
The Home Run listening device on the flight deck utilizes the cockpit microphones that normally feed the Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR), one of two black boxes armored to withstand heavy impact and thereby later give investigators significant clues to why the aircraft crashed. However, once hooked into Home Run, the CVRs are bypassed and voice transmissions are no longer recorded on the 30-minute endless loop recording tape. If Home Run is active for more than thirty minutes, there will therefore be no audible data on the Cockpit Voice Recorders. To date, crash investigators have recovered the CVRs from the Pentagon and Pittsburg aircraft, and publicly confirmed that both are completely blank. The only possible reason for this, is data capture by Home Run, providing the final hard proof that the attack aircraft were hijacked electronically from the ground, rather than by Arab terrorists.
Many readers might by now be indignant; convinced this is incorrect or misleading information because of those telephone calls from the hijacked aircraft. Which telephone calls exactly? There are no records of any such calls, and the emotional claptrap the media fed you in the aftermath of the attack was in all cases third-person. We had the media invisible contact at an airline who said a hostess called to report a hijacking, and we had a priest (?) who …said he received a call from a man asking him in turn to call his wife and tell her he loved her.
Presumably this man would have had his wife name filed in his cellphone, and faced with imminent death would have called her direct. The FAA helped out by claiming that it had overheard a heated argument from a cockpit where the radio transmit switch had been left in the "on" position. When push came to shove, the FAA was forced to retract, and admit that the mythical argument was not on the tapes at all.
Critically, the passenger manifests for all four aircraft serve as the final (independent) proof that no alleged hijackers or anyone of Arabic name boarded any of the four aircraft used in the attacks. As Laurence T. May points out:
"On September 11, airline check-in counters were the only places in the United States that required travellers to present a photo ID in order to travel. A photo ID meant (and still means) a card issued by some branch of civil government. Years ago, the United States government took the first step toward a national ID card when it mandated the requirement that all passengers present a photo ID card before being allowed to get on a commercial airplane.
"This means that the tightest security that the typical American ever confronts is airport security. This is the model for all other security systems governing the general public. Let's go through the check-in routine together. Pretend that it's September 11, and you are a check-in agent at either a United Airlines counter or an American Airlines counter. It is your job to ask the standard questions. "Did you pack your own luggage? Have you had it in your possession at all times?" Then you ask for a photo ID. The name on the ID must match the name on the
ticket. The photo must match the person presenting the card." .. And, you guessed it, the name on the ID must match that on the passenger manifest held by the airline ground staff!
It seems highly likely that these revealing passenger manifests will magically disappear when the American Government realizes the dangers of allowing the public access to such incriminating documents. For that reason I have listed the full manifests on a separate page. To visit that page and copy the lists, click here.
Whether more information will be forthcoming about Home Run is unknown, but nowadays there are large numbers of people apart from the author privy to the basic data. As long ago as the early nineties, a major European flag carrier acquired the information and was seriously alarmed that one of its own aircraft might be rescued by the Americans without its authority. Accordingly, this flag carrier completely stripped the American flight control computers out of its entire fleet, and replaced them with a home grown version. These aircraft are now effectively impregnable to penetration by Home Run, but that is more than can be said for the American aircraft fleet.
A casual count indicates that more than 600 aircraft in the USA and elsewhere are still vulnerable and could be used in further attacks at any time, which might help explain why America has been bombing the Afghans primarily with bags of wheat. For the first time in US history, American officials appear to be genuinely fearful of future reprisals, and justifiably so with 600 giant bombs parked on the wrong side of their missile defence shield.
It is a Catch situation. In order to make all of the aircraft safe, the flight control systems would have to be stripped out and replaced, at a cost of billions of dollars the airlines cannot afford because they are going broke. Nor is there enough time. The most innovative anti-hijacking tool in the American arsenal, has now become the biggest known threat to American national security.
For the purpose of public reassurance I would like to publish a complete list of aircraft which cannot be affected by Home Run, but I cannot do so for legal reasons. Any aircraft manufacturer not on the list might feel inclined to sue me for defamation and I cannot afford that. However, there is nothing to stop me publishing my personal choice of aircraft for a flight from, say, Atlanta to Singapore via JFK, Frankfurt, and Kuala Lumpur.
From Atlanta to JFK I would probably travel on a Boeing 737, and connect with a Boeing 777 for the onward flight to Frankfurt. At Frankfurt I would probably board an Airbus A340 for Kuala Lumpur, and finish the journey on a DC9 or a Fokker 100. Naturally I might be unlucky and pick an aircraft with an intoxicated pilot, or an unrelated mechanical problem, but apart from those minor risks I feel pretty safe.
15 October 2001
After this page had been hit on by more than 10,000 curious visitors, the current issue of "Business Week" (22Oct) decided to publish an unusual letter, suggesting that the events of the 11th of September would have ended rather differently if there was a capability for Ground Tower Control to "take over the controls of a hijacked plane" (issue still available at any US newsagent).
Remember, the American Federal Government kept Reagan National airport in downtown Washington, DC shut, despite the fact that none of the "hijacked" planes came from there. However, if it were possible to "take over the controls" of a plane, then it would take less than a minute for planes close to DCA airport to be diverted to a target anywhere in the capital. There were just two aircraft types involved on the 11th of September.
Eventually, after much reluctance, the government has now opened up Reagan National airport again, but ONLY for planes with less than 156 seats. Now what kind of planes previously operating happily out of Reagan National will this new "seating" restriction exclude? Hint: Among a few others, the Boeing 757 and 767.
Cynics might be tempted to conclude that, as usual, "important" politicians and bureaucrats are being provided with discreet special protection from Home Run, while everyday Americans are left to take their chances as best they can, and run the continual risk of being shot down by one of their own F16 fighters. Ignorance may be bliss for some folk, but not for those who have studied this page and realized the implications.
18 October 2001
Suddenly, more than five weeks after the attack and for no apparent reason, the most powerful newspaper in the western world published a major article "reinforcing" the myth that physical hijackers were responsible for the attacks on 11 September. No hard facts of course, no corroboration at all, just the usual pathetic series of media "sources", all of them far too "secret" to reveal.
Within hours of this newspaper going to press, television reporters across the entire western world repeated the fiction to their own viewing publics. From London in England to Sydney in Australia, everone woke to this new "proof" that Arabs were the real culprits. Never mind public safety, please believe what we, your trusted and experienced news peddlers, are telling you. To read the propaganda, click here.
19 October 2001
During the past few days I have received many emails asking for a written explanation of who was behind the attacks on 11 September, and why. As an investigator I can prove how the attack was carried out, but I cannot prove why or by whom. Of all the work I have seen on the Internet, the closest to the truth is probably this imspired report called "Orient Express" written by journalist Israel Shamir. To read "Orient Express", click here.
25 October 2001
Though I do not agree with the financial rationale where this report is concerned, the Colonel and his highly specialized group provide valuable additional insights into the impossibility of "hijackers" flying the attack aircraft on 11 September. To read "The Enemy is Inside The Gates", click here.
20 January 2002
Former German Minister Von Buelow Already Knew About Remote Control
In his interview with the German daily "Tagesspiegel" on January 13th, former German Secretary of Defence Andreas Von Buelow made the following statement:-
"There is also the theory of one British flight engineer: According to this, the steering of the planes was perhaps taken out of the pilots' hands, from outside. The Americans had developed a method in the 1970s, whereby they could rescue hijacked planes by intervening into the computer piloting [automatic pilot system]. This theory says, this technique was abused in this case..."
Not quite so much a theory as might first appear. When I released the above report about "Home Run" remote control in October 2001, I mentioned that one European flag carrier was aware of the technology, though at that precise point in time I thought it prudent not to name the actual airline:-
"As long ago as the early nineties, a major European flag carrier acquired the information and was seriously alarmed that one of its own aircraft might be "rescued" by the Americans without its authority. Accordingly, this flag carrier completely stripped the American flight control computers out of its entire fleet, and replaced them with a home grown version. These aircraft are now effectively impregnable to penetration by Home Run, but that is more than can be said for the American aircraft fleet..."
The European flag carrier which completely stripped the American flight computers out of its aircraft was Lufthansa, the German national airline. Bearing in mind his former posts as Secretary of Defence and Minister of Science and Technology, Herr Von Buelow would have known all about this mammoth but secretive task.
How very clever (and discreet) of Von Buelow to sort of "drop the information" into the middle of an interview about the 9/11 attacks!
The author is a former member of the Society of Licenced
Aeronautical Engineers & Technologist, London
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The main point of this report is to take you up for a flight in a high performance fighter jet, tasked with intercepting a “rogue†aircraft apparently off track and threatening a major city. We really need to do this now, because disinformation about the September 11 attack on the World Trade Center is rapidly spiraling out of control. Months ago rumors started circulating that the United States Air Force failed to intercept the doomed commercial airliners, which was largely correct information. Unfortunately, from there on it was all downhill and a pack of lies.
The first Chinese whisper to echo around the Internet claimed that air force pilots had been ordered not to fly. There is not a scrap of evidence to corroborate this deliberate slur on members of the American military, all of whom are related to men, women, and children just like those who perished on September 11 in the World Trade Center and The Pentagon. Fighter pilots are warm-blooded human beings just like you, and they would have protected America if they could. For reasons you will shortly learn about first-hand, it proved an impossible task.
Weeks later, the second Chinese whisper claimed that the entire USAF structure had been ordered to “stand downâ€ÂÂ, deliberately inferring that the middle levels of the military command structure were involved in this spreading conspiracy. Once again not a scrap of evidence, but who cares about that? For those wishing to turn the American public against its own military defense forces, trivia such as evidence and the truth have no meaning.
The third and most recent Chinese whisper, is a claim by Carol Valentine that rather than being hijacked by the civilian DARPA controlled “Home Runâ€ÂÂ, the attack aircraft were actually remotely controlled from NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command) on the direct orders of USAF General Richard B. Myers. According to Ms Valentine, General Myers ordered his subordinates to track and locate four suitable American airliners full of American passengers, and they allegedly complied. Next, General Myer’s subordinates apparently incriminated themselves still further by obeying his next unlawful command, to radio-lock onto the four aircraft and direct them to their respective targets.
No weeping at NORAD in Cheyenne Mountain apparently, or concern that Mom or Grandma might be on one of the jets. Oh no, apparently Myer’s robotic junior officers cheerfully jumped to it with a will, and sent hundreds of American passengers crashing into thousands more Americans on the ground in New York and Washington. Then for good measure, Myer’s subordinates, by this time giggling insanely one presumes, grounded every serviceable combat jet in North America.
Like heck they did… As with most outrageous flights of fancy, this one fails to explain how the entire USAF chain of command was corrupted, and Myer’s outraged staff forced to remain silent in the face of massive American death and destruction. Proving a little knowledge can be a very dangerous thing, Ms Valentine trashes a claim by the Washington Post, which says that military jets were scrambled but could not get to the Washington area in time:
“That's a dumb lie, even for the Washington Post. Andrews Air Force Base, home of Air Force One, is just 10 miles from Washington D.C. How long would it take for Andrews jets, capable of flying at 1,200 mph plus, to get over Washington D.C./Pentagon airspace?â€ÂÂ
Hmm. We will see exactly how long in just a minute. So strap on your “G†suit and don your flight coveralls, because we are about to get airborne on an air defense mission. Not in an American aircraft, because that would be distasteful in the wake of the September 11 attack. For our simulation today we will borrow a British Tornado interceptor, and try to defend London against a rogue airliner off-track from Manchester in northern England. The term “we†is not used in the Royal sense, but only to denote that the rear seat on this flight is reserved strictly for you. Just me and you in a fighter made for two.
This is peacetime, when most home-based western combat aircraft normally carry only “drill†(dummy) missiles on their wing pylons, and have no live cannon shells in the ammo trays. Damn, we just bumped into our first irritating time delay! Though unarmed interceptors can quickly be used to check out the status of off-course aircraft like Payne Stewart’s Lear Jet, they are effectively useless against hostile targets. We keep them unarmed for a very good reason. On a scale of one to ten, listing the types of accidents all air forces try to avoid, jettisoning live Sidewinder missiles down the chimney of City Hall probably rates as number one or two.
Each western country keeps a handful of interceptors armed in case of a surprise attack, and bases them at the outer extremities of its national sovereign territory, from where the attack will come. Though the Official Secrets Act prohibits me from stating exactly how many armed aircraft are available in Britain or America in peacetime, rest assured the figure is exceedingly small. Any reasonable and intelligent person can deduce from this, that aircraft based close to major cities like London and Washington, DC, will not be armed at all in peacetime.
Unfortunately, today the armed British Tornados are on patrol in the north and running low on fuel. Our own aircraft is not armed, so we will have to stand around twiddling our thumbs until sufficient missiles and cannon shells are taken out of the bomb dump on the far side of the airfield, then transported to the Tornado dispersal area. Why do we keep the bomb dump over there, so far away? Anyone who saw the recent bomb dump explosion in Nigeria that killed more than 1,000 people, will already know the answer.
It is a very slow process. Only a madman races around the airfield perimeter track when towing a stack of live missiles with high-explosive warheads, and bins of high explosive cannon shells. Remember here also, that the ground crew first have to remove the dummy missiles from the Tornado before they can fit the live ones.
Eventually our Tornado is armed, its safety breaks and systems fully tested. Already nearly an hour has elapsed this Tuesday morning but we can’t rush off just yet, we have to check everything is safely on the mountings. Because we have no idea what magnitude the threat presents, we have festooned the Tornado with all of its optional extras. Hung under the belly are four Sky Flash radar guided air-to-air missiles, good for launching at 20 miles or more. On the wing pylons, four Sidewinder AIM-9L heat seeking air-to-air missiles which are good for launching at about 2 miles range, though not much further.
Finally, in the belly of the beast, 180 rounds of high-explosive ammunition for the single Mauser BK 27-millimeter cannon. If all else fails, we will need to get close to the target to use the Mauser, ideally within 600 yards for a clean kill. At that range, two 10-round bursts of the nine ounce high-explosive shells should be enough to bring down anything with wings, leaving plenty of ammo for alternate targets. We check all missiles are tight on their mountings.
As we climb into the Tornado cockpit, strap in and start the engines, we reflect quickly on the fate of KL 007, the Korean Boeing 747 shot down at night over Sakhalin Island in Russia, back in 1983. Those Russian interceptors were all armed to the teeth, right? Wrong! The three Mig-23 jets sent up to have a look were all carrying dummy missiles and had no cannon shells, meaning they were unable to fire tracer shells across the nose of the hulking black aircraft, the international night time aviation code for “follow me or elseâ€ÂÂ.
On the ground far below, Major Gennady Osipovich sprinted for the armed duty interceptor, strapped in, and rapidly got airborne. His Sukhoi 15 climbed like a rocket, and after closing carefully onto his target by radar, Osipovich fired bursts of tracer in front of its black outline, which he could barely see because there was no moon. Then he received his orders from the ground, fell back behind the target and fired two Anab air-to-air missiles.
The rest is history. But how strange to find out nearly twenty years later, that only one in four of the Russian interceptors was armed, despite being located right out there on the border, and next to one of the most sensitive military installations in the entire Soviet Union! There is a lesson here for those who wish to imply that USAF personnel at Andrews AFB, near Washington, were guilty of treason on September 11, 2001.
“Tower, this is Tornado 012, request entry Runway 23†“Tornado 012 clear for entry and take off Runway 23. Wind 255 at 15 knots†“012â€ÂÂ
With throttles fully forward through the afterburner gates, the Tornado lights its tail and hurtles down the runway, pinning us back in our seats as nearly 40,000 pounds of jet thrust kick in. The runway markers turn into a blur and seconds later we are airborne, the wheels retracting into the undercarriage bays as we bank hard left and climb like a bullet, changing radio frequencies to Ground Control Interception (GCI) as we go. The brutal “G†force is trying to drain the blood from our heads to our toes, but our “G†suits squeeze gently around our legs and lower torso, enabling us to stay fully conscious and alert during the process.
“Sandman, Sandman, this is Tornado 012 climbing through 30,000 on 095 magneticâ€ÂÂ
“Roger 012, good morning, we have you on radar. Turn right heading 198 and continue climb to 45,000. We have an unusual target for you todayâ€ÂÂ
“012, what do you mean by ‘unusual’ Sandman? overâ€ÂÂ
“A civilian heavy has crashed into the City of London, and another one has gone off-course from Manchester. At present the second aircraft is on track for London, and we think it possible there is a plan to crash this aircraft into the House of Commonsâ€ÂÂ
“012, How do we know this, Sandman. Has this second aircraft called mayday, or squawked ident with his IFF transponder?â€ÂÂ
“Negative 012, we are operating on ground intelligence only. On approach to London I will put you in a holding pattern to conserve fuel, while the Ministry of Defence decides what to do with your targetâ€ÂÂ
“Identify targetâ€ÂÂ
“Tornado 012, your target is British Caledonian Flight 1503â€ÂÂ
“Sandman, have you gone nuts?â€ÂÂ
“Negative 012, remember who is the controller here. Maintain radio silence until I provide you with your next course to steerâ€ÂÂ
“012â€ÂÂ
Despite the air conditioning we have both started sweating into our oxygen masks and flight coveralls. This is a complete nightmare. From the very beginning of flight training school, we have been told time and time again that civilian airliners are sacrosanct. Combat aircraft and civilian airliners do not mix. Not ever. Get too close to an invisible airway in the sky and it’s an automatic Court of Inquiry. Fly so close to an airliner that the crew can read your ident numbers, and that means the end of your career. I repeat, time and time again, the end of your career. The same rules apply in all other western nations.
Our breath rasps noisily through our oxygen masks as our brains try to come to grips with the magnitude of the situation. We are subsonic again now with our swing-wings fully forward, conserving fuel as we circle slowly and look down on Greater London far below. Apart from a single pall of black smoke rising up from the banking complex in the City, everything else looks so normal. Then mild paranoia slowly starts to take over.
How can we be sure it is the real Sandman we have been talking to? Is this a cunning enemy plot to make us shoot down an airliner full of our own citizens? How can we verify these are correct orders? If only we had the American system where they carry cards with codes on them, which have to be matched from the ground before you can open fire. No, that’s wrong, only the armed nuclear bombers carried those, and that was years ago. No matter what we think our brains are still numb. How could this happen, and why me, why me?
“012, this is Sandmanâ€ÂÂ
“012â€ÂÂ
“Target is tracking in from the east, currently over Southend-on-Sea heading west at an altitude of 16,000 feet, and descending. Tell your rear to get a lock with his radar. This is not a drill, I repeat this is not a drill. Engage and destroy the targetâ€ÂÂ
“012 arming weaponsâ€ÂÂ
Reactions are automatic. Throttles through the gates, afterburners alight as the wings start swinging back to the supersonic position. Roll inverted and pull through, heading east to get behind the target. The Tornado slips through the sound barrier as a numbed finger reaches out and selects the first pair of Sidewinder heat seeking missiles on the weapons panel. The Sidewinders come alive and start their low murmuring in the headphones. Reassuring in a real life combat situation, but disconcerting now.
A sickening swoop and then throttles back, air brakes out, wings fully forward to the subsonic position. Speed matched with the airliner as we level out alongside. Passengers waving at us idiotically from the windows. Throttles back through the gate and we accelerate diagonally across its nose, waggling our wings, the international aviation daylight code for “follow me or elseâ€ÂÂ. No response. So we buzz the giant airliner again, this time only just missing its nose. He must have seen us, but still no response.
We fall back behind the target. At five miles range, the murmuring in the headphones is starting to get louder as the Sidewinders catch their first faint whiff of a hot target. We stalk the target, getting closer all the time, and the murmur in our headphones turns to a clamor. The Sidewinders have locked onto the target and want to be let off the leash. Safety off, gently touch the unsheathed trigger with a gloved hand.
No, dammit, no! The target is less than two miles ahead, resplendent in its shiny white, blue and yellow colors. A giant lumbering beast of a plane incapable of taking evasive action, stuffed full of unsuspecting British citizens. While the Sidewinders continue to clamor in the background, a mixture of sorrow and pity takes over. Sorrow for the passengers and crew we have been instructed to kill without warning, and pity for ourselves at the prospect of spending the rest of our lives in prison for carrying out the order.
The thought process has only taken about two seconds, but it is enough to distract us from the target ahead. Now both aircraft are flying over the densely populated East End of London. Poorer people than in the West End to be sure, and perhaps not as important as the politicians in the House of Commons, but who are we to choose who must die? In those little houses and apartments below us are men and women who survived thousands of tons of bombs during World War Two, and lost many thousands of relatives. They just got on with their lives and hardly ever complained, but they don’t need any more of it now.
The bottom line is that if the target crashes anywhere in London, its three hundred ton mass travelling at 200 knots will kill thousands of people regardless of whether we fire or not. We know it, and are utterly powerless to prevent it. Feeling is starting to come back to the finger that such a short time ago selected the deadly Sidewinders. As if by itself, the same finger reaches out and deselects the weapons. Throttles through the gates for the last time. Tail alight in an soaring climb to the north.
“Sandman, this is Tornado 012. Breaking away, weapons safe, returning to baseâ€ÂÂ
“This is Sandman, continue the interception 012, destroy the target, destroy the targetâ€ÂÂ
“Negative Sandman, returning to base, changing to approach frequency. Good dayâ€ÂÂ
Flaps down, wheels down, line up on the centerline and ease the throttles back to the stops as the runway threshold rushes up underneath the wheels. A faint squeak as the rubber touches the tarmac, and then still soaked with sweat, we turn off the runway and and taxi back to dispersal. Cockpit canopies up, oxygen masks and helmets off, shut down the engines. We sit motionless for a moment or two gathering our thoughts, and eventually all is completely still. There is a only a faint ticking from the jet pipe metal as it cools down and contracts, and in the distance a blackbird sings.
We are both dejected at this stage, because disobeying a crucial direct order will probably result in both of us being drummed out of the service. But as we return to the crew room we can see the operations officer waving his hands excitedly, rushing out to tell us that our target has just made a perfect landing at London Airport Heathrow! Apparently he suffered a major electrical failure after takeoff from Manchester, which also knocked out his radios, and decided to divert to the main servicing hangars at Heathrow.
The Captain of the airliner followed procedure exactly, flying out over the North Sea to dump some of his heavy fuel load for safety purposes, before making a long sweeping right-hand turn in over the Thames Estuary. We are told that immediately after landing, the Captain filed an official near-miss report, outraged that “some crazy people in a Tornado buzzed us over the East End of Londonâ€ÂÂ.
So was Sandman responsible for almost getting 259 people killed? No, not really. To issue a kill order like that, Sandman would need direct authority from the Chief of the Defence Forces. Nor does it stop there. In turn, and in order to protect his own backside, CDF would have first obtained political authority from the Prime Minister at 10 Downing Street. So in reality, 259 people were sentenced to death by a panicky politician in a grey suit.
On orders from very similar panicky grey-suited politicians, Americans in general are now far more at risk than they were before the attack on September 11, 2001. For the first time in history, air defense fighters now roam the skies over populated areas armed with live missiles and cannon shells. Regardless of whether or not Home Run is used to hijack any more of the 600+ vulnerable airliners in American airspace, a new dimension of danger has been added. Live missiles can be [and sometimes are] jettisoned from the pylons by mistake, and an accidentally launched Mach 3 heat seeker will, I repeat will, find a target to kill somewhere in the crowded skies over New York or Washington.
Critically of course, the American fighters can do nothing more constructive than watch. As with our simulated incident over London, regardless of whether or not the pilots shoot down one of their own airliners over an urban area, thousands of people will die anyway if the jet is really on its way to an urban target. There has never been a viable defense strategy against unarmed airliners flying their own national colors, and there never will be. Anyone who believes there is a viable strategy in place, has clearly been overwhelmed by ignorant politicians and members of the mainstream media.
Authors like Carol Valentine can write what they want, though I must say that in this case she misquoted and misrepresented me. In her article Ms Valentine writes: “In a nutshell, Mr. Vialls says that technology that allows air traffic controllers on the ground to assume remote control of aircraft had been secretly installed in US commercial passenger jets.†No, I did not say that. Air traffic controllers would not have the faintest idea how to remotely control an aircraft of any kind. Instead, what I actually said was “specialist ground controllers†and “Home Run controllersâ€ÂÂ. There is a world of difference between these statements.
There have also been claims that I have refused to reveal “sources†or “proof†of the classified Home Run system, which is not true. In my first report I carefully stated that “two American multinationals collaborated with the Defense Advanced Projects Agency (DARPA) on a project designed to facilitate the remote recovery of hijacked American aircraft.†This should have acted like a homing beacon for any serious researcher. DARPA has a web site that can be accessed by anyone on the Internet, and within that web site is a search engine. A judicious advanced search of the DARPA web site should yield, as they say, “something of interestâ€ÂÂ.
Finally, there is former German Defense Minister Andreas Von Buelow, who is frequently available for questions at meetings around Germany. Because of national security Von Buelow is most unlikely to comment directly, but he might respond to the following question: “Can you deny that during the mid-nineties, Lufthansa removed and replaced the flight control computers on certain American aircraft in its fleet for security reasons?â€ÂÂ
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The recent increase of interest into the 9/11attack on the Pentagon has angered many people for various reasons. It has therefore become necessary to clarify the position taken on this issue, due to the fact that so many have either misunderstood the questions raised, or have taken offense at the mere fact that one would dare question the government and media reports of the events in Washington on September 11th. I, like most of those responding, feel that America deserves to know that every effort will be made to bring the guilty parties to justice. When the French website “Hunt the Boeing†surfaced, the assertion that no plane hit the Pentagon was repugnant to me, and to many of the thousands that read the information and viewed the photographs posted. I state now for the record that I have never subscribed to the theory that NO plane hit the Pentagon. The photographs did raise the question as to WHAT hit the Pentagon and what really happened that morning.
I began to pour through the many photographs released in magazines and other publications in an effort to SUPPORT the assertion that a Boeing 757 was responsible for the damage inflicted on our nations military headquarters. However, the more I examined the photographic EVIDENCE, the more that I realized that very serious questions were being raised that demanded some kind of explanation as to how this event could have occurred as presented by the powers-that-be.
The most important photographs are the ones taken shortly after firefighters arrived on the scene, BEFORE THE COLLAPSE OF THE PENTAGON’S OUTER RING! As of this writing and to the best of my knowledge, no one has addressed this issue and offered a reasonable explanation as to how this sequence of events occurred. The initial reports from the media were that a small plane had hit the Pentagon, or that a bomb had gone off, or that a helicopter had crashed near the heliport. Shortly after these reports, network anchors reported that a commercial airliner had crashed into the Pentagon, (effectively overriding reporters on the scene), and had ripped a jagged hole, destroying a portion of the building.
Many of those who reject this line of inquiry respond with the question: “If the 757 didn’t hit the Pentagon, then where did it go?†Answer: “I don’t know!†The question should be: “If a 757 hit the Pentagon, then where is it?†I, like everybody else want to know the fate of the souls that perished on flight 77 and at the Pentagon on 9/11 and for the sake of the families whose lives were destroyed by this act of terrorism, we deserve to know the truth about what really happened.
The other argument that is made in support of the conventional story is: “What about the witnesses that said they saw a 757 hit the Pentagon?†Historically, whenever witnesses report seeing an event that is contrary to the party line, they are immediately dispelled as unreliable and not credible. The result is that their testimony is ignored and discredited. (Example: 741 witnesses have signed affidavits stating they had seen a missile hit TWA-800, hundreds said the Murrah building in Oklahoma City blew OUT and that there were TWO explosions, etc.) If eyewitness accounts are summarily and routinely dismissed in all other cases, why should this issue be any different? Especially when the photographic evidence does not support their testimonies?
The photographic evidence, common sense and the consistent track record of the government lying to the American people, (Ruby Ridge, Waco, TWA-800, OKC, Flight 587, etc., etc., etc.), bring into serious question the motives and agenda of not just the government and the Pentagon, but the enormous media networks that have participated in perpetuating stories that fly in the face of thinking individuals who exercise their right and duty to question authority. Maybe if we as Americans had pressed for answers on past issues, we wouldn’t have to ask these questions today.
I urge anyone who has evidence of the 757 hitting the Pentagon to come forward and present it publicly to put this issue to rest. I also ask those who e-mail us at the website to either present their argument in an intelligent manner and address the issues raised by the photographs mentioned, or don’t waste our or your time. Those who rely on profanity and vulgarity to make their feeble and meaningless points only publicly demonstrate their ignorance.
I also hereby officially challenge the media to prove its independence from the government by honestly addressing the issues raised by these photographs, (which are in and of themselves newsworthy), with some explanation other than, “They’re crazy!†or, “They’re conspiracy theorists!†The old technique or “destroying the messenger†rather than addressing the message just doesn’t work anymore. The credibility of ALL the news networks is quickly attaining the same status as the Pentagon because they are working WITH the Pentagon! I hope and pray to be proven wrong and would be very happy to publicly admit my error. Sadly, I believe the national news agencies have passed the point of no return, as they have traveled so far down the road to corruption that admission now would totally obliterate any hope of believability in the future.
Finally, to those who question the patriotism of those who would dare ask such questions, I would ask that you do a little research. Read the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights. This is supposed to be a government of, by and for the people and our first document of law, (The Constitution) is the rulebook. There are those in positions of authority who have subverted and ignored the laws of this country, and it is up to the people to restore our Republic to its Constitutional principals. We were proudly flying our P.O.W. and U.S flags long before 9/11, and were labeled as “Patriots†(with negative connotation) for doing so. By the way, to the best of our knowledge, we were the ONLY source of official U.S. Title 4 Flags for the general public until the supply ran out. That’s right, the Official U.S. Flag is NOT available to the general public. Those who want more background on our patriotism can visit our sister website: www.gulfwarvets.com.
How can we dare call ourselves the “Land of the Free and the home of the Brave?†when we are not free enough to ask questions for fear of reprisal? Or brave enough to face the truth when it surfaces? America needs to do some serious soul searching and look itself in the mirror. Our collective denial will be our own undoing unless we quickly figure what and who we are supposed to be as a free and open society.
“My Country, Love it or Leave it!†represents a very dangerous “blind patriotism†attitude that enables dictators like Adolph Hitler to come into power. Those that subscribe to this philosophy and “simply follow orders†are the greatest threat to a free nation that there is. I say “My Country, Love it and Fix it!†That’s what we as Patriots are supposed to do!
“… it is their right, it is their duty to throw off such Government and to provide new guards for their security.†– The Declaration of Independence
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