38min of news footage from the day: http://s3.amazonaws.com/nasathermalimages/public/video/prete... (Win users may need vlc: https://videolan.org)
‘We May Have to Shoot Down This Aircraft’
81–90 of 211 posts
Re: ‘We May Have to Shoot Down This Aircraft’
#82This is a phenomenal oral history of the events, learning of, and response to the events of 9/11. If an emergency is a circumstance in which ongoing realities are emergent and aren't predictable based on previous experience or world-models, this is a phenomenal example of those dynamics. Commander Anthony Barnes: That first hour was mass confusion because there was so much erroneous information. It was hard to tell w…
I'm going to piggy-back on this about a certain way information may not add up. I live in Boston, and so do my siblings. We all worked downtown. On the day of the marathon bombing, I immediately called my sister on her cell phone to see if she was okay. Someone that was not my sister picked up, then immediatly hung up after I said who I was looking for. I was immediately terrified. What if my sister had been hurt, dr…
I got misconnected once while trying to book a hotel reservation over the phone. Rooms became available 330 days out but a whole month at once, so when the reservation office opened at 8am or whatever on the first of the month, everyone would try to call in.
So many people were calling this number that the system would start hanging up on people at random, so you'd just call back over and over hoping that you'd get connected when the phones went live.
Finally, someone on the other end said "Hello?" and I said "Hi, I'd like to book a room for next summer" and he said "Me too" and I said "good luck!" and hung up.
Re: ‘We May Have to Shoot Down This Aircraft’
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm going to piggy-back on this about a certain way information may not add up. I live in Boston, and so do my siblings. We all worked downtown. On the day of the marathon bombing, I immediately called my sister on her cell phone to see if she was okay. Someone that was not my sister picked up, then immediatly hung up after I said who I was looking for. I was immediately terrified. What if my sister had been hurt, dr…
I'm sure someone more qualified and experienced with phone networks can chip in, but from memory this is by design on the phone network, when it gets overloaded it just starts to connect randomly to reduce load. I can't remember exact details, because it's not my area of expertise, but I vaguely remember my father (who's a telecommunications network engineer) talking about it years ago.
That doesn’t seem to make sense on the face of it. Connecting to the wrong number doesn’t reduce load, because the network still has to carry the call. Why not just fail to connect?
I know you’re not a network engineer, but it just doesn’t look right.
Re: ‘We May Have to Shoot Down This Aircraft’
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
What's also chilling, when you think about it a little more, is that a group of civilian passengers made more or less the same decision, and that's the reason these fighter pilots survived the day .
Hmm, it seems a little convenient that they didn't have to shoot the plane down. Do we have any evidence that they didn't shoot the plane down and then construct the passengers saving the day story after the fact?
You got downvoted, but still there is no certainty on this.
Fighter planes were there, they knew where they were headed. Shooting down the plane above non-residential area seemed like the best option.
On the other hand, passengers overmastering the terrorist through the cockpit door already seems unlikely, and more unlikely still once overmastered, not trying to land safely.
So yeah, bringing news that you shot down a plane with your own civilians is bad. Bringing a story how people sacrificed themselves is way better.
Re: ‘We May Have to Shoot Down This Aircraft’
#85I remember working that day (a cool and sunny Tuesday) and each place I went to I asked them to turn on the TV. Nobody was interested in turning on the TV or even changing the channel to any news channel. What I thought had happened was a large aircraft accidentally ran into the Empire State building again like had happened many years ago.
I was in fifth grade in a town in NJ on the Bergen County line. From most of the hills you could see downtown Manhattan, mostly the WTC. Earlier my brother turned eight and we went to the observation deck, something long promised but always postponed because it would always be there.
I remember reading about the death of Massoud, but that was a memory from the day before. The next day we all knew where Afghanistan was.
That day school ended and parents had to come pick us up since they didn't want anyone walking back to an empty house and learning daddy wasn't going to make it back that night.
The next month my brother had funeral after funeral of his friends parents to attend. The towers were like a missing tooth, a gap you knew wasn't always there.
Re: ‘We May Have to Shoot Down This Aircraft’
#86Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hmm, it seems a little convenient that they didn't have to shoot the plane down. Do we have any evidence that they didn't shoot the plane down and then construct the passengers saving the day story after the fact?
Why would they? It'd be a sad story, but I can't imagine anyone would see the US's actions there as unjustified.
I don't think this is a conspiracy at all. But I could see people having this conversation if they did shoot it down.
Maybe to make the victim's family feel better. To avoid lawsuits. Avoid repercussion if they were wrong. Avoid repercussion if we found later this plane was going to hit a building that would have little loss of life vs passenger count.
There could be rationale there if people made a panicked decision.
Re: ‘We May Have to Shoot Down This Aircraft’
#87Earlier quoted context omitted.
The article is a book exerpt, essentially a chapter of a larger work. The chapter addressing the President, then in Florida, has been posted elsewhere in this thread, it's here: https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/09/were-the-onl...
offtopic: Where do you blog nowadays? Haven't followed you since G+ went down and you dropped Reddit too. You don't seem overly active on Mastodon either?
Mostly Mastodon, actually. My posts are usually unlisted, so not on the home stream, but you should see them if you follow me there.
https://mastodon.cloud/@dredmorbius
There's a new blog coming ... eventually. On Gitlab.
Re: ‘We May Have to Shoot Down This Aircraft’
#88Dick Cheney basically pulled off a coup that day. George W Bush wasn't incapacitated. He never put Cheney in charge. But Cheney just took over. He started giving orders and everyone else was too stunned to do anything but follow.
Re: ‘We May Have to Shoot Down This Aircraft’
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
If an emergency is a circumstance in which ongoing realities are emergent and aren't predictable based on previous experience or world-models, this is a phenomenal example of those dynamics I like this characterization somewhat, though I think there needs to be a [perceived danger] variable not accounted for. Perhaps: An emergency is a circumstance in which realities are perceived as existentially dangerous and aren'…
I agree, otherwise the OP is just describing Burning Man.
Interesting comparison.
Burning Man is managed as an ongoing emergency, and has a 24/7 multi-disciplinary team responding to and triaging incidents as they arise.
Essentially Burning Man is a disaster that's been intentionally paused just before a tragedy. It's kept at that point by some very coordinated and talented people.
Re: ‘We May Have to Shoot Down This Aircraft’
#90> We didn’t have [missiles] on board to shoot the airplane down. As we were putting on our flight gear in the life support shop, Sass looked at me and said, “I’ll ram the cockpit.” I made the decision I would take the tail off the aircraft > I genuinely believed that was going to be the last time I took off. If we did it right, this would be it. - Lt. Heather “Lucky” Penney That leaves me just speechless and chilled.…
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