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‘We May Have to Shoot Down This Aircraft’

politico.com

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Re: ‘We May Have to Shoot Down This Aircraft’

#141

Post by Agentlien »

NullPrefix wrote: post #134
Agentlien wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a friend who, for a few months, had a really strange thing going on with his phone. Any time his phone was off, calls to him would be redirected to someone else. It was another person from the same city, but using a different carrier. Me, my friend and other friends of his called both companies to report the error multiple times. All we received was scorn and disbelief. We were told, repeatedly, that it simply…

Did he check if call forwarding was activated?

According to customer service it wasn't and they said they didn't allow it anyway to that other company's network. And hence, they didn't believe us when we said it was happening.

This was circa 2006

Re: ‘We May Have to Shoot Down This Aircraft’

#142

Post by loco5niner »

dTal wrote: post #118
philwelch wrote: post #22

Earlier 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 .

There's no evidence the passengers suicided. They were attempting to save themselves. There was a struggle in the cockpit, and the aircraft crashed. It may even have been that the terrorists crashed the plane when they realized they weren't going to make it to their target. This meme is unhealthy, and disrepectful to the fallen.

There is no disrespect in GP comment.

> They were attempting to save themselves.

Yes, and also the other innocent lives on the plane, maybe even on the ground.

Re: ‘We May Have to Shoot Down This Aircraft’

#143

Post by gerbilly »

mkipfer wrote: post #14

I could hardly imagine taking flight in a jet to potentially intercept one of the suspect planes knowing that your only options were to aim for the tail or the cockpit. Knowing that you were acting as a type of kamikaze. Chilling. That thought was barely on my mind during the day on 9/11 as a 6th grader. I still get chills thinking about it.

People who fly jets are a different breed.

My dad witnessed the snowbirds crash at an airshow over lake Ontario.

They give boats a cordon that they are supposed to stay out of, but enforcement had become lax, so people would bring their boats in close for a better view.

When the crash happened one of the pilots, whose plane was damaged beyond control, flew it straight into the lake instead of ejecting to avoid hitting the boats.

See: https://www.upi.com/Archives/1989/09/04/Crash-witnesses-Vali...

Re: ‘We May Have to Shoot Down This Aircraft’

#144

Post by varjag »

baybal2 wrote: post #68

I do remember listening news on the radio just a day or two after. Immediately in my head, I thought "something Saudi happened." A week after, when it finally got clear that those were indeed Saudis, I though for myself "there is no way Saudis will be coming out of that now." Few years later, still in my yearly teens, I kept catching myself in disbelief of American logic. Not only did Americans spare the Saudis, but…

Osama bin Laden was not Saudi royal, his commoner family became rich in construction business. It was precisely the alliance of Riyadh with the States that motivated his jihad, so you are on the same page with him wrt American assistance.

At the time of attack, he was a fugitive from the Kingdom for nearly a decade.

Re: ‘We May Have to Shoot Down This Aircraft’

#145

Post by juped »

jacobush wrote: post #99
throwbrow wrote: post #41

I was riding the 7 train from Astoria, Queens, to my job at the big Citigroup tower in Long Island City. It was after the first plane hit and, with the 7 being an outdoor subway line with a great view of the Manhattan skyline, we in the first car could see the gaping hole and smoke billowing. I assumed it was an accident. When I got to work I said dismissively to colleagues, “That must be the dumbest pilot ever.” We…

I was working on a large airport in Europe, on-site. We got notice that US-bound planes were diverted to turn back over the Atlantic and come back to us. Then the news started trickling in. I immediately thought "they are going to hit Iraq for this".

Why would you think that?

Re: ‘We May Have to Shoot Down This Aircraft’

#146

Post by pnutjam »

Agentlien wrote: post #130
tialaramex wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't have a technical explanation for how call misrouting can happen except to observe that the endpoints are entirely reliant on the network to get this right, they don't even tell each other "Hi I'm X trying to call Y" and "Hi I'm Y answering a call from X". On Strowger electro-mechanical exchanges one of the nice features is that a random piece of the exchange handles each dialed call. This means the human intu…

I have a friend who, for a few months, had a really strange thing going on with his phone. Any time his phone was off, calls to him would be redirected to someone else. It was another person from the same city, but using a different carrier. Me, my friend and other friends of his called both companies to report the error multiple times. All we received was scorn and disbelief. We were told, repeatedly, that it simply…

As a system admin, this is indicative of how network people react to issues.

Re: ‘We May Have to Shoot Down This Aircraft’

#147

Post by Udik »

acqq wrote: post #77

The required read is also the written statement of the planners of the attack (the copy of pdf on Penn Law): https://www.law.upenn.edu/live/files/5964-d-101-islamic-resp... "killing you and fighting you, destroying you and terrorizing you, responding back to your attacks, are all considered to be great legitimate duty in our religion. These actions are our offerings to God." They really tried hard to be very clean ab…

You forgot the first part:

"America is the number one, and the largest country in the world, in spreading military might and terrorism. Also, America is the principle and greatest supplier to the occupying terrorist state of Israel in Palestine. Also, America supports and finances the terrorist regimes that govern the countries ofthe Arab world, such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan."

Re: ‘We May Have to Shoot Down This Aircraft’

#148

Post by ianhawes »

zuppy wrote: post #75
dredmorbius wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of the Web wasn't geared for high load. Information was developing so rapidly that online was really the only effective place to go for information (such as it was -- there was rampant speculation). Many sites rapidly slimmed down their services and offered lightweight versions. A few lighter-weight sites remained up, notably, at the time, Slashdot. NPR refers to 9/11 as the event which made clear that the netw…

This is something that I’ve completely forgotten until now. I remember all the major news sites were down and when they came back up, there were only simple html pages. It took a while before they restored to a slimmed down version. I have a memory of a picture on a news article that I can’t forget: there were tens of ambulances one behind another on a boulevard, waiting in line to help people.

I also remember several cable channels (non-news) entirely shut off programming for a few days after.

Re: ‘We May Have to Shoot Down This Aircraft’

#149

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

>> I asked the vice president that question and he answered it in the affirmative. I asked again to be sure. “Sir, I am confirming that you have given permission?” For me, being a military member and an aviator—understanding the absolute depth of what that question was and what that answer was—I wanted to make sure that there was no mistake whatsoever about what was being asked. Without hesitation, in the affirmative, he said any confirmed hijacked airplane may be engaged and shot down.

I have a faint recollection of Dick Cheney and who he was. I find it easy to believe that the reason he did not hesitate was because his own person was in mortal danger from the airliner in question.

I think a leader responsible for the lives of people on the air and on the ground both, would find it very hard to make a decision to condemn one group to save the other, even if one group was condemned already. I mean, it's not for nothing that the Trolley Problem and Sophie's choice, etc are such well-known ethical conundrum examples.

But when it comes to saving one's own bacon- the decision is much simpler.

Is this comment too cynical?

Re: ‘We May Have to Shoot Down This Aircraft’

#150

Post by jacquesm »

goto11 wrote: post #140
nesadi wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By every measure, the terrorists accomplished their goals and won.

My impression was that the goal was to get the US presence out of the middle east. That goal failed pretty spectacularly.

Stated goals and actual goals rarely align.
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