FBI, the mob, and 9/11

[Len Colby]

Suggestion:

Ignore Colby/Lamson. Just carry on as if they are not even here.

To get into it with them just brings the fourm down to the level of

__________________ (you decide).

Dawn

IMHO, it is their very intention [consciouly or unconsciously - I'm inclined to the the former] to do exactly that - to bring discredit to the Forum [that would allow the audacity to question 'the established and 'received' truth'] - rather than the members they attack. Carry on and ignore 'em - best you can. They are like mosquitos and sometimes need a slap.

Quite ironic this coming from people with no compunctions about making accusations again others with out supplying any evidence. National Enquirer style posting. Of course if I had compared Peter to an insect or any other animal and suggested he needed to be disciplined he would have raised cackles.

NOTE TO MODERATORS: I prefer that that Peter's post not be edited because it reflects worse on him than me.

[Evan Burton]

"If someone refutes your evidence, then ignore their evidence"

Not a wise move, IMO. What if they are right?

I welcome dissent to the opinion I put forward. If my view is incorrect, then people have to have the opportunity to tell me as such. If I am wrong, then people have to be able to tell me such.

I welcome "provocateurs" or "disinformation agents" because I am confident my viewpoints can withstand the scrutiny of others.

If people make false statements, I will be able to show that they are false.

Edited July 18, 2008 by Evan Burton

[Evan Burton]

Cell phone calls are faked.

Peter,

Perhaps we should wait until we have to hear what Jack has to say before we draw any conclusions.

[Craig Lamson]

Suggestion:

Ignore Colby/Lamson. Just carry on as if they are not even here.

To get into it with them just brings the fourm down to the level of

__________________ (you decide).

Dawn

Dawn - wise words.

IMHO, it is their very intention [consciouly or unconsciously - I'm inclined to the the former] to do exactly that - to bring discredit to the Forum [that would allow the audacity to question 'the established and 'received' truth'] - rather than the members they attack. Carry on and ignore 'em - best you can. They are like mosquitos and sometimes need a slap.

If your evidence, conclusions or logic suck, you will get called on it. Simple as that. Self-proclaimed truth seekers should be expected to act with intellectual honesty. What discredits this forum the most is when members post work that gets proven wrong and then fail to admit that error. Even worse when they recycle it at a later date as if it still is valid. It also discredits this forum when member both allow this and in fact condone it.

Sometimes people who fit this bill are the ones most needing the slap.

[Ron Ecker]

The behavior of Donald Rumsfeld during the attacks, reinforced by the behavior of General Myers. One has to look no further for compelling evidence of government complicity (LIHOP or MIHOP).

[Jack White]

So Jack did it occur to you that those vehicles might have been struck by HEAVY oieces of debris?

Show us the debris. It is not in the photo. The trucks have not been moved.

The tower has just collapsed.

Jack

Edited July 18, 2008 by Jack White

[Christopher Hall]

Suggestion:

Ignore Colby/Lamson. Just carry on as if they are not even here.

To get into it with them just brings the fourm down to the level of

__________________ (you decide).

Dawn

Dawn - wise words.

Yes, and above all people should avoid reading these two links:

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.ph...mp;#entry127049

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.ph...rning&st=15

Wouldn't want anyone to get any impressions about "provocateurs," considering this thread long ago ceased to be about whether or not Jim Fetzer or Jack White would address themselves to the question posed.

Colby Crew Charter Member

Good point.

The simple questions raised in Post No. 1 remain unanswered.

[Jack White]

Jack,

You mention "impossible cellphone calls".

Could you detail the specific calls you have issues with?

Thanks.

ALL OF THEM. I have discussed this with a friend who is a cellphone

technician. The problem is the "HANDOFF".

Any cellphone TRAVELING TOO FAST (air OR ground) needs the

necessary time to accomplish the electronic handoff from one

land tower to the next one. This requires about three seconds.

If the cellphone is traveling too fast, it passes the land tower

receiving the handoff and the network is confused and does

not receive the handoff. A CELLPHONE TRAVELING TOO FAST

WILL SHUT DOWN. The land towers are spaced two or three

miles apart. A jetliner flying 500 mph would pass over MANY

towers, causing electronic confusion!

Any cellphone TOO FAR AWAY, like 30,000 feet overhead,

would not have any way of knowing which land tower to connect

to, since it would be equidistant from MANY land towers. If it

accidentally connected with one, it would be out of range before

a connection could be completed, and then would encounter the

handoff problem if connected.

Any sailor knows that cellphones do not work once the boat is

out of range of land antennas. CELL PHONES ARE DESIGNED

TO ONLY WORK ON LAND, WHERE LAND TOWERS ARE FREQUENT.

Go on a long hike into the mountains away from any highway

and your cellphone will likely be useless.

Another problem is very low power. Cellphones generate only

enough power to reach the nearest land tower, with a tiny battery.

Inside the metal fuselage of a jetliner, the fuselage acts as a

Faraday cage, trapping the weak radio waves INSIDE the

plane.

American Airlines has announced a new service to be available

next year which will allow cellphones to be used aboard their

jets. BUT IT WILL NOT RELY ON LAND TOWERS. It will use the

aircraft shortwave radio to connect with a land station. This is

expected, according to tests, to allow cellphones to be used

on planes.

Jack

[Jack White]

Another phony phone story were the alleged messages (2) of Barbara Olson to husband Ted in Washington.

Allegedly she used an aircraft SEATBACK PHONE, not a cellphone. Seatback phones require use

of a CREDIT CARD for billing. Allegedly she did not have her credit card SO SHE PLACED HER

CALL "COLLECT" to Washington.

There are two things wrong with this official version.

One, airlines DO NOT PERMIT COLLECT CALLS from seatback phones.

Two, all seatback calls from American Airlines planes ARE ROUTED THROUGH AA HEADQUARTERS

AT DFW AIRPORT for billing purposes. American Airlines has produced no records of Olson's call.

Jack

Edited July 18, 2008 by Jack White

[Jack White]

The behavior of Donald Rumsfeld during the attacks, reinforced by the behavior of General Myers. One has to look no further for compelling evidence of government complicity (LIHOP or MIHOP).

Here, Ron. Don't forget these two guys, who refused to testify separately,

and allowed no photos, recordings or notes taken. Why?

Jack

Edited July 18, 2008 by Jack White

[Craig Lamson]

So Jack did it occur to you that those vehicles might have been struck by HEAVY oieces of debris?

Show us the debris. It is not in the photo. The trucks have not been moved.

The tower has just collapsed.

Jack

Bolding mine. Given such a definitive statement of fact like " The trucks have not been moved." surely you have the data to back your claim. Please supply it or remove your claim.

[Dave Greer]

ALL OF THEM. I have discussed this with a friend who is a cellphone

technician. The problem is the "HANDOFF".

Any cellphone TRAVELING TOO FAST (air OR ground) needs the

necessary time to accomplish the electronic handoff from one

land tower to the next one. This requires about three seconds.

If the cellphone is traveling too fast, it passes the land tower

receiving the handoff and the network is confused and does

not receive the handoff. A CELLPHONE TRAVELING TOO FAST

WILL SHUT DOWN. The land towers are spaced two or three

miles apart. A jetliner flying 500 mph would pass over MANY

towers, causing electronic confusion!

Any cellphone TOO FAR AWAY, like 30,000 feet overhead,

would not have any way of knowing which land tower to connect

to, since it would be equidistant from MANY land towers. If it

accidentally connected with one, it would be out of range before

a connection could be completed, and then would encounter the

handoff problem if connected.

Any sailor knows that cellphones do not work once the boat is

out of range of land antennas. CELL PHONES ARE DESIGNED

TO ONLY WORK ON LAND, WHERE LAND TOWERS ARE FREQUENT.

Go on a long hike into the mountains away from any highway

and your cellphone will likely be useless.

Another problem is very low power. Cellphones generate only

enough power to reach the nearest land tower, with a tiny battery.

Inside the metal fuselage of a jetliner, the fuselage acts as a

Faraday cage, trapping the weak radio waves INSIDE the

plane.

American Airlines has announced a new service to be available

next year which will allow cellphones to be used aboard their

jets. BUT IT WILL NOT RELY ON LAND TOWERS. It will use the

aircraft shortwave radio to connect with a land station. This is

expected, according to tests, to allow cellphones to be used

on planes.

Jack

First things first. The information I've read states that only TWO cell phone calls were made from Flight United 93. The other 35 calls were made using GTE airphones. This is from a Wiki site I haven't had time to verify yet, but if those details are incorrect they can easily be refuted.

So, 2 cell phone calls to contend with. If possible we need to figure out when those calls were made, and what the altitude of the plane was at the time.

Edward Felt is reported as having made a cell phone call to 911 around 09:58. Ceecee Lyles (a flight attendant) called her husband around the same time, 09:58.

We need to find out the altitude of the plane at this time. Luckily, you can download a copy of the Flight Recorder Data here.

Here's the relevant section for those who don't want to download the whole file.

The altitude of the plane at the time those 2 cell phone calls were made was no higher than 6000 feet, a little more than a mile.

As for the data you gave about cell phones not being able to make a network connection, I don't know anything about that, but I can do simple maths using the figures you supplied. The aircraft speed at the time is recorded at 300 knots, or approximately 345mph. At that speed the plane will cover approx 1/3 of a mile in the space of 3 seconds, the time you quote as being necessary for a mast to make a connection. I've no idea where the masts are located at that part of Pennsylvania, but if we go with your figure of every 2 to 3 miles, that equates to an approximate time of 20-30 seconds before needing to renegotiate with a different mast. I don't know the length of the two cell phone calls, or the accuracy of the figures you supplied, but I do know that the first cell phone call was disconnected, possibly as the plane passed out of range of a mast.

I've yet to see any evidence presented that proves those 2 cell phone calls were impossible with the technology available at the time, and the data currently available.

[Matthew Lewis]

Bingham's mother has reported that sometimes he did use his last name when identifying himself to her. Is she a xxxx?

http://www.911myths.com/html/mom__this_is_mark_bingham.html

What about calls that contained personal information that others would not know? Linda Gronlund called her sister to tell her the combination to her safe

http://s3.amazonaws.com/911timeline/2002/msnbc090302.html

Elsa Strong says, "She said, 'Hi, Else, this is Lin. I just wanted to tell you how much I love you.' And she said, 'Please tell Mom and Dad how much I love them.' And then she got real calm and said, 'Now my will is in my safe and my safe is in my closet. and this is the combination.' And she just told me the combination of her safe. and then she just said, 'I don't know if I'm ever going to get a chance to tell you again in person how much I love you, but I'm really going to miss you.' And she said goodbye."

There is some evidence that cell phone use may not be completely impossible from an airplane.

http://www.911myths.com/html/mobiles_at_altitude.html

The third and second paragraphs from the end here

http://www.caa.co.za/Public/Air%20Rage/doc...llp0622-01.html

specifically mention cell phone use while in flight. So obviously it is not impossible.

It appears that more study needs to happen before one can conclude the use of a cell phone was impossible.

[Jack White]

ALL OF THEM. I have discussed this with a friend who is a cellphone

technician. The problem is the "HANDOFF".

Any cellphone TRAVELING TOO FAST (air OR ground) needs the

necessary time to accomplish the electronic handoff from one

land tower to the next one. This requires about three seconds.

If the cellphone is traveling too fast, it passes the land tower

receiving the handoff and the network is confused and does

not receive the handoff. A CELLPHONE TRAVELING TOO FAST

WILL SHUT DOWN. The land towers are spaced two or three

miles apart. A jetliner flying 500 mph would pass over MANY

towers, causing electronic confusion!

Any cellphone TOO FAR AWAY, like 30,000 feet overhead,

would not have any way of knowing which land tower to connect

to, since it would be equidistant from MANY land towers. If it

accidentally connected with one, it would be out of range before

a connection could be completed, and then would encounter the

handoff problem if connected.

Any sailor knows that cellphones do not work once the boat is

out of range of land antennas. CELL PHONES ARE DESIGNED

TO ONLY WORK ON LAND, WHERE LAND TOWERS ARE FREQUENT.

Go on a long hike into the mountains away from any highway

and your cellphone will likely be useless.

Another problem is very low power. Cellphones generate only

enough power to reach the nearest land tower, with a tiny battery.

Inside the metal fuselage of a jetliner, the fuselage acts as a

Faraday cage, trapping the weak radio waves INSIDE the

plane.

American Airlines has announced a new service to be available

next year which will allow cellphones to be used aboard their

jets. BUT IT WILL NOT RELY ON LAND TOWERS. It will use the

aircraft shortwave radio to connect with a land station. This is

expected, according to tests, to allow cellphones to be used

on planes.

Jack

First things first. The information I've read states that only TWO cell phone calls were made from Flight United 93. The other 35 calls were made using GTE airphones. This is from a Wiki site I haven't had time to verify yet, but if those details are incorrect they can easily be refuted.

So, 2 cell phone calls to contend with. If possible we need to figure out when those calls were made, and what the altitude of the plane was at the time.

Edward Felt is reported as having made a cell phone call to 911 around 09:58. Ceecee Lyles (a flight attendant) called her husband around the same time, 09:58.

We need to find out the altitude of the plane at this time. Luckily, you can download a copy of the Flight Recorder Data here.

Here's the relevant section for those who don't want to download the whole file.

The altitude of the plane at the time those 2 cell phone calls were made was no higher than 6000 feet, a little more than a mile.

As for the data you gave about cell phones not being able to make a network connection, I don't know anything about that, but I can do simple maths using the figures you supplied. The aircraft speed at the time is recorded at 300 knots, or approximately 345mph. At that speed the plane will cover approx 1/3 of a mile in the space of 3 seconds, the time you quote as being necessary for a mast to make a connection. I've no idea where the masts are located at that part of Pennsylvania, but if we go with your figure of every 2 to 3 miles, that equates to an approximate time of 20-30 seconds before needing to renegotiate with a different mast. I don't know the length of the two cell phone calls, or the accuracy of the figures you supplied, but I do know that the first cell phone call was disconnected, possibly as the plane passed out of range of a mast.

I've yet to see any evidence presented that proves those 2 cell phone calls were impossible with the technology available at the time, and the data currently available.

Two? Absurd.

..........

www.globalresearch.ca

Centre for Research on Globalisation

Centre de recherche sur la mondialisation

The 9/11 Commission Report:

More Holes in the Official Story:

The 9/11 Cell Phone Calls

by Michel Chossudovsky

www.globalresearch.ca 10 August 2004

The URL of this article is: http://globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO408B.html

"We Have Some Planes"

The 9/11 Commission's Report provides an almost visual description of the Arab hijackers. It depicts in minute detail events occurring inside the cabin of the four hijacked planes.

In the absence of surviving passengers, this "corroborating evidence", was based on passengers' cell and air phone conversations with their loved ones. According to the Report, the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) was only recovered in the case of one of the flights (UAL 93).

Focusing on the personal drama of the passengers, the Commission has built much of its narrative around the phone conversations. The Arabs are portrayed with their knives and box cutters, scheming in the name of Allah, to bring down the planes and turn them "into large guided missiles" (Report, Chapter 1, http://www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report_Ch1.pdf ).

The Technology of Wireless Transmission

The Report conveys the impression that cell phone ground-to-air communication from high altitude was of reasonably good quality, and that there was no major impediment or obstruction in wireless transmission.

Some of the conversations were with onboard air phones, which contrary to the cell phones provide for good quality transmission. The report does not draw a clear demarcation between the two types of calls.

More significantly, what this carefully drafted script fails to mention is that, given the prevailing technology in September 2001, it was extremely difficult, if not impossible, to place a wireless cell call from an aircraft traveling at high speed above 8000 feet:

"Wireless communications networks weren't designed for ground-to-air communication. Cellular experts privately admit that they're surprised the calls were able to be placed from the hijacked planes, and that they lasted as long as they did. They speculate that the only reason that the calls went through in the first place is that the aircraft were flying so close to the ground ( http://www.elliott.org/technology/2001/cellpermit.htm

Expert opinion within the wireless telecom industry casts serious doubt on "the findings" of the 9/11 Commission. According to Alexa Graf, a spokesman of AT&T, commenting in the immediate wake of the 9/11 attacks:

"it was almost a fluke that the [9/11] calls reached their destinations... From high altitudes, the call quality is not very good, and most callers will experience drops. Although calls are not reliable, callers can pick up and hold calls for a little while below a certain altitude" ( http://wirelessreview.com/ar/wireless_final_contact/ )

New Wireless Technology

While serious doubts regarding the cell calls were expressed in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, a new landmark in the wireless telecom industry has further contributed to upsetting the Commission's credibility. Within days of the release of the 9/11 Commission Report in July, American Airlines and Qualcomm, proudly announced the development of a new wireless technology --which will at some future date allow airline passengers using their cell phones to contact family and friends from a commercial aircraft (no doubt at a special rate aerial roaming charge) (see http://www.qualcomm.com/press/releases/200...testflight.html )

"Travelers could be talking on their personal cellphones as early as 2006. Earlier this month [July 2004], American Airlines conducted a trial run on a modified aircraft that permitted cell phone calls." (WP, July 27, 2004)

Aviation Week (07/20/04) described this new technology in an authoritative report published in July 2004:

"Qualcomm and American Airlines are exploring [July 2004] ways for passengers to use commercial cell phones inflight for air-to-ground communication. In a recent 2-hr. proof-of-concept flight, representatives from government and the media used commercial Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) third-generation cell phones to place and receive calls and text messages from friends on the ground.

For the test flight from Dallas-Fort Worth, the aircraft was equipped with an antenna in the front and rear of the cabin to transmit cell phone calls to a small in-cabin CDMA cellular base station. This "pico cell" transmitted cell phone calls from the aircraft via a Globalstar satellite to the worldwide terrestrial phone network"

Needless to say, neither the service, nor the "third generation" hardware, nor the "Picco cell" CDMA base station inside the cabin (which so to speak mimics a cell phone communication tower inside the plane) were available on the morning of September 11, 2001.

The 911 Commission points to the clarity and detail of these telephone conversations.

In substance, the Aviation Week report creates yet another embarrassing hitch in the official story.

The untimely July American Airlines / Qualcomm announcement acted as a cold shower. Barely acknowledged in press reports, it confirms that the Bush administration had embroidered the cell phone narrative (similar to what they did with WMDs) and that the 9/11 Commission's account was either flawed or grossly exaggerated.

Altitude and Cellphone Transmission

According to industry experts, the crucial link in wireless cell phone transmission from an aircraft is altitude. Beyond a certain altitude which is usually reached within a few minutes after takeoff, cell phone calls are no longer possible.

In other words, given the wireless technology available on September 11 2001, these cell calls could not have been placed from high altitude.

The only way passengers could have got through to family and friends using their cell phones, is if the planes were flying below 8000 feet. Yet even at low altitude, below 8000 feet, cell phone communication is of poor quality.

The crucial question: at what altitude were the planes traveling, when the calls were placed?

While the information provided by the Commission is scanty, the Report's timeline does not suggest that the planes were consistently traveling at low altitude. In fact the Report confirms that a fair number of the cell phone calls were placed while the plane was traveling at altitudes above 8000 feet, which is considered as the cutoff altitude for cell phone transmission.

Let us review the timeline of these calls in relation to the information provided by the Report on flight paths and altitude.

United Airlines Flight 175

United Airlines Flight 175 departed for Los Angeles at 8:00:

"It pushed back from its gate at 7:58 and departed Logan Airport at 8:14."

The Report confirms that by 8:33, "it had reached its assigned cruising altitude of 31,000 feet." According to the Report, it maintained this cruising altitude until 8.51, when it "deviated from its assigned altitude":

"The first operational evidence that something was abnormal on United 175 came at 8:47, when the aircraft changed beacon codes twice within a minute. At 8:51, the flight deviated from its assigned altitude, and a minute later New York air traffic controllers began repeatedly and unsuccessfully trying to contact it."

And one minute later at 8.52, Lee Hanson receives a call from his son Peter.

[Flight UAL 175] "At 8:52, in Easton, Connecticut, a man named Lee Hanson received a phone call from his son Peter, a passenger on United 175. His son told him: “I think they’ve taken over the cockpit—An attendant has been stabbed— and someone else up front may have been killed. The plane is making strange moves. Call United Airlines—Tell them it’s Flight 175, Boston to LA.

Press reports confirm that Peter Hanson was using his cell (i.e it was not an air phone). Unless the plane had suddenly nose-dived, the plane was still at high altitude at 8.52. (Moreover, Hanson's call could have been initiated at least a minute prior to his father Lee Hanson picking up the phone.)

Another call was received at 8.52 (one minute after it deviated from its assigned altitude of 31,000 feet). The Report does not say whether this is an air phone or a cell phone call:

Also at 8:52, a male flight attendant called a United office in San Francisco, reaching Marc Policastro. The flight attendant reported that the flight had been hijacked, both pilots had been killed, a flight attendant had been stabbed, and the hijackers were probably flying the plane. The call lasted about two minutes, after which Policastro and a colleague tried unsuccessfully to contact the flight.

It is not clear whether this was a call to Policastro's cell phone or to the UAL switchboard.

At 8:58, UAL 175 "took a heading toward New York City.":

"At 8:59, Flight 175 passenger Brian David Sweeney tried to call his wife, Julie. He left a message on their home answering machine that the plane had been hijacked. He then called his mother, Louise Sweeney, told her the flight had been hijacked, and added that the passengers were thinking about storming the cockpit to take control of the plane away from the hijackers.

At 9:00, Lee Hanson received a second call from his son Peter:

It’s getting bad, Dad—A stewardess was stabbed—They seem to have knives and Mace—They said they have a bomb—It’s getting very bad on the plane—Passengers are throwing up and getting sick—The plane is making jerky movements—I don’t think the pilot is flying the plane—I think we are going down—I think they intend to go to Chicago or someplace and fly into a building—Don’t worry, Dad— If it happens, it’ll be very fast—My God, my God.

The call ended abruptly. Lee Hanson had heard a woman scream just before it cut off. He turned on a television, and in her home so did Louise Sweeney. Both then saw the second aircraft hit the World Trade Center.50 At 9:03:11, United Airlines Flight 175 struck the South Tower of the World Trade Center. All on board, along with an unknown number of people in the tower, were killed instantly."

American Airlines Flight 77

American Airlines Flight 77 was scheduled to depart from Washington Dulles for Los Angeles at 8:10... "At 8:46, the flight reached its assigned cruising altitude of 35,000 feet."

At 8:51, American 77 transmitted its last routine radio communication. The hijacking began between 8:51 and 8:54. As on American 11 and United 175, the hijackers used knives (reported by one passenger) and moved all the passengers (and possibly crew) to the rear of the aircraft (reported by one flight attendant and one passenger). Unlike the earlier flights, the Flight 77 hijackers were reported by a passenger to have box cutters. Finally, a passenger reported that an announcement had been made by the “pilot” that the plane had been hijacked....

On flight AA 77, which allegedly crashed into the Pentagon, the transponder was turned off at 8:56am; the recorded altitude at the time the transponder was turned off is not mentioned. According to the Commission's Report, cell calls started 16 minutes later, at 9:12am, twenty minutes before it (allegedly) crashed into the Pentagon at 9.32am:

" [at 9.12] Renee May called her mother, Nancy May, in Las Vegas. She said her flight was being hijacked by six individuals who had moved them to the rear of the plane."

According to the Report, when the autopilot was disengaged at 9:29am, the aircraft was at 7,000 feet and some 38 miles west of the Pentagon. This happened two minutes before the crash.

Most of the calls on Flight 77 were placed between 9.12am and 9.26am, prior to the disengagement of automatic piloting at 9.29am. The plane could indeed have been traveling at either a higher or a lower altitude to that reached at 9.29. Yet, at the same time there is no indication in the Report that the plane had been traveling below the 7000 feet level, which it reached at 9.29am.

At some point between 9:16 and 9:26, Barbara Olson called her husband, Ted Olson, the solicitor general of the United States. [using an airphone]

(Report p 7, see http://www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report_Ch1.pdf )

United Airlines Flight 93

UAL flight 93 was the only one of the four planes that, according to the official story, did not crash into a building. Flight 93 passengers, apparently: "alerted through phone calls, attempted to subdue the hijackers. and the hijackers crashed the plane [in Pennsylvania] to prevent the passengers gaining control." ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Airlines_flight_93 ). Another version of events, was that UAL 93 was shot down.

According to the Commission's account:

"the first 46 minutes of Flight 93’s cross-country trip proceeded routinely. Radio communications from the plane were normal. Heading, speed, and altitude ran according to plan. At 9:24, Ballinger’s warning to United 93 was received in the cockpit. Within two minutes, at 9:26, the pilot, Jason Dahl, responded with a note of puzzlement: “Ed, confirm latest mssg plz—Jason.”70 The hijackers attacked at 9:28. While traveling 35,000 feet above eastern Ohio, United 93 suddenly dropped 700 feet. Eleven seconds into the descent, the FAA’s air traffic control center in Cleveland received the first of two radio transmissions from the aircraft...."

At least ten cell calls are reported to have taken place on flight 93.

The Report confirms that passengers started placing calls with cell and air phones shortly after 9.32am, four minutes after the Report's confirmation of the plane's attitude of 35,000 feet. In other words, the calls started some 9 minutes before the Cleveland Center lost UAL 93’s transponder signal (9.41) and approximately 30 minutes before the crash in Pennsylvania (10.03)

"At 9:41, Cleveland Center lost United 93’s transponder signal. The controller located it on primary radar, matched its position with visual sightings from other aircraft, and tracked the flight as it turned east, then south.164 "

This suggests that the altitude was known to air traffic control up until the time when the transponder signal was lost by the Cleveland Center. (Radar and visual sightings provided information on its flight path from 9.41 to 10.03.)

Moreover, there was no indication from the Report that the aircraft had swooped down to a lower level of altitude, apart from the 700 feet drop recorded at 9.28. from a cruising altitude of 35,000 feet:

"At 9:32, a hijacker, probably Jarrah, made or attempted to make the following announcement to the passengers of Flight 93:“Ladies and Gentlemen: Here the captain, please sit down keep remaining sitting.

We have a bomb on board. So, sit.” The flight data recorder (also recovered) indicates that Jarrah then instructed the plane’s autopilot to turn the aircraft around and head east. The cockpit voice recorder data indicate that a woman, most likely a flight attendant, was being held captive in the cockpit. She struggled with one of the hijackers who killed or otherwise silenced her.

Shortly thereafter, the passengers and flight crew began a series of calls from GTE airphones and cellular phones. These calls between family, friends, and colleagues took place until the end of the flight and provided those on the ground with firsthand accounts. They enabled the passengers to gain critical information, including the news that two aircraft had slammed into the World Trade Center.77...At least two callers from the flight reported that the hijackers knew that passengers were making calls but did not seem to care.

The hijackers were wearing red bandanas, and they forced the passengers to the back of the aircraft.80 Callers reported that a passenger had been stabbed and that two people were lying on the floor of the cabin, injured or dead—possibly the captain and first officer. One caller reported that a flight attendant had been killed.81 One of the callers from United 93 also reported that he thought the hijackers might possess a gun. But none of the other callers reported the presence of a firearm. One recipient of a call from the aircraft recounted specifically asking her caller whether the hijackers had guns.

The passenger replied that he did not see one. No evidence of firearms or of their identifiable remains was found at the aircraft’s crash site, and the cockpit voice recorder gives no indication of a gun being fired or mentioned at any time.

We believe that if the hijackers had possessed a gun, they would have used it in the flight’s last minutes as the passengers fought back.82 Passengers on three flights reported the hijackers’ claim of having a bomb. The FBI told us they found no trace of explosives at the crash sites. One of the passengers who mentioned a bomb expressed his belief that it was not real. Lacking any evidence that the hijackers attempted to smuggle such illegal items past the security screening checkpoints, we believe the bombs were probably fake. During at least five of the passengers’ phone calls, information was shared about the attacks that had occurred earlier that morning at the World Trade Center. Five calls described the intent of passengers and surviving crew members to revolt against the hijackers. According to one call, they voted on whether to rush the terrorists in an attempt to retake the plane. They decided, and acted. At 9:57, the passenger assault began. Several passengers had terminated phone calls with loved ones in order to join the revolt. One of the callers ended her message as follows:

“Everyone’s running up to first class. I’ve got to go. Bye.” The cockpit voice recorder captured the sounds of the passenger assault muffled by the intervening cockpit door. Some family members who listened to the recording report that they can hear the voice of a loved one among the din.

We cannot identify whose voices can be heard. But the assault was sustained. In response, Jarrah immediately began to roll the airplane to the left and right, attempting to knock the passengers off balance. At 9:58:57, Jarrah told another hijacker in the cockpit to block the door. Jarrah continued to roll the airplane sharply left and right, but the assault continued. At 9:59, Jarrah changed tactics and pitched the nose of the airplane up and down to disrupt the assault. The recorder captured the sounds of loud thumps, crashes, shouts, and breaking glasses and plates.

At 10:00:03, Jarrah stabilized the airplane. Five seconds later, Jarrah asked, “Is that it? Shall we finish it off?” A hijacker responded, “No. Not yet. When they all come, we finish it off.” The sounds of fighting continued outside the cockpit. Again, Jarrah pitched the nose of the aircraft up and down.At 10:00:26, a passenger in the background said, “In the cockpit. If we don’t we’ll die!” Sixteen seconds later, a passenger yelled,“Roll it!” Jarrah stopped the violent maneuvers at about 10:01:00 and said, “Allah is the greatest! Allah is the greatest!” He then asked another hijacker in the cockpit,“ Is that it? I mean, shall we put it down?” to which the other replied, “Yes, put it in it, and pull it down.” The passengers continued their assault and at 10:02:23, a hijacker said, “Pull it down! Pull it down!” The hijackers remained at the controls but must have judged that the passengers were only seconds from overcoming them. The airplane headed down; the control wheel was turned hard to the right.

The airplane rolled onto its back, and one of the hijackers began shouting “Allah is the greatest. Allah is the greatest. ”With the sounds of the passenger counterattack continuing, the aircraft plowed into an empty field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, at 580 miles per hour, about 20 minutes’ flying time from Washington D.C. Jarrah’s objective was to crash his airliner into symbols of the American Republic, the Capitol or the White House. He was defeated by the alerted, unarmed passengers of United"

The Mysterious Call of Edward Felt from UAL 93

Earlier coverage of the fate of UAL 93 was based in part on a reported cell call from a passenger named Edward Felt, who managed to reach an emergency official in Pennsylvania. How he got the emergency supervisor's number and managed to reach him remains unclear.

The call was apparently received at 9.58 am, eight minutes before the reported time of the crash at 10.06 am in Pennsylvania:

"Local emergency officials said they received a cell phone call at 9.58 am from a man who said he was a passenger aboard the flight. The man said he had locked himself in the bathroom and told emergency dispatchers that the plane had been hijacked. "We are being hijacked! We are being hijacked!" he was quoted as saying. A California man identified as Tom Burnett reportedly called his wife and told her that somebody on the plane had been stabbed. "We're all going to die, but three of us are going to do something," he told her. "I love you honey."

The alleged call by Edward Felt from the toilet of the aircraft of UAL 93 was answered by Glenn Cramer, the emergency supervisor in Pennsylvania who took the call.

It is worth noting that Glenn Cramer was subsequently gagged by the FBI." (See Robert Wallace`s incisive analysis published in Sept 2002 by the Daily Mirror, (http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/WAL403A.html ).

Ironically, this high profile cell call by Ed Felt, which would have provided crucial evidence to the 9/11 Commission was, for some reason, not mentioned in the Report.

American Airlines Flight 11

Flight 11 took off at 7:59. Just before 8:14. The Report outlines an airphone conversation of flight attendant Betty Ong and much of the narrative hinges upon this airphone conversation

There are no clear-cut reports on the use of cell phones on Flight AA11. According to the Report, American 11 crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center at 8.46.

Concluding Remarks

A large part of the description, regarding the 19 hijackers relies on cell phone conversations with family and friends.

While a few of these calls (placed at low altitude) could have got through, the wireless technology was not available. On this issue, expert opinion within the wireless telecom industry is unequivocal.

In other words, at least part of the Commission's script in Chapter 1 on the cell phone conversations, is fabricated.

According to the American Airline / Qualcomm announcement, the technology for cell phone transmission at high altitude will only be available aboard commercial aircraft in 2006. This is an inescapable fact.

In the eyes of public opinion, the cell phone conversations on the Arab hijackers is needed to sustain the illusion that America is under attack.

The "war on terrorism" underlying the National Security doctrine relies on real time "evidence" concerning the Arab hijackers. The latter personify, so to speak, this illusive "outside enemy" (Al Qaeda), which is threatening the homeland.

Embodied into the Commission's "script" of 911, the narrative of what happened on the plane with the Arab hijackers is therefore crucial. It is an integral part of the Administration's disinformation and propaganda program. It constitutes a justification for the anti-terror legislation under the Patriot acts and the waging of America's pre-emptive wars against Afghanistan and Iraq.

Note:

Emphasis added in bold font.

© Copyright MICHEL CHOSSUDOVSKY 2004

Michel Chossudovsky is the author of War and Globalization, The Truth behind September 11 , which can be ordered by mail or online from the CRG.

ANNEX

The 9/11 Report's Footnotes on the Cell Phone Conversations

70. On FDR, see NTSB report,“Specialist’s Factual Report of Investigation—Digital Flight Data Recorder” for United Airlines Flight 93, Feb. 15, 2002; on CVR, see FBI report,“CVR from UA Flight #93,” Dec. 4, 2003; Commission review of Aircraft Communication and Reporting System (ACARS) messages sent to and from Flight 93 (which indicate time of message transmission and receipt); see UAL record, Ed Ballinger ACARS log, Sept. 11, 2001. At 9:22, after learning of the events at the World Trade Center, Melody Homer, the wife of co-pilot Leroy Homer, had an ACARS message sent to her husband in the cockpit asking if he was okay. See UAL record,ACARS message, Sept. 11, 2001.

71. On FDR, see NTSB report,“Specialist’s Factual Report of Investigation—Digital Flight Data Recorder” for United Airlines Flight 93, Feb. 15, 2002; on CVR, see FBI report,“CVR from UA Flight #93,” Dec. 4, 2003; FAA report,“Summary of Air Traffic Hijack Events: September 11, 2001,” Sept. 17, 2001; NTSB report, Air Traffic Control Recording—United Airlines Flight 93, Dec. 21, 2001.

72.The 37 passengers represented a load factor of 20.33 percent of the plane’s seating capacity of 182, considerably below the 52.09 percent for Flight 93 on Tuesdays in the three-month period prior to September 11 (June 11–September 4, 2001). See UAL report, Flight 93 EWR-SFO load factors, undated. Five passengers holding reservations for Flight 93 did not show for the flight.All five were interviewed and cleared by the FBI. FBI report,“Flight #93 ‘No Show’ Passengers from 9/11/01,” Sept. 18, 2001.

73. INS record,Withdrawal of Application for Admission for Mohamed al Kahtani,Aug. 4, 2001.

74. See FAA regulations,Admission to flight deck, 14 C.F.R. § 121.547 (2001);UAL records, copies of boarding passes for United 93, Sept. 11,2001.One passenger reported that ten first-class passengers were aboard the flight. If that number is accurate, it would include the four hijackers. FBI report of investigation, interview of Lisa Jefferson, Sept. 11, 2001;UAL record, Flight 93 passenger manifest, Sept. 11, 2001.All but one of the six passengers seated in the first-class cabin communicated with the ground during the flight, and none mentioned anyone from their cabin having gone into the cockpit before the hijacking.Moreover, it is unlikely that the highly regarded and experienced pilot and co-pilot of Flight 93 would have allowed an observer into the cockpit before or after takeoff who had not obtained the proper permission. See UAL records, personnel files of Flight 93 pilots. For jumpseat information, see UAL record,Weight and Balance Information for Flight 93 and Flight 175, Sept. 11, 2001;AAL records, Dispatch Environmental Control/Weekly Flight Summary for Flight 11 and Flight 77, Sept. 11, 2001.

75. Like Atta on Flight 11, Jarrah apparently did not know how to operate the communication radios; thus his attempts to communicate with the passengers were broadcast on the ATC channel. See FBI report,“CVR from UA Flight #93,” Dec. 4, 2003.Also, by 9:32 FAA notified United’s headquarters that the flight was not responding to radio calls.According to United, the flight’s nonresponse and its turn to the east led the airline to believe by 9:36 that the plane was hijacked. See Rich Miles interview (Nov. 21, 2003); UAL report, “United dispatch SMFDO activities—terrorist crisis,” Sept. 11, 2001.

76. In accordance with FAA regulations, United 93’s cockpit voice recorder recorded the last 31 minutes of sounds from the cockpit via microphones in the pilots’ headsets, as well as in the overhead panel of the flight deck. This is the only recorder from the four hijacked airplanes to survive the impact and ensuing fire.The CVRs and FDRs from American 11 and United 175 were not found,and the CVR from American Flight 77 was badly burned and not recoverable. See FBI report,“CVR from UA Flight #93,”Dec. 4, 2003; see also FAA regulations, 14 C.F.R. §§ 25.1457, 91.609, 91.1045, 121.359; Flight 93 CVR data. A transcript of the CVR recording was prepared by the NTSB and the FBI.

77. All calls placed on airphones were from the rear of the aircraft. There was one airphone installed in each row of seats on both sides of the aisle.The airphone system was capable of transmitting only eight calls at any one time. See FBI report of investigation, airphone records for flights UAL 93 and UAL 175 on Sept. 11, 2001, Sept. 18, 2001.

78.FAA audio file, Cleveland Center, position Lorain Radar; Flight 93 CVR data; FBI report, “CVR from UA Flight #93,” Dec. 4, 2003.

79. FBI reports of investigation, interviews of recipients of calls from Todd Beamer, Sept. 11, 2001, through June 11, 2002; FBI reports of investigation, interviews of recipients of calls from Sandy Bradshaw, Sept. 11, 2001, through Oct. 4, 2001.Text messages warning the cockpit of Flight 93 were sent to the aircraft by Ed Ballinger at 9:24. See UAL record, Ed Ballinger’s ACARS log, Sept. 11, 2001.

80.We have relied mainly on the record of FBI interviews with the people who received calls. The FBI interviews were conducted while memories were still fresh and were less likely to have been affected by reading the accounts of others or hearing stories in the media. In some cases we have conducted our own interviews to supplement or verify the record. See FBI reports of investigation, interviews of recipients of calls from Todd Beamer, Mark Bingham,Sandy Bradshaw,Marion Britton,Thomas Burnett, Joseph DeLuca,Edward Felt, Jeremy Glick,Lauren

Grandcolas, Linda Gronlund, CeeCee Lyles, Honor Wainio.

81. FBI reports of investigation, interviews of recipients of calls from Thomas Burnett, Sept. 11, 2001; FBI reports of investigation, interviews of recipients of calls from Marion Britton, Sept. 14, 2001, through Nov. 8, 2001; Lisa Jefferson interview (May 11, 2004); FBI report of investigation, interview of Lisa Jefferson, Sept. 11, 2001; Richard Belme interview (Nov. 21, 2003).

82. See Jere Longman, Among the Heroes—United Flight 93 and the Passengers and Crew Who Fought Back (Harper-Collins, 2002), p. 107; Deena Burnett interview (Apr. 26, 2004); FBI reports of investigation, interviews of recipients of calls from Jeremy Glick, Sept. 11, 2001, through Sept. 12, 2001; Lyzbeth Glick interview (Apr. 22, 2004). Experts told us that a gunshot would definitely be audible on the CVR. The FBI found no evidence of a firearm at the crash site of Flight 93. See FBI response to Commission briefing request no. 6, undated (topic 11).The FBI collected 14 knives or portions of knives at the Flight 93 crash site. FBI report, “Knives Found at the UA Flight 93 Crash Site,” undated.

83. FBI response to Commission briefing request no. 6, undated (topic 11); FBI reports of investigation, interviews of recipients of calls from Jeremy Glick, Sept. 11, 2001, through Sept. 12, 2001.

84. See FBI reports of investigation, interviews of recipients of calls from United 93.

85. FBI reports of investigation, interviews of recipients of calls from United 93. For quote, see FBI report of investigation, interview of Philip Bradshaw, Sept. 11, 2001; Philip Bradshaw interview (June 15, 2004); Flight 93 FDR and CVR data.At 9:55:11 Jarrah dialed in the VHF Omni-directional Range (VOR) frequency for the VOR navigational aid at Washington Reagan National Airport, further indicating that the attack was planned for the nation’s capital.

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[Jack White]

more on cell phone impossibility.....

Could Barbara Olson Have Made Those Calls?

An Analysis of New Evidence about Onboard Phones

David Ray Griffin and Rob Balsamo

Prefatory Note: When we, in this jointly authored article, need to refer to only one of us, the appropriate initials---DRG or RB--are used.

06/26/07 - Did American Airlines 77---the flight that, according to the official conspiracy theory about 9/11, struck the Pentagon---have onboard phones? This question is relevant to the possible truth of the official theory, because Ted Olson, who was then the US Solicitor General, claimed that his wife, Barbara Olson, called him twice from this flight using an onboard phone.

He did, to be sure, waver on this point. CNN, which mentioned in a story posted just before midnight on 9/11 that Barbara Olson had used a cell phone to call her husband, reported in a more extensive treatment, posted at 2:06 AM (EDT) on September 12, that Ted Olson had told it that his wife “called him twice on a cell phone from American Airlines Flight 77.”1 But on September 14, Olson said on Hannity & Colmes (Fox News) that she had called collect and therefore must have been using the “airplane phone”---because, he surmised, “she somehow didn’t have access to her credit cards.”2 On CNN’s Larry King Show later that same day, however, Olson returned to his first version. After saying that the second call from her suddenly went dead, he surmised that this was perhaps “because the signals from cell phones coming from airplanes don’t work that well.”3 On that same day, moreover, Tony Mauro, the Supreme Court correspondent for American Lawyer Media, published an account saying that Barbara Olson “was calling on her cell phone from aboard the jet.”4 Two months later, however, Ted Olson returned to the second version of his story. In the “Barbara K. Olson Memorial Lecture” delivered to the Federalist Society, he said that she used “a telephone in the airplane to [make] those two telephone [calls].”5 This second version was repeated in March 2002. “[C]alling collect,” he told the London Daily Telegraph, his wife “us[ed] the phone in the passengers’ seats.” She called collect, he again surmised, because “she didn’t have her purse” and hence her credit card.6

This revised version of his story has evidently gone virtually unnoticed in the American press. A year after 9/11, for example, CNN was still reporting that Barbara Olson used a cell phone.7 Nevertheless, Ted Olson’s statement to the Federalist Society and the Telegraph---that she called collect using a passenger-seat phone---was apparently his final word on the matter.

The claim that she must have called collect because she did not have her credit card, however, does not make any sense, because a credit card is needed in order to activate a passenger-seat phone.8 If she did not have a credit card, therefore, she could not have used a passenger-seat phone, whether to call collect or otherwise.9

By settling on this version of his story, nevertheless, Olson at least appeared to make defensible his claim that the calls occurred. We say this because of the extremely strong evidence that her reported calls could not have been made on a cell phone, given the cell phone technology in 2001. Cell phone calls from an airliner were, as DRG has argued extensively elsewhere, generally possible only if it was flying slowly and low,10 but Barbara Olson’s first call, according to the 9/11 Commission, occurred “[a]t some point between 9:16 and 9:26,”11 when the plane was flying too fast and too high for cell phone calls to have been possible. According to the Flight Data Recorder information released by the National Transportation Safety Board, the plane at 9:16 would have been over 25,000 feet, which is far too high (as well as too fast: 281 knots [324 mph]), while at 9:26 the plane would have been flying at 324 knots (370 mph), which is much too fast (as well as still too high: almost 14,000 feet).12 By settling on the claim that his wife used an onboard phone instead of a cell phone, Ted Olson avoided this problem.

But was a call from an onboard phone even possible? In 2004, Ian Henshall and Rowland Morgan, having asked American Airlines whether their “757s [are] fitted with phones that passengers can use,” received this reply from an AA spokesperson: “American Airlines 757s do not have onboard phones for passenger use.” To check on the possibility that Barbara Olson might have borrowed a phone intended for crew use, they then asked, “[A]re there any onboard phones at all on AA 757s, i.e., that could be used either by passengers or cabin crew?” The response was: “AA 757s do not have any onboard phones, either for passenger or crew use. Crew have other means of communication available.”13

Henshall and Morgan then found this information corroborated on the AA website, which, while informing travelers that telephone calls are possible on AA’s Boeing 767 and 777, does not mention its 757.14 On the assumption that the AA spokesperson and this website were talking about AA 757s as they had been for several years, not simply as they were at the time of the query (2004), Henshall and Morgan concluded that, in the words of an essay written by Morgan, “Barbara Olson’s Call from Flight 77 Never Happened.”15

DRG, interpreting the information in the same way, wrote in the first edition of his book Debunking 9/11 Debunking: “[G]iven the evidence that Barbara Olson could not have called from Flight 77 using either a cell phone or an onboard phone, we have very good evidence that the calls to Ted Olson, like the call to [flight attendant] Renee May’s parents, were fabricated---unless, of course, he simply made up the story.”16

Correcting an “Error”

Later, however, DRG received two items suggesting that, although AA 757s did not have onboard phones in 2004, they probably did in 2001. One item was a 1998 photograph, said to show the inside of an AA 757, revealing that it had seat-back phones. The other was a news report from February 6, 2002, which said: “American Airlines will discontinue its AT&T in-flight phone service by March 31, a spokesman for the airline said Wednesday.”17 This report, DRG realized, did not specifically mention 757s, so this notice did not necessarily imply that AA 757s had had onboard phones up until that date. However, by taking into consideration this article, the photograph, and the realization that the letters from AA in 2004 were couched entirely in the present tense, DRG concluded that the claim that AA 77 had not had onboard phones was probably an error. He published an essay, “Barbara Olson’s Alleged Call from AA 77: A Correction About Onboard Phones,”18 which contained a section entitled “My Error.”

DRG made clear, to be sure, that even if AA 77 did have onboard phones, this did little to make Ted Olson’s story believable, because all the other problems remained. Five such problems were mentioned: (1) The incredible idea that although all the passengers and the crew were herded to the back of the plane, Barbara Olson was the only one to grab a phone from a passenger seat to make a call (an idea that was made even more incredible by the report that flight attendant Renee May was the only person on the flight to make a cell phone call19). (2) The equally incredible idea that three or four short, slight men armed with knives and box-cutters would not have been easily overpowered by these 60-some people---led perhaps by the pilot, Charles “Chic” Burlingame, a former Navy pilot whose brother said, “they would have had to incapacitate him or kill him because he would have done anything to prevent the kind of tragedy that befell that airplane," and whose sister said, "We want to tell his story so that people who had loved ones on that flight will know that he would have sacrificed himself to save them.”20 (3) Ted Olson’s oscillations on whether his wife had used a cell phone or an onboard phone. (4) Rowland Morgan’s point that, having settled on the claim that the calls were collect calls from a passenger-seat phone, “Ted Olson could . . . shut his critics up by simply producing the Department of Justice’s telephone accounts, showing a couple of hefty reverse-charges entries charged from Flight 77’s Airfone number at around about 9:20 AM on 11th September, 2001.”21 (5) Morgan and Henshall’s point that, if the Department of Justice had actually received these calls, the FBI, which is part of the DOJ, could have easily produced the records, and yet, according to The 9/11 Commission Report, the FBI’s report about this issue, which is entitled “American Airlines Airphone Usage,” makes no mention of any DOJ records.22

DRG concluded, however, that although the idea that the calls occurred was highly implausible, they could not be ruled out as strictly impossible, because the claim that AA 77 did not have onboard phones was erroneous in a twofold sense: not only in the sense of being based on inadequate evidence but also in the sense of simply being wrong, at least probably.

Correcting the Correction

The publication of DRG’s retraction, however, set off a process that has led us to correct this correction, because we discovered three new pieces of evidence supporting the contention that AA 77 did not have onboard phones.

The Chad Kinder Email: One piece of evidence was brought to our attention by a member of the Pilots for 9/11 Truth forums who goes by the alias “Kesha.” Using one of these forums, “Kesha” reported that the following email exchange had been posted February 17, 2006, on a German political forum. A person using the alias “the Paradroid” had sent this email to American Airlines:

Hello, on your website . . . there is mentioned that there are no seatback satellite phones on a Boeing 757. Is that info correct? Were there any such seatback satellite phones on any Boeing 757 before or on September 11, 2001 and if so, when were these phones ripped out?

This was the reply received by “the Paradroid” (except that his real name has been crossed out):

Dear Mr. XXXXXXXX:

Thank you for contacting Customer Relations. I am pleased to have the opportunity to assist you.

That is correct we do not have phones on our Boeing 757. The passengers on flight 77 used their own personal cellular phones to make out calls during the terrorist attack. However, the pilots are able to stay in constant contact with the Air Traffic Control tower.

Mr. XXXXXXXX, I hope this information is helpful. It is a privilege to serve you.

Sincerely,

Chad W. Kinder

Customer Relations

American Airlines

This exchange, if authentic, would provide very strong evidence for the conclusion that Barbara Olson could not have called her husband, as he claimed, from a passenger-seat phone. But was the exchange, which came from a second-hand source, authentic? We received three types of confirmation that it was.

In the first place, DRG, after obtaining from RB the email address of “Kesha,” asked the latter if he could “vouch for the authenticity of the letters” to and from Chad Kinder. In an email of June 2 (2007), “Kesha” replied: “I am able to vouch for the authenticity of the mentioned correspondence; the person who initiated it in February 2006 is reliable. I know ‘Paradroid’ from endless debates in our German 911 forum. His opinions are strictly based on facts.”

In the second place, after locating the correspondence between Kinder and “the Paradroid” on the German forum in question,23 DRG read several other contributions by “the Paradroid,” thereby seeing for himself that he is a serious, well-informed student of 9/11.

In the third place, RB, after some difficulty in discovering whether American Airlines actually had an employee named “Chad Kinder,” was able to contact him by telephone on May 31 (2007). After reading the two letters to Kinder, RB asked if he had indeed written the reply. Kinder answered that he could not specifically recall having written it---he writes so many letters, he explained, and this one would have been written over a year earlier. But, he added: “That sounds like an accurate statement.” Kinder indicated, in other words, that it was a letter he might well have written, because what it said---that AA 757s in 2001 did not have onboard phones, so the passengers on AA 77 had to use cell phones---was, to the best of his present knowledge, accurate.

The 757 Aircraft Maintenance Manual: Besides learning about and confirming this letter from Kinder, we also obtained another piece of evidence supporting the conclusion that passengers on AA 77 could not have used onboard phones. One of RB’s colleagues sent him a page from the Boeing 757 Aircraft Maintenance Manual (757 AMM) dated January 28, 2001. This page states that the passenger phone system for the AA 757 fleet had (by that date) been deactivated.24 According to the 757 AMM, in other words, the onboard phones had been deactivated at least seven and a half months prior to 9/11.

This information is relevant to the earlier-cited news report from February 6, 2002, which said: “American Airlines will discontinue its AT&T in-flight phone service by March 31.” As we pointed out earlier, that report did not mention 757s in particular, so it does not necessarily indicate that the 757 fleet had any in-flight phone service to be discontinued; the report may have referred only to other types of AA airplanes. But if American’s 757s did still have passenger-seat phones in September 2001, these phones, according to the information from the 757 AMM, would have been deactivated. If so, one of them could not have been used by Barbara Olson on 9/11 (even if she had a credit card).

A USA Today Report: Henshall and Morgan’s conclusion, to recall, was that although AA 777s and 767s had onboard phones in September of 2001, AA 757s did not. That conclusion is given some support by a 2004 USA Today story that stated: “Several years ago, American installed seatback phones, which could be used with a credit card, on many of its planes but ripped them out except in some Boeing 777s and 767s on international routes.”25 This statement by itself would not show that Flight 77 had no onboard phones, because it does not indicate exactly when the phones were ripped out. But it does show that the previously cited photographic evidence, showing that there were seat-back phones in AA 757s in 1998, does not prove that these phones were still present on September 11, 2001.

This report in USA Today appears, moreover, to have influenced the email sent by “the Paradroid” to American Airlines, which, as we saw, asked: “Were there any . . . seatback satellite phones on any Boeing 757 before or on September 11, 2001 and if so, when were these phones ripped out?” Kinder’s reply did not explicitly respond to the question as to when, if 757s had passenger-seat phones prior to 9/11, they were “ripped out.” Implicitly, however, Kinder’s reply said: With regard, at least, to the 757 that was AA 77, the seatback phones were ripped out prior to September 11, 2001.26

United States v. Ted Olson

In the course of doing research for this article, we learned, to our amazement, that even if, contrary to our evidence, Flight 77 did have functioning onboard phones, the US government has now said, implicitly, that Ted Olson’s claim about receiving two calls from his wife that morning is untrue.

As we mentioned earlier, the FBI report on phone calls from AA planes on 9/11 does not cite records from the DOJ showing that any calls from AA 77 were received that morning. Instead, the FBI report refers merely to four “connected calls to unknown numbers.” The 9/11 Commission, putting the best possible spin on this report, commented: “The records available for the phone calls from American 77 do not allow for a determination of which of [these four calls] represent the two between Barbara and Ted Olson, although the FBI and DOJ believe that all four represent communications between Barbara Olson and her husband’s office.”27 That is, it must be said, a very strange conclusion: If Ted Olson reported receiving only two calls, why would the Commission conclude that the DOJ had received four connected calls from his wife?

That conclusion is, in any case, starkly contradicted by evidence about phone calls from Flight 77 presented by the US government at the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui in 2006.28 Far from attributing all four of the “connected calls to unknown numbers” to Barbara Olson, as the 9/11 Commission suggested, the government’s evidence here attributes none of them to her, saying instead that each of them was from an “unknown caller.” The only call attributed to Barbara Olson, moreover, is an “unconnected call” to the Department of Justice, which was said to have been attempted at “9:18:58” and to have lasted “0 seconds.” According to the US government in 2006, in other words, Barbara Olson attempted a call to the DOJ, but it did not go through.29 The government itself has presented evidence in a court of law, therefore, that implies that unless its former solicitor general was the victim of two faked phone calls, he was lying.

It may seem beyond belief that the US government would have failed to support Ted Olson’s claim. We ourselves, as we indicated, were amazed at this development. However, it would not be the first time that the FBI---surely the agency that prepared this report about phone calls from the flights30---had failed to support the official story about 9/11. We refer to the fact that when Rex Tomb, the FBI’s chief of investigative publicity, was asked why the bureau’s website on “Usama bin Laden” does not list 9/11 as one of the terrorist acts for which he is wanted, he replied: “[T]he FBI has no hard evidence connecting Bin Laden to 9/11.”31

In any case, an interesting question about the government’s claim concerning the four “connected calls” from AA 77 is whether they were supposedly made from cell phones or passenger-seat phones. The government’s Moussaoui-trial evidence does not explicitly say. We can, however, make an inference based on its evidence for phone calls made from United Flight 93.

Although it had been generally believed that there had been approximately ten cell phone calls from UA 93---including the four widely publicized calls reported by Deena Burnett from her husband, Tom Burnett---the government’s document on this flight identifies only two calls as cell phone calls: those made at 9:58 by passenger Edward Felt and flight attendant CeeCee Lyles. One might conclude from this information, to be sure, that the government simply remained neutral on some of the other calls that had been thought to be cell phone calls, such as the Burnett calls, leaving open whether they were from cell or onboard phones. But that is not the case. A reporter at the Moussaoui trial wrote:

In the back of the plane, 13 of the terrified passengers and crew members made 35 air phone calls and two cell phone calls to family members and airline dispatchers, a member of an FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force testified Tuesday.32

The government explicitly said, therefore, that only two of the calls from UA 93---which were identified in the government’s report on this flight as being from Felt and Lyles33---were cell phone calls.

We can infer, therefore, that because these calls from Felt and Lyles are the only two calls from all the flights that are identified as cell phone calls, all the calls from the other flights are now said by the government to have been made from onboard phones.34

The distinctive thing about the calls from Felt and Lyles is that they reportedly occurred at 9:58, after United 93 had descended to about 5,000 feet. By limiting the cell phone calls from all four flights to these two from UA 93, the government is no longer, even implicitly, supporting the view that high-altitude cell phone calls from airliners are possible. The government has thereby implicitly overcome, by conceding the point, one of the 9/11 movement’s main arguments against the government’s conspiracy theory.

This is a rather amazing development. Much of the official story about 9/11 has been based on the assumption that high-altitude cell phone calls were made. The film United 93, for example, portrayed five cell phone conversations. The 9/11 Commission Report, discussing UA 93, said: “Shortly [after 9:32], the passengers and flight crew began a series of calls from GTE airphones and cellular phones.”35

Four cell phone calls from UA 93 were, as mentioned earlier, supposed to have been made by Tom Burnett.36 His wife, Deena Burnett, repeatedly said Tom used his cell phone. She knew this, she said, because the Caller ID identified his cell phone as the source.37 Her testimony has been repeated countless times in the media. For example, a special segment about her on CBS’s Early Show said: “Tom Burnett made four cell phone calls from Flight 93 to Deena Burnett at home, telling her he and some other passengers were going to ‘do something.’” In a letter published in the National Review, Tom’s father spoke of “Tom's four cell-phone calls from Flight 93 to his wife, Deena.”38

The government’s evidence presented in 2006 at the Moussaoui trial, however, implies that she was mistaken, even though, given her statement that she saw her husband’s Caller ID number, the government’s new position means that she was either lying or, as we believe, the victim of a faked call using a device that, besides morphing her husband’s voice, faked his Caller ID number.39

However, although the government has undercut much of the basis for the official and popular accounts of 9/11 by denying the occurrence of any high-altitude cell phone calls, it has, by paying this price, protected itself from the 9/11 truth movement’s charge that the official story is falsified by the fact that such calls are impossible.

We come now, in any case, to the implication of the government’s Moussaoui-trial evidence about phone calls for the government’s position on whether AA 77 had onboard phones. According to this evidence, there were five connected calls from AA 77: one from Renee May and four from “unknown callers.” Given what we have learned from the government’s evidence about calls from UA 93---that all calls not identified as cell phone calls are said to have been made from onboard phones---we can conclude that, by virtue of not identifying any of the five “connected calls” from this flight as cell phone calls, the government is implying that this plane did have onboard phones. It does not, therefore, support our view on this issue.

Nevertheless, whether one accepts our evidence, which indicates that there were not any onboard phones on AA 77 from which calls could have been made, or trusts the government’s evidence presented at the Moussaoui trial, the conclusion is the same: The two conversations reported by Ted Olson did not happen.

Final Reflections

The implications of this conclusion for the credibility of the official narrative about 9/11 are enormous. Surely one of the most well-known elements of this narrative is that Barbara Olson, while on the plane that was soon to hit the Pentagon, called her husband. If people learn that this is a lie---whether because Ted Olson was a victim of faked phone calls or because he deliberately told a false story---most of them will probably be led to wonder if the whole official story is not a fabrication.

The strongest reason for considering false Ted Olson’s claim about two passenger-seat phone calls from his wife would be proof that such calls simply could not have occurred. It is important, therefore, for researchers to continue the quest to determine positively whether Boeing 757s in September 2001 had functioning onboard phones. Although we believe our evidence that they did not have such phones is very strong, we cannot yet claim to have proof; evidence to the contrary might still emerge. Finding proof one way or the other, however, should not be impossible, if others join in the task.

If further investigation should reveal that Flight 77 did, after all, have onboard phones, Ted Olson’s story would still be extremely implausible, for many reasons. Five of those reasons, mentioned in DRG’s previous essay, were summarized above. Three more have been added in this article: the absurdity of Ted Olson’s claim that his wife called collect because she did not have a credit card, the US government’s apparent endorsement of the view that high-altitude cell phone calls from airliners are not possible (thereby foreclosing the possibility that Ted Olson could return to the claim that she called from a cell phone), and the US government’s implicit rejection of his claim that the DOJ received two calls from AA Flight 77 that morning.

For those eight reasons alone, we would be justified in concluding, from simply this aspect of the official story, that the entire official story about 9/11 was a fabrication. This conclusion is greatly strengthened, however, by the almost definitive evidence that, besides the fact that Barbara Olson’s alleged calls could not have been made from a cell phone (which the US government now appears implicitly to have acknowledged), they also could not have been made from an onboard phone.40

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David Ray Griffin is the author of five books about 9/11, most recently Debunking 9/11 Debunking: An Answer to Popular Mechanics and Other Defenders of the Official Conspiracy Theory, a revised edition of which is appearing in July 2007.

Rob Balsamo is co-founder of Pilots for 9/11 Truth (www.pilotsfor911truth.org) and producer of Pandora’s Black Box (a DVD series).

1 “FBI Targets Florida Sites in Terrorist Search,” CNN.com, September 11, 2001, 11:56 PM EDT (http://edition.cnn.com/2001/US/09/11/america.under.attack); Tim O’Brien, “Wife of Solicitor General Alerted Him of Hijacking from Plane,” CNN, September 12, 2001, 2:06 AM (http://archives.cnn.com/2001/US/09/11/pentagon.olson).

2 Hannity & Colmes, Fox News, September14, 2001.

3 Larry King Live, CNN, September 14, 2001 (http://edition.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0109/14/lkl.00.html).

4 Mauro’s statement is quoted in Rowland Morgan, “Barbara Olson’s Call from Flight 77 Never Happened,” Global Echo, December 2, 2004 (http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2004/12/305124.shtml).

5 Theodore B. Olson, “Barbara K. Olson Memorial Lecture,” November 16, 2001, Federalist Society, 15th Annual National Lawyers Convention (http://www.fed-soc.org/resources/id.63/default.asp).

6 Toby Harnden, “She Asked Me How to Stop the Plane,” Daily Telegraph, March 5, 2002 (http://s3.amazonaws.com/911timeline/2002/telegraph030502.html).

7 See “On September 11, Final Words of Love,” CNN, September 10, 2002 (http://archives.cnn.com/2002/US/09/03/ar911.phone.calls), which says: “Unbeknown to the hijackers, passenger and political commentator Barbara Olson, 45, was able to call her husband---Solicitor General Ted Olson---on her cellular phone.”

8 The American Airlines website entitled “Onboard Technology” says: “Slide your credit card through the side of the phone and then dial 00 + country code + area or city code + number followed by the # key” (http://www.aa.com/content/travelInformation/duringFlight/onboardTechnology.jhtml).

9 Some defenders of the official story have, to be sure, suggested that she reversed the charges because she had borrowed someone else’s credit card. But in that situation, would anyone have been worrying about a few dollars?

10 See David Ray Griffin, Debunking 9/11 Debunking: An Answer to Popular Mechanics and Other Defenders of the Official Conspiracy Theory (Northampton: Olive Branch, 2007), 87-91, 292-97.

11 The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States, Authorized Edition (New York: W. W. Norton, 2004) (available online at http://www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report.pdf), 9.

12 See the National Transportation Safety Board’s flight path study for AA Flight 77 (http://www.ntsb.gov/info/AAL77_fdr.pdf). This study has been subjected to extensive analysis by Pilots for 9/11 Truth (http://pilotsfor911truth.org/pentagon.html). Our use of the information from this Flight Data Recorder (FDR) does not imply our acceptance of the NTSB’s claim that it is from AA Flight 77. Our scepticism is made clear in Debunking 9/11 Debunking, 372 n. 217, which quotes an email from RB saying, “The NTSB claims the Flight Data Recorder is from AA77, but it could really be from any type of aircraft.” Our reference to the data from this FDR is simply for the purpose of showing an internal contradiction within the official story.

13 This exchange occurred on December 6, 2004; see Rowland Morgan and Ian Henshall, 9/11 Revealed: The Unanswered Questions (New York: Carroll & Graf, 2005), 128-29. Although the letters themselves were not printed in that book or in Morgan’s Flight 93 Revealed: What Really Happened on the 9/11 ‘Let’s Roll’ Flight? (New York: Carroll & Graf, 2006), in which they are also mentioned, they were published (with Henshall and Morgan’s permission) in Griffin, Debunking 9/11 Debunking, first edition, 267.

14 American Airlines, “Onboard Technology” (https://www.aa.com/content/travelInformation/duringFlight/onboardTechnology.jhtml), quoted in Morgan, “Barbara Olson’s Call from Flight 77 Never Happened.”

15 See note 4.

16 Griffin, Debunking 9/11 Debunking, first edition, 267.

17 Sam Ames, “Airline Grounds In-flight Phone Service,” CNET News.com (http://news.com.com/2100-1033-831093.html). The photograph is at http://www.airliners.net/open.file/0020665/L. Both items were sent by Elias Davidsson of Iceland.

18 David Ray Griffin, “Barbara Olson’s Alleged Call from AA 77: A Correction About Onboard Phones,” Information Clearing House, May 7, 2007 (http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17659.htm).

19 It has been widely accepted that the (alleged) call from Renee May was made on a cell phone, because this is what was stated in a story published in her mother’s home town. See Natalie Patton, “Flight Attendant Made Call on Cell Phone to Mom in Las Vegas,” Las Vegas Review-Journal, September 13, 2001 (http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2001/Sep-13-Thu-2001/news/16989631.html). However, the government’s report on calls from this flight, which was presented as evidence at the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui in 2006, did not indicate that the call was a cell phone call (see United States v. Zacarias Moussaoui, Exhibit Number P200054 [http://www.vaed.uscourts.gov/notablecases/moussaoui/exhibits/prosecution.html];'>http://www.vaed.uscourts.gov/notablecases/moussaoui/exhibits/prosecution.html]; this information is more readily accessible in “Detailed Account of Phone Calls From September 11th Flights” [http://911research.wtc7.net/planes/evidence/calldetail.html#ref1]'>http://911research.wtc7.net/planes/evidence/calldetail.html#ref1]). However, even if the government is now implying, as we discuss later, that the call from Renee May was from a passenger-seat phone, the idea that only two people availed themselves of these phones would be little more credible than the idea that only one did.

20 “In Memoriam: Charles ‘Chic’ Burlingame, 1949-2001,” USS Saratoga Museum foundation (available at http://911research.wtc7.net/cache/planes/a...emembered.html).

21 Morgan, “Barbara Olson’s Call from Flight 77 Never Happened.”

22 This FBI report on phone usage from AA 77 refers merely to four “connected calls to unknown numbers.” The 9/11 Commission commented: “The records available for the phone calls from American 77 do not allow for a determination of which of [these four calls] represent the two between Barbara and Ted Olson, although the FBI and DOJ believe that all four represent communications between Barbara Olson and her husband’s office” (The 9/11 Commission Report, 455 n. 57). The fact that the Commission speaks merely about what the FBI and the DOJ “believe” indicates that they produced no records to prove the point.

23 See the submission of February 17, 2006, by “the Paradroid” on the Politik Forum (http://www.politikforum.de/forum/archive/index.php/t-133356-p-24.html).

24 This document is available at Pilots for 9/11 Truth (http://pilotsfor911truth.org/AA757AMM.html).

25 “Cell Phones Test Positive on AA Flight,” USA Today, July 16, 2004 (http://www.usatoday.com/tech/wireless/2004-07-16-jet-phones_x.htm).

26 We believe, incidentally, that the statement by the 757 AMM that the phone system was “deactivated” and the statement by USA Today that the phones were “ripped out” refer to two different processes, so that within AA’s records there would be a work order for the phones to be physically removed from the 757 fleet at some point between the time at which they were deactivated, perhaps late in 2000, and September 11, 2001. Locating such a work order would provide the final confirmation of the claim that Flight 77 had no onboard phones.

27 The 9/11 Commission Report, 455 n. 57.

28 United States v. Zacarias Moussaoui, Exhibit Number P200054 (http://www.vaed.uscourts.gov/notablecases/moussaoui/exhibits/prosecution.html). If unable to download this document, see “Detailed Account of Phone Calls From September 11th Flights” (http://911research.wtc7.net/planes/evidence/calldetail.html#ref1).

29 How the government could have concluded that this call was attempted by Barbara Olson is not clear.

30 It would appear that the FBI report referred to above, “American Airlines Airphone Usage,” is simply one portion of the complete report the FBI presented on telephone calls from all four flights at the Moussaoui trial. Note also, as mentioned in the text below, that it was a member of the FBI who stated at the Moussaoui trial that only two calls from UA 93 were cell phone calls.

31 Federal Bureau of Investigation, Most Wanted Terrorists (http://www.fbi.gov/wanted/terrorists/terbinladen.htm); Ed Haas, “FBI says, ‘No Hard Evidence Connecting Bin Laden to 9/11’” Muckraker Report, June 6, 2006 (http://www.teamliberty.net/id267.html).

32 Greg Gordon, “Prosecutors Play Flight 93 Cockpit Recording,” KnoxNews.com, April 12, 2006 (http://www.knoxsingles.com/shns/story.cfm?pk=MOUSSAOUI-04-12-06&cat=WW); quoted in Morgan, Flight 93 Revealed, 182, n. 87.

33 For graphics about the phone calls from Felt and Lyles, see “United States v. Zacarias Moussaoui: Prosecution Trial Exhibits,” Exhibit P200055 http://www.vaed.uscourts.gov/notablecases/...s/P200055.html).

34 For the government’s summary of the phone calls from all four flights, see exhibit P200054 or P200055 (they are identical) under Phase 2 of the Prosecution Trial Exhibits, “United States v. Zacarias Moussaoui” (http://www.vaed.uscourts.gov/notablecases/moussaoui/exhibits/prosecution.html) or “Detailed Account of Phone Calls From September 11th Flights” (http://911research.wtc7.net/planes/evidence/calldetail.html#ref1).

35 The 9/11 Commission Report, 12. At that time, the plane was reportedly at about 35,000 feet.

36 Surprisingly, however, the film United 93 portrayed Tom Burnett as using a seat-back phone.

37 Greg Gordon, “Widow Tells of Poignant Last Calls,” Sacramento Bee, September 11, 2002 (http://holtz.org/Library/Social%20Science/History/Atomic%20Age/2000s/Sep11/Burnett%20widows%20story.htm). See also Deena L. Burnett (with Anthony F. Giombetti), Fighting Back: Living Beyond Ourselves (Longwood, Florida: Advantage Inspirational Books, 2006), 61.

38 “Two Years Later...,” 10 September 2003 (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/09/09/earlyshow/living/printable572380.shtml); for the National Review letter, which appeared May 20, 2002, see http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m128..._54/ai_85410322.

39 As DRG reported in Debunking 9/11 Debunking, 297, there is an ad headed “FoneFaker--Call Recorder and Voice Changer Service with Caller ID Spoofing,” which says: “Record any call you make, fake your Caller ID and change your voice, all with one service you can use from any phone” (“Telephone Voice Changers,” Brickhouse Security [http://www.brickhousesecurity.com/telephone-voice-changers.html]).

40 We wish to thank Matthew Everett, Tod Fletcher, Ian Henshall, Rowland Morgan, Elizabeth Woodworth, and Aldo Marquis along with a couple of people who wish to remain anonymous, for help with this essay.

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