Interceptor pilots, why weren't 9/11 hijacked planes intercepted and at least escorted?

Question

I can see one plane hitting WTC without being intercepted, but every plane that crashed after that seemed increasingly inexplicable given our decades of developing air defenses, the density of military installations on the East Coast, and a plane hitting the Pentagon, which should be within the most protected airspace in the country.

I grew up next to an interceptor base. Even when I was a kid and they had F-101s, those planes could be to altitude in a couple of minutes and fly supersonic for short bursts.

F-15 & 16s can scramble and get to altitude in probably under two minutes from brake release, and they can fly over Mach 2 for short bursts. After one plane hit the WTC, you would think the normal restraints about going supersonic would have been rescinded. Instead, the first stories about the interceptors sent after the hijacked planes had them traveling at below 500 mph, at least 100 mph slower than an airliner can travel.

Even if a plane wasn't on alert, couldn't they spin up the gyros and be in the air within 10-15 minutes?

Stick man, believe it or not, our fighters have had their own radar on-board since the 1950s, and are able to find planes much smaller than airliners with no transponders. NORAD also has their own separate radar system.

You could look it up, or just believe the crap Rush and O'Reilly spoon feed you.

Fighter escorts can also "herd" planes by crowding their path, or also shoot them down, which could have prevented as great a loss of life after the first plane hit the WTC.

While the 9/11 scenario was new to the general public, it was not to defense planners or pilots who drilled on this stuff for decades.

Answer 1

Take this bush bashing question to moveon.org. The hijackers turned off their beacon so that US Military could not find them. When the first plane hit, the military thought it might have been and accident. It was like pearl harbor, they caught us off guard. We didn't know they were coming. The airlines own recordings show that they had no idea what was going on. Neither did the Military.

Answer 2

first you have several issues that must be confronted, things like which planes are the targets. when the first plane hit the world trade center, it was thought, as previously stated, to be an accident. when the second plane hit, we knew then it was no accident, and fighters were scrambled. at that point in time there were not just the other two planes in the air, that would be easy, but rather hundreds of planes in the air. how do you determine which is the target? you have to go through the FAA and check the flight plans that were filed, determine if the aircraft is off course, recontact the military to visually identify the plane, etc. once this is done, then you need presidential authorization for weapons release. all that takes time. and in the confusion of the moment time is a luxury you really dont have. if you were in the pilots seat of one of the F15's, and you saw a 747 on that day that was off course, that wasnt responding to your radio calls, would you pull the trigger? assuming you had weapons release authorization? the first question that goes through you mind is, how busy is the pilot in that aircraft? then, why isnt he responding to me? too much radio traffic? wrong frequency? equipment problems? terrorist? assume oyu made the call that it was a terrorist in control, and you then shoot the plane down, and later find that the radio was not operating, and you killed your wife and kid? also consider that shooting down an airliner over a crowded city, is just what the terrorists wanted. they wanted to kill as many americans as possible, and if they could get our military to help, so much the better. unless you were the one to make the decisions, dont second guess the ones that did make them.

Answer 3

With the End of the Cold War, the Number of Fighter Aircraft on a Scramble Alert was cut to a VERY VERY LOW level. In fact there was one point where only 24 Interceptors in the entire USA were on a 5 min Alert. Given that the Hijackers were already well within the Continental Defense Zone there was little or nothing that could be done.

Since the 9/11 attacks the number of A/C assigned to Alert Status has gone up.

Answer 4

If you watch the movie United 93 you see that planes were sent up but obviously too late. Some were sent from an ANG base here in Michigan, and apparently they were unarmed so I think they would have been of little help. I think one of the important lessons of 9-11 was that we all thought we were well protected (how could a plane hit the pentagon? then again planes from Reagan national fly over D.C. and Arlington all day) but in the end we found out how lax most of the security had gotten. I doubt escorting them would have worked, the hijackers had one goal in mind and those planes were not going to land. By most of the "official" accounts from 9-11 the problem with the interceptors getting there in time was the air traffic control not recognizing the problem soon enough to do anything.

Answer 5

In order for any escort to work, the pilot being escorted must follow directions, something tells me that it would not have been effective to ask the terrorists to follow them to the airport... Also, if it was intercepted, it could not be shot down without the permission of the President or Vice President... Now, do you think they would give that order, and if they did, it would kill all on the plane and hundreds more on the ground... they did not know that they would hit the second tower, right up until the second tower was hit, many believed that it was an accident...

Answer 6

we have land based and mobile based surface to air missiles which could easily taken down the planes in a matter of minutes...the reason why the 2nd one was not stopped in time is becuase of military authority...you cannot shoot down a plane that fast without having certain steps that it must fall under for authority of military action is given..

since the 1st plane was suspected as a miscalculation of the pilot or airplane there was nothing the military could do so they had to wait and see if a 2nd target would appear...since a 2nd target did appear and did crash into the building it was then confirmed a attack on US soil... so now you have authority for military action....

... now they found a 3rd target which was indeed a intentional target the 3rd was given authority and shot down ( its classified and we all know what happened)... usually these events are classified for 10 or so years and then are open to the public....

Answer 7

In the entire history of the Strategic Air Command, every commercial aircraft that has deviated from its planed flight path has been intercepted in minutes, Every time, that is, except for the four planes on 9/11. The reason they weren't intercepted is simple ... Inside Job!

Answer 8

I think most of the answers here cover the basics....

The biggest issue was time.

You mentioned the possibility of shooting down the second aircraft to prevent large loss of life. I'm not sure how shooting down an airliner over a large metro area would prevent that. There is no way to control the crash or the debri from an aircraft you shoot down. I think this was a damned if you do and damned if you don't scenario.

Of course there are many people who think that the flight that crashed in PA was in fact shot down.

Answer 9

The discussions about this question are interminable. Despite the polemics, what good would it have done except to give the interceptor pilot a birds eye view of the crash??? No governmental agency had the guts to authorize the shoot down of an American airliner carrying passengers over American soil or otherwise.

Answer 10

Of course this is all speculation:

The pentagon wasn't hit by a plane at all. No one saw a plane coming even in the local area. Missile maybe?

As for the interceptor jets... I think they did get to one of the planes. The one that went down in the field. The government just didn't want to fess up to shooting down a plane with a bunch of US citizens on it.

Answer 11

Yes there was a giant gap in air defence. No the two f-16's flying that day would not have made it over New York in time. Terrorist hell bent on flying a 757 at 630 miles an hour into a building escorting them with a National Guard F-16 that probably did not have missles under the wings? It did not take long for the three planes to reach there targets. They were flying at maxium speed have you heard the engine sounds over lower Manhatten sounded like take-off throttle settings. Sadly we have used up most of our defences over in the sand of Iran and poppy fields in Afaganastan. No end in sight.