NORAD's default operating procedure is to immediately intercept wayward aircraft. What happened on 9/11?

Answer 1

Rules in effect prior to 9/11 prohibited supersonic flight on intercepts. The transponders on the planes were turned off, making identification and tracking difficult. With the exception of Payne Stewart's Learjet (which took 1 hr 19 minutes by an unarmed F-16 already in the air) when his transponder was on, all NORAD interceptions from 1989 on were done in offshore Air Defense Identification Zones. There were no domestic ADIZ's. The authorization to shoot down civilian airliners was not given until the fourth plane had crashed, so what good would interception have even done? The country was not on a wartime footing, and despite what you may believe prior to 9/11 we did not have fighters with live missles under the wings sitting on tarmacs waiting for battle.

Answer 2

NORAD's information comes from various sites that face outward around the US and Canada. Its purpose is to track inbound "bogeys" and intercept them. Commercial airline traffic doesn't use a traditional radar system to track aircraft. They use a transponder that sends information about the aircraft to the controllers of the many regions of the US. The terrorists turned these transponders off, so the airplanes disappeared from the scopes. The military doesn't have coast to coast radar coverage within the US. AWACS aircraft can utilize their radar to spot them, and in fact, were used for that on 9/11. Unfortunately, as is the nature of surprise attacks, nothing was in place for such an action. Once the airliners were located, Cheney gave the order to shoot them down. But the intercept fighters were too far away to get there in time. By the time they got there the planes were over the city and it was feared that a shootdown would cause more damage. Hindsight, being 20/20, proves otherwise, but they could't have known that at the time. Unless you buy the conspiracy theories. In which case, I've just wasted my time.

Answer 3

Would you have liked to have been a passenger on an aircraft on 9/11 and NORAD gave the green light to start shooting everything down? That's not their job. NORAD was developed to be our strategic defense. They watch for potential enemy bombers and missiles. Plus, they control the deployment of certain of our missiles. These guys used the "Trojan Horse Effect" on us. They hi-jacked our own aircraft and turned them into missiles against us. Very calculating and murderous. They knew that we would be very reluctant to shoot down American commercial aircraft with American citizens on board. The authentication process and approving authority to shoot civilian commercial aircraft down would be very complicated and have to come from the top. I would not want to be the guy that makes that decision.

Bottom line is, they found a weakness by our own culture and took advantage of it.

Answer 4

Poo poop dee doo.........

I think it shows just how asleep at the switch those in charge are. With all of the "wait and see", head-scratching and buck passing going on between the FAA, NORAD, the White House, and the Air Traffic Controllers, it's a wonder that we haven't been bombed into oblivion long before that event.

*kiss*

Answer 5

NORAD's NEW default operating procedure is to immediately intercept wayward aircraft. That procedure came about because of 9/11. A little research would show you that fact.

Answer 6

What would you have had NORAD do? What you forget is that we had no way of knowing at first what those planes were going to do.

That is why the passengers on the first three planes did not attack the hi-jackers, they were reacting the way we had been told to react to hijackers: Sit tight and wait.

It was not till flight 93 that the passengers because of cell phones knew what was going and they did then act

All NORAD could have done is shot planes out of the sky. But since they did not know at the time that the HiJackers were going to use them as weapons they let it play out

To blame that on Bush is to aide the terrorist. I think that you conspiracy people need to stop looking to blame Bush (who is turly an awful President) and blame AlQuedia

Answer 7

NORAD doesn't normally concern itself too much with commercial airlines, since it is looking for military aircraft and near-Earth objects.

Surely you can find a better conspiracy theory than that, can't you?

I like "the government can listen to you over your cell phone unless you take out the battery"; it has the makings of a classic conspiracy theory. Widely-used technology, hints of super-tech that only the government has; it's like an updated "clipper chip".

Answer 8

Like most government employees, the good people at NORAD were surfing internet porn on 9/11.

Answer 9

Remember that Cheney was in charge... he proceeded to NOT let NORAD do its job for some reason: Enter conspiracy theory #233

Answer 10

uh, that's not quite accurate. NORAD focuses on military craft, not necessarily commercial planes. Besides, even if the order was given to shoot the planes down, what then? They could have blown up in mid air over densely populated areas and caused as much loss of life. Besides, there just wasn't enough time to do it.