Former ATCer speaks out

[BeachBaby]

My last thread was deleted due to the fact that I mistakenly linked to a forbidden site. I apologize for that.

From what I gathered from another poster before my thread was removed, Robin Hordon is not considered to be a reliable source. I beg to differ:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpIrMFbumrE

Is he the be-all-that-ends-all for any and all things ATC and 9/11? Of course not; but to disregard anything he has to say, simply because he's not a current ATCer, is absolutely ridiculous.

As I stated in my last thread, if there is something substantial that discredits Robin Hordon, I don't know about it - but am open to hearing from anyone here who does.

[greyl]

1. Instead of discrediting him, I'd rather look at his evidence first.

Let's see it.

[BeachBaby]

2. Well.....

being that he is simply explaining how planes operate during a route, how they are programmed before the route begins, and how ATC reacts to missing planes, hijacked planes, etc.....I'm not sure what you mean by "evidence". He no longer works there.

I put up the link because he's familiar with the operations - I thought it was worth a look. Don't you?

[greyl]

3. Right, he offers no evidence to examine. Five years later, he comes up with a detail-poor story

that just happens to disagree with every single other person who was actually working as an ATC that day.

Have you compared his claims with the actual procedures in place in 2001?

Do you remember the totally faked story supposedly originating from a NJ firefighter that the CTers gobbled up without question?

I do.

[BeachBaby]

6. LOL....no, I don't remember that story....

I guess what I'm saying is, I don't think he should be discredited simply because he wasn't involved in the 9/11 attacks.

Are you asking whether he is truly a former ATCer? Well, there's no way for me to know that, although I do remember reading about the firing of several ATCers during the Reagan administration - something about them being on strike. When he speaks of his past, he does bring that situation up as the reason behind his termination.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I'm going to use this analogy - albeit maybe not the best one - to explain my view:

A few years ago, a male friend of mine was working as a loan representative of a rather well-known financial institution. He had stayed later than most of his colleagues one night, to get paperwork under control. As he was walking down the hallway to get to the garage, he heard raised voices - one male, one female. As he got closer, it sounded like things were being knocked down. All of this was going on in an office with its door shut. He thought it best to continue on his way.

A couple weeks later, he starts to hear through the grapevine that one of the higher-upper execs was filing a sexual harrassment suit against the institution. I don't remember the whole story in detail - it was awhile ago - but the suit stemmed from an incident that occured on the same exact day that my friend "witnessed" the voices and noise behind the closed doors of an office. That office was the plaintiff's. My friend later learned that she, the plaintiff, was terminated without warning, no severance.

The defendant was one of the top execs, and it didn't take long before the employees started being questioned about the defendant's character. Because everyone feared for their jobs and their future, nobody spoke out against their boss - even though many a female employee had complained to each other about this man's sexual advances, which by some accounts, were very physical and bordering on violent.

My friend didn't speak up because he loved his job, was settled in, working his way up the ladder with lots of fringe benefits. Besides, what did he really know anyway, right? All he heard was raised voices and a bit of ruckus - it didn't prove anything, right? And in his opinion, it was up to the other women who also were victimized by this creep to speak out. It wasn't any of his business, and he wasn't going to lose his job over it.

I know this is hardly the same caliber as the 9/11 event; but I look at it this way - if a small-scale situation like that one made people balk, and keep their mouths shut in order to save their careers and their futures, I can only imagine the fear and trepidation that anyone would experience by entertaining any thought of speaking out against their "boss" - who just happens to be the US govt.

That is why I can't ignore people like Robin Hordon. If he's a poser, we'll find that out soon enough; but if I'm correct in my belief that 9/11 is the result of an inside job, I imagine that if we ever do find out, it will be "outed" by a FORMER employee of the govt. Not a current one.

[Make7]

4. A couple of longer interviews with Robin Hordon:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-9147890225218338952

http://www.kpfa.org/archives/index.php?arch=19792

- Make7

[Bolo Boffin]

5. And again, we should probably listen to the ATC at Boston that day instead of

the one who hadn't set foot in Boston Center for over a decade or so.

http://911guide.googlepages.com/cs

Robin wasn't there that day. This guy was. Robin doesn't know. This guy does.

End of story.

[Twist_U_Up]

7. Where do you find this garbage ?

Cheap Shot is his alias ? What a frigging joke boffin.
Who did the interview ?

This site looks more like a government organization geared to give information lies on how to debunk the Truthers.
How do you find this crap ?

2 unknowns in a transcript and you act as if this is Holy Grail. Gimmie a face, a name, Something.

[Bolo Boffin]

8. You first. n/t

[tetedur]

15. Why should we listen to one and not the other?

Hordon addresses some issues that Cheap Shot does not. Some of subjects they both cover are in agreement, such as the military does not insert blips onto civilian radar. Both of them are basically defending the efforts of the FAA on 9/11.

The main point Hordon is trying to make is the difference between Emergency Protocol and Hijack Protocol. When there is an emergency with an airplane,(no radio, off course, no transponder), the controllers could immediately call for help from the military. If a plane is hijacked, the controllers have time to go through the chain of command and wait for demands. Hordon says because of the subtle change of protocol in June of 2001, the military was not responding without permission from what he calls "Rummy's military."

Cheap Shot tells us by 8:33 or 8:35 "Dan Bueno...had called Cape TRACON, which owned the airspace above Otis ANGB, and then he called Otis Tower and asked to scramble so they could escort AAL11....Otis Tower advised him that that clearance had to come from NEADS. He then had Joe Cooper make the call to NEADS with a request for fighters." They were doing exactly what Hordon said should have been done.

The ATCs were following protocol but didn't necessarily know about CJCS13610.01A, a new order from the Joint Chiefs in June of 2001.

The controller was supposed to tell his supervisor who tell the OMIC who calls the ROC who calls the Hijack Coordinator at FAA HQ in Washington D.C. Cheap Shot tells us the hijack coordinator wasn't on duty on 9/11. "That is where the breakdown occurred. They were lucky we circumvented the protocol or the military would have never known anything was going on."

The hijack coordinator was supposed to call the NMCC (Pentagon) and NMCC calls NORAD. NORAD calls the Air Defense Control Facility and the ADCF calls Otis ANGB.

Cheap Shot also began calling NEADS. He says he made 40 calls that day. He says the ADCF had the authority to launch interceptors. "They didn't necessarily have to wait for a clearance from NORAD....Why they waited for the okay from NORAD I don't know it could have been a change on their end. But on 9-11 I believe they could have been launched without NORAD's blessing. Of course that's my interpretation of FAA07610.4J Appendix 16."

Hordon holds the same view and comments that "that's why the Justice Department didn't get ."

Cheap Shot relates his futile efforts to tell the military the lat/longs of AAL11 so they could locate the target. NEADS could never find the target. Cheap Shot says this is because the military did not filter out "ground clutter." The fighters wouldn't launch without an identified target.

"I had also been calling Otis ANGB to see when the fighters were going to break ground. They had been delayed. Probably due to the fact they never saw the target of AAL11. They did get off but were then sent to Warning Area 105."

Cheap Shot doesn't tell us why the interceptors were sent out to sea when he was telling them that AAL11 was probably headed to JFK. He does tell us "had been watching the City and the smoke from AAL11, and were waiting for clearance to go there. They were about 70 NM away."

Other interesting points in Cheap Shot's interview.

Someone on a Telecon stated that AAL11 was still in the air after it hit WTC1. No one to this day, knows who that was. Cheap Shot offers various excuses for it. He began calling NEADS about this phantom. "I also felt I may have been over stepping my bounds, by calling NEADS with information that should have been coming from Washington Center....I found out later that no one was calling them, and that I was basically the only one feeding them."

He called NEADS and NEADS called Washington Center and told them that there was a plane 6 miles from the White House. And they responded with, "How the hell would Boston Center know about an aircraft 6 miles from the White House." CLICK. "The bastard hung up. If I ever find out whom (sic) the hell that was I would ring (sic) his friggen neck."

Boston Center was needlessly evacuated because of a "Coast Guard aircraft southeast of Nantucket that we had already identified."

A bomb scare had been called in to the Day Care Center located at the corner of the Boston Center property.

It seems to me that the ATC was not getting very much help that day.

[truth01]

9. Thanks for the link to the video...

Robin Hordon seems very credible.

Yet another nail in the coffin of the official myth.

[tetedur]

10. I'll second that thank you for the links.

The KPFA link is EXTREMELY interesting. Tonight I heard someone finally talk about at least 4 issues that I have had from the beginning. Someone knowledgeable explained it without confusion. Highly recommended listening.

[Sweet Pea]

11. No, Its Not ridiculous.

If the man was fired 26 years ago during the strike, he's been out of the tower for over a quarter century. I would like to think that responsible people would recognize that as a significant absence from the arena of expertise in question.

If the man was part of the estimated 7% of ATCs (850 of 11,000) that were re-hired after Clinton (1993) overturned the lifetime ban on re-hiring of fired ATCs, then perhaps the guy has some credibility.

If not, then yes, it is ridiculous to afford this guy much weight. 26 years removed from a discipline such as Air Traffic Control classifies, in my book, as "Back in MY day, sonny...!" territory.

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

12. These are citizens in search of the

...truth they know they're not getting from their government.

[moodforaday]

13. In the KPFA interview and elsewhere Robin Hordon states

In the KPFA interview and in one other interview I've heard Robin Hordon categorically states that the idea of "false blips inserted onto radar screens" is false, since (he claims) it is not technically possible. I recall he also says that the military systems are not hooked into civilian flight control systems in a way that would make this possible.

It seems to me that there is relatively little existence for those "fake blips", although it seems that at some point air controllers did suspect a higher number of hijacked planes than the four we know of. I remember this being reported on the news as things were happening. The two stories are perhaps related, but the latter can certainly be true even if the former isn't.

I suppose one could take this every which way, though.

Hordon also said he could not imagine a scenario in which a pilot would willingly relinquish control of the plane, regardless of what blackmail or pressure were being applied to him/her. I am inclined to believe that, because it stands to reason. It seems correct as a trained strategy of dealing with a hijacking, and plausible psychologically. If you give up control of the plane, you place in the hijackers' hands the lives of everyone on board, including your own. And as long as any passengers are still alive, they are safer with the pilot at the controls than with a hijacker. (My suppositions though, not Hordon's words.)

The interviewers never followed up on that, and too bad, since this is an interesting angle. Though we cannot know precisely what was going on in each cockpit, civil aviation pilots know their training, their objectives and their personal limits. They can establish what is possible (given that the pilots are following rules and training but are not expecting any particular threat), and what a pilot would never or should never do. What specific scenarios can be proposed to account for incapacitating two pilots at the same time, fast enough to prevent them from raising any warning, and reliably enough to repeat the procedure at least three times without a hitch?

[noise]

14. Good question

What specific scenarios can be proposed to account for incapacitating two pilots at the same time, fast enough to prevent them from raising any warning, and reliably enough to repeat the procedure at least three times without a hitch?

In Unsafe at any Altitude the authors (Joe and Susan Trento) detail the account of Eric Gill who worked a security checkpoint at Dulles. Gill said that on 9/10 he got into a confrontation with several men trying to enter an employees only door. The problem was that only a couple of the men had valid security cards. Gill told the the men without ID cards they couldn't go through the door. One man got upset and after a brief argument with Gill all the men decided to leave. Later, Gill identified the man who got upset as Nawaf al-Hazmi (alleged Flight 77 hijacker) and identified one of the other men as Marwan al-Shehhi (alleged hijacker/pilot of Flight 175 out of Logan). At the time al-Hazmi was on several government watchlists and al-Shehhi may have been as well.

This story has never gotten much attention but IF TRUE it calls into question key aspects of the 9/11 Commission account. Obviously it makes no sense for radical Islamic al Qaeda operatives posing as Dulles employees to draw attention on the night before the attacks. It also raises the question as to whether weapons were placed on the planes by al Qaeda operatives and/or intelligence officials posing as airline employees. To my knowledge, there were two accounts of possible gun use...Suqami shooting Daniel Lewin (Flight 11) and Tom Burnett (Flight 93) told his wife one of the hijackers had a gun.

One theory is that al-Hazmi was a GID agent which would explain his cavalier use of his real name despite being identified by the CIA back in January 2000. So if Gill's account is true that could mean al-Hazmi the GID agent had no intention of boarding a plane on 9/11. He could have been betrayed by his handlers, killed and then added to the Flight 77 flight manifest later. Yes, I realize this is speculative and am not making any assertion of fact.

Some the families that sued the airlines did say they learned some new information about the attacks. Perhaps this new information was related to the use of guns on the planes.