On Fri, 05 Mar 2004 04:10:28 GMT, "Doug Kanter"
wrote:

"John H" wrote in message
.. .

Jim, we had not normally been keeping an air defense battery around
the twin towers or the Pentagon. The closest air defense we had was at
Fort Belvoir, VA. That's about an hour from the Pentagon on a good
day, assuming the troops were loaded and ready to go.

We had not been keeping F-16's on the ready rack at Andrews AFB
either.

Have you ever landed at National Airport in Washington, D,C.? When
landing from the north, planes fly directly above the Potomac River
until they hit the runway. This means they pass within a few blocks of
the Pentagon. The warning time would have been about 4 seconds from
the time a plane left the normal flight path.

It's okay to hate Bush, but try to exercise some reason!

John H

On the 'Poco Loco' out of Deale, MD
on the beautiful Chesapeake Bay!

I may be wrong, but I believe we still have an ANG base on Long Island. A
path straight north would intercept a plane about halfway between Boston and
Manhattan.

That could have been possible, but no one had knowledge of anything
going on until after the first tower was hit. Even then the incident
was being described as an accident. Only after the second tower was
hit was a "purposeful" connection made.

Air National Guard folks tended to drill primarily on weekends. They
didn't normally have armed fighters on ready alert, i.e. sitting at
the end of the runway with a pilot ready to take off. We had no reason
for this prior to 9/11.

John H

On the 'Poco Loco' out of Deale, MD
on the beautiful Chesapeake Bay!

"John H" wrote in message
...


That could have been possible, but no one had knowledge of anything
going on until after the first tower was hit. Even then the incident
was being described as an accident. Only after the second tower was
hit was a "purposeful" connection made.

Even after just ONE hit, it should've looked fishy. Anything's possible, but
the whole neighborhood's surrounded by open water. Any normal pilot would've
tried very hard to hit water in such a situation. Oh well. Hindsight blah
blah blah.....