9/11 tapes
 

The 9/11 Tapes: The Story in the Air - Interactive Feature - NYTimes.com

Kinda soon IMO

At this point I've heard so many tapes, seen so many pictures, read so many accounts, I honestly don't think I can deal with more.

It really may always be "too soon" for me personally to handle more of it.

Welcome to today's edition of "Things I never need to hear."

Why would anyone want to listen to this.

Harrowing.

I've gone through phases where I've devoured a lot of contemporaneous news reports and other info from the time. I couldn't tell you why. It's intense, it's moving, it's fascinating, and it's sad, to feel all that stuff again. I'm drawn to connect with it all again every so often.

Thank God someone in the military overruled Cheney's order to start shooting down planes.

I challenge you to make it through one fucking thread without acting like a political douchebag.

This site (and several companion sites, including a new one that launched a couple of weeks ago with thousands of hours of footage) is where I just came about as close to reliving that morning as I could get. My wife was watching GMA when it all started, so through the collapse of the second tower we were mostly on ABC. All their coverage is there via the local affiliate in DC, the other networks are also represented as well as the BBC coverage. There's much more on the newer site but this one has longer (40 minutes) clips & is easier to navigate.

September 11 Television Archive : Free Movies : Download & Streaming : Internet Archive

And I'm having kind of the opposite experience with my 8th grader, who watched with us throughout the day as a three year old & is now (mostly coincidentally) studying the events & the broader subject of terrorism in his geography class.

The stunning thing to me is that he was the only student in his class who could readily identify names like Al-Qaeda and was the only student in his class who had any recollection of ever seeing the collapse footage before it was shown in class this week. I'd have had a hard time believing he wasn't exaggerating except for the teacher telling parents (at the open house before school began) what material would be covered & what would be shown in the class. In the discussion, he mentioned that the previous two years hadn't contained any students who had seen the footage before ... something that I also found hard to believe until multiple other teachers confirmed the same thing to me privately.

It's a damned shame more schools don't do what yours does, I'm hard pressed to think of any single day of the year where they'll do something more significant.

Hmm ... I'm not thinking so much in terms of "honor" as in terms of "education".


I'm fine with whatever it takes to get that day across and to get it to stick with them. I won't claim that's the only way but what you're describing reminds me of the driving safety programs that have students randomly go to class as "corpses" (I don't know the "official" name for these, hopefully you know what I mean though).

What kind of douchebag should he act like then?


(Not that I'm calling you a douchebag, JPhillips)



(Not that there is anything wrong with being a douchbag)

It was a part of the recordings released. Can we only talk about the recordings that you find worthy? Saying thank God wasn't really even an attack on Cheney. I think he reacted with his gut, but luckily a more trained military mind made sure that planes full of innocents weren't shot down. Whoever made that decision is as much of a hero as any of the first responders.

The order was to shoot down hijacked planes, and I guess by the time the order was made, there were no more hijacked planes in the air. You seem to making a logic leap from there to "Cheney ordered the military to shoot down non-hijacked plane but that was ignored by the military", or "Cheney ordered the military to shoot down anything in the sky", unless I'm misunderstanding.

Shooting down the actual hijacked planes would have been better (in hindsight) though, right? I still assume that would have happened if they didn't bungle the first few minutes, and if there were more fighters placed more strategically to begin with.

I'm pretty much the same way. It's never on the day itself, though. It'll just be some rainy dreary weekend for a few hours. I've got the 9/11 report sitting around here somewhere that I've thumbed through a couple times.

Sunday itself I'll probably avoid all non-NFL tv and media.

The problem is we didn't have perfect information as to what planes were hijacked. The order seems to have been given after the Pennsylvania crash. It may not have resulted in any planes being shot down, but the decision somewhere in the military to overrule a shot order and instead instruct pilots to get tail number information and wait for further orders was a much better decision.

I didn't realize this ball was ever in the air but I was thinking this week about how the US would have been different if 9/11 had gone down this way. What happens if the military had shot down 4 jets before they even did any "damage"? Even if he hadn't given the order, how would any US President be able to live something like that down?

That's ok. I keep trying to avoid 9/11 stuff and can't. The way people react, the way we have changed as a country, the price we have paid, the jingoism, the rights abridged, the bitter partisanship, and- well, I'm just not going to go down this road as it'll just end up offending some as much as so much of what it makes me think of offends me.

SI

That's sick. I've no problem with teaching students about awful historical events, but that sounds like an attempt to shock with no attempt to instruct or even to honor.

As for the tapes released--pure voyeurism. Reading through the transcripts, they reveal nothing that we did not know before. People were confused and scared--we knew that already. I especially have a problem with the NYT posting recordings which, according to the transcript, contain the screaming of the flight crew as it was killed.

The only thing I got from those tapes, which I guess I already knew given the outcome of that days events, was how woefully unprepared we were.

It was kind of sad to listen to the one ID Tech sound excited when news of a hijacking came across the wire. I bet she wished she had that one back

Struck me odd at first too, but then probably not uncommon to have some level of 'giddyness' when something that you've probably trained for goes from exercise to real world.

And Cheney didn't tell them to start shooting down planes. They were cleared to engage those aircraft where they were verified as hijacked planes. There is a difference.

I wonder if they have test scenarios randomly and she just assumed it was one of those. Sort of like getting excited when the fire alarms go off thinking it's a drill and then watch as the building burns down.

Good point and something I hadn't thought about. Given the enduring crazy of 9/11 truthers, would people have believed the government if they had shot down the planes before impact?

Excellent point.

It'd make the Kennedy Conspiracy buffs look like rank amateurs. It would never go away.

On the "cool" comment, it's worth noting that 9/11/01 happened to be a day where some pretty big NORAD training exercises were being held that were part fake, part real-world. It's possible that she got this confused with part of the exercises.

I always end up watching something about 9/11/01 on 9/11. Usually end up revisiting the site JiMGa posted as well. I remember being at work when it happened and how slow the internet was all day. That was basically pre-broadband too, so the only thing I could get was streaming some radio station in North Carolina playing the ABC radio feed... my boss ended up coming about lunchtime from some meetings he had and let me go home early.

EDIT: Nevermind.

I had typed up some stream of consciousness thoughts, but I don't want to go there.

It's still so surreal even 10 years later.

I don't think the education of 9/11 needs to include a "scared straight" portion. Comparing 9/11 to drunk driving is ridiculous. (not saying you are, but that would be terribly wrong).

Was only looking for something that uses a similar technique, no comparison beyond that intended.

I know you where, that's why I included the ( )

My daughter's school (she's in 4th grade in a K-6 elementary school) had a 9/11 assembly scheduled for today with counselors on hand. We live right outside Washington DC, so we probably felt the impact more than most, but I don't really understand the utility of such a big production for an audience where 85% of the kids weren't even born when 9/11 happened.

I can understand each of the grades handling it in an age appropriate fashion, but I'm still kind of lost on the thought process there.

If by "big production" you're referring (in part) to the counselors being available, I gathered from what my son's teacher said that for those seeing the video for the first time it can be traumatic (he mentioned that a couple of students in the last couple of years actually left the room in tears).

Based on my own limited experience with this, schools are being pretty careful. Ours, for example, asked (and actually noted) which students in this particular class had any direct connection not only to the events of that day but also which ones had connections to anyone who worked at Ground Zero, to past/present military personnel who served in the middle east, etc.

And if you watched the recent NG channel interview with GWB, he said they had given the order to shoot down planes suspected of being highjacked before the Penn plane went down. He said it was the hardest decision he made as president, and he worried after the Penn plane went down that it was shot down after that command. It wasn't until later he found out what had really happened to that plane.

Holy crap. I hadn't heard this before.

Full audio transcript

Full Audio Transcript « Rutgers Law Review

104. 100901 UA93 Negative Clearance to Shoot

Nasypany: One five two seven, mode 3, do we have a track number? 1527, ode 3 we got a track number?

Nasypany: Ok, we got a mode 3 on this, ah, United 93.

Nasypany: How close are you?

[Background] Unknown: (Indistinct).

[Background] Sr. ID Tech: (Indistinct) three nine five one north.

Nasypany: Three nine five one north.

[Background] Sr. ID Tech: Zero seven eight four six west.

Nasypany: Zero seven eight four six west.

[Background] Sr. ID Tech: This is the guy with the bomb on board.

Nasypany: Got it.

[Background] Unknown: I just got off the phone with the Colonel and he has one E3 on, that’s on its way out here (indistinct).

Nasypany: Toledo was—look for him. Hey, I need a track number.

Nasypany: Ok. Hey, Brian, ok, 2 Syracuse birds will be airborne in less than 20 minutes, any weapons?

[Background] Unknown: (Indistinct) near Pittsburg, mode 3, one five two seven.

Nasypany: We don’t know. Just press with that.

[Background] Unknown: We have any committed on the one aircraft with a bomb on it?

Nasypany: We’re gettin to it. We don’t know where it is, we’re gettin’ track on it.

Unknown: Pass that to weapons.

Nasypany: Yeah. Ok. Got it.

[Background] Unknown: United nine three, mode 3, one five two seven.

Nasypany: Negative, negative clearance to shoot.

Nasypany: Jaime?

[Background] Unknown: One five two seven Brian.

Nasypany: God dammit. Foxy?

Fox: I’m not really worried about code words (indistinct).

Nasypany: Fuck the code words. That’s perishable information. Negative clearance to fire. ID type, tail. Hey, let your guys know also.

Ah, here it is

107. 103200 Chat Log Shootdown words

Floor Leadership: You need to read this. Region Commander has declared that we can shoot down tracks if they are not responding to our, uh, directions.

MCC Position: Ok. I’ll pass that to weapons.

Floor Leadership: Ok.

MCC Position: The Region Com, the Region Commander has declared that we can shoot down aircraft that do not respond to our direction. Copy that?

Weapons: Copy that sir.

MCC Position: So if you’re trying to divert somebody and he won’t divert—

Major Fox: D-O is saying no.

MCC Position: No? It came over the chat. Foxy, you got a conflict on that, you got a conflict on that direction?

Major Fox: Right now, no, but—

MCC Position: Ok.

Floor Leadership: Hey—

MCC Position: Ok.

Floor Leadership: You read that from the Vice President, right? The Vice President has cleared—

MCC Position: Vice President has cleared us to intercept tracks—

Floor Leadership: Of interest—

MCC Position: And shoot them down if they do not respond, per CONR CC.