CNN on the 9-11 mystery plane

[Midnight Mike]

It was about 10 am on 9-11. The hijacked planes had already hit the World Trade Center and the Pentagon (the Pentagon crash occurring at 9:37 am), and the White House was among the government buildings in Washington that were being evacuated. NORAD had scrambled fighters into the air without any clear idea of where the fighters would go or what their responsibilities or orders were. At that moment, a mysterious plane appeared in the restricted air space above the White House. That plane, as you’ll see in the clip, was most likely an Air Force E-4B flying command post.

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[moose135]

I don't see what the mystery is. It was clear from the tape that it was an E-4B. I'm sure once the second plane hit the WTC, and it was clear that it was an attack and not an accident, the E-4 was scrambled to be out of harms way, and to be available to pick up the President if necessary. And I'm not surprised that nobody at the Pentagon is willing to comment on it. No mystery at all.

[Tom_Turner]

It was reported to have done an unusually steep climb. I can imagine that might be true. Quite understandable.

Tom

[USAF Pilot 07]

You'd be surprised at how some planes can perform, even those that are used/designed primarily as commercial jets, but that the military has....

[cancidas]

53 seconds into the video it's obvious what the airplane is. i think CNN needs to start employing some from our group to fill thier "aviation expert" ranks. :mrgreen:

how far is it from the white house to ADW?

[Matt Molnar]

It was reported to have done an unusually steep climb. I can imagine that might be true. Quite understandable.

Reporters on AF1 with the President taking off from Florida that morning said it felt like the plane was climbing almost vertically.

[NIKV69]

I don't see what the mystery is. It was clear from the tape that it was an E-4B. I'm sure once the second plane hit the WTC, and it was clear that it was an attack and not an accident, the E-4 was scrambled to be out of harms way, and to be available to pick up the President if necessary. And I'm not surprised that nobody at the Pentagon is willing to comment on it. No mystery at all.

Spot on.

It was the Doomsday plane. One of the news channels did a side by side with an actual still of it on 9/11 and an actual pic of it. Perfect match. No mystery. Just another instance of the left wing media trying to get a conspiracy cooking. It's laughable. Perfectly makes sense that it was there. In that time of attack it was airborne to make sure the government continued to operate in case the attack was much worse.

[hiss srq]

She put on a hard climb out of SRQ but certainly not vertical. From all of the pictures I have seen, videos I have seen and the discription from the boss at my first aviation job (who was there and had fueled AF1 the night prior) she climbed at about a 35 degree attitude out over Long Boat Key once she took off from 32.

[Tom_Turner]

She put on a hard climb out of SRQ but certainly not vertical. From all of the pictures I have seen, videos I have seen and the discription from the boss at my first aviation job (who was there and had fueled AF1 the night prior) she climbed at about a 35 degree attitude out over Long Boat Key once she took off from 32.

I would not take it literally hiss. the "vertical" bit :)

For my part I was referring to the Doomsday plane though, not AF1. As per the witnesses there..not those questioning what the aircraft was.

Tom

[Informant]

You'd be surprised at how some planes can perform, even those that are used/designed primarily as commercial jets, but that the military has....

Well I never flew the Commercial version of the 757 but as for the C-32's they really can climb.

[Mateo]

Good catch by CNN for discovering that it was one of exactly 4 747s in the world that have a hump on the hump! :roll: It makes perfect sense to have an E-4 in the air, especially when you don't know how many more targets there may have been. The only even half question in the entire story is that it obviously didn't depart out of its home base at Offutt. Is there one kept on alert at Andrews? Is the Pentagon trying to throw up the typical "we don't talk about anything like this" response since this one little fact isn't confirmed publicly yet (since there's a decent about of information about the E-4 out there).

[moose135]

The only even half question in the entire story is that it obviously didn't depart out of its home base at Offutt. Is there one kept on alert at Andrews?

Don't know if there is one there regularly anymore, but it wouldn't be unusual for one to be on alert at Andrews. Back in the day, there was always one on alert within a reasonable distance from POTUS - they used to pull alert at Grissom when he was in the central US.