WERE THE HIJACKED PLANES REMOTELY CONTROLLED?

On October 7, 2001, the first operational deployment of “Global Hawk” spearheaded the American air and missile strikes on Afghanistan.

Global Hawk is the name of the latest version of a high-altitude, long-endurance unmanned air vehicle (UAV); in other words, an unarmed pilotless drone plane that can take off, conduct missions such as photographing battlefields and land by remote electronic control. Armed versions are in the works. The jet aircraft, equivalent in wing size to a Boeing 737 commercial airliner, has a publicly announced range of 14,000 nautical miles (about halfway around the world) and can fly at altitudes of 65,000 feet for about forty hours.

“Working alongside other UAV reconnaissance assets, at least one Global Hawk was used to provide reconnaissance prior to the [Afghanistan] strikes and for successive post-strike battle damage assessment,” reported Jane's Aerospace on October 8, 2001.

This Buck Rogers equipment had been developed in the 1970s and, by several credible accounts, was operational in the 1980s. By the spring of 2001, this unmanned drone, designated the RQ-4A Global Hawk UAV, was capable of flying a mission to Australia.

“On 23 April 2001,” according to Australia's Defence Science and Technology Organisation (DSTO), “Global Hawk flew non-stop from Edwards Air Force Base, California, to Edinburgh Air Force Base, South Australia, where it was based for nearly two months undergoing a series of demonstration flights. Global Hawk returned to the US on 7 June 2001.”

Dr. Brendan Nelson, Australia's parliamentary secretary to the minister of defense, said Global Hawk made aviation history when it became the first unmanned aircraft to fly nonstop across the Pacific Ocean in twenty-three hours and twenty minutes. The previous record had stood for twenty-six years.

During its six weeks of demonstrations in Australia, Global Hawk undertook eleven missions with crews from both the US Air Force and the Royal Australian Air Force. It was the first time the United States had operated Global Hawk with another nation.

According to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), a newly designed Global Hawk aircraft was first flown at Edwards AFB on February 28, 1998. A Defense Department news release said, “The entire mission, including take-off and landing, was performed autonomously by the aircraft based on its mission plan.” The craft's ground controllers monitored the status of the flight.

The Global Hawk program is managed by DARPA for the Defense Airborne Reconnaissance Office. The primary contractor is Teledyne Ryan Aeronautical and the principal suppliers are Raytheon Systems, Allison Engine Co., Boeing North American, and L3 Com.

So what does this unmanned flight system have to do with September 11?

Former German defense minister Andreas von Bülow, in a January 13, 2002, interview with the newspaper Tagesspiegel, in speaking about the 9/11 attacks, noted, “There is also the theory of one British flight engineer [and] according to this, the steering of the planes was perhaps taken out of the pilots’ hands from outside. The Americans had developed a method in the 1970s whereby they could rescue hijacked planes by intervening into the computer piloting [the electronic flight system]. This theory says this technique was abused in this case.” Von Bülow could well have knowledge of this technology as several researchers and websites have stated that Lufthansa, Germany's national airline, was aware of the possibility of electronic capture and had quietly stripped the flight control systems out of American-built jetliners in the early 1990s.

The British flight engineer Von Bülow mentioned is Joe Vialls, a journalist, author, private investigator, and a former member of the Society of Licenced Aeronautical Engineers and Technologists based in London. In an article published on several websites, Vialls claimed, “[T]wo American multinationals collaborated with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) on a project designed to facilitate the remote recovery of hijacked American aircraft. Brilliant both in concept and operation, ‘Home Run’ [Vialls’ designation, not its real code name] allowed specialist ground controllers to listen in to cockpit conversations on the target aircraft, then take absolute control of its computerized flight control system by remote means.

“From that point onwards, regardless of the wishes of the hijackers or flight deck crew, the hijacked aircraft could be recovered and landed automatically at an airport of choice, with no more difficulty than flying a radio-controlled model airplane. The engineers had no idea that almost thirty years after its initial design, Home Run's top-secret computer codes would be broken [or passed to unauthorized personnel] and the system used to facilitate direct ground control of four aircraft used in the high-profile attacks in New York and Washington on 11^th September, 2001.”

Even when news of Global Hawk and its remote-controlled capability was first released, there was speculation that UAV technology might be used to thwart airline hijackings. Once a hijacking took place, the Global Hawk flight technology would be triggered and the electronically captured plane flown to a landing at a safe location regardless of the actions of the flight crew or the hijackers.

The seemingly outlandish suggestion that remote-controlled planes were crashed into American targets is backed by several intriguing facts, beginning with a little-noticed item in the September 28, 2001, edition of the New York Times in which President Bush announced his plans to protect air passengers. Along with the usual proposals, such as strengthening cockpit doors and transponders that cannot be turned off, he mentioned “new technology, probably far in the future, allowing air traffic controllers to land distressed planes by remote control.” Apparently, Bush was familiar with the Global Hawk technology but chose to present it as technology not yet available. Yet earlier that year, a former chief of British Airways suggested that such technology could be used to commandeer an aircraft from the ground and control it remotely in the event of a hijacking.

After the 2001 attacks, many websites speculated that perhaps Global Hawk's first true operational use might have been conducted on September 11. After all, as all experienced aviation and military persons well know, if a technology such as Global Hawk is publicly revealed, it most probably has been in secret use for many years.

According to aviation insiders, while it may indeed be years before air traffic controllers can take control of flying airliners, such technology already exists in certain modern jumbo jets equipped with electronic flight control systems, such as the Boeing 757 and 767, both of which were involved in the 9/11 attacks.

This assertion seemed to be confirmed by a technical and operational analysis white paper published shortly after the 9/11 attacks by two Arizona technology companies, KinetX, Inc. of Tempe and Cogitek Corp. of Chandler.

These firms were trying to market their version of Global Hawk as an antihijacker system. “The National Flight Emergency Response System (NFERS) was developed to prevent the terrorist incident of 9/11 from ever happening again,” stated the companies’ white paper. “This system will protect passenger and cargo aircraft from being used as terrorist weapons. NFERS is essentially the integration of existing technology [emphasis added] for the purpose of transferring cockpit operations to a secure ground station in case of an emergency. It is important to note that the essential technology exists now.”

The two Arizona companies reported that they could have a prototype system ready for use in twelve months. If independent firms could manage a prototype that soon, it is clear that the government most probably has the same technology operational.

Under such a system, a computer command ground station could electronically capture a plane equipped with such technology and direct it wherever the controllers wished it to go. Some experts contended that flying electronic command centers—Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) aircraft—can perform the same function as a ground station.

Other news items that reinforce the idea that electronically captured planes were used on 9/11 include the tape of Osama bin Laden made public by the CIA in late 2001, in which he revealed that some, if not all, of the hijackers did not realize they were on a suicide mission. This could explain the Boston reports that the hijackers spent their last night drinking heavily and looking for hookers.

Speaking about Flight 77, which reportedly struck the Pentagon, the Washington Post noted, “Aviation sources said that the plane was flown with extraordinary skill, making it highly likely that a trained pilot was at the helm, possibly one of the hijackers. Someone even knew how to turn off the transponder, a move that is considerably less than obvious.”

This same story noted, “But just as the plane seemed to be on a suicide mission into the White House, the unidentified pilot executed a pivot so tight that it reminded observers of a fighter jet maneuver. The plane circled 270 degrees from the right to approach the Pentagon from the west, whereupon Flight 77 fell below radar level, vanishing from the controller's screens, the sources said.”

As previously noted and as detailed in the Appendix, it is quite possible that the plane executing this amazing maneuver was not Flight 77, but actually a fighter jet ordered to buzz the Pentagon moments after the building was rocked by an explosion.

However, at least one Internet source said this was proof that the plane had been electronically captured because software with built-in safety programs would not have allowed such a maneuver. But the software could have been overridden if the craft was taken over electronically as the outside capture would have negated the airliner's safety software.

A news story has already been cited about the suspected pilot of Flight 77, Hani Hanjour, who reportedly had flown so poorly in a flight test just weeks before 9/11 that he was rejected for a small plane rental at a suburban airport. Another news article also pointed out that Hanjour had trained for a few months in Scottsdale, Arizona, but did not finish the course “because instructors felt he was not capable.”

Mohamed Atta and Marwan-al-Shehhi, two other hijackers suspected of flying planes, also were reported to be mediocre-to-poor pilots. One flight instructor said neither man was able to pass a Stage 1 rating test.

In addition, suspected hijackers Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Midhar both were sent packing from Sorbi's Flying Club in San Diego. “Their English was horrible and their mechanical skills were even worse,” commented one flight instructor. “It was like they had hardly even ever driven a car.”

Could a capture by Global Hawk and NFERS technology explain why none of the recordings from either air traffic controllers or the cockpit recorders have been made available to the public? Some reports claimed the tapes were blank. It could also explain how the transponders in all four captured aircraft were switched off nearly simultaneously, a most unlikely event if the planes were truly taken by different persons at different times.

According to some, an electronic capture of the flight control systems would have prevented any normal recordings. Others argue that the recordings were sequestered to prevent the public from hearing how the crews were unable to control their planes.

Investigator Vialls offered this explanation of why the cockpit voice recorder did not send a warning of the hijacking via their transponders. “Technically, a transponder is a combined radio transmitter and receiver which operates automatically, in this case relaying data between the four aircraft and air traffic control on the ground. The signals sent provide a unique ‘identity’ for each aircraft, essential in crowded airspace to avoid mid-air collisions, and equally essential for Home Run controllers trying to lock onto the correct aircraft.

“Once it has located the correct aircraft, Home Run ‘piggy backs’ a data transmission onto the transponder channel and takes direct control from the ground. This explains why none of the aircraft sent a special ‘I have been hijacked’ transponder code. This was the first hard proof that the target aircraft had been hijacked electronically from the ground.”

To explain the reported cell phone calls from passengers on the flights, Vialls stated his belief that many of the calls were concocted after the fact. “There are no records of any such calls,” he said. “We had the media's invisible ‘contact’ at an airline who ‘said’ a hostess called to report a hijacking and we had a priest who ‘said’ he received a call from a man asking him in turn to call his wife and tell her he loved her.”

Lending support to Vialls’ allegations was a news release in July, 2004, detailing a joint effort between the San Diego-based electronics firm Qualcomm and American Airlines to development a practical method for allowing airline passengers to make a cell phone call at altitude in mid-flight. Cell phones long have been banned from use in flight as a precaution against interference with flight and navigation systems.

New technology was announced in 2004 using a satellite system and a “Pico cell,” which acted as a cellular tower, to allow airline passengers to make an in-flight cell phone call. “Before this new ‘Pico cell,’ it was nigh on impossible to make a call from a passenger aircraft in flight. Connections were impossible at altitudes over 8,000 feet or speeds in excess of 230 mph,” noted Alan Cabal of the New York Press.

As the idea that cell phones could not have been successfully used on September 11 gained credence, the official story that passengers Barbara Olson and others had used cell phones changed. It was argued that Olson and others, such as Edward Felt, actually had used the airline $10-a-minute back-of-seat Airfones. This explanation crumbled because Olson and Felt reportedly called from inside locked lavatories, which carry no Airfones.

One apparently legitimate account of a call from one of the doomed airplanes involved Jeremy Glick, an Internet company salesman. Left unguarded with the rest of the passengers in the rear of Flight 93, Glick called his family using an Airfone, not his cell phone. “These three Iranian guys took over the plane,” Glick told his wife, Lyz. “They put on these red headbands. They said they had a bomb. I mean, they looked Iranian….A passenger said they're crashing planes into the World Trade Center, is that true?” Told that the World Trade Center buildings were on fire and that the Pentagon had just been struck, Glick cursed and said, “Okay, I’m going to take a vote. There's three other guys as big as me and we're thinking of attacking the guy with the bomb.”

Researcher Vialls said one big reason why electronic capture of jetliners cannot be admitted is the billions of dollars required to replace the flight control systems, an expense the already hard-pressed airlines cannot afford.

“The most innovative antihijacking tool in the American arsenal has now become the biggest known threat to American national security,” he lamented.

Vialls’ thoughts were echoed by Donn de Grand Pre, a retired US Army colonel and author of Barbarians Inside the Gates. Shortly after the 9/11 attacks, Grand Pre, along with several commercial and military pilots, participated in a marathon discussion of the events. He acknowledged that the USA, Russia, China, and Israel all possess AWACS aircraft that “have the capability to utilize electromagnetic pulsing [EMP] to knock out onboard flight controls and communications of targeted aircraft, and then, fly them by remote control.

“The 9/11 activity and horrific destruction of US property and lives was intentionally meant to trigger a psychological and patriotic reaction on the part of the US citizens, which is paving the way for ‘combined UN activity’ (using the fig leaf of NATO) for striking key targets in both the Middle East/South Asia and the Balkans.

“The goal continues to be the ultimate destruction of all national sovereignty and establishment of a global government,” he said.