RAYTHEON TO THE RESCUE?

RAYTHEON TO THE RESCUE?
Adam Larson/Caustic Logic
The Frustrating Fraud
old undated piece written in 2005, posted late '06, and re-posted January 1 '08

Note 5/4/08: I haven't revised this like I planned to a few months back. See comments below for some important updates I haven't digested yet. Now it's doubly-deserving of updates and soon. Ish.
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In all the arguments about whether it was a military weapon (missile) or a comandeered civilian transport (Boeing 757) that hit the Pentagon, one point sometimes missed is that a missile and a plane are designed on very similar principles, both are propelled with fuel and streamlined to fly great distances through the air. In fact a plane basically is a missile designed to make soft landings and to blow up as little as possible if it fails in this. But if taken in the wrong hands, as the Japanese Kamikaze pilots of WWII knew, its fuel becomes explosive, its chassis piercing and in a pinch it can become a missile in a more literal sense, or at least a large flying Molotov cocktail. It’s not the best weapon but one that hijackers have been able to seize before, if previously minus the suicidal imagination to make that leap. The official story is riddled with references to the 9/11 hijackers' use of the planes as guided missiles, yet nitwits argue that in the midst of a suicide hijacking attack, on a clear and bright morning in front of hundreds of drivers stuck in gridlock traffic they break out an actual Cruise missile to strike the Pentagon. This is idiocy, this is why I never wanted to read Meyssan.

So a plane is a missile, and if Boeing jets really were responsible, as nearly all evidence indicates, another key question is not entirely resolved – who was piloting the plane. The bolder revisionists remove the terrorists from the scene and are left with the chilling possibility that remote control was used. But officially, this is impossible. The State Department, refuting conspiracist claims in 2005, stated flatly as an evident fact “Boeing commercial aircraft can not be remotely controlled.” [1]

A Raytheon 727 lands in New Mexico in August, 2001. [Source: Associated Press via Cooperative Research]

But it is not actually impossible by a long shot - let’s turn to Raytheon, a big player in the military-industrial complex involved in high-tech projects like the Joint Precision Approach and Landing System (JPALS), a landing guidance system for military aircraft. They worked with the Air Force in testing and development for JPALS, carried out at Holloman AFB, New Mexico from June to September 2001. [2] The system was completed just before the 9/11 attack and publicized just after; in an October 1 press release they boasted of their role in “the first precision approach by a civil aircraft using a military [GPS] landing system.” On August 25, a FedEx Express 727-200 landed using “a Raytheon-developed military ground station.” [3] They explained details, which included a total of six successful pilotless takeoffs and landings of their specially rigged Boeing airliner. This was done just seventeen days before someone helped four Boeing jets jointly and precisely approach and “land” in the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a strip mine in Pennsylvania.

JPALS was a military project but designed to be “fully interoperable with planned civil systems utilizing the same technology,” Raytheon explained, and they were also involved with this, under contract with the FAA. [4] For this they worked on the Local Area Augmentation System (LAAS) and the Wide Area Augmentation System (WAAS), designed to improve on the GPS guidance system and bring it up to the FAA’s standards for safety and accuracy. [5] By merging JPALS with these GPS-refiners, a nation-wide, extremely precise matrix for automated landings – that is remote-controlled flight – of distressed civilian airliners was a real possibility- if still officially years off.

Raytheon published the fact only on October 1, just four days after President Bush announced at a speech in Chicago “we will look at all kinds of technologies to make sure that our airlines are safe [...] including technology to enable controllers to take over distressed aircraft and land it by remote control.” [6] A company official noted in the release their dedication to providing satellite-guided landing systems for “the flying public,” and their pride in being “part of the success achieved this summer during JPALS testing at Holloman.” [7] And proud they should be, that’s some mighty fine timing.

This series of Raytheon-centered events is only one illustration of the possibility of remote controlled flight, and the curious timing in fact makes the whole thing a little too obvious for my liking, possibly another honeypot set up in advance to distract us from real leads. But even if this angle should ever be conclusively proved unrelated to shadow 9/11, it does help remind us that remote control aircraft has been a reality for the military since the late 1950s at least, and civil airliners have been being remotely landed in foggy weather for over two decades. Most disturbing are the allegations – tentative at best but still possible - of secret FAA/NORAD systems of remote control built in to all (American) civilian Flight Control Systems, allegedly dating back as far as the 1970s. [8] Though if such a system exists - and Raytheon’s work for the FAA proves it was feasible by mid-2001 anyway - it has not been proved and has been kept thoroughly secret.

Sources:
[1] United states of America State Department. Identifying misinformation. Thierry Meyssan: French Conspiracy Theorist Claims No Plane Hit Pentagon.” Created: 28 Jun 2005 Updated: 28 Jun 2005 Accessed November 5, 2005 at: http://usinfo.state.gov/media/Archive/2005/Jun/28-581634.html
[2] “Raytheon and Air Force Demonstrate Civil-Military Interoperability for GPS-Based Precision Landing System.” Raytheon press release. October 1, 2001. Accessed October 28, 2005 at: http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/micro_stories.pl?ACCT=149999&TICK=RTN&STORY=/www/story/10-01-2001/0001582324&EDATE=Oct+1,+2001
[3] See [2].
[4] See [2].
[5] See [2].
[6] Long, Jeff. “Landing by remote control doesn't quite fly with pilots.” Chicago Tribune. September 28, 2001. Accessed January 2, 2005 at: http://www.chicagotribune.com/technology/chi-0109280208sep28.story
[7] See [2].
[8] Vialls, Joe. “Home Run: Electronically Hijacking the World Trade Center Attack Aircraft.” October, 2001. Accessed October 30, 2005 at: http://www.geocities.com/mknemesis/homerun.html

PRE-9/11 PENTAGON PREPAREDNESS

OF FORESIGHT AND ANCHOR CHAINS
Adam Larson
Caustic Logic / The Frustrating Fraud
January 23 2007
Updated 5/3/07

Although most Pentagon workers in the area hit on 9/11 were still sitting at their desks doing their usual work as Flight 77 came crashing through their office doors, there were well-established and practiced procedures for “exactly” such an event. The Washington Post reported shortly after 9/11 the account of a Pentagon medic who was sitting and reading the just-printed emergency response manual for what to do in case the building was struck by a civilian airliner at the precise moment that happened. [1] But unfortunately these procedures don’t seem to have helped much, given no radar track of the incoming plane, no warning, and thus no time given to implement any such measures.

Dennis Ryan's photo of a mock-up used for MASCAL (slightly filtered for artsy effect)

Among the emergency drills they’d held was one in October 2000, less than a year prior as part of what the Military District of Washington News Service called at the time "several scenarios that emergency response teams were exposed to Oct. 24-26 in the Office of the Secretaries of Defense conference room." Author Dennis Ryan provided photographs as well for one of the scenarios, the "Pentagon Mass Casualty Exercise" (MASCAL) the mock passenger plane crashed into the mock Pentagon courtyard appears to be a big one but probably not a 757 as Loose Change claims. One participant explained as far-fetched as the MASCAL scenario may have seemed, “you have to plan for this. Look at all the air traffic around here.” [2] Navy Capt. Charles Burlingame was allegedly part of this drill, though the charge is unsubstantiated. If you don't know the significance of that already, check this post.

Whether the MASCAL crash was supposed to be an accident or an attack didn't seem to matter - it was all about the aftermath. But in the next noteworthy drill conducted eight months later, the preparations were getting more specifically 9/11-related. As US Medicine magazine, "the voice of Federal medicine," reported in October 2001:

"Though the Department of Defense had no capability in place to protect the Pentagon from an ersatz guided missile in the form of a hijacked 757 airliner, DoD medical personnel trained for exactly that scenario in May. In fact, the tri-Service DiLorenzo Health Care Clinic and the Air Force Flight Medicine Clinic here in the Pentagon trained jointly in May to fine-tune their emergency preparedness, afterward making simple equipment changes that would make a difference Sept. 11 when the hypothetical became reality." [3]

This is amazing; according to this article, they were looking at a hijacked 757 strike four months before that happened on 9/11, preparations that "made a difference." Of course the best difference would have been to simply evacuate the building well before the plane arrived (35 minutes after it became clear the nation was under attack), or to have worked out air defense plans, perhaps with NORAD, to stop any such weaponized aircraft short of the building.

A possible third drill may have been planned to that end in conjunction with a proposed mid-2001 NORAD exercise simulating suicide hijacking attacks. USA Today famously reported on April 18, 2004 that "in the two years before the Sept. 11 attacks, [NORAD] conducted exercises simulating what the White House says was unimaginable at the time: hijacked airliners used as weapons to crash into targets and cause mass casualties." They had the 9/11 targets in mind; earlier drills had focused on such an attack against the WTC, but when the planning turned to the Pentagon, the story reported, "that drill was not run after defense officials said it was unrealistic.” [4]

The original source for this was an e-mail from a former NORAD official obtained by the Project On Government Oversight, which explained that NORAD "wanted to develop a response in the event that a terrorist group would use an airliner as a missile to attack the Pentagon, but the Joint Chiefs of Staff rejected the scenario as "too unrealistic." [5] This was in April 2001 POGO reports, a month before they prepared for defense against an unobstructed hijacked plane/missile hitting their building, and five months before 9/11, when they had no capabilities in place "to protect the Pentagon," but at least they had the aftermath covered well enough.

Buth even with just the two drills plus whatever else went in to the process, the Pentagon's bureaucracy had just enough time to get the emergency procedures ironed out and printed before the precise "unrealistic" scenario envisioned four months earlier came crushingly true. But there was apparently not enough time to fully integrate the plan with things like useful warning procedures - a tragically stalled process that would help illustrate Rumsfeld's charges that pre-9/11, the Pentagon was "tangled in its own anchor chain." How conveniently illustrative of his and his colleagues' known desire for a 21st Century "process of transformation" there.

Sources:
[1] Oil Empire. http://www.oilempire.us/wargames.html
[2] Ryan, Dennis. "Contingency planning Pentagon MASCAL exercise simulates scenarios in preparing for emergencies." Military District of Washington News Service. November 3 2000. Accessed at: http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/linkscopy/ContPlan.html
[3] Mientka, Matt. Pentagon Medics Trained For Strike. US Medicine. October 2001. http://www.usmedicine.com/article.cfm?articleID=272&issueID=31
[4] as passed on by US Rep. Jan Schakowski: http://www.house.gov/schakowsky/press2004a/pr4_20_2004mis.html
Also at 9-11 Research: http://911research.wtc7.net/cache/post911/commission/usatoday_noradx.htm
and the original still up at USA Today: http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2004-04-18-norad_x.htm
[5] Project on Government Oversight. "Joint Chiefs of Staff Rejected "Airplanes as Missiles" Scenario Five Months prior to 9/11." April 13 2004. http://www.pogo.org/p/homeland/ha-040401-homelandsecurity.html

THE PENTAGON PILOT'S PENCHANT FOR PARALLELISM

THE BURLINGAME SEAM
Adam Larson
Caustic Logic / The Frustrating Fraud
January 11 2007
edited 1/21

"One of the true ironies of this crash is that it was into the Pentagon, where he worked for many years as a naval reserve officer. The people that perished in that crash could very well have been friends and colleagues of his."
– Brad Burlingame, brother of the deceased Flight 77 pilot.

The Pentagon was not unprepared for a hijacked 757 strike – though there was no warning and thus no time to implement them, in fact a new set of procedures had apparently just been approved. This was based on the findings of a series of at least two drills. Beginning with a MASCAL in October 2000 that posited a small passenger plane crashing into the building’s courtyard, followed by a reported exercise in May based on a hijacked Boeing 757 crashing into the Pentagon as an “ersatz guided missile.” Strange but true, they prepared for the 9/11 scenario just months before it came crushingly true, at least according to two reputable Pentagon-connected news sources. But sadly due to the radar blind spot we’re told, there was never any awareness of the plane and no time to put the new plan into motion so it became useless, another part of the tragedy of un-preparedness we’d need to “set right” after the attacks.

According to numerous 9/11 Truthers, one of the prime movers in the formation of this new and failed plan was Navy Captain Charles “Chic” Burlingame; Barbara Honegger specified as far back as late 2002 that Burlingame had “recently […] been part of a Task Force that drafted the Pentagon's emergency response plan on what to do in case a plane hit the building.” [1] Burlingame was also a pilot for American Airlines, who famously went on to be the very pilot assigned to Flight 77 – a Boeing 757 - before he lost control of it to the hijackers who crashed it into the Pentagon, fulfilling the terms of the second drill. If we think about this just a second, we see that this seems well beyond the realm of coincidence and “irony” as any official story that acknowledged all this would argue.

But there are problems with this construct, although it does seem more substantiated than the no-757 claims. The only “reputable” source I’ve seen indicating this is even worth considering is an early Washington Post piece stating that Burlingame had been “a Navy F-4 pilot and once worked on anti-terrorism strategies in the Pentagon.” [2] It would then be undeniably ironic – which is not always the same as relevant - that he should die in a terror attack on the Pentagon. Note that he worked in the Pentagon on countering terrorism in general, not countering or preparing for terrorist strikes against the Pentagon.

Loose Change, where I first heard of this seam, gives no source for his MASCAL involvement, but claims as evidence that Burlingame retired the Navy and went to work for American Airlines less than a year before the attack, or just after the drill. In actuality, he started flying for them in 1979, and retired from his reserve status in the Navy in 1996 to focus full-time on flying. [3] Another bitter irony! He was nearing retirement age at that job too, before his life stream was cut short one day from his 52nd birthday - September 12, 2001. (Later on and after a long battle, his special death earned him and his wife status to be buried at Arlington cemetery, normally reserved for service members who managed to live to 60.) [4]

The source Loose Change was citing seems to be Barbara Honegger, who sa Chic in on the plane preparations. It doesn’t help her tentative late 2002 case here that she then finds it “extremely likely, if not certain - that this 'task force' that Flight 77 pilot ‘Chick’ Burlingame was part of was the Cheney counterterrorism preparedness task force, and that the Pentagon plane pilot, therefore, directly knew and even worked with/for Cheney.” [5] That’s quite a leap, but the timing seems possible; he retired in 1996 and was allegedly involved with MASCAL in late 2000, possibly as a private-sector advisor. Cheney’s task force was created by President Bush in May 2001, to make the nation’s responses to a WMD attack “seamlessly integrated” under Cheney’s eye to “do the very best possible job of protecting our people from catastrophic harm.” [6] It had nothing to do with air defense, hijackings, or non-WMD terror threats as far as I've seen, but was directly headed by another recent Navy retiree and ace pilot, Admiral Steven Abbott. So Burlingame seems a likely candidate to come on board as well, but that he’d be working from the cockpit of a plane rather than an office at the White House seems a bit odd.

It’s hard to know if Burlingame was involved with this, shrouded as it is in secrecy. The effort’s staff director was in fact Col. John Fenzel III, director of Cheney’s energy task force, until then the prime model of Bush administration secrecy and apparent malevolence. But with unexplained certainty Loose Change has Burlingame in on MASCAL and Honegger has him in on Cheney's ‘effort’ with his questionable plane-into-Pentagon resumé. Though the clustering of coincidences here is stuning, especially when we factor in circumstantial cases like his only daughter dying in a suspicious apartment fire in Deember 2006, we're left with a tangled knot of unresolved mystery centered in the cockpit of a doomed airliner five years ago. If this Burlingame seam is indeed a scripted part of the master story, it would serve no practical purpose I can see in the event itself. But by making sure it was his plane that hit the Pentagon, as a follow-up psychological operation it could serve to draw attention via its oddities and suck energy into a seam that ultimately is probably irrelevant even though it seems a tempting window onto the true mechanics.

Or is this all just coincidence after all?

Sources:
[1], [5] Honegger, Barbara. "Feature: The U.S. Government, Not the Hijackers, 'Chose' the Date of the 9-11 Attacks"
Barbara Honegger. December 13 2002. http://www.apfn.net/messageboard/12-14-02/discussion.cgi.28.shtml
[2] September 11, 2001 By David Maraniss Washington Post. September 16 2001. Page A01 http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A38407-2001Sep15
[3] Loose Change. Second Edition. 4:07
[4] http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/cfburling3.htm
[6] Ruppert. Crossing the Rubicon. Page 412.
[9] Congressional Quarterly. April 15, 2004.Accessed August 5, 2005 at: http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/timeline/2004/congressionalquarterly041504.html