Pentagon FFI

[Peephole]

I just read in a letter to a Belgian magazine (they published a summary of Griffin's new book) that the Pentagon supposedly has a sofisticated friend or foe system which can identify an incoming "friendly" (military) aircraft by receiving the right codes. He babbles on about how the codes change constantly so the hijackers could not have known them and that the planes should have been intercepted. His conclusion is that the Pentagon was hit by a military.

Has anyone got the story on this? Did the Pentagon have a system as the man describes? Would they have easily identified an incoming foe?

[kevin]

In a Nova episode they talked about troops on the ground have a friend or foe display to reduce friendly fire incidences but it wasn't deployed until after 9/11 (part of Rumsfeld's Transformation, some of which I actually agree with).

Haven't heard about any system for commerical planes or otherwise. Especially not pre-9/11

[gumboot]

Commercial American Airliners had IFF indicators (I dunno what all this "code" nonsense is though) but the hijackers turned the IFF transponders off. And they knew what they were doing - the hijackers turned off all the signals BEFORE they made their turns.

The Pentagon doesn't monitor air traffic anyway - even NORAD don't directly monitor air traffic in an active way - they still needed vectors from the Air Traffic Controllers.

In any event, NEADS weren't told about the aircraft approaching The Pentagon (which obviously turned out to be AA77) until 2 minutes before impact.

-Andrew

[R.Mackey]

I believe the term you're looking for is "IFF," or "Identify Friend or Foe." Basically a coded transponder. Military and many civilian flights carry them. Military IFF is far, far more secure than civilian.

It's irrelevant anyway. Given that the flight that hit the Pentagon was friendly when it left the ground, only becoming enemy after an on-board struggle, any IFF box it had would still have been transmitting "friendly."

I guess you could put the IFF on a deadman timer, requiring a coded refresh from the cockpit to keep it squawking, but it wouldn't be failsafe. As discussed before, since the Pentagon is in shared, busy commercial airspace and accidental shootdowns are unacceptable, the only logical answer is to armor the Pentagon with passive defenses. As they are doing. Your Belgian magazine makes no sense.

[Peephole]

He also talks about Cheney receiving four notifications of an approaching plane, Rumsfeld interrupting his meeting only after the smell of fire entered his office, witnesses in the Pentagon seeing no passengers in the plane, Karl Schwartz claiming it was an A-3 SKywarrior that was equiped only weeks before the attacks with Raytheon and Global Hawk technology, no one mentioning finding passengers' corpses in the Pentagon, no hijackers on the lists. Anyone has any idea where he gets his theories from?

I'm planning on writing a letter myself.

[Cylinder]

It sounds like the author is referring to authentication cryptography. Not something one can discuss in any detail on a message board. Google may help, though I have not searched those terms.

[Peephole]

I believe the term you're looking for is "IFF," or "Identify Friend or Foe." Basically a coded transponder. Military and many civilian flights carry them. Military IFF is far, far more secure than civilian.

It's irrelevant anyway. Given that the flight that hit the Pentagon was friendly when it left the ground, only becoming enemy after an on-board struggle, any IFF box it had would still have been transmitting "friendly."

I guess you could put the IFF on a deadman timer, requiring a coded refresh from the cockpit to keep it squawking, but it wouldn't be failsafe. As discussed before, since the Pentagon is in shared, busy commercial airspace and accidental shootdowns are unacceptable, the only logical answer is to armor the Pentagon with passive defenses. As they are doing. Your Belgian magazine makes no sense.

It was a reader's letter. I think what the man is implying is that the Pentagon has some sort of big radar and anything not sending THE CODES would be intercepted.

[KingMerv00]

He also talks about Cheney receiving four notifications of an approaching plane, Rumsfeld interrupting his meeting only after the smell of fire entered his office, witnesses in the Pentagon seeing no passengers in the plane, Karl Schwartz claiming it was an A-3 SKywarrior that was equiped only weeks before the attacks with Raytheon and Global Hawk technology, no one mentioning finding passengers' corpses in the Pentagon, no hijackers on the lists. Anyone has any idea where he gets his theories from?

I'm planning on writing a letter myself.

(bolding mine)

Your friend can talk all he likes. He needs to prove.

[gumboot]

He also talks about Cheney receiving four notifications of an approaching plane, Rumsfeld interrupting his meeting only after the smell of fire entered his office, witnesses in the Pentagon seeing no passengers in the plane, Karl Schwartz claiming it was an A-3 SKywarrior that was equiped only weeks before the attacks with Raytheon and Global Hawk technology, no one mentioning finding passengers' corpses in the Pentagon, no hijackers on the lists. Anyone has any idea where he gets his theories from?

I'm planning on writing a letter myself.



It's a bit of a mix-and-match of CT theories. The first is a reference to the Secretary of Transport's 9/11 commission testimony.

As per Rumsfeld, I think it's possible he didn't know anything until an aircraft hit The Pentagon.

Witnesses reported all sorts of things. Actually I'd be impressed if someone could actually see PEOPLE inside a 757 as it zipped past at 500MPH. The windows are tiny, and the very thick glass of airline windows doesn't really help seeing inside.

The A-3 Skywarrior thing comes back to a claim that an engine part at The Pentagon didn't come from a 757 but from an A-3 Skywarrior - an old obsolete carrier bomber. It's wrong of course. Gravy goes into a lot of detail on this subject in his viewers guide (he also has some rather telling information about mister Schwartz himself).

I don't know where the "no passengers at Pentagon" claim comes from. Remains were found and identified by DNA for all of the passengers except a 2 year old girl.

The Hijackers do not appear on victim lists. CTers don't know the difference between lists of victims and flight manifests.

-Andrew

[Peephole]

The Pentagon doesn't monitor air traffic anyway - even NORAD don't directly monitor air traffic in an active way - they still needed vectors from the Air Traffic Controllers.

So the Pentagon doesn't have anything "monitoring the skies"? The only ones doing that are the Air Traffic Controllers? Do they have big radars tracking all air traffic? What was actually the use of turning the transponders off?

Sorry if I'm asking dumb questions here.

[kookbreaker]

So the Pentagon doesn't have anything "monitoring the skies"? The only ones doing that are the Air Traffic Controllers? Do they have big radars tracking all air traffic? What was actually the use of turning the transponders off?

Sorry if I'm asking dumb questions here.

You can look at any overhead view or side view of the Pentagon. Do you see the required radar dishes?

The Pentagon is a hard target over soft targets. Unless we are completely at war with an opponent who we know is capable of bombing us I doubt there will much in the way of active air defenses around the Pentagon. otherwise you are just asking for a civlian plane to be destroyed over dense population the moment their transponder goes slightly wonky.

[gumboot]

What was actually the use of turning the transponders off?


When the transponders are turned off the aircraft vanish from the ATC radar screens.

Makes finding them hard...;)

You have to look for them on the primary radar screen, which shows actual physical radar returns, rather than transponder signals. To put it simply, there were a lot of aircraft in the air. Those primary radar screens were rather cluttered.

"Like finding a needle in a stack of needles"

-Andrew