Further pilot comments: "I seriously question whether these novices could have located a target dead-on 200 miles removed from takeoff point...--
much less controlled the flight and mastered the intricacies of 11FR (instrument flight rules) -- and all accomplished in 45 minutes."
"If there was an AWACS on station over the targeted area, did it have a Global Hawk capability? I mean, could it convert the commercial jets to
robotic flying missiles?
"The fact is, all the transponders were turned off on the doomed flights virtually at the same time." Look at their departure times -- two from
Logan (Boston), one from Newark, another from Dulles (Washington DC) -- all between 8 am and 8:15."
"We were totally trained on the old type of hijack where you treat the hijacker cordially, punch a 4-digit code into your transponder to alert ground
control you're being hijacked, and then get him where he wants to go, set the plane safely on the ground and let them deal with it on the ground.
However, this is a totally new situation... Not one of the planes alerted ground control that they were being hijacked." Why?
"I became more convinced that the four commercial jets were choreographed by a "conductor" from a central source, namely an airborne warning and
control system (AWACS). They have the electronic capability to engage several aircraft simultaneously, knock out their on-board flight controls by EMP
(electro-magnetic pulsing) and assume command and remote control of these targeted aircraft"
Col. Donn de Grand Pre - former top US Pentagon arms salesman
-- reading the above this guy says that the transponders were shut off at the same time and awacs controlled this...
makes sense to me.