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"When we took off, we headed north and west and had a beautiful view of the Mall," he said. "I noticed this airplane up and to the left of us, at 10 o'clock. He was descending to our altitude, four miles away or so. That's awful close, so I was surprised he wasn't calling out to us. It was like coming up to an intersection"
"We were at about 3,500 feet at the time that I first noticed this commercial airliner in our 12 o'clock position in about a 45-degree bank, which is unusual for a large aircraft to be descending and turning at a 45-degree bank turn like that, so that really got our attention."
"and as he moved to our 11 o' clock position..."
"he started his turn..."
"and by the time he got to our 12 O'clock position, right out the front of the aircraft,"
"uh he was rolled up into 30-40 degrees of bank which is considerable for a commercial airliner."
Our first sighting of the AA flight was just after we had gone by the mall westbound.
[...]
The 30-45 degree bank I described was always in reference to the AA flight during its initial pass across our flight path when it turned from a northerly heading to an eastbound heading.
Maj. Robert Schumacher: "I remember looking out my right side windows, kind of down on it,
There were 3 radio calls between us and Washington departure before we turned east bound to follow the AA flight.
O'Brien?: Just to report, be advised the aircraft is 4-6 miles SE (southeast) of the White House.
ATC: 6 miles SOUTHEAST of the White House?
O'Brien?: Yup
ATC: He's moving away?
I distinctly remember having a difficult time keeping the AA flight in sight after we turned back to the east to follow it per a request from Wash. Departure Control. When I saw the initial explosion I was not able to see exactly where or what it had impacted, but remember trying to approximate a position to give to ATC. It was then that I was able to see the sun reflecting off the Potomac and the runway at Wash. Nat'l and thought to myself that the AA flight must have had some sort of IFE and was trying to make it back to National Airport. It was a few more seconds on our eastbound heading before I saw that the aircraft had impacted the west side of the Pentagon.
MINETA: So then someone came in, the same person came in and said, "Mr. Vice President, it -- the plane's 30-miles out." So I said, "Monte, can you see it, and where is it in relationship to the ground?"
He said, "Well, that's difficult to really determine. I would guess it's somewhere between Great Falls and National Airport, coming what they call the DRA, the down river approach."
...so I said, "Monte, where is it?" and he said, "Well, I'm not really sure but I'd be guessing somewhere maybe between the USA Today building and, and National Airport."
[...]
MINETA: Well, the question was where is it coming. And so as I was asking Monte, it was following pretty much the DRA, the down river approach, and it had not crossed over towards the White House or towards the Capitol. It was staying on its line towards what would normally be the traffic pattern into National Airport.
And in fact, later on, in looking at the radar track, the plane had actually over-passed the Pentagon, then turned around and then came back into it, and it never took a wide sweep to cross over to the east side of the White House.
[...]
MINETA: Oh, absolutely, it's something like that, but at least at the time the track of the radar was following what would be considered the down-river approach and it never came over to cross the east side of the Potomac River and it just followed the river all the way in.
www.msnbc.com...
"I talked to a number of average people in route who said they saw the plane hovering over the Washington Mall Area at an altitude lower that the height of the Washington Monument" (Bob) Hunt stated.
www.sierratimes.com...
Tom Hovis, relaying what he had learned from reports: The plane had been seen making a lazy pattern in the no fly zone over the White House and US Cap. Why the plane did not hit incoming traffic coming down the river from the north to Reagan Nat'l. is beyond me.
www.beanerbanner.com...
i40.photobucket.com...
Joe Hurst: "I saw it go overhead, the plane."
-Oval Room restaurant at Lafayette Square.
i40.photobucket.com...
Gen. Clyde Vaughn: "There wasn't anything in the air, except for one airplane, and it looked like it was loitering over Georgetown, in a high, left-hand bank," he said. "That may have been the plane. I have never seen one on that (flight) pattern." Georgetown is a sector of the District of Columbia jammed with shops and restaurants - it is one of the city's most vital tourist draws. Commercial aircraft that are either approaching or departing from nearby Ronald Reagan National Airport do not fly over Georgetown, and rather trace their flight route over the nearby Potomac River,
i40.photobucket.com...
Joseph Candelario: As I was looking across the river towards the direction of the Pentagon, I noticed a large aircraft flying low towards the White House. This aircraft then made a sharp turn and flew towards the Pentagon
i40.photobucket.com...
Stuart Artman, walking near the Washington Monument: "I saw the plane that hit the Pentagon. It went behind some trees."
Scott Cook: Later, we were told that it was a 757 out of Dulles, which had come up the river in back of our building, turned sharply over the Capitol, ran past the White House and the Washington Monument, up the river to Rosslyn, then dropped to treetop level and ran down Washington Boulevard to the Pentagon.
From E-mail: I remember reading a quote from a congressman at the time saying he saw the 757 approach the Capitol from southeast, make a "fighter-pilot
turn" directly over the Capitol, and head west before curving around
again and hitting the west side of the Pentagon going east.
Ken Ford: flew up the river from National. ( Perhaps he is mixed up on South being "up river")
Sources say the hijacked jet continued east at a high speed toward the city, but flew several miles south of the restricted airspace around the White House.
[...]
"That is not the radar data that we have seen," Fleischer said, adding, "The plane was headed toward the White House."
www.cbsnews.com...
Green: Scott Cook
Red: RADES Data
Directly in back of the plume, which would place it almost due west from our office, a four-engine propeller plane, which Ray later said resembled a C-130, started a steep decent towards the Pentagon. It was coming from an odd direction (planes don’t go east-west in the area), and it was descending at a much steeper angle than most aircraft. Trailing a thin, diffuse black trail from its engines, the plane reached the Pentagon at a low altitude and made a sharp left turn, passing just north of the plume, and headed straight for the White House.
All the while, I was sort of talking at it: "Who the hell are you? Where are you going? You’re not headed for downtown!" Ray and Verle watched it with me, and I was convinced it was another attack. But right over the tidal basin, at an altitude of less than 1000 feet, it made another sharp left turn to the north and climbed rapidly. Soon it was gone, leaving only the thin black trail.
C-130 followed 757 into the Pentagon?
"AVweb has also learned that this flight was being trailed by a military Lockheed C-130 Hercules transport during the final stages of its approach to the Pentagon. As the 757 struck the Pentagon and exploded, trained observers told AVweb that the C-130 executed what appeared to be "a high-G 180-degree turn" and departed the area."
What the hell?
2001-09-13 20:38:56+00
www.flutterby.com...
The impression that the C-130 pilot, Steve O'Brien, claims he literally SAW the plane hit the Pentagon has been deliberately and erroneously promoted by the media and perpetrators.
The C-130 played an important role in this operation but we believe the pilot is nothing more than an innocent dupe.
The impression has been deliberately created that he "saw" the plane hit the Pentagon but not only has he NOT ever claimed such a thing......he specifically told us that after he turned around to follow the aircraft as per the request from Air Traffic Control.....it was too late and that he was so high up and far away from the building at the time that he did not even know the smoke was coming from the Pentagon at first!
Yet there are still a very few dubious published witness accounts talking about a "2nd plane" or "jet" that literally "shadowed" AA77 and veered away over the building immediately after the explosion.
Keith Wheelhouse is the only one to specifically call this ambiguous/mysterious alleged "2nd" plane a C-130.
Since virtually nobody we have interviewed saw a 2nd plane or jet at all and the pilot himself tells a completely different story we are quite certain that there is no truth to this account. Our recent interview with Wheelhouse reveals other fatal contradictions and a rather interesting demeanor from this anomalous witness.
It boils down to this.....confusion sown from the fact that a real yet mysterious C-130 and a real yet mysterious white E4B were seen in the airspace close to the time of the attack were blended with planted accounts of an ambiguous 2nd plane or jet that veered away from the building immediately after the explosion.
It's all simply meant as cover for the flyover.
With the recent release of the RADES data that is in complete contradiction with where the C-130 pilot says he flew and with 2 new extremely important interviews that we have obtained we feel we now have enough data to blow this wide open.
The perps have thrown O'Brien under the bus with the RADES data (as well as the NTSB data). They WANT you to think he was directly involved.
Don't fall for it.
"When we took off, we headed north and west and had a beautiful view of the Mall".
"We departed out of Andrews and climbed to 3,000 feet which took us by the south side of the mall".
"Our first sighting of the AA flight was just after we had gone by the mall westbound".
Colin Scoggins: Just to report, be advised the aircraft is 4-6 miles SE (southeast) of the White House.
ATC: 6 miles SOUTHEAST of the White House?
Scoggins: Yup
ATC: He's moving away?
MINETA: So then someone came in, the same person came in and said, "Mr. Vice President, it -- the plane's 30-miles out." So I said, "Monte, can you see it, and where is it in relationship to the ground?"
He said, "Well, that's difficult to really determine. I would guess it's somewhere between Great Falls and National Airport, coming what they call the DRA, the down river approach."
Boone,
Our discussion belongs in this thread as it is off topic from the CNN white plane post.
"When we took off, we headed north and west and had a beautiful view of the Mall".
"We departed out of Andrews and climbed to 3,000 feet which took us by the south side of the mall".
"Our first sighting of the AA flight was just after we had gone by the mall westbound".
originally posted by Craig Ranke
While O'Brien is traveling WESTBOUND, the plane's traveling EASTBOUND toward him, turning NORTHBOUND and back to EASTBOUND heading while in the 30-45 degree bank. The plane essentially crosses in front of him, flies around/below them heading towards the Potomac/mall/whitehouse or Potomac/Pentagon, then down river near Reagan National before finally turning out of it's bank and to it's final heading toward the Pentagon.
"We were at about 3,500 feet at the time that I first noticed this commercial airliner in our 12 o'clock position in about a 45-degree bank, which is unusual for a large aircraft to be descending and turning at a 45-degree bank turn like that, so that really got our attention."
Our first sighting of the AA flight was just after we had gone by the mall westbound.
[...]
The 30-45 degree bank I described was always in reference to the AA flight during its initial pass across our flight path when it turned from a northerly heading to an eastbound heading.
If O'Brien was traveling westbound, then Flight 77 would have almost been pointing northbound.
"When we took off, we headed north and west and had a beautiful view of the Mall," he said. "I noticed this airplane up and to the left of us, at 10 o'clock. He was descending to our altitude, four miles away or so. That's awful close, so I was surprised he wasn't calling out to us. Source
Originally posted by Boone 870
Flight 77 was not traveling EASTBOUND when O'Brien first spotted it.
If O'Brien was traveling westbound, then Flight 77 would have almost been pointing northbound.
That works out fine with the R.A.D.E.S. recorded radar data. Especially if X marks the spot where O'Brien first saw flight 77 in the image below.
He had "just passed the mall" traveling westbound. Your X has him far from the mall traveling southwest.
Besides.....he says he traveled north and west after taking off.
Not southwest.