The crew of Gopher 06 took off from Andrews Air Force Base, traveling NORTH AND WEST, which took them by the Washington Mall.
He was on the south side of the Mall and had just passed it going WESTBOUND when he first saw the plane up and to the left(or in front of him) , about
4 miles out, at 10' o'clock/11 O'Clock/12 O'clock in a 30-45 degree bank descending to his altitude. He said it was like "coming up to an
intersection" . 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.
As for when the C-130 turns to follow it, it is after the plane passes them. They have 3 radio calls before turning around to follow it. The C-130
turns from WESTBOUND to EASTBOUND to follow it according to O'brien, essentially doing a U-Turn. By the time he turns around, he see's it Southeast
of the white house AND he has a hard time keeping the plane in sight (presumably it was coming out of the spiraled bank turn MILES AWAY near
Reagan???). O'Brien sees an explosion on the ground and "did not know what or where it had impacted" implying he is at a high altitude and far
away.
Then, according to a genuine witness on the other side of the river, Scott Cook, he sees the C-130 about 60 seconds after the explosion approaching
the Pentagon and see's it start "a steep decent towards the Pentagon. [...] descending at a much steeper angle than most aircraft... 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. [...] But
then 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. "
Here is an image my partner created using Scott Cook's published account and an e-mail correspondence we had with him to establish what we believe he
was telling us.:
How we arrived at this:
"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"
In another interview,
"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."
Although the BBC documentary is completely misleading and confusing regarding his interaction with the plane...
...his account still seems to correspond with what he has ultimately been saying-
[color=red]
he says he took off from Andrews AFB headed north and west to an altitude of 3000 ft to the "south side of the
Mall".[/color]
Then it cuts to:
"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."
Clearly he has the plane entering from the left side of his windscreen ( If O'brien is moving WESTBOUND just past the mall then the plane coming
from his left would be going NORTHBOUND like he said). And the event is clearly taking place around or near , or just past the mall.
If that wasn't clear enough.
He clarified it for us in an e-mail exchange:
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.
As the plane passes them headed EAST while the C-130 is headed WEST, it continues to bank past them and descend below them, on their right side...
Maj. Robert Schumacher: "I remember looking out my right side windows, kind of down on it,
As the plane passes them in it's spiral/descent turn, it is headed from northm to east, to southeast, to southwest...the C-130 continues on WEST
without turning around until 3 radio calls later.
Lt. Col. O'Brien explains:
There were 3 radio calls between us and Washington departure before we turned east bound to follow the AA flight.
Then before or after he turns around, he presumably saw the plane now southeast of the white house, as this is how he or it is reported:
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?
Oddly this is almost EXACTLY what the National Geographic radar tracking shows:
Fits with what we originally thought he was saying...
He tells us he turned back to the east in an ATTEMPT to follow it. So he turned from WEST to EAST, basically doing a U-Turn. He says he had a hard
time keeping it in sight, this would make sense since it was 3 radio calls later that he FINALLY turned around. He also states that he
"DID NOT
KNOW WHAT OR WHERE IT HAD IMPACTED"....
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.
Clearly it was headed east, turned to the northernly heading as it made it's bank/turn east again-turning then to the southern headin. It was north
of the Pentagon (clearly since the C-130 was next to the mall and had just past it when he first noticed the plane), over/near the Mall/DC/The
Monument/The White House. All of this is near Rosslyn and the USA Today building, which Norman Mineta stated FAA Deputy Director Monte Belger told him
the radar track showed it, near Rosslyn/USA Today and coming DRA (Down River Approach) . THIS WOULD SUPPORT O'BRIEN'S DESCRIPTION OF WHAT
HAPPENED.
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...
It is clear from a number reports that the plane flew over DC or the Capitol, so we really can't accept that it "had not crossed over towards the
White House or towards the Capitol", as Mineta tries to assert.
"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")
Then on 9/21/01, they tried changing what really happened
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...
The Cover-up:
Now that we have figured out exactly where the planes were at, they decided to bolster up their phony flight path:
First in Oct. 2001, with the Danielle O'Brien 20/20 interview, they illustrated the phony path:
...and the 911 Commission Hearings animated version, that of course shows the official flight path and the plane on the SOUTH SIDE:
Which of course led to the 2006 release of the NTSB Flight Path Study of "Flight 77":
The problem was, old versions of the original flight path were still floating around, here are two National Geographic versions:
And this one:
Our confusion was always in the flight path of the C-130 bringing it by the Mall and the plane being able to come in from his left hand side of his
windscreen, yet this did not jive with the official NTSB flight path:
z9.invisionfree.com...=5665&st=0
Apparently, since we caught on to their crap they actually CHANGED the C-130's story and location, taking him away from THE MALL and placing him
flying southwest to meet this phony flight path, and try and make their BS story work.
They apparently also try and support, many of the suspect witnesses' accounts of the C-130 veering away before even reaching the Pentagon.
THIS DID NOT HAPPEN.
Scott Cook described it perfectly.
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.
This jives with the C-130 pilot's accounts and actions. He traveled WEST, then flipped a U and traveled EAST.
Like I mentioned earlier, Kieth Wheelhouse, Joel Sucherman, and a few others have this "second plane", the C-130. veering off in a bank out of
there, in a U-Turn to the West. The problem is he obviously didn't do this, is this what the flyover plane would have done?
From AVweb:
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...
Perhaps this was the early stage for the covering up the flyover.
[edit on 29-10-2007 by Craig Ranke CIT]
