Lynn Spencer on Hutchison Flight and 93's Coast Track

[Bolo Boffin]

http://cleartheskies.com/rebuttal.html

At 10:08 a.m. on September 11th, five minutes after Cleveland Center controllers lost radar contact with United 93 over Pennsylvania, a supervisor entered a revised flight plan for the flight into the FAA Computer system. The flight plan listed a destination of Washington National Airport, and created coast track (often incorrectly referred to as a “ghost track”) of United 93 on the Traffic Situational Displays (TSDs) at air traffic control facilities. A coast track differs from a radar track in that it is not supported by radar returns but rather by a computer-generated, projected course for the flight. Although this track did not appear on controller radar screens, its presence on their TSDs allowed Washington controllers to monitor the flights progression toward Washington. Had the flight not crashed, and had it been flying too low to be picked up by radar, this would have likely been the only means to forecast its flight path into the capital.

A controller in Washington, unaware that the flight had crashed, was calling position reports for the coast track of United 93 to the White House (where shoot-down orders were issued to the DCANG and forwarded to pilot Billy Hutchison), as well as the FBI at the Pentagon (where firefighters were evacuated and the firefight suspended in anticipation of a second impact).

Radio data indicates that Hutchison’s flight did not depart from Andrews to intercept the hijacked airliner until just after 10:35. This information does not change the historic nature of the orders he received, or that he took off low on fuel to intercept the hijacked airliner, or that he was willing to ram into the airliner to prevent it from striking Washington. It does, however, indicate that he could not have seen United 93, which had already crashed, on his radar.

Lynn, like any person trying to seek and give the truth, admits her error here.

By the way, this was the source of the times being called out, reported by several sources. One of these sources was Norman Mineta, who erroneously thought he was dealing with Flight 77. He was not. The information being called out was coming from the coast track of United 93.

[LARED]

1. Thanks - nt

[Woody Box]

2. What I just don't understand...

Why does Lynne call this retraction "rebuttal"? Who does she want to rebut? Herself?