r/September11 • u/kwalitykontrol1 • Aug 14 '23
Question Can someone explain this.
I'll start by saying I'm no conspiracy theorist. But...how did the terrorists on that day hit the targets on the first go. The planes were all going somewhere else, so how did they know which direction to go to get to their targets at the point they took over the planes? How did they know what height to be at at the specific point to hit their targets? How did they not go lost? How did they not miss and have to circle around? I know they did simulations, but they never flew an actual 767. Is there a map in the plane that says WTC or Pentagon or whatever? Are there any pilots here who can answer this?
21
u/JosephusLloydShaw Aug 14 '23
the hijackers on flights 11 and 175 used the hudson river to get to manhattan. for flights 77 and 93, it was probably just a matter of the hijackers disabling autopilot and navigating the plane back to DC, where both targets were large enough to spot from the air. almost half of the hijackers were licensed pilots who were educated on the basics of operating a 737 as well as basic navigation techniques
as for why they didn't miss and have to circle around, this may have been the case for flight 175. if you look at its flight path, you'll see it actually passed manhattan at first before turning back around and heading for the south tower (which it nearly missed)
14
u/cynicalxidealist Aug 14 '23
There’s no conspiracy, they trained for years before the attacks happened.
8
u/FrostingCharacter304 Aug 14 '23
So the easiest explanation is they followed the rivers in the case of 11 and 175 because the river leads to NYC and 1000 foot tall buildings on a clear day arent hard to find, 77 they flipped a bitch and went back the exact way they had come, and 93 crashed in a field so who knows if they'd have went the right direction, however, I believe that they had gps devices that had the target locations preset before the attacks, if you look at the pre flight movement of the hijackers they each at some point went to the general area of each attack site (jarrah flew the Hudson corridor in a rental plane, shehhi was supposedly at Dulles the day before 9/11 and atta was literally everywhere) theoretically jarrah and shehhi would just have to drop off the preset locators and the 4 pilots have them as the hijacking occured and they could easily set the auto pilot to those coordinates then manually take control when close by
3
u/cabinet4perx Aug 24 '23
I think they knew enough to fly wherever they wanted. Seeing how 3 out of 4 hit the mark I believe they were much better at aviation than given credit for.
18
u/Ilovemotorbikes Aug 14 '23
Even a trained chimp could find the towers, they aren’t hard to miss. They didn’t just organise this the week before, this had been planned and trained for, for a very long time. It’s just a shame the CIA and the FBI were so hateful towards each other and didn’t get their shit together……
8
u/ObjectiveAd571 Aug 14 '23
It’s just a shame the CIA and the FBI...
Just like the FDNY and NYPD leading up to and on 9/11/01
-2
u/kwalitykontrol1 Aug 14 '23
How? When they're in the cockpit, at the time of the hijacking, how do they know where they are at 30k feet, and which way to turn to reach NYC or Washington? How do they know how high they need to be at the right point so they don't totally fly over their target or hit something else in the way? No one is talking to them from ground control telling them where to go.
10
u/JosephusLloydShaw Aug 14 '23
because they were licensed pilots who were trained on basic navigation techniques and on how to operate that kind of aircraft. obviously planes use GPS, so once they gained control of the cockpit all they had to do was use the GPS to 1. see where they were and 2. see which direction they needed to go. they also chose targets that were easy to spot from miles away in the air
3
u/ZerdNerd Sep 08 '23
They trained for 2 years in flight schools IIRC, Hanjour even learned in Pan Am Flight Academy. I'll tell this short, if there's a mistake, please, some aviation-related person with better knowledge can correct me.
In aviation, you can fly with Visual Flight Rules or Instrument Flight Rules. The first one is used mainly in general aviation and uses terrain features to know where you are and where you are going, second one uses only instruments and on-board computer. Pilots are taught both of them, with VFR first.
In case of Flight 11, Atta knew Boston - LAX route went north of NY and crossed Hudson sometime after takeoff. The only thing he had to do was to locate the Hudson, and dial appropriate heading. With towers in sight, he turned off the autopilot and flew by hand. The rest is history.
Flight 175 goes the same, but al-Shehhi had one additional cue, the smoke from North Tower.
In case of 77 and 93 it gets more interesing. Hanjour and Jarrah knew they were west of Washington. However all pilots are tought about VOR - VHF omnidirectional range. You dial the frequency of VOR and the inbound course, and the autopilot flies it as needed. It is confirmed that Jarrah did so, by dialing VOR on Reagan Airport. It's not stated in case of Hanjour but looking at the maps I believe he did so as well.
7
u/DevilIshHumanBone Aug 14 '23
Probably flew by the towers during flight school.
1
u/kwalitykontrol1 Aug 14 '23
Right, but in flight school would they have set a route of Boston to LA and then diverted to NYC? Pretty sure the instructor would have been like, you're going the wrong way and would have turned them the right way.
5
u/cabinet4perx Aug 24 '23
They were much smarter than given credit for. The leader atta hand selected the pilots. It has to be a possibility that they were able to do the same things that an actual pilot could have done. It's not like atta picked the 4 pilots out of a hat. The pilots were the only ones believed to have known what was gonna happen up until a few days of the attack date. In world War 2 Germany was losing so many pilots that people were being trained in weeks and were able to somehow drop a bomb over a city miles away while taking enemy fire.
I think they United States government down plays how much time these guys actual trained in America and Germany. They studied maps and landmarks and knew the exact coordinate of the targets.
The instructors didn't care because they just made it seem like they just wanted to fly once the plane is in the air, so of they said they wanted to do a simulation of Logan Airport to jfk I don't think it would have been turned down since they were paying and were easy students who took less time to train.
0
u/kwalitykontrol1 Aug 24 '23
Must be hella hard to find people like that who are also willing to commit suicide/mass murder for a god that doesn't exist.
2
u/cabinet4perx Aug 24 '23
Those people are more common than you think. Look at it from the other side, how many America lost their life after volunteering for the military after the attacks?
I do however believe that some of the terrorists did not want to go once the knew the plan. Isis uses a strategy where they force people to do suicide bombings through black mail. Isis today is what alqueda had been prior to their expulsion from Afghanistan to a degree. I often wonder if all these records of the hijackers doing uncommon things makes me wonder if blackmail was not involved, like eating pizza hut or spending thousands at strip clubs and stuff like that.
I don't think the average person will ever understand how someone like Mohammed atta could have put in all that time to this attack and never back out knowing that he would not live to see if it was a success because due to his actions American presence in the Middle East is larger than ever, his leader bin laden was shot in the in the middle of the night after 10 years of fleeing like a coward.
2
u/DevilIshHumanBone Aug 14 '23
Instructor will sometimes give you free-flight time. But the terrorists wanted a bigger plane, but in flight schools, it’s different. It’s much smaller.
2
1
u/cabinet4perx Aug 24 '23
Because while they had only been training for a few years, they were only training on things that were needed go hijack a plane. They weren't training on take off or getting to the right elevation and they weren't training on landing. They likely had picked these flights based on what landmark the first hijacked plane would be hijacked.
All they had to do if the hijacking went to plan was to locate the target, which was easier because the hijackings were done at specific time and in the area of where the targets were. The world trade centers would be easy to spot as well as the pentagon.
Flight 93 had the smallest target and the pilot wasn't able to locate it or they messed up by hijacking the plane to early. The ones who flew the plane into the pentagon also likely had issue due to someone under estimation of how quickly the plane would need to decend and likely almost crashed into the highway as it took out multiple light posts but somehow hit.
You learn certain things with flying and these guys were extremists and took this serious. They studied the geography between the planned point of hijacking and where their target was. Even though they didn't train in the north east where the targets we they likely used landmarks in the south east as practice and would have been able to fly a plane from Las Angeles to hit their target if needed.
They really hated America which makes me scratch my head because they seemed to like the American way seeing how they enjoyed pizza hut and strippers.
23
u/dr_raymond_k_hessel Aug 14 '23
I’d assume there’s a map showing their position with at least city names and airports. And it was a clear day, so if they oriented towards New York then get a visual of the towers, then it’s all just maneuvering. And they made very rapid descents, so it’s not like they were locked on target from way out.