Q24, on 26 December 2012 - 03:44 PM, said:
Yes there is you numpty. It’s written plain as day in Directive 3025.1, “When such conditions exist and time does not permit prior approval from higher headquarters...”. You obviously have reading and/or comprehension difficulties and/or are deliberately ignoring black and white facts.
What conditions? Just because an aircraft is hijacked is not justification to shoot down an airliner. You are misinterpreting what the directive means. Check it out:
Brig. Gen. David F. Wherley, Jr., the 113th Wing commander, was on-site, trying to determine whether the unit had authorization to launch fighters.
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... the red text in the link you have quoted is media commentary/opinion which is not always the most accurate, and is in reference to the hijacked Flight 11; the first airliner to impact a target – at which time commanders could not know there was an imminent and serious threat to life and/or property which might prompt them to “Immediate Response” so the pilot comment is no surprise:
How would they have known if another airliner had planned to strike a building? Without orders, vectors, and briefings, how would a pilot know which aircraft was United 93 or not? In fact, how would a pilot know if a particular aircraft was hijacked? Even if they intercepted the airliners, they were in ID mode only with no orders to shoot down anything and as I have said, there were no such orders issued during the time that United 93 was airborne.
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"If we had intercepted American 11, we probably would have watched it crash".
And that is what the pilots would have done because they had no idea that American 11 was going to crash into WTC1. Dealing with bombers and fighters is one thing, but dealing with an airliner is another.
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Not so, when it came to Flight 93 which is the proposed subject of a shootdown – awareness had increased and U.S. air defenses had upped their game by that point over an hour after the first crash.
Without an order, there was no way that United 93 was going to be shot down near Shanksville, especially in the area where it crashed. The pilot went on to say:
"... there are plenty of hard reasons to not shoot somebody down. We were really in an ID posture--and trying to really be careful."
Edited by skyeagle409, 26 December 2012 - 07:32 PM.