In news:nigmg.47647$fb2.23494@newssvr27.news.prodigy.net,
Bryan Olson <fakeaddress@nowhere.org> typed:

Amanda Angelika wrote:

Bryan Olson typed:

Nonsense. Small and surprising operations are the ones most
likely to escape the defense systems.

True but they still need to be undertaken with professionalism,
require preplanning, intelligence and coordination so require a
large and well organised infrastructure.

What is remarkable about 911 is the considerable amount of response
time available between the first and second plane hit should have
been sufficient to scramble the fighters.

Sixteen minutes is not long. At the time no one but the
terrorists knew that another plane was headed for the second
tower.

Well it should be sufficient time to get airborn and at mach 2 thats 250
miles in 10 minutes.
Of couse I realise the US is a bit bigger than the UK :) but it's clear
there was practically no air defence system on 9/11/2001

 > Especially when you consider there were

helicopters on the scene and flying around within minutes and
helicopters fly much slower than fighters.

They were already airborne and could see what happened.

In which case they should have engaged

Admittedly one would not want to down a US civilian passenger
aircraft, under any circumstances.  but the second plane could have
been buzzed sufficiently to send it on a different course

Your just making that up right?

Well there are a number of things fighter jets can do to buzz a larger
un-armed plane. Fighter planes were originally designed to attack bombers
and normally have to contend with being fired at. With civilian jets they
would normally simply surround the plane and escort it away. the turbulence
from the engines would be enough to force a civilian aircraft to comply and
in this case throwing the plane off course at the right time would have made
it impossible for it to hit the second tower. You can't turn a passenger jet
on a sixpence.

Flying into a skyscraper requires as much preparation and precision
as landing on an airport runway.

Not even close.

[...]

The problem is even highly experienced commercial pilots would have
difficulty flying a passenger jet into a particular building
hundreds of miles away with practically no navigational aids.

Finding the Twin Towers and the Pentagon on a clear day is hard?
Where did you get that incredibly stupid idea?

Things may look big on the ground, but it's a different story from the air
and travelling at 500 mph there is little margin for error.

If you don't believe me get yourself a flight simulator and try it for
yourself :)

The fact that both missions were accomplished with such deadly
military accuracy

Two of four were accurate. One so-so. One failed.

Which is a very high sucess rate for a military operation. In fact just as
sucessful as the RAF Dambuster raids on the Ruhr Dams in WWII possibly even
more so given that the raid although very heroic and well executed actually
did minimal damage to the Nazi war machine.
-- 
Amanda