Are any of the panels conducting the 9/11 investigation addressing the
question of why the Air Force failed to shoot down any of the four
high-jacked planes on September 11th?  The NORAD defense system prides
itself on quick response with Mach-speed fighter jets whenever even a
HINT of a high-jacking begins to unfold. With four planes off-course
that morning, with their transponders cut, and flying in forbidden
airspace, where was NORAD?  Can you direct me to legitimate
information regarding this?

Dear Time Spacette, 

I haven't conducted a thorough research (yet) but your assumption that
NORAD would have had to deal with this problem is based on your
knowledge after the events. Before the events, plane hijack was done
in order to negotiate something (threat, but leave most passangers
alive), not to initiate an attack, "kamikaze" style.

Hijacked planes were not shot, because there were many civilians in
them, and in most cases the hijack event ended up relatively without
any bloodshed, with the hijackers' surrender. The only event I could
think of, where a civilian aircraft that went out of course was shot
happened in Sinai in 1973 by the Israeli authorities that thought that
a Lybian civilian plane was a disguise for a terrorist attack. It
actually carried innocent civilians, but something in the went wrong,
and the pilot could not hear the tower telling him that his nevigation
brings him into an Israeli terrotiry.
(Lybia: A Day to Remember:
<http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/5260/plane.html>).

I wonder how would the public react, if the planes had have been shot
down (full of Americans), without any indication that what was going
on was more than a "normal" hijack.

Statistically, the number of plane hijacking droppen after the 9/11,
because hijackers now know, that there is a big chance that they will
be shot down long before they could even express their demands, and
that there will be no negotiation. It became a very inconvinient tool
for "regular" terrorist acivities.

Testimony before the National Commission:

http://www.9-11commission.gov/archive/hearing2/9-11Commission_Hearing_2003-05-23.htm

hlabadie-ga

Check out this excellent resource, it should answer all your questions!

http://www.cooperativeresearch.net/timeline/main/essayairdefense.html

I think i may be able to answer your question as @ the time i was on
airspace watch in Michegan airdelta 5 squadron.

Problem was that at that moment in time it was 'Eagle eyed' Ernie's
turn to get the Big breakfast's in from Mcdonalds, this left a large
hole in our security tower as 'Binocular Bob' was off also with flu.

This left 4 of us keeping one eye on the sky and the other on 'Morning
with Springer' on Channel 92, if u can recall it was an episode about
a fetus with a big hairy pubic bush stuck in the womb of a mexican
chiropadist and how the lesbian Doctor 'Guieselle' who happened to be
passing by saved the poor babies life with a toothpick.

We were to engrossesd in the action to have heard any noises overhead
as you can imagine , but Dettol Dolly the first aider on call at the
time did mention summat about a noise which we put down to the air
conditioning.

Plse pay the dosh via paypal to ballbags@shushshush.com

There is an editorial, asking the same question, at:  
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=127&ncid=742&e=7&u=/uclicktext/20040401/cm_ucru/wherewastheairforce

Hi

Passenger Aircraft have frequently been shot down. The most notable
being the destruction of the Iran Air Bus by the USS Vincennes, which
was more to do with the incompetance of the US Navy than anything
else.

http://aviation-safety.net/events/SED.shtml

Vincennes

http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/5260/vince.html

Also Kal 007

http://aviation-safety.net/specials/kal007/

If you think about it, the situation on 9/11 approximated that at
Pearl Harbour, the main difficulty was not the identification of the
threat, but the ability to swiftly move from a 'Peace time' to a 'War
time' attitude.

Albanaich

Political guru is exactly right, and Ballbags seems to be schizophrenic ....

The failure of the Air Force was to  NOT  INTERCEPT the 4 highjacked
commercial planes with air force or air national reserve jet fighters.
As is the standing order for any plane, whether commercial or private,
when it departs from its flight plan or its transponder ceases
signaling. Intercept means the jet fighters fly up on either side of
the distressed aircraft and perform set interrogations with pilots
using wing wagles and the like.  No presidential orders are needed to
intercept highjacked flights: it is the normal, default procedure both
before and after 9/11. Apparently it often happens.  Cast your mind
back to the golfer Payne Stewart's ill-fated Lear jet flight which had
fighter jet intercept and AWAKs with it throughout, in 1999.
The Executive has muddied the answer to this question about failure to
intercept by bringing up the emotionally-charged red-herring by saying
there was no order to blow up the commercial liners for all the
reasons you could mention.  Now the public is confusing "intercept"
with "blow up."

You don't have to be a conspiracy freak to ask why the Air Force did
not perform its standing orders.  I wish someone from the press would
ask Cheney and Bush and Rice and rest this question and not take
nonsense for the answer.  ALso I wish someone in the ir Force would
step forward and address this question.

The fact is that the default standing order for jet fighters to
scramble to intercept hijacked flights, that standing order had to be
countermanded by someone.  That someone had to be higher than the FAA
and is thought to be in the Executive Office.

We all know that Bush was pointedly reading stories to elementary
school kids during the entire time the rest of us were glued to the TV
watching the plane going into the WTC. (at least the second one, the
video of the crash into the first tower wasn't available from the
French tourist videomakers until 9/12.)