UtopiaX.org - a journey into the Unknown

The flight routes

What the flights have in common is that they take very strange routes and all those routes have this strange sharp turns. They also have in common that transponder, radar and radio contact where lost. And the transcripts of the communication with the controllers show after the planes reappeared on radar (but without transponder signal) that the controllers are not really sure which plane they have on radar and radio. They just assume it's the flights they have previously lost.

So what could have happend?
The planes may have landed anywhere after disappearing from radar (for example a secret CIA landing strip), while another plane or unmanned 'drone' took it's place by entering the airspace controlled by radar (which would perfectly explain those sharp turns, only it are not turns, but one plane leaving and another plane entering). As the transponders are off, air traffic control assumes the re-appeared green dot on the radar is the lost airplane. Fake radio transmissions add to that impression. The remote-controlled planes/drones crash, leaving no evidence behind, neither wreckage nor bodies.

This is not a far-fetched idiot conspiracy theory, but astoundingly similar to OPERATION NORTHWOODS.

American Flight 11

Boston to Los Angeles (crashed into north tower of World Trade Centre)

8.00 Plane takes off from Logan international airport, Boston.

8.13 Boston control centre: "AAL11 turn 20 degrees right."

Pilot of AAL11: "20 right AAL11."

Controller: "AAL11 now climb maintain FL350 [35,000 feet]."

Controller: "AAL11 climb maintain FL350."

Controller: "AAL11 Boston."

8.14:33 Controller A: "AAL11 ah the American on the frequency how do you hear me?"

Controller B breaks in: "This is Athens."

A: "This is Boston. I turned American 20 left and I was going to climb him. He will not respond to me now at all."

B: "Looks like he's turning right."

A: "Yeah, I turned him right."

B: "Oh, OK."

A: "And he's only going to um I think 29."

B: "Sure that's fine."

A: "Eh, but I'm not talking to him."

B: "He won't answer you. He's nordo [no radar] roger. Thanks."

8.24:38 Hijackers' voices heard: "We have some planes. Just stay quiet and you will be OK. We are returning to the airport. Nobody move, everything will be OK. If you try to make any moves you'll endanger yourself and the airplane. Just stay quiet."

8.25:00 The control tower notifies several air traffic control centres that a hijack is taking place.

8.33:59 Hijackers' voices heard: "Nobody move, please, we are going back to the airport. Don't try to make any stupid moves."

8.47:00 Plane crashes into the north tower of the World Trade Centre

United Flight 175

Boston to Los Angeles

(crashed into south tower of World Trade Centre)

8.14 Plane takes off from Logan international airport

8.31:04 Flight makes contact with Boston control centre.

8.37:08 Controller asks pilots to look for a lost American Airlines plane: "Do you have traffic look at uh your 12 to 1o'clock at about, uh, 10 miles southbound to see if you can see an American seventy six seven out there please."

UAL175: "Affirmative we have him, uh, he looks, uh, about 20, yeah, about 29, 28,000."

Controller: "United 175, turn five, turn 30 degrees to the right. I [want to] keep you away from this traffic."

8.41:32 Cockpit: "We figured we'd wait to go to your centre. We heard a suspicious transmission on our departure out of Boston. Someone keyed the mike and said: 'Everyone stay in your seats.' It cut out."

Flight transmits "Did you copy that?" (controller on land line).

Flight turns towards the south-west with ATC clearance.

8.46:18 Transponder signal no longer received.

8.53:23 Controller: "We may have a hijack. We have some problems over here right now."

9.00:00 Last radar reading is seen at an altitude of 18,000 feet as flight is descending at a ground speed of 480 knots.

9.03 Plane crashes into south tower of World Trade Centre

American Flight 77

Washington to Los Angeles (crashed into Pentagon)

The plane takes off from Dulles airport at 8.20am and climbs to 35,000 feet. At 8.50:51 there is the last radio communication with aircraft and six minutes later transponder contact is lost.

Air traffic controllers try to make contact but fail. At 9.25 the controller observes the plane moving towards Washington. Eight minutes later, the US secret service is informed and the aircraft is observed completing a right 360-degree turn, just south of the Pentagon. At 9.36 the national airport instructs a military C130 (Golfer 06) that has just departed Andrews air force base to intercept the flight and identify it. At 9.38 AA77 crashes into the south-west side of the Pentagon

United Flight 93

Newark to San Francisco (crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania)

The plane takes off from Newark at 8.42am. At 9.28 there are the first audible signs of problems, in background cockpit noise. Seven minutes later, the plane climbs without authorisation, before, at 9.36.31, turning off course.

During this time, two passengers make calls to their wives saying passengers are discussing how to stop hijackers; and a struggle - recorded by the cockpit voice recorder - occurs. At 10.00 the controller observes the plane is flying at 7,500 feet. Six minutes later the controller says the flight is down

The voice recorder is being kept secret, and have been made accessible only to family members of the passengers, but seemingly without the last 5-7 minutes, and under top secrecy.

Air traffic Control transcript and audio.

Cleveland: United ninety-three, check in when flight level three-five-zero – [unintelligible].

United 93: United ninety-three check in three-five-zero.

Cleveland: United ninety-three, three-five-zero, Roger. United ninety-three, you have traffic to your one o’clock, twelve miles eastbound three-seven-zero.

United 93: Negative contact, we’re looking United ninety-three.

Cleveland: Somebody call Cleveland? [No noise on this Cleveland tape, must be a different frequency being monitored by Cleveland on another tape.] United ninety-three verify three-five-zero, United ninety-three verify your flight level, er, three-five-zero. United ninety-three verify your flight level is three-five-zero. United ninety-three Cleveland, United ninety-three Cleveland. United ninety-three do you read Cleveland Center please?

United 797: United fifteen twenty-three, did you hear the company, er, did you hear some other aircraft on a frequency a couple of minutes ago, screaming?

United 1523: Yes I did, seven ninety-seven, and, ah, we couldn’t tell what it was either.

United 797: OK.

Cleveland: United ninety-three Cleveland, if you hear the center, ident [command for United 93 to send secondary radar transponder positive identification]

American 1060: American ten-sixty, er, ditto also on the other transmission.

Cleveland: American ten-sixty, you heard that also?

American 1060: We heard it twice.

Cleveland: Roger, we heard that also. [No noise on Cleveland tape.] Thanks. We just wanted to confirm that wasn’t some interference.

Executive 956: Executive nine fifty-six.

Cleveland: Executive nine fifty-six, go.

Executive 956: Just answering your call. We could year that, er, yelling too.

Cleveland: OK, thank you, we’re just trying to figure out what’s going on.

United 93: [unintelligible] this is captain, please sit down, remain sitting, we have a bomb on board. [Signal strength 5, readability 1.]

Cleveland: Uh, calling Cleveland Center, you’re unreadable, say again slowly.

Executive 956: [unintelligible] sounded like he said he had a bomb on board.

Cleveland: Uh, say again, you there, United ninety-three?

Executive 956: [unintelligible] was reasonable, sounded like someone said they had a bomb on board.

Cleveland: That’s what we thought, we just, er, we didn’t get it clear. United ninety-three calling. Executive nine fifty-six, aircraft [unintelligible] transmitting at twelve o’clock one-five miles. Turn left heading two-two-five. I’ll get you away from him. OK, he’s climbing so I want to keep everybody away from him.

Executive 956: OK, I think we got him in sight.

Cleveland: Nineteen eighty-nine, I have traffic for you in your eleven o’clock, fifteen miles southbound forty-one climbing, looks like he’s turning east wide at three-six-zero.

United 93: [unintelligible] this is the captain. We have a bomb on board [unintelligible] - I am going back to the airport, they have met our demands [unintelligible]. [Signal strength 5, readability 1]

Cleveland: United ninety-three calling. United ninety-three, understand you have a bomb on board, go ahead. Executive nine fifty-six, did you understand that transmission?

Executive 956: Affirmative. He said there was a bomb on board.

Cleveland: And that was all you got out of it also?

Executive 956: Affirmative.

Cleveland: Ninety-three, go ahead.

Executive 956: Is that aircraft you’re talking about eastbound?

Cleveland: He’s just turned to the east of you. United ninety-three, do you hear Cleveland Center? American ten-sixty and Executive nine fifty-six, we just lost the target on that aircraft.

Executive 956: Executive nine fifty-six, we had a visual on it, just stand by.

Cleveland: You have a visual on it now?

Executive 956: We did, but we lost it in the turn.

Cleveland: You can make a turn back to two-twenty heading. Let me know if you can see him.

Executive 956: He’s still there. We’ve got him, from nine fifty-six.

Cleveland: He’s still there, er, what, about twenty-five miles?

Executive 956: Affirmative from nine fifty-six.

Cleveland: Vector nine fifty-six, turning one-eight-zero.

Executive 956: Er, negative, turning nine fifty-six, he appears to be heading right towards us.

Cleveland: American ten-sixty, do you see anybody northwest of you, can you see back that far there?

American 1060: We’re looking now, sir.

Cleveland: United ninety-three Cleveland, do you still hear the Center? United ninety-three, do you still hear Cleveland? United ninety-three, United niner-three, do you hear Cleveland? United ninety-three, United ninety-three Cleveland. United ninety-three, United ninety-three, do you hear Cleveland Center?

Cleveland (2): [Voice changes to female, apparently second Cleveland controller.] Do you see any, ah, activity on your right side, smoke or anything like that?

American 1060: Negative. We’re searching [two second pause]. Yeah, we do have a smoke puff now at about, er, oh probably two o’clock. There appears to be just a spire up like a puff of black smoke.

Please note that United 93 is not identified (the controller asks to identify) but the controller only assumes it is this flight.

What are transponders?

Transponders are enabling controllers to identify an aircraft, and to know the altitude of the aircraft. Without a transponder signal, an aircraft is just a dot on the radar - with no identification, and no altitude measurement - technical description see below.

IFF - IDENTIFICATION, FRIEND OR FOE

Originated in WWII for just that purpose - a way for our secondary radars to identify U.S. aircraft from enemy aircraft by assigning a unique identifier code to U.S. aircraft transponders.
The system is considered a secondary radar system since it operates completely differently and independently of the primary radar system that tracks aircraft skin returns only, although the same CRT display is frequently used for both.

The system was initially intended to distinguish between enemy and friend but has evolved such that the term "IFF" commonly refers to all modes of operation, including civil and foreign aircraft use.

There are four major modes of operation currently in use by military aircraft plus one submode.

Mode 1 is a nonsecure low cost method used by ships to track aircraft and other ships.
Mode 2 is used by aircraft to make carrier controlled approaches to ships during inclement weather.
Mode 3 is the standard system also used by commercial aircraft to relay their position to ground controllers throughout the world for air traffic control (ATC).
Mode 4 is secure encrypted IFF (the only true method of determining friend or foe)
Mode "C" is the altitude encoder.
The non-secure codes are manually set by the pilot but assigned by the air traffic controller.
A cross-band beacon is used, which simply means that the interrogation pulses are at one frequency and the reply pulses are at a different frequency. 1030 MHz and 1090 MHz is a popular frequency pair used in the U.S.

The secondary radar transmits a series of selectable coded pulses. The aircraft transponder receives and decodes the interrogation pulses. If the interrogation code is correct, the aircraft transponder transmits a different series of coded pulses as a reply.

The advantage of the transponder is that the coded pulses "squawked" by the aircraft transponders after being interrogated might typically be transmitted at a 10 watt ERP, which is much stronger than the microwatt skin return to the primary radar. Input power levels may be on the order of several hundred watts.

The transponder antenna is low gain so that it can receive and reply to a radar from any direction.

An adjunct to the IFF beacon is the altitude encoding transponder known as mode C - all commercial and military aircraft have them, but a fair percentage of general aviation light aircraft do not because of cost. The number of transponder installations rises around many large metropolitan areas where they are required for safety (easier identification of aircraft radar tracks).

Air traffic control primary radars are similar to the two dimensional search radar (working in azimuth and range only) and cannot measure altitude.

The expanded display in the figure is typical of an air traffic control IFF response. The aircraft was told to squawk a four digit number such as "4732". The altitude encoded transponder provides the aircraft altitude readout to the ground controllers display along with the coded response identifying that particular aircraft.