All 4 planes shot down

How would society and politics had been affected if on September 11 2001 if the US military had shot down the four hijacked planes before they hit their targets? Besides the obvious of the World Trade Center still standing, would there have been such a move to then to after terrorism in Afghanistan? How would this have affected the build up to the Iraq War?

I can imagine a great deal of public outcry when the US military essentially kills hostages, and I am not sure if people would have believed that the disaster would have been as bad as it was were the planes not shot down.
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
There would be lots of people claiming that the government shot down the planes and killed the hostages not because the terrorists were planning on using the planes as suicide weapons but because the government just didn't want to negotiate with the terrorists for the release of the hostages.
 
All four planes shot down? Huge upset and heads are going to roll. Nobody would know they were going to be used as missiles, everyone would assume they were just being hijacked for hostages. If George Bush stays in office he wouldn't get re-elected.

Also, if the first two planes are shot down over NYC you would see a lot of damage to the city.
 

CalBear

Moderator
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All four planes shot down? Huge upset and heads are going to roll. Nobody would know they were going to be used as missiles, everyone would assume they were just being hijacked for hostages. If George Bush stays in office he wouldn't get re-elected.

Also, if the first two planes are shot down over NYC you would see a lot of damage to the city.

The death toll if the two aircraft over NYC had been shot down would almost certainly have been far higher than was actually the case.

More importantly, the ONLY way the first two aircraft fall to AAM is if the Air Force is laying in wait. There simply is no other way to flush the fighters, acquire the aircraft and shoot them down. From the time Flight 11 stopped routine communication (08:14) to the time that the second aircraft, Flight 175 hit the second tower (09:03) you only have 49 minutes. Even if you have fighters on a Plus 15 alert you will never get them up and locked on in time, not in peacetime.

As was the people at Otis ANG base (in Massachusetts) did one hell of a job, they put two Eagles up 20 minutes from the initial call received at 08:34 (wheels up at 08:54) and had them off NYC by 09:09. Flight 11 hit WTC #1 at 08:48 or 14 minutes after the initial call to the ANG. At full throttle (no afterburner, or around 700 MPH, 0.95 MACH) the flight time to South Manhattan, which is 180 miles from OTIS ANG, is around 15 minutes. Today, the closest base is in Burlington VT, or about 25 minutes away.

If the first two aircraft had been shot down the Truthers (crazy bastards one & all) would be right. The Government (or at least the military) knew about the hijacking well in advance. Only possible way to have it happen.
 
Did anyone make a thread about what would happen if one of the planes was shot down? I'm wondering about the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania, specifically.
 
Might have been possible to shoot down number 3 though, and get away with it, although that would have given the "Truthers" another angle to work on, ie, the government weren't willing to kill their own personnel, but were perfectly happy to kill honest citizens.
 

EricM

Banned
Might have been possible to shoot down number 3 though, and get away with it, although that would have given the "Truthers" another angle to work on, ie, the government weren't willing to kill their own personnel, but were perfectly happy to kill honest citizens.

I was reading an interview with one of the pilots of the F-16's. Maj. Penney says the jets were not armed and that they intended to ram Flight 93 to bring it down.
 
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