One Sucker's Saga, Part XI: Hidden Signal Obfuscated by Noise
I hope this to be the penultimate Saga entry. I've covered just about everything I consider salient to outlining my understanding of What Seems To Be Happening. There's just a bit of detail that most of the folks actively pursuing this alternate story miss so very, very much. Essentially, the "truther" crowd has been flumoxed and bamoozled by the too-easy story. That's understandable. There are elements of the 9/11 Commission's report that just scream for clarification.
Why, then, must everyone focus on the supposed "controlled demolition" of the Twin Towers and the mystery cruise missile that hit the Pentagon? Can't jetliners filmed hitting the buildings do enough damage?
There's a core problem that comes with focusing on demolition scenarios: When one refuses to believe the evidence of a collapsing tower, choosing to funnel all of his or her investigative power into scenarios describing how nefarious entities snuck thermite charges into key structural points in both towers, one misses far more insidious details that, I feel, more clearly damn the hidden actors by calling into question the official story's players.
Here's an example. In the week following the 11th, a coworker, a fellow Duck driver here in Seattle, related a tidbit he had heard on the radio. He noted the angle of approach planes hitting the towers made, specifically the last-minute roll both planes executed before impact. He said the story on the radio (probably NPR, if I remember his listening habits correctly) noted that this roll was key to ensuring the subsequent collapses.
I never looked into that claim, until today. You see, soon after the dust settled over NYC, the theories started to emerge. The collapses were "too neat" to have been caused by the planes. Therefore, they must have been caused by demolition. I've heard interviews of people who state without a shred of self-doubt that the explosives were placed in the walls before the Twin Towers were completed.
Let's just for a second take that claim seriously and examine what would be necessary for it to be true. The world's tallest buildings at the time were both equipped with demolition charges before the walls were closed. Here's a question: How many charges were planted? After all, the North and South Towers seemed to collapse at different points, corresponding to damage caused by their respective planes. Were there charges up the entire height of both towers? If so, how were they selectively detonated? The system used to ignite these charges must have been robust indeed to survive from the late sixties onward unmolested -- even by the airplane crashes. Wouldn't the fires from the jet fuel have touched off the charges?
I'm sorry, I just can't accept the leap of faith involved in this story. Neither can I accept that the charges were planted in advance of the events with no one noticing this strange maintenance. As to the predetermination of where on the buildings the planes would strike -- well, I'll get back to that question.
So for the sake of completeness I looked up Captain Seymour Stuff's* tidbit about the roll before impact. Sure enough, after I had cut through the OMG BOMBS! crap, I found this MIT paper from a Professor of Applied Mechanics and some undergrads (pdf, wouldn't ya know). I don't claim to understand the maths presented, but the authors include great images to illustrate their main points. I've probably gone too far in terms of fair use, but let's look at some of these images:
See the verbiage under the image? Seymour was right. In fact, "26∘and 35∘" seems pretty darned close together, doesn't it? Illustrating this slight difference in actual impact roll angle confirms how very uniform those impacts were:
To continue with the analysis, the authors estimate the Mega-Joules of energy each plane's impact delivered to which part of the towers, estimate which parts of the towers were critical for keeping each tower standing, and gave a very educated guess as to what likely caused each collapse. The South Tower collapsed first, they reason, because of where and how it was impacted:
This localized damage profile, the authors reason, would cause the struck corner of the tower to tip before the complete collapse, something confirmed in later video:
By contrast, the North Tower suffered far more generalized damage given its relatively head-on collision with the building's face and different angle relative to the structural core. This allowed it to stand for 50 or so additional minutes until the fire weakened the structure both at the core and skin. The North Tower was also hit higher, meaning far less weight pressed on the structure weakened by both collision and fire.
To invoke Occam's Razor, there was sufficient damage to the buildings from the airliner impacts to drop both of them. Any controlled demolitions would have proven extraneous and unnecessary.
Does that mean that all of the "truther" theories are wrong? Ah, here's the rub. With all the focus made on explosives that need not have been placed in the buildings, one's attention is guided away from obvious questions that one really should ask. For example, let's look at the figures labeled 15(a) and 15(b) once again, and note the truly uniform impact roll angles and impact profiles. The South Tower's impact is shifted slightly to the right of the building's face (as shown in Figure 4), but that's probably due to the fact that South Tower plane was traveling 40 meters per second faster than the North Tower plane ("240 m/s and 200
m/s for the South and North Tower respectively"). I'm willing to allow that the pilot had a greater degree of difficulty making a centered strike. Still, nice flying for both pilots.
With this in mind, let's examine the case of the plane that hit the Pentagon. With no official images released of the actual strike, many discount that the building was hit by a plane at all. Remember that in the fifth estate piece (discussed in Part III) some question whether the same planes were used in the attacks at all, favoring a very complex theory involving duplicate planes and a cruise missile for the Pentagon. Again, I find this explanation violates Occam's Razor with a surprising degree of malice. Just as in the Twin Tower attack, I am happy to accept a plane strike as the most likely scenario.
So let's look at what happened. A pilot relates the early details:
The last known altitude reported for AA77 was 7000 feet. And travelled 33 miles in 5 minutes. Thats 6.6 miles per minute or 396 knots (Update: FDR data shows 325 knots average airspeed. 9/11 Commission Report is inaccurate). Then the aircraft began a 330 degree spiraling dive, leveling at 2200 feet to accelerate to the Pentagon while continuing descent. He started the maneuver at 7000 feet, 396 knots, dove almost 5000 feet within a 330 degree turn and covered 5 miles in about 3 minutes. According to the 9/11 Commission Report, the final impact speed was 530 mph. Update: FDR is now available and the 9/11 report is inaccurate in terms of impact speed.
So lets take an avg speed throughout the dive of 430 knots (7 miles/min). We know a standard rate turn is 2 mins for 360 degrees. So lets say he completed the turn in just under 2 minutes. Since we dont know bank angles or speed. That means he was descending at better than 2500 fpm dropping almost 5000 feet only gaining 30 knots. No problem for guys like you and me, but for Hani? We'll get to him later...
Once this maneuver was completed, without going into a graveyard spiral, he started to pull out of the descent at 2200 feet and accelerated only 30 knots more at full power to 460 knots in a descent from 2200 feet to the pentagon in about a minute (Whats Vmo at sea level for a 757? Flap speed? Since it looks like he may have found the flap handle only accelerating 60 knots from 7000 feet, the from 2200 feet at full power). AA77 crossed the highways, knocking down light poles, entered ground effect, didnt touch the lawn and got a 44 foot high target (Tail height of 757) into a 77 foot target completely, without overshooting or bouncing off the lawn, or spreading any wreckage at 460 knots. With a 33 foot margin for error. Wow, impressive. Takes a real steady hand to pull that off. I know it would take me a few tries to get it so precise, especially entering ground effect at those speeds. Any slight movement will put you off 50 feet very quickly. Im sure we all would agree.
A very revealing video
That video was made using the flight data recorder information. The description was written up by a professional pilot. Yes, both raise some interesting questions, but point to one salient fact: How did pilots who had never flown these large airliners make such uniform impacts on the Twin Towers and execute such a difficult maneuver before hitting the Pentagon?
It gets worse. At the Pentagon site, look what they had to say about the man accused of flying into the Pentagon:
So, who pulled off this stunt?
Hani Hanjour. Reported to have 600TT and a Commercial Certificate. . . . Hani tried to get checked out in a (Cessna) 172 (a small propeller-driven plane) a few weeks prior at Freeway Airport in MD. Two seperate (Commercial Flight Instructor)'s took Hani up to check him out. Baxter and Conner found that Hani had trouble controlling and landing a 172 at 65 knots. Bernard, the Chief CFI, refused to rent him the 172. I have instructed many years. I have soloed students in 172's when i had 300 hours as a CFI. How anyone could not control a 172 at 600TT and a Commercial is beyond me. Flight Schools keep going till you "get it" if you are a bit rusty, and then rent you the plane. They are in business to make money after all. .right? The Chief CFI basically refused any further lessons and basically told him to get lost.
This is the kind of detail that sends "truthers" into theories involving cruise missiles and detonation charges. In three examples, we have not one, not two, but three amazing flying demonstrations supposedly executed by people with no observed skill for flying or previous experience.
Here, we need to clarify what happens when one goes to "flight school."
Flight schools are really nothing like driving schools. Yes, there is bookwork and lots of tests. Yes, there are practical exercises . . . but not exercises that take place in an actual jetliner. Why? 757s are incredibly expensive to fly. The fuel alone would eat up thousands of dollars per hour of flight, an expense very few can afford to make. That's why, when it comes to pilots rated to fly big jets, most are commercial pilots who work their way up the airline system. Those that don't are frickin' loaded with cash.
He only managed to get his 747 endorsement after Pulp Fiction
revitalized his career and bank account.
So what does flight school offer? Training to take tests, mostly. These tests are like the written test at the DMV when you apply for a car driver's license. If you don't pass the written, you don't get to sit with an examiner and drive around for the practical. These FAA mandated airline tests are far, far more involved than simple car tests, which is why they had to be at flight school for months before the hijackings. I've taken similar tests when I got my Inland Master ticket from the Coast Guard. I studied on my own, but having spent 7 years in college, I knew my way around tests.
If the studying hijackers were lucky, the flight schools might have had flight simulators. The nice ones control flight with more than a keyboard and mouse, using instead full instrument panels and "active" controls that affect the enormous (but low-res) displays. Still, simulator time is highly prized in these schools. One cannot just "play" flying the jet into the building unsupervised until one gets it right. Schools take their expensive training aides very seriously.
No, one leaves these schools with some practical skills, like a license to fly small prop planes like the 172 mentioned above and endorsements that allow one to get a job with an airline . . . flying as co-pilot. In this way, the system works very similar to the Coast Guard ratings and licensing scheme with which I am familiar. If you can convince an employer to hire you, you get to sit in the right-hand seat and log hours. In that seat, you learn from someone with more experience, the captain, about everything you need to know about that particular plane. If you do well, you can take a test, show your flight log, and upgrade your license to become a pilot -- again, of that particular plane, the one you were hired to fly as co-pilot.
If you want to upgrade further, you get to do the whole thing over again for each upgraded license. That's why young jet pilots are frickin' rare -- this process takes years.
So with this in mind, let's return to our now-dead hijackers. One dead center strike to either Tower I could accept from a novice pilot as a fluke. Two? That's an anomaly. Once I learned from Seymour that the barrel rolls were necessary, and later discovered how accurately both pilots had been executing those rolls, the anomalous grew very suspicious. And the Pentagon hit? That sealed the deal. I'm sorry, but without many, many hours of seat and stick time in very similar planes, that maneuver just could not have happened as it did.
So, what did happen?
I suspect ALS.
I've delayed writing this installment simply because I've been looking for more information on this. I heard about it from a friend. I know, I know, you probably need more information than the old "just a friend" ruse for this information to be taken seriously. That's the problem. The more I looked into it for confirmation on the web at least, the more I couldn't find it. That's when I suspect my friend was sharing less than freely available information, if you know what I mean. Hell, this is probably classified, though any technology featured in the NBC faux-spy show Chuck can't be all that secret.
Ah, so how did my friend get this information? Simple! He served in the US Navy as a fighter jet technician on an aircraft carrier, and later leveraged that experience to work at Boeing as an assembly worker. He worked on planes equipped with ALS.
The theory behind ALS, or Automated Landing System, is simple. It (again, according to a friend) started as ACLS, or Automated Carrier Landing System. Let's say a fighter pilot has been in a dogfight, or freaks out, or passes out from the Gees he's pulled and blown a blood vessel. In a less technological time, he would have been a dead man, unable to land on the aircraft carrier and get the medical help he needs. If someone qualified to fly his plane could take over the controls and bring the fighter in safely, the pilot (and, of course, plane) could be saved. ACLS is essentially remote controlled plane flying activated from the Mother Ship.
ALS is similar, but installed on more modern passenger planes. I guess someone saw Airplane! one time too many. Should the entire cockpit crew become incapacitated after eating the fish, the plane can be flown remotely and landed.
If true, this detail could answer more than one question about the specifics of the day. For example, has anyone else wondered why all the flights hijacked that day were 757-200s? These plane models are dwarfed by the 747, MD-80 or larger Airbuses that undoubtedly flew that day, probably from the same airports. An impact from a 747 would probably bring down those towers quite a bit faster, both from added mass and added fuel for the subsequent fire. The answer could be simple: the larger planes are also older planes, and thus are most probably not equipped with ALS.
Though he does not name the ALS in Rubicon, Michael Ruppert does acknowledge its importance and provides some speculative insights based upon technical requirements for the system to work.
One final detail: What was known or unknown by each of the hijacking participants on that day remains speculative. Some maintain that a majority of the hijackers didn't know theirs was a suicide mission. That's probable, in my eye. It removes quite a few variables from the perspective of the mission planners. The ALS detail, though, adds a startling dimension -- none of the hijackers need have known the planes would be used as missiles. All they needed was a false mission, perhaps four (or five) standard hijacking and ransom demands in unison that would bring the Great Satan's air traffic to a grinding halt. As part of that mission, they just needed to take over the cockpit . . . and fail to deactivate, or even report over the airwaves, an ALS remote takeover.
Automated Landing System answers all of those nagging questions about the inconsistency between the hijackers' minimal flight training and essentially zero cockpit experience and the remarkable Top Gun airmanship displayed that day. The fact that it is all but unknown to most -- including, until very recently, myself -- ensures, sadly, that the ever-more complex web of imaginings involving remote detonations, mystery missiles, and (most galling to me personally) disappearances of entire aircraft and their passengers will continue to be spun, cobwebbing with sticky fiction any rational discussion of this topic already so fraught will emotional peril.
*NB: All of the Duck Captains had us some silly names. I worked as Captain Ed Nauseum for a time, which I loved, until the boss 86-ed it for being "too cerebral." Captain Artie R. Arre was likewise scrapped. After that it was Captain Bill Loney. I still have the name tag . . . somewhere.
Why, then, must everyone focus on the supposed "controlled demolition" of the Twin Towers and the mystery cruise missile that hit the Pentagon? Can't jetliners filmed hitting the buildings do enough damage?
There's a core problem that comes with focusing on demolition scenarios: When one refuses to believe the evidence of a collapsing tower, choosing to funnel all of his or her investigative power into scenarios describing how nefarious entities snuck thermite charges into key structural points in both towers, one misses far more insidious details that, I feel, more clearly damn the hidden actors by calling into question the official story's players.
Here's an example. In the week following the 11th, a coworker, a fellow Duck driver here in Seattle, related a tidbit he had heard on the radio. He noted the angle of approach planes hitting the towers made, specifically the last-minute roll both planes executed before impact. He said the story on the radio (probably NPR, if I remember his listening habits correctly) noted that this roll was key to ensuring the subsequent collapses.
I never looked into that claim, until today. You see, soon after the dust settled over NYC, the theories started to emerge. The collapses were "too neat" to have been caused by the planes. Therefore, they must have been caused by demolition. I've heard interviews of people who state without a shred of self-doubt that the explosives were placed in the walls before the Twin Towers were completed.
Let's just for a second take that claim seriously and examine what would be necessary for it to be true. The world's tallest buildings at the time were both equipped with demolition charges before the walls were closed. Here's a question: How many charges were planted? After all, the North and South Towers seemed to collapse at different points, corresponding to damage caused by their respective planes. Were there charges up the entire height of both towers? If so, how were they selectively detonated? The system used to ignite these charges must have been robust indeed to survive from the late sixties onward unmolested -- even by the airplane crashes. Wouldn't the fires from the jet fuel have touched off the charges?
I'm sorry, I just can't accept the leap of faith involved in this story. Neither can I accept that the charges were planted in advance of the events with no one noticing this strange maintenance. As to the predetermination of where on the buildings the planes would strike -- well, I'll get back to that question.
So for the sake of completeness I looked up Captain Seymour Stuff's* tidbit about the roll before impact. Sure enough, after I had cut through the OMG BOMBS! crap, I found this MIT paper from a Professor of Applied Mechanics and some undergrads (pdf, wouldn't ya know). I don't claim to understand the maths presented, but the authors include great images to illustrate their main points. I've probably gone too far in terms of fair use, but let's look at some of these images:
See the verbiage under the image? Seymour was right. In fact, "26∘and 35∘" seems pretty darned close together, doesn't it? Illustrating this slight difference in actual impact roll angle confirms how very uniform those impacts were:
To continue with the analysis, the authors estimate the Mega-Joules of energy each plane's impact delivered to which part of the towers, estimate which parts of the towers were critical for keeping each tower standing, and gave a very educated guess as to what likely caused each collapse. The South Tower collapsed first, they reason, because of where and how it was impacted:
This localized damage profile, the authors reason, would cause the struck corner of the tower to tip before the complete collapse, something confirmed in later video:
By contrast, the North Tower suffered far more generalized damage given its relatively head-on collision with the building's face and different angle relative to the structural core. This allowed it to stand for 50 or so additional minutes until the fire weakened the structure both at the core and skin. The North Tower was also hit higher, meaning far less weight pressed on the structure weakened by both collision and fire.
To invoke Occam's Razor, there was sufficient damage to the buildings from the airliner impacts to drop both of them. Any controlled demolitions would have proven extraneous and unnecessary.
Does that mean that all of the "truther" theories are wrong? Ah, here's the rub. With all the focus made on explosives that need not have been placed in the buildings, one's attention is guided away from obvious questions that one really should ask. For example, let's look at the figures labeled 15(a) and 15(b) once again, and note the truly uniform impact roll angles and impact profiles. The South Tower's impact is shifted slightly to the right of the building's face (as shown in Figure 4), but that's probably due to the fact that South Tower plane was traveling 40 meters per second faster than the North Tower plane ("240 m/s and 200
m/s for the South and North Tower respectively"). I'm willing to allow that the pilot had a greater degree of difficulty making a centered strike. Still, nice flying for both pilots.
With this in mind, let's examine the case of the plane that hit the Pentagon. With no official images released of the actual strike, many discount that the building was hit by a plane at all. Remember that in the fifth estate piece (discussed in Part III) some question whether the same planes were used in the attacks at all, favoring a very complex theory involving duplicate planes and a cruise missile for the Pentagon. Again, I find this explanation violates Occam's Razor with a surprising degree of malice. Just as in the Twin Tower attack, I am happy to accept a plane strike as the most likely scenario.
So let's look at what happened. A pilot relates the early details:
The last known altitude reported for AA77 was 7000 feet. And travelled 33 miles in 5 minutes. Thats 6.6 miles per minute or 396 knots (Update: FDR data shows 325 knots average airspeed. 9/11 Commission Report is inaccurate). Then the aircraft began a 330 degree spiraling dive, leveling at 2200 feet to accelerate to the Pentagon while continuing descent. He started the maneuver at 7000 feet, 396 knots, dove almost 5000 feet within a 330 degree turn and covered 5 miles in about 3 minutes. According to the 9/11 Commission Report, the final impact speed was 530 mph. Update: FDR is now available and the 9/11 report is inaccurate in terms of impact speed.
So lets take an avg speed throughout the dive of 430 knots (7 miles/min). We know a standard rate turn is 2 mins for 360 degrees. So lets say he completed the turn in just under 2 minutes. Since we dont know bank angles or speed. That means he was descending at better than 2500 fpm dropping almost 5000 feet only gaining 30 knots. No problem for guys like you and me, but for Hani? We'll get to him later...
Once this maneuver was completed, without going into a graveyard spiral, he started to pull out of the descent at 2200 feet and accelerated only 30 knots more at full power to 460 knots in a descent from 2200 feet to the pentagon in about a minute (Whats Vmo at sea level for a 757? Flap speed? Since it looks like he may have found the flap handle only accelerating 60 knots from 7000 feet, the from 2200 feet at full power). AA77 crossed the highways, knocking down light poles, entered ground effect, didnt touch the lawn and got a 44 foot high target (Tail height of 757) into a 77 foot target completely, without overshooting or bouncing off the lawn, or spreading any wreckage at 460 knots. With a 33 foot margin for error. Wow, impressive. Takes a real steady hand to pull that off. I know it would take me a few tries to get it so precise, especially entering ground effect at those speeds. Any slight movement will put you off 50 feet very quickly. Im sure we all would agree.
Click to viewA very revealing video
That video was made using the flight data recorder information. The description was written up by a professional pilot. Yes, both raise some interesting questions, but point to one salient fact: How did pilots who had never flown these large airliners make such uniform impacts on the Twin Towers and execute such a difficult maneuver before hitting the Pentagon?
It gets worse. At the Pentagon site, look what they had to say about the man accused of flying into the Pentagon:
So, who pulled off this stunt?
Hani Hanjour. Reported to have 600TT and a Commercial Certificate. . . . Hani tried to get checked out in a (Cessna) 172 (a small propeller-driven plane) a few weeks prior at Freeway Airport in MD. Two seperate (Commercial Flight Instructor)'s took Hani up to check him out. Baxter and Conner found that Hani had trouble controlling and landing a 172 at 65 knots. Bernard, the Chief CFI, refused to rent him the 172. I have instructed many years. I have soloed students in 172's when i had 300 hours as a CFI. How anyone could not control a 172 at 600TT and a Commercial is beyond me. Flight Schools keep going till you "get it" if you are a bit rusty, and then rent you the plane. They are in business to make money after all. .right? The Chief CFI basically refused any further lessons and basically told him to get lost.
This is the kind of detail that sends "truthers" into theories involving cruise missiles and detonation charges. In three examples, we have not one, not two, but three amazing flying demonstrations supposedly executed by people with no observed skill for flying or previous experience.
Here, we need to clarify what happens when one goes to "flight school."
Flight schools are really nothing like driving schools. Yes, there is bookwork and lots of tests. Yes, there are practical exercises . . . but not exercises that take place in an actual jetliner. Why? 757s are incredibly expensive to fly. The fuel alone would eat up thousands of dollars per hour of flight, an expense very few can afford to make. That's why, when it comes to pilots rated to fly big jets, most are commercial pilots who work their way up the airline system. Those that don't are frickin' loaded with cash.
He only managed to get his 747 endorsement after Pulp Fiction
revitalized his career and bank account.
So what does flight school offer? Training to take tests, mostly. These tests are like the written test at the DMV when you apply for a car driver's license. If you don't pass the written, you don't get to sit with an examiner and drive around for the practical. These FAA mandated airline tests are far, far more involved than simple car tests, which is why they had to be at flight school for months before the hijackings. I've taken similar tests when I got my Inland Master ticket from the Coast Guard. I studied on my own, but having spent 7 years in college, I knew my way around tests.
If the studying hijackers were lucky, the flight schools might have had flight simulators. The nice ones control flight with more than a keyboard and mouse, using instead full instrument panels and "active" controls that affect the enormous (but low-res) displays. Still, simulator time is highly prized in these schools. One cannot just "play" flying the jet into the building unsupervised until one gets it right. Schools take their expensive training aides very seriously.
No, one leaves these schools with some practical skills, like a license to fly small prop planes like the 172 mentioned above and endorsements that allow one to get a job with an airline . . . flying as co-pilot. In this way, the system works very similar to the Coast Guard ratings and licensing scheme with which I am familiar. If you can convince an employer to hire you, you get to sit in the right-hand seat and log hours. In that seat, you learn from someone with more experience, the captain, about everything you need to know about that particular plane. If you do well, you can take a test, show your flight log, and upgrade your license to become a pilot -- again, of that particular plane, the one you were hired to fly as co-pilot.
If you want to upgrade further, you get to do the whole thing over again for each upgraded license. That's why young jet pilots are frickin' rare -- this process takes years.
So with this in mind, let's return to our now-dead hijackers. One dead center strike to either Tower I could accept from a novice pilot as a fluke. Two? That's an anomaly. Once I learned from Seymour that the barrel rolls were necessary, and later discovered how accurately both pilots had been executing those rolls, the anomalous grew very suspicious. And the Pentagon hit? That sealed the deal. I'm sorry, but without many, many hours of seat and stick time in very similar planes, that maneuver just could not have happened as it did.
So, what did happen?
I suspect ALS.
I've delayed writing this installment simply because I've been looking for more information on this. I heard about it from a friend. I know, I know, you probably need more information than the old "just a friend" ruse for this information to be taken seriously. That's the problem. The more I looked into it for confirmation on the web at least, the more I couldn't find it. That's when I suspect my friend was sharing less than freely available information, if you know what I mean. Hell, this is probably classified, though any technology featured in the NBC faux-spy show Chuck can't be all that secret.
Ah, so how did my friend get this information? Simple! He served in the US Navy as a fighter jet technician on an aircraft carrier, and later leveraged that experience to work at Boeing as an assembly worker. He worked on planes equipped with ALS.
The theory behind ALS, or Automated Landing System, is simple. It (again, according to a friend) started as ACLS, or Automated Carrier Landing System. Let's say a fighter pilot has been in a dogfight, or freaks out, or passes out from the Gees he's pulled and blown a blood vessel. In a less technological time, he would have been a dead man, unable to land on the aircraft carrier and get the medical help he needs. If someone qualified to fly his plane could take over the controls and bring the fighter in safely, the pilot (and, of course, plane) could be saved. ACLS is essentially remote controlled plane flying activated from the Mother Ship.
ALS is similar, but installed on more modern passenger planes. I guess someone saw Airplane! one time too many. Should the entire cockpit crew become incapacitated after eating the fish, the plane can be flown remotely and landed.
If true, this detail could answer more than one question about the specifics of the day. For example, has anyone else wondered why all the flights hijacked that day were 757-200s? These plane models are dwarfed by the 747, MD-80 or larger Airbuses that undoubtedly flew that day, probably from the same airports. An impact from a 747 would probably bring down those towers quite a bit faster, both from added mass and added fuel for the subsequent fire. The answer could be simple: the larger planes are also older planes, and thus are most probably not equipped with ALS.
Though he does not name the ALS in Rubicon, Michael Ruppert does acknowledge its importance and provides some speculative insights based upon technical requirements for the system to work.
One final detail: What was known or unknown by each of the hijacking participants on that day remains speculative. Some maintain that a majority of the hijackers didn't know theirs was a suicide mission. That's probable, in my eye. It removes quite a few variables from the perspective of the mission planners. The ALS detail, though, adds a startling dimension -- none of the hijackers need have known the planes would be used as missiles. All they needed was a false mission, perhaps four (or five) standard hijacking and ransom demands in unison that would bring the Great Satan's air traffic to a grinding halt. As part of that mission, they just needed to take over the cockpit . . . and fail to deactivate, or even report over the airwaves, an ALS remote takeover.
Automated Landing System answers all of those nagging questions about the inconsistency between the hijackers' minimal flight training and essentially zero cockpit experience and the remarkable Top Gun airmanship displayed that day. The fact that it is all but unknown to most -- including, until very recently, myself -- ensures, sadly, that the ever-more complex web of imaginings involving remote detonations, mystery missiles, and (most galling to me personally) disappearances of entire aircraft and their passengers will continue to be spun, cobwebbing with sticky fiction any rational discussion of this topic already so fraught will emotional peril.
*NB: All of the Duck Captains had us some silly names. I worked as Captain Ed Nauseum for a time, which I loved, until the boss 86-ed it for being "too cerebral." Captain Artie R. Arre was likewise scrapped. After that it was Captain Bill Loney. I still have the name tag . . . somewhere.