NORAD- Shoot Down Training for Hijacked Planes

Re-Scripting the "Incompetence" before 9/11:

US pilots trained to shoot down hijacked planes

Independent -04 October 2003

American air force pilots regularly practise "shooting down" hijacked airliners, the Pentagon has revealed. In some of the exercises - carried out three or four times a week - volunteers are packed into rented aircraft which are then "hijacked" and pursued by the fighter planes.

"We exercise this several times a week whether it's an airplane shooting down an airplane or air defences in the national capital area," said General Ralph Eberhart, head of the North American Aerospace Defence Command (Norad).

"After September 11 it became obvious that this was a new world, even uglier than we had imagined."

Defence experts have paid great attention to preventing a repeat of the 11 September attacks on New York and Washington. In the hours after the attacks, President George Bush authorised the shooting down of any more airliners that appeared to have been hijacked and were threatening targets and refused commands to turn back.

Indeed, on 11 September fighters jets were scrambled over Washington and New York to pursue the fourth hijacked plane but it crashed in Pennsylvania - apparently after the hijackers were attacked by the passengers - before it could be intercepted.

...The decision to shoot down a civilian aircraft lies ultimately with President Bush but he has authorised two mid-ranking air force generals to issue such an order in the event that he, the Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld or General Eberhart were out of contact and an attack was considered imminent.

In one exercise carried out in June last year, Norad - responsible for the air defences of the US mainland - hired a Delta 757 airliner and its crew, filled it with military volunteer passengers and staged a mock hijacking over the north-west of the US which then went into Canada and Alaska. Fighters followed the plane. The operation was monitored from Norad'sheadquarters in Colorado.

"I can guarantee that fighter pilots, they're thinking about it, and going through all the rules of engagement," General Eberhart said in comments published by The New York Times. "When you know that what you're about to shoot down has a lot of innocent people on board, and maybe one, two, three or a handful of terrorists, that's a much different thing."

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printed from NORAD- Shoot Down Training for Hijacked Planes on 2004-06-03 15:15:36