Clueless Fools

The 9-11 Report is as sobering as it is disgusting. If you still held any respect of appreciation for the authorities overseeing our airways before reading it, I can guarantee you won't afterward.

Several FAA air traffic control officials told us it was the air carriers’ responsibility
to notify their planes of security problems. One senior FAA air traffic
control manager said that it was simply not the FAA’s place to order the airlines
what to tell their pilots. We believe such statements do not reflect an
adequate appreciation of the FAA’s responsibility for the safety and security of
civil aviation.

The airlines bore responsibility, too.They were facing an escalating number
of conflicting and, for the most part, erroneous reports about other flights, as
well as a continuing lack of vital information from the FAA about the hijacked
flights.We found no evidence, however, that American Airlines sent any cockpit
warnings to its aircraft on 9/11. United’s first decisive action to notify its
airborne aircraft to take defensive action did not come until 9:19, when a
United flight dispatcher, Ed Ballinger, took the initiative to begin transmitting
warnings to his 16 transcontinental flights: “Beware any cockpit intrusion—
Two a/c [aircraft] hit World Trade Center.” One of the flights that received
the warning was United 93. Because Ballinger was still responsible for his
other flights as well as Flight 175, his warning message was not transmitted to
Flight 93 until 9:23.

Shame on them all. Whatever punishment the marketplace hands to United and American is not strong enough.