Quote:
Originally Posted by scottybuzz
i live near many airbases and the only time they have weapons on board is when they go to war. Other than that they flight without weapons so it does not seem absurd at all. I know this as I have friends who work there.
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QFT.
I was in a Navy aviation squadron that had tactical nuclear weapons, and we sure as hell didn't fly around with them armed all the time, especially not at our home base in the US.
Whenever we were at high alert, we had to patrol our aircraft in the hangars and on the tarmac with shotguns loaded with pellets, in order to not pierce our own aircraft fuselage skin in case we had to fire (and these were reinforced military aircraft, not a civilian passenger liner).
There is a possibility that the National Guard pilots could have brought the aircraft down with the "bullets" they had on board (hint: they are slightly bigger than the bullets in handguns). I'm guessing this would have been attempted before smashing into the aircraft if they were over a relatively unpopulated area.
A reason to scramble the first two jets without air-to-air missiles immediately is to at least have some means to take out the hijacked aircraft while the other aircraft were being armed. If the other two aircraft with missiles could have been scrambled in time, I'm sure they would have taken the shot.
A salient point overlooked by the conspiracy theorists that claim the hijacked jet was shot down by a US military aircraft (and hence this is all a cover-up), is that what the whole story above underscores, is that indeed we would have taken down the hijacked aircraft if the brave passengers on flight #93 had not first sacrificed themselves, and for the same reason - in order to spare the nation further carnage. Basically, there was nothing to cover up there.
We can armchair quarterback this to death, but I would guess that post-9/11, there are intercept aircraft which are armed with air-to-air missiles 24/7/365 near DC.
Also, in case you weren't aware, there are surface to air defenses covering Washington DC.
ADG