The difficulties of hitting a building at 500 mph

by Elias Davidsson

John Lear, a retired commercial airline pilot with over 19,000+ total hours flown in over 100 different types of planes for 10 different airlines in 60 different countries around the world, doubted that even a professional pilot could fly into the World Trade Center at 500 miles an hour.¹ He said in an interview with Rob Balsamo, himself a pilot:

[N]o Arab hijacker, ever in a million years, ever flew into the World Trade Center.  And if you got 30 minutes I’ll tell you exactly why he couldn’t do it the first time.  Now, I’d have trouble doing it the first time…Maybe if I had a couple tries to line up a few building, I could have done it.  But certainly not the first time and certainly not at 500 or 600 miles an hour.²

Rob Balsamo then added:

Yeah, as a matter of fact, one of our members [Pilots for 9/11 Truth³], he was a 737 Check Airman.  He was in the sim at the time on September 11 and right after it happened they tried to duplicate it in the simulator and they said they couldn’t do it.  They were trying to hit the Towers and they couldn’t do it.⁴

Capt. Russ Wittenberg, a retired commercial pilot who flew for Pan Am and United Airlines for 35 years on most commercial aircraft said:

I don’t believe it’s possible for (…) a so-called terrorist to train on a [Cessna] 172, then jump in a cockpit of a 757-767 class cockpit, and vertical navigate the aircraft, lateral navigate the aircraft, and fly the airplane at speeds exceeding it’s design limit speed by over 100 knots, make high-speed high-banked turns, exceeding – pulling probably 5, 6, 7 G’s. And the aircraft would literally fall out of the sky. I couldn’t do it and I’m absolutely positive they couldn’t do it.⁵

Commander Ralph Kolstad, retired commercial airline captain with 27 years experience on most commercial aircraft said:

I was also a Navy fighter pilot and Air Combat Instructor, U.S. Navy Fighter Weapons School and have experience flying low altitude, high speed aircraft.  I could not have done what these beginners [apparently] did. Something stinks to high heaven!⁶

Gaffney (p. 199-200) reports the remarkable story of a flight instructor named Dan Govatos, who was  on  9/11 training a class on a Boeing 737 flight simulator.  The next morning Govatos said, “Hey, guys, let’s try something. Let’s see if we can hit those buildings [the WTC]. Like we saw happen.”  So they all took turns trying to crash the Boeing 737 into the WTC.  They all had many years flight experience, but none of them could do it, not even after ten high-speed runs at the building.  They only succeeded to hit the building when slowing down to near-landing speeds.  During the radio interview Govatos explained why his pilots had failed to replicate the impacts at the WTC:

You’ve to understand, when you’re going 300 knots in a Boeing airliner and you move the controls like you would expect to do in a little airplane, you couldn’t stand the “G” forces. Everything has to be fingertip control. Even pilots who have logged thousands of hours of flight time have an extremely difficult time controlling a large airplane at those speeds.

 

END

1  According to NIST (Final Report) p. 9, the aircraft hit the North Tower at the speed of 466 mph. ±34 mph, while the other aircraft hit the South Tower at 542 ±24 mph. (NIST, NCSTAR p. 24)

2 http://www.patriotsquestion911.com/pilots.html

3 Pilots for 9/11 Truth is an organization of aviation professionals and pilots throughout the globe who have gathered together for one purpose. We are committed to seeking the truth surrounding the events of the 11th of September 2001. The organization’s website is: http://pilotsfor911truth.org/

4 Ibid.

5Statement by Capt. Russ Wittenberg, U.S. Air Force, August 2007. At http://www.patriotsquestion911.com/pilots.html (last visited 2.9.2011)

6Statement by Commander Ralph Kolstad (US Navy (ret)), August 20, 2007, at http://www.patriotsquestion911.com/Statement%20Kolstad2.html (last visited 2.9.2011)