re: Where were you on 9/11/01?

Posted on 9/11/15 at 11:33 am to NoHoTiger

Posted by RogerTheShrubber

Juneau, AK

Member since Jan 2009

298305 posts

Posted on 9/11/15 at 11:33 am to NoHoTiger

quote:
I worked at a hospital in the Houston Medical Center. It was so weird to look up and see no planes in the sky, hear very little chatter and laughter in the halls, and seeing people just trying to get through the day and back home to their families.

I drove in to Anchorage later that day. I lived about 55 miles away, and they had downtown closed off. It was the must surreal thing I had seen in a while. Apparently due to a miscommunication, a KAL plane coming to Anchorage told ATC they had been hijacked. They shut the main core of the city down, and diverted the plane to Whitehorse, YT.

Both American and Canadian authorities authorized the plane to be shot down. Fortunately it wasn't.

LINK

quote:
ATC instructed the flight to change its transponder code to 7500, the universal signal for hijack, expecting that, if they had not been hijacked, the pilots would respond to that effect. Instead, they simply complied with the instruction, which ATC took as confirmation that the flight had indeed been hijacked.[2][4] Worried that a possible hijacked plane might strike a target in Alaska, Governor Tony Knowles ordered the evacuation of large hotels and government buildings in Anchorage. At nearby Valdez, (also in Alaska), the U.S. Coast Guard ordered all tankers filling up with oil to head out to sea. Lt. Gen. Norton Schwartz, who was in charge of the NORAD planes that scrambled to shadow Flight 85, told reporters in 2001 that he was prepared to order the South Korean airplane to be shot down before it could attack a target in Alaska.[1]

With NORAD telling Anchorage ATC that it would shoot down the airliner if it came near any potential targets, these controllers informed Flight 85 to avoid all population centers and head out of the country to Whitehorse, Yukon. NORAD promptly called Canadian authorities seeking the go-ahead to shoot the plane down over Canada:

"I said, 'Yes, if you think they are terrorists, you call me again but be ready to shoot them down.' So I authorized it in principle, It's kind of scary that... [there is] this plane with hundreds of people and you have to call a decision like that.... But you prepare yourself for that. I thought about it -- you know that you will have to make decisions at times that will [be] upsetting you for the rest of your life".
—2001 Prime Minister Jean Chrétien[3]

Ninety minutes after the South Korean pilots changed their transponder signal to the 7500 hijacked code, the plane landed safely in Whitehorse. Canadian officials evacuated all schools and large buildings before the plane landed.[5] On the tarmac, Flight 85 was greeted by armed Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers who, after interrogating the pilots, learned the whole ordeal was caused by a translation error.[5] The South Korean pilot stated that he had been ordered by Air Traffic Control to change the transponder signal and Air Traffic Control confirmed having done so.