In this section I will attempt to stick to the facts that I know, the facts that I wish to learn more about, and to not highlight too much of the political aspect of many of the stories I've read regarding this fateful day.
There is still, now 14 years later, a lot of mystery surrounding these horrific attacks, but there is also a lot of science, and physics in particular, to apply. I've taken my questions regarding the physics that came into play that day to various forums, but no one seems to want to respond to it.
Are my questions maybe TOO controversial? You decide.

And by all means, don't be shy to share your views via the Contact page of this website.
 

Do you know how people always ask you if you remember where you were at the time a specific event was taking place?

Well I remember September 11, 2001 very very well.

It was a Tuesday and I was home. I had the week off from work. It had to have been around 2:55 pm here in Holland. I had just woken up from an online all-nighter with my friends in the flight simulation community, so I decided to turn on the tv and check the news while the computer booted up. (ah, that rickety ole Pentium 4 running FS9 on Win98 ... good times!)

The very first image that appeared on the tv was of a tall skyscraper on fire. I recognized it. It was one of the Twin Towers in New York City. Who doesn’t recognize them? Heck, 11 months earlier I filmed them as I landed at Newark International.

I quickly switched to CNN, hoping their coverage would be better to listen to than this Dutch babbling.

So I sat down on the couch, mesmerized by what was going on … you hardly ever see stuff like this, so this was interesting.

And I’m a guy who never watches the news.

I ran to the kitchen and got myself a cup of coffee, then pressed enter on the keyboard of the computer so it could continue booting (it had performed some kind of update), and then I sat down again.

That’s when the horror unfolded right before my eyes.

I can’t remember ever being THIS shocked before in my life.

I remember thinking “What the hell is that? Is that a bird? No, it looks more like a plane. A pretty big one. How blind is this pilot that he can’t see this huge pile of smoke? He’s turning towards it? What? What’s he doing? He’s …. he’s …. FUCK!!!”

That was 9:03 am in Manhattan, and 3:03 pm in Amsterdam.

 

It was obvious right that second what had happened to the first building. That cannot be a coincidence!

There’s no such thing as coincidences like that.

I stared at the tv for a few more minutes, just in absolute disbelief at the making of history I had just witnessed, then took place behind the computer and started taking notes of what I had just seen.

It was going to be another all-nighter. Of course I had multiple windows open; my document, our flight sim newsgroup, CNN.com, airliners.net, airdisaster.com, and Google.com. The first messages appeared in our newsgroup, as well as in the airliners.net forum.

And we were all thinking the same thing: how could this be happening?

How do you hijack two airplanes and fly them into the Twin Towers?

Time was really flying now, since I was so busy trying to keep up with everything. Taking note after note after note.

I still smoked back then, and I was smoking a lot. I was nervous.

Suddenly there was a report of another crash. In Washington DC. The White House? No. The Pentagon!

Wait! What? How the hell did that happen?

Isn’t Washington DC the most protected airspace in the United States?

 

Okay, so now there is mass confusion on top of mass confusion. Both on CNN and online.

Everyone had questions and no one had answers.

I couldn’t rely on information from CNN, just the images they showed, so I turned my attention to the forum and the newsgroup I had on my computer screen. And the first data started coming in; ATC information regarding the first two planes.

You see, in our little community we like to keep our ears open to air traffic control. There is a lot of stuff to be heard out there.

And there happened to be a few ‘simmers’ online who were in the New York and Boston areas.

Two flight numbers were repeatedly mentioned: American Airlines flight 11 and United Airlines flight 175.

They both departed Boston Logan and were both en route to Los Angeles LAX.

They also both stopped transmitting, and apparently both flew with transponders off.

 

If an aircraft is hijacked and the pilots of the airliner are still in control, they can dial in 7500 on the transponder, which is also known as a ‘squawk code’. The ATC then receives that code and knows there is a hijack in progress aboard that plane.

Every aircraft in touch with ATC is assigned their own squawk code to make them easier to identify on radar.

Once they are assigned this code, they are told by ATC to “squawk ident”, which means ‘activate your transponder code’.

The ident button is a little button often marked with ID on the transponder unit.

There really shouldn’t be an OFF position on the transponder, but that’s just my 2 cents.

Since there was no 7500 sent to ATC, and since a voice making demands transmitted on the frequency, the Boston ATC quickly assessed they were dealing with a hijacked aircraft. And that the pilots were no longer in full control of that aircraft.

Pilots of other flights, who were on the same frequency, heard the same threats transmitted also.

 

Then there was news that a fourth airfraft was non-responsive and had gone invisible.

Yeah, this wasn’t over yet!

Where the hell is this one going to end up?

A new post appeared in the forum “all flights in the US suspended from take off, all flights grounded, all flights ordered to land at nearest or alternate airport.”

The South Tower, which was the second tower to get hit, collapses live on CNN. Nearly 2 minutes later a report came in on the forum that the fourth aircraft, United Airlines flight 93, had crashed somewhere in Pennsylvania. It was at this time that I also learned that the aircraft that hit the Pentagon was American Airlines flight 77.

So two AA and two UA birds? Okay. Nothing too weird there.

And now the speculation slowly began. Where was United 93 being flown to? What was its target? And is that even important right now? Many lives are lost! Security has been severely breached! History was in the process of being made and everyone was witness to it.

This thing was HUGE.

 

It took me a few days to put all my notes in the correct order, and piece the big picture together. But it took a few more weeks for the first videos and ATC recordings to find our community. But when they did … we went to work. All of us.

Flying was out. We had basically grounded ourselves and dove into this with the FAA, the NTSB, the FBI and everyone else who was investigating what had happened on the 11th.

I started by listing the following:

 

8:46 am

American Airlines Flight 11, Boeing 767 – origin Boston Logon, destination LAX

Crashed into WTC 1 at 8:46 am

 

9:03 am

United Airlines Flight 175, Boeing 767 – origin Boston Logon, destination LAX

Crashed into WTC 2 at 9:03 am

 

9:37 am

American Airlines Flight 77, Boeing 757 – origin Washington Dulles, destination LAX

Crashed into Pentagon at 9:37 am

 

9:59 am

WTC 2 collapses

 

10:03 am

United Airlines Flight 93, Boeing 757 – origin Newark Liberty, destination San Francisco International

Crashed into a field in Somerset County, Pennsylvania at 10:03 am

 

10:28 am

WTC 1 collapses

 

5:20 pm

WTC 7 collapses

 

 

These were the seven events that stood out the most for me at the time.

Pretty intense, right?

 

Despite all of the above, there are still plenty of sceptics who thoroughly believe that there we no planes used in these attacks.

Well if you follow me to the next page (by clicking the United Airlines flight 175 button below), I'll attempt to put them in their place.