Kentucky to Washington D.C. — in half an hour?
“However, when Baxter and fellow instructor Ben Conner took the slender, soft-spoken Hanjour on three test runs during the second week of August, they found he had trouble controlling and landing the single-engine Cessna 172. Even though Hanjour showed a federal pilot’s license and a log book cataloging 600 hours of flying experience, chief flight instructor Marcel Bernard declined to rent him a plane without more lessons.”
— Newsday,23 September 2001
The cockpit of a 757 (Photo: intercontal.com).
Timeline of Flight 77’s alleged return to Washington D.C.:
8:52: a.m. – Last normal communication with AA77 ends. In the next 4 minutes the hijackers need to commandeer the aircraft away from the two pilots. There is absolutely no evidence of any struggle noted by the controllers. No “7-5-0-0” distress messages either. Somehow both pilots were incapacitated and the rookie Hani Hanjour, gets the pilots body out of the seat, and then straps himself in. The first-timer quickly gets acquainted with the big jet and then turns off the transponder. All that, in fewer than 4 minutes, wow!
8:56: a.m. – Transponder data lost to Indianapolis controller, Flight 77 goes coast track. Meanwhile, Hani Hanjour, who has had problems with flying small planes, now manages to smoothly turn the 757 around.
9:00 a.m. (roughly) – The 757 now heads back, with perfect navigation, to Washington D.C. (about 300 miles away).
9:30: a.m. – Washington Dulles Airport controllers’ spot unidentified aircraft 5 miles out (Other claims are 12-14 miles out.). Later, the aircraft conducts a “330 degree turn.”
9:31: a.m. – Probable time of Pentagon attack based on evidence (See next chapter).
9:37: a.m. – Official time of Pentagon attack.
Here is AA77’s proposed path back to Washington D.C.
(Image: team8plus.org).
Analysis of the return flight:
The portion of the flight path, from Kentucky, (near the Lawrence County Airport) to Washington D.C. is roughly 300 miles; it was done in about 30 minutes time. Therefore, Flight 77 would have had to be speeding along at about 600 mph! That’s about 100 mph faster than Dulles radar controllers saw it traveling! The fastest estimates of the unidentified aircraft were 500 mph. (others were 400 – 480 mph) The absolute maximum cruising speed of a 757 is 568mph at 30,000 ft., (low altitudes can dramatically reduce speed) so it was traveling at more than its maximum speed! This also, speculates that perfect navigation was utilized.
It was completely impossible for Flight 77 to fly from Kentucky to the Pentagon in the allocated time! Even with perfect flying skills.