It has been reported that American Airlines Flight 77 departed Washington Dulles International Airport at approximately 08:20 AM on the morning of September 11, 2001 allegedly from Terminal Concourse D Gate 26 (1). However, the Flight Data Recorder positional data provided by the National Transportation Safety Board tells a very different story.
The below illustration is a diagram of Dulles Concourse D and their respective gates. It shows Gate D26 on the southwest corner of the terminal.
Below is the raw lat/long plot based on the information as seen in the raw Flight Data Recorder file provided by the NTSB. As you can see there is an offset from the runway during departure. This is due to navigational errors associated with the device involved, called an Inertial Navigation System or INS.
Color Coding is recognized as:
Green P9-P0 is night before engine off
Red M1 is at the Terminal
Yellow M2 is backed out and start of Taxi
Red M3 is Radio Alt 3 Feet, 1st indication of lift off
(Update to color coding - It appears the Red M1 is the engine start after pushback, and the yellow M2 is forward movement into a turn for start of taxi. Click here for more details.)
After adjusting a Lat/Long offset based on drift prone to the navigational equipment utilized, the positional data has the aircraft departing a gate further east of Gate D26 and on the north side of the Concourse.
(update: We have had a complaint that the above photo with overlay could be inaccurate due to different Eye Altitudes when screenshot was overlayed.
Click here for explanation and new photograph with same Elevation and Eye altitude figures. Nothing changes.)
On closer inspection....
Once again the data being offered by government agencies do not support their theories.
Is this a possible aircraft swap before they even left the ground? Pilots For 9/11 Truth discover evidence of possible airborne aircraft swaps as well in their latest release "9/11: Intercepted". In almost 10 years since the attacks of 9/11, there hasn't been any evidence offered thus far which supports the government version of events, nor evidence linking their data to their reported allegations.
Founded in August 2006, Pilots For 9/11 Truth is a growing organization of aviation professionals from around the globe. The organization has analyzed Data provided by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) for the Pentagon Attack, the events in Shanksville, PA and the World Trade Center Attack. The data does not support the government story. The NTSB/FBI refuse to comment. Pilots For 9/11 Truth do not offer theory or point blame at this point in time. However, there is a growing mountain of conflicting information and data in which government agencies and officials refuse to acknowledge. Pilots For 9/11 Truth Core member list continues to grow.
(1) Hat tip to forum member Jan "tume" Zelman - See here for full discussion and sources. http://pilotsfor911truth.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=21125