From the excellent book "Hijacking America's Mind on 9/11: Counterfitting Evidence"
(B) ACARS
Edward Ballinger was on September 11, 2001, the flight dispatcher in command for all 16 United Airlines’ East Coast to West Coast flights, including flights UA175 and UA93. A document from the 9/11 Commission released in 2009 contains the log of so-called ACARS messages sent on the morning of 9/11 by Ballinger to numerous United Airlines aircraft, warning the pilots of cockpit intrusion.4
ACARS, the acronym for Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System, is a digital datalink system for transmission of short, relatively simple messages between aircraft and ground stations via radio or satellite.5 A network of VHF ground radio stations ensure that aircraft can communicate with ground end systems in real-time. VHF communication is line-of-sight and provides communication with ground-based transceivers (often referred to as Remote Ground Stations or RGSs). The typical range is dependent on altitude, with a maximal 200-mile transmission range common at high altitudes. Remote ground stations (RGS) are located throughout the United States.
Sending an ACARS message can be done in two ways: “either as a bell that chimes to let the flight deck know they have an electronic message on the screen or as a hard message that automatically prints at a console in between the pilot and first officer’s seats.”1
Michael J. Winter, an official of United Airlines, was interviewed by the FBI on January 28, 2002. He explained that ACARS uses radio ground stations (RGS) at various locations throughout the United States for communication. The messages from the aircraft utilize the RGS in a downlink operating system. A central router determines the strongest signal received from the aircraft and routes the signal/message to UAL flight dispatch.
Michael J. Winter then commented upon the various ACARS messages sent from and to the aircraft designated as flight UA93 and indicated which radio ground stations were selected by the central router to communicate with the aircraft.
The ACARS log provides, among other information, the following relevant items: Sending time (day-of-month and exact universal time3) Aircraft registration number Three-letter code of the radio ground station (RGS) Flight number Departure and destination airports (three-letter codes) Text of message Name of sender Reception time in aircraft (month-and-day and universal time)
Reception time in aircraft (month-and-day and universal time) Ballinger stated that “the ACARS messages have two times listed: the time sent and the time received.” He also stated that “once he sends the message it is delivered to the addressed aircraft through ARINC immediately. He is not aware of any delay in the aircraft receiving the message after he sends it.”4 The reception time allows the sender to ascertain that the message had been duly received by the devices aboard the aircraft.
The three-letter RGS code allows the approximate reconstruction of where the aircraft was located at the time the message was transmitted. As can be ascertained from the aforementioned log, ACARS messages were transmitted by Ed Ballinger to aircraft N591UA (which was assigned to Flight UA93) via the following radio ground stations (RGS) at the following times1:
Times of ACARS messages for UA93:
Transmitted to the aircraft via the radio ground station at:
Michael Winter confirmed that ACARS messages were transmitted to flight UA93 in the above sequence via the aforementioned ground stations.2 David Knerr, Manager, Dispatch Automation at United Airlines, attended the interview. The above timeline indicates that the last successful ACARS transmission to flight UA93 occurred at 10:10 via the remote ground station CMI located at Willard Airport near Champaign (IL), that is, seven minutes after that aircraft had allegedly crashed near Shanksville, PA, nearly 500 miles away!
(C) Testimony of Col. Robert Barr
Col. Robert Marr told the 9/11 Commission Staff in 2003 that “his focus [on 9/11] was on [flight] UAL93, which was circling over Chicago.”3 Col. Marr did not specify when exactly the flight circled “over Chicago.” His statement, however, provided independent confirmation that flight UA93 was noticed in the vicinity of Chicago. It could have been flying towards Chicago from a point triggering a link to the ground station at Fort Wayne, triggering on the way a link to the ground station in Champaign. This testimony undermines the official flight path of UA93.
(D) Phone call retransmissions
A further document independently confirms that Flight UA93 was proceeding westwards towards Indiana and did not crash at Somerset County. This document lists the Radio Base Stations (RBS) which transmitted phone calls from Flight UA93 to ground recipients. That document was comprised of a set of 28 pages forwarded by the Department of Justice to the 9/11 Commission “that describe cell phone and air phone calls placed by passengers and crew aboard flights American Airlines Flight No. 11, American Airlines Flight No. 77, United Airlines Flight No. 175, and United Airlines Flight No. 93 on September 11, 2001.”
The list of phone calls from Flight UA93 found in this document includes the codes of the Radio Base Stations (RBS) through which these calls were transmitted. The calls are listed in chronological order, beginning with a call by Thomas Burnett made at 8:30:32 (Indiana Standard Time), i.e. at 9:30:32 (EST). That call was transmitted by a Radio Base Station (RBS) at Fort Wayne (Indiana), while subsequent calls were transmitted by Radio Base Stations at Belleville (IL) and Columbus (IL). The software of the network operating the RBS’s determines on the base of the aircraft’s heading and other parameters the ground station that would establish the connection and allow the longest connect time with that particular station before handing the call to the next station.
This information is corroborated in a document of the 9/11 Commission released by the National Archives. According to a 9/11 Commission Memorandum For the Record, “[t]wo [phone] calls [from UA93] occurred when the plane was in the Central Time Zone.”2 The Central Time Zone begins nearly 400 miles from the westernmost point that flight UA93 had reached according to the official flight path. Champaign is in fact located within the Central Time Zone.
We have thus three official and independent sources indicating that the aircraft designated as Flight UA93 and carrying passengers, was last located at 10:10 (EST) in the vicinity of, or heading towards, Champaign (IL). On the base of this information, it is possible to trace the approximate flight path of the real flight UA93: It passed near Pittsburgh at 9:21, near Akron (Ohio) at 9:31, slightly changed direction to North-West, flying south past Elyria (Ohio) as if it were heading to Toledo, then veered again slightly southwards as if flying to Lima (Ohio) but heading towards Fort Wayne, which it passed around 9:51 and vanished somewhere near Champaign (IL) at 10:10.
If any aircraft crashed at Somerset County (PA), it was certainly not flight UA93. The official legend of UA93 is thereby null and void.
Book Link (free pdf) https://www.dropbox.com/s/o5lcdt9kno0h33t/Elias%20Davidsson%20-%20Hijacking%20America's%20Mind%20%282013%29.pdf?dl=0