Flight UA 175 flew past crash time
(a) ACARS messages
According to the official account (the 9/11 Commission), flight UA 175 crashed on the South Tower of the WTC at 9:03. Four minutes before the alleged crash time of UA 175, Jerry Tsen sent the following ACARS message to flight UA 175 (tail number N612UA): “I heard of a reported incident aboard your acft PlZ verify all is normal…” The message was routed to the aircraft via ground station MDT (Harrisburg International Airport, also known as Middleton), located approximately 170 miles from New York City. Four minutes later, at 9:03, when UA 175 was supposed to have crashed on the South Tower, Edward Ballinger sent another ACARS message to Flight 175, inquiring “How is the ride. Anything dispatch can do for you.” That message was also routed via MDT.
ACARS messages are routed by the RGS that prompts the strongest signal from the aircraft. Numerous ground stations nearer to New York City would have routed these messages, had the aircraft been nearing the city. There is no apparent reason why these ACARS messages were routed to the aircraft via MDT, unless that ground station was the nearest one to the aircraft. Ballinger stated that he received no response from to his message of 9:03.1 This does not mean, however, that the message was not transmitted to and received by the aircraft. Ballinger stated that “the ACARS messages have two times listed: the time sent and the time received” and that “once he sends the message it is delivered to the addressed aircraft through ARINC immediately.”2
At 9:23 a.m. Ballinger transmitted a “cockpit intrusion” ACARS message (identical to the previous one) to several flights, including UA 175. That message was routed to the aircraft via ground station PIT (Pittsburgh International Airport). PIT is located approximately 350 miles from New York City. The signal received from the aircraft by the PIT ground station (as part of the “handshake” protocol) was thus stronger than that received by MDT (Harrisburg). It follows that the aircraft, after passing near Harrisburg, continued westwards and was located in the vicinity of Pittsburgh at 9:23. Hence, it did not crash on the South Tower of the WTC.
A detailed and easy-to-follow analysis of the ACARS messages sent to flight UA 175 was posted on the website of Pilots for 9/11 Truth.
It is surprising that at the time the FBI interviewed Edward Ballinger—in January 2002—the FBI agent apparently failed to request from him the ACARS log. Ballinger said in that interview that 20 minutes after the crash on the South Tower of the WTC (attributed to flight UA 175), he still was not aware that flight UA 175 had been hijacked. It appears from that interview, from a media interview and from an interview with the staff of the 9/11 Commission, that for some reason Ballinger was kept in the dark about the aircraft for which he was responsible.
He was forced to retire from United Airlines on October 31, 2001, and was put on total disability by a psychiatrist of the Social Security Administration.
(b) RITA
According to the RITA database of the Department of Transportation, flight UA 175 took off from Logan airport, Boston, at 8:23 a.m. (wheels-off time) whereas according to the 9/11 Commission, the aircraft pushed back from the gate at 7:58 and took off at 8:14 a.m. According to the NTSB flight path study of flight UA 175 a radical change of flight path occurred between 8:51 and 8:56, essentially a 180¡ turn; and the aircraft descended from 25,000 feet at 8:58 to 1,000 feet at 9:03 (crash time), with the last 8,000 feet descended in one minute.
The last 60 miles of the flight were thus flown in approximately 4’40” minutes, putting the average speed for this segment at 774 mph., which is above Mach 1. Setting aside the fact that a Boeing 767-200 is not able to fly at such speed without compromising its structural integrity, we note that none of the phone callers from flight UA 175 mentioned the radical turn made between 8:51 and 8:56 and the steep descent of the aircraft. Peter Hanson and Brian Sweeney talked to their families when their aircraft was supposedly descending at almost 6,000 feet per minute (or 100 feet per second) without mentioning the descent.
The conclusion is inescapable: The aircraft that crashed into WTC (south) was not UA Flight 175 carrying passengers and crew.
(Note: Brian Sweeney's phone call link below) Note the absence of typical airplane noise, no other passengers can be heard. Also note the inescapable feeling that he is reading from or improvising from a script. He might very well have been calling from UA 175, but on the ground, possibly with its engines running but idle.