Second Edition: A wargame codenamed "Delta 89" - by Woody Box

Elaine went to work at the Cleveland Hopkins Airport office of the Federal Aviation Administration. A little before 9:00 a.m. my boss said he heard something on the news about an airplane hitting a building in New York. There was a television on downstairs. We went to the basement and watched the terrible news. About 10:30 Elaine came in and told me there was an airplane sixty miles away headed toward Cleveland. The air traffic controllers in the Hopkins tower could hear yelling and fighting on the cockpit. Elaine's boss had told her to go home.

Confirmed by FAA: United flight (unknown #) diverted to Cleveland (?) with possible bomb-threat on board.

9:27, Boston FAA reports a fifth aircraft missing, Delta Flight 89 -- and many people have never heard of Delta Flight 89. We call that the first red herring of the day, because there were a number of reported possible hijackings that unfolded over the hours immediately following the actual attacks. Delta 89 was not hijacked, enters the system, increases the fog and friction if you will, as we begin to look for that. But he lands about seven of eight minutes later and clears
out of the system.
...
At 9:49, FAA reports that Delta 89, which had been reported as missing, is now reported as a possible hijacking. So again he is --

MR.: That's 9:41, sir.

MR. SCOTT: I'm sorry, 9:41. Again, he is in the system. He is kind of a red herring for us.
...
Getting toward the end now, 9:47 is when Delta 89 clears the system by landing in Cleveland. So he is not a hijack.

- At 9:27 Boston Center was not responsible for Delta 1989 anymore; the plane was in the airspace of Cleveland Center since about 9:00, when it was passing Syracuse. (This estimation is easy to do knowing that the plane took off from Boston at 8:25 and was over Cleveland at 9:40.)

Let's turn back to the 9/11 Commission report. It cites a NEADS technician as the source for the 9:41 warning (footnote 155, Chapter I). Luckily, a Vanity Fair article provides us with her name and the exact wording of the message:

9:40:57 ROUNTREE: Delta 89, that's the hijack. They think it's possible hijack.
DOOLEY: Fuck!
ROUNTREE: South of Cleveland. We have a code on him now.
DOOLEY: Good. Pick it up! Find it!
MALE TECH: Delta what?
ROUNTREE: Eight nine - a Boeing 767.
DOOLEY: Fuck, another one -

Surprisingly, we meet Delta 89 again here, so, as already said, we can't blame Col. Scott for the 89/1989 confusion. Can we blame Rountree? Unlikely. Every cab driver, every policeman and every pilot knows that confirming a radioed message is essential for doing the job. If there is only a tiny doubt that the information came through properly, it must be confirmed again. Furthermore, it is hard to see how "nineteen eighty-nine" can be misheard as "eighty-nine" even over a radio channel with poor audio quality. It is absolutely unconceivable that Rountree botched up the message from Boston Center.

The fact that "Delta 89" found its way into NEADS transcripts and timelines and was quoted by Scott 1 1/2 years later confirms that it was no temporary error that was corrected immediately; just to the contrary, we know now that the "wrong" number 89 was transmitted at 9:27 the first time and at least once again at 9:41, but probably everytime when Boston Center contacted NEADS for that matter. And additionally, the "wrong" destination (Las Vegas) was radioed alongside the "wrong" number - Delta 1989's destination was Los Angeles.

For someone who is not ready to believe such a level of incompentence and/or coincidence, the alternative solution is staring him in the face: "Delta 89" was not the same plane as Delta 1989. Another case of hiding a plane by duplication. Let's check if the hypothesis makes sense.

The actual Delta 89 was a normal civilian flight, scheduled to depart from JFK airport, New York, at 3:00 p.m., destination Los Angeles (Source: BTS database). How did it end up over Cleveland at 9:40 a.m.? This dilemma has only one reasonable way out: "Delta 89" was neither Delta 89 from JFK nor another civilian flight. "Delta 89" was the codename for a plane participating in the ongoing wargames. According to Michael Ruppert, there was at least one "live-fly exercise" going on during the attacks - an airliner posing as a hijacked flight.

Taking a look at the personnel in charge for "Delta 89" shows that it fits the conditions for such an exercise perfectly: according to Vanity Fair, Colin Scoggins was the controller who sent the "Delta 89" messages to Rountree. Scoggins was the "military liaison" (scroll down to the end) at Boston Center that day and as such didn't deal with civilian air traffic, but the ongoing military exercises. According to a paper from June 2001 (p. 40), his duty was to coordinate paperwork and flight data for all military exercises within Boston center airspace. Considering the scale of the exercises that day, it is hard to see why and how Scoggins was able to manage also civilian flights. The NEADS technicians Rountree and Dooley were deeply involved in the exercises, too, as the tapes reveal.

The exercise status of "Delta 89" also explains why it was tracked by Scoggins (Boston Center) when it was already deep in Cleveland Center airspace. It was not handed over between the centers like a regular flight. The curious fact that NEADS warned Cleveland Center of "Delta 89" - it should be the other way round - points into the same direction. Cleveland Center was in contact with Delta 1989, but never alerted NEADS (let alone Boston Center) that it was missing or hijacked. And last not least it should be noted that one minute after "Delta 89" was reported missing (9:27) controllers of Cleveland Center were alerted by suspicious radio transmissions sounding like a cockpit struggle. At first, they ascribed the transmissions to Delta 1989, but because Delta 1989 was fine, they "deduced" ex negativo that the struggle originated from United 93. The controllers probably witnessed the begin of a hijack wargame on board of "Delta 89".

So the hypothesis "Delta 89"=Delta 89 implies not only massive incompetence of air traffic controllers in transmitting the wrong flight number; it begs the question why Scoggins from Boston Center exceeded his sphere of competence; and it leads to an absurd information tangle between NEADS and the responsible ARTCCs. The hypothesis that "Delta 89" was not Delta 1989 however leads to the nearly compelling conclusion that it was part of an exercise, which explains all of the discrepancies between the NEADS records and the FAA records. The close similarity of names and time synchronicity suggest more sinister motives of the wargame designers.

The "Delta 89" matter should lead to a closer examination of the NORAD tapes. Michael Bronner, author of the Vanity Fair text, writes: "The fact that there was an exercise planned for the same day as the attack factors into several conspiracy theories, though the 9/11 commission dismisses this as coincidence. After plodding through dozens of hours of recordings, so do I." It would be a nice idea to publish the tapes completely, not only tiny snippets, so everyone can decide for himself if he shares Bronner's and the commission's assessments.

"Delta 89" and Flight X

The clandestine character of "Delta 89" and the Cleveland Flight X entails the question if these two planes are identical. And there is indeed indication that they are (this doesn't necessarily mean that Flight X was a Delta Flight, because "Delta 89" was just a codename). The Akron Beacon Journal from 9/11, the earliest and most authentic report on the matter, delivers all necessary data for Flight X.

- To begin with, it is striking that the first message of the missing "Delta 89" came in at 9:27 - one minute before Cleveland controllers noticed yelling and screams from an unknown plane. These screams reappeared in White's statement on Flight X.

- Flight X was also said to have departed from Boston, just like "Delta 89".

- Flight X was a Boeing 767, just like "Delta 89".

- The evacuation of Cleveland Airport resembles in many points a terror drill, just like "Delta 89".

- Col. Scott himself says that "Delta 89" landed at Cleveland. But he gives the bizarre landing time of 9:47. This time doesn't match Flight X, it doesn't match Delta 1989, and it doesn't appear in the arrival data list for Cleveland Airport. Given that "Delta 89" was south of Cleveland at 9:41 and westbound, it is highly doubtable whether it managed to land at Hopkins only six minutes later. Controllers would have been forced to divert numerous other flights to enable "Delta 89" to go down rapidly - inmidst the confusion over United 93! A highly unlikely scenario, and not reported by anyone. Did Scott get the hour wrong - 9:47 instead of 10:47? This would fit the landing of Flight X neatly.

- At 9:40, "Delta 89" was in the vicinity of Cleveland. Flight X landed at 10:45. If the two planes are identical, question arise regarding the plane's whereabout in the meantime. I have sketched a solution here.


How to prove the mystery

The research for CAM has been done exclusively over the Internet, showing the power of this global network as a tool for uncovering clandestine operations. But the article is also a fruitful approach for doing field research, i.e. going to Cleveland and talking with people to get a clear picture of the events. Here are two suitable points for a thorough examination:

- The passengers of Delta 1989 were taken to the FAA headquarters. This evidence is solid as a rock, confirmed by the pilot, a passenger, and numerous reports. But in the morning of 9/11, local radio stations and newspapers reported that people were taken to the NASA Center. So it needs only a few witnesses who confirm the evacuation to NASA Center to prove the mystery beyond any doubt.

- It might be hard to find witnesses who actually have observed Flight X. There are, however, people who have observed fighter jets forcing an airliner to land at Hopkins:

At the airport, FBI agents asked the passengers a variety of questions about the Delta flight, so Quirion and Guerrette said they never thought at the time to give them any information about the Portland flight — or any of the people who were on it.

Guerrette said he did not believe that FBI agents at the time knew of the Portland connection. And being sheltered at the airport, the passengers were unaware of exactly what was happening in the rest of the country, they said.

It was not until Quirion and Guerrette arrived at the hotel at 5 p.m. that they were able to see a television and realize the magnitude of what had happened at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and in a wooded area in western Pennsylvania.

When they woke up the next morning and turned on the news, they learned that two terrorists had boarded a plane in Portland early Tuesday, headed for Boston. That is when they remembered the two passengers from their first flight who struck them as suspicious.

"Brian came into my room and said, 'Remember those two guys?' " Quirion said.

He said he was not sure the information they had would help FBI agents, but they decided to contact the FBI anyway. They called at 9:30 a.m. Nine agents arrived in less than an hour and interviewed them separately for about 45 minutes, they said.

Disclaimer: I do not accuse any of the persons mentioned in this article of being criminal co-conspirators. I do believe, however, that many of them were aware of the ongoing military exercises or even participated in them. The fact that the outlined scenario doesn't need the premise that they were conspirators invalidates the argument that a huge number of conspirators on all levels was needed to perform a false-flag attack.