Phone Calls
Alleged Oddities of Phone Calls from Doomed Flights
Examining the the distribution of the phone calls on the flights commandeered on 9/11/01 reveals an interesting pattern. There are reports of phone calls from thirteen Flight 93 passengers, but only one to three from passengers on any of the other flights. If passengers on Flight 93 were able to complete so many cell phone calls, why were they so rare on the other flights? Presumably the teams of four or five hijackers would have been too busy flying the airplanes to police passengers. The airphone calls attributed to Flight 11 attendants Betty Ong and Madeline Sweeney both went on for a number of minutes.
Canadian writer A.K. Dewdney built his reputation as a 9/11 researcher on the idea that the cell-phone calls from aircraft above a few thousand feet aren't generally possible, and therefore the calls attributed to Flight 93 passengers were faked. In an article entitled Ghost Riders in the Sky, Dewdney gives expert-sounding explanations of reasons cell phone calls from jetliners wouldn't work. At altitude, he states, the signal would be too weak, and below 10,000 feet, calls made from a jet would cause problematic "cascades" in networks of cellsites on the ground. (Dewdney cites "Frazer 2002" for this.)
Contrary to Dewdney's findings, we have received reports that cell phones do work from aircraft. Other evidence that cell phone calls are possible from jetliners in flight comes from a study by Carnegie Mellon researchers that monitored spectrum frequencies generated by cell phone transmissions during commercial passenger flights. They found that an average of one to four cell phone calls are made during a typical flight. 1 Furthermore, most of the calls from Flight 93 were apparently made from airphones, not cell phones, with the few cell phone calls apparently happening late in the flight when the jetliner's altitude was low.
Although arguments for the majority of calls being faked don't hold up to scrutiny, the reported content of two of the calls raises questions.
- In one of two calls Ted Olsen said he received from his wife on Flight 77, she reportedly asked "What should I tell the pilot?," referring to Chic Burlingame, the captain, who was then supposedly seated in the rear with Barbara. Burlingame was a graduate of Naval Academy and flew F-4s in Vietnam. How could Burlingame have been persuaded to hand over the stick without and agree to sit in the back of the plane -- especially when controllers had been broadcasting to pilots that Flight 11 had been hijacked?
- Madeline Sweeney, who called to her supervisor from Flight 11, reportedly stated: "I see, buildings, water, ... Oh my God!", immediately before the crash. Why would Sweeney -- a Massachusetts-based flight attendant of 12 years -- speak as though had never seen the Manhattan skyline before?
Other alleged anomalies appear less than compelling when one considers the natural inclinations of the passengers making the calls in such circumstances.
Is the No-Cell-Phone-Calls Theory a Hoax?
In Ghost Riders in the Sky Dewdney provides an elaborate scenario to explain how the Flight 93 cell phone calls could have been faked. It goes something like this:
On the big day, the operatives worked in a single "war room" with a big screen to keep them on the same page. Calls (except to strangers) were kept brief so that the callers could report details of the flight but not get into personal conversation that might alert family members to the fraud. Calls that went poorly (like the one to Mark Bingham's mother) were not repeated.
The quality of acting necessary to convince family members they were talking to their loved ones was lower than in a normal situation, given the allowance people naturally make for voice distress in stressful situations.
Such an undertaking would have been very complex and risky for the perpetrators, as it would have required a large number of skilled operatives, and would have made the whole operation vulnerable to exposure. And for what gain to the beneficiaries of the attack?
The no-cell-phone-calls theory is difficult to evaluate because we lack verifiable data on the performance of cell phones on aircraft. However, it appears to have value in alienating the public, and particularly families of the victims, from skeptics of the official story.
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