United 93 airfone calls

[jomper]

I'm wondering about these links.

This one:
http://www.werismyki.com/artcls/connection_of_a_lifetime.html

says, "GTE Verizon says 26 phone calls were completed from Flight 93" by airfone.

...while this one:
http://www.officer.com/article/article.jsp?siteSection=8&id=30549

says, "There were 30 air phone and two cellular phone calls placed by flight attendants and passengers". This was testimony in the Zacarias Moussaoui trial.

Leaving aside the discrepancy of four calls for a moment, it does seem as though the great majority of the calls from Flight 93 were from airfones, which makes the question of whether or not it's possible to place cellphone calls from thousands of feet above the ground somewhat less important.

Do these links and this information seem reliable? It's a minor issue by comparison to many of the questions around 9/11, but it's relevant in the wake of the release of Paul Greengrass' film, and of course the question of the technical possibility of cellphone calls from Flight 93 is raised in LC2.

[Newspeak International]

"At least 10 cell phone calls were reported to have been made from Flight 93"

According to:

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=CHO200 60501&articleId=2356

I believe you are right in your suggestion that,regardless of the possibilities or not of cell phone connections,the airphone question is still unaddressed,or at least unclear.

[Newspeak International]

Hmmm.. Interesting http://physics911.ca/org/modules/news/article.php?storyid=6

[Andrew Johnson]

Why not download and print the flight 93 leaflet that David and I have prepared? It has some of the answers....

http://www.checktheevidence.com/911/flight93.pdf

Give it out at your local cinema - if it's showing the film.

[jomper]

Although I can't remember where I saw this, I think I read that several of the people who received calls from Flight 93 recognised the caller IDs and/or numbers of the passengers who were calling them.

I don't know anything about airphone technology but I'm assuming it can't display caller IDs in the same way as mobile phones can, and I'd imagine that the caller's number would be different and unknown to the person taking the call if it was placed from an airphone.

So if it were possible to find more than two testimonies of people who received calls from Flight 93 where they state that they recognised the caller ID, this would begin to undermine the assertion that many or most of the calls from the plane were from airphones. However, I haven't been able to establish this in my internet searches.

I can't help thinking that too much emphasis on the technical difficulty of placing cell phone calls from great heights is quite dangerous for the Truth Movement's credibility. One or two cell phone calls could technically have been connected as the plane lost altitude, and if the rest of the calls are said to have been placed by airphone then the question becomes much less relevant.

This point will then be used - as it already is in many blogs I've seen - to present the questions the Truth Movement is asking in a negative light.

[Wokeman]

Yeah, I get a call from my daughter, "Hello Dad, this is Vanessa Hudson!" I don't think so.

[Newspeak International]

[kbo234]

I don't understand what 'airphones' are supposed to be. Are they like wall mounted at the front and back of the plane? How many would there be? Would all these people who are supposed to have made calls have formed a queue to use them while the hijackers were occupied elsewhere?

I thought the technology for these kind of phones was only introduced recently by the airlines putting transmission pods under the planes...?

Maybe the calls were made using the pilot's phone while he was wrestling with Mohammed Attah or something.

[Jane]

I seem to remember that on my flights to America in 2001 and 2003 each seat had a phone by it's side. I am not sure if it was an "air phone" and I didn't try it out - and I may be getting mixed up with the control for the tv!!!

[jomper]

Yes, I think those would have been airphones on the seats.

This is a good thread about the question of the types of calls made, which I hadn't seen before.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg& forum=125&topic_id=48029&mesg_id=48029

[Andrew Johnson]

Here are some specific points of information for people to consider:

Mobile phones in about 140 countries use a digital technology called GSM (Global Systems for Mobile communications). This system is only rated to work reliably where the user is travelling at less than speeds of about 140 mph (due to Doppler effects on the carrier signal, among other things). The USA uses a similar technology called CDMA. The cruising speed of a passenger jet aircraft is around 400 – 500 mph.

Additionally, AK Dewdney notes the following (from ttp://www.physics911.net/cellphoneflight93.htm).

As I have pointed out elsewhere, cellphone calls from commercial aircraft much over 8000 feet are essentially impossible, while those below 8000 feet are highly unlikely down to about 2000, where they become merely unlikely. (Dewdney 2003) Moreover, even at the latter altitude (and below), the handoff problem appears. Any airliner at or below this altitude, flying at the normal speed of approximately 500
mph, would encounter the handoff problem (Dewdney 2003). An aircraft traveling at this speed would not be over the cellsite long enough to complete the electronic "handshake" (which takes several seconds to
complete) before arriving over the next cellsite, when the call has to be handed off from the first cellsite to the next one. This also takes a few seconds, the result being, in the optimal case, a series of broken
transmissions that must end, sooner or later, in failure. (See also “Project Achilles”)

So here we have another example of the official account contradicting the immutable laws of physics and the state of current technology.

But of course, for those who want to believe the official story, they can be "doppler deniers" just as easily as they can be "gravity deniers".

[Mark Gobell]

Ever since doubt was cast on the possibility of the cell phone calls, I have discussed this issue with everyone I know that would listen.

Not once have I asked them to call me whilst on an aircraft as I think this contravenes regulations and is therefore illegal.

Many times these people have told me that they had in fact tried to reach people on their mobiles whilst flying.

Some have reported that they tried to make these calls during take off, in flight and during descent.

Not once has anyone told me that the calls could be made.

I am not, repeat not suggesting that anyone should encourage a third party to try and make calls during a flight, but for some reason having discussed this issue with people, some have, on their own initiative tried to do just that all without success.

[Mark Gobell]

This is an amazing technology called Video Rewrite.

Maybe it's old hat I don't know but take a look at what can be achieved with video fakery and is in the public domain.

JFK confirms that he never met Forrest Gump.

http://mrl.nyu.edu/~bregler/videorewrite/final/jfk-forestgump.mov

More examples here.

http://mrl.nyu.edu/~bregler/videorewrite/

Now if this can be achieved by analysing someone's speech and visual characteristics and then reproduce artificial "faked" video's of that person saying something else, is it a really a big stretch of the imagination to reproduce someone's voice only.

I can easily imagine advanced digital voice reproduction driven by a typist. There are plenty of voice recognition products on the market. All this requires is the process to be reversed. That's not a problem at all.

Maybe technology wasn't used to mimic voices.

Maybe the voices and conversations were in fact "real" whatever that means these days.

If so, think about how you would make someone call someone on the phone and read from a script ?

I know how I would do it.

[Me]

I ran across this at the Colbert forum about Olson and Flight 77.

link

[James O'Neill]

You have raised a point "Me" that is too often overlooked in the often fruitless debate about air phones (which have been usable from planes for years before 9/11) and cell phones which cannot be used above 7000 feet and 400kmh. That debate is pointless.

As I keep repeating with little success, the issue is often resolvable by reference to actual evidence. In this case whether or not cell phones were ever used and if they made a connection is demonstrable by reference to the user's cell phone records.

If there are no records, it is safe to assume that there were no calls.

The rather glaring fact in all this is that the US government has failed and/or refused to release the relevant records. If those records supported their case do you not think we would be shown them ad nauseum?

[Me]