I love how he uses the term "alleged" when referring to the planes. Looks like they're arguing that the flights that hit the WTC weren't 767s. What a bunch of maroons!

Labels: Pilots for 9-11 Denial, Rob Balsamo

I confess that I can't follow the math, but I'm going to link this debunking of Balsamo's claim that the g-forces required of AA-77 given the flight path are too high for the plane to withstand for those who can.

Balsamo came up with a radius of 2085 feet, which is less than 10% of the radius I calculated for a genuinely circular arc that connects the top of the VDOT antenna to level flight at the base of the Pentagon. My calculations are correct, so Balsamo either made a mistake in his measurement, or chose a flight path whose acceleration is ten times the acceleration required for a genuinely circular arc.

After adding 1 g for earth's gravity, Balsamo gets a total of 10.14 g. As shown above, the correct value for a circular arc that passes above the VDOT antenna and ends in level flight at the base of the Pentagon is 1.9 g. Balsamo's "corrected" calculation is off by a factor of 5.

And this certainly sounds accurate:

The video amounts to an argument from authority. The self-assuredness of Balsamo's video monologue, combined with his sneering contempt for critics, is designed to convince viewers that he really does understand the physics and mathematics, while his detractors do not. In reality, Rob Balsamo is a former airline pilot with no discernible skills in mathematics or physics and a history of making outrageous mistakes in his calculations.

Hat Tip: Paul W in the comments.

Labels: Pilots for 9-11 Denial, Rob Balsamo

Air America is doing a show on the "Pentagon Flyover" theory espoused by Craig Ranke, Rob Balsamo and others. I won't be appearing on the show, for several reasons:

1. I wasn't invited. No shock there; the last time a Truther invited me to be on a radio show was my debate with Jason Bermas on the Rob Bishop show, which garnered record ratings. Record ratings and no invite back? I'll take that as a compliment.

2. The Pentagon Flyover theories are so absurd that Reprehensor, who allows conspiracy theories about everything under the sun has decided to ban them at 9-11 Blogger, the flagship of the "Truthers".

3. One of the participants in the Air America debate will be Kevin "Hang 'Em High" Barrett. I have no intention of discussing anything with a Holocaust Denier.

4. I'll let Mark Roberts give the other reason:

I believe it is deeply unethical to broadcast and perpetuate the 9/11 claims of a few kooks, especially when these people have directly accused 9/11 victims, witnesses, and investigators of cowardice and lying. There is absolutely no justification for giving these people the attention they crave. It serves no rational cause. None.

Further, these people will never get the help they need if their fantasies and their disparaging of victims are encouraged. For that reason, I believe that giving them this attention is doubly unethical.

Amen. Be sure to read the entire post by Mark; he is truly an amazing individual.

Let me suggest something here to the Truthers in our audience, particularly those who disagree with the Pentagon Flyover theory, like Arabesque, Russ Pickering, and Adam of Caustic Logic. These folks are going to be on Air America tomorrow representing your movement. It is incumbent upon you to take on this mission. I don't care if Craig Ranke and Rob Balsamo become the new faces of 9-11 "Truth"; quite frankly that would represent progress to us.

Labels: Air America, Citizen's Investigative Team, Craig Ranke, Mark Roberts, PentaCon, Rob Balsamo

To finish off a story that has been long in developing, we now have the documents showing when the air phones from American Airlines 77 were deactivated. This whole saga started when David Ray Griffin, in his book "Debunking 9/11 Debunking" claimed that AA 757s never had air phones. After we pointed out that they had them, but they were removed in the spring of 2002, he corrected himself, only to immediately turn around and decide that this was too big of a concession to reality and start trying to prove they didn't exist again.

Labels: Airfones, David Ray Griffin, Rob Balsamo

I listened to the MP3 of David Ray Griffin and Rob Balsamo talking about their newest airfone story. Most of it was pretty boring, the callers were pretty much limited to troofers calling in to pour adulations on Griffin's latest book. Griffin also repeated quoting the same Amazon.com review for what easily had to be the 10th time. They spend a lot of time complaining about the debunkers, and act indignant that we question their evidence, but yet imply that evidence that we haven't even presented yet must be fake.

I was rather amused by this question posed by Rob Balsamo though, about 36 minutes into the second hour:

Balsamo: I have a question, you know, these debunkers out there, if it is proven that this was an inside job, beyond a reason... beyond a doubt. I mean it's almost beyond a reasonable doubt right now. And we have the perpatrators names. I am wondering if these debunkers can be charged with obstruction of justice with their spin, and their tactics.

Swenson: Yeah, that is what I have been saying on this show is that these Fox News pundits, they get on there and they refuse to talk about 9/11 at all, and when they do, they bring us up and they call us names, but they never bring up any evidence.

Griffin actually has the good sense to dismiss this idea, but I was struck by the irony of this. The whole claim by the 9/11 conspiracy movement is that they are "just asking questions", that they just want a new investigation, to find out what happened that day, that they want an open discussion, that they are suffering under government oppression, and that the US government is bordering on fascism.... and yet they want to throw people in jail simply because they disagree with them. I mean, these are the same people who complain because European courts throw Holocaust deniers in jail because that is a violation of their right of free speech.

Yeah... OK.

Labels: David Ray Griffin, Rob Balsamo

I started a thread on this ealier on the JREF forum, but didn't want to make a blog post until I had done more research. In the tradition of Lauro Chavez and "Mike the EMT", the troofers have come up with yet another "whistleblower" this time an anonymous American Airlines mechanic who claims to have provided a page from a manual showing that airfones were not in place on AA 757s during the September 11th attacks. This document is used as the centerpiece for yet another article on the subject by David Ray Griffin, apparently retracting his previous retraction on the same subject, and Rob Balsamo.

Labels: David Ray Griffin, Rob Balsamo

Well I have to give him credit for being persistent. Even after being completely embarassed by having his no airfone on AA77 thing being proven wrong on this blog, even before the claim came out in his new book, he is still trying to desperately come up with evidence to support it. I came across this e-mail on a truther mailing list I am on:

The question has come up whether the Boeing 757s made for American Airlines (as distinct from those made for United Airlines) that would have been in service in 2001 had onboard (seat-back) phones. If they did not, then obviously Ted Olson’s claim about Barbara Olson’s call from a seat-back phone on AA Flight 77 cannot be true.

We know that they did not have them in 2004 (although the 767 and 777 did). But we cannot get any clear information about whether they had them in 2001. We received a purported email from a “Chad Kinder” in public relations for AA that said that they did not. But we have been unable to verify the authenticity of this email or even whether there is a Chad Kinder who works for AA.

It would seem that there were would be all sorts of people who could answer the question, including AA mechanics, pilots, and flight attendants. If any of you can help us get this answer---hopefully within the week---we would greatly appreciate it.

Yours truly,

Rob Balsamo and David Ray Griffin

This argument is pretty silly though. This was widely publicized at the time. The odds that none of the thousands of American Airlines employees, not to mention hundreds of thousands of their passengers, would not have noticed the fact that they didn't have airfones installed on their planes is pretty farfetched. Although I don't doubt that 6 years after the fact they will be able to find a single truther, a Lauro Chavez type, who will now suddenly recall that in fact there were no airfones installed.

Well, how do we know there were phones installed? Well, I know by truther logic we are not allowed to use the 9/11 Commission report, since its findings do not support their hoped outcome, but simply read the footnotes.

56. FBI report, "American Airlines Airphone Usage," Sept. 20, 2001; FBI report of investigation, interview of Ronald and Nancy May, Sept. 12, 2001.

57.The records available for the phone calls from American 77 do not allow for a determination of which of four "connected calls to unknown numbers" represent the two between Barbara and Ted Olson, although the FBI and DOJ believe that all four represent communications between Barbara Olson and her husband's office (all family members of the Flight 77 passengers and crew were canvassed to see if they had received any phone calls from the hijacked flight, and only Renee May's parents and Ted Olson indicated that they had received such calls).The four calls were at 9:15:34 for 1 minute, 42 seconds; 9:20:15 for 4 minutes, 34 seconds; 9:25:48 for 2 minutes, 34 seconds; and 9:30:56 for 4 minutes, 20 seconds. FBI report, "American Airlines Airphone Usage," Sept. 20, 2001; FBI report of investigation, interview of Theodore Olson, Sept. 11, 2001; FBI report of investigation, interview of Helen Voss, Sept. 14, 2001;AAL response to the Commission's supplemental document request, Jan. 20, 2004.

58. FBI report, "American Airlines Airphone Usage," Sept. 20, 2001; FBI report of investigation, interview of Theodore Olson, Sept. 11, 2001.

So obviously both American Airlines and the FBI seem to believe that they had airfones installed. But I guess they are all involved in the plot too.

Incidently, I meant to post this earlier, but I got distracted with other things, if you want to know what type of nutcase Rob Balsamo is, read the comments on this Italian language debunking site. Not the type of argument you would expect from an aviation professional. In fact, I would not want to be flying on his plane at all.

Labels: David Ray Griffin, Pilots for 9-11 Denial, Rob Balsamo