ACARS Data Proves United 175 Was Still Airborne After It Allegedly Crashed

An independent Investigation of the ACARS Data

What is ACARS Data?

Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System (ACARS) is a device used to send messages to and from an aircraft. Very similar to text messages and email we use today, Air Traffic Control, the airline itself, and other airplanes can communicate with each other via this "texting" system. ACARS was developed in 1978 and is still used today. Similar to cell phone networks, the ACARS network has remote ground stations installed around the world to route messages from ATC and the airline, to the aircraft depending on its location and vice versa.

ACARS Messages have been obtained through the ‘Freedom of Information Act’ (FOIA) which demonstrated that the aircraft received messages through ground stations located in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and then later routed through a ground station in Pittsburgh, 20 minutes after the aircraft “allegedly” impacted the South Tower in New York.

The “official” ACARS data does not support that UAL 175 deviated off course and flew back towards the New York area and then crashed into the South Tower. Instead the ACARS data messages show UAL 175 continuing its flight path and registering two “received” ACARS messages by the plane at 8:59 a.m. and 9:03 a.m. in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania which is in the opposite direction to New York.

The image below it shows the first ACARS message received at 8:59 a.m. as UAL 175 is “allegedly” flying towards the South Tower in New York.

The image below shows the second ACARS message received by the plane at 9:03 a.m. as UAL 175 is “allegedly” about to crash into the South Tower in New York at 9:03 a.m.

The image below shows a third ACARS message which was sent to UAL 175 located from Pittsburgh ACARS ground station at 9:23 a.m. The 9/11 Commission omitted whether or not this ACARS message was received by the plane. Why did they omit this information? It is more than likely it was received by the plane based on the previous two messages showing that the plane was travelling in that direction away from New York area, which is why the ACARS ground stations were sending the messages from those ACARS ground station locations.

Based on Flight Tracking protocol, the only reason the Central Processing System would choose to route messages through the ground stations located at Harrisburg (MDT), and then later Pittsburgh (PIT), over the numerous ground stations much closer and surrounding NYC, is due to the aircraft being in the vicinity of MDT, and then later, PIT. This means that the airplane observed to strike the South Tower at 9:03a.m. was not UAL 175.  So, if UAL 175 was somewhere over in Pennsylvania when the airplane was observed to strike the South Tower, and a standard 767 cannot perform at such excessive speeds as reported, then where did the plane come from which was observed to strike the South Tower?

Further corroboration comes when an ARINC Expert was contacted in San Francisco. When told about the ACARS message being routed through PIT after the airplane had already “allegedly” crashed into the South Tower, this is what she had to say:

"There is no way that message would be routed through Pittsburgh if the airplane crashed in New York City"

The 9/11 Commission didn't confirm or mention in the report if the 9:23 a.m. ACARS message to the airplane was received, after the two last known ACARS message at 8:59 a.m and 9:03 a.m. messages were received by the airplane. The 9/11 Commission ostensibly omitted, and avoided this specific point. If the ACARS message sent at 9:23 a.m. to the airplane was received by the airplane after the “alleged” crash at 9:03 a.m. this would be seriously very damaging for the "official" narrative of UAL 175, if indeed the 9/11 Commission confirmed the 9:23 a.m. ACARS messages had been received by the airplane.

As I have pointed out, it is an “officially” recognised fact that flight dispatcher Ed Ballinger, United Airlines in command for all East to West coast flights on the morning of 9/11, sent an "uplink" ACARS message to United Airlines 175 at 9:23 a.m. routed through an ACARS ground station in Pittsburgh twenty minutes after the “alleged” crash of UAL 175 into the South Tower. Not only from the logs from the print-out of United Airlines ACARS record log from Ballinger's desk, as provided by Ballinger himself to the 9/11 Commission and eventually released in 2009, and addressed by Team 7 during Ed Ballinger's interview on April 14, 2004 in Washington, DC. Unknown to many people (including myself until now) Ballinger sent a subsequent ACARS "uplink" message to UAL 175 at 9:51 a.m. which is 48 minutes after UAL 175 had "officially" crashed in New York, and 28 minutes after the previous ACARS message sent to the airplane at 9:23 a.m. This information is contained in the “official” record, released through a FOIA in 2009 called: T7 B18 United AL 9-11 ACARS Fdr- Entire Contents- ACARSMessages 569.pdf.

The 2009 FOIA document contains a chart of messages to and from United Airlines airplanes from 13:00 to 14:08 UTC, including UAL 175 and UAL 93. Unlike the Printout of ARINC logs released December 2011, this document clearly reports the stamp "WARNING: THIS DOCUMENT CONTAINS SENSITIVE SECURITY INFORMATION" on each of the 66 pages, as required by the ‘Department of Homeland Security’, and in particular the ‘Transportation Security Administration’ under 2003 CFR Title 49, Volume 8.  

The fact that all "downlinks" (i.e. air-to-ground messages sent from airplane to dispatchers) appear as unreadable or hardly readable, for some unspecified reason, these rows were apparently marked with a yellow highlighter or a similar tool in the original paper record, as confirmed by the warning notes "Messages from aircraft are shaded" reported on each page. As known, shaded text portions have a very bad rendering once xeroxed or scanned. As a result, the downlink rows in the chart are probably well readable in the original paper version, but in the PDF publicly available they appear as they were "masked out". In some cases, it is possible to read the UTC time, the flight number, the tail number, the targeted dispatcher (EB = Ed Ballinger or CM = Chad McCurdy), the route and at least part of the text message behind the highlighting. In other cases, it is completely impossible to figure out the text behind the dark shade. 

Another surprising aspect of this document is the fact that the timeline ends at an abnormal and unusual time of 14:08 UTC (10:08 a.m. EDT). As widely known to many ACARS researchers, seven uplink messages were sent out from United Airlines dispatchers to United 93 between 14:10 UTC (10:10 a.m EDT) and 14:20 UTC (10:20 a.m. EDT) in messages: 18 - 25 in Winter'slist and therefore they are not reported in this document. While there is still fierce debate as to whether which messages were received by the airplane, it is an ascertained and unquestionable fact that they were sent. Furthermore, I would expect that the timeline would end at least at 14:30 UTC (10:30 a.m. EDT), if not later, so that all messages related to UAL 93 would be included in the chart. Strangely, messages to and from other United airplanes of secondary importance were included in this table, but for some unknown reason the last seven messages to UAL 93, one of the four airplanes involved in 9/11, were not. The fact that the timeline ends at an unexpected time such as 14:08 UTC, (10:08 a.m. EDT) along with the exclusion of messages to UAL 93 which are of vital importance for the ACARS research on 9/11, is very suspicious indeed.

In spite of all the redactions and missing data, this document uncovers information of importance for the purposes of ACARS research at page 48: at 13:51 UTC (9:51 a.m. EDT) Ballinger sent a bunch of uplinks (the same messages) to several United airplanes, including UAL 93 and UAL 175 saying - "LAND ASP AT NEAREST -- NEAREST AIRPORT.ASP .ASP ON GROUND.ANYWERE". Also sent to Flight 8151, 63, 17, 163, 8146, 27, 8155, 81 and 161, and in some cases twice to the same airplanes within the same minute, see pages: 48 and 49.

The existence of the 9:51 a.m. ACARS message further strengthens the case that UAL 175 was still airborne after the alleged crash into the South Tower at 9:03 a.m. 

Some questions to consider…

If UAL 175 had crashed at 9:03a.m. why did the airplane still appear as "confirmed" in Barber's log at 9:20 a.m.? 

Why did Ballinger send another ACARS message uplink to UAL 175 at 9:51 a.m. 48 minutes after the alleged crash, and 28 minutes after sending the previous ACARS message uplink which ostensibly did not produced any “Failure Report” and also 27 minutes after being officially notified about the crash by Andy Studdert? Why would Ballinger urge an airplane already declared as 'crashed' to land at the nearest airport?

Why does the log for the ACARS message uplink, sent by Ballinger to UAL 175 at 9:23 a.m. show two time-stamps, although 20 minutes had already elapsed since the time of the alleged crash? After twenty minutes from the crash, the ARINC CPS would react with a ‘Reason Code 231’ (see for example the first ICPUL block for American 77 at 10:00 a.m. 22 minutes after the alleged crash against into the Pentagon), what would result in a ‘Failure Report’ on Ballinger's printer/screen and a log with one time-stamp only, such as the last message sent to UAL 93 at 10:21 a.m.

Finally, how could a dispatcher with 44 years of experience and a professional career possibly overlook a ‘Failure Report’ and keep on trying to contact his airplane for almost one hour after the alleged crash time, if he hadn't some information that led him to conclude that the airplane was in fact not "lost"? The whole UAL dispatch in Chicago was focused on both United airplanes which were considered hijacked. How could possibly all of them miss a ‘Failure Report’ in their logs?

The question arises why did the 9/11 Commission not bother to address this specific log during Ballinger's interview on April 14, 2004. Why is this log missing in the UAL record of Ballinger's logs, released in 2009 under FOIA? Why are several pages from that document missing? Why are the logs for United Airlines ‘Flight 175’ completely missing in the so called "Printout of ARINC logs" made public in December 2011?

As I have pointed out earlier in this article, confirmation of the ACARS messages being sent to UAL 175 at 9:23 a.m. and now 9:51 a.m. proves that UAL 175 was still airborne. The fact that the details of whether or not the ACARS messages were received by UAL 175, and the evidence suggests they were, it would have caused a major problem for the 9/11 Commission if this evidence would have come to light and was made public. So it appears the 9/11 Commission omitted this vital information instead of addressing it. 

Thanks for reading and caring!