t8 b15 hijacked airplanes 3 of 3 fdr- email from lorie van auken to commission re seismic data

8/14/2019 T8 B15 Hijacked Airplanes 3 of 3 Fdr- Email From Lorie Van Auken to Commission Re Seismic Data

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Date: Sun, 25 May 2003 10:05:22-0400To: '"' ^

Subject: Re: 93 seismicftore o n what was p u b l i s h e d on the seismic activity o n flight 13 establishingthe time of the crash at lQ:Db-, not 1Q:Q3... LorieS eismic Observations During September 11-. 2001-. Terrorist Attack

lilon-Young K i mLamon t-Dohe r ty Earth Observatory o f Columbia Unive rsi ty-iP a l i s a d e s - . N . y . I Q I t M - , U S AandGerald R. BaumEnvi r o nm ental G e o l o g y a n d M in e r a l Resources Program-.Maryland Geological Survey8300 St - Paul StreetBaltimore-. (ID ElSlfi^ USA

SummarySince the time o f plane impact at the Pentagon had often been reported withlarge scatter-, t he U n i t e d States A r m y contacted us to inquire whether wecould obtain an accurate time of the Pentagon attack on September 11-. 2Q01based upon o ur seismic network. L i e analyzed seismic records from f i v esta tions in the northeastern United States-, ranging from b3 t o 350 km fromt he Pentagon. Despite detailed analysis of the data-, we could not find aclear seismic si g nal- Even the closest station (* bS-& km) at Soldier'sD e l i g h t i B a l t i m o r e County-. Maryland (SDMD) did not record t he impac t- Ueconcluded that t he plane impact t o t h e Pentagon generated relatively weakseismic signals- However-, w e p o s i t i v e l y i d e n t i f i e d seismic signalsassociated with United A i r l i n e s Flight 13 that crashed near ShanksvilleiS o m e r s e t County-, P ennsyl vania- The time o f t h e plane crash was 10:0b:05 5(EDT).Intr oductionF oll ow in g the September 111 2DD1 terrorist attack on the W o r l d Trade Center(UTC) towers-, scientists a t t h e La mo n t - D o h e r t y Earth Observatory o f ColumbiaUni v e r si ty were able to determine accurate times of the plane impacts andbuildin g collapses using t he seismic signals recorded at numerousseism o g r aphic stations in the Northeastern United States- The collapse o ft he b l T C towers generated large seismic waves observed in five states and upt o M 2 f l km away. The North Tower collapse was the larger seismic source andhad a magnitude ML 2-3 (Kimet a l - - , 2001)- The time of plane impact at thePentagon was reported with large sca t t e r - For instance-, Cable News Network(CNN) reported 01:M3 (EDT)-, the yashington Post reported O MO (EDT)-, andt he New York Times reported 01:36 (EDT).If the plane impact to the Pentagon generated strong enough ground motion

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that could be props-gated through the Earth's crust as elastic waves(seismic waves) and recorded at sensiti ve seismo-graphic stations around thes o u r c e - i we could determine absolute time of the impact by using the ar r ivaltimes of P i S or surface seismic waves. The accuracy of the measured timewould depend upon the clari ty and strength of the seismic wave arriva ls andour knowledge of crustal structure between the source and s e i s m o g r ap hi cstations- This method can provid e accurate and absolute tim e of a seismice v e n t - , since most of the modern seismogra phic stations are equi pped with GPS(Global Positioning System) satellite receivers that can provide absolutetime u s u a l l y wi t h i n one thousandth of a second accuracy- In case of the UTCattacki the impac ts of the two planes could be det ermi ned with an accuracyof about 5 seconds- Alt ho ugh the impa ct times are inferre d from osc illa tor ysurface wave a r r i v a l s - i the nearest st a t ion i P AL (PalisadeSi NY)-, was onlyabout 3 M km away from the UTC-Analysis of Seismic Records for Pentagon AttackIt was reported by the New York Times (B1-, 10/0b/2001) that at 01:31, (EDT)the crew of a m i l i t a r y C-13D p l ane i d enti fi e d a Boeing 7b7 m oving low andvery fasti and that the plane crashed into the southwest side of thePentagon at 01:36 (EDT). die collec ted seismic records from all ava ila bleseismographic stations in the Northeastern United States around the Pentagon(Table li Figure 1) in the hope of veri fying or accurately pinpointing thetime of impact-The nearest station to the Pentagon is S D f I D (Soldier's De ligh t) in Ba ltimoreCounty! Maryland ( = b2-6 km) that has been operational since the latesummer of 2001- The station wa s installed and is operated by the Mar yl andGeological Survey- It is part of the Lamont-Doherty CooperativeSeismographic Network (LCSN) that monitors earthquakes in the N o r the as t- Thesecond closest station to the Penta gon is CBN (Corbin-i Virginia-! = 76-1 km).However, this station did not produce useful waveform data for the t i m ewindowi because this seismo graph ic station records data only when seismi csignals are detected-Figure 2 shows seismic records at the three nearest stations around thePentagon with distance ranges from b3 to 506 k m - Three minutes ofvertical-component seismic records from Q1:3b:30 (EDT)to 01:31:30 (EDT) areplotted- There appears to be strong seismic signals around 01:36:52 atstation M V L (M illersvillei P ai = 131 km) i but the signals are too highfrequency (5-10 Hz) and, too hi g h am p l i tu d e (326 nm/s at 131 km)- Hence-, itappears be noise perhaps due to electri-cal d i s tu r b anc e s - Otherwise! thereare no clear and consistent seismic wave arriva ls in this tim e window-Figure 3 shows seismic record section for records shown in Figure 2- Thesedisplays fa cili ta te analysis of seismic signals by dis pla yin g a suite ofrecords in order by distance- Hencei the seismic phase Pg (P wavespropagating through Earth's crust) would propagate w ith nearly constantspeed of about b km/s over the record section! where as the phase P n(critically refracted P waves propagating through top of the uppermostman tle) propagates with an apparent speed of about 6 km/s- Hencei theconsistency of seismic phases across a seismograph network is the key todiscern if there are any seismic signals generated d urin g the plane impactinto the Pentagon. These waveform data indicate that we could not identifyseismic signals associated wit h the plane impact into the Pentagon onSeptember 11 1 EOQ 1 -In case of the plane impacts to the UTC towersi the observed peak ampl itud eson the vertical-component record at PAL (Palisadesi N Y i = 3M km) are 230 and2bO nanometers/sec for the first (North Tower) and the second (South Tower)impacts! respectively- A nanometer is 10 meters-Figure M shows seismic record section of vertica l seismic records from theyTC South Tower colla pse at 1:51:31 (EDT) (13:51:OH UTC). It generatedstrong seismic waves equiva lent to an earthquake of local ma gnitude M L =2-1(Richter scalei see K i m i 1116). The seismic signalsi Lg and Rg wavesi are



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d i s c e r n i b l e up to about 500 km from the UTC s i t e - Stations M V L - . SDMD andSSPA that we e xa m i n e d for the Pentagon case-i also recorded useful signalsand indicate that these stations were working normally on September 1 1 - .5001-Analysis of Seismic Records for United Air li nes Flight 13 Crash nearShank s v i l l e i PaFigure 5 shows seismic record section of vertical-component records fromfour station s around the Unite d Air lin es Fli ght 13 crash site nearShank s v i l l e i Somerset County-i Pennsylvania. Th e location of the site istaken from the web site for the F l i g h t 13 Memorial-. UR Lhttp: / / uww -s han ks vi l l e me mor i al .c om. The four closest station s range indistance from 13 to S l f l km (Table 1). Two minutes of vertical-components e i sm i c records starting from estimated or igi n time of lM:Ob:DS (lQ:Qb:OSEJT) are p l o t t e d -The s e i sm i c s i g n a l s ar e rel ativ ely weak compared wit h the background noisel e v e l - For instance-! at stations MCUV and SCMDi the signal (portion ofsignals just after Sg) to noise (portion of records just before Pg a r r i v a l s )ratios are about ] > : l i whereas-, at station SSPA the ratio is about 3*5:1 andat MVL it is about S:l (Figure S) .A l t h o u g h - , seis mic signals across the network are not as strong and clear asthe UTC case (see Kim et a l - i 5001)-. three component records at station SSPA( = 107-b km) shown in F i g u r e b are quite c l ear - The three-component recordsat SSPA are d o m i n a t e d by strong Lg arrivals-i whereas the Pg waves aredif f icult to d i s c e r n and have amplitudes comparable to the n o i s e l e v e l - Thisis typical for seismic waves generated by airplane impacts and crashes- Th eseismic signals marked as Sg in Figure S propagated from the Shanksvillecrash site to the stations with approximately 3-5 km/ s - Hence-, we infer thatth e F lig ht 13 crashed around m:0b:05 5 (UTC) (lQ:Ob:OS EDT).The uncertainty is o n l y due to seismic v e l o c i t y at the uppe rmos t crust nearthe surface in w h i c h the Lg waves pr opagate d -Ack no wle dgm ent sUe thank the m a n y i n d i v i d u a l s and instituti ons that collaborated with us inoperating the seis-mographic stations in the Northeastern United States- Inparticular-! Richa rd Ortt and Ro b e r t Conkwright at the Environmental Geologyand Mineral Resources-. Mar yl an d Ge ol ogi c al Survey installed and operate thestation SDMD (Soldier's Delight-. M a r y l a n d ) and p r o v i d e d the d i g i - t a lwaveform data for the analysis. Professor Charles Scharnberger at then i l l e r s v i l l e University-. Pennsylvania operates the station H V L(Hillersville-. Pennsylvania) and p r o v i d e d the data- These modern broadband-idig ita l s e i s mogr aphi c stations form the backbone of the Lamont-DohertyCo-operative Seismographic Network (LCSN). hi e appreciate LCSN staff JeremiahA r m i t a g e - i John Armbruster and John Contino at Lamont -Doherty EarthObservatory for their e fforts- Dr- Marti n Chapman at Virginia Tech providedthe wav efor m data from BLA (Blacksburg-. V i r g i n i a ) - The analysis carried outfor this report is sponsored by the Department of Nat u r a l Resources-! Stateof Maryland under contract numbe r SMGS/AG1-01-075 -

Refer e n c e sK i r n - i Uon-Young-. The ML scale in eastern North America-. B u l l e t i n e of theSei sm o logical Soci-etyof Am e r i c a n lfl-. 35-151-. 1116-



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K i m - . Don-Young, L- R - S y k e s - . J . H . Armitage-, J. K - Xie-. K - H . Jacob-. P - G -Richards-i H. blest-iF - Ualdhauser-. J. Armbruster-, L- Seeber-, U - X - Du and A. LerneiLara-. Seismicw a v e s gen-eratedby aircraft impacts and building collapses at World Trade Center-i New Y o r kCity-i E o s - iTransactions-1 American Geophysical Union-i V o l . &Si N o - M7i pagesS70-S71i N o v e m b e r2D-, 2001.

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t8 b15 hijacked airplanes 3 of 3 fdr- email from lorie van auken to commission re seismic data

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