the 9/11 conspiracy

Once again, I'd like to make it clear that I'm playing devil's advocate, as you seemed to miss that. I do not personally believe that 9/11 was an inside job, but I am simply arguing the opposite side for the sake of a quality debate. Now that that's out of the way... I have done my research on the subject as well, and I assure you that I have not watched a single video regarding the subject (unless you count ATC audio recordings as videos). And I very well do accept that fact that planes can slam into buildings... as an aerospace engineering student, my primary goal is to improve aviation safety. I'm sure you and I can both agree that NORAD officials know their own program much better than you and I do. NORAD officials knew the location of the rogue airplanes (even though the transponders on three of the four flights were turned off) due to sophisticated long-range triangulation. They also had military exercises during the week of 9/11 (Operation Northern Vigilance), so they must have been on heightened alert; this should have lowered the expected response time. However, the air defense system failed in four ways: the FAA took a significantly longer time than usual reporting the missing aircraft and the suspected terrorist operations to NORAD, doing so incorrectly regarding one of the flights which lead to jets being sent out over the Atlantic, which hurt interception chances greatly; NORAD, after finding out about the nature of the aircraft, failed to scramble jets from nearby bases like Andrews Air Force Base (which NORAD did indeed have permission to operate, contrary to claims by the opposition) and instead opted for bases hundreds of miles away; the jets in flight did not fly at speeds required to intercept the airliners (yes, it is against protocol to break the sound barrier in pursuit to intercept, but the F-15s flew at a measly 1/4 of their top speed of 1660 mph. In fact, given the location at the time to the nearest hijacked aircraft, a 600mph speed would have sufficed in catching up to the hijacked plane); and fourth, jets within the vicinity to intercept were not redeployed to chase the hijacked planes. NORAD General Ralph Eberhart stood by NORAD's timeline release that proved that the jets were scrambled with enough time to intercept the jets if they had operated as per procedure (in fact, the timeline shows they were airborne by 8:52 AM, leaving more than twice the amount of time required to intercept the plane) [1]. In addition to NORAD's actions, there is evidence showing that knowledge of the attack existed beforehand. During Stock Market trading the days before 9/11, American and United Airlines (the airlines involved in the attacks) recorded a massive increase in put orders. If you're not familiar with put orders, it simply means that individuals bet that the stock price would drop, which they did (in dramatic fashion) after news of the crashes spread. This shows that there is reason to believe that people were aware of the situation and were capitalizing on it to make a good deal of money. The lack of evidence is also disturbing in this case, and that very fact can be used as evidence itself. Of the black boxes from the four aircraft, only three were found, with only one being in a usable condition (which is bizarre, as many aircraft have experienced significantly more damage to the tail section where the black box is housed - see Air France Flight 447 which crashed into the Atlantic from 38,000 feet and Korean Air Lines Flight 007 which was shot down from 35,000 feet over Soviet territory into the ocean - and have had their respective black boxes recovered). The one that was in usable condition was kept hidden from the public, and the version that was released much later was heavily redacted. In addition, the Department of Transportation confirmed that interviews with air traffic controllers who spoke about their communications with the hijacked planes had been destroyed without being copied or even listened to. I will reserve more analysis for the next round, mostly because I'm getting really sleepy.