The audio file with Betty Ong has been edited

Claim

The claim was made by Thomas Nørgaard, physics teacher at Nørre Gymnasium, Copenhagen, on July 26 2017 on 911facts.dk’s Facebook wall:¹

Dear 911facts

This is a claim I would like you to investigate for me. Thanks.

The publically accessible audio file of Betty Ong’s call from AA 11 deviates a lot from the transcription the FBI made of her call on the day of September 11 2001.

Among many others are the sentences “He stood upstairs”, “What operation we are talking about” not found on the official audio file. Many other things are in quite a different order.

Here FBI’s transcription https://vault.fbi.gov/…/9-11-interviews-2001-09-sep-04-of-08

Here the publicized audio file

From this, we can conclude that either 1) there are two different audio files or 2) the audio file made public is an edited version of the FBI-transcribed from September 11 2001.

Do you agree with this claim? Do you want to investigate it for me? Thanks.⁰

Background

The claim is used to support the claim that Flight 11 was not hijacked, which means this part of the official investigations must be false.

Facts

Betty Ong was a flight attendant on American Airlines Flight 11², the first plane to hit the World Trade Center on September 11 2001. During the time leading to the collision, Betty Ong succeeded in making a phone call from a telephone on the plane. She got in touch with two employees at American Airlines. The part of the conversation that managed to be recorded lasted for just over four minutes³.

Later the same day, September 11, one of the two employees at American Airlines, Nydia Gonzalez, interviewed over the phone by an FBI agent. During the interview, Gonzalez plays the recorded conversation with Betty Ong twice. During the interview, the FBI agents writes down what Gonzalez says, and what Betty Ong says on the recording.

It is unknown why the recording is not played from the beginning at the first playback, but from about 1 minute and 10 seconds from the start. The FBI agent does not get everything written down and must also deal with a difficult sound quality, given that the interview takes place over the phone. He does take notes all the way through and writes “(UI)”, “unintelligible” when he cannot either hear clearly or understand what is being said. At the second playback the same day, the recording is played almost from the start, which results in a lot more notes and adjustments. However, there are still a number of errors made.

The next day, the FBI has gotten hold of the recording, and can now perform a thorough analysis, resulting in a complete transcription of the recording of Betty Ong.

Both transcripts, in the following called phone transcript and tape transcript, were subsequently publicized in one document by the FBI⁴.

The audio file of Betty Ong can be found several places and in several versions on the Internet. One of the best can be found here:

There is a distinct difference in quality of the transcripts of the Betty Ong conversation when heard through the phone during the FBI interview with the employee at American Airlines (the phone transcript) and what emerges from the more accurate transcript by the FBI, after the tape itself was received (the tape transcript).

But when we compare the phone transcript and the tape transcript, it becomes clear that it is the same conversation, since the chronology fits. It also becomes clear that there are a number of misunderstandings, factual erroneous recounting, simplifications and exclusions in the phone transcripts. This is to be expected, when hearing the conversation in a low sound quality and having the need to play it twice, after which a verbatim transcript of the recording was made the following day. On the other hand, there is sufficient of correct information to be included in the criminal investigation of the terror attack already happening at that time, where the primary goal was to identify the hijackers.

Note: Pxx og Txx designate the order of the phone transcript and the tape transcript.

Thus, there is nothing that indicates that there are two different audio recordings in the two transcripts, or that the recording has been edited.

Logic

If the FBI had altered or swapped the recording with Betty Ong, the bureau would immediately have exposed itself by publicizing a document where both transcripts were included. The reason why both transcripts were included is probably the wish to present as much as possible from the criminal investigation.

By pointing to the first FBI transcript as being a correct account, while rejecting the second transcript, Thomas Nørgaard considers the FBI simultaneously as a trustworthy source and an untrustworthy source.

The claim contradicts a number of other conspiracy theories, namely that there shouldn’t be hijackers or planes involved in the attack on the World Trade Center on September 11 2001. The claim acknowledges that it is a conversation between a flight attendant on board one of the planes used in the attack, and also acknowledges that both transcripts show that the plane was hijacked.

Conclusion

The claim is thus:

• False
• Illogical
• Self-contradicting

Sources

0. 
1. Lærerstab, Ørestad Gymnasium
2. Flight 11, passagerliste
3. https://www.youtube.com/embed/AUpG5CMbQRw
4. Transcript of phone conversation with Betty Ong

Q & A