http://www.cooperativeresearch.org The Center for Grassroots Oversight aims to provide the public with a means to collaborate on investigations at the grassroots level. en-us http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=a032502humphreys911#a032502humphreys911 http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=a032502humphreys911#a032502humphreys911 Oklahoma City mayor Kirk Humphreys visits the site of the World Trade Center, destroyed in the 9/11 attacks, and tells reporters that he cannot help but compare the scene to the damage done almost seven years ago in the Oklahoma City bombing , which resulted in the destruction of a federal building and cost the lives of 168 people. Humphreys is on a personal visit with his wife and teenaged daughter. They journey down into the bottom of the pit that once housed the World Trade Center. Humphreys gives some advice for New Yorkers coping with the trauma of the attacks, noting that while the two events have profound differences, the suffering and trauma of the survivors, and of the families and friends of those lost in the attacks, are similar. "The area of Ground Zero, 12 blocks or so, is about the size of our entire downtown," Humphreys tells reporters. "I tell people that what happened on 9/11 would have wiped out something the size of downtown. But the World Trade Center was an attack on America, and so was Oklahoma City. ... Ours was tough, but ours was a piece of cake compared to this one." In many ways, he says, dealing with the emotional trauma suffered by Oklahoma citizens was the most difficult: "The physical is the easiest part, and right when you think it is over, you realize that you need to address those other needs. ... On the morning of April 19, 1995, there were some people who woke up with their lives spinning out of control--and then the bomb went off. You are going to have many people struggling for a long time. More substance abuse. More divorce. More emotional burnout. More suicides." Oklahoma City plans on opening an exhibit, "Shared Experience," on April 19, the seven-year anniversary of the bombing. The exhibit will include tributes to the seven New York firefighters and two police officers who died on 9/11 and who helped in the 1995 rescue efforts. Deputy Chief Ray Downey, the leader of the special operations command who died while leading a team of firefighters into the South Tower, is credited with saving dozens of lives in the aftermath of the Oklahoma City bombing. When Downey died, he was wearing a Catholic rosary that had been given to him by Governor Frank Keating (R-OK). The others who rendered assistance in the 1995 blast, and who died on 9/11, are: New York Battalion Chief John J. Fanning; Captain Terence S. Hatton; Lieutenants Kevin C. Dowdell, Michael A. Esposito, and Peter C. Martin; Firefighter William D. Lake; Police Sergeant Michael S. Curtin; and Officer Thomas Langone. Humphreys says of the nine: "They were good men. They helped us in our time of need." Humphreys was not mayor at the time of the bombing, but is credited with leading the rebuilding effort in Oklahoma City as well as reinvigorating the tourist trade. mtuck 2013-02-25T18:06:07+01:00 http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=a091101okcprepare#a091101okcprepare http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=a091101okcprepare#a091101okcprepare Twenty minutes after the 9/11 attacks in New York (see and ) and Washington , a bomb truck is stationed in downtown Oklahoma City, in preparation for any potential bombing related to the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing . Additionally, an Oklahoma County Sheriff's Department command post is activated where convicted bombing conspirator Terry Nichols is being held. mtuck 2013-02-25T18:05:16+01:00 http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=a846milaidesnotified#a846milaidesnotified http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=a846milaidesnotified#a846milaidesnotified Major Paul Montanus and Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Gould, two military aides who are accompanying President Bush on his visit to Florida, are notified that a plane has hit the World Trade Center, but they do not yet realize the crash was deliberate, as part of a terrorist attack. The president has five military aides, who are representatives of the Air Force, the Army, the Navy, the Marines, and the Coast Guard. A military aide will accompany the president wherever he goes. Montanus, a Marine Corps officer, is currently the president's "advance aide." He inspected the locations for the president's Florida visit beforehand and is accompanying Bush on his trip to the Emma E. Booker Elementary School in Sarasota. Gould, an Air Force officer, is the "courier military aide," who is responsible for handling military emergency operations. He is currently off duty for a few hours, and is working out in the gym at the resort on Longboat Key where Bush spent the previous night . Montanus is notified of the crash at the WTC while traveling to the Booker Elementary School in the president's motorcade. He apparently does not realize it was part of a terrorist attack. "We had heard that a plane had hit the building, but not much more," he will later recall. Gould learns what happened in New York when his pager goes off, with a message from the Presidential Emergency Operations Center below the White House that informs him, "A plane just crashed into the World Trade Center." Gould then sees the coverage of the crash on the television in the gym. He finishes his workout and then calls his wife, to discuss the incident with her. As a trained pilot, Gould wonders how such a crash could have occurred. Like Montanus, he thinks it was an accident. "Part of me doesn't want to believe it's anything else," he will recall. Gould will still be on the phone with his wife when the second plane hits the WTC, and then realize that some kind of attack is taking place . The job of the presidential military aide is, primarily, to be the emergency action officer for the president, but it also involves being the president's military representative for official functions and his personal aide on weekends. Military aides carry what is called the "nuclear football," which is a briefcase that holds critical codes that are necessary to initiate a nuclear attack, and other emergency operations details that the president might need when he is away from the White House. Gould will explain that, as the presidential military aide, his role is "to ensure that the commander in chief had direct access to his military commanders; specifically, in the realm of if we were under a nuclear attack, I would present the president with his options." matt 2013-01-30T09:22:16+01:00 http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=a829sweeneysayer#a829sweeneysayer http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=a829sweeneysayer#a829sweeneysayer Amy Sweeney, a flight attendant on Flight 11, reaches the American Airlines flight services office at Logan International Airport in Boston for the second time, and describes the trouble on her plane to an employee there. Sweeney called the flight services office at 8:25 a.m. and told Evelyn Nunez, a passenger service agent, about the trouble on Flight 11, but the call was cut off after less than two minutes . Sweeney now calls the flight services office again. Nunez is busy making a phone call, so Sweeney's call is answered by James Sayer, a staff assistant. Sayer takes notes while he is talking to Sweeney. He will later describe to the FBI what she tells him. Sweeney apparently does not give her name during the call. Sayer will recall that "[o]n the telephone was [a] female flight attendant on ... Flight 11, calling from the air, who stated that two flight attendants were stabbed and a man in business class had been stabbed in the throat." Sweeney would be referring to flight attendants Barbara Arestegui and Karen Martin, and passenger Daniel Lewin , who were attacked by the hijackers. Sweeney says that a "doctor and nurse on board the plane [are] caring for the injured man," Sayer will recall. Michael Woodward, a manager in the flight services office who talks with Sweeney in a subsequent call , will also tell the FBI that Sweeney says a doctor and nurse are caring for a passenger who has been stabbed. However, Betty Ong, another flight attendant on Flight 11, is currently talking over the phone to employees at the American Airlines Southeastern Reservations Office in North Carolina (see and ), and she will say there are no doctors on the plane . Sweeney tells Sayer that the individuals who took over her plane "had Mace and pepper spray," and she can "detect an odor in the cabin." She says that "two people had gone in the cockpit and they said they had a bomb." Apparently describing the bomb, Sweeney says she "observed two boxes connected with red and yellow wire." Sweeney says Flight 11 is currently in the air over New York City, Sayer will recall. However, Flight 11 recently turned south over Albany, which is about 150 miles north of New York , and so is still a long way from the city. Sweeney also indicates that she thinks there are only three hijackers on Flight 11, telling Sayer that the hijackers were in seats 9C, 9G, and 10B. However, apart from seat 10B, these seat numbers are different to those registered in the hijackers' names. The five hijackers on Flight 11 had been in seats 2A, 2B, 8D, 8G, and 10B, according to the 9/11 Commission Report. Sweeney's call is cut off after 43 seconds. Sayer will answer the phone when Sweeney contacts the flight services office again at 8:32 a.m., but he will pass the call on to Woodward. It is unclear whether all the information that Sayer describes to the FBI, about the problems on Flight 11, is given to him by Sweeney in the current call, or if she provides some of it to him in the 8:32 a.m. call. matt 2013-01-30T09:21:53+01:00 http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=a845aamanagerslearn#a845aamanagerslearn http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=a845aamanagerslearn#a845aamanagerslearn American Airlines managers are informed of what their airline has learned about the trouble on Flight 11 during a regular conference call. In their daily morning conference call, senior American Airlines personnel usually discuss what happened on the previous day at the airline and what they are expecting in the day ahead. But shortly after today's conference call begins, Joseph Bertapelle, a manager at the airline's System Operations Control (SOC) center in Fort Worth, Texas, announces, "Gentlemen, I have some information here I need to relay." Bertapelle then passes on to the senior managers much of the information about the hijacking of Flight 11 that has been received by SOC employees Craig Marquis and Bill Halleck. Marquis, the manager on duty at the SOC, has been on the phone with a supervisor at the American Airlines Southeastern Reservations Office in North Carolina, who has been relaying to him information she received in a simultaneous phone call with Betty Ong, a flight attendant on Flight 11 . And Halleck, an air traffic control specialist at the SOC, has been in contact with the FAA's Boston Center, which gave him details of the problems with Flight 11 . The conference call apparently only lasts a short time. Craig Parfitt, American Airlines' managing director of dispatch operations, will later recall that at around 8:55 a.m.--10 minutes after the conference call begins--senior managers are arriving at the System Operations Command Center, located on the floor above the SOC . Presumably, some of these managers will have previously been participating in the conference call. matt 2013-01-30T09:21:30+01:00 http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=a851cartywonders#a851cartywonders http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=a851cartywonders#a851cartywonders Don Carty, the president of American Airlines, calls his airline's System Operations Command Center (SOCC) in Fort Worth, Texas, and asks if the plane that is reported to have hit the World Trade Center belonged to American Airlines. According to author Lynn Spencer, Carty, who is still at home, learned that an American Airlines plane had been hijacked when he received a message from the airline on his pager, which stated, "Confirmed hijacking Flight 11" . But Carty will tell CNN that he learned of the hijacking in "a call from our operations people." He will say he'd told the caller that he "would be out immediately," but then, he will say, "it suddenly occurred to me that maybe I should check whether the press had the story, and I turned on the TV, and almost at the moment I turned on the TV, I saw them talking about something that struck the World Trade Center." Carty will say that upon seeing the report, "[J]ust in my gut, I knew it was our airplane" that had hit the WTC. Carty phones Gerard Arpey, American Airlines' executive vice president of operations, who is at the SOCC. He says, "The press is reporting an airplane hit the World Trade Center," and asks, "Is that our plane?" Arpey replies that the airline's personnel do not know. He tells Carty only that they "had confirmed the hijacking of Flight 11, and knew it was flying toward New York City and descending." matt 2013-01-30T09:21:01+01:00 http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=a1013milaiderequests#a1013milaiderequests http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=a1013milaiderequests#a1013milaiderequests Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Gould, a military aide who is accompanying President Bush on his visit to Florida, makes a call requesting a fighter escort and other assets to support Air Force One as it flies away from Sarasota. Gould, who has tactical control of all the military assets that support the president, including presidential aircraft, was with Bush on Air Force One when the plane took off from Sarasota-Bradenton International Airport . He has talked with Colonel Mark Tillman, Air Force One's pilot, about the plane's ability to evade other aircraft. "At this point we don't know the scope of this attack and what's in front of us," Gould will later recall. Gould will say that because he "thought there was a threat," he makes a phone call and asks for three things: fighter jets to escort Air Force One, a refueling plane, and an AWACS (Airborne Warning and Control System plane) to provide the ability to "see" around the president's plane. Gould will say, in 2011, that he calls the Pentagon to make this request. However, other evidence indicates that he contacts the Presidential Emergency Operations Center (PEOC) below the White House with the request, and the request is then passed on to the Pentagon over the air threat conference call. A transcript of the air threat conference call shows that at 10:14 a.m., Colonel Michael Irwin, the director of operations for the White House Military Office, who is in the PEOC, says he has "just talked to [the] mil aide" on Air Force One, and then adds: "We'd like AWACS over Louisiana. We'd like fighter escort." An AWACS on a training mission off the coast of Florida is directed toward Air Force One and will accompany it all the way to Washington, DC . Fighters will also arrive to escort the president's plane. However, it will be over an hour before they reach it . It is unclear if and when a refueling plane reaches Air Force One. matt 2013-01-30T09:20:27+01:00 http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=a937haginreturns#a937haginreturns http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=a937haginreturns#a937haginreturns A number of White House staffers who are visiting New York make their way back to Washington, DC, following the attack on the Pentagon. About 15 members of the White House staff, including Joseph Hagin, the deputy chief of staff for operations, and Captain Michael Miller, the deputy director of the White House Military Office, are in New York conducting the "survey trip" for President Bush's appearance at the United Nations General Assembly later in the month . Earlier this morning, they went to the US Mission to the United Nations for some preliminary meetings with the mission staff about the president's forthcoming visit. In a conference room there, shortly after Flight 11 hit the World Trade Center , Miller informed Hagin of the crash. After seeing the early coverage of the incident on television, Hagin called the military aide who is with the president in Sarasota, Florida, to check if he was aware of what had happened. The military aide told him, "We're on it." After the White House staffers watched the second plane hitting the WTC live on TV, a State Department security officer told Hagin: "Sir, you need to get out of here as quickly as possible. There are reports of other planes inbound into the city." The White House staffers were then taken by the Secret Service to a police station in Midtown Manhattan, where it was thought they would be safe. From there, Hagin called Josh Bolten, the deputy White House chief of staff for policy, who is at the White House. As the attacks were considered to be "just a New York incident" at that time, Hagin will later recall, Bolten and his colleagues decided that Hagin "should go down and be with the mayor, and ... be the federal face in New York for the time being." The New York City police and the Secret Service had been trying to work out how to get Hagin to Ground Zero. But when the Pentagon is attacked at 9:37 a.m. , they decide that the White House staffers should return to Washington. The staffers are driven to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware. There, they are split up. Eight of them, including Hagin, get on a military plane and head toward Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska to meet the president, who has been taken to the base . However, as they are flying over Missouri, they learn that Bush has decided to come back to Washington (see and ). Therefore, their plane turns around and heads to the capital. After they land at Andrews Air Force Base, just outside Washington, the staffers are driven to the White House. The time when they arrive there is unstated, but it is presumably around late afternoon or early evening. At the White House, Hagin goes to work immediately. As the deputy chief of staff for operations, he is a key member of the White House staff. He is responsible for the management and administrative functions of the White House, plans all of the president's travel, and oversees the president's schedule. Hagin will recall that, after reaching the White House, he is "very involved in the continuity of government and just how, operationally, we were going to deal with this." He will remain at the White House for the next two days. matt 2013-01-30T09:20:03+01:00 http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=a836nodoctor#a836nodoctor http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=a836nodoctor#a836nodoctor Betty Ong, a flight attendant on the hijacked Flight 11, tells American Airlines employees on the ground that there are no doctors on her plane who could help the injured crew members, and this information leads an airline manager to decide that he wants Flight 11 to land at the next available airport. Ong is on the phone with employees at the American Airlines Southeastern Reservations Office in North Carolina . She previously told them that the "number one" flight attendant on her plane--Karen Martin--and the "number five" flight attendant--Barbara Arestegui--had been stabbed (see and ). Nydia Gonzalez, one of the reservations office employees talking to Ong, asks, "So the number one flight attendant--the one that was stabbed--she's on oxygen right now?" Ong says that other crew members have been "able to administer oxygen" to Martin and that Martin is "able to breathe," Gonzalez will later recall. Gonzalez then asks, "And the number five: that was a superficial wound, you were saying?" Ong says the number five flight attendant's injury is less serious. While she is on the phone with Ong, Gonzalez has been relaying the information Ong provides to Craig Marquis, the manager on duty at the American Airlines System Operations Control center in Texas, on another phone line . Marquis now requests that Gonzalez ask Ong a question. He says to Gonzalez: "Who's helping them? Is there a doctor on board?" Gonzalez passes on Marquis's question, asking Ong, "Is there a doctor on board, Betty, that's assisting you guys?" Ong indicates that there isn't a doctor on Flight 11. Marquis will tell the FBI that because there is "no doctor on board Flight 11 to help the injured," he wants "the aircraft to land at the next available airport." Because of "the medical emergencies and the violence" on the plane, Marquis will say, he intends "for medical personnel and law enforcement to meet the aircraft as soon as it landed." matt 2013-01-30T09:19:40+01:00 http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=a904milaidearranges#a904milaidearranges http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=a904milaidearranges#a904milaidearranges Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Gould, a military aide who is accompanying President Bush on his visit to Florida, promptly arranges for Air Force One to leave Sarasota after he learns that a second plane has hit the World Trade Center. Gould, one of the president's five military aides, is currently off duty for a few hours and at the resort on Longboat Key where Bush spent the previous night , while another military aide, Major Paul Montanus, is with Bush at the Emma E. Booker Elementary School in Sarasota. Gould was alerted to the first crash at the WTC but thought it was an accident . He is talking on the phone with his wife and watching the coverage of the crash on television when a second plane, Flight 175, hits the WTC at 9:03 a.m. . Realizing this must be a deliberate act, Gould abruptly ends the call with his wife. "At that point I know something has happened," he will later recall. "It's bigger than an accident. It's an attack of some sort. I don't think I thought through what kind of attack it was, but I knew it was something concerted." Gould has tactical control of all the military assets that support the president, including presidential aircraft, and he has the ability to move assets on behalf of the president. He therefore calls Colonel Mark Tillman, the pilot of Air Force One, immediately and tells him to get the president's plane and its crew ready to depart as soon as possible. He then heads to the Sarasota airport, getting there at around 9:30 a.m. After the president's motorcade arrives at the airport at 9:43 a.m. , Gould meets Montanus under the nose of Air Force One. Following strict protocol, Montanus gives Gould the "nuclear football"--a briefcase carried by the president's military aide that holds the codes and plans necessary for the president to initiate a nuclear attack. Gould will be on Air Force One with the president when the plane takes off , but Montanus will stay behind in Sarasota, as is procedure. matt 2013-01-30T09:19:18+01:00