Project: Complete 911 TimelineOpen-Content project managed by matt, Paul, KJF, blackmax
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All the alleged 9/11 hijackers reportedly check in at the airports from where they board Flights 11, 175, 77, and 93. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 1-4; 9/11 Commission, 8/26/2004, pp. 27, 89, 93 ] Since 1998, the FAA has required air carriers to implement a program called the Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening System (CAPPS). This identifies those passengers who might be a security risk, based upon suspicious behavior such as buying one-way tickets or paying with cash. CAPPS also randomly assigns some passengers to receive additional security scrutiny. If a particular passenger has been designated as a “selectee,” this information is transmitted to the airport’s check-in counter, where a code is printed on their boarding pass. At the airport’s security checkpoints, selectees are subjected to additional security measures. [US News and World Report, 4/1/2002; 9/11 Commission, 1/27/2004; US Congress, 3/17/2004; 9/11 Commission, 8/26/2004, pp. 2, 85 ] Their baggage is to be screened for explosives or held off the plane until they have boarded. Supposedly, the thinking behind this is that someone smuggling a bomb onto a plane won’t get onto that same flight. According to the 9/11 Commission, nine of the 19 hijackers are flagged by the CAPPS system before boarding Flights 11, 175, 77, and 93. [Washington Post, 1/28/2004; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 84; United States of America v. Zacarias Moussaoui, a/k/a Shaqil, a/k/a Abu Khalid al Sahrawi, Defendant, 3/6/2006] In addition, Mohamed Atta was selected when he checked in at the airport in Portland, for his earlier connecting flight to Boston (see 5:33 a.m.-5:40 a.m. September 11, 2001). All of the hijackers subsequently pass through security checkpoints before boarding their flights. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 1-4]
Entity Tags: Federal Aviation Administration, Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening System
Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline
Category Tags: All Day of 9/11 Events, Flight AA 11, Flight UA 175, Flight AA 77, Flight UA 93, Key Day of 9/11 Events
Mohamed Atta and Abdulaziz Alomari’s Portland-Boston flight arrives on time at Boston’s Logan Airport. [Der Spiegel, 2002] They cross a parking lot on their way to the departure terminal for Flight 11, and are observed asking for directions. The other three Flight 11 hijackers arrive at Logan in a rented car around this same time (see (6:45 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 8/26/2004, pp. 5 ]
Entity Tags: Mohamed Atta, Abdulaziz Alomari, Logan Airport
Category Tags: All Day of 9/11 Events, Flight AA 11
During this period, all five Flight 11 hijackers check in at Boston’s Logan Airport and board their plane, bound for Los Angeles. The FAA has a program in place called the Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening System (CAPPS), which is designed to identify those passengers most likely requiring additional scrutiny by airport security (see (6:20 a.m.-7:48 a.m.) September 11, 2001). Ticket records will show that CAPPS selects three of the Flight 11 hijackers at Logan: Since Waleed Alshehri checks no bags his selection has no consequences; Wail Alshehri and Satam Al Suqami have their bags scanned for explosives, but are not stopped. All five hijackers would need to pass through a security checkpoint to reach the departure gate for their flight. Each would have been screened as they walked through a metal detector calibrated to detect items with at least the metal content of a small-caliber handgun. If they’d set this off, they would have been screened with a handheld metal detector. An X-ray machine would have screened their carry-on luggage. However, Logan Airport has no video surveillance of its security checkpoints (see 1991-2000), so there is no documentary evidence of exactly when they pass through them, or if alarms are triggered. According to the 9/11 Commission, none of the checkpoint supervisors later recall seeing any of the Flights 11 hijackers, or report anything suspicious having occurred. [9/11 Commission, 1/27/2004; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 1-2; 9/11 Commission, 8/26/2004, pp. 5-6 ] However, a WorldNetDaily article will claim that some Logan staff members recall seeing Mohamed Atta (see (6:50 a.m.-7:40 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [WorldNetDaily, 9/21/2001] The Boston Globe will later comment, “aviation specialists have said it is unlikely that more rigorous attention to existing rules would have thwarted the 10 hijackers who boarded two jets at Logan on Sept. 11. At the time, the knives and box-cutters they were carrying were permitted.” [Boston Globe, 10/17/2001]
Entity Tags: Satam Al Suqami, Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening System, Wail Alshehri, Federal Aviation Administration, Logan Airport, Waleed M. Alshehri
According to an article on the conservative news website WorldNetDaily, alleged lead hijacker Mohamed Atta almost misses Flight 11 and has to rush to the departure gate at Boston’s Logan Airport. The article is based on the account of an unnamed American Airlines employee at Logan, and claims Atta is running late because his connecting flight from Portland was delayed (see (6:00 a.m.) September 11, 2001). However, the 9/11 Commission claims that this plane was “on time,” and says Atta is observed at Logan with Abdulaziz Alomari, asking for directions in a parking lot (see 6:45 a.m. September 11, 2001). The employee says that at the baggage check-in, when asked security questions, Atta claims he does not speak English. A supervisor is called for, who just sends him towards the departure gate, as it is close to his plane’s take-off time. Atta rushes through the security checkpoint, then down to the gate, where he shows up perspiring. The employee comments, “The nitwit. You know, they’d been planning it for five years, and he’s running late for the flight.” An American Airlines spokeswoman will refuse to comment on this account, saying all American employees have been ordered not to speak to the press. [WorldNetDaily, 9/21/2001; 9/11 Commission, 8/26/2004, pp. 3, 5 ]
Entity Tags: Logan Airport, Mohamed Atta
A three-minute call is made from a payphone at Boston’s Logan Airport, in the gate area from where Flight 175 will later depart, to Mohamed Atta’s cell phone. The 9/11 Commission will report, “We presume Shehhi [i.e., Marwan Alshehhi] made the call, but we cannot be sure.” According to the commission, this is Atta and Alshehhi’s final conversation. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 1, 451; 9/11 Commission, 8/26/2004, pp. 4 ] According to other reports, though, they later speak again briefly by cellphone while waiting for their planes to take off (see (Before 7:59 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [New York Times, 11/4/2001; Time, 8/4/2002]
Entity Tags: Mohamed Atta, Marwan Alshehhi, Logan Airport
Category Tags: All Day of 9/11 Events, Flight AA 11, Flight UA 175
Sometime during this period, the hijackers pass through airport security checkpoints at the various airports. The FAA has a screening program in place called the Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening System (CAPPS). CAPPS automatically targets passengers for additional screening based on suspicious behavior such as buying one-way tickets or paying with cash. If a passenger is selected, their bags are thoroughly screened for explosives, but their bodies are not searched. [Washington Post, 1/28/2004] CAPPS selects three of the five Flight 11 hijackers. Since Waleed Alshehri checked no bags, his selection had no consequences. Wail Alshehri and Satam Al Suqami have their bags scanned for explosives, but are not stopped. No Flight 175 hijackers are selected. Only Ahmad Alhaznawi is selected from Flight 93. His bag is screened for explosives, but he is not stopped. The 9/11 Commission later concludes that Alhaznawi and Ahmed Alnami, also headed to Flight 93, have suspicious indicators and that they could have been linked to al-Qaeda upon inspection, but it has not been explained why or how. [9/11 Commission, 1/27/2004; Baltimore Sun, 1/27/2004] Screening of the Flight 77 hijackers is described below.
Entity Tags: Waleed M. Alshehri, Al-Qaeda, Federal Aviation Administration, Wail Alshehri, Ahmed Alnami, Satam Al Suqami, Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening System
Category Tags: All Day of 9/11 Events, Flight AA 11, Flight UA 175, Flight UA 93
American Airlines Flight 11 pushes back from the gate at Boston’s Logan Airport. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 2] There are discrepancies over which gate it leaves from. Most early reports state that it pushes out from Gate 26 in Terminal B of the airport. [Boston Globe, 9/12/2001; Chicago Sun-Times, 9/13/2001; Daily Telegraph, 9/16/2001; Washington Post, 9/16/2001; Bernstein, 2002, pp. 179; Der Spiegel, 2002, pp. 36] However, one unnamed Logan Airport employee will say it leaves from Gate 32, also in Terminal B. [Boston Globe, 9/11/2001] The transcript of radio communications with the flight confirms it left from Gate 32, and the 9/11 Commission also later states this. [New York Times, 10/16/2001; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 451] The reason for the discrepancy in these reports is unclear. Flight 11, a Boeing 767 with a capacity of 158 passengers, is about half full on this day, with 81 passengers on board (including the five hijackers), along with the two pilots and nine flight attendants. [9/11 Commission, 8/26/2004, pp. 6 ] It will take off at 7:59 (see (7:59 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 4]
Hijacker Mohamed Atta on Flight 11 calls hijacker Marwan Alshehhi in Flight 175 as both planes sit on the runway. They presumably confirm the plot is on. [Time, 8/4/2002]
Entity Tags: Marwan Alshehhi, Mohamed Atta
Mohamed Atta and Abdulaziz Alomari board Flight 11. Atta’s bags are not loaded onto the plane in time and are later found by investigators. Investigators later find airline uniforms and many other remarkable items. [Boston Globe, 9/18/2001] It is later reported that at least two other hijackers on Flight 11 use stolen uniforms and IDs to board the plane. [Sunday Herald (Glasgow), 9/16/2001]
Entity Tags: Mohamed Atta, Abdulaziz Alomari
A map of the paths all hijacked planes and relevant fighters take on the morning of 9/11. [Source: Yvonne Vermillion/ MagicGraphix.com] (click image to enlarge)Flight 11 takes off from Boston’s Logan Airport, 14 minutes after its scheduled 7:45 departure time. [Washington Post, 9/12/2001; CNN, 9/17/2001; Los Angeles Times, 9/20/2001; Guardian, 10/17/2001; ABC News, 7/18/2002; Associated Press, 8/21/2002; Newsday, 9/10/2002; 9/11 Commission, 6/17/2004]
Entity Tags: Logan Airport
In the event of a hijacking, all airline pilots are trained to key an emergency four-digit code into their plane’s transponder. This would surreptitiously alert air traffic controllers, causing the letters “HJCK” to appear on their screens. [CNN, 9/13/2001; Newsday, 9/13/2001; News (Portugal), 8/3/2002; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 17-18] The action, which pilots should take the moment a hijack situation is known, only takes seconds to perform. [Christian Science Monitor, 9/12/2001; CNN, 9/12/2001] Yet during the hijackings of flights 11, 175, 77, and 93, none of the pilots do this. [CNN, 9/11/2001]
Category Tags: All Day of 9/11 Events, Flight AA 11, Flight UA 175, Flight AA 77, Flight UA 93
The last routine communication takes place between air traffic control and the pilots of Flight 11 at 8:13 and 29 seconds. Boston Center air traffic controller Pete Zalewski is handling the flight, and instructs it to turn 20 degrees to the right. Pilot John Ogonowski immediately acknowledges the instruction, but seconds later he fails to respond to a command to climb to 35,000 feet. Zalewski repeatedly tries to reach the pilot over the next ten minutes, even using the emergency frequency, but gets no response (see 8:14 a.m.-8:24 a.m. September 11, 2001). The 9/11 Commission concludes that Flight 11 is hijacked at 8:14, or shortly afterwards (see 8:14 a.m. September 11, 2001). [New York Times, 10/16/2001; MSNBC, 9/11/2002; 9/11 Commission, 6/17/2004; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 4]
Entity Tags: Pete Zalewski, John Ogonowski
Category Tags: Key Day of 9/11 Events, All Day of 9/11 Events, Flight AA 11
Shortly after air traffic controllers ask Flight 11 to climb to 35,000 feet, its transponder stops transmitting. A transponder is an electronic device that identifies a plane on a controller’s screen and gives its exact location and altitude. Among other vital functions, it is also used to transmit a four-digit emergency hijack code. Flight control manager Glenn Michael later says, “We considered it at that time to be a possible hijacking.” [Christian Science Monitor, 9/13/2001; MSNBC, 9/15/2001; Associated Press, 8/12/2002] Initial stories after 9/11 suggest the transponder is turned off around 8:13 a.m., but Pete Zalewski, the air traffic controller handling the flight, later says the transponder is turned off at 8:20 a.m. [MSNBC, 9/11/2002] The 9/11 Commission places it at 8:21 a.m. [9/11 Commission, 6/17/2004] Colonel Robert Marr, head of NEADS, claims the transponder is turned off some time after 8:30 a.m. where the Flight 11 hijack was first detected a.m. [ABC News, 9/11/2002]
Entity Tags: Pete Zalewski, Glenn Michael, Robert Marr
After Flight 11 fails to respond to an instruction from air traffic control to climb to 35,000 feet (see 8:13 a.m. September 11, 2001), the controller handling it, Pete Zalewski, tries to regain contact with the aircraft. Over the following ten minutes, he makes numerous attempts but without success. (Zalewski says he makes 12 attempts; the 9/11 Commission says nine.) He tries reaching the pilot on the emergency frequency. Zalewski later recalls that initially, “I was just thinking that it was, you know, maybe they—pilots weren’t paying attention, or there’s something wrong with the frequency.… And at first it was pretty much, you know, ‘American 11,’ you know, ‘are you paying attention? Are you listening?’ And there was still no response.” He says, “I went back to the previous sector to see if the pilot had accidentally flipped the switch back over on the—on the radio.” But as Zalewski is repeatedly unable to get any response from Flight 11, he recalls, “I even began to get more concerned.” However, Zalewski claims, it is not until he sees the plane’s transponder go off at around 8:21 that he suspects something is “seriously wrong,” and calls his supervisor for assistance (see (8:21 a.m.) September 11, 2001). And it is not until about 8:25 that he realizes for sure that he is dealing with a hijacking (see (8:25 a.m.) September 11, 2001). It is only then that Boston Center starts notifying its chain of command that Flight 11 has been hijacked (see 8:25 a.m. September 11, 2001). [New York Times, 10/16/2001; MSNBC, 9/11/2002; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 18; 9/11 Commission, 8/26/2004, pp. 7 and 10-11 ]
Entity Tags: Pete Zalewski
The 9/11 Commission will later conclude that Flight 11 is hijacked at 8:14 or shortly after. It will state, “Information supplied by eyewitness accounts indicates that the hijackers initiated and sustained their command of the aircraft using knives (as reported by two flight attendants); violence, including stabbing and slashing (as reported by two flight attendants); the threat of violence (as indicated by a hijacker in radio transmissions received by air traffic control); Mace (reported by one flight attendant); the threat of a bomb, either fake or real (reported by one flight attendant); and deception about their intentions (as indicated by a hijacker in a radio transmission received by air traffic control).” [9/11 Commission, 8/26/2004, pp. 8 ] The Commission says, “We do not know exactly how the hijackers gained access to the cockpit; FAA rules required that the doors remain closed and locked during flight.… Perhaps the terrorists stabbed the flight attendants to get a cockpit key, to force one of them to open the cockpit door, or to lure the captain or first officer out of the cockpit. Or the flight attendants may just have been in their way.” [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 5] Pilots are trained to handle hijackings by staying calm, complying with any requests, and, if possible, dialing an emergency four-digit code on their plane’s transponder. It only takes a few seconds to dial this code. [CNN, 9/12/2001] Yet, as the Boston Globe notes, “It appears that the hijackers’ entry was surprising enough that the pilots did not have a chance to broadcast a traditional distress call” (see (8:13 a.m.-9:28 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [Boston Globe, 11/23/2001] The Los Angeles Times reports that, when flight attendant Amy Sweeney makes a phone call from the plane, she says the hijackers have “just gained access to the cockpit.” [Los Angeles Times, 9/20/2001] Yet her first attempted call is not until 8:22, and, according to official accounts, her first call that stays connected is at 8:25, well past when the 9/11 Commission says the hijacker takeover occurs. [9/11 Commission, 8/26/2004, pp. 9-10 ; US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006] According to an employee at the FAA’s Boston Center, Flight 11 is hijacked while it is over Gardner, Massachusetts, about 45 miles northwest of Boston. [Associated Press, 9/13/2001; Telegraph (Nashua), 9/13/2001]
Entity Tags: 9/11 Commission
John Ogonowski. [Source: Associated Press]At some unknown point after the hijacking begins, Flight 11’s talkback button is activated, which enables Boston flight controllers to hear what is being said in the cockpit. It is unclear whether John Ogonowski, the pilot, activates the talkback button, or whether a hijacker accidentally does so when he takes over the cockpit. A controller later says, “The button [is] being pushed intermittently most of the way to New York.” An article later notes that “his ability to do so also indicates that he [is] in the driver’s seat much of the way” to the WTC. Such transmissions continue until about 8:38 a.m. [Christian Science Monitor, 9/13/2001; MSNBC, 9/15/2001] However, Ogonowski fails to punch a four-digit emergency code into the plane’s transponder, which pilots are taught to do the moment a hijack situation is known (see (8:13 a.m.-9:28 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [Christian Science Monitor, 9/12/2001; CNN, 9/13/2001; Boston Globe, 11/23/2001]
Entity Tags: Boston Air Route Traffic Control Center, John Ogonowski
Lino Martins. [Source: NBC]Two Boston flight controllers, Pete Zalewski and Lino Martins, discuss the fact that Flight 11 cannot be contacted. Zalewski says to Martins, “He won’t answer you. He’s nordo [no radio] roger thanks.” [CNN, 9/17/2001; New York Times, 10/16/2001; Guardian, 10/17/2001; MSNBC, 9/11/2002]
Entity Tags: Pete Zalewski, Lino Martins
Sara Low. [Source: Family photo / Associated Press]According to a computer presentation put forward as evidence in the 2006 trial of Zacarias Moussaoui, an unknown person—or persons—makes four calls from Flight 11. These are at 08:16:50, 08:20:11, 08:25:31, and 08:28:33. The calls do not appear to have gone through properly: they are each described as “On button pressed, no call made.” Though the trial exhibit identifies the caller(s) only as “Unknown Caller,” other evidence suggests that at least one of the calls is made by—or on behalf of—Sara Low, who is one of the plane’s flight attendants. Her father, Mike Low, later says he learned from FBI records that his daughter had given her childhood home phone number in Arkansas to another of the flight attendants, Amy Sweeney, for her to report the hijacking. Low speculates that the reason his daughter gave this particular number was that she had just moved home, and so, in the stress of the hijacking, her childhood phone number was the only one she could remember. The Moussaoui trial presentation lists Sweeney as making five calls from the plane. However, it says these are all to the American Airlines office at Boston’s Logan Airport. [US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006; New York Times, 9/4/2007] Sara Low lets Sweeney use her father’s calling card in order to make these five calls from an Airfone (see 8:22 a.m. September 11, 2001). [New York Observer, 6/20/2004]
Entity Tags: Sara Low, Madeline (“Amy”) Sweeney
Category Tags: All Day of 9/11 Events, Flight AA 11, Alleged Passenger Phone Calls
Betty Ong. [Source: The Eagle-Tribune]Flight 11 attendant Betty Ong calls Vanessa Minter, an American Airlines reservations agent at its Southeastern Reservations Office in Cary, North Carolina, using a seatback Airfone from the back of the plane. Ong speaks to Minter and another employee, Winston Sadler, for about two minutes. Then, at 8:21 a.m., supervisor Nydia Gonzalez is patched in to the call as well. Ong says, “The cockpit’s not answering. Somebody’s stabbed in business class and… I think there’s mace… that we can’t breathe. I don’t know, I think we’re getting hijacked.” Asked what flight she is on, she mistakenly answers, “Flight 12,” though a minute later she corrects this, saying, “I’m number three on Flight 11.” She continues, “And the cockpit is not answering their phone. And there’s somebody stabbed in business class. And there’s… we can’t breathe in business class. Somebody’s got mace or something… I’m sitting in the back. Somebody’s coming back from business. If you can hold on for one second, they’re coming back.” As this quote shows, other flight attendants relay information from the front of the airplane to Ong sitting in the back, and she periodically waits for updates. She goes on, “I think the guys are up there [in the cockpit]. They might have gone there—jammed the way up there, or something. Nobody can call the cockpit. We can’t even get inside.” Ong’s emergency call will last about 25 minutes, being cut off around 8:44 a.m. (see (8:44 a.m.) September 11, 2001). However, the recently installed recording system at the American Airlines reservations center contains a default time limit, and consequently only the first four minutes of it will be recorded. Gonzalez later testifies that Ong was “calm, professional and in control” all through the call. [Betty Ong, 9/11/2001; 9/11 Commission, 1/27/2004; New York Observer, 2/15/2004; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 5 and 453; 9/11 Commission, 8/26/2004, pp. 8-9 ] 9/11 Commissioner Bob Kerrey, who will hear more recordings than are made public, later says that some officials on the ground greeted Ong’s account skeptically: “They did not believe her. They said, ‘Are you sure?’ They asked her to confirm that it wasn’t air-rage. Our people on the ground were not prepared for a hijacking.” [New York Times, 4/18/2004 Sources: Bob Kerrey]
Entity Tags: Bob Kerrey, Vanessa Minter, Nydia Gonzalez, Winston Sadler, Betty Ong, American Airlines
Category Tags: Key Day of 9/11 Events, All Day of 9/11 Events, Flight AA 11, Alleged Passenger Phone Calls
Daniel Lewin. [Source: Akamai Technologies]An FAA memo written on the evening of 9/11, and later leaked, suggests that a man on Flight 11 was shot and killed by a gun before the plane crashed into the WTC. The “Executive Summary,” based on information relayed by a flight attendant to the American Airlines Operation Center, stated “that a passenger located in seat 10B [Satam Al Suqami] shot and killed a passenger in seat 9B [Daniel Lewin] at 9:20 am.” (Note that since Flight 11 crashed at 8:46, the time must be a typo, probably meaning 8:20). A report in Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz on September 17 identifies Lewin as a former member of the Israel Defense Force Sayeret Matkal, Israel’s most successful special-operations unit. [United Press International, 3/6/2002] Sayeret Matkal is a deep-penetration unit that has been involved in assassinations, the theft of foreign signals-intelligence materials, and the theft and destruction of foreign nuclear weaponry. Sayeret Matkal is best known for the 1976 rescue of 106 passengers at Entebbe Airport in Uganda. [New Yorker, 10/29/2001] Lewin founded Akamai, a successful computer company, and his connections to Sayeret Matkal remained hidden until the gun story became known. [Guardian, 9/15/2001] FAA and American Airline officials later deny the gun story and suggest that Lewin was probably stabbed to death instead. [Washington Post, 3/2/2002; United Press International, 3/6/2002] Officials assert that the leaked document was a “first draft,” and subsequently corrected, but declines to release the final draft, calling it “protected information.” However, an FAA official present when the memo was drafted will dispute the FAA’s claim, asserting that “[t]he document was reviewed for accuracy by a number of people in the room, including myself and a couple of managers of the operations center.” [WorldNetDaily, 3/7/2002]
Entity Tags: Sayeret Matkal, American Airlines, Daniel Lewin, Satam Al Suqami, Federal Aviation Administration
Category Tags: Israel, All Day of 9/11 Events, Flight AA 11
Flight 11 starts to veer dramatically off course. It now heads in a northwesterly direction toward Albany, New York. [MSNBC, 9/11/2002]
Flight 11 stops transmitting its IFF (identify friend or foe) beacon signal. [CNN, 9/17/2001]
At the American Airlines operations center in Fort Worth, Texas, the flight dispatcher responsible for transatlantic flights receives a communication from an American Airlines flight traveling from Seattle to Boston, informing her that air traffic control has asked the aircraft to try and contact Flight 11. Under FAA rules, dispatchers licensed by the agency are responsible for following aircraft in flight. Once a plane is in the air, a dispatcher must monitor its progress, relay safety information to the captain, and handle any problems. American Airlines assigns a dispatcher to each of its flights. This is the first indication the dispatcher receives notice of any problem on Flight 11. [Dallas Morning News, 6/13/2002; Sydney Morning Herald, 6/14/2002; 9/11 Commission, 8/26/2004, pp. 9 and 86 ] However, Flight 11 is not a transatlantic flight, so why this particular dispatcher is notified is unclear.
Entity Tags: American Airlines
FAA’s Boston Center [Source: ABC News]According to some reports, Boston flight control decides that Flight 11 has probably been hijacked, but apparently, it does not notify other flight control centers for another five minutes, and does not notify NORAD for approximately 20 minutes. [New York Times, 9/15/2001; Newsday, 9/23/2001] ABC News will later say, “There doesn’t seem to have been alarm bells going off, [flight] controllers getting on with law enforcement or the military. There’s a gap there that will have to be investigated.” [ABC News, 9/14/2001] (Note the conflicting account at 8:21 a.m. (see (8:21 a.m.) September 11, 2001)
Entity Tags: Boston Air Route Traffic Control Center
Category Tags: All Day of 9/11 Events, All Day of 9/11 Events, Flight AA 11
Nydia Gonzalez. [Source: 9/11 Commission]Nydia Gonzalez, an American Airlines supervisor with expertise on security matters, is patched in to a call with flight attendant Betty Ong on Flight 11. [9/11 Commission, 1/27/2004] At 8:21 a.m., according to the 9/11 Commission (or 8:27 a.m., according to the Wall Street Journal), Gonzalez calls Craig Marquis, a manager at the American Airlines System Operations Control (SOC) in Fort Worth, Texas. Gonzalez holds the phone to Ong to one ear, and the phone to Marquis to the other. [Wall Street Journal, 10/15/2001; New York Observer, 2/15/2004; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 5; 9/11 Commission, 8/26/2004, pp. 9 ] Marquis quickly says, “I’m assuming they’ve declared an emergency. Let me get ATC [air traffic control] on here. Stand by.… Okay, we’re contacting the flight crew now and we’re… we’re also contacting ATC.” Gonzalez relays that Ong is saying the hijackers from seats 2A and 2B are in the cockpit with the pilots, and that there are no doctors on board. Gonzalez talks to Marquis continuously until Flight 11 crashes. While only the first four minutes of Ong’s call from Flight 11 are recorded by American Airlines (see 8:19 a.m. September 11, 2001), all of Gonzalez’s call to Marquis will be recorded. Four minutes, of what is apparently a compilation from it, are later played before the 9/11 Commission. [9/11 Commission, 1/27/2004]
Entity Tags: American Airlines, Betty Ong, Craig Marquis, Nydia Gonzalez
Tom Roberts. [Source: NBC News]Boston flight controller Pete Zalewski, handling Flight 11, sees that the flight is off course and that the plane has turned off both transponder and radio. Zalewski later claims he turns to his supervisor and says, “Would you please come over here? I think something is seriously wrong with this plane. I don’t know what. It’s either mechanical, electrical, I think, but I’m not sure.” When asked if he suspected a hijacking at this point, he replies, “Absolutely not. No way.” According to the 9/11 Commission, “the supervisor instructed the controller [presumably Zalewski] to follow standard operating procedures for handling a ‘no radio’ aircraft once the controller told the supervisor the transponder had been turned off.” Another flight controller, Tom Roberts, has another nearby American Airlines Flight try to contact Flight 11. There is still no response. The flight is now “drastically off course” but NORAD is still not notified. [MSNBC, 9/11/2002; 9/11 Commission, 6/17/2004] Note that this response contradicts flight control manager Glenn Michael’s assertion that Flight 11 was considered a possible hijacking as soon as the transponder was discovered turned off.
Entity Tags: Pete Zalewski, Tom Roberts, Glenn Michael, North American Aerospace Defense Command
Flight attendants Karen Martin and Barbara Arestegui are apparently stabbed early in the hijacking of Flight 11. [Source: Family photos]Flight 11 attendant Amy (Madeline) Sweeney borrows a calling card from flight attendant Sara Low and uses an Airfone to try to call the American Airlines flight services office at Boston’s Logan Airport. She makes her first attempt at 8:22 a.m., but this quickly disconnects, as does a second attempt at 8:24. Further attempts at 8:25 and 8:29 are cut off after she reports someone hurt on the flight. The respondent to the call mistakenly thinks Sweeney’s flight number that she reports is 12. Hearing there is a problem with an American Airlines plane, Michael Woodward, an American Airlines flight service manager, goes to American’s gate area at the airport with a colleague, and realizes Flight 12 has not yet departed. He returns to the office to try to clarify the situation, then takes the phone and speaks to Sweeney himself. Because Woodward and Sweeney are friends, he does not have to verify the call is not a hoax. The call is not recorded, but Woodward takes detailed notes. According to the 9/11 Commission, the call between them lasts about 12 minutes, from 8:32 a.m. to 8:44 a.m. Accounts prior to the 9/11 Commission report spoke of one continuous call from around 8:20. [ABC News, 7/18/2002; New York Observer, 2/15/2004; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 453] Sweeney calmly tells Woodward, “Listen, and listen to me very carefully. I’m on Flight 11. The airplane has been hijacked.” [ABC News, 7/18/2002] According to one account, she gives him the seat locations of three hijackers: 9D, 9G, and 10B. She says they are all of Middle Eastern descent, and one speaks English very well. [New York Observer, 2/15/2004] Another account states that she identifies four hijackers (but still not the five said to be on the plane), and notes that not all the seats she gave matched up with the seats assigned to the hijackers on their tickets. [Los Angeles Times, 9/20/2001; ABC News, 7/18/2002] She says she cannot contact the cockpit, and does not believe the pilots are flying the plane any longer. [New York Observer, 2/15/2004] According to a later Los Angeles Times report, “Even as she was relating details about the hijackers, the men were storming the front of the plane and ‘had just gained access to the cockpit,’” (Note that Sweeney witnesses the storming of the cockpit at least seven minutes after radio contact from Flight 11 stops and at least one of the hijackers begins taking control of the cockpit.) [Los Angeles Times, 9/20/2001] She says the hijackers have stabbed the two first-class flight attendants, Barbara Arestegui and Karen Martin. She adds, “A hijacker cut the throat of a business-class passenger [later identified as Daniel Lewin], and he appears to be dead (see (8:20 a.m.) September 11, 2001).” She also says the hijackers have brought a bomb into the cockpit. Woodward asks Sweeney, “How do you know it’s a bomb?” She answers, “Because the hijackers showed me a bomb.” She describes its yellow and red wires. Sweeney continues talking with Woodward until Flight 11 crashes. [Boston Globe, 11/23/2001; New York Observer, 2/15/2004]
Entity Tags: Michael Woodward, Sara Low, Madeline (“Amy”) Sweeney, Karen Martin, Barbara Arestegui, Daniel Lewin
Amy (Madeline) Sweeney. [Source: Telegraph of Nashua/ Getty Images]American Airlines Flight service manager Michael Woodward is listening to Flight 11 attendant Amy Sweeney on the telephone, and he wants to pass on the information he is hearing from her. Since there is no tape recorder, he calls Nancy Wyatt, the supervisor of pursers at Logan Airport. Holding telephones in both hands, he repeats to Wyatt everything that Sweeney is saying to him. Wyatt in turn simultaneously transmits his account to the airline’s Fort Worth, Texas, headquarters. The conversation between Wyatt and managers at headquarters is recorded. All vital details from Sweeney’s call reach American Airlines’ top management almost instantly. However, according to victims’ relatives who later hear this recording, the two managers at headquarters immediately begin discussing a cover-up of the hijacking details. They say, “don’t spread this around. Keep it close,” “Keep it quiet,” and “Let’s keep this among ourselves. What else can we find out from our own sources about what’s going on?” One former American Airlines employee who has also heard this recording recalls, “In Fort Worth, two managers in SOC [Systems Operations Control] were sitting beside each other and hearing it. They were both saying, ‘Do not pass this along. Let’s keep it right here. Keep it among the five of us.’” Apparently, this decision prevents early and clear evidence of a hijacking from being shared during the crisis. Gerard Arpey, American Airlines’ executive vice president for operations, soon hears details of the hijacking from flight attendant Betty Ong’s phone call (see 8:19 a.m. September 11, 2001) at 8:30 a.m. (see (8:30 a.m.) September 11, 2001), but apparently, he does not learn of Sweeney’s call until much later. Victims’ relatives will later question whether lives could have been saved if only this information had been quickly shared with other airplanes. [New York Observer, 6/20/2004]
Entity Tags: American Airlines, Madeline (“Amy”) Sweeney, Michael Woodward, Nancy Wyatt
At 8:23 a.m., a flight dispatcher at the American Airlines operations center in Fort Worth, Texas sends an ACARS text message to Flight 11. ACARS, meaning Aircraft Communications and Reporting System, is an e-mail system enabling company personnel on the ground to rapidly communicate with those in the cockpit of an in-flight aircraft. The message says, “Good morning… ATC [air traffic control] looking for you on [radio frequency] 135.32.” No response is received from Flight 11. Two minutes later, an American Airlines air traffic control specialist at the operations center sends another ACARS message to Flight 11. This says, “Plz contact Boston Center ASAP… They have lost radio contact and your transponder signal.” Again, no response is received from the plane. Subsequent ACARS messages also receive no reply. [9/11 Commission, 8/26/2004, pp. 9-10 ]
Pete Zalewski. [Source: NBC]Because the talkback button on Flight 11 has been activated, Boston Center air traffic controllers can hear a hijacker on board say to the passengers: “We have some planes. Just stay quiet and you’ll be OK. We are returning to the airport.” [Boston Globe, 11/23/2001; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 19] Air traffic controller Pete Zalewski recognizes this as a foreign, Middle Eastern-sounding voice, but does not make out the specific words “we have some planes.” He responds, “Who’s trying to call me?” Seconds later, in the next transmission, the hijacker continues: “Nobody move. Everything will be OK. If you try to make any moves you’ll endanger yourself and the airplane. Just stay quiet.” [New York Times, 10/16/2001; 9/11 Commission, 6/17/2004; MSNBC, 9/9/2006] Bill Peacock, the FAA director of air traffic services, later claims, “We didn’t know where the transmission came from, what was said and who said it.” David Canoles, the FAA’s manager of air traffic evaluations and investigations, adds: “The broadcast wasn’t attributed to a flight. Nobody gave a flight number.” [Washington Times, 9/11/2002] Similarly, an early FAA report will state that both these transmissions came from “an unknown origin.” [Federal Aviation Administration, 9/17/2001 ] Zalewski asks for an assistant to help listen to the transmissions coming from the plane, and puts its frequency on speakers so others at Boston Center can hear. Because Zalewski didn’t understand the initial hijacker communication from Flight 11, the manager of Boston Center instructs the center’s quality assurance specialist to “pull the tape” of the transmission, listen to it carefully, and then report back. They do this, and by about 9:03 a.m. a Boston manager will report having deciphered what was said in the first hijacker transmission (see 9:03 a.m. September 11, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 6/17/2004; MSNBC, 9/9/2006] Fellow Boston controller Don Jeffroy also hears the tape of the hijacker transmissions, though he doesn’t state at what time. He says: “I heard exactly what Pete [Zalewski] heard. And we had to actually listen to it a couple of times just to make sure that we were hearing what we heard.” [MSNBC, 9/11/2002] At some point, Ben Sliney, the national operations manager at the FAA’s Herndon Command Center, gets word of the “We have some planes” message, and later says the phrase haunts him all morning. American Airlines Executive Vice President for Operations Gerard Arpey is also informed of the “strange transmissions from Flight 11” at some point prior to when it crashes at 8:46 a.m. [USA Today, 8/13/2002] Boston Center will receive a third transmission from Flight 11 about ten minutes later (see (8:34 a.m.) September 11, 2001).
Entity Tags: Bill Peacock, Boston Air Route Traffic Control Center, David Canoles, Pete Zalewski
Having been told by flight attendant Amy Sweeney the seat locations of three hijackers (see 8:22 a.m. September 11, 2001), American Airlines Flight service manager Michael Woodward orders a colleague at Boston’s Logan Airport to look up those seat locations on the reservations computer. The names, addresses, phone numbers, and credit cards of these hijackers are quickly identified: Abdulaziz Alomari is in 9G, Mohamed Atta is in 9D, and Satam Al Suqami is in 10B. 9/11 Commissioner Bob Kerrey notes that from this information, American Airlines officials monitoring the call would probably have known or assumed right away that the hijacking was connected to al-Qaeda. [ABC News, 7/18/2002; New York Observer, 2/15/2004]
Entity Tags: Bob Kerrey, Michael Woodward, Abdulaziz Alomari, Al-Qaeda, Mohamed Atta, Satam Al Suqami
Boston flight control reportedly “notifies several air traffic control centers that a hijack is taking place.” [Guardian, 10/17/2001] This is immediately after Boston controllers heard a transmission from Flight 11, declaring, “We have some planes” (see 8:24 a.m. September 11, 2001), and would be consistent with a claim later made to the 9/11 Commission by Mike Canavan, the FAA’s associate administrator for civil aviation security. He says, “[M]y experience as soon as you know you had a hijacked aircraft, you notify everyone.… [W]hen you finally find out, yes, we do have a problem, then… the standard notification is it kind of gets broadcast out to all the regions.” [9/11 Commission, 5/23/2003] An early FAA report will say only that Boston controllers begin “inter-facility coordination” with New York air traffic control at this time [Federal Aviation Administration, 9/17/2001 ] , but the New York Times reports that controllers at Washington Center also know “about the hijacking of the first plane to crash, even before it hit the World Trade Center.” [New York Times, 9/13/2001] However, the Indianapolis flight controller monitoring Flight 77 claims to not know about this or Flight 175’s hijacking twenty minutes later at 8:56 a.m. (see 8:56 a.m. September 11, 2001). Additionally, the flight controllers at New York City’s La Guardia airport are never told about the hijacked planes and learn about them from watching the news. [Bergen Record, 1/4/2004] Boston Center also begins notifying the FAA chain of command of the suspected Flight 11 hijacking at this time (see 8:25 a.m. September 11, 2001), but it does not notify NORAD for another 6-15 minutes, depending on the account (see (8:37 a.m.) September 11, 2001).
Entity Tags: La Guardia Airport, Boston Air Route Traffic Control Center, North American Aerospace Defense Command
Category Tags: All Day of 9/11 Events, Flight AA 11, Flight UA 175, Flight AA 77
According to Terry Biggio, the operations manager at the FAA’s Boston Center, the center initially thought Flight 11 “was a catastrophic electrical failure and… was diverting to New York” (see (8:21 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [Federal Aviation Administration, 10/19/2002] However, at about 8:24 a.m., controllers heard two radio transmissions from it, with the voice of a hijacker declaring, “We have some planes” (see 8:24 a.m. September 11, 2001). Pete Zalewski, who is handling Flight 11, says that after the second of these: “I immediately knew something was very wrong. And I knew it was a hijack.” He alerts his supervisor. Lino Martins, another Boston air traffic controller, says, “the supervisor came over, and that’s when we realized something was serious.” [Christian Science Monitor, 9/13/2001; MSNBC, 9/11/2002; 9/11 Commission, 6/17/2004] However, two senior FAA officials—Bill Peacock and David Canoles—later say that the hijacker transmissions were not attributed to a flight, so controllers didn’t know their origin. [Washington Times, 9/11/2002] An early FAA report will similarly refer to them as having come “from an unknown origin.” But right away, the center begins notifying the chain of command that a suspected hijacking is taking place (see 8:25 a.m. September 11, 2001). [Federal Aviation Administration, 9/17/2001 ] However, some reports claim that controllers decided Flight 11 was probably hijacked earlier than this, by about 8:20 a.m. (see (8:20 a.m.) September 11, 2001).
Boston flight control begins notifying the chain of command that a suspected hijacking of Flight 11 is in progress. Those notified include the center’s own facility manager, the FAA’s New England Regional Operations Center (ROC) in Burlington, Massachusetts, and the FAA Command Center in Herndon, Virginia (see 8:28 a.m. September 11, 2001). [Federal Aviation Administration, 9/17/2001 ; 9/11 Commission, 8/26/2004, pp. 11 ] According to the 9/11 Commission, this is consistent with FAA protocol: “From interviews of controllers at various FAA centers, we learned that an air traffic controller’s first response to an aircraft incident is to notify a supervisor, who then notifies the traffic management unit and the operations manager in charge. The FAA center next notifies the appropriate regional operations center (ROC), which in turn contacts FAA headquarters.” [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 458] But according to Ben Sliney, the national operations manager at the FAA’s Command Center, “the protocol was in place that the center that reported the hijacking would notify the military.… I go back to 1964, where I began my air traffic career, and they have always followed the same protocol.” [9/11 Commission, 6/17/2004] Yet Boston Center supposedly will not contact NORAD about Flight 11 until about 12 minutes later (see (8:37 a.m.) September 11, 2001). Already about ten minutes have passed since controllers first noticed a loss of contact with Flight 11 (see (8:15 a.m.) September 11, 2001). Boston reportedly also contacts several other air traffic control centers about the suspected hijacking at this time (see 8:25 a.m. September 11, 2001).
Entity Tags: Boston Air Route Traffic Control Center, Federal Aviation Administration
Category Tags: All Day of 9/11 Events, Flight AA 11, Key Day of 9/11 Events
Colin Scoggins, the military liaison at the FAA’s Boston Center, arrives at work an hour late and is informed of the hijacking of Flight 11. [9/11 Commission, 9/24/2003; WAMU, 8/3/2006; Spencer, 2008, pp. 32-33] Scoggins is an experienced air traffic controller and specializes in airspace, procedures, and military operations. He is responsible for managing operating agreements between the Boston Center and other air traffic control facilities, and between Boston Center and the military. He is also responsible for generating the military schedules that keep FAA facilities synchronized with military airspace requirements, and has therefore developed personal relationships with most of the military units in his region. [Spencer, 2008, pp. 32-33] Arrives One Hour Late - In a 2006 radio interview, Scoggins will recall that he arrives at work one hour late, saying, “That morning I actually came in, took an hour early on the front of my shift, so I didn’t get in until 8:30.” [WAMU, 8/3/2006] But in a statement that will be provided to the 9/11 Commission, he says he arrives at the Boston Center slightly earlier, at “about 8:25 a.m.” [9/11 Commission, 9/24/2003] When he enters the building, a colleague tells him about the hijacking of Flight 11. [Spencer, 2008, pp. 33] Heads to Credit Union - Rather than going immediately to help deal with the hijacking, Scoggins heads to the credit union at the center. He will recall, “I wasn’t in a rush because when hijacks do occur, sometimes too many people try to get involved, but instead they just get in the way.” Mentions that Hijacked Plane Could Hit a Building - When he gets to the credit union, Scoggins decides he should go to the center’s traffic management unit, to make sure that fighter jets are launched in response to the hijacking. As he will later recall, he says to an employee at the credit union that “if it really came to it,” and fighter jets “had to stop the hijack from hitting a building or something, there wasn’t much [the fighters] could do.” [9/11 Commission, 9/24/2003] Updated on Hijacking - Scoggins then heads to the center’s operational floor, arriving there at about 8:35. [WAMU, 8/3/2006; Griffin, 2007, pp. 335] He goes to the traffic management unit and the desk of Daniel Bueno, who is the unit’s supervisor. Bueno brings Scoggins up to date on the details of the hijacking. He tells him: “It sounds real. We heard a Mideastern or Arabic voice on radio. They’ve also turned off the transponder to prevent the hijack code from appearing.” Bueno says the Boston Center controllers are still tracking the primary radar return for Flight 11, but they lack information on its altitude. According to author Lynn Spencer, it occurs to Scoggins that NORAD’s Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS) might be able to provide altitude information for Flight 11, “because the FAA radar system filters out certain altitude information that NEADS gets.” He will therefore phone NEADS as soon as he arrives at his station (see (8:35 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [Spencer, 2008, pp. 33]
Entity Tags: Daniel Bueno, Boston Air Route Traffic Control Center, Colin Scoggins
At 8:26, Flight 11, which is already way off course, makes an unplanned 100-degree turn to the south over Albany, New York. A minute later, it turns right, to the south-southwest. Then, two minutes on, at 8:29, it turns left to the south-southeast. Boston air traffic controllers never lose sight of the flight, though they can no longer determine altitude as the transponder is turned off. Its last known altitude was 29,000 feet. [Christian Science Monitor, 9/13/2001; Federal Aviation Administration, 9/17/2001 ; National Transportation Safety Board, 2/19/2002 ; MSNBC, 9/11/2002] Before this turn, the FAA had tagged Flight 11’s radar dot for easy visibility and, at American Airlines’ System Operations Control (SOC) in Fort Worth, Texas, “All eyes watched as the plane headed south. On the screen, the plane showed a squiggly line after its turn near Albany, then it straightened.” [Wall Street Journal, 10/15/2001] Boston air traffic controller Mark Hodgkins later says, “I watched the target of American 11 the whole way down.” [ABC News, 9/6/2002] However, apparently, NORAD’s Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS) has different radar. When they are finally told about the flight, they cannot find it (see Shortly After 8:37 a.m. September 11, 2001). NEADS has to repeatedly phone the FAA, airlines, and others, for clues as to the plane’s location. NEADS will eventually focus on a radar blip they believe might be Flight 11, and watch it close in on New York. [Newhouse News Service, 1/25/2002; Aviation Week and Space Technology, 6/3/2002; ABC News, 9/11/2002]
Entity Tags: Federal Aviation Administration, Mark Hodgkins, American Airlines, Northeast Air Defense Sector, Boston Air Route Traffic Control Center
Nydia Gonzalez, an American Airlines supervisor at its Southeastern Reservations Office, is relaying information to Craig Marquis, a manager at the American Airlines System Operations Control (SOC) in Fort Worth (see (8:21 a.m.) September 11, 2001). According to Marquis, “She said two flight attendants had been stabbed, one was on oxygen. A passenger had his throat slashed and looked dead and they had gotten into the cockpit.” Marquis later recollects that Ong said the four hijackers had come from first-class seats: 2A, 2B, 9A, and 9B. She’d said the wounded passenger was in seat 10B. [Wall Street Journal, 10/15/2001; Boston Globe, 11/23/2001] Note that this conflicts with the seats flight attendant Amy Sweeney gave for the hijackers at about the same time: 9D, 9G, and 10B (see (Before 8:26 a.m.) September 11, 2001). At around 8:30 a.m., this information is passed to Gerard Arpey, the effective head of American Airlines this morning (see (8:30 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 8/26/2004, pp. 12 ] By 9:59 a.m., counterterrorism “tsar” Richard Clarke and other top officials receive the information. [Clarke, 2004, pp. 13-14]
Entity Tags: Gerard Arpey, Richard A. Clarke, Nydia Gonzalez, Craig Marquis, American Airlines, Betty Ong
The FAA Command Center, the center of daily management of the US air traffic system. On 9/11 it is managed by Ben Sliney (not pictured here). [Source: CNN]The FAA’s Boston Center calls the FAA Command Center and says it believes Flight 11 has been hijacked and is heading toward the New York Center’s airspace. The Command Center immediately establishes a teleconference between the Boston, New York, and Cleveland air traffic control centers, so Boston can help the other centers understand what is happening, in case Flight 11 should enter their airspace. Minutes later, in line with the standard hijacking protocol, the Command Center will pass on word of the suspected hijacking to the FAA’s Washington headquarters (see 8:32 a.m. September 11, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 19; 9/11 Commission, 8/26/2004, pp. 11 ; Spencer, 2008, pp. 21] National Operations Manager Learns of Hijacking - A supervisor at the Command Center promptly passes on the news of the possible hijacking to Ben Sliney, who is on his first day as the national operations manager there. The supervisor says the plane in question is “American Flight 11—a 767 out of Boston for Los Angeles.” According to author Lynn Spencer, “Sliney flashes back to the routine for dealing with hijackings from the days when they were more common.” The procedure is to “[k]eep other aircraft away from the errant plane. Give the pilots what they need. The plane will land somewhere, passengers will be traded for fuel, and difficult negotiations with authorities will begin. The incident should resolve itself peacefully, although the ones in the Middle East, he recalls, often had a more violent outcome.” Apparently not expecting anything worse to happen, Sliney continues to the conference room for the daily 8:30 staff meeting there (see 8:30 a.m.-8:40 a.m. September 11, 2001). Command Center a 'Communications Powerhouse' - The FAA Command Center is located in Herndon, Virginia, 25 miles from Washington, DC. According to Spencer, it “is a communications powerhouse, modeled after NASA’s Mission Control. The operations floor is 50 feet wide and 120 feet long, packed with tiered rows of computer stations, and at the front, seven enormous display screens show flight trajectories and weather patterns.” The center has nearly 50 specialists working around the clock, planning and monitoring the flow of air traffic over the United States. These specialists work with airlines and air traffic control facilities to fix congestion problems and deal with weather systems. [Spencer, 2008, pp. 1 and 19-20]
Entity Tags: Federal Aviation Administration, Ben Sliney, New York Air Route Traffic Control Center, Boston Air Route Traffic Control Center, Cleveland Air Route Traffic Control Center
Captain Charles Leidig. [Source: US Navy]Captain Charles Leidig, the deputy for Command Center operations at the NMCC, takes over temporarily from Brigadier General Montague Winfield and is effectively in charge of NMCC during the 9/11 crisis. Winfield had requested the previous day that Leidig stand in for him on September 11. Leidig had started his role as Deputy for Command Center Operations two months earlier and had qualified to stand in for Winfield just the previous month. Leidig remains in charge from a few minutes before the 9/11 crisis begins until about 10:30 a.m., after the last hijacked plane crashes. He presides over an important crisis response teleconference that has a very slow start, not even beginning until 9:39 a.m. [9/11 Commission, 6/17/2004 ; 9/11 Commission, 6/17/2004]
Entity Tags: Charles Leidig, Montague Winfield
Category Tags: All Day of 9/11 Events, Flight AA 11, Pentagon
Managers at the FAA’s Command Center in Herndon, Virginia, learn of the apparent hijacking of Flight 11, but continue with a meeting they are in for several minutes, until being notified that one of the plane’s flight attendants may have been stabbed. The daily staff meeting among all the department heads at the Command Center begins at 8:30 a.m. Ben Sliney, who is on his first day as national operations manager there, has just been informed of the suspected hijacking of Flight 11 (see 8:28 a.m. September 11, 2001). He begins the meeting by announcing news of the hijacking to the other managers, but then continues with his normal briefing, about the outlook for the coming day’s operations. Sliney is interrupted, apparently at around 8:40 a.m., when a supervisor enters the conference room and whispers to him that the situation with the hijacking has deteriorated: American Airlines has just called, reporting that a flight attendant on the plane may have been stabbed. Deciding he should be on the center’s operations floor rather than in the meeting, Sliney announces to the other managers: “Look, this hijack situation has seriously escalated and I need to get back to the floor. There is an unconfirmed report indicating that a flight attendant may have been stabbed.” He then excuses himself. The meeting is quickly broken up before the first World Trade Center crash occurs at 8:46 a.m. The managers then head to their posts. Despite the “intuitive nature of this group of people,” none of them will initially consider the first WTC crash to be connected to the hijacking they have been informed of. According to Linda Schuessler, the deputy director of system operations at the Command Center, “something that seemed so bizarre as flying a hijacked plane full of people into a skyscraper didn’t seem possible.” [Aviation Week and Space Technology, 12/17/2001; Freni, 2003, pp. 63; Spencer, 2008, pp. 1 and 19-21]
Entity Tags: Federal Aviation Administration, Linda Schuessler, Ben Sliney
Gerard Arpey. [Source: American Airlines]Gerard Arpey, American Airlines’ executive vice president for operations, is in his office at the company’s headquarters in Fort Worth, Texas. During a routine call to the airline’s nearby System Operations Control (SOC), he learns from manager Joe Burdepelly that Flight 11 may have been hijacked. Burdepelly tells Arpey that another manager, Craig Marquis, is in contact with flight attendant Betty Ong on the hijacked flight. Arpey learns that Ong said two other attendants have been stabbed, that two or three passengers are in the cockpit, and more. Arpey then tries, unsuccessfully, to contact American Airlines’ president Don Carty to inform him of the situation. He leaves a message for him to call back as soon as possible. Carty has not arrived at his office yet, meaning Arpey is the effective head of American Airlines during the early phase of the crisis. Arpey then sets out to the SOC, which is located about a mile from headquarters, and will arrive there some time between 8:35 and 8:40 a.m. [9/11 Commission, 1/27/2004; 9/11 Commission, 8/26/2004, pp. 12 ] At some point before Flight 11 crashes, he is told about the strange hijacker transmissions coming from this plane (see 8:24 a.m. September 11, 2001). [USA Today, 8/13/2002]
Entity Tags: Joe Burdepelly, Don Carty, Gerard Arpey, Craig Marquis, Betty Ong, American Airlines
FAA headquarters in Washington, DC. [Source: FAA]Four minutes after it is informed of the suspected hijacking of Flight 11 (see 8:28 a.m. September 11, 2001), the FAA Command Center in Herndon, Virginia, passes on word of the hijacking to the operations center at FAA headquarters in Washington, DC. The headquarters is apparently already aware of the hijacking, as the duty officer who speaks with the Command Center responds that security personnel at the headquarters have just been discussing it on a conference call with the FAA’s New England regional office. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 19; 9/11 Commission, 8/26/2004, pp. 11 ] According to the 9/11 Commission, “FAA headquarters is ultimately responsible for the management of the national airspace system,” and the operations center there “receives notifications of incidents, including accidents and hijackings.” FAA headquarters has a hijack coordinator, who is “the director of the FAA Office of Civil Aviation Security or his or her designate.” Procedures require that, if a hijacking is confirmed, the hijack coordinator on duty is “to contact the Pentagon’s National Military Command Center (NMCC) and to ask for a military escort aircraft to follow the flight, report anything unusual, and aid search and rescue in the event of an emergency.” Yet, the Commission will state, although “FAA headquarters began to follow the hijack protocol,” it does “not contact the NMCC to request a fighter escort.” [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 16-19] Mike Canavan, who would normally be the FAA’s hijack coordinator, is away in Puerto Rico this morning, and it is unclear who—if anyone—is standing in for him in this critical role (see 8:30 a.m. September 11, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 5/23/2003; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 17]
Entity Tags: Federal Aviation Administration
In her emergency phone call from Flight 11, flight attendant Betty Ong reports that someone on the plane might have been killed. The 9/11 Commission says this is “the first indication of a fatality on board.” A minute later, Nydia Gonzalez, an American Airlines supervisor who is receiving Ong’s call, relays the details to American Airlines manager Craig Marquis: “They think they might have a fatality on the flight. One of our passengers, possibly on 9B, Levin or Lewis, might have been fatally stabbed.” She is presumably referring to Daniel Lewin, who was killed at around 8:20 a.m. (see (8:20 a.m.) September 11, 2001). Ong had briefly referred to a stabbing earlier on, saying, “Somebody’s stabbed in business class” (see 8:19 a.m. September 11, 2001). Whether she was referring to Lewin on that occasion, or to the stabbing of a flight attendant or another passenger, is unknown. [9/11 Commission, 8/26/2004, pp. 8 and 12 ]
Entity Tags: Nydia Gonzalez, Craig Marquis, American Airlines, Daniel Lewin, Betty Ong
The FAA’s Boston Center contacts the FAA’s Cape Cod facility, located on Otis Air National Guard Base at Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and requests that it inform the military about the problems with Flight 11. [Federal Aviation Administration, 9/17/2001 ; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 20] Otis Air Base is one of NORAD’s seven alert sites in the continental United States, which keeps two armed fighter jets ready for immediate takeoff. [Filson, 2003, pp. 50; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 17] Supervisor Calls Otis, Supposedly Violating Protocol - Boston Center supervisor Daniel Bueno calls the tower at Otis. According to author Lynn Spencer, Bueno “knows it’s not standard operating procedure to call the military directly—that’s supposed to be done by FAA headquarters.” [Spencer, 2008, pp. 22] Indeed, according to the 9/11 Commission, by trying to contact the base this way, through the FAA’s Cape Cod facility, “Boston Center did not follow the protocol in seeking military assistance through the prescribed chain of command.” [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 20] But Bueno has “checked the FAA regulation manual, and in the back under section FAAO 7610.4J, Appendix 16, it states that fighters can be launched directly at FAA request, so he is going to make that happen. He may not be FAA headquarters, but he is FAA!” [Spencer, 2008, pp. 22] Bueno Requests Fighters, Told to Call NEADS - Bueno speaks to a manager at the FAA Cape Cod facility. He says Flight 11 has lost its identification signal and appears to be headed toward Manhattan; it looks like a possible hijacking. He asks the manager to contact Otis Air National Guard Base, so as to get fighters airborne to tail Flight 11. [Filson, 2003, pp. 47; 9/11 Commission, 8/26/2004, pp. 12 ] But the manager tells Bueno that he must follow the protocol, which is to contact NORAD’s Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS). The manager says: “You’ve got to go through the proper channels. They’re the only ones with the authority to initiate a scramble order.” Following this call, the manager will contact the operations center at Otis Air Base to let it know that it might soon be receiving a call from NEADS (see (Shortly After 8:34 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [Spencer, 2008, pp. 22 and 27] Otis Pilots Complain - The two alert pilots at Otis Air Base will later criticize Bueno’s actions. One of them, Major Daniel Nash, will complain: “It sounds like the FAA didn’t have their [act] together at all when they were calling the [Otis] tower.… To me, it sounded like there was someone who didn’t know what they were doing.” [Boston Globe, 9/11/2005] Lt. Col. Timothy Duffy, the other alert pilot, will later comment: “It didn’t happen the way it was supposed to.… We were the ones who were contacted right away and knew about it before the air defense sector.” [Filson, 2003, pp. 50]
Entity Tags: Boston Air Route Traffic Control Center, Daniel Nash, Cape Terminal Radar Approach Control, Daniel Bueno, Timothy Duffy
Apparently around 8:34 a.m., the FAA’s Boston Center attempts to contact an Atlantic City, New Jersey, military unit, to have it send fighters after Flight 11. However, the outcome of this call, and whether it is even answered, is unclear. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 20] Atlantic City International Airport is the home of the 177th Fighter Wing of the New Jersey Air National Guard, which flies F-16 fighter jets. The 177th FW was part of NORAD’s alert force for many years, and kept two F-16s constantly on alert, ready to scramble when requested. But in October 1998, as a result of Pentagon cutbacks, it lost its scramble-ready status and began converting to a general-purpose F-16 mission (see May 19, 1997). [GlobalSecurity (.org), 10/29/2001; Bergen Record, 12/5/2003] The outcome of Boston Center’s attempt at contacting the Atlantic City unit is unclear. The 9/11 Commission will only state, “The center… tried to contact a former alert site in Atlantic City, unaware it had been phased out.” [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 20] NORAD’s Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS) will also try contacting the unit minutes later, but its call will not be answered (see (Between 8:40 a.m. and 8:46 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [Spencer, 2008, pp. 34] The Bergen Record will later comment that, with the removal of the Atlantic City fighters from NORAD’s alert mission, “the Pentagon left what seems to be a yawning gap in the midsection of its air defenses on the East Coast—a gap with New York City at the center.” [Bergen Record, 12/5/2003] Around this time, two F-16s from the 177th FW are away from base performing a training mission, and are just minutes from New York City, but the pilots are unaware of the unfolding crisis (see 8:46 a.m.-9:03 a.m. September 11, 2001).
Entity Tags: Boston Air Route Traffic Control Center, 177th Fighter Wing
John Hartling. [Source: NBC News]By 8:34 a.m., Flight 11 has entered airspace managed by Boston Center air traffic controller John Hartling. [MSNBC, 9/11/2002; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 19] Although Boston controller Pete Zalewski, who was managing Flight 11, concluded the plane was hijacked almost ten minutes earlier (see (8:25 a.m.) September 11, 2001), at the time the blip for Flight 11 appears on Hartling’s radar screen, Hartling is unaware that a hijacking is taking place. According to author Lynn Spencer, the reason is that “The concentration required for the job is so intense that controllers operate on a need-to-know basis. They don’t need to know what’s happening in other controllers’ sectors unless it might affect their own airspace, and distractions are rigorously kept to a minimum.” Tom Roberts, another Boston Center controller, has just been relieved from duty for a scheduled coffee break, and comes over to Hartling’s desk. Referring to Flight 11’s radar track, he tells Hartling, “This—this aircraft, we believe, is hijacked, and he’s last reported at 29,000 feet.” However, Hartling is incredulous. He will later recall that when Roberts says the plane is hijacked, “I didn’t believe him.” This is because “I didn’t think that that stuff would happen anymore, especially in this country.” Hartling continues tracking Flight 11 as it heads toward New York. Although its transponder has been turned off (see (Between 8:13 a.m. and 8:21 a.m.) September 11, 2001), he can tell that, at almost 600 mph, it is flying far faster than the 450 mph it should be moving at. [MSNBC, 9/11/2002; Spencer, 2008, pp. 22-24]
Entity Tags: Boston Air Route Traffic Control Center, John Hartling, Tom Roberts
Flight controllers hear a hijacker on Flight 11 say to the passengers: “Nobody move, please, we are going back to the airport. Don’t try to make any stupid moves.” [New York Times, 10/16/2001; Guardian, 10/17/2001; Boston Globe, 11/23/2001; 9/11 Commission, 6/17/2004] This is the third hijacker transmission from Flight 11 heard by Boston Center. Following the previous two transmissions, controller Pete Zalewski had put the plane’s frequency on speakers so that others at the center could hear (see 8:24 a.m. September 11, 2001). This is therefore the first time some of them hear the hijacker’s voice. One controller says out loud, “That is really scary.” [MSNBC, 9/11/2002]
Colin Scoggins, the military liaison at the FAA’s Boston Center, claims he makes his first call to NORAD’s Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS) regarding Flight 11. He later recalls that he informs NEADS that the aircraft is “20 [miles] south of Albany, heading south at a high rate of speed, 600 knots.” [Griffin, 2007, pp. 43] Flight 11 was over Albany at 8:26 (see (8:26 a.m.-8:29 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [Federal Aviation Administration, 9/17/2001 ] At such a high speed, it would have reached 20 miles south of there around 8:28. However, Scoggins says he is quite certain he only arrives on the floor at Boston Center at around 8:35. He says that although he’d later tried to write up a chronology of events, he “couldn’t get a timeline that made any sense.” Furthermore, Scoggins claims that even before he’d arrived, Joseph Cooper, a Boston Center air traffic management specialist, had already phoned NEADS about the hijacking. [Griffin, 2007, pp. 43 and 335] The 9/11 Commission makes no mention of either call. It says “the first notification received by the military—at any level—that American 11 had been hijacked” is when Boston Center calls NEADS just before 8:38 a.m. (see (8:37 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 20] However, a report by ABC News is more consistent with Scoggins’ claims, indicating that Boston Center contacts NEADS about the hijacking earlier, at around 8:31. [ABC News, 9/11/2002] (Boston Center also contacts the FAA’s Cape Cod facility at 8:34 and requests that it notify the military about Flight 11 (see 8:34 a.m. September 11, 2001). Apparently around the same time, it tries contacting a military unit at Atlantic City (see (8:34 a.m.) September 11, 2001).) Scoggins says he makes “about 40 phone calls to NEADS” in total on this day. [Griffin, 2007, pp. 43] NEADS Commander Robert Marr later comments that Scoggins “deserves a lot of credit because he was about the only one that was feeding us information. I don’t know exactly where he got it. But he was feeding us information as much as he could.” [Michael Bronner, 2006]
Entity Tags: Boston Air Route Traffic Control Center, Joseph Cooper, Colin Scoggins, Northeast Air Defense Sector, Robert Marr
Nydia Gonzalez, a supervisor at the American Airlines Southeastern Reservations Office, is one of the American employees receiving the emergency phone call from Flight 11 attendant Betty Ong (see 8:19 a.m. September 11, 2001). At this time, she confirms the details of a report by Ong, regarding the identity of one of the plane’s hijackers: “He’s the one that’s in the—he’s in the cockpit. Okay you said Tom Sukani? Okay—Okay and he was in 10B. Okay, okay, so he’s one of the persons that are in the cockpit. And as far as weapons, all they have are just knives?” “Tom Sukani” is presumably a mistaken reference to hijacker Satam Al Suqami. Gonzalez is continuously relaying details of Ong’s call to Craig Marquis, a manager at the American Airlines operations center in Fort Worth (see (8:21 a.m.) September 11, 2001). At 8:36 a.m., Marquis receives Gonzalez’s report about the hijacker Ong referred to as “Tom Sukani.” He then initiates a “lockout” procedure for Flight 11 (see 8:36 a.m.-8:38 a.m. September 11, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 8/26/2004, pp. 12 ]
Entity Tags: Betty Ong, Craig Marquis, American Airlines, Nydia Gonzalez
Lieutenant Colonel Timothy Duffy. [Source: CBC]After being informed of the hijacking of Flight 11, a manager at the FAA’s Cape Cod facility on Otis Air National Guard Base calls the Otis Air Base operations center to tell it that it might soon be receiving a call from NORAD’s Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS). [Spencer, 2008, pp. 27] The FAA’s Boston Center has just called the Cape Cod facility and asked it to contact Otis Air Base, to get fighters airborne to tail the hijacked aircraft. [9/11 Commission, 8/26/2004, pp. 12 ] The manager who took the call told Boston Center it needed to call NEADS in order to get fighters launched (see 8:34 a.m. September 11, 2001). [Spencer, 2008, pp. 22] Cape Cod Facility Calls Operations Center - According to author Lynn Spencer, the manager subsequently “figures a call [to Otis Air Base] will be coming from NEADS soon and a scramble order is likely. He knows the fighter pilots will appreciate the heads-up.” He therefore calls the Otis operations center, where the phone is answered by Master Sergeant Mark Rose, who is the superintendent of aviation management, in charge of flight records and currency for the pilots of the 102nd Fighter Wing. FAA Manager Confuses Superintendent - Rose is initially confused by the call. The manager does not identify himself or say where he is calling from, but instead begins by asking, “What do you have available?” As Spencer describes, “For all [Rose] knows, this could be a wrong number or a crank call,” so rather than giving information about the base, Rose responds, “What are you talking about?” The manager then identifies himself and explains that he has just received a report about a hijacking. Rose realizes he needs to pass the call on to someone more appropriate. Pilot Informed of Hijacking - Pilot Lt. Col. Timothy Duffy, who is the director of operations for the 102nd Fighter Wing, is standing next to Rose by the operations desk. Rose tells him, “Duff, you got a phone call,” and then says the caller is “Otis tower—something about an apparent hijacking under way: American 11, a 767, out of Boston and headed for California.” [Spencer, 2008, pp. 27-28] Duffy will later recall his response to this news: “As soon as we heard there was something about a hijacking we got moving.” [Filson, 2003, pp. 50] On his radio he calls Major Daniel Nash, who along with Duffy is an “alert” pilot on duty at this time, and instructs him to suit up ready for any scramble call. [Spencer, 2008, pp. 28] The two pilots will run to the nearby locker room, put on their G-suits and helmets, and then head out toward their jets (see (8:40 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [Cape Cod Times, 8/21/2002; Boston Globe, 9/11/2005] Meanwhile, a commander at Otis will phone NEADS to report the FAA’s request for military assistance (see Shortly After 8:37 a.m. September 11, 2001). [Filson, 2003, pp. 50] The exact time the manager calls the operations center at is unclear. The call from the FAA’s Boston Center that prompted him to contact Otis Air Base was at 8:34 a.m. But according to the 9/11 Commission, “the first notification received by the military—at any level—that American 11 had been hijacked” is when Boston Center calls NEADS just before 8:38 a.m. (see (8:37 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [Federal Aviation Administration, 9/17/2001 ; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 20]
Entity Tags: Daniel Nash, Cape Terminal Radar Approach Control, Northeast Air Defense Sector, Otis Air National Guard Base, Timothy Duffy
Flight attendant Amy Sweeney continues to describe what is happening onboard Flight 11 to Michael Woodward at Logan Airport. At some point prior to this, she explains that flight attendants are giving injured people oxygen. They have made an announcement over the PA system asking if there is a doctor or nurse on board. Sweeney is calling from the rear of the coach section. She explains that the passengers in coach, separated by curtains from the violence in first class, are calm, believing that there is some type of medical emergency at the front of the plane. Then, at this time, the plane suddenly lurches, tilting all the way to one side, then becomes horizontal again. Then she says it begins a rapid descent. She tries to contact the cockpit again, but still gets no response. [ABC News, 7/18/2002; New York Observer, 2/15/2004]
Entity Tags: Michael Woodward, Madeline (“Amy”) Sweeney
Craig Marquis, a manager at the American Airlines System Operations Control (SOC) in Fort Worth, Texas, initiates actions to “lockout” Flight 11. This procedure, as the 9/11 Commission later describes, “acknowledges an emergency on the flight and isolates information so that the case can be managed by top leadership at the airlines in a way that protects information from being altered or released, and also protects the identities of the passengers and crew.” Within two minutes, American Airlines has completed the lockout. Marquis realized Flight 11 was an emergency situation almost immediately after 8:21 a.m., when he began receiving details of flight attendant Betty Ong’s phone call from it (see (8:21 a.m.) September 11, 2001). Since “lockout” is a standard procedure for airlines in safety and security incidents, it is unclear why he did not initiate it sooner. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 5; 9/11 Commission, 8/26/2004, pp. 12-13 ]
Entity Tags: Craig Marquis, American Airlines
Flight controllers ask the United Airlines Flight 175 pilots to look for a lost American Airlines plane 10 miles to the south—a reference to Flight 11. They respond that they can see it. They are told to keep away from it. [Guardian, 10/17/2001; Boston Globe, 11/23/2001; 9/11 Commission, 6/17/2004] Apparently, Flight 175 is not told Flight 11 has been hijacked. Flight 175 itself is hijacked a few minutes later (see 8:41 a.m.-8:42 a.m. September 11, 2001).
Category Tags: All Day of 9/11 Events, Flight UA 175, Flight AA 11
On Flight 11, flight attendant Betty Ong reports that all the first class passengers have been moved back to the coach section, leaving the first class cabin empty. She also says the plane is flying erratically again. [9/11 Commission, 1/27/2004; 9/11 Commission, 8/26/2004, pp. 13 ] Another flight attendant, Amy Sweeney, reports that the plane has begun a rapid descent. [ABC News, 7/18/2002] She also says that the hijackers are Middle Easterners. [San Francisco Chronicle, 7/23/2004]
Entity Tags: Betty Ong, Madeline (“Amy”) Sweeney
American Airlines manager Craig Marquis is talking to Nydia Gonzalez, who in turn is talking to flight attendant Betty Ong on Flight 11. Marquis tells Gonzalez, “We contacted air traffic control, they are going to handle this as a confirmed hijacking. So they’re moving all the traffic out of this aircraft’s way.… He turned his transponder off, so we don’t have a definitive altitude for him. We’re just going by… They seem to think that they have him on a primary radar. They seem to think that he is descending.” [9/11 Commission, 1/27/2004] Boston air traffic control had in fact begun notifying its chain of command that Flight 11 was a suspected hijacking at around 8:25 (see 8:25 a.m. September 11, 2001).
Entity Tags: Boston Air Route Traffic Control Center, Craig Marquis, Betty Ong, Nydia Gonzalez
Tech. Sgt. Jeremy Powell. [Source: Scott A. Gwilt/ Rome Sentinel]The FAA’s Boston Center calls NORAD’s Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS) in Rome, NY, to alert it to the suspected hijacking of Flight 11. According to the 9/11 Commission, this is “the first notification received by the military—at any level—that American 11 had been hijacked.” [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 20; 9/11 Commission, 8/26/2004, pp. 13 ] The call is made by Joseph Cooper, an air traffic controller at the Boston Center, and answered by Jeremy Powell, a technical sergeant on the NEADS operations floor. [Vanity Fair, 8/1/2006; Spencer, 2008, pp. 25] Beginning the call, Cooper says: “Hi. Boston Center TMU [traffic management unit], we have a problem here. We have a hijacked aircraft headed towards New York, and we need you guys to, we need someone to scramble some F-16s or something up there, help us out.” Powell replies, “Is this real-world or exercise?” Cooper answers, “No, this is not an exercise, not a test.” [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 20] Shortly into the call, Powell passes the phone on to Lieutenant Colonel Dawne Deskins (see (8:40 a.m.) September 11, 2001). Deskins identifies herself to Cooper, and he tells her, “We have a hijacked aircraft and I need you to get some sort of fighters out here to help us out.” [Newhouse News Service, 1/25/2002; ABC News, 9/11/2002; Bamford, 2004, pp. 8; Spencer, 2008, pp. 26] Military Claims Call Goes against Procedure - The 1st Air Force’s official history of the response to the 9/11 attacks will later suggest that Boston Center is not following normal procedures when it makes this call to NEADS. It states: “If normal procedures had taken place… Powell probably wouldn’t have taken that phone call. Normally, the FAA would have contacted officials at the Pentagon’s National Military Command Center who would have contacted the North American Aerospace Defense Command. The secretary of defense would have had to approve the use of military assets to assist in a hijacking, always considered a law enforcement issue.” The only explanation it gives for this departure from protocol is that “nothing was normal on Sept. 11, 2001, and many say the traditional chain of command went by the wayside to get the job done.” [Filson, 2003, pp. 51] Accounts Conflict over Time of Call - There will be some conflict between different accounts, as to when this vital call from Boston Center to NEADS occurs. An ABC News documentary will indicate it is made as early as 8:31 a.m. [ABC News, 9/11/2002] Another ABC News report will state, “Shortly after 8:30 a.m., behind the scenes, word of a possible hijacking [reaches] various stations of NORAD.” [ABC News, 9/14/2002] NEADS logs indicate the call occurs at 8:40 a.m., and NORAD will report this as the time of the call in a press release on September 18, 2001. [Federal Aviation Administration, 9/17/2001 ; North American Aerospace Defense Command, 9/18/2001] The 8:40 time will be widely reported in the media prior to the 9/11 Commission’s 2004 report. [Associated Press, 8/21/2002; BBC, 9/1/2002; Newsday, 9/10/2002; CNN, 9/11/2002] But tape recordings of the NEADS operations floor that are referred to in the 9/11 Commission Report place the call at 8:37 and 52 seconds. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 20; Vanity Fair, 8/1/2006] If the 8:37 a.m. time is correct, this would mean that air traffic controllers have failed to successfully notify the military until approximately 12 minutes after they became certain that Flight 11 had been hijacked (see (8:25 a.m.) September 11, 2001), 16 minutes after Flight 11’s transponder signal was lost (see (Between 8:13 a.m. and 8:21 a.m.) September 11, 2001), and 24 minutes after the plane’s pilots made their last radio contact (see 8:13 a.m. September 11, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 6/17/2004] At 8:34, the Boston Center tried contacting the military through the FAA’s Cape Cod facility, which is located on Otis Air National Guard Base, but was told that it needed to call NEADS (see 8:34 a.m. September 11, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 20; Spencer, 2008, pp. 22]
Entity Tags: Boston Air Route Traffic Control Center, Dawne Deskins, North American Aerospace Defense Command, Joseph Cooper, Northeast Air Defense Sector, Jeremy Powell
Lt. Col. Dawne Deskins. [Source: Newhouse News/ Peter Chen/ Landov]Members of staff at NORAD’s Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS) have difficulty locating Flight 11 and other aircraft on their radar screens. Lt. Col. Dawne Deskins of NEADS will say that when the FAA first calls and reports the first hijacking (see (8:37 a.m.) September 11, 2001), “He [FAA] gave me the latitude and longitude of that track… [but] there was nothing there.” [Fox News, 9/8/2002] Colin Scoggins, the military liaison at the FAA’s Boston Center, later recalls: “I was giving NEADS accurate location information on at least five instances where AA 11 was, yet they could never identify him.… I originally gave them an F/R/D, which is a fix/radial/distance from a known location; they could not identify the target. They requested latitude/longitudes, which I gave them; they still could not identify the AA 11.… I gave them 20 [miles] south of Albany heading south at a high rate of speed, 600 knots, then another call at 50 south of Albany.” [Griffin, 2007, pp. 47] Master Sergeant Kevin Foster and Staff Sergeant Mark Rose, also working at NEADS this morning, later complain about their inability to locate the hijacked planes. After being informed of the first hijacking, reportedly: “As they had practiced countless times before, the NEADS team quickly began searching their [radar] screens for the plane. Because they had been informed its transponder was off, they knew to look for a tiny dash instead of the usual dot. But radar systems also use such lines to indicate weather patterns, so NEADS personnel began urgently clicking their computer cursors on each stray line to see if information indicating an aircraft would appear.” Yet, after receiving further calls indicating more hijackings, “the inability to find the hijacked planes on the radar, despite their best efforts, was difficult.” According to Foster, “We were trying to find the tracks, and not being able to was very frustrating.” [Utica Observer-Dispatch, 8/5/2004] NEADS Staff Sergeant Larry Thornton will recall: “Once we were called by the FAA, we could find split-second hits on what we thought we were looking for. But the area was so congested and it was incredibly difficult to find. We were looking for little dash marks in a pile of clutter and a pile of aircraft on a two-dimensional scope.” Each fluorescent green pulsating dot on their radar scopes represents an airplane, and there are thousands currently airborne, especially over the busy northeast US. [Filson, 2003, pp. 56]
Entity Tags: Mark Rose, Larry Thornton, Northeast Air Defense Sector, Kevin Foster, Dawne Deskins, Colin Scoggins, Federal Aviation Administration
Colin Scoggins, the military liaison at the FAA’s Boston Center, makes a brief phone call to NORAD’s Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS) to see if it has been able to find any further information about Flight 11. [Spencer, 2008, pp. 32-33] Boston Center has just alerted NEADS to the hijacking of Flight 11 (see (8:37 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 20] Scoggins asks the ID technician who answers his call, “Have you identified the radar target for American 11?” The ID tech says they are still searching for it. Scoggins then tells her that Flight 11 is “50 miles south of Albany,” but, according to author Lynn Spencer, this information “won’t be of much help to NEADS Surveillance,” because “[t]heir monochromic displays aren’t even capable of showing the outline of states, much less those of cities like Albany or New York.” [Spencer, 2008, pp. 33] (However, despite this supposed inadequate capability, NEADS is reportedly able to spot Flight 11 shortly before it crashes into the World Trade Center (see 8:45 a.m.-8:46 a.m. September 11, 2001), locating its radar track “going down the Hudson Valley, straight in from the north toward New York.” [Filson, 2003, pp. 56] ) As NEADS has no new information to offer him, Scoggins quickly ends the call. According to Spencer’s account, this is the first time Scoggins calls NEADS this morning, after arriving at the Boston Center minutes earlier (see (8:25 a.m.-8:35 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [Spencer, 2008, pp. 33] But according to a description Scoggins gives to author David Ray Griffin in 2007, it appears that this is his second call, after an initial call at around 8:35 (see (8:35 a.m.) September 11, 2001). Scoggins will tell Griffin that he first called NEADS to inform it that Flight 11 was “20 [miles] south of Albany heading south at a high rate of speed, 600 knots,” and then he makes “another call at 50 [miles] south of Albany.” [Griffin, 2007, pp. 47]
Entity Tags: Colin Scoggins, Northeast Air Defense Sector
Following a call from the FAA’s Boston Center to the the FAA’s Cape Cod facility reporting the possible hijacking of Flight 11 (see 8:34 a.m. September 11, 2001), and a subsequent call from the Cape Cod facility to Otis Air National Guard Base (see (Shortly After 8:34 a.m.) September 11, 2001), Lt. Col. Jon Treacy, commander of the 101st Fighter Squadron at Otis, phones NORAD’s Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS) to report the FAA’s request for help and get authorization to launch fighters. By now though, the FAA has already gotten through to NEADS itself, and reported the hijacking (see (8:37 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [Filson, 2003, pp. 50]
Entity Tags: Otis Air National Guard Base, Federal Aviation Administration, Jon Treacy, Northeast Air Defense Sector
At NORAD’s Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS), the technical sergeant who has been notified of the suspected hijacking of Flight 11 passes on this news to colleagues of his on the NEADS operations floor. [Spencer, 2008, pp. 25] The FAA’s Boston Center has just called NEADS to report “a hijacked aircraft headed towards New York,” and has requested that fighter jets be launched in response (see (8:37 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 20] Tech. Sgt. Jeremy Powell, who answers this call, reportedly “bolts up and turns toward the ID section behind him on the ops floor.” He says, “We’ve got a hijack going on!” Master Sergeant Maureen Dooley, the leader of the ID section, mistakenly thinks this is part of the day’s training exercise (see (6:30 a.m.) September 11, 2001) and tells the other members of her team: “We have a hijack going on. Get your checklists. The exercise is on.” But Powell then clarifies: “No, you don’t understand. We have a no-shit hijack!” Sitting next to Dooley is Master Sergeant Joe McCain, the NEADS mission crew commander technician, who gets on the paging system and calls for the mission crew commander (MCC), Major Kevin Nasypany, to come to the operations floor immediately. Nasypany is in charge of the operations floor and needs to know if anything important is happening. He arrives moments later and learns of the hijacking. [Vanity Fair, 8/1/2006; Spencer, 2008, pp. 25-26 and 40]
Entity Tags: Kevin Nasypany, Jeremy Powell, Maureen Dooley, Joe McCain, Northeast Air Defense Sector
Major Kevin Nasypany. [Source: CBC]When the FAA’s Boston Center first contacts NORAD’s Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS) to notify it of the hijacking of Flight 11 (see (8:37 a.m.) September 11, 2001), personnel there initially mistake the hijacking for a simulation as part of an exercise. Lieutenant Colonel Dawne Deskins, mission crew chief for the Vigilant Guardian exercise currently taking place (see (6:30 a.m.) September 11, 2001), will later say that initially she and everybody else at NEADS think the call from Boston Center is part of Vigilant Guardian. [Newhouse News Service, 1/25/2002] Although most of the personnel on the NEADS operations floor have no idea what the day’s exercise is supposed to entail, most previous major NORAD exercises included a hijack scenario. [USA Today, 4/18/2004; Utica Observer-Dispatch, 8/5/2004] The day’s exercise is in fact scheduled to include a simulated hijacking later on. [Vanity Fair, 8/1/2006] Major Kevin Nasypany, the NEADS mission crew commander, had helped design the day’s exercise. Thinking the reported hijacking is part of it, he actually says out loud, “The hijack’s not supposed to be for another hour.” [Vanity Fair, 8/1/2006] In the ID section, at the back right corner of the NEADS operations floor, technicians Stacia Rountree, Shelley Watson, and Maureen Dooley react to the news. Dooley, the leader of the ID section, tells the other members of her team: “We have a hijack going on. Get your checklists. The exercise is on” (see (8:38 a.m.) September 11, 2001). Rountree asks, “Is that real-world?” Dooley confirms, “Real-world hijack.” Watson says, “Cool!” [Vanity Fair, 8/1/2006; Spencer, 2008, pp. 25] When NEADS Commander Robert Marr sees his personnel reacting to the news of the hijacking (see (8:40 a.m.) September 11, 2001), he reportedly thinks the day’s exercise “is kicking off with a lively, unexpected twist.” Even when a colleague informs him, “It’s a hijacking, and this is real life, not part of the exercise,” Marr thinks: “This is an interesting start to the exercise. This ‘real-world’ mixed in with today’s simex [simulated exercise] will keep [my staff members] on their toes.” [Spencer, 2008, pp. 26] Major General Larry Arnold, who is at Tyndall Air Force Base, Florida, also later says that when he first hears of the hijacking, in the minutes after NEADS is alerted to it, “The first thing that went through my mind was, is this part of the exercise? Is this some kind of a screw-up?” [ABC News, 9/11/2002; 9/11 Commission, 5/23/2003] According to author Lynn Spencer: “Even as NORAD’s commander for the continental United States, Arnold is not privy to everything concerning the exercise. The simex is meant to test commanders also, to make sure that their war machine is operating as it should.” [Spencer, 2008, pp. 38] At 8:43 a.m., Major James Fox, the leader of the NEADS weapons team, comments, “I’ve never seen so much real-world stuff happen during an exercise.” [Vanity Fair, 8/1/2006]
Entity Tags: Northeast Air Defense Sector, Shelley Watson, North American Aerospace Defense Command, Stacia Rountree, Robert Marr, Maureen Dooley, Vigilant Guardian, Kevin Nasypany, Dawne Deskins, Larry Arnold, James Fox
Category Tags: All Day of 9/11 Events, Flight AA 11, Training Exercises
The talkback button on Flight 11, which has been periodically activated since around 8:14 a.m., stops around this time. Some have suggested that this indicates that the hijackers replace pilot John Ogonowski at this time. [Christian Science Monitor, 9/13/2001; MSNBC, 9/15/2001]
Entity Tags: John Ogonowski
Don Arias [Source: US Air Force]Lt. Col. Dawne Deskins of NEADS twice calls Major Don Arias, the 1st Air Force and Continental United States NORAD Region public affairs officer, who is at the 1st Air Force public affairs office at Tyndall Air Force, Florida. She first calls him after NEADS is informed of the hijacking of Flight 11 (see (8:37 a.m.) September 11, 2001). She says that NEADS has “a hijacked plane—no, not the simulation—likely heading for JFK [International Airport in New York City].” [Newhouse News Service, 1/25/2002] The “simulation” refers to a NORAD air defense exercise, presumably Vigilant Guardian, that Arias is involved in. Deskins informs him that fighters are going to be launched after the aircraft. Arias then starts working on a public statement about the incident, but soon after sees the smoking WTC tower on CNN. He says that he thinks, “Wow, I bet that’s the hijacked plane.” [Florida State Times, 11/2001; Airman, 9/2002; Filson, 2003, pp. 122] Minutes after the crash, Deskins calls Arias again and tells him, “We think the aircraft that just hit the World Trade Center was American Airlines Flight 11.” According to Deskins, Arias responds, “Oh, God. My brother works in the World Trade Center.” [Newhouse News Service, 1/25/2002; ABC News, 9/11/2002; Bamford, 2004, pp. 13-14] Arias will quickly contact his brother (see (8:53 a.m.) September 11, 2001).
Entity Tags: Northeast Air Defense Sector, Don Arias, Dawne Deskins, North American Aerospace Defense Command
Technicians at NORAD’s Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS) try frantically to locate Flight 11 on their radar scopes, but are supposedly hindered by their outdated equipment. [Spencer, 2008, pp. 31-32] NEADS has just been alerted to the hijacking of Flight 11 (see (8:37 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 20] Its technicians realize they need to find the location of the hijacked plane quickly, so that the weapons team will be able to pass this information on to any fighter jets that are launched after it. Locating Flight 11 Is a 'Grueling Process' - Author Lynn Spencer will later explain: “To identify American 11, the surveillance and ID techs must go through a grueling process. Their radar scopes are filled with hundreds of radar returns not just from aircraft but from weather systems, ground interference, and what’s called anomalous propagation—false returns caused by conditions in the atmosphere, or by such obstructions as flocks of birds. The technicians must first determine which radar data on their screens is for aircraft, which they do by monitoring its movement, which is distinctive for planes. The technician must observe for at least 36 seconds to a minute just to confirm that a blip is in fact an aircraft track. The tech must attach what’s called a tactical display number to it, which tells the computer to start tracking and identifying the target. If the target is in fact a plane, then over a period of 12-20 seconds, the computer will start to generate information on the track: heading, speed, altitude, latitude, longitude, and the identifying information being transmitted by the transponder.” However, Flight 11’s transponder has been switched off (see (Between 8:13 a.m. and 8:21 a.m.) September 11, 2001). Therefore, “With the hundreds of pieces of radar data filling their screens, and little information as to the location of the flight,” the task of locating it “is daunting.” Radar Equipment Supposedly Unsuitable - Spencer will suggest that trying to locate Flight 11 is made more difficult because the radar equipment at NEADS is outdated and unsuited to the task at hand. She writes: “[T]he NEADS radar equipment is different from that used by air traffic controllers. It’s much older, developed in the 1970s and brought into use by NEADS in the early 1980s. The system was designed to monitor the shoreline for incoming high-altitude threats: missiles coming from across the ocean. Slow and cumbersome, and not nearly as user friendly as more modern equipment, the NEADS monochromic radar displays are not designed to take internal FAA radar data or to identify radar tracks originating from inside the United States. The system offers little, if any, such low-level coverage over the country.” [Spencer, 2008, pp. 31-32] Several of the NEADS personnel will later complain of their inability to locate Flight 11 on their scopes (see Shortly After 8:37 a.m. September 11, 2001). But Master Sergeant Joe McCain, the mission crew commander technician at NEADS, believes he has located Flight 11 on the radar screen just before it crashes into the World Trade Center (see 8:45 a.m.-8:46 a.m. September 11, 2001).
Entity Tags: Northeast Air Defense Sector
NORAD commander Larry Arnold. [Source: US Air Force]NORAD gives the command to scramble fighters after Flight 11 after receiving Boston’s call (see (8:37 a.m.) September 11, 2001). Lieutenant Colonel Dawne Deskins at NEADS tells Colonel Robert Marr, head of NEADS, “I have FAA on the phone, the shout line, Boston [flight control]. They said they have a hijacked aircraft.” Marr then calls Major General Larry Arnold at the Continental US NORAD Region (CONR) headquarters at Tyndall Air Force Base, Florida. Arnold is just coming out of a teleconference with the NORAD staff, and is handed a note informing him of the possible hijacking, and relaying Marr’s request that he call him immediately. He goes downstairs and picks up the phone, and Marr tells him, “Boss, I need to scramble [fighters at] Otis [Air National Guard Base].” Arnold recalls, “I said go ahead and scramble them, and we’ll get the authorities later.” Arnold then calls the operations deputy at NORAD’s Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado headquarters to report. The operations deputy tells him, “Yeah, we’ll work this with the National Military Command Center. Go ahead and scramble the aircraft.” [ABC News, 9/11/2002; Filson, 2003, pp. 56; 9/11 Commission, 5/23/2003; 9/11 Commission, 6/17/2004] Upon receiving this authorization from Larry Arnold, NEADS orders the scramble and then calls Canadian Captain Mike Jellinek at NORAD’s operations center in Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado, in order to get NORAD commander in chief approval for it (see (8.46 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [Aviation Week and Space Technology, 6/3/2002] Yet, according to the 1st Air Force’s own book about 9/11, the “sector commander [at NEADS] would have authority to scramble the airplanes.” Military controllers at NEADS are only a hot line call away from the pilots on immediate alert. [Filson, 2003, pp. 50-52] Why NEADS calls the CONR headquarters at Tyndall, then NORAD’s Colorado operations center, to get authorization to launch fighters after Flight 11, is unclear.
Entity Tags: Mike Jellinek, Robert Marr, Dawne Deskins, Larry Arnold, Federal Aviation Administration, National Military Command Center
While flying south along the Hudson River, Flight 11 passes almost directly over the Indian Point nuclear power plant in Buchanan, NY, about 30 miles north of New York City. [New York Times, 4/4/2002; Bergen Record, 4/7/2002] The New Yorker will later comment, “An attack on a nuclear power plant would seem to fulfill, almost perfectly, al-Qaeda’s objective of using America’s technology against it,” and the New York Times will report, “Everyone within at least a 50-mile radius would be in danger if something terrible happened at Indian Point. That 50-mile radius contains more than 7 percent of the entire population of the United States—20 million people.” [New York Times, 4/4/2002; New Yorker, 2/24/2003] Mohamed Atta supposedly earlier considered targeting a nuclear facility on 9/11, but the other suicide pilots did not like the idea (see Between July 9 and July 16, 2001).
Entity Tags: Mohamed Atta
Colin Scoggins, the military liaison at the FAA’s Boston Center, calls the FAA’s New York Center but is quickly cut off when the air traffic controller who answers says the center is busy dealing with a hijacking. According to author Lynn Spencer, Scoggins “calls New York Center to notify them that American 11 appears to be descending toward New York, most likely to land at JFK” International Airport. But the controller who takes the call snaps at him: “We’re too busy to talk. We’re working a hijack,” and then hangs up. According to Spencer, the New York Center controller is referring to Flight 175, but “Scoggins just figures that he’s talking about American 11. He has no idea that a second airliner is in crisis.” However, the timing of this call is unclear. If it is made while Flight 11 is descending toward New York, this would mean it occurs in the minutes before 8:46, when Flight 11 crashes (see 8:46 a.m. September 11, 2001). But in Spencer’s account, the call is made just after New York Center controller Dave Bottiglia notices that Flight 175’s transponder code has changed and he calls out to another controller, “I can’t get a hold of UAL 175 at all right now and I don’t know where he went to” (see 8:51 a.m.-8:53 a.m. September 11, 2001). [Spencer, 2008, pp. 48-49] The transcript of radio communications between the New York Center and Flight 175 shows that this would mean Scoggins’s call occurs around 8:53 a.m.-8:54 a.m., about seven minutes after Flight 11 crashes. [New York Times, 10/16/2001]
Entity Tags: Colin Scoggins, New York Air Route Traffic Control Center
One of the ID technicians at NORAD’s Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS) calls the FAA’s Boston Center, and learns that there have been “threats in the cockpit” of Flight 11. The communications team at NEADS is currently trying to quickly find out all they can about the hijacked plane, such as its flight number, tail number, and where it is. ID tech Shelley Watson calls the management desk at the Boston Center, which had alerted NEADS to the hijacking minutes earlier (see (8:37 a.m.) September 11, 2001), wanting to make sure she has all the information that is available on Flight 11. Her call is answered by Boston Center’s military liaison, Colin Scoggins. Scoggins tells Watson: “He’s being hijacked. The pilot’s having a hard time talking to the… I mean, we don’t know. We don’t know where he’s goin’. He’s heading towards Kennedy [International Airport in New York City]. He’s… 35 miles north of Kennedy now at 367 knots. We have no idea where he’s goin’ or what his intentions are.” Scoggins says, “I guess there’s been some threats in the cockpit,” and adds, “We’ll call you right back as soon as we know more info.” Master Sergeant Maureen Dooley is standing over Watson, relaying any pertinent information she hears to Major Kevin Nasypany. She calls to him, “Okay, he said threat to the cockpit!” [Vanity Fair, 8/1/2006; Spencer, 2008, pp. 34]
Entity Tags: Shelley Watson, Northeast Air Defense Sector, Colin Scoggins, Kevin Nasypany, Boston Air Route Traffic Control Center, Maureen Dooley
At the FAA’s Herndon Command Center, the national operations manager, Ben Sliney, learns more details of the hijacking of Flight 11, and becomes involved with the emergency response to it. [Spencer, 2008, pp. 21] A supervisor at the Command Center informed Sliney of the suspected hijacking at just before 8:30 (see 8:28 a.m. September 11, 2001). Soon after, the supervisor interrupted a meeting Sliney was in, to tell him American Airlines had called to report the deteriorating situation on Flight 11 (see 8:30 a.m.-8:40 a.m. September 11, 2001). Sliney Receives More Details - Sliney heads to the center’s operations floor, where the supervisor gives him further details of the call from American Airlines, including information about flight attendant Betty Ong’s phone call from Flight 11 (see 8:19 a.m. September 11, 2001). The supervisor says the plane’s transponder has been switched off (see (Between 8:13 a.m. and 8:21 a.m.) September 11, 2001), which means no flight data is showing on the screens of air traffic controllers, and the latest information from the FAA’s Boston Center is that Flight 11 has turned south, and is now 35 miles north of New York City. On one of the large screens at the front of the Command Center that shows flight trajectories, Sliney can see that the track for Flight 11 is in “ghost.” This means that, because no transponder data is being received, the computer is displaying track information based on previously stored track data. Sliney Seeks Information, Requests Teleconference - Sliney instructs his staff to contact facilities along the path the flight appears to be on, to find if anyone is in contact with it or tracking it. [Spencer, 2008, pp. 1 and 19-21] He will later recall, “I figured we’d try to get the people on the ground, the towers in the area, the police departments, anyone we could get to give us information on where this flight was.” [Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, 9/10/2006] Sliney then requests a teleconference between the FAA’s Boston Center, New York Center, and FAA headquarters in Washington, so they can share information about the flight in real time. [Spencer, 2008, pp. 21] The Command Center has already initiated a teleconference between the Boston, New York, and Cleveland Centers, immediately after it was notified of the suspected Flight 11 hijacking. [9/11 Commission, 8/26/2004, pp. 11 ] However, Sliney apparently does not request military assistance. According to author Lynn Spencer, “The higher echelons at headquarters in Washington will make the determination as to the necessity of military assistance in dealing with the hijacking.” [Spencer, 2008, pp. 21]
Entity Tags: Ben Sliney, Federal Aviation Administration
National Guard troops stationed at NORAD’s Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS) in Rome, New York. [Source: Rome Sentinel]At NORAD’s Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS), a huddle of people is gathered around one of the radar scopes. NEADS Commander Robert Marr initially thinks this hubbub is due to the NORAD training exercise (presumably Vigilant Guardian) that is taking place on this day (see (6:30 a.m.) September 11, 2001). He will later recall: “I’ve seen many exercises… and as I saw that huddle I said, ‘There’s got to be something wrong, something is happening here.’ You usually see that whenever they find a track on the scope that looks unusual; it’s usually an indicator that something is getting ready to kick off.” [Filson, 2003, pp. 55] According to author Lynn Spencer, Marr thinks the day’s exercise “is kicking off with a lively, unexpected twist.… His bet is that his simulations team has started off the exercise by throwing out a ‘heart attack card’ to see how the troops respond to a first-aid call from a fellow soldier, testing their first responder training.” [Spencer, 2008, pp. 26] He sends Lt. Colonel Dawne Deskins, the regional mission crew commander for the exercise, to check out what is going on. [Filson, 2003, pp. 55] Deskins speaks briefly over the phone with the FAA’s Boston Center about the Flight 11 hijacking (see (8:37 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [Spencer, 2008, pp. 26] She then runs back to the “battle cab”—the glass-walled room that overlooks the NEADS operations floor—and speaks to Marr with urgency in her voice. [Filson, 2003, pp. 55] She tells him: “It’s a hijacking, and this is real life, not part of the exercise. And it appears that the plane is heading toward New York City.” Although Deskins has specifically stated, “not part of the exercise,” Marr reportedly thinks, “This is an interesting start to the exercise.” According to Spencer, he thinks “This ‘real-world’ mixed in with today’s simex [simulated exercise] will keep [his staff members] on their toes.” Regardless of whether the crisis is real or not, Marr decides to instruct that the two alert F-15s at Otis Air National Guard Base be ordered to battle stations (see (8:40 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [Spencer, 2008, pp. 26-27]
Entity Tags: Robert Marr, Dawne Deskins, Boston Air Route Traffic Control Center, Northeast Air Defense Sector, Vigilant Guardian
The emblem of the 177th Fighter Wing. [Source: United States Air Force]Colin Scoggins, the military liaison at the FAA’s Boston Center, calls NORAD’s Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS) and suggests that it contact a military unit at Atlantic City, New Jersey. However, when NEADS tries phoning the unit, the call is not answered. Scoggins Notices Otis Jets Not Yet Launched - Scoggins had called NEADS at around 8:38 a.m., regarding the hijacked Flight 11 (see (8:38 a.m.) September 11, 2001). A few minutes after this, he notices that fighter jets have not yet launched from Otis Air National Guard Base, at Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and calls NEADS again. He suggests that it should try to get jets launched from Atlantic City. [Spencer, 2008, pp. 32-34] Atlantic City International Airport is the home of the 177th Fighter Wing of the New Jersey Air National Guard. [GlobalSecurity (.org), 10/29/2001] As author Lynn Spencer will describe, Scoggins “knows that Atlantic City is no longer an alert facility, but he also knows that they launch F-16s for training flights every morning at nine. He figures that the pilots are probably already in their planes and ready to go. They’re unarmed, but they’re a lot closer to New York City than the Otis fighters on Cape Cod, and the military serves only a monitoring purpose in hijacking anyway.” [Spencer, 2008, pp. 33-34] Two F-16s from the 177th Fighter Wing are in fact already airborne and performing their training mission, and are just a few minutes flying time from New York City (see 8:46 a.m.-9:03 a.m. September 11, 2001). [Bergen Record, 12/5/2003] Scoggins will later recount: “I requested that we take from Atlantic City very early in the [morning], not launch from the ground but those already airborne in Warning Area 107 [a training area] if they were there, which I believe they were.” He will add that the 177th Fighter Wing does not “have an intercept mission; it was taken away a long time ago. [But] NEADS could have called them and asked them to cancel their [training] mission and divert.” [Griffin, 2007] NEADS Tries Unsuccessfully to Contact Unit - The NEADS technician who takes Scoggins’s call follows his advice, and tries to call the unit at Atlantic City. He calls the only number he has for it, which is the number NEADS had previously called when it wanted to scramble 177th Fighter Wing F-16s until 1998, back when they were part of NORAD’s alert force. The number connects the technician directly to the highly secured command post. However, no one answers the phone. According to Spencer: “[T]hese days, the command post is more of a highly secured storage area, opened just once a month for drill weekends. The phone rings and rings.” [Spencer, 2008, pp. 34] The FAA’s Boston Center also attempted to call the Atlantic City unit, apparently several minutes earlier (see (8:34 a.m.) September 11, 2001). The outcome of that call is unstated. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 20]
Entity Tags: Colin Scoggins, Northeast Air Defense Sector, 177th Fighter Wing
Major Daniel Nash. [Source: Cape Cod Times]Major Daniel Nash (codenamed Nasty) and Lieutenant Colonel Timothy Duffy (codenamed Duff) are the two F-15 pilots who would scramble after Flight 11. Apparently, they get several informal calls warning to get ready. According to Nash, at this time, a colleague at the Otis Air National Guard Base tells him that a flight out of Boston has been hijacked, and that he should be on alert. [Cape Cod Times, 8/21/2002] NEADS senior technician Jeremy Powell (informed about the hijacking at 8:37 a.m.), says that he telephones Otis Air National Guard Base soon thereafter to tell it to upgrade its “readiness posture.” [Newhouse News Service, 1/25/2002] Boston flight control had tried calling the Otis base directly at 8:34 a.m., although the result of that call remains unclear. Duffy recalls being warned: “I was just standing up by the ops desk and I was told I had a phone call. I asked who it was and they said the [Boston] tower calling and something about a hijacking. It was Flight American 11, a 767, out of Boston going to California. At the time we ran in and got suited up.” [Aviation Week and Space Technology, 6/3/2002; Cape Cod Times, 8/21/2002; BBC, 9/1/2002] At NEADS, the mission crew commander Major Kevin Nasypany orders his Weapons Team, which controls the fighters, to put the Otis planes on “battle stations.” This means the two “alert” pilots are “jolted into action by a piercing ‘battle horn.’ They run to their jets, climb up, strap in, and do everything they need to do to get ready to fly short of starting the engines.” [Vanity Fair, 8/1/2006] NEADS Commander Robert Marr is also reported as having ordered the Otis pilots to battle stations. [Filson, 2003, pp. 55; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 20] Duffy confirms, “Halfway to the jets, we got ‘battle stations’… which means to get ready for action.” [Aviation Week and Space Technology, 6/3/2002] The actual scramble order does not come until the pilots are already waiting in the fighters: “We went out, we hopped in the jets and we were ready to go—standby for a scramble order if we were going to get one.” [BBC, 9/1/2002] Duffy continues, “I briefed Nasty on the information I had about the American Airlines Flight. About four-five minutes later, we got the scramble order and took off.” [Aviation Week and Space Technology, 6/3/2002] However, the official notification to scramble these fighters does not come until 8:46 a.m. The six-minute (or more) delay between unofficial and official notification has not been explained.
Entity Tags: Timothy Duffy, Jeremy Powell, Otis Air National Guard Base, Robert Marr, Boston Air Route Traffic Control Center, Daniel Nash, Kevin Nasypany
Dave Bottiglia. [Source: ABC News]After Flight 11 appears on his radar screen, Dave Bottiglia, an air traffic controller at the FAA’s New York Center, is informed that this aircraft is suspected of having been hijacked. Flight 175 entered Bottiglia’s airspace not long before this (see 8:40 a.m. September 11, 2001). [MSNBC, 9/11/2002; 9/11 Commission, 8/26/2004, pp. 20 ] Its pilot has just told Bottiglia about the “suspicious transmission” (presumably from Flight 11) he heard while departing Boston airport (see 8:41 a.m.-8:42 a.m. September 11, 2001). [Gregor, 12/21/2001 ] Seconds later, Flight 11 also enters the area Bottiglia is monitoring and its target appears on his radar screen. The controller sitting next to Bottiglia gets up and points to the radar blip. He says: “You see this target here? This is American 11. Boston Center thinks it’s a hijack.” Bottiglia will later recall that his initial thought about Flight 11, based on this information, is that the hijackers “were probably going to Cuba.” As its transponder has been turned off (see (Between 8:13 a.m. and 8:21 a.m.) September 11, 2001), he has no altitude information for Flight 11, but can tell from the radar scope that it appears to be descending. According to author Lynn Spencer: “Even without a transponder, controller radars calculate ground speed for all radar targets, and when a plane is descending, the ground speed decreases. The flight had been ‘grounding’ 600 knots, and now it has decreased to 320.” Bottiglia follows Flight 11’s target on his radar screen until it disappears over New York City. [MSNBC, 9/11/2002; Spencer, 2008, pp. 37] Because he is focused on Flight 11, Bottiglia will not notice when Flight 175’s transponder code changes at 8:47 (see 8:46 a.m.-8:47 a.m. September 11, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 21; 9/11 Commission, 8/26/2004, pp. 21 ] The New York Center was first notified of Flight 11’s hijacking at 8:25 a.m. (see 8:25 a.m. September 11, 2001), though this information was not passed on to Bottiglia. [Federal Aviation Administration, 9/17/2001 ; Spencer, 2008, pp. 36-37]
Entity Tags: Dave Bottiglia, New York Air Route Traffic Control Center
According to an employee at the FAA’s Boston Center in Nashua, New Hampshire, Flight 11 and Flight 175 nearly crash into each other while heading toward their targets in New York. The unnamed employee says, “The two aircraft got too close to each other down by Stewart” International Airport, which is in New Windsor, NY, about 55 miles north of New York City. Describing the incident, the Nashua Telegraph says that the terrorists “nearly had their plans dashed when the two planes almost collided.” [Associated Press, 9/13/2001; Telegraph (Nashua), 9/13/2001; United Press International, 9/13/2001] It is unclear exactly when this incident occurs, though it is presumably shortly after 8:42, when Flight 175 has its last communication with air traffic control. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 7]
For the last 25 minutes, Flight 11 attendant Betty Ong has been speaking by Airfone to three employees at the American Airlines Southeastern Reservations Office in Cary, North Carolina (see 8:19 a.m. September 11, 2001). As Flight 11 approaches New York and the World Trade Center, it appears to be quiet on board. Vanessa Minter, one of the employees receiving Ong’s call, later recalls, “You didn’t hear hysteria in the background. You didn’t hear people screaming.” In a composed voice, Ong repeatedly says, “Pray for us. Pray for us.” Minter and Nydia Gonzalez, the reservations office supervisor, assure her they are praying. Seconds later, the line goes dead. [ABC News, 7/18/2002; Pacific News Service, 9/8/2004] At 8:44 a.m., according to the 9/11 Commission, Gonzalez confirms, “I think we might have lost her.” [9/11 Commission, 8/26/2004, pp. 14 ] Amy Sweeney, another Flight 11 attendant, has also made an emergency phone call from the plane. This also ends at 8:44 a.m. (see (8:44 a.m.) September 11, 2001).
Entity Tags: Betty Ong, Nydia Gonzalez, Vanessa Minter, American Airlines
At American Airlines’ System Operations Control (SOC) in Fort Worth, the Command Center is activated. This is a dedicated crisis response facility, located on the floor above the SOC floor, and used in the event of an emergency. In it, top operations officials focus on gathering together as much information about Flight 11 as possible. A page is sent to American’s top executives and operations personnel: “Confirmed hijacking Flight 11.” However, pilots on other American flights apparently are not notified. Top managers gathered at the Command Center watch the radar blip of Flight 11 until it disappears over New York City. [Wall Street Journal, 10/15/2001; USA Today, 8/13/2002; 9/11 Commission, 1/27/2004]
Flight attendant Amy Sweeney is still on the phone with American Airlines flight services manager Michael Woodward, describing conditions on Flight 11. The plane is nearing New York City, but the coach section passengers are still quiet, apparently unaware a hijacking is in progress. Sweeney reports, “Something is wrong. We are in a rapid descent… we are all over the place.” Woodward asks her to look out of the window and see if she can tell where they are. According to ABC News, she replies, “I see the water. I see the buildings. I see buildings.” She tells him the plane is flying very low. Then she takes a slow, deep breath and slowly, calmly says, “Oh my God!” According to Woodward’s account to the 9/11 Commission, Sweeney’s reply is, “We are flying low. We are flying very, very low. We are flying way too low.” Seconds later, she adds, “Oh my God, we are way too low.” These are her last words. Then Woodward hears a “very, very loud static on the other end.” Sweeney’s call has ended at about 8:44, according to the 9/11 Commission, two minutes before her plane crashes into the WTC. [Los Angeles Times, 9/20/2001; ABC News, 7/18/2002; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 6-7 and 453] At 8:45 a.m., Nancy Wyatt, an American Airlines employee who has been listening to the call between Woodward and Sweeney, reports to the airline’s System Operations Control (SOC) in Fort Worth. Contradicting the later claims by Woodward that Sweeney was calm to the end, Wyatt tells the SOC that she had “started screaming and saying something’s wrong.” Wyatt adds that Woodward “thinks he might be disconnected [from Sweeney]. Okay, we just lost connection.” [9/11 Commission, 8/26/2004, pp. 14 and 88 ] Betty Ong, another flight attendant, has also made an emergency phone call from Flight 11. This is also terminated around this time (see (8:44 a.m.) September 11, 2001).
Entity Tags: Michael Woodward, Nancy Wyatt, Madeline (“Amy”) Sweeney, American Airlines
Category Tags: All Day of 9/11 Events, Flight AA 11, Key Day of 9/11 Events, Alleged Passenger Phone Calls
Larry Wansley. [Source: Publicity photo]At 8:45 a.m., Larry Wansley learns of the hijacking of Flight 11. Wansley is the managing director of corporate security for American Airlines, and is at the company’s headquarters in Fort Worth, Texas. He is informed of the hijacking in an urgent phone call from the airline’s Command Center, located on the floor above its System Operations Control (SOC), about a mile away from headquarters (see (Before 8:45 a.m.) September 11, 2001). The SOC learned there was some kind of problem with Flight 11 at 8:20 a.m. (see 8:20 a.m. September 11, 2001). Since as early as 8:21, details of Flight 11 attendant Betty Ong’s emergency call have been constantly relayed to Craig Marquis, a manager at the SOC (see (8:21 a.m.) September 11, 2001). Yet the 8:45 call is apparently Wansley’s first notification of the hijacking. He calls Danny Defenbaugh, the special agent in charge of the Dallas FBI office. Wansley is himself a former undercover FBI agent, and Defenbaugh is a longtime friend of his. This call is “the first step in the well-researched, secret hijack-response plan all commercial airlines have in place.” As Wansley is relaying information, he hears screaming from an adjacent conference room, as several employees watch the aftermath of the first WTC crash on television. The TV in Defenbaugh’s office has been turned on, but reportedly neither of the two men connects the images of the burning tower with the hijacking they are trying to deal with. As they continue discussing their response plans, television shows the second plane hitting the South Tower. No doubt realizing this is a terrorist attack, Defenbaugh says, “The ball game just changed.” Around this time, Wansley learns that the first plane to hit the WTC was the hijacked American Airlines flight. He will subsequently make a hurried drive to the nearby Command Center, where the FBI will already be setting up its own command post (see Shortly After 8:46 a.m. September 11, 2001). [Dallas Observer, 11/21/2002; 9/11 Commission, 1/27/2004; 9/11 Commission, 8/26/2004, pp. 14 ]
Entity Tags: Larry Wansley, Federal Bureau of Investigation, American Airlines, Danny Defenbaugh
Soldier firing a Stinger missile. [Source: US Army]In New York, the Secret Service has a Stinger missile secretly stored in the World Trade Center, to be used to protect the president if the city were attacked when he visits it. Presumably it keeps this is in WTC Building 7, where its field office is. [Tech TV, 7/23/2002; Weiss, 2003, pp. 379] Stinger missiles provide short-range air defense against low-altitude airborne targets, such as fix-winged aircraft, helicopters, and cruise missiles. They have a range of between one and eight kilometers. [Federation of American Scientists, 8/9/2000; GlobalSecurity (.org), 4/27/2005] Whether the Secret Service makes any attempt at defending New York from the two attacking planes with its Stinger missile is unknown. The agency is also known to have air surveillance capabilities. These include a system called Tigerwall, which provides “early warning of airborne threats” and “a geographic display of aircraft activity” (see (September 2000 and after)). And according to Barbara Riggs, who is in the Secret Service’s Washington, DC headquarters on this day, the agency is “able to receive real time information about other hijacked aircraft,” through “monitoring radar and activating an open line with the FAA.” [US Department of the Navy, 9/2000, pp. 28 ; PCCW Newsletter, 3/2006; Star-Gazette (Elmira), 6/5/2006] These capabilities would presumably be of use if the Secret Service wanted to defend the World Trade Center. Furthermore, according to the British defense publication Jane’s Land-Based Air Defence, “the American president’s residences in Washington and elsewhere are protected by specialist Stinger teams in case of an aerial attack by terrorist organizations.” [Jane's Land-Based Air Defence, 10/13/2000] Knight Ridder has previously reported “several sources” telling it, “Stinger missiles are in the Secret Service’s arsenal.” [Knight Ridder, 9/12/1994] And according to the London Telegraph, the Secret Service is “believed to have a battery of ground-to-air Stinger missiles” ready to defend the White House. [Daily Telegraph, 9/16/2001] Flight 77 reportedly comes within four miles of the White House before turning toward the Pentagon. [ABC News, 10/24/2001; USA Today, 8/13/2002] Whether the Secret Service makes any attempt at defending the place with its Stinger missiles is unknown. However, the Washington Post will later claim it is an “urban legend that Stinger missiles are mounted on the White House roof.” [Washington Post, 4/4/2002]
Entity Tags: Secret Service
Category Tags: All Day of 9/11 Events, Flight AA 11, Flight UA 175, Flight AA 77, World Trade Center
On the operations floor at NORAD’s Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS), Major Kevin Nasypany, the facility’s mission crew commander, instructs Major James Fox, the leader of the weapons team, to launch fighter jets from Otis Air National Guard Base in Cape Cod, Massachusetts. [Vanity Fair, 8/1/2006] Nasypany has just received this order—to launch the jets—from Colonel Robert Marr, the NEADS battle commander. [9/11 Commission, 8/26/2004, pp. 15 and 88 ] Marr issued it after seeking permission to do so from Major General Larry Arnold, the commanding general of NORAD’s Continental Region (CONR) (see (After 8:37 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 20] Marr will later claim, “My intent was to scramble Otis to military airspace while we found out what was going on.” [Filson, 2003, pp. 56] Nasypany gives Fox a coordinate for just north of New York City, and tells him, “Head ‘em in that direction.” [Vanity Fair, 8/1/2006] The jets will be scrambled from Otis a minute later (see 8:46 a.m. September 11, 2001), but there will be conflicting accounts of what their initial destination is (see (8:53 a.m.-9:05 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 20] Interestingly, the 9/11 Commission will later state that, “Because of a technical issue, there are no NEADS recordings available of the NEADS senior weapons director and weapons director technician position responsible for controlling the Otis scramble.” [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 459]
Entity Tags: Kevin Nasypany, Northeast Air Defense Sector, Larry Arnold, Robert Marr, James Fox
Master Sergeant Joe McCain, the mission crew commander technician at NORAD’s Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS), believes he has located Flight 11 on the radar screen and then watches it disappear over New York, but he does not realize it has crashed. McCain is on the phone with Colin Scoggins, the military liaison at the FAA’s Boston Center. [Spencer, 2008, pp. 40-41] NEADS personnel have been unable to locate Flight 11 on their radar screens (see Shortly After 8:37 a.m. September 11, 2001). [Utica Observer-Dispatch, 8/5/2004] McCain Locates Fast-Moving Aircraft - Now McCain believes he has found Flight 11, flying about 20 miles north of Manhattan. According to author Lynn Spencer, he “knows that planes tend to fly very specific routes, like highways in the sky, and this particular target seems not to be on any of those regular routes. It’s also very fast moving.” McCain tells Scoggins, “I’ve got a search target that seems to be on an odd heading here,” and then describes its location. Scoggins notices the target, but this is not Flight 11. Scoggins then realizes that Flight 11 is right behind the target McCain has identified, and yells to him: “There’s a target four miles behind it, that’s the one! That’s American 11!” McCain responds, “I’ve got it!” The aircraft is 16 miles north of New York’s JFK International Airport, and heading down the Hudson River valley. NEADS has no altitude for it, but the aircraft is clearly traveling very fast. After hanging up the phone, McCain calls out its coordinates to everyone on the NEADS operations floor. [Spencer, 2008, pp. 40] McCain will later recall: “It’s very unusual to find a search target, which is a plane with its transponder turned off, in that area. This plane was headed toward New York going faster than the average Cessna and was no doubt a jet aircraft. We had many clues. The plane was fast and heading in an unusual direction with no beacon. We had raw data only. Everything just kind of fit.” [Filson, 2003, pp. 56-57] (The identity of the other fast-moving aircraft McCain had noticed, four miles ahead of Flight 11, is unstated.) Flight 11 Disappears from Radar - Less than a minute after McCain locates the track for Flight 11, it disappears. [Spencer, 2008, pp. 41] McCain will recall, “We watched that track until it faded over New York City and right after that someone came out of the break room and said the World Trade Center had been hit.” [Filson, 2003, pp. 57] However, McCain supposedly does not realize that the plane he had spotted has crashed into the WTC. According to Spencer: “[H]e knows only that the blip he has struggled so mightily to locate has now vanished. He figures that the plane has descended below his radar coverage area to land at JFK. The fact that the plane was flying much too fast for landing does not hit him; the concept that the plane might have been intentionally crashed is simply too far outside his realm of experience.” [Spencer, 2008, pp. 41]
Entity Tags: Joe McCain, Colin Scoggins, Northeast Air Defense Sector
CNN reports that, while Flight 11 is heading toward the World Trade Center, “[S]ources say there were bomb threats called in to air traffic control centers adding to the chaos.” One center receiving such threats is the FAA’s Boston Center, which handles air traffic over New England and monitors flights 11 and 175. Cleveland Center, which will monitor Flight 93, receives similar threats. Whether other centers are threatened is unstated. According to Newsweek, “Officials suspect that the bomb threats were intended to add to the chaos, distracting controllers from tracking the hijacked planes.” [Newsweek, 9/22/2001; CNN, 9/30/2001] Yet, just weeks after 9/11, the Washington Post will claim, “Federal aviation officials no longer believe that accomplices of the hijackers made phony bomb threats to confuse air traffic controllers on Sept. 11. Sources said reports of multiple threats were apparently the result of confusion during the early hours of the investigation and miscommunication in the Federal Aviation Administration.” [Washington Post, 9/27/2001]
Entity Tags: Cleveland Air Route Traffic Control Center, Boston Air Route Traffic Control Center
Category Tags: All Day of 9/11 Events, Flight AA 11, Flight UA 93
Immediately after ordering the scrambling of fighters after Flight 11, NEADS calls Canadian Captain Mike Jellinek at NORAD’s operations center in Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado. It informs him that the FAA is reporting a hijacking and requesting NORAD support, and asks for NORAD commander-in-chief approval for the scramble. [Toronto Star, 12/9/2001; Aviation Week and Space Technology, 6/3/2002] The Cheyenne Mountain operations center “provides warning of ballistic missile or air attacks against North America.” [North American Aerospace Defense Command, 11/27/1999] Its role is to “fuse every critical piece of information NORAD has into a concise and crystalline snapshot,” and the mandate of its staff is “to respond to any threat in the skies over Canada and the United States.” [Toronto Star, 12/9/2001; Ottawa Citizen, 9/11/2002] This is apparently the first time it becomes aware of the morning’s emergency. Mike Jellinek is sitting near Canadian Major General Rick Findley, NORAD’s director of combat operations, who has just completed the night shift. Findley’s staff is “already on high alert” because of Vigilant Guardian and Operation Northern Vigilance, a training exercise and a NORAD operation that are currently in progress. According to some accounts, Findley quickly gives Jellinek “thumbs up” approval for the sending of the fighters after Flight 11. However, Findley tells CNN that after learning of the hijacking, “I just kind of asked the question, OK, folks, open up our checklist, follow our NORAD instruction, which included, at that time, to ask in either Ottawa or Washington is it OK if we use NORAD fighters to escort a potential hijacked aircraft?” Findley also later states, “At that point all we thought was we’ve got an airplane hijacked and we were going to provide an escort as requested. We certainly didn’t know it was going to play out as it did.” [Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, 11/27/2001; Toronto Star, 12/9/2001; Aviation Week and Space Technology, 6/3/2002; Ottawa Citizen, 9/11/2002; Canadian Press, 9/10/2006; CNN, 9/11/2006] Findley remains in charge of the NORAD operations center. His staff feeds information to NORAD Commander-in-Chief Ralph Eberhart, and Findley himself is in phone contact with Eberhart several times during the crisis. Eberhart is in his office at NORAD headquarters, at nearby Peterson Air Force Base, but will relocate to Cheyenne Mountain later in the morning (see (Between 9:35 a.m. and 10:35 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [Calgary Herald, 10/1/2001; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 465; Legion Magazine, 11/2004]
Entity Tags: Operation Northern Vigilance, North American Aerospace Defense Command, Northeast Air Defense Sector, Ralph Eberhart, Vigilant Guardian, Mike Jellinek, Rick Findley
Flight 11 disappears from primary radar four seconds before it hits the North Tower of the World Trade Center (see 8:46 a.m. September 11, 2001), according to an FAA timeline. [Federal Aviation Administration, 9/17/2001 ] At the FAA’s Boston Center, Colin Scoggins, the center’s military liaison, notices the loss of the plane’s primary radar track. As the center only monitors high-level air traffic, its radar information does not pick up aircraft below 1,500 feet. But Scoggins does not realize Flight 11 has crashed. The Boston Center’s last known position for the plane before it disappears is nine miles northeast of New York’s JFK International Airport. [Spencer, 2008, pp. 49]
Entity Tags: Boston Air Route Traffic Control Center, Colin Scoggins
Flight 11 hits the WTC North Tower at 8:46. This video still is the only well-known image of this crash (from the French documentary). [Source: Gamma Press]Two French documentary filmmakers are filming a documentary on New York City firefighters about ten blocks from the WTC. One of them hears a roar, looks up, and captures a distant image of the first WTC crash. They continue shooting footage nonstop for many hours, and their footage is first shown that evening on CNN. [New York Times, 1/12/2002] President Bush later claims that he sees the first attack live on television, but this is technically impossible, as there was no live news footage of the attack. [Wall Street Journal, 3/22/2004 ]
Entity Tags: George W. Bush
Category Tags: All Day of 9/11 Events, Flight AA 11, George Bush, World Trade Center
At the time of the attacks on the World Trade Center, two F-16 fighter jets are performing a training mission just eight minutes flying time away from New York, but the pilots are unaware of the crisis taking place. The two jets belong to the 177th Fighter Wing of the New Jersey Air National Guard, which is based at Atlantic City International Airport. [GlobalSecurity (.org), 10/29/2001; Bergen Record, 12/5/2003] F-16s at Atlantic City are involved in scheduled training missions every day, and their first mission is usually between 8:30 a.m. and 9:00 a.m. [Griffin, 2007, pp. 62] The two fighter jets are unarmed and performing practice bombing runs over a section of the Pine Barrens in New Jersey that is designated for military drills. The pilots are unaware of the attacks in New York. They will not be called back to base until shortly after the second WTC tower is hit, and will then have their training munitions replaced with live air-to-air missiles. At the time of the second attack, another two jets from the 177th FW are preparing to take off for routine bombing training, but they too have their mission canceled (see (Shortly After 9:03 a.m.) September 11, 2001). No jets will take off from Atlantic City in response to the attacks until after 9:37, when the Pentagon is hit. [Code One Magazine, 10/2002; Bergen Record, 12/5/2003] NEADS and FAA Tried Contacting 177th Fighter Wing - Colin Scoggins, the military liaison at the FAA’s Boston Center, is aware that the 177th FW launches F-16s for training flights every morning around this time, and suggested to NORAD’s Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS) that it contact Atlantic City to use these jets in response to the hijacked Flight 11. However, when NEADS tried phoning the unit, its call was not answered (see (Between 8:40 a.m. and 8:46 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [Griffin, 2007, pp. 62; Spencer, 2008, pp. 33-34] Apparently around 8:34 a.m., the Boston Center also attempted to contact the Atlantic City unit, but the outcome of that call is unclear (see (8:34 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 20] F-16s Might Have Prevented Attacks on WTC - Author Peter Lance will later point out that, had the two Atlantic City F-16s flying over the Pine Barrens “been notified by the FAA at 8:34… they could have reached the Twin Towers by 8:42 a.m.,” four minutes before Flight 11 hit the North Tower (see 8:46 a.m. September 11, 2001). “Even unarmed, and without a shootdown order, they might have been able to take defensive action to prevent the big 767 from crashing into the tower. In any case, the fighters would certainly have been on patrol and able to interdict UA 175, which didn’t hit the South Tower until 9:03 a.m.” [Lance, 2004, pp. 230-231] Yet despite the crucial role these two fighters could have played, the 9/11 Commission Report will make no mention of them. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004] Pointing out the irony of having the two F-16s so near to Manhattan yet with such an unrelated mission, 177th Fighter Wing public affairs officer Lt. Luz Aponte will later remark, “Isn’t that something?” [Bergen Record, 12/5/2003]
Entity Tags: 177th Fighter Wing, Luz Aponte
Category Tags: All Day of 9/11 Events, Flight AA 11, Flight UA 175, Training Exercises
Two F-15 fighter jets are scrambled from Otis Air National Guard Base in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, which is 153 miles from New York City. The fighters are launched in response to the hijacked Flight 11, but this plane is already crashing into the World Trade Center at this time (see 8:46 a.m. September 11, 2001). [Washington Post, 9/15/2001; CNN, 9/17/2001; North American Aerospace Defense Command, 9/18/2001; 9/11 Commission, 6/17/2004] Delay - The FAA’s Boston Center alerted NORAD’s Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS) to the hijacking of Flight 11 and requested that fighter jets be scrambled at just before 8:38 a.m. (see (8:37 a.m.) September 11, 2001), but the mission crew commander at NEADS only instructed the leader of his weapons team to launch the Otis fighters at 8:45 a.m. (see 8:45 a.m. September 11, 2001). [Vanity Fair, 8/1/2006] Otis Aircraft Head to Runway - As soon as the pilots at Otis Air Base are strapped into their aircraft, the green light directing them to launch goes on. They start their engines and taxi out of the hangar to the nearest runway. One of the pilots, Lt. Col. Timothy Duffy, radios his command post for guidance, asking, “Do you have words?” The response he gets is, “Possible hijack, American Flight 11, 737, flight level 290 [29,000 feet], over JFK [International Airport in New York City].” (This flight information is partly incorrect, since American 11 is a 767, not a 737.) According to the Cape Cod Times, the jets will be up in the air before their radar kicks in. [Cape Cod Times, 8/21/2002; Spencer, 2008, pp. 42] The Otis pilots have already been preparing for the scramble order to come since learning of the hijacking from the FAA’s Cape Cod facility, some time shortly after 8:34 a.m. (see (Shortly After 8:34 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [BBC, 9/1/2002; Spencer, 2008, pp. 27-30] Their jets are reportedly not airborne until seven minutes after being scrambled, at 8:53 a.m. (see 8:53 a.m. September 11, 2001) and there will be conflicting accounts of what their original destination is (see (8:53 a.m.-9:05 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 6/17/2004]
Entity Tags: Timothy Duffy, Otis Air National Guard Base, Daniel Nash
Category Tags: Key Day of 9/11 Events, All Day of 9/11 Events, Flight AA 11, Flight UA 175
The hole caused by the Flight 11 crash. [Source: Reuters]Flight 11 slams into the WTC North Tower (Building 1). Seismic records pinpoint the crash at 26 seconds after 8:46 a.m. [CNN, 9/12/2001; New York Times, 9/12/2001; North American Aerospace Defense Command, 9/18/2001; USA Today, 12/20/2001; Federal Emergency Management Agency, 5/1/2002, pp. 1-10; USA Today, 8/13/2002; Associated Press, 8/21/2002; Newsday, 9/10/2002; New York Times, 9/11/2002] The NIST report states the crash time to be 8:46:30. [National Institute of Standards and Technology, 9/2005, pp. 19 ] The 9/11 Commission Report states the crash time to be 8:46:40. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 7] Investigators believe the plane still has about 10,000 gallons of fuel (see 8:57 a.m. September 11, 2001). [New York Times, 9/11/2002] The plane strikes the 93rd through 99th floors in the 110-story building. No one above the crash line survives; approximately 1,360 people die. Below the crash line, approximately 72 die and more than 4,000 survive. Both towers are slightly less than half full at the time of the attack, with between 5,000 to 7,000 people in each tower. This number is lower than expected. Many office workers have not yet shown up to work, and tourists to the observation deck opening at 9:30 A.M. have yet to arrive. [USA Today, 12/20/2001; National Institute of Standards and Technology, 9/2005, pp. 20-22 ] The impact severs some columns on the north side of the North Tower. Each tower is designed as a “tube-in-tube” structure and the steel columns which support its weight are arranged around the perimeter and in the core. The plane, which weighs 283,600 lb and is traveling at an estimated speed of around 430 mph (see October 2002-October 2005), severs 35 of the building’s 236 perimeter columns and damages another two. The damage to the South Tower’s perimeter will be similar (see 9:03 a.m. September 11, 2001). [National Institute of Standards and Technology, 9/2005, pp. 5-9, 20, 22 ] The perimeter columns bear about half of the tower’s weight, so this damage reduces its ability to bear gravity loads by about 7.5 percent. [National Institute of Standards and Technology, 9/2005, pp. 6 ] The actual damage to the 47 core columns is not known, as there are no photographs or videos of it, but there will be much speculation about this after 9/11. It will be suggested that some parts of the aircraft may have damaged the core even after crashing through the exterior wall. According to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST): “Moving at 500 mph, an engine broke any exterior column it hit. If the engine missed the floor slab, the majority of the engine core remained intact and had enough residual momentum to sever a core column upon direct impact.” [National Institute of Standards and Technology, 9/2005, pp. 107 ] According to NIST’s base case computer model, three of the core columns are severed and another ten suffer some damage. [National Institute of Standards & Technology, 9/2005, pp. 189 ] If this is accurate, it means that the impact damage to the core reduces the Tower’s strength by another approximately 7.5 percent, meaning that the building loses about 15 percent of its strength in total. This damage will be cited after 9/11 by NIST and others researchers as an event contributing to the building’s collapse (see October 23, 2002 and October 19, 2004). In addition, some of the fireproofing on the steel columns and trusses may be dislodged. The original fireproofing on the fire floors was mostly Blazeshield DC/F, but some of the fireproofing on the flooring has recently been upgraded to Blazeshield II, which is about 20 percent denser and 20 percent more adhesive. [National Institute of Standards & Technology, 9/2005, pp. xxxvi, 83 ] Photographs and videos of the towers will not show the state of fireproofing inside the buildings, but NIST will estimate the damage to it using a computer model. Its severe case model (see (October 2002-October 2005)) will predict that 43 of the 47 core columns are stripped of their fireproofing on one or more floors and that fireproofing is stripped from trusses covering 60,000 ft2 of floor area, the equivalent of about one and a half floors. NIST will say that the loss of fireproofing is a major cause of the collapse (see April 5, 2005), but only performs 15 tests on fireproofing samples (see October 26, 2005). [National Institute of Standards and Technology, 9/2005, pp. 23 ] According to NIST, more fireproofing is stripped from the South Tower (see 9:03 a.m. September 11, 2001).
Entity Tags: World Trade Center, National Institute of Standards and Technology
Category Tags: All Day of 9/11 Events, Flight AA 11, Flight UA 175, George Bush, WTC Investigation, Key Day of 9/11 Events, World Trade Center
Curt Applegate sitting next to his air traffic control terminal. [Source: NBC News]After being focused on Flight 11, Dave Bottiglia, an air traffic controller at the FAA’s New York Center, first notices problems with Flight 175. [MSNBC, 9/11/2002; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 21] Both Flight 11 and Flight 175 have been in the airspace that Bottiglia is responsible for monitoring (see 8:40 a.m. September 11, 2001 and (8:42 a.m.-8:46 a.m.) September 11, 2001). Bottiglia has just watched Flight 11’s radar blip disappear, which means the plane has dipped below his radar’s coverage area, so is below 2,000 feet. But he does not yet realize it has crashed. He says aloud, “Well, we know he’s not high altitude anymore.” [MSNBC, 9/11/2002; Spencer, 2008, pp. 37] Around this time, Flight 175’s transponder changes twice in the space of a minute (see 8:46 a.m.-8:47 a.m. September 11, 2001). Conflicting Accounts - According to MSNBC, “within seconds” of losing Flight 11’s blip, “Bottiglia has another unexpected problem.” While looking for Flight 11, he realizes that Flight 175 is also missing, and “instinctively… knows the two [planes] are somehow related.” He asks another controller to take over all of his other planes. [MSNBC, 9/11/2002] But according to the 9/11 Commission’s account, Bottiglia is still trying to locate Flight 11 after it crashes, and so it is not until 8:51 a.m. that he notices the problem with Flight 175 (see 8:51 a.m.-8:53 a.m. September 11, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 8/26/2004, pp. 21 ] 'An Intruder over Allentown' - Around the time Flight 175 changes its transponder code, air traffic controller Curt Applegate, who is sitting at the radar bank next to Bottiglia’s, sees a blip that might be the missing Flight 11. He shouts out: “Look. There’s an intruder over Allentown.” According to the Washington Post, “In air traffic jargon, an ‘intruder’ is a plane with an operating transponder that has entered restricted airspace without permission.” In fact, it is the missing Flight 175. [Washington Post, 9/17/2001; MSNBC, 9/11/2002] However, these accounts make no mention of NORAD being notified about the problems with Flight 175 at this time. But according to a NORAD timeline released shortly after 9/11, NORAD’s Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS) was alerted about Flight 175 by the FAA several minutes earlier, at 8:43 a.m. (see 8:43 a.m. September 11, 2001). [North American Aerospace Defense Command, 9/18/2001]
Entity Tags: Dave Bottiglia, Curt Applegate, New York Air Route Traffic Control Center
Bob Varcadipane. [Source: NBC News]At the air traffic control tower at Newark International Airport in New Jersey, controllers see the smoke coming from the World Trade Center in the distance and start calling other FAA facilities in the area about this. Controller Rick Tepper looks out the window of the tower across the Hudson River at New York City, and sees the huge cloud of smoke coming from the North Tower, which Flight 11 has crashed into it. He points this out to fellow controller Greg Callahan. In his office at the tower, Bob Varcadipane, the supervisor there, starts receiving a flood of phone calls reporting that a small aircraft has hit the WTC. According to author Lynn Spencer, “The assumption is that only a small plane could have gone so badly off course.” The Newark tower controllers start calling the towers at JFK, La Guardia, and Teterboro Airports, along with other air traffic control facilities in the area, to see if any of them has lost an aircraft. But none say they have; they have not yet been informed of the crash and are shocked at what they see when told to look out their windows at the burning WTC. Varcadipane calls the FAA’s New York Center to find out if they know whose plane hit the Twin Towers. He is told: “No, but Boston Center lost an airplane. They lost an American 767.” Varcadipane wonders if this 767 is the plane that hit the WTC, and says back: “I have a burning building and you have a missing airplane. This is very coincidental.” According to NBC: “a horrific realization dawns on controllers. American Flight 11, still missing from radar, finally has been found.” Word of the plane’s fate subsequently “quickly travels throughout the air traffic control world.” [MSNBC, 9/11/2002; Spencer, 2008, pp. 41-42] However, the FAA’s Indianapolis Center, which handles Flight 77, will reportedly not learn of the first hijackings until around 9:20 a.m. (see (9:20 a.m.-9:21 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 8/26/2004, pp. 32 ]
Entity Tags: Teterboro Airport, World Trade Center, Newark International Airport, Rick Tepper, La Guardia Airport, John F. Kennedy International Airport, Bob Varcadipane, Greg Callahan, New York Air Route Traffic Control Center
Ben Sliney, the national operations manager at the FAA’s Herndon Command Center, learns that a plane has hit the World Trade Center, but it does not occur to him that this might have been the hijacked Flight 11 that he has been tracking. As national operations manager, Sliney is in charge of supervising all activities on the Command Center’s operations floor and overseeing the entire air traffic control system for the United States. He is currently on the operations floor, trying to gather and disseminate whatever information he can about Flight 11. [Spencer, 2008, pp. 2 and 45-46] At 8:48 a.m., a manager at the FAA’s New York Center provides a report on Flight 11 over a Command Center teleconference, saying: “We’re watching the airplane. I also had conversation with American Airlines, and they’ve told us that they believe that one of their stewardesses was stabbed and that there are people in the cockpit that have control of the aircraft, and that’s all the information they have right now.” [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 21] Although Flight 11 crashed two minutes earlier (see 8:46 a.m. September 11, 2001), this is all Sliney is currently hearing about the aircraft. The Command Center’s military liaison then approaches him. The liaison is a colonel who is responsible for handling military airspace reservations, but is not part of the NORAD chain of command. He tells Sliney to put CNN up on one of the center’s screens, because “They are reporting that a small plane has hit the World Trade Center.” Upon following this suggestion, Sliney and his colleagues see the television footage of the burning North Tower. Sliney is baffled, commenting aloud: “That’s a lot of smoke for a small plane. I’ve worked New York airspace. Why would you be right over the World Trade Center on a clear, bright day?” However, according to author Lynn Spencer, “The notion that it is actually American 11 that has hit the tower doesn’t cross his mind; the idea that the hijacking they’ve been tracking might have flown into that building, especially on such a clear day, is simply unfathomable.” [Spencer, 2008, pp. 46]
Entity Tags: New York Air Route Traffic Control Center, Ben Sliney, Lynn Spencer, Federal Aviation Administration
A manager at the FAA’s New York Center speaks in a teleconference between air traffic control centers. The manager says: “Okay. This is New York [Center]. We’re watching the airplane [Flight 11]. I also had conversation with American Airlines, and they’ve told us that they believe that one of their stewardesses was stabbed and that there are people in the cockpit that have control of the aircraft, and that’s all the information they have right now.” The manager is unaware Flight 11 has already crashed. [9/11 Commission, 6/17/2004] This appears to be a simplified version of flight attendant Betty Ong’s phone call, given to American Airlines leader Gerard Arpey and others minutes before (see (8:30 a.m.) September 11, 2001).
Entity Tags: Betty Ong, New York Air Route Traffic Control Center
CNN is the first major network to show the footage of the crash site. It breaks into a commercial and anchor Carol Lin says, “This just in. You are looking at… obviously a very disturbing live shot there—that is the World Trade Center, and we have unconfirmed reports this morning that a plane has crashed into one of the towers of the World Trade Center.” CNN then switches to Sean Murtagh, the network’s vice president of finance, who says in a live telephone interview, “I just witnessed a plane that appeared to be cruising at a slightly lower than normal altitude over New York City. And it appears to have crashed into—I don’t know which tower it is—but it hit directly in the middle of one of the World Trade Center towers. It was a jet, maybe a two-engine jet, maybe a 737… a large passenger commercial jet… It was teetering back and forth, wing-tip to wing-tip, and it looks like it has crashed into—probably, twenty stories from the top of the World Trade Center—maybe the eightieth to eighty-fifth floor. There is smoke billowing out of the World Trade Center.” [CNN, 9/11/2001; Bamford, 2004, pp. 16-17] Many reports do not come until a few minutes later. For instance, ABC first breaks into regular programming with the story at 8:52 a.m. [ABC News, 9/14/2002] Incredibly, a NORAD timeline presented to the 9/11 Commission in 2003 claims that CNN doesn’t begin its coverage of the attacks until 8:57. [9/11 Commission, 5/23/2003]
Entity Tags: Carol Lin, Sean Murtagh, World Trade Center, CNN
Category Tags: All Day of 9/11 Events, Flight AA 11, Flight UA 175, World Trade Center
Canadian Air Force Major General Major General Rick Findley. [Source: NORAD]Canadian Air Force Major General Rick Findley is in charge of the battle staff at NORAD’s Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado operations center. He has just completed a 14-hour night shift, and the center is in the middle of a shift change. According to Findley, “As the phones were beginning to ring, someone said, ‘Sir, you might want to look at that.’ I looked up and there was the CNN image of the World Trade Center. There was a hole in the side of one of the buildings.” CNN broadcasts this footage starting at 8:48 a.m. An as-yet unidentified person reportedly tells Findley that it was a small plane, who responded, “I said the hole’s too big for a small airplane.… I asked if it was the hijacked aircraft. I was scratching my head, wondering if it was another aircraft altogether.” [Calgary Herald, 10/1/2001; Canadian Press, 9/10/2006]
Entity Tags: World Trade Center, North American Aerospace Defense Command, Rick Findley
At Boston’s Logan Airport, from which Flight 11 and Flight 175 took off, directors learn that a plane thought to be from there has hit the World Trade Center, and another from there is missing. John Duval, the airport’s deputy director of operations, is at his desk in the executive aviation office, when his son calls and informs him of the first plane hitting the WTC. A duty manager then calls, saying he has been on the phone with the FAA control tower at the airport. The manager tells Duval he has been informed that, as well as the plane that hit the WTC, “Another one is missing,” and, “They think the two planes came from here.” Duval immediately calls Ed Freni, who is Logan’s director of aviation operations. Duval passes on the news of the WTC crash and the other information from his duty manager. The two men arrange to meet in five minutes time at the Massachusetts Port Authority (Massport) aviation office on the 18th floor of the FAA control tower at the airport. [Murphy, 2006, pp. 30-33]
Entity Tags: John Duval, Ed Freni
Employees at the FAA’s Boston Center learn that a plane has hit the World Trade Center, and Colin Scoggins, the center’s military liaison, starts to wonder if this plane was Flight 11, which disappeared from radar just before the time of the crash (see 8:46 a.m. September 11, 2001). After the center’s manager informs them that a plane has crashed into the WTC, personnel at the system engineer’s desk turn on CNN and see the footage of the burning North Tower. Scoggins hears yelling from the desk and walks over to see what is going on. He sees the news reports, which currently state that just a small aircraft hit the tower. As author Lynn Spencer will describe: “His initial thought is that some controller must have really screwed up. Yet the more he thinks about it, the less that makes sense. It’s a clear day with unlimited visibility, and planes don’t just fly into buildings.” Along with supervisor Daniel Bueno, Scoggins starts contacting other facilities, trying to find out more about what is going on. Several of these facilities are picking up an aircraft’s emergency locator transmitter—a device which begins transmitting a signal when a plane crashes. But Boston Center lacks the necessary equipment to pinpoint where the signal is coming from. Looking again at the TV footage showing the WTC, Scoggins wonders if Flight 11 crashed into the tower. He tells Bueno, “Call American [Airlines] and confirm if their aircraft is down!” Bueno complies, but soon reports back that American Airlines “can’t confirm that the plane that has hit the Trade Center is American 11. They’ve lost their radar track on the plane and cannot confirm where it is.” [Spencer, 2008, pp. 49-50] Scoggins will later recall that American Airlines does not confirm that its plane has hit the North Tower for several hours. He says, “With American Airlines, we could never confirm if it was down or not, so that left doubt in our minds.” [Vanity Fair, 8/1/2006]
Entity Tags: Colin Scoggins, Boston Air Route Traffic Control Center, Daniel Bueno, American Airlines
David Boren. [Source: University of Oklahoma]CIA Director George Tenet is told of the first WTC crash while he is eating breakfast with his mentor, former Senator David Boren (D), at the St. Regis Hotel in Washington, DC. They are interrupted when CIA bodyguards converge on the table to hand Tenet a cell phone. Tenet is told that the WTC has been attacked by an airplane. Boren later says, “I was struck by the fact that [the messenger] used the word ‘attacked.’” Tenet then hands the cell phone back to an aide and says to Boren, “You know, this has bin Laden’s fingerprints all over it.” “‘He was very collected,’ Boren recalls. ‘He said he would be at the CIA in 15 minutes, what people he needed in the room and what he needed to talk about.’” [USA Today, 9/24/2001; ABC News, 9/14/2002] According to other accounts, Tenet responds to the caller, “They steered the plane directly into the building?” Tenet then says to Boren, “That looks like bin Laden.” Tenet muses aloud, “I wonder if this has something to do with the guy [Zacarias Moussaoui] who trained for a pilot’s license.” (Moussaoui had been arrested several weeks earlier.) [St. Paul Pioneer Press, 5/29/2002; Stern, 8/13/2003] According to another account, Tenet pauses while on the phone to tell Boren, “The World Trade Center has been hit. We’re pretty sure it wasn’t an accident. It looks like a terrorist act,” then returns to the phone to identify who should be summoned to the CIA situation room. [Time, 9/14/2001] Tenet later tells author Ronald Kessler, “There was no doubt that al-Qaeda was going to come here eventually, and that something spectacular was planned. I knew immediately who it was [behind the attack].” [Kessler, 2003, pp. 196] In his own 2007 book, Tenet will largely confirm the above accounts. He will add, “Most people, I understand, assumed that the first crash was a tragic accident. It took the second plane hitting the second tower to show them that something far worse was going on. That wasn’t the case for me. We had been living too intimately with the possibility of a terrorist attack on the United States. I instantly thought that this had to be al-Qaeda.” He also mentions thinking aloud about Moussaoui. [Tenet, 2007, pp. 161] Tenet will subsequently hurry back to CIA headquarters in his car (see (8:55 a.m.-9:15 a.m.) September 11, 2001).
Entity Tags: George J. Tenet, World Trade Center, Zacarias Moussaoui, David Boren, Osama bin Laden, Central Intelligence Agency
Timeline Tags: 9/11 T
