The Coast Guard cutter ‘Joshua Appleby.’ [Source: Harry Craft III / US Coast Guard]The US Coast Guard is running a “mass casualty exercise” based around the scenario of an explosion, possibly caused by terrorists, on a cruise ship in Tampa Bay, Florida, which is about 50 miles north of Sarasota, where President Bush is visiting an elementary school this morning. [Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council HazMatters, 10/2001 ; New York Times, 1/13/2002; St. Petersburg Times, 9/8/2002; Local Red Cross News, 9/11/2008] The exercise is being conducted by the Coast Guard’s Marine Safety Office in Tampa, in conjunction with Carnival Cruise Lines, Hillsborough County, and the City of Tampa. [Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council HazMatters, 10/2001 ] The Tampa Bay chapter of the Red Cross and the local fire department are also involved, and more than 100 volunteers are participating. [Local Red Cross News, 9/11/2008; Merrill, 2011, pp. 253]
Exercise Involves 'Possibly Terrorist-Related' Explosion on Ship - The exercise is based on the scenario of an explosion occurring in the engine room of a cruise ship that has 3,500 people on board, just after the ship has passed under the Sunshine Skyway Bridge into Tampa Bay. The explosion is “possibly terrorist-related,” according to Steve McGuire, a Red Cross volunteer who is participating in the exercise. The ship is anchored just south of MacDill Air Force Base, and then a boat, the Coast Guard cutter Joshua Appleby, brings out firefighters and equipment to tackle the fire. Helicopters are used to evacuate the mock casualties from the ship. The casualties are taken away for simulated triage and transportation to area hospitals. The exercise is “a very elaborate drill,” according to McGuire. [Tampa Bay Regional Planning Council HazMatters, 10/2001 ; Local Red Cross News, 9/11/2008]
Exercise Possibly Continues until 10:00 a.m. - As the exercise is about to begin, Janet McGuire, the public affairs and marketing director with the Tampa Bay chapter of the Red Cross, is called by her husband, Bernard McGuire, who tells her a plane has crashed into the World Trade Center. Minutes later, he calls again and tells his wife that a second plane has hit the WTC. She immediately calls the director at her agency’s disaster operations center and requests that the exercise be canceled. Author Will Merrill will later comment, “People might think that Tampa was also under attack if they suddenly saw fire trucks, ambulances, and police cars congregating downtown” because of the exercise. [Tampa Bay Times, 9/13/2006; Merrill, 2011, pp. 253] However, according to Steve McGuire, the exercise continues until “about 9:30 or 10 a.m.” [Local Red Cross News, 9/11/2008] If correct, this would mean it likely continues until after Bush is driven away from the elementary school in Sarasota, at around 9:35 a.m. (see (9:34 a.m.) September 11, 2001), and is possibly still taking place when Bush takes off from the Sarasota airport on Air Force One, at around 9:55 a.m. (see 9:54 a.m. September 11, 2001). [New York Times, 9/16/2001; Daily Telegraph, 12/16/2001; St. Petersburg Times, 7/4/2004]

Philip McNair. [Source: University of West Georgia]A dozen Army officials go ahead with a previously scheduled meeting at the Pentagon, unaware of the attacks in New York, and none of their colleagues interrupt the meeting to alert them to what is happening before the area of the building they are in is hit, at 9:37 a.m. [Goldberg et al., 2007, pp. 40-41; Vogel, 2007, pp. 429; Creed and Newman, 2008, pp. 18-19; WAMU, 9/9/2011] The meeting is attended by the executive officers for the various directorates and operating agencies of the Army’s Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Personnel (ODCSPER). The executive officers’ meetings are held every other Tuesday, usually in the DCSPER conference room, at the northwest corner of a 100-yard-long cubicle bay on the Pentagon’s second floor.
Numerous Officers Attend Meeting - Today’s meeting is chaired by Colonel Philip McNair, the DCSPER’s executive officer. Those attending include Martha Carden, the DCSPER’s assistant executive officer; Major Stephen Long from Personnel Command; Lieutenant Colonel Robert Grunewald from the Information Management Office; Lieutenant Colonel Dennis Johnson from the Management Support Office; Lois Stevens from the Directorate of Military Personnel Management; Lieutenant Colonel Marion Ward from the Directorate of Plans, Resources, and Operations; Major Regina Grant from the Directorate of Human Resources; and Lieutenant Colonel Marilyn Wills, the DCSPER’s congressional affairs contact officer. Max Beilke from the Retirement Services Office attends the start of the meeting but leaves early to go to another meeting. Two visitors are also attending, to give a presentation at the end of the meeting: Colonel Larry Thomas and Lieutenant Colonel Curtis Nutbrown from the Office of the Director of Information Systems for Command, Control, Communications, and Computers. [Rossow, 2003, pp. 39; Creed and Newman, 2008, pp. 18; Lofgren, 2011, pp. 137-138]
Officers Are Not Alerted to Attacks on the WTC - The executive officers’ meeting starts at 9:00 a.m. [Lofgren, 2011, pp. 145] Those attending take turns to give a brief update on recent activities. Routine issues are discussed this morning, such as a retirement party and an upcoming conference. [Creed and Newman, 2008, pp. 18] However, no one in the conference room knows of the events in New York when the meeting commences. News of the first plane crash at the World Trade Center only begins to circulate in the large cubicle area outside the conference room shortly after the door has been closed on the meeting. [Rossow, 2003, pp. 35, 39] And although many of the workers in the cubicle area then follow the coverage of the attacks on television, none of them interrupt the executive officers’ meeting to alert its participants to what is happening. [Virginian-Pilot, 9/7/2002; Creed and Newman, 2008, pp. 19] “We did not know about the World Trade Center. We had no clue,” Carden will later recall. [Lofgren, 2011, pp. 148] Furthermore, Lieutenant General Timothy Maude, the Army’s deputy chief of staff for personnel—the man who runs the ODCSPER—is alerted to the first crash at the WTC at around 9:00 a.m. and then watches the coverage of the attacks on television, according to Colonel Karl Knoblauch, chief of the officer division in the Directorate of Military Personnel Management. And yet he does not alert his colleagues in the conference room to what is happening. [Rossow, 2003, pp. 51]
'Large Fireball' Erupts in Conference Room When the Pentagon Is Attacked - Although the executive officers’ meetings usually last about 30 minutes, today’s meeting is going on for longer than usual. [Lofgren, 2011, pp. 145] At 9:36 a.m., Wills looks at her watch and thinks the meeting is running late. [Rossow, 2003, pp. 39-40; Creed and Newman, 2008, pp. 18-19] A minute later, Flight 77 crashes into the Pentagon one floor below the conference room, passing within 20 feet of the room (see 9:37 a.m. September 11, 2001). [Fort Riley Post, 9/5/2002; Vogel, 2007, pp. 436] “[T]here was a tremendous explosion and I saw fire erupt through the ceiling,” McNair will recall. [Lofgren, 2011, pp. 138] “There was a huge explosion to my 3 o’clock along the top of the wall and a large fireball came into the room,” Grunewald will say. [WAMU, 9/9/2011]
Officers Think Explosion Is Caused by a Construction Accident or a Bomb - Since they are unaware of the attacks in New York, those in the executive officers’ meeting have no idea what has happened. “[M]ost of us assumed that a bomb had been detonated,” McNair will say. Because the conference room is in a newly renovated area of the Pentagon, some think the explosion is the result of work being done on the building. “Workmen were still there every day doing stuff,” Carden will recall. “And so many of the people in the conference room thought that, ‘Oh, geez, one of the workers hit a gas line.’” [Lofgren, 2011, pp. 138, 148] McNair wonders if a crane has fallen onto the building, a pipe has burst, or something has collapsed. [Virginian-Pilot, 9/8/2002] Twenty-nine ODCSPER employees are killed and 27 injured in the attack on the Pentagon. [Goldberg et al., 2007, pp. 43]

John Fulton. [Source: NLESI]A training exercise is scheduled to begin at a US intelligence agency located just over 20 miles from the Pentagon, based around the scenario of a small corporate jet plane experiencing a mechanical failure and crashing into a tower building there. The exercise, which has been planned for several months, is to take place at the headquarters of the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) in Chantilly, Virginia, four miles away from Washington Dulles International Airport and 24 miles from the Pentagon. [Associated Press, 8/21/2002; United Press International, 8/22/2002] Its purpose is to test the agency’s employees’ ability to respond to a small aircraft crash. [Associated Press, 8/21/2002; 9/11 Commission, 7/14/2003]
Simulated Plane Crash - The exercise is set to commence at 9:00 a.m., when its observers meet to be briefed. The observers and exercise role players are to move to their positions for the exercise 10 to 15 minutes later. The plane in the exercise scenario is a Learjet 35A with two pilots and four passengers on board, which takes off at 9:30 a.m. from Dulles Airport. [9/11 Commission, 7/14/2003] This is the airport Flight 77, which crashes into the Pentagon at 9:37 a.m., took off from earlier in the morning (see (8:20 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 8-10] A minute after taking off, the Learjet is supposed to experience a mechanical failure. It then goes out of control, leading it to crash into one of the four towers at the NRO’s headquarters at around 9:32 a.m. (see 9:30 a.m.-10:30 a.m. September 11, 2001). No real plane is going to be used in the exercise, but some stairwells and exits at the NRO headquarters are to be closed off in order to simulate the damage from the crash, forcing employees to find other ways to evacuate the building. [Associated Press, 8/21/2002; 9/11 Commission, 7/14/2003]
Scenario Created by War Gaming Division - The exercise scenario was imagined by the NRO’s internal war gaming division. [United Press International, 8/22/2002] The exercise is being run by John Fulton, the chief of this division, and his team at the CIA. [National Law Enforcement and Security Institute, 8/4/2002; National Law Enforcement and Security Institute, 8/6/2002 ]
Highly Secretive Agency - The NRO is an agency of the US Department of Defense. Its mission is “to ensure that the US has the technology and spaceborne and airborne assets needed to acquire intelligence worldwide.” [US Department of Defense, 9/18/1992] It operates many of the nation’s spy satellites. [Associated Press, 8/21/2002] According to the New York Times, “It designs, builds, and operates spy satellites that photograph and overhear what other countries are up to.” [New York Times, 8/10/1994] The NRO employs some 3,000 people. These employees are drawn from the CIA and the military. [Associated Press, 8/21/2002] The New York Times has called the NRO “probably the most secretive of the intelligence agencies.” Until 1992, its existence was not even officially disclosed. [New York Times, 8/10/1994]
Exercise Canceled - According to NRO spokesman Art Haubold, the exercise will be called off “as soon as real world events began to unfold.” However, he does not give a specific time. All but the NRO’s most essential employees will then be sent home. [United Press International, 8/22/2002] Haubold will later comment, “It was just an incredible coincidence” that the exercise scenario “happened to involve an aircraft crashing into our facility.” [Associated Press, 8/21/2002]

Brian Sweeney, a passenger on Flight 175, calls his parents in Spencer, Massachusetts, and tells his mother that his flight has been hijacked and that the passengers are considering storming the cockpit to gain control of the plane. [MetroWest Daily News, 9/12/2001; 9/11 Commission, 8/26/2004, pp. 22] Sweeney has just attempted to call his wife, Julie Sweeney, but she was not at home, so he left a message on the answering machine (see 8:59 a.m. September 11, 2001). [Los Angeles Times, 9/17/2001; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 8]
Sweeney Says He Is on a Hijacked Plane - He now speaks with his mother, Louise Sweeney, saying: “Mom, it’s Brian. I’m on a hijacked plane and it doesn’t look good. I called to say I love you and I love my family.” [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 3/24/2004 ] The call is mostly personal in nature, but Sweeney says of the hijackers, “I don’t know who they are.” [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 9/11/2001] Sweeney’s wife will later tell the New York Daily News that he does, however, tell his mother that the hijackers are Middle Eastern. [New York Daily News, 3/9/2004]
Passengers Thinking of Fighting Back - Sweeney also says that passengers on Flight 175 are considering fighting back against the hijackers. [USA Today, 7/22/2004; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 8] He says they are thinking of storming the plane’s cockpit. [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 9/11/2001] According to Sweeney’s wife, Sweeney tells his mother, “I might have to hang up quickly, we’re going to try to do something about this,” to which his mother replies: “Okay. Do what you have to do.” Sweeney flew an F-14 fighter jet in the 1991 Gulf War and was a US Navy flight instructor in Miramar, California, but he is now working as an aeronautics consultant for Brandes Associates, a Defense Department contractor. [New York Daily News, 3/9/2004; CNN, 3/10/2004] He is 6-foot-2 and weighs 225 pounds. [Washington Post, 9/16/2001] His wife will say he “could literally kill somebody with a twist of the neck. We could see him trying to do something about [the hijacking].” [New York Daily News, 3/9/2004]
Sweeney Refers to Psychic Television Show - Louise Sweeney asks her son where he is, and he says he believes his plane is flying somewhere over Ohio. [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 3/24/2004 ; 9/11 Commission, 8/26/2004, pp. 22] Sweeney says that “they [presumably the hijackers] are coming back.” [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 9/11/2001] He concludes the call by telling his mother: “Remember Crossing Over. Don’t forget Crossing Over.” Louise Sweeney will explain to the FBI that her son is “a very spiritual person who always believed that there was a life after death.” He is much interested in the television show Crossing Over with John Edward, in which the host supposedly communicates with the dead. Louise Sweeney believes her son is trying to comfort her with these words, letting her know he believes they will meet again in the next life.
Sweeney Speaks Quietly and Calmly - According to Louise Sweeney, her son’s voice sounds different to how it normally does. Whereas his usual tone is “effervescent,” during the call it is quiet and very calm, and she will later reflect that he sounds “p_ssed off.” She can hear no loud noises or commotion in the background. [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 3/24/2004 ] The call lasts 60 seconds. [9/11 Commission, 5/13/2004 ] Immediately after it ends, Louise Sweeney turns on her television and sees Flight 175 crashing into the World Trade Center (see 9:03 a.m. September 11, 2001). [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 9/11/2001; 9/11 Commission, 8/26/2004, pp. 22]
Conflicting Accounts of What Type of Phone Sweeney Uses - When Sweeney’s mother and his brother, John Sweeney, talk to the FBI over the phone later this morning, they will say Brian Sweeney made the call “from his cell phone.” [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 9/11/2001] Louise Sweeney will tell the FBI later in the day that her son called her “possibly from his cell phone.” [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 9/11/2001] But according to evidence prepared for the 2006 trial of Zacarias Moussaoui, the call is made using an Airfone, not a cell phone. Although Sweeney was originally assigned to seat 15A of the plane, he makes the call from row 31AB. [9/11 Commission, 5/13/2004 ; 9/11 Commission, 8/26/2004, pp. 90; US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006]

Ed Freni. [Source: Associated Press]As he learns of the two plane crashes in New York, a director at Boston’s Logan Airport—from where the two crashed aircraft took off—contacts the airlines to request the passenger manifests for these flights. At around 9:00 a.m., Ed Freni, who is Logan’s director of aviation operations, has just been informed that a plane—believed to be from his airport—has hit the World Trade Center, and another plane from the airport is missing (see (8:50 a.m.-9:00 a.m.) September 11, 2001). He calls the American Airlines station in Logan’s Terminal B. A friend of his there tells him they are concerned about American Airlines Flight 11. The friend says Amy Sweeney, one of its flight attendants, called from the air (see 8:22 a.m.-8:24 a.m. September 11, 2001), said they were flying low over Manhattan, and then her line went dead (see (8:44 a.m.) September 11, 2001). Freni asks to be faxed a copy of the manifest for Flight 11. The manifest holds the names of passengers on an aircraft by seat number. If there is an accident, it allows officials to begin contacting next of kin. At 9:05, he arrives at the Massachusetts Port Authority (Massport) aviation office on the 18th floor of the FAA control tower at Logan, where he has arranged to meet John Duval, the airport’s deputy director of operations. Freni sees on television the footage of the South Tower being hit just two minutes earlier. He calls his contacts at various airlines at Logan and learns that United Airlines is concerned about its Flight 175. He asks United to fax him the manifest for this plane. According to author Tom Murphy, Freni will receive the manifests for Flight 11 and Flight 175 at 9:30 a.m. (see 9:30 a.m. September 11, 2001). Meanwhile, Duval is talking with FAA officials further up in the control tower. They tell him: “United 175 came from here. We lost contact at 8:43.” [Murphy, 2006, pp. 33-35]

Ryan Gonsalves. [Source: Institute for the Study of War]An officer in the National Military Command Center (NMCC) at the Pentagon learns, during a phone call to the FAA, of the hijacking of Flight 11, but the FAA tells him it does not need any help dealing with this, as everything seems to be under control. [9/11 Commission, 4/29/2004 ; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 35]
NMCC Officer Calls FAA for Information - After those in the NMCC learned from television that an aircraft had crashed into the World Trade Center (see (8:48 a.m.) September 11, 2001), Lieutenant Colonel Ryan Gonsalves, the senior operations officer there, began gathering up as much information as he could on the crisis. One of the phone calls he makes is to the FAA operations center at the agency’s Washington, DC, headquarters. The employee at the operations center who answers the call tells Gonsalves that the FAA has had a report of a hijacking on a plane that departed Boston. [9/11 Commission, 4/29/2004 ; 9/11 Commission, 5/5/2004]
FAA Says It Does Not Need Help - The FAA employee apparently does not connect the plane crashing into the WTC with the hijacked Flight 11, which they claim is still airborne and heading for New York’s JFK International Airport. The entry in the senior operations officer’s log about the call will state: “9:00 NMCC called FAA, briefed of explosion at WTC possibly from aircraft crash. Also, hijacking of American Flight 11 from Boston to LA, now en route to Kennedy.” [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 462] Furthermore, when Gonsalves asks if the FAA needs any assistance dealing with the hijacking, the operations center employee replies, “No,” and says the pilot “had called in and said everything was under control, and he was going to land at New York shortly.” [9/11 Commission, 4/29/2004 ; 9/11 Commission, 5/5/2004] The possibility of scrambling fighter jets is not discussed during the phone call. Even though military instructions state that the NMCC is to be “notified by the most expeditious means by the FAA” in response to aircraft hijackings in US airspace (see June 1, 2001), this call, according to the 9/11 Commission Report, appears to be the first time the FAA informs the NMCC of the hijacking of Flight 11. [US Department of Defense, 6/1/2001 ; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 35]

Flight 175 passenger Peter Hanson calls his parents a second time, and says to his father, “It’s getting bad, Dad—A stewardess was stabbed—They seem to have knives and Mace—They said they have a bomb—It’s getting very bad on the plane—Passengers are throwing up and getting sick—The plane is making jerky movements—I don’t think the pilot is flying the plane—I think we are going down—I think they intend to go to Chicago or someplace and fly into a building—don’t worry, Dad—If it happens, it’ll be very fast—My God, my God.” [San Francisco Chronicle, 7/23/2004]

Zacarias Moussaoui cheers as he watches the 9/11 attacks on television inside a prison, where he is being held on immigration charges. At his trial in 2006 (see March 6-May 4, 2006) he will recall watching television and seeing “the blue sky and the World Trade Center in flames.” [BBC, 12/12/2001; New York Times, 3/27/2006]

The Carlyle Group is a large private-equity investment firm, closely associated with officials of the Bush and Reagan administrations, and has considerable ties to Saudi oil money, including ties to the bin Laden family. This morning it is holding its annual investor conference at the Ritz Carlton hotel in Washington, DC. Among the guests of honor is investor Shafig bin Laden, brother of Osama bin Laden. [Observer, 6/16/2002; London Times, 5/8/2003] Former President George H. W. Bush, who makes speeches on behalf of the Carlyle Group and is also senior adviser to its Asian Partners fund [Wall Street Journal, 9/27/2001] , attended the conference the previous day, but is not there today (see (8:00 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [Washington Post, 3/16/2003]

According to the 9/11 Commission, shortly after 9:00 a.m., Indianapolis flight control begins to notify other government agencies that American 77 is missing and has possibly crashed. For instance, at 9:08 a.m., Indianapolis contacts Air Force Search and Rescue at Langley Air Force Base, Virginia, and tells them to look out for a downed aircraft. It is not clear what Air Force Search and Rescue does with this information. Indianapolis also contacts the West Virginia State Police at about 9:15 a.m., and asks whether they have any reports of a downed aircraft (see Soon After 9:09 a.m. September 11, 2001). However, they apparently do not contact NORAD, but do notify the FAA regional center at 9:09 a.m. (see 9:09 a.m. September 11, 2001). [Federal Aviation Administration, 9/17/2001 ; 9/11 Commission, 6/17/2004]

Ed Ballinger. [Source: CNN]At the United Airlines System Operations Control (SOC) center outside Chicago, flight dispatcher Ed Ballinger learns that Flight 175 is suspected as being hijacked, and then sends text messages to try and make contact with it. [9/11 Commission, 8/26/2004, pp. 23-24] The SOC center has just been contacted by the United Airlines maintenance office in San Francisco, about a call it received from an attendant on Flight 175, who had reported that their plane had been hijacked (see Shortly Before 9:00 a.m. September 11, 2001). [Wall Street Journal, 10/15/2001] Subsequently, around 9:01 or 9:02, a dispatch manager at the SOC goes to Ballinger’s desk and informs him of the details of this call. [9/11 Commission, 8/26/2004, pp. 23] Ballinger is the flight dispatcher responsible for United’s aircraft flying from the East Coast to the West Coast, which include Flight 175 (and also Flight 93). [Chicago Daily Herald, 4/14/2004] At 9:03, he sends an ACARS message to Flight 175: “How is the ride. Anything dispatch can do for you.” (ACARS is an e-mail system that enables personnel on the ground to rapidly communicate with those in the cockpit of an aircraft.) At the same time, the United Airlines air traffic control coordinator also sends an ACARS message to the flight: “NY approach lookin for ya on [frequency] 127.4.” Just after 9:03, unaware it has now crashed into the World Trade Center, Ballinger and the air traffic control coordinator re-send these ACARS messages to Flight 175. [9/11 Commission, 8/26/2004, pp. 9 and 23-24] Twenty minutes later, Ballinger will remain unaware that Flight 175 has crashed and still be trying to contact it by ACARS (see 9:23 a.m. September 11, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 8/26/2004, pp. 26] All airlines have a staff of dispatchers like Ballinger who, under FAA rules, are responsible for monitoring aircraft in flight. They follow each flight’s progress, relay safety information, and handle any problems that arise. [Spencer, 2008, pp. 14 and 35] United Airlines dispatchers typically monitor up to two dozen flights at once. [Longman, 2002, pp. 68] Ballinger has 16 transcontinental flights taking off early this morning that he is responsible for. [New York Observer, 6/20/2004]

In a conference call, Peter Mulligan, a manager at the FAA’s New York Center, tells the FAA Command Center in Herndon, Virginia: “We have several situations going here. It’s escalating big, big time. We need to get the military involved with us.” [Federal Aviation Administration, 10/14/2003, pp. 15 ] This is apparently a reference to the hijacking of Flight 175. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 22]
Manager Gives No Details of Aircraft - Mulligan does not initially give any details of the hijacked aircraft, such as its flight number, position, or heading, but soon leaves the phone to inform his military liaison of the hijack (see 9:01 a.m.-9:02 a.m. September 11, 2001). After about one minute, Mulligan comes back on the phone, says that the liaison has been notified, and adds: “We’re involved in something else. We have other aircraft that may have a similar situation going on here.” Again, he provides no detailed information about the second hijacked plane, whose number does not appear to be communicated to the FAA’s Command Center before it crashes. [Federal Aviation Administration, 10/14/2003, pp. 16-18 ]
9/11 Commission Confused - According to the transcript of the 9/11 Commission hearing at which a recording of the teleconference is played, it is the Herndon Command Center that says, “We’re involved with something else, we have other aircraft that may have a similar situation going on here.” [9/11 Commission, 6/17/2004] This version, which indicates the Command Center already knows about the hijacking of Flight 175 when Mulligan passes on the notification, is subsequently picked up by some media. [9/11 Commission, 6/17/2004; American RadioWorks, 9/2/2004; CBC, 9/12/2006] However, this will be altered in the Commission’s final report, which attributes the “We’re involved with something else” statement to Mulligan. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 22] The transcript of the call on which this section of the report is based indicates that the statement is actually made by Mulligan and that the 9/11 Commission is therefore only correcting an initial error it made at the hearing in its final report. [Federal Aviation Administration, 10/14/2003, pp. 18 ]

Gerald Earwood. [Source: MaryJo Walicki / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel]Just one or two minutes before it crashes into the World Trade Center, Flight 175 narrowly avoids a mid-air collision with another commercial aircraft. [TMJ4, 6/25/2008] Midwest Airlines Flight 7 (Midex 7) is a DC-9 jet bound from Milwaukee to New York’s La Guardia Airport, with about 30 passengers and five crew members on board. [Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 6/24/2008] Pilot Gerald Earwood and co-pilot Eric Fjelstad have been concerned at the unusually slow radio responses they have been receiving from New York air traffic controllers. [Spencer, 2008, pp. 56-57 and 61-62] As they are approaching La Guardia from the southwest, Earwood is again frustrated as he awaits the controller’s response to his latest transmission. [Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 6/24/2008]
Instructed to Turn Left - Suddenly, the voice of a panicked controller comes over the radio: “Midex 7, are you with me? Midex 7, Midex 7, are you with me?” Unknown to Earwood, controllers have noticed that Flight 175 is now flying directly at his plane at over 500 miles per hour. Earwood replies, “Midex 7 is with you out of 7 for 4,000,” meaning he has just passed through 7,000 feet in his descent to his assigned altitude of 4,000 feet. The controller orders: “Roger, Midex 7, turn left now! Head two-four-zero degrees now, as quick as you can!” The pilots of Midex 7 begin a standard 30-degrees-of-bank turn. But even though they are doing exactly what they have been ordered to, the controller continues, “Left turn, Midex, left turn!” Several seconds later, the controller restates his order: “Midex 7, tighten it up! Roll left! Now! Now! Now!” Earwood looks out of the window for the plane he is meant to be avoiding, but cannot see anything.
Narrowly Avoids Collision - As Midex 7 is completing its left turn, the controller comes back over the radio even more panicked than before, ordering: ”Roll right, Midex! Roll right as hard as you can! Keep it tight, Midex. Roll hard right! Now! Now!” Midex 7 complies with the instruction, but Earwood is wondering where the plane is that he is trying to avoid. At the FAA’s New York Center, air traffic controllers watch as the radar returns for Flight 175 and Midex 7 get so close that they appear to merge on the screens. Finally, Flight 175 continues its rapid descent toward New York, after having narrowly avoided a collision. [Spencer, 2008, pp. 74-77] Midex 7 returns to its approach to La Guardia Airport, and then Earwood overhears a radio transmission from another pilot, who reports that a second plane has hit the World Trade Center. Earwood will later estimate that Flight 175 crashes into the South Tower 60 to 90 seconds after its near-collision with Midex 7. He sees the fireball coming from the tower, but does not immediately connect it with the aircraft he has just avoided. [Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 6/24/2008] Minutes earlier, Flight 175 almost collided with at least two other planes as it descended toward Manhattan (see (8:55 a.m.) September 11, 2001), and prior to that it had almost collided with Flight 11 (see (Shortly After 8:42 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [Telegraph (Nashua), 9/12/2001; Washington Post, 9/17/2001] The incident with Midex 7 will not come to light until 2008, when it is described in the book Touching History: The Untold Story of the Drama that Unfolded in the Skies Over America on 9/11, by Lynn Spencer. [TMJ4, 6/25/2008]

Colin Scoggins, the military liaison at the FAA’s Boston Center, learns from an FAA teleconference that there is a second hijacked plane over the US. He has previously called the FAA’s New York Center and was told, “We’re working a hijack,” but mistakenly thought the controller was referring to Flight 11 (see (Between 8:40 a.m. and 8:54 a.m.) September 11, 2001). According to author Lynn Spencer, Scoggins now hears on the FAA headquarters’ hijack teleconference of the second hijacked airliner, Flight 175. [Spencer, 2008, pp. 48-49 and 82] Spencer’s account is consistent with a May 2003 statement by the FAA, according to which the FAA established its teleconference “[w]ithin minutes after the first aircraft hit the World Trade Center” (see (8:50 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 5/23/2003] But the 9/11 Commission will claim that the FAA headquarters’ hijacking teleconference is only established at “about 9:20” (see (9:20 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 36] According to Spencer, Scoggins assumes that NORAD’s Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS) is also on the FAA teleconference and is receiving the same information that he is about the second hijacking. However, the “FAA headquarters’ teleconference is between air traffic control facilities, the [FAA] Command Center, the Defense Department, and several other agencies; NORAD is not looped in.” [Spencer, 2008, pp. 82] Although the FAA will claim that the “Air Force liaison to the FAA immediately joined the FAA headquarters [teleconference] and established contact with NORAD on a separate line,” the Air Force liaison will subsequently claim she only joins the teleconference after 9:37 a.m., when the Pentagon is hit (see (Shortly After 9:37 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 5/23/2003; US Department of Transportation, 8/31/2006 ] Even though Scoggins assumes NEADS is already aware of the information, he will subsequently call it with the news of the second hijacking (see (9:02 a.m.-9:07 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [Spencer, 2008, pp. 82]

The two F-15 fighter jets launched from Otis Air National Guard Base in response to the hijacked Flight 11 (see 8:46 a.m. September 11, 2001) are given guidance by an air traffic controller at the FAA’s Boston Center on flying into military airspace over the Atlantic Ocean, and then discuss details of their intended hold in that airspace with another Boston Center controller. [9/11 Commission, 2004; 9/11 Commission, 2004]
Fighters Heading into Training Area - Lieutenant Colonel Timothy Duffy, the pilot of one of the fighters, talks over radio with the Boston Center controller who is working at the Cape Sector radar position. Duffy says the two fighters are “proceeding [on] our present heading of 250 for about 100 miles,” and adds that “Huntress”—the call sign for NORAD’s Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS)—“wants us to hold just south of Long Island, to see if we can get any more assistance.” The controller replies: “Okay, that’s fine. You are heading into the warning area.” [Federal Aviation Administration, 9/11/2001] By the “warning area,” he is referring to a military airspace training area over the Atlantic, just south of Long Island, known as “Warning Area 105” or “Whiskey 105.” [9/11 Commission, 9/22/2003 ; Spencer, 2008, pp. 85] The original flight strip for the two F-15s gave a destination of New York’s JFK International Airport, but the fighters have recently been redirected (see 8:54 a.m.-8:55 a.m. September 11, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 9/22/2003 ; 9/11 Commission, 9/24/2003; 9/11 Commission, 2004]
Fighters Told They Can Contact Navy Control Facility - The controller continues, “If you want, if you can’t contact me, you can go to Giant Killer on 338.1.” [Federal Aviation Administration, 9/11/2001] (“Giant Killer” is the call sign for the Fleet Area Control and Surveillance Facility in Virginia Beach, Virginia—a Navy air traffic control agency that handles over-water military operations. [New York Times, 2/10/1997; Spencer, 2008, pp. 143] ) The controller then tells Duffy that he can contact Giant Killer, because “you’re going through their airspace.” Duffy replies, “Okay, I’ll do all that, thanks.” [Federal Aviation Administration, 9/11/2001] The Otis fighters are then handed on to another controller at the Boston Center. Stephen Roebuck, who is working at the Hampton Sector radar position, now communicates with them. [9/11 Commission, 9/22/2003 ; 9/11 Commission, 2004] The Hampton Sector covers the area that includes the Whiskey 105 airspace.
Pilots Unable to Give Specific Information about 'Hold' - Roebuck asks the pilots of the fighters if they know their destination. They reply no, and say they need to hold in the western area of Whiskey 105. Roebuck wants information on the position they will hold at in Whiskey 105, but the pilots say they cannot give a specific location. Instead, they tell Roebuck to keep them in a “published hold” in the area. Roebuck asks if the fighters want a “radial” or a “latitude/longitude” hold, but is told they will maintain themselves.
Controller Finds Fighters' Unspecific 'Hold' Unusual - Due to the lack of information the pilots have provided him with, Roebuck is unsure what the fighters are going to do, and does not know how to clear airspace for their potential course. Roebuck will tell the 9/11 Commission that “normally, clearing area for fighters is very specific, so this unknown generic hold [is] extremely unusual. The fighters had an altitude, but did not issue an EFC [expect further clearance].” He assumes the purpose of the generic hold is that “if the fighters needed to move rapidly, they did not want to be encumbered by an air traffic technicality.” [9/11 Commission, 9/22/2003 ; 9/11 Commission, 9/24/2003]

An unidentified woman in the La Guardia control tower speaks to a Port Authority police officer. La Guardia is one of two major New York City airports. The Port Authority patrols both the WTC and the city’s airports. The woman asks the officer what has happened at the WTC, and the officer replies that he has learned from the news that a plane crashed into it. [New York Times, 12/30/2003] Around the same time, one flight controller in the tower says to another, “But you don’t know anything.” The other responds, “We don’t know. We’re looking at it on Channel 5 right now.” [Bergen Record, 1/4/2004] “Nothing on the [later released transcripts] shows that the La Guardia controllers knew that the planes flying into their airspace had been seized by terrorists, or that military aircraft were screaming in pursuit over the Hudson River.” Port Authority officials appear to be equally oblivious. [New York Times, 12/30/2003]

The FAA’s New York Center contacts the New York Terminal Radar Approach Control (TRACON) and asks for help in locating Flight 175. Different air traffic controllers scan different altitudes, and TRACON controllers only deal with low-flying planes. These controllers have remained uninformed about the fate of Flight 11 until about now. “We had 90 to 120 seconds; it wasn’t any 18 minutes,” one controller wil later recall, referring to the actual elapsed time between the two crashes. Another controller will say of Flights 11 and 175: “They dove into the airspace. By the time anybody saw anything, it was over.” [New York Times, 9/13/2001; 9/11 Commission, 6/17/2004]

President Bush later makes the following statement: “And I was sitting outside the classroom waiting to go in, and I saw an airplane hit the tower—the television was obviously on, and I use to fly myself, and I said, ‘There’s one terrible pilot.’ And I said, ‘It must have been a horrible accident.’ But I was whisked off there—I didn’t have much time to think about it.” [US President, 12/10/2001] He has repeated the story on other occasions. [US President, 1/14/2002; CBS News, 9/11/2002] Notably, the first WTC Crash was not shown live on television. Further, Bush does not have access to a television until 15 or so minutes later. [Washington Times, 10/7/2002] A Boston Herald article later notes, “Think about that. Bush’s remark implies he saw the first plane hit the tower. But we all know that video of the first plane hitting did not surface until the next day. Could Bush have meant he saw the second plane hit—which many Americans witnessed? No, because he said that he was in the classroom when Andrew Card whispered in his ear that a second plane hit.” The article, noting that Bush has repeated this story more than once, asks, “How could the commander in chief have seen the plane fly into the first building—as it happened?” [Boston Herald, 10/22/2002] A Bush spokesman later calls Bush’s repeated comments “just a mistaken recollection.” [Wall Street Journal, 3/22/2004]

The military liaison at the FAA’s New York Center is reportedly told that Flight 175 has been hijacked. The information is passed on to the liaison by New York Center manager Peter Mulligan. In an apparent reference to the hijacking on a phone bridge with other air traffic control facilities, Mulligan first says the situation is escalating (see (9:01 a.m.) September 11, 2001) and adds, “Just get me somebody who has the authority to get military in the air now.” Mulligan then drops out of the teleconference for a short while, but returns and says: “It’s OK. I’ve got it taken care of over here. I got… my military guy. We got some interceptors in the air.” [Federal Aviation Administration, 10/14/2003, pp. 15-17 ] According to the 9/11 Commission Report, Mulligan says this between 9:01 and 9:02. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 22] A person at the New York Center then calls NEADS at 9:03 (see (9:03 a.m.) September 11, 2001). Presumably, this is the military liaison Mulligan just informed of the hijacking.

Moments before Flight 175 crashes into the World Trade Center, Colin Scoggins, the military liaison at the FAA’s Boston Center, calls NORAD’s Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS) to notify it that there is a second hijacked aircraft over the US. Scoggins learned of the second hijacking on the FAA headquarters’ hijack teleconference (see (Shortly Before 9:02 a.m.) September 11, 2001) and senses that he should call NEADS with this latest information. According to author Lynn Spencer, Scoggins “imagines that he must be one of dozens of FAA facilities flooding [NEADS] with phone calls. What he doesn’t know is that his is in fact the only one giving them information about the flights this morning, other than the coverage on CNN.” [Spencer, 2008, pp. 82] However, the 9/11 Commission will say that NEADS also learns of the second hijacking around this time from the FAA’s New York Center, stating, “The first indication that the NORAD air defenders had of the second hijacked aircraft, United 175, came in a phone call from New York Center to NEADS at 9:03” (see (9:03 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 23] Just after Scoggins reports the second hijacking to NEADS, those on the NEADS operations floor see the live television coverage of Flight 175 hitting the South Tower on a screen at the front of the room. [Spencer, 2008, pp. 82] Apparently, Scoggins’s phone call continues for several minutes: According to the 9/11 Commission, “Between 9:04 a.m. and 9:07 a.m., the NEADS identification technicians were on the phone with FAA Boston Center seeking further information on Flight 175 when Boston Center confirmed a second crash at the World Trade Center.” [9/11 Commission, 8/26/2004, pp. 24]

An air traffic controller at the FAA’s Indianapolis Center contacts the American Airlines dispatch office in Texas, and informs dispatcher Jim McDonnell that the center is unable to make contact with Flight 77 and does not know the location of this aircraft. The same controller called American Airlines and spoke with McDonnell four minutes earlier, reporting that radio contact had been lost with Flight 77 (see 8:58 a.m. September 11, 2001). McDonnell now says he has tried contacting Flight 77 but did not get a reply back. The controller then tells him: “We, uh, we lost track control of the guy. He’s in coast track but we haven’t, we don’t [know] where his target is and we can’t get a hold of him. Um, you guys tried him and no response?” McDonnell confirms, “No response.” The controller continues: “Yeah, we have no radar contact and, uh, no communications with him. So if you guys could try again.” McDonnell replies, “We’re doing it.” [New York Times, 10/16/2001; 9/11 Commission, 8/26/2004, pp. 30] Flight 77 made its last radio communication with controllers at 8:51 (see 8:51 a.m. September 11, 2001), and deviated from its assigned course at 8:54 (see (8:54 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 8-9]

An announcement is made over the public address system in the South Tower of the World Trade Center, advising workers that they can begin an orderly evacuation of the building if conditions warrant it. [New York Times, 5/17/2004; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 289] A previous announcement over the public address system instructed people in the South Tower to stay in, or return to, their offices, rather than evacuate (see (8:50 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 287-288; Dwyer and Flynn, 2005, pp. 72] The new announcement begins: “May I have your attention, please. Repeating this message: the situation occurred in Building 1 [i.e. the North Tower].” The announcer then says, “If the conditions warrant on your floor, you may wish to start an orderly evacuation.” [New York Times, 5/17/2004] The announcement is presumably made by Philip Hayes, the deputy fire safety director on duty at the fire command desk in the lobby of the South Tower. A button at the desk enables fire safety directors to deliver announcements over the public address system. [Dwyer and Flynn, 2005, pp. 26]
Identity of Person Who Ordered Evacuation Unclear - The new advice, for tenants to evacuate, does “not correspond to any prewritten emergency instruction,” according to the 9/11 Commission Report. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 289] It is unclear who told Hayes to make the announcement giving this advice. George Tabeek, the Port Authority’s security manager for the WTC, contacted the fire command desks in the Twin Towers immediately after Flight 11 hit the North Tower, with instructions about what to do. His orders for Hayes, however, were to “keep people inside the South Tower” (see Shortly After 8:46 a.m. September 11, 2001). [New Jersey Star-Ledger, 9/6/2011]
Police Commander Called for Evacuation of WTC - Captain Anthony Whitaker, the Port Authority Police Department (PAPD) commanding officer at the WTC, called for the evacuation of the WTC at 9:00 a.m. (see 8:59 a.m.-9:02 a.m. September 11, 2001). However, his instruction was given over PAPD radio channel W, “which could not be heard by the deputy fire safety director in the South Tower,” according to the 9/11 Commission Report. [Murphy, 2002, pp. 184-185; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 293; National Institute of Standards and Technology, 9/2005, pp. 201] Furthermore, according to the Port Authority, deputy fire safety directors do not generally take direct orders from the PAPD under the regular chain of command. Therefore, the 9/11 Commission Report will state, it is “not known if [Hayes] received the order by the PAPD to evacuate the complex.” [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 544]
Fire Department Responsible for Ordering Evacuations - According to New York Times reporters Jim Dwyer and Kevin Flynn, “The authority to order an evacuation during a fire normally rests with the fire department.” [Dwyer and Flynn, 2005, pp. 79] In a phone call with his counterpart in the North Tower, at 8:49 a.m., Hayes in fact said he would wait to hear from “the boss from the fire department or somebody” before ordering an evacuation of the South Tower (see 8:49 a.m. September 11, 2001). [Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, 9/11/2001 ; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 287; Dwyer and Flynn, 2005, pp. 27] But whether someone from the fire department told Hayes to order an evacuation is unknown. It is also unclear how long announcements, advising an evacuation, continue for. Hayes and his counterpart in the North Tower are “making announcements that the situation was serious and that occupants should evacuate immediately” for “[a]s long as the [fire alarm system] was still operational,” according to Fire Engineering magazine. [Fire Engineering, 11/1/2002] However, the 9/11 Commission Report will state, “Evidence suggests that the public address system [in the South Tower] did not continue to function after the building was hit.” This would mean no announcements go out after 9:03 a.m., when Flight 175 hits the tower (see 9:03 a.m. September 11, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 295] By the time the South Tower collapses (see 9:59 a.m. September 11, 2001), out of around 8,540 people who were originally in the building, 7,940 (93 percent) have made it out and will survive, according to the National Institute of Standards and Technology. [National Institute of Standards and Technology, 9/2005]

After the first World Trade Center tower is hit, Barry Jennings, a City Housing Authority worker, and Michael Hess, New York’s corporation counsel, head up to the emergency command center of the Mayor’s Office of Emergency Management (OEM), which is on the 23rd floor of WTC 7. [Associated Press, 9/11/2001] The center, opened in 1999, is intended to coordinate responses to various emergencies, including terrorist attacks (see June 8, 1999). [CNN, 6/7/1999] However, Hess and Jennings find no one there. [National Institute of Standards and Technology, 9/2005, pp. 109-110; BBC, 7/6/2008]
Center Is Empty; Jennings Warned to Leave - Jennings will describe that, when he arrives at the emergency command center, “To my amazement, nobody’s there.” He says: “I saw coffee that was still hot, that was still smoldering. They had screens all over the place, but the screens were blank. So I didn’t know what was going on.” He then phones several individuals, including one of his superiors. When Jennings says where he is, the superior responds: “Get out of there. Get out of there now.” Hess then runs back into the center, after having found the stairwell, and says: “We’re the only ones up here. We gotta get out of here.” [Dylan Avery, 2007; BBC, 7/6/2008]
9/11 Commission Claims Command Center Not Evacuated until Later - Yet, according to the 9/11 Commission, “After the South Tower was hit [at 9:03], OEM senior leadership decided to remain in its ‘bunker’ and continue conducting operations, even though all civilians had been evacuated from 7 WTC.” The Commission will claim the emergency command center is not evacuated until 9:30 a.m. (see (9:30 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 305] But according to the London Independent, Hess and Jennings arrive there by the time the South Tower is hit, which suggests the center is evacuated earlier than officially claimed. [Independent, 9/13/2001] Jennings himself will recall, “I had to be inside on the 23rd floor when the second plane hit.” [Dylan Avery, 2007] The possibility that the emergency command center is evacuated earlier than the 9/11 Commission claims is partly confirmed by OEM Commissioner John Odermatt, who later says that after the first plane hit the WTC, he left only two staffers there (see (Soon After 8:46 a.m.-9:35 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [Barrett and Collins, 2006, pp. 34] Jennings and Hess subsequently head down the stairs, but will become trapped in WTC 7, and have to be rescued by firefighters (see 12:10 p.m.-12:15 p.m. September 11, 2001). [National Institute of Standards and Technology, 9/2005, pp. 109-110]

Terry Biggio. [Source: CNN]Over an FAA teleconference, Terry Biggio, the operations manager at the FAA’s Boston Center, reports to the FAA’s New England regional office the “We have some planes” comment apparently made by a Flight 11 hijacker at 8:24 a.m. (see 8:24 a.m. September 11, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 8/26/2004, pp. 23; Spencer, 2008, pp. 79-80] Because the Boston Center controller monitoring Flight 11 had not understood the communication, the center’s quality assurance specialist had been instructed to “pull the tape” of the transmission, listen to it carefully, and then report back. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 19] Biggio now reports to the New England region representative: “I’m gonna reconfirm with, with downstairs, but the, as far as the tape, Bobby seemed to think the guy said that ‘we have planes.’ Now, I don’t know if it was because it was the accent, or if there’s more than one [hijacked plane], but I’m gonna, I’m gonna reconfirm that for you, and I’ll get back to you real quick. Okay?” Another participant in the teleconference asks, “They have what?” and Biggio clarifies: “Planes, as in plural.… It sounds like, we’re talking to New York, that there’s another one aimed at the World Trade Center.… A second one just hit the Trade Center.” The New England region representative replies: “Okay. Yeah, we gotta get—we gotta alert the military real quick on this.” [9/11 Commission, 6/17/2004; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 23] A manager at the FAA’s Command Center in Herndon, Virginia, is monitoring the teleconference, and so also learns of the “We have some planes” communication at this time (see 9:03 a.m. September 11, 2001). [Spencer, 2008, pp. 79-80] At 9:05 a.m., Biggio will confirm for the New England region representative—with the Command Center listening in—that a hijacker said, “we have planes” (forgetting the “some”). [9/11 Commission, 6/17/2004; 9/11 Commission, 8/26/2004, pp. 24]

In the CIA’s Near East Division (NE) front office suite on the sixth floor of the agency’s headquarters in Langley, Virginia, everyone thinks Osama bin Laden is to blame as soon as they see the second aircraft hitting the World Trade Center. Gary Schroen, a former CIA station chief in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, is in the NE office suite, where several people have been staring at the television showing the burning North Tower. As Schroen later recalls, “We were getting calls from CTC [the CIA’s Counterterrorist Center], friends of the CTC in and around the building, that the World Trade Center, one of the towers had been struck.” According to Schroen, there are “like, 30 of us standing around,” and “as soon as the second aircraft smashed into the second tower, everyone said, ‘Bin Laden. It was bin Laden.… This is the attack that bin Laden’s been promising.’” [Schroen, 2005, pp. 12-14; NPR, 5/2/2005; PBS Frontline, 1/20/2006] When CIA Director George Tenet learned of the first WTC attack, he reportedly said immediately that he thought bin Laden was responsible (see (8:50 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [Woodward, 2002, pp. 4]

In the NORAD operations center in Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado, workers see the second aircraft crashing into the World Trade Center live on television. [Gazette (Colorado Springs), 10/7/2001] Major General Rick Findley, NORAD’s director of operations, later says that he now realizes “it was not an accident but a coordinated attack.” Then, he recalls, “At about that moment in time, every phone in this cab, and every phone over in the command center, and every phone in all the centers in this building were ringing off the hook.” Master Corporal Daniel Milne, the emergency action controller in the operations center, will similarly recall, “The feeling was total disbelief. Then the phones started ringing like crazy.” [Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, 9/11/2002; Legion Magazine, 11/2004] It is unclear what causes all the phones to simultaneously ring. According to Aviation Week and Space Technology magazine, after the second tower is hit, “Calls from fighter units… started pouring into NORAD and sector operations centers, asking, ‘What can we do to help?’” (see (After 9:03 a.m.) September 11, 2001) [Aviation Week and Space Technology, 6/3/2002] So this could be one factor. Also, a 1996 article in Airman magazine had quoted Stacey Knott, a technician in the NORAD operations center. She’d said, “Things can be pretty quiet in here.” However, “One of the busiest times is during exercises. This room fills up.… The phones are ringing off the hook, and I’ve got phones in each hand.” [Airman, 1/1996] On this morning, those in Cheyenne Mountain are in fact participating in a major exercise called Vigilant Guardian. [Aviation Week and Space Technology, 6/3/2002; CNN, 9/11/2006] This is reportedly only canceled “shortly after” the second attack (see (Shortly After 9:03 a.m.) September 11, 2001) [Airman, 3/2002; Filson, 2003, pp. 59] So it is plausible that this is also a factor in causing all the phones to suddenly ring. A similar thing appears to occur in the National Military Command Center (NMCC) at the Pentagon. According to a news article based on the recollections of two officers who are there, after the second plane hits the WTC, “Phones in the center began ringing off the hook.” [American Forces Press Service, 9/7/2006] Rick Findley later suggests that all the ringing phones are not a hindrance for NORAD, claiming, “The good news is we had lots of people here and we already had an operational architecture. We already had the command and control, the network, the phones, the data links. Everything was already in place that enabled us to react to the situation.” [Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, 9/11/2002]

The NORAD headquarters building at Peterson Air Force Base. [Source: US Air Force]General Ralph Eberhart, the commander of NORAD, realizes the US is under attack after he sees Flight 175 crashing into the World Trade Center on television and then considers whether he should go to NORAD’s Cheyenne Mountain Operations Center (CMOC). Eberhart was at his home in Colorado when he learned about the hijacking of Flight 11 and then went to his office at NORAD’s headquarters at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs (see (8:45 a.m.-9:00 a.m.) September 11, 2001). In his office, he sees the second hijacked plane, Flight 175, crashing into the WTC live on television at 9:03 a.m. (see 9:03 a.m. September 11, 2001). He is unaware that a second aircraft has been hijacked, but realizes immediately that a coordinated terrorist attack is taking place. Right away, he tries to contact General Henry Shelton, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, but is unable to do so, because Shelton is currently airborne, being flown to Hungary for a NATO conference (see 7:15 a.m. September 11, 2001). Eberhart then tries contacting General Richard Myers, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and is able to reach him on Capitol Hill, where he has been meeting Senator Max Cleland (D-GA) (see (9:37 a.m.) September 11, 2001). Eberhart then focuses his attention on determining whether he should stay at NORAD headquarters or go to the CMOC, which is about 30 minutes’ drive away from Peterson Air Force Base. He initially decides to stay in his office. This, he will say, is because the CMOC is already well manned and also because there are “dead spots” in which he would be out of phone coverage for five to 10 minutes at a time during the drive to the operations center. However, Eberhart subsequently decides to go to the CMOC. He will tell the 9/11 Commission that he leaves his office to head there at approximately 9:30 a.m., during a lull in transmissions on a teleconference, which he is presumably listening to. [9/11 Commission, 3/1/2004; 9/11 Commission, 3/1/2004 ; 9/11 Commission, 3/1/2004; 9/11 Commission, 3/1/2004] He will experience problems receiving phone calls while he is traveling to the CMOC (see (Between 9:35 a.m. and 10:35 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [Colorado Springs Gazette, 6/16/2006; Denver Post, 7/28/2006]

Jim Pierce. [Source: AON]Jim Pierce, a cousin of President Bush, sees the South Tower of the WTC hit from the nearby Millennium Hotel. Pierce is the managing director of the AON Corporation, an insurance company with offices in WTC 2. He had arranged a business conference, to be held on the tower’s 105th floor this morning. However, the previous night, the conference was moved to the Millennium Hotel because the group was too large for the original room. According to a book by former First Lady Barbara Bush, Pierce later learns that 12 people are in the room where the meeting was originally planned to take place when the South Tower is hit, and only one of them survives. [Boston Globe, 2001; Ananova, 9/18/2001; Newsweek, 10/27/2003] Another AON Corporation meeting is taking place on the 105th floor of the South Tower, run by business executive Mary Wieman. Of about 50 participants in attendance, only six are able to escape. [New York Times, 12/17/2001; USA Today, 9/2/2002]

President Bush enters Sandra Kay Daniels’ classroom. [Source: Lions Gate Films]President Bush enters Sandra Kay Daniels’ second-grade class for a photo-op to promote his education policies. [Daily Mail, 9/8/2002] Numerous reporters who travel with the president, as well as members of the local media, watch from the back of the room. [Associated Press, 8/19/2002] Secret Service agents protecting the president are lying in the trusses above the classroom. [Sarasota Herald-Tribune, 9/10/2002] Altogether, there are about 150 people in the room, 16 of whom are children in the class. Bush is introduced to the children and poses for a number of pictures. The teacher then leads the students through some reading exercises (video footage shows this lasts about three minutes). [Salon, 9/11/2001] Bush later claims that during this lesson, he is thinking what he will say about the WTC crash. “I was concentrating on the program at this point, thinking about what I was going to say. Obviously, I felt it was an accident. I was concerned about it, but there were no alarm bells.” [Washington Times, 10/7/2002] The children are just getting their books from under their seats to read a story together when Chief of Staff Andrew Card comes in to tell Bush of the second WTC crash. [Daily Telegraph, 12/16/2001; Washington Times, 10/8/2002] According to the Washington Times, Card comes in at the conclusion of the first half of the planned lesson, and “[seizes] a pause in the reading drill to walk up to Mr. Bush’s seat.” [Washington Times, 10/7/2002; Washington Times, 10/8/2002]

According to a soldier at the scene, WTC Building 7 is evacuated before the second tower is hit. [Fort Detrick Standard, 10/18/2001] The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) states, “As the second aircraft struck WTC 2, a decision was made to evacuate WTC 7.” This would be just after the Port Authority Police Department called for the evacuation of the entire WTC complex (see 8:59 a.m.-9:02 a.m. September 11, 2001). But by this time, “many WTC 7 occupants [have] already left the building and others [have] begun a self-evacuation of the building.” [National Institute of Standards and Technology, 9/2005, pp. 109] All individuals in the Secret Service’s New York field office, located in WTC 7, were ordered to evacuate after the first attack, and they are in the process of doing so when the second plane hits the South Tower. [PCCW Newsletter, 3/2006] The Secret Service has a Stinger missile secretly stored in the WTC, to be used to protect the president if there were an attack on the city when he visits it. [Weiss, 2003, pp. 379] Presumably, this missile is abandoned with the evacuation. The Office of Emergency Management’s command center, on the 23rd floor of WTC 7, is not evacuated until later, at 9:30 a.m. (see (9:30 a.m.) September 11, 2001).

The most senior manager on duty at Washington’s Reagan National Airport tries to contact Special Operations personnel at FAA headquarters, but his call is not answered. Bob Lazar, the airport’s acting operations manager, was in his office in the administrative wing of Reagan Airport at the time the first attack in New York took place. Upon hearing news of the crash, he went to the nearby break room to watch the television coverage of it. Lazar has a background in Navy Special Operations, and immediately suspected that terrorism was involved. Therefore, at around the time the second attack is taking place, he tries calling Special Operations people at the FAA headquarters in Washington, DC. However, no one answers his call. The reason for this is unknown. [9/11 Commission, 7/28/2003 ]

Flight 175 hits the WTC South Tower. The picture was taken from a traffic helicopter. [Source: WABC 7/ Salient Stills]Flight 175 hits the South Tower of the World Trade Center (Tower Two). Seismic records pinpoint the time at six seconds before 9:03 a.m. (rounded to 9:03 a.m.). Hijackers Marwan Alshehhi, Fayez Ahmed Banihammad, Mohand Alshehri, Hamza Alghamdi, and Ahmed Alghamdi presumably are killed instantly, and many more in the tower will die over the next few hours. [New York Times, 9/12/2001; CNN, 9/12/2001; CNN, 9/17/2001; North American Aerospace Defense Command, 9/18/2001; USA Today, 12/20/2001; Federal Emergency Management Agency, 5/1/2002, pp. 1-10; New York Times, 5/26/2002; Associated Press, 8/21/2002; USA Today, 9/2/2002] According to the NIST report, the crash time is 9:02:59. [National Institute of Standards and Technology, 9/2005, pp. 38] According to the 9/11 Commission Report, the crash time is 9:03:11. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 8] Millions watch the crash live on television. The plane strikes the 77th through 85th floors in the 110-story building. Approximately 100 people are killed or injured in the initial impact; 600 people in the tower eventually die. The death toll is far lower than in the North Tower because about two-thirds of the South Tower’s occupants have evacuated the building in the 17 minutes since the first tower was struck. [USA Today, 12/20/2001; National Institute of Standards and Technology, 9/2005, pp. 5-9, 41] The combined death toll from the two towers is estimated at 2,819, not including the hijackers. [Associated Press, 8/21/2002] The impact severs some columns on the south side of the South Tower. Each of the Twin Towers 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 is traveling at an estimated speed of around 500 mph (see October 2002-October 2005), severs 33 of the building’s 236 perimeter columns and damages another one. [National Institute of Standards and Technology, 9/2005, pp. 39] The perimeter columns bear about half of the tower’s weight, so the damage to them reduces the tower’s ability to bear gravity loads by about 7.1 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 be able to damage the core even after crashing through the exterior wall (see 8:46 a.m. September 11, 2001). [National Institute of Standards and Technology, 9/2005, pp. 107] According to NIST’s base case model, five of the core columns are severed and another five suffer some damage. [National Institute of Standards & Technology, 9/2005, pp. 235 ] This may reduce the tower’s ability to bear loads by a further approximately 8 percent, meaning that the aircraft impact accounted for a loss of about 15 percent of the building’s strength. This damage will be cited as an event contributing to the building’s collapse after 9/11 (see October 23, 2002 and October 19, 2004). NIST’s base case estimate of damage to the North Tower’s core will be similar, even though the aircraft impact there was dissimilar (see 8:46 a.m. September 11, 2001). Flight 11 hit the North Tower’s core head on, whereas Flight 175 only hits the corner of the South Tower’s core. [National Institute of Standards and Technology, 9/2005, pp. 20-23, 38-41] In addition, some of the fireproofing on the steel columns and trusses may be dislodged (see 8:46 a.m. September 11, 2001). [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 the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) will try to estimate the damage to fireproofing using a series of computer models. Its severe case model (see (October 2002-October 2005)) will predict that 39 of the 47 core columns are stripped of their fireproofing on one or more floors and that fireproofing is stripped from trusses covering 80,000 ft2 of floor area, the equivalent of about two 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. 41] According to NIST, less fireproofing is stripped from the North Tower (see 8:46 a.m. September 11, 2001).

Beginning at 9:03, a number of United Airlines flight dispatchers send text messages to several United aircraft, indicating to the pilots that planes have flown into the World Trade Center. But, according to the 9/11 Commission, “These messages provided no details or warnings.” [9/11 Commission, 8/26/2004, pp. 36] It is not until 9:21 that United dispatchers are told to warn their flights to secure cockpit doors (see 9:21 a.m. September 11, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 1/27/2004] The dispatcher responsible for Flight 175 and Flight 93—Ed Ballinger—begins sending warning messages to the flights he is monitoring at 9:19 a.m., informing them that two aircraft have hit the WTC (see 9:19 a.m. September 11, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 8/26/2004, pp. 37] Airline dispatchers have an important part to play in managing aircraft in flight. According to commercial pilot and author Lynn Spencer, under FAA rules, dispatchers “take guardianship of each company aircraft in the sky. They are assigned to a certain number of aircraft and know all there is to know about each: who is flying, who is working the cabin, how many pounds of fuel are onboard, the flight plan, the alternate plan, and anything at all relevant to that flight. If there is a glitch in the system, the pilot talks to the dispatcher, and together they formulate a plan of action.” [Spencer, 2008, pp. 35 and 72] United Airlines dispatchers are each responsible for monitoring from ten to 30 flights during a shift, and monitor anything up to two dozen flights at a time. [Longman, 2002, pp. 68]

Bill Balkwill. [Source: Sarasota County Sheriff's Office]According to Sarasota County Sheriff Bill Balkwill, just after President Bush enters a Booker Elementary classroom, a Marine responsible for carrying Bush’s phone walks up to Balkwill, who is standing in a nearby side room. While listening to someone talk to him in his earpiece, the Marine asks, “Can you get me to a television? We’re not sure what’s going on, but we need to see a television.” Three Secret Service agents, a SWAT member, the Marine, and Balkwill turn on the television in a nearby front office just as Flight 175 crashes into the WTC. “We’re out of here,” the Marine tells Balkwill. “Can you get everyone ready?” [Sarasota Herald-Tribune, 9/10/2002] However, Bush stays at the school for another half-hour. Who makes the decision to stay—and why—remains unclear, and the Secret Service won’t comment on the matter. Philip Melanson, author of a book on the Secret Service, comments, “With an unfolding terrorist attack, the procedure should have been to get the president to the closest secure location as quickly as possible, which clearly is not a school. You’re safer in that presidential limo, which is bombproof and blastproof and bulletproof.… In the presidential limo, the communications system is almost duplicative of the White House—he can do almost anything from there but he can’t do much sitting in a school.” [St. Petersburg Times, 7/4/2004] The decision to allow the president to remain in the classroom seems odder still considering that, according to the Tampa Tribune, the reason that Sandra Kay Daniels’ classroom has been selected for Bush’s photo-op is “not because [it] fulfilled some complicated formula; her classroom merely was situated next to the school’s north door, making it easier to organize elaborate security.” [Tampa Tribune, 9/1/2002]

Rick Tepper. [Source: Eileen Blass]Air traffic controllers at Newark International Airport in New Jersey are on the phone with controllers at the FAA’s New York Center and are asked to find Flight 175 from their windows. They see it and watch in horror as it drops the last 5,000 feet and crashes into the World Trade Center. Controller Rick Tepper will recall: “He was in a hard right bank, diving very steeply and very fast. And he—as he was coming up the Hudson River, he—he made another hard left turn and—just heading for downtown Manhattan.… You could see that he was trying to line himself up on the tower. Just before he hit the tower, he almost leveled it out and just—just hit the building.” Newark tower immediately calls the FAA’s Herndon Command Center and says it will not land any more airplanes in Newark, in an effort to keep aircraft away from New York City. This is the first step in shutting down the national airspace system. [MSNBC, 9/11/2002]

The ‘nuclear football.’ [Source: Jamie Chung / Smithsonian Institute]Douglas Cochrane, Vice President Dick Cheney’s military aide, sees Flight 175 crashing into the World Trade Center live on television and, in response, goes to fetch a special briefcase that holds the codes necessary for the vice president to initiate a nuclear attack. Cochrane left his office on the fifth floor of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, next to the White House, and went to the White House after he learned a plane had crashed into the WTC (see (8:50 a.m.-9:00 a.m.) September 11, 2001). He is in the White House Situation Room at 9:03 a.m. and sees the second hijacked plane, Flight 175, crashing into the WTC live on television (see 9:03 a.m. September 11, 2001). In response, he runs back to his office in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building to get the “nuclear football” out of the safe. [Florida Times-Union, 9/10/2003; 9/11 Commission, 4/16/2004] The nuclear football is a briefcase that contains “a variety of secure phone capabilities and options for launching nuclear strikes that [the US president] may authorize,” according to journalist and author Ronald Kessler. As well as the nuclear football that is assigned to the president, a second, identical football is assigned to the vice president, in case the president becomes incapacitated or dies. This is presumably the briefcase Cochrane now fetches. Carrying the football is the responsibility of military aides, such as Cochrane, who accompany the president and the vice president wherever they go. [Associated Press, 5/5/2005; Kessler, 2014, pp. 7] Once he has the football, Cochrane will return to the White House and see Cheney being evacuated from his office by his Secret Service agents (see (9:36 a.m.) September 11, 2001). He will subsequently join Cheney in the underground tunnel that leads to the Presidential Emergency Operations Center (PEOC) below the White House (see Shortly Before 9:58 a.m. September 11, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 4/16/2004]

Those in the National Military Command Center (NMCC) within the Pentagon see the second plane hitting the World Trade Center live on television. According to Dan Mangino, an operations officer at the center, the staff there had thought the first WTC crash was a “terrible accident,” but after seeing the second one, “we knew immediately that it was a terrorist attack.” The American Forces Press Service later reports, “Personnel in the center shifted into hyperdrive.… Phones in the center began ringing off the hook.” Mangino says he initiates “the process to stand up a working group in advance of the direction that would come down later.” One of his deputies is responsible for this process. Yet, despite this supposed urgency, Mangino later recalls that he “knew he would have little time in the days ahead, so he quickly ran to the concourse to get some money out of an automated teller machine.” He will not arrive back at the NMCC until after the Pentagon is hit. [American Forces Press Service, 9/7/2006] Brigadier General Montague Winfield had earlier on allowed a colleague to temporarily take over from him as the NMCC’s deputy director for operations (see 8:30 a.m. September 11, 2001). Yet, despite the obvious emergency now taking place, he does not retake charge of the center until more than an hour later, at around 10:15-10:30 a.m. (see (Shortly After 9:03 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 6/17/2004] Furthermore, according to the 9/11 Commission, the NMCC does not begin a “significant event” conference call in response to the attacks until 9:29 a.m., which is 26 minutes after the South Tower is hit (see 9:29 a.m.-9:34 a.m. September 11, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 6/17/2004 ; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 37]

The minute Flight 175 hits the South Tower, fighter pilot Major Daniel Nash will recall, clear visibility allows him to see smoke pour out of Manhattan, even though NORAD will say he is 71 miles away from there. [Cape Cod Times, 8/21/2002] The other Otis pilot, Lieutenant Colonel Timothy Duffy, recalls, “We’re 60 miles out, and I could see the smoke from the towers.” They call NORAD’s Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS) for an update, and, as Duffy will recall: “At that point, they said the second aircraft just hit the World Trade Center. That was news to me. I thought we were still chasing American [Airlines Flight] 11.” [ABC News, 9/14/2002] In another account Duffy will relate: “It was right about then when they said the second aircraft had just hit the World Trade Center, which was quite a shock to both [Nash] and I, because we both thought there was only one aircraft out there. We were probably 70 miles or so out when the second one hit. So, we were just a matter of minutes away.” [BBC, 9/1/2002] He asks NEADS for clarification of their mission, but the request is met with “considerable confusion.” [Aviation Week and Space Technology, 6/3/2002] Bob Varcadipane, a Newark, New Jersey, air traffic controller who sees the Flight 175 crash, will claim: “I remember the two F-15s. They were there moments after the impact. And I was just—said to myself, ‘If only they could have gotten there a couple minutes earlier.’ They just missed it.” [MSNBC, 9/11/2002] However, the 9/11 Commission appears to believe that the pilots never get near New York City at this time. According to the Commission’s account, lacking a clear target, the Otis fighters took off toward military controlled airspace over the ocean, off the coast of Long Island. A map released by the Commission indicates that at 9:03 they are about 100 miles away and heading southwest instead of west to New York City. [9/11 Commission, 6/17/2004] Tape recordings of the NEADS operations floor reveal Major Kevin Nasypany telling Colonel Robert Marr, “Fighters are south of—just south of Long Island.” [Vanity Fair, 8/1/2006] The 9/11 Commission says that, at 9:10 a.m., the FAA’s Boston Center tells the Otis fighters about the second WTC tower being struck. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 459]

Josh Bolten. [Source: ONE]Josh Bolten, the deputy White House chief of staff, learns of the second plane hitting the World Trade Center and then, according to his own account, goes and tells National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice what has happened. With many of President Bush’s senior staff members, including White House chief of staff Andrew Card, traveling with the president in Florida, Bolten is the acting chief of staff at the White House this morning. He has run the senior staff meeting and, after the meeting ended, noticed the coverage of the first crash at the WTC on the television in his office. He’d thought the crash was a “freak accident,” he will later comment. “But then,” he will say, “the TV pictures kind of made me wonder.” Bolten went down to the White House Situation Room to see if he could learn anything more. The Situation Room, according to Bolten, “is supposed to be the information nerve center of the White House, where they are monitoring all of the TV stations, all the intelligence sources.” It is “where the Defense Department and CIA and everybody funnels in information to the president and to the White House.” After he enters the Situation Room, Bolten learns of Flight 175 hitting the second WTC tower, presumably seeing it live on television at 9:03 a.m. (see 9:03 a.m. September 11, 2001). “[I]t was at that moment that I realized this is not an accident,” he will recall. Bolten will say that he then heads into the conference area of the Situation Room, where Rice is conducting a meeting with her senior directors. After he enters the room, Rice says, “Here’s Josh Bolten,” and then starts introducing him to her senior directors. Bolten will say he gives Rice “the timeout signal” and asks her to step outside the room with him. He then tells her, “A second plane has hit; this is not an accident, it is an attack.” [C-SPAN, 10/6/2013] Rice, however, will contradict Bolten’s account. In interviews in which she discusses this morning’s events, she will make no mention of Bolten coming into her senior directors’ meeting. She will say she learns a second plane has hit the WTC not from Bolten but from her executive assistant, Tony Crawford, who comes into her meeting and hands her a note that tells her about the crash (see (9:04 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [White House, 10/24/2001; White House, 11/1/2001; BBC Radio 4, 8/1/2002 ; White House, 8/6/2002] Bolten will say that after he tells Rice about the crash, the two of them head upstairs to Vice President Dick Cheney’s office and talk to Cheney there (see (Shortly After 9:03 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [C-SPAN, 10/6/2013]

The 9/11 Commission will later conclude that the FAA’s New York Center tells NORAD’s Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS) that Flight 175 has been hijacked at this time. The Commission will refer to this as “the first indication that the NORAD air defenders had of the second hijacked aircraft.” The notification is apparently received from the military liaison at the New York Center (see 9:01 a.m.-9:02 a.m. September 11, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 6/17/2004]
NEADS Technician Announces 'Second Possible Hijack' - Tape recordings of the NEADS operations floor will reveal ID tech Stacia Rountree answering the call from the New York Center, and saying out loud, “They have a second possible hijack!” [Vanity Fair, 8/1/2006] Colonel Robert Marr, the NEADS battle commander, will claim he first learns that an aircraft other than Flight 11 has been hijacked when he sees Flight 175 crash into the World Trade Center on television. [Aviation Week and Space Technology, 6/3/2002] Lieutenant Colonel Dawne Deskins will claim that when she sees Flight 175 hitting the South Tower on television, “we didn’t even know there was a second hijack.” [Filson, 2003, pp. 59]
Conflicting Accounts - However, these accounts contradict NORAD’s claim that it makes shortly after 9/11 that NEADS was first notified about Flight 175 at 8:43 a.m. (see 8:43 a.m. September 11, 2001). [North American Aerospace Defense Command, 9/18/2001] Additionally, as Flight 175 crashes into the WTC, Canadian Captain Mike Jellinek, who is working at NORAD’s Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado operations center, is on the phone with NEADS. He sees the crash live on television and asks NEADS, “Was that the hijacked aircraft you were dealing with?” The reply is yes. (However, it is unclear whether Jellinek is referring to Flight 175 or to the smoke coming from the crash of Flight 11.) [Toronto Star, 12/9/2001] If the 9/11 Commission’s account is correct, several questions remain unanswered. Flight 175 lost radio contact at 8:42 a.m. (see 8:41 a.m.-8:42 a.m. September 11, 2001) and changed transponder signals at 8:47 a.m. (see 8:46 a.m.-8:47 a.m. September 11, 2001); an air traffic controller declared it possibly hijacked sometime between 8:46 a.m. and 8:53 a.m. (see (Shortly After 8:46 a.m.) September 11, 2001); and an air traffic control manager called it hijacked at 8:55 a.m.(see (8:55 a.m.) September 11, 2001). The Commission will not explain why the New York Center waits 10 to 16 minutes before warning NEADS that Flight 175 is possibly hijacked. [9/11 Commission, 6/17/2004]

At the FAA’s Command Center in Herndon, Virginia, manager John White learns of the communication apparently made by a hijacker on Flight 11, stating “We have some planes” (see 8:24 a.m. September 11, 2001), and quickly notifies the national operations manager of this. Terry Biggio, the operations manager at the FAA’s Boston Center, is relaying all the information he has about Flight 11 to the Command Center’s teleconference. In the conference room at the Command Center, White is listening in. [Spencer, 2008, pp. 79-80] Because the air traffic controller monitoring Flight 11 had not understood the “We have some planes” hijacker communication, the Boston Center’s quality assurance specialist had been instructed to “pull the tape” of the transmission, listen to it carefully, and then report back. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 19] Having learned that the specialist has deciphered the transmission, Biggio now relays the details of it over the teleconference. Seconds later, those at the Command Center see Flight 175 crashing into the South Tower of the World Trade live on CNN. White promptly dispatches a manager to pass on the details of the transmission to Ben Sliney, the national operations manager at the Command Center (see 9:06 a.m. and After September 11, 2001). [Spencer, 2008, pp. 79-80] The FAA’s New England regional office also learns of the “We have some planes” communication at this time (see 9:03 a.m. September 11, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 8/26/2004, pp. 23]

A fighter pilot flying from Otis Air Base toward New York City later notes that it wouldn’t have mattered if he caught up with Flight 175, because only President Bush could order a shootdown, and Bush is at a public event at the time. [Cape Cod Times, 8/21/2002] “Only the president has the authority to order a civilian aircraft shot down,” according to a 1999 CNN report. [CNN, 10/26/1999] In fact, by 9/11, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld also has the authority to order a shootdown, but he is not responding to the crisis at this time. [New York Observer, 6/20/2004] Furthermore, NORAD Commander Larry Arnold later states that on 9/11, “I have the authority in case of an emergency to declare a target hostile and shoot it down under an emergency condition.” [Filson, 2003, pp. 75]

Soon after the second WTC tower is hit, a senior Secret Service agent who is responsible for coordinating the president’s movements establishes an open line with his counterpart at the FAA. This FAA official tells him of further planes, on top of the two that have already crashed, that are unaccounted for and possibly hijacked. Although the Secret Service agent asks someone to pass this information on to the Secret Service’s operations center, the 9/11 Commission says that either this does not happen or else the message is passed on but not disseminated. Therefore the information fails to reach agents assigned to the vice president and, consequently, “the Vice President was not evacuated at that time.” [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 464] However, some other accounts contradict this, saying the vice president is indeed evacuated from his White House office by Secret Service agents at around this time. [New York Times, 9/16/2001; Daily Telegraph, 12/16/2001; ABC News, 9/14/2002]

At the Booker Elementary School in Sarasota, Florida, where President Bush is staging a photo-op, White House security staff reportedly urge school officials to send the students home. As the Arlington Heights Daily Herald later points out, “the well-publicized event at the school assured Bush’s location that day was no secret,” and therefore “Bush’s presence made even the planned reading event a perceived target.” Yet Wilma Hamilton, the superintendent of schools for Sarasota County, who is at the school for Bush’s visit, refuses their advice. In spite of the danger, she later says she is glad she made this decision: “I couldn’t see sending the children home. There’d be no one there. All they would have to look at were those images on television.” Whether the school officials are advised to send the children home before or after the president leaves the place is unspecified. [Sammon, 2002, pp. 43; Daily Herald (Arlington Heights), 9/11/2006]

Mark McLaughlin. [Source: Kingsville Record]Crew members on an E-4B National Airborne Operations Center (NAOC) at Andrews Air Force Base, just outside Washington, DC, learn that the US is under attack, but some of them initially think what they are being told about is a simulated scenario in a training exercise they are participating in. [Flying K, 9/7/2012 ] The E-4B is a highly modified Boeing 747 that is fitted with sophisticated communications equipment and can serve as a flying military command post during a national emergency. [Federation of American Scientists, 4/23/2000; Dayton Daily News, 9/12/2001; Verton, 2003, pp. 143] The E-4B on the ground at Andrews is currently involved in a major training exercise. “We were one of many commands practicing a global war-gaming and communication exercise called Global Guardian. My aircraft was one of three brought to full alert status for the exercise,” Mark McLaughlin will later recall. McLaughlin has, today, been assigned to Operations Team One as the Single Integrated Operational Plan adviser to the National Command Authority—the president and the secretary of defense. “My job was to be the expert on nuclear war plans and give all the VIP briefs,” he will say. [Flying K, 9/7/2012 ] “Global Guardian,” which he refers to, is an annual exercise that tests the ability of the US Strategic Command (Stratcom) to fight a nuclear war (see 8:30 a.m. September 11, 2001). [Omaha World-Herald, 2/27/2002; Washingtonian, 9/2011]
Plane Is Tasked with Picking Up Former National Security Adviser - As well as its involvement in the exercise, the E-4B, according to McLaughlin, has a “secondary mission” today, which is to fly to Washington and pick up former National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft, who has been “appointed by President Bush to analyze the nation’s nuclear arsenal and strategic plans.” While the plane was flying into Andrews Air Force Base, McLaughlin will recall, those on board “heard over one of the many communications nets that an airplane had crashed into a tower at the World Trade Center.” However, he will comment, “It never dawned on us at that moment that a terrorist attack was under way.”
Briefing Is Disrupted as Crew Members Learn about Attacks - McLaughlin learns that the nation is indeed under attack after his plane has landed at the base, and Scowcroft and his traveling party have boarded. While he is briefing the former national security adviser about nuclear weapons and the nation’s nuclear war-fighting plans, McLaughlin notices a commotion in the battle staff space, a compartment behind the briefing area that houses the operations team. The agitated behavior of the operations team members, according to McLaughlin, “is unheard of and not allowed when a VIP is on board, especially receiving a briefing.” McLaughlin’s assistant, who is working at the computer behind McLaughlin, then slips a note into McLaughlin’s hand. McLaughlin reads the note, which states simply: “Captain. Battle staff. Now.” He therefore tells Captain Joseph Gershon, the NAOC commanding officer, that his presence has been requested immediately in the battle staff area, and Gershon then heads there. Although McLaughlin realizes from the commotion going on that “something big [is] happening,” he continues the briefing.
Captain Interrupts Briefing and Says the Nation Is under Attack - During such high-level briefings, it is protocol that if you have to leave the room, you never return until the briefing is over. But Gershon returns and interrupts the briefing. He tells Scowcroft, “It appears that the country is under attack, sir.” According to McLaughlin, many of the people on the plane think at this time that what is being reported is a simulated scenario, as part of the exercise they are participating in. “Adding to the confusion was that we were in a global exercise and many of us thought it was part of the exercise injects,” he will comment. But he will say that “during the next few minutes, everyone began to fully comprehend that [the US was] under attack.” It also becomes “very apparent,” according to McLaughlin, “that our aircraft had to get airborne for safety reasons.” [Flying K, 9/7/2012 ]
Plane Heads to Base in Nebraska - The E-4B, which has the call sign “Word 31,” will take off from Andrews Air Force Base at around 9:27 a.m. (see (9:27 a.m.) September 11, 2001). Another E-4B, with the call sign “Venus 77,” will also take off from Andrews this morning, at around 9:45 a.m. (see (9:45 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [Federal Aviation Administration, 9/11/2001 ; 9/11 Commission, 2/17/2004; Farmer, 2009, pp. 206] McLaughlin’s plane will land later on at Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska, so Scowcroft and his staff can get off. [Flying K, 9/7/2012 ] The original plan for today, according to the Omaha World-Herald, had been for the plane to take Scowcroft and his staff to Offutt to observe the Global Guardian exercise. [Omaha World-Herald, 2/27/2002] But after reaching the base, McLaughlin’s team’s mission will be to remain in the air, and so the E-4B will subsequently take off from Offutt and resume its airborne operations. [Flying K, 9/7/2012 ]

According to CIA Director George Tenet, “Only minutes” after the South Tower is hit, the CIA’s Counterterrorist Center (CTC) receives a report that at least one other commercial passenger jet plane is unaccounted for. [Tenet, 2007, pp. 163] The CTC is based at the CIA headquarters in Langley, and is run by the agency’s operations division. It gathers intelligence and runs covert operations abroad. It employs hundreds of analysts, and includes experts assigned from Defense Department intelligence agencies, the Pentagon’s Central Command, the FBI, the National Security Agency, the Federal Aviation Administration, and other government agencies. According to the Los Angeles Times, “It serves as the nerve center for the CIA’s effort to disrupt and deter terrorist groups and their state sponsors.” [St. Petersburg Times, 10/2/2001; Los Angeles Times, 10/12/2001] Further details of the unaccounted-for plane, and where the CTC learns of it from, are unclear. The plane is presumably Flight 77, which veered off course at 8:54 (see (8:54 a.m.) September 11, 2001), and was evidently lost by 8:56 (see 8:56 a.m. September 11, 2001). [New York Times, 10/16/2001; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 9] The FAA will later claim it had established several phone bridges at around 8:50 a.m., which included various government agencies, on which it shared “real-time information… about the unfolding events, including information about loss of communication with aircraft, loss of transponder signals, unauthorized changes in course, and other actions being taken by all the flights of interest, including Flight 77” (see (8:50 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 5/23/2003] So the CTC may have learned of the errant plane by this means. Yet the 9/11 Commission will claim the FAA’s phone bridges were not established until about 9:20 (see (9:20 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 36] And NORAD is supposedly only alerted to Flight 77 at 9:24, according to some accounts (see (9:24 a.m.) September 11, 2001), or 9:34, according to others (see 9:34 a.m. September 11, 2001).

Despite two attacks having occurred in New York, the threat level at the Pentagon is not raised. John Jester, the chief of the Defense Protective Service (DPS)—the law enforcement agency that guards the Pentagon—is in his office at the Pentagon. He had been unaware of the first WTC crash and only learned of it when his press officer, Glenn Flood, phoned about it at around 9:00 a.m. and asked him if he would be reacting. Jester switched on the TV in his office just in time to see the second tower hit, at 9:03 a.m. Even though he realizes that it is “obvious this was a terrible attack,” Jester later recalls that at this time, he is “thinking about what else we needed to do based on the attacks in New York, not having in my mind that it would happen here too.” [Murphy, 2002, pp. 243-244] Lieutenant Michael Nesbitt, who runs day-to-day operation in the DPS Communications Center on the first floor of the Pentagon, telephones Jester and asks if he knows about the crashes in New York. Jester instructs Nesbitt to send a message to the building’s Real Estate and Facilities Directorate, reassuring everyone that the Pentagon remains secure. Jester tells him that its Terrorist Force Protection Condition is staying at “Normal,” which means there is no present threat of terrorist activity. (The Terrorist Force Protection Condition—previously known as the Terrorist Threat Condition—ranges from Normal through four higher levels, from Alpha to Delta.) According to the Defense Department’s own book about the Pentagon attack, “No one in DPS received warning of a hijacked aircraft on its way to the Washington area.” Jester apparently will not order the threat level to be raised until shortly before 9:37, when the Pentagon is hit (see (Shortly Before 9:37 a.m.) September 11, 2001); at the time of the attack, the alert level will still be at Normal. [Goldberg et al., 2007, pp. 151-152]

Brigadier General Montague Winfield. [Source: US Army]Brigadier General Montague Winfield, the deputy director for operations (DDO) in the National Military Command Center (NMCC) at the Pentagon, apparently remains in a pre-scheduled meeting that is unrelated to the terrorist attacks and does not resume his key duties as DDO, even though others in the NMCC have concluded that the US is under attack. [9/11 Commission, 4/29/2004 ; American Forces Press Service, 9/7/2006] Since around 8:30 a.m., Winfield has been attending what the 9/11 Commission will describe as a “closed-door personnel meeting convened by the Air Force to discuss the rating of Air Force officers.” Captain Charles Leidig, who only qualified to stand in as the DDO about a month previously, has taken over Winfield’s position while he is in the meeting (see 8:30 a.m. September 11, 2001).
NMCC Officers Realize US Is under Attack - Leidig will later recall that after those in the NMCC see Flight 175 crashing into the World Trade Center live on television at 9:03 a.m., “[t]o him it was obvious it was a terrorist attack or a coordinated attack.” [9/11 Commission, 7/21/2003 ; 9/11 Commission, 4/29/2004 ] Other officers in the NMCC also realize this is a terrorist attack (see 9:03 a.m. September 11, 2001). [American Forces Press Service, 9/7/2006] Winfield himself will later describe, “When the second aircraft flew into the second tower, it was at that point that we realized that the seemingly unrelated hijackings that the FAA was dealing with were in fact a part of a coordinated terrorist attack on the United States.” [ABC News, 9/14/2002]
Winfield Stays in Pre-Scheduled Meeting - According to the 9/11 Commission Report, “The job of the NMCC in such an emergency is to gather the relevant parties and establish the chain of command between the National Command Authority—the president and the secretary of defense—and those who need to carry out their orders.” [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 37] However, Winfield does not return to his post, and apparently remains in the Air Force-convened meeting. The reason for this is unclear. According to one 9/11 Commission memorandum, “Such meetings” as Winfield is attending “are generally not disturbed unless the reason is significant.” Winfield will only resume his duties as DDO after Flight 93 crashes in Pennsylvania, apparently at around 10:30 a.m. (see (10:30 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 4/29/2004 ; 9/11 Commission, 6/17/2004] Whether Winfield and the other officers with him in the meeting learn that America is under attack immediately, or are only notified of this later on, is unstated.

Mark Loizeaux. [Source: Dan Gross / Washington Technology]Immediately after seeing the attacks on the the World Trade Center on television, Mark Loizeaux, the president of leading building demolition firm Controlled Demolition Inc (CDI), tries to contact government officials to warn them that the Twin Towers will probably collapse. [US News and World Report, 6/22/2003; New Scientist, 7/24/2004] Loizeaux will later recall his initial reaction to the crashes in New York. After the first tower is hit, he will say, “I told Doug [Loizeaux, his brother] immediately that the tower was coming down, and when the second tower was hit, that it would follow.” According to US News and World Report, “Horrified, the Loizeaux brothers watched first responders streaming into the doomed towers and tried frantically, and unsuccessfully, to phone in warnings.” [US News and World Report, 6/22/2003] Mark Loizeaux will recall, “I still had some cell phone numbers, so when the second plane hit I said, ‘Start calling all the cell phones, tell them that the building is going to come down.’” However: “It was frenetic, nobody could get through even with speed dialling.… Of course, building number 7, where the emergency management headquarters was, was on fire. I’d been in that office two months before.” Loizeaux then phones a couple of people on the National Research Council committee involved in assessing the impact of explosives. They ask him, “What do you think this is, that they’re going to fail, that they’re both going to fail?” Loizeaux will recall: “The expression around was they’re going to pancake down, almost vertically. And they did. It was the only way they could fail. It was inevitable.” [New Scientist, 7/24/2004] Soon after the attacks, Loizeaux, as a recognized expert, will be called upon to comment on the fall of the WTC towers. [Construction (.com), 9/13/2001] In addition, his firm will be involved with the clearing of Ground Zero. (It was also tasked with bringing down the remnants of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City after its partial destruction in 1995 (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995 and 7:01 a.m. May 23, 1995).) [Construction (.com), 10/1/2001]

Security is increased around Air Force One, the president’s plane, in response to the second attack on the World Trade Center, and the pilot is informed that the aircraft may be targeted by terrorists while it is on the ground. Air Force One is currently at Sarasota-Bradenton International Airport in Florida, where it has been since the previous evening (see September 10, 2001). Only the standard level of security has been provided, with cones marking a security zone around the plane. Will Chandler, the chief of security, has been standing inside these cones and guarding the aircraft. According to Colonel Mark Tillman, the pilot of Air Force One, prior to the attacks on the WTC, “there was no intel, there was nothing that said we’re about to be attacked.” But Tillman will later recall that after he learns of the second plane crash in New York and realizes it is a deliberate attack, he and the rest of the plane’s crew “start pulling out all the plans that we know we have to execute to keep the president safe and ensure the continuity of government.” [United Services Automobile Association, 9/11/2011; US Air Force, 2/29/2012 ]
Pilot Says Air Force One Is 'Ready to Go' - Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Gould, a military aide who is accompanying President Bush on his visit to Florida, calls Tillman and instructs him to get Air Force One and its crew ready to leave immediately (see (9:04 a.m.-9:45 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [Santa Barbara News-Press, 9/11/2011] Mark Rosenker, the director of the White House Military Office, and Edward Marinzel, the head of the president’s Secret Service detail, who are with Bush at the Emma E. Booker Elementary School in Sarasota, also call Tillman. Tillman will recall that they ask him: “What is our status? If [Bush and his entourage] can come to us within 10 minutes, can we get going?” Tillman replies: “Yes, absolutely. We are ready to go.”
Pilot Told Plane Is a 'Sitting Duck' - Tillman is informed that “about nine planes” have been hijacked and that “one is in the Florida area.” Rosenker tells him: “Assume that [Air Force One is] a target on the ramp in Sarasota. It’s a large 747. [It is] sitting wide open. [A] sitting duck.” Tillman will say that his intention, therefore, is “to move that aircraft. Get it out of the way, and come back and grab the president when he’s ready to go.” He cannot do this, however, because Bush wants to “come rushing back to us and head to Washington, DC.” Secret Service agents with the president instruct Tillman: “We are coming at you as fast as we can come at you. Do not—repeat—do not move.”
People Moved Away from Air Force One - “We started getting reports of unidentified people all around the airport,” Tillman will recall, and there is a “possibility that we were subject to the plan to go ahead and assassinate the president.” The crew of Air Force One has “no idea what was going on” and is receiving “a lot of misinformation” while waiting for the president to arrive at the airport. To increase security, people are pushed away from Air Force One. This, according to Tillman, is so that “whoever was near that aircraft had a good reason to be there.” [United Services Automobile Association, 9/11/2011; US Air Force, 2/29/2012 ]
Military Presence Increased at Airport - White House communications director Dan Bartlett, who has gone to the Booker Elementary School with Bush, notices the increased security around Air Force One when the president’s motorcade arrives at the Sarasota airport (see 9:43 a.m. September 11, 2001). There is always “an incredible security presence” around the plane, he will comment. But now he sees “the redoubling of that.” There is “more of a military presence at the airport, as opposed to just a security [made up] of local police officers or anything like that.” [White House, 8/12/2002] Bartlett sees “a lot of military uniforms” and notices “the perimeters [around Air Force One] increasing.” Furthermore, he will recall, “[T]he scrutiny for entering the perimeter was much tougher than you could ever imagine.” [White House, 8/12/2002]
Sheriff in Helicopter Watches Over Airport - Meanwhile, a helicopter arrives to keep watch over the airport. Sergeant Kevin Kenney of the Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office had been scheduled to fly the Sheriff’s Office helicopter to cover Bush’s motorcade as it traveled to the Booker Elementary School this morning, but was unable to do so because of heavy fog. However, after the second attack on the WTC, a member of Bush’s Secret Service detail instructs him to launch the helicopter and get to the Sarasota airport as soon as possible. He arrives there around the time Bush’s motorcade reaches the airport. The Secret Service then instructs Kenney to fly around the airport perimeter and be on the lookout for suspicious vehicles or groups of people. He notices “numerous civilian vehicles… already responding to the vicinity of the airport and gathering along the roadways in the proximity.” He relays information to Bush’s Secret Service detail and local agencies that are dispatching patrol units to the area. Kenney continues his surveillance of the airport for the 10 minutes or so it takes to get Bush and the other passengers onto Air Force One. [Sheriff, 9/2011; Longboat Observer, 9/8/2011] Additionally, reporters and other individuals who are traveling with the president are subjected to a strict security check while they are boarding the plane (see (9:45 a.m.-9:53 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [Sammon, 2002, pp. 99]

Susan Dryden. [Source: Davar Ardalan / NPR News]Attorney General John Ashcroft learns of the attacks in New York while flying to Milwaukee, and immediately instructs his pilot to turn the plane around and return to Washington, DC. [Daily Record (Glasgow), 9/29/2001; Ashcroft, 2006, pp. 115-116; Spencer, 2008, pp. 257]
Ashcroft Scheduled for Reading Event - Ashcroft is heading from Washington to Milwaukee in one of the FAA’s Cessna Citation V jet planes, to read with some schoolchildren as part of the president’s child literacy program. With him are David Israelite, his deputy chief of staff; Susan Dryden, the deputy communications director for the Justice Department; Ralph Boyd, the assistant attorney general for civil rights; and a detail officer from the FBI.
Command Center Tells Ashcroft of Attacks - As the plane is nearing Lake Michigan, its pilot calls out to Ashcroft, “Sir, you are to call back to the Justice Department command center in Washington immediately.” Ashcroft makes the call and is informed that two commercial airliners have struck the World Trade Center towers. He then turns toward the cockpit and tells the pilot, David Clemmer: “Turn this plane around. We’re flying back to Washington.” Clemmer replies that they don’t have enough fuel to make it back to Washington and will need to land in Milwaukee to refuel. Ashcroft says, “All right, get us down for fuel and back in the air as fast as you can.”
Plane Lands at Milwaukee Airport - Ashcroft then turns toward the other passengers and describes to them what he has learned from the command center. A few minutes later, his plane will land in Milwaukee to refuel. Ashcroft and his fellow passengers will go inside the terminal and get their first glimpses of the television coverage of the attacks in New York. [Washington Post, 9/28/2001; Newsweek, 3/10/2003; Ashcroft, 2006, pp. 115-117] Despite an FAA ground stop, which is supposed to prevent aircraft from taking off, Ashcroft will insist on flying from Milwaukee back to Washington (see After 9:37 a.m. September 11, 2001). [US Congress. House. Committee On Transportation And Infrastructure, 9/21/2001; Spencer, 2008, pp. 257-258]

William Glover. [Source: Thomas Doscher / US Air Force]The NORAD operations center in Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado, receives numerous reports from the FAA of additional hijacked aircraft, but most of these reports turn out to be incorrect. Lieutenant Colonel William Glover, the commander of NORAD’s Air Warning Center, will later recall that after 9:03 a.m., when the second plane hits the World Trade Center, those in the operations center are “starting to receive reports… that we have these hijackings coming in.” He will say, “We had all these other reports coming in now, we were receiving from FAA, that there’s other issues on there.” [Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, 9/8/2011] According to Glover, the FAA says to NORAD, “Hey, this may be a possible hijack, or this aircraft may be a possible hijack.” As a result, those in the operations center “did not know how many more there were. Were there five, six, seven, or eight?” [BBC, 9/1/2002] Major General Rick Findley, NORAD’s director of operations, will similarly recall: “Lots of other reports were starting to come in. And now you’re not too sure. If they’re that clever to coordinate that kind of attack, what else is taking place across North America?” [Toronto Star, 12/9/2001] According to Glover, the uncertainty about how many additional hijacked planes there are will lead NORAD to implement a limited version of a plan called SCATANA, which clears the skies and gives the military control of US airspace (see (11:00 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [Aviation Week and Space Technology, 6/3/2002; 9/11 Commission, 6/17/2004] However, most of the additional hijackings that the FAA is reporting to NORAD turn out to be false alarms. Glover will say that most of the reports “were not true.” [Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, 9/8/2011] According to the 9/11 Commission Report, there are “multiple erroneous reports of hijacked aircraft” during the morning (see (9:09 a.m. and After) September 11, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 28]

Ashley Estes. [Source: Eric Draper / White House]Vice President Dick Cheney is taken by the Secret Service from his White House office toward the Presidential Emergency Operations Center (PEOC) below the East Wing of the White House around this time, according to some accounts, although other accounts, including the 9/11 Commission Report, will state that he is evacuated from his office about half an hour later. [New York Times, 9/13/2001; Daily Telegraph, 12/16/2001; ABC News, 9/14/2002; Clarke, 2004, pp. 1-2; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 39-40]
The Secret Service evacuates Cheney from his office “[j]ust after 9 a.m.,” according to ABC News. At this time, “two or three agents came in and told him, ‘Sir, you have to come with us.’” [ABC News, 9/14/2002]
New York Times columnist William Safire will write, two days after 9/11, that Cheney is evacuated at 9:03 a.m., after he sees Flight 175 crashing into the World Trade Center live on television (see 9:03 a.m. September 11, 2001). “At that moment,” according to Safire, “his Secret Service detail grabbed him and hurried him down to [the] PEOC.” [New York Times, 9/13/2001]
Britain’s Daily Telegraph will report that at about 9:05 a.m., around the time when President Bush is informed of the second plane crash in New York (see (9:06 a.m.) September 11, 2001), “a squad of Secret Service agents stormed into the office of Vice President Dick Cheney,” seizes the vice president, and carries him down to the PEOC. [Daily Telegraph, 12/16/2001]
White House counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke will indicate that Cheney is evacuated shortly after the second plane hits the WTC. Clarke will write that after he learns of the second attack, he briefly talks to Cheney in the vice president’s office (see (9:05 a.m.) September 11, 2001). As he leaves the room, he notices Cheney gathering up his papers and then sees eight Secret Service agents in Cheney’s outer office, “ready to move to the PEOC.” [Clarke, 2004, pp. 1-2]
President Bush’s personal secretary, Ashley Estes, will recall seeing Secret Service agents running down the hallway, carrying Cheney along, after she watches the second plane hit the WTC on television at 9:03 a.m. [White House, 8/29/2002]
Cheney will describe the urgency with which his Secret Service agents move him out of his office, recalling that they “came in and said, ‘Sir, we have to leave immediately,’ and grabbed me… and they hoisted me up and moved me very rapidly down the hallway, down some stairs, through some doors, and down some more stairs into an underground facility under the White House.” [Meet the Press, 9/16/2001]
Some Accounts Consistent with Early Evacuation Time - Some accounts, while not specifically describing Cheney being hurried away from his office by the Secret Service, will be consistent with the vice president being evacuated around the time of the second attack in New York. White House adviser Karl Rove, who is with the president in Florida, will tell NBC News that when Bush tries phoning Cheney at around 9:16 a.m., he is unable to contact him because “the vice president was being… grabbed by a Secret Service agent and moved to the bunker” (see (9:16 a.m.-9:29 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [MSNBC, 9/11/2002] And Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta will say that when he arrives at the PEOC, between around 9:20 a.m. and 9:27 a.m., Cheney is already there (see (Between 9:20 a.m. and 9:27 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [MSNBC, 9/11/2002; 9/11 Commission, 5/23/2003; Academy of Achievement, 6/3/2006] However, other accounts, including the 9/11 Commission Report, will state that Cheney is evacuated from his office a significant time after the second attack, at around 9:36 a.m. (see (9:36 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [United States Secret Service, 11/17/2001 ; Newsweek, 12/30/2001; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 39-40; Gellman, 2008, pp. 115]

Steven Armstrong. [Source: Thomas Doscher / US Air Force]Personnel in the NORAD operations center in Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado, are in what one officer there will call an “information void,” and are learning about ongoing events mostly from television reports. [Denver Post, 8/28/2011; North American Aerospace Defense Command, 9/9/2011] Major General Rick Findley, NORAD’s director of operations, will tell the 9/11 Commission that those in the Cheyenne Mountain Operations Center (CMOC) gain their “first awareness of a second impact at the World Trade Center… from the media simulcast of the event.” Findley only then realizes there is an “ongoing coordinated attack” taking place. But, he will tell the 9/11 Commission, he “did not know the exact facts of what caused both explosions.” [9/11 Commission, 3/1/2004 ] According to Lieutenant Colonel Steven Armstrong, NORAD’s chief of plans and forces, after the second crash, “[W]e were just kind of watching it unfold on CNN, and then we started making the phone calls and we tried to start building a bigger picture.” [North American Aerospace Defense Command, 9/9/2011] Armstrong will later recall, “We’re reaching out to everybody and their brother, trying to get as much information as we can to figure out what’s going on with the national airspace.” However, he will say, “[T]he majority of the information we’re getting at the time is literally off the TV.” [Denver Post, 8/28/2011] The CMOC reaches out to NORAD’s regional air defense sectors to try and get information. But, according to Armstrong, “they were pretty busy trying to run fighters and do intercepts and figure out where the bad guys were.” Therefore, Armstrong will say, “we were out there in an information void, just looking for anything that we could find.” [North American Aerospace Defense Command, 9/9/2011] Lieutenant Colonel William Glover, the commander of NORAD’s Air Warning Center, will recall that this morning is his “first time, you know, thinking about the fog of war, because we didn’t know what was going on.” [Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, 9/8/2011] Findley will reflect, “I wouldn’t call it flat-footed, but we were a little bit behind the power curve most of that morning as we were trying to figure out exactly what transpired.” [Canadian Press, 9/10/2006]

Pilots and officers with the District of Columbia Air National Guard (DCANG) at Andrews Air Force Base, just outside Washington, realize the US is under terrorist attack when they learn of the second plane hitting the World Trade Center, yet the first DCANG fighter to launch in response to the attacks will not take off until more than 90 minutes later. [Washington Post, 4/8/2002; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 44; Spencer, 2008, pp. 122-123]
Intel Officer Reports Crash - The 113th Wing of the DC Air National Guard, which includes the 121st Fighter Squadron, is based at Andrews. [District of Columbia Air National Guard, 7/24/2001; GlobalSecurity (.org), 8/21/2005] Some of its pilots and officers who are in the unit’s weekly scheduling meeting at the base learned of the first crash when an intelligence officer interrupted their meeting to bring them the news, but they assumed it was an accident (see Shortly After 8:46 a.m. September 11, 2001). After the second plane hits the WTC at 9:03 a.m., the intelligence officer returns. He bursts into the room, yelling: “It’s happened again! The second tower has been hit! And it’s on purpose!” [9/11 Commission, 3/8/2004 ; 9/11 Commission, 3/11/2004 ; Spencer, 2008, pp. 122]
Officers Realize This Is a 'Coordinated Attack' - Those in the meeting realize this is a terrorist attack. Captain Brandon Rasmussen, a pilot who is also the chief of scheduling with the unit, will later recall: “At that point [the] meeting adjourned, this is no longer a pure accident, somebody is meaning to do this. I think everybody knew that this was a coordinated attack that was happening. We had no idea who it was by, but it was definitely intentional when you get two airplanes hitting both towers.” The officers head down the hall to the break room, where the television is on. Seeing the coverage from New York, they realize that large airliners hit the towers, not “light civil aircraft” as they previously thought.
People 'Launched into Action' - One officer exclaims, “Well, holy sh_t, if this is a terrorist attack, we need to get something in the air!” [Rasmussen, 9/18/2003; Spencer, 2008, pp. 123] Lieutenant Colonel Steve Chase, who is at the operations desk, will later describe: “People just launched into action. There was a buzz in the unit. People got on the radio and telephones to higher headquarters.” [Washington Post, 4/8/2002]
Leadership Only Acts after Pentagon Attack - However, Rasmussen will say that the 121st Fighter Squadron only takes proper action in response to the attacks after the Pentagon is hit at 9:37 a.m. He will recall that, after learning of the second attack, “we didn’t know what we could possibly do, that’s New York City way up the road. So… like everybody else in America, we’re just standing by and watching the news. Time dilatation between the towers being hit and when the Pentagon was hit, but the news [broke] about the Pentagon being hit, and by that time they were in our backyard. At that point, the squadron leadership went into action.… As soon as the Pentagon was hit, we knew that we were going to be sticking around home and being quite busy.” [Rasmussen, 9/18/2003] Brigadier General David Wherley, the commander of the DC Air National Guard, will only head across the base to assist the response at the 121st Fighter Squadron’s headquarters after the Pentagon attack occurs (see (Shortly After 9:39 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [Washington Post, 4/8/2002; Vogel, 2007, pp. 445-446]
Jets Take Off over 90 Minutes Later - According to Knight Ridder, “Air defense around Washington, DC, is provided mainly by fighter planes from Andrews.” [Knight Ridder, 9/11/2001] Yet the first DCANG fighter jet to take off in response to the attacks does not launch until 95 minutes after the second crash, at 10:38 a.m. (see (10:38 a.m.) September 11, 2001), and this has no missiles, only training ammunition. [Washington Post, 4/8/2002; 9/11 Commission, 2004; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 44] The first fully armed jets will take off from Andrews at 11:11 a.m. (see 11:11 a.m. September 11, 2001). [Filson, 2003, pp. 84; 9/11 Commission, 2004; 9/11 Commission, 2/17/2004]

Andy Marshall. [Source: Bangor Daily News]A member of staff at NORAD’s Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS) talks with the crew of a tanker plane about providing fuel to the fighter jets launched in response to the hijacked Flight 11, and yet, after the crew agrees to assist the fighters, the tanker is apparently unavailable to do so until at least 30 minutes later. [North American Aerospace Defense Command, 9/11/2001; North American Aerospace Defense Command, 9/11/2001; Spencer, 2008, pp. 112, 152-153] The tanker plane, which has the call sign “Maine 85,” is one of the eight KC-135s attached to the 101st Air Refueling Wing, based at Bangor International Airport in Maine. Its pilots are Lieutenant Colonel Adam Jenkins and Lieutenant Colonel Andy Marshall. [Portland Press Herald, 9/13/2001; Bangor Daily News, 9/9/2011] It is scheduled to provide fuel to a number of F-15 fighters from Otis Air National Guard Base, Massachusetts, that should be flying a training mission this morning in an area of military training airspace over the Atlantic Ocean, south of Long Island, known as “Whiskey 105” (see (9:00 a.m.-9:24 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [102nd Fighter Wing, 2001; Spencer, 2008, pp. 153]
NEADS Asks Tanker to Support Scrambled Fighters - A member of staff at NEADS now talks over the radio with a member of Maine 85’s crew (presumably one of the pilots), and asks if the plane could provide fuel to the two F-15s that are kept on “alert” at Otis Air Base and that were scrambled in response to Flight 11 (see 8:46 a.m. September 11, 2001). [North American Aerospace Defense Command, 9/11/2001; North American Aerospace Defense Command, 9/11/2001] These fighters are currently flying into Whiskey 105 (see 9:01 a.m. September 11, 2001). [Federal Aviation Administration, 9/11/2001; 9/11 Commission, 2004] The person at NEADS says to Maine 85 that he was “wondering if you’d be able to support a couple of F-l5s currently on an active air.” He adds, “I’d like to park you in Whiskey 105 for a while.” Maine 85 replies, “We’re scheduled for Whiskey 105, sir, with some F-15s.” (This is presumably a reference to the F-15s that are due to fly a training mission in the military airspace this morning.) The person at NEADS says that the tanker’s support “would be for a Panta flight currently on an active emergency for us,” referring to the two fighters scrambled in response to Flight 11.
Tanker Plane Agrees to Assist Fighters - Maine 85 says it will do as requested, replying: “That’s no problem for us. We’re gonna be descending shortly to flight level 240 [i.e. 24,000 feet] and heading south to the western portion of Whiskey 105 for our standard refueling. We’ll be right in there.” NEADS thanks Maine 85 and then informs it: “We have Panta 45 [i.e. the scrambled fighters] currently in the western part of Whiskey 105. We’re working a possible hijack and aircraft emergency in downtown New York.” Maine 85 responds, “Yes sir, anything we can do to help.” [North American Aerospace Defense Command, 9/11/2001] Subsequently, at around 9:14 a.m., Major Kevin Nasypany, the NEADS mission crew commander, will tell a colleague: “We’ve got Maine 85 going to Whiskey 105 right now.… He’s going into Whiskey 105, so that’s, that’s no problem. He’s got lots of fuel.” [North American Aerospace Defense Command, 9/11/2001]
Tanker Apparently Unavailable for 30 Minutes - However, despite communicating with Maine 85 at around 9:05 a.m., according to the account of author Lynn Spencer, NEADS is apparently unable to locate a tanker plane that could refuel the fighters scrambled from Otis Air Base during the next 30 minutes. After one of the pilots of these fighters informs NEADS that the two aircraft are running low on fuel, NEADS personnel are instructed to locate a suitable tanker (see (9:09 a.m.) September 11, 2001). But by around 9:35 a.m., according to Spencer, the fighters will not have heard back from NEADS. Maine 85 will only be contacted and directed toward the two fighters after one of the Otis pilots then remembers that the KC-135 should be available and in his area, and the other Otis pilot therefore calls NEADS about this (see (Shortly After 9:35 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [Spencer, 2008, pp. 112, 152-153]

Tom Greer. [Source: CBS News]Members of Delta Force, the US Army’s elite counterterrorist unit, who are in Hungary for a training exercise receive numerous false reports of attacks that have supposedly occurred in the United States and it takes two days before they have an accurate picture of what the terrorist attacks in the US involved. [Fury, 2008, pp. 56-59] Hundreds of US military personnel are in Europe for a major exercise called Jackal Cave. This exercise, run by the Joint Special Operations Command, involves participants tracking down mock terrorists and organized criminals who are supposedly trafficking in weapons of mass destruction (see (8:46 a.m.-9:03 a.m.) September 11, 2001). Many personnel who are involved in Jackal Cave have been settling into their temporary headquarters for the exercise, at the end of a taxiway at Taszár Air Base in Hungary. A Delta Force squadron that is participating in the exercise is housed in a couple of tents there. [Arkin, 2005, pp. 404; Naylor, 2015, pp. ix-xi]
Delta Force Officers Didn't Think the First Crash Was Terrorism - Tom Greer, a Delta Force officer, learned of the attacks on the World Trade Center while preparing for the exercise. His squadron operations sergeant, who he will later refer to only as “Bart,” came into his tent to relay some information to him and his squadron operations officer, “Super D.” While there, Bart casually mentioned, “Hey, a plane just crashed into the World Trade Center in New York.” Greer and Super D initially gave little thought to the news. “[N]o one was considering that terrorists might… be behind this new situation,” Greer will write. However, minutes later, Bart returned to the tent with a look of disbelief on his face and said: “Another plane just crashed into the other Trade Center building. Now they think it’s terrorists!” Greer and Super D went to their tactical operations center (TOC) to see if the television was on there, so they could watch the coverage of the attacks. The TOC, Greer will describe, was “wall to wall… with concerned soldiers, staff officers, commanders, [Army] Rangers, Army helicopter pilots, Air Force officers, and a few Delta [Force] operators.” Everyone there was watching CNN and trying to make sense of what was happening in the US.
Intelligence Updates Include Many False Reports - After a time, Greer and Super D return to their tent. There, intelligence analysts post hourly updates of what has happened in the US. However, the updates include numerous reports of incidents that never occurred. These alleged incidents, according to Greer, include an American F-15 fighter jet deliberately shooting down an airliner—American Airlines Flight 1089—over the Atlantic Ocean; an F-15 shooting down an airliner—Delta Air Lines Flight 766—over northwest Virginia; and an F-16 fighter following an airliner—United Airlines Flight 283—that is believed to be heading toward Washington, DC, and is not responding to communications. The F-16’s pilot is authorized to use “lethal force” if the airliner reaches US airspace. Additionally, the updates report that the Capitol building and the White House have been hit by jumbo jets, and are both on fire.
Updates Record 13 Hijackings - By the morning of September 12, the updates have included reports of 13 airliners being hijacked. Of these, four airliners were supposedly shot down over land or water by American fighters while the other nine airliners supposedly hit targets in New York and Washington. Greer and his colleagues only gain an accurate picture of what the 9/11 attacks involved on September 13. Greer will state why he thinks they initially received so much incorrect information, writing, “Miscommunication, manifested in multiple reports by various news agencies of the same event, the jammed telephone lines and cell towers bulging from maximum usage, and the fact we were on the other side of the world had contributed to the fantastic and inaccurate reports.” [Fury, 2008, pp. 57-60]

In a series of stages, air traffic control managers ban aircraft from flying near the cities targeted by the hijackers. All takeoffs and landings in New York City are halted within two minutes of the Flight 175 crash (see 9:05 a.m. September 11, 2001). Mike McCormick, the air traffic control manager at the FAA’s New York Center, makes the decision. The FAA’s Boston Center follows suit in the next few minutes. Around 9:08 a.m.-9:11 a.m., departures nationwide heading to or through the New York and Boston regions’ airspace are canceled. [Associated Press, 8/12/2002; USA Today, 8/13/2002; Associated Press, 8/21/2002; Newsday, 9/10/2002] In addition, “a few minutes” after 9:03 a.m., all takeoffs from Washington Reagan National Airport are stopped. [USA Today, 8/11/2002]

Mike Cosby. [Source: US Department of Defense]Two fighter jets at a New Jersey military unit that are about to launch for training are recalled to respond to the attacks in New York, but will not be airborne until after the Pentagon is hit. The two F-16s belong to the 177th Fighter Wing, located at Atlantic City International Airport, and are only loaded with BDUs (practice bombs) for their routine training mission. [Code One Magazine, 10/2002] Colonel James Haye, the supervisor of flying (SOF) at the 177th FW, was informed of the first aircraft hitting the World Trade Center, and then went to a nearby television to see the footage of the burning North Tower. He’d alerted Lt. Col. Randall King, one of the base’s pilots, who was in the same room as him. King, who is an experienced commercial pilot, said: “Whoever was at the controls did that on purpose. That is no accidental crash! And that was no small airplane!” After watching the television coverage for several minutes, Haye sets about putting the scheduled training mission on hold. [Spencer, 2008, pp. 58-59 and 120] As they are taxiing to the runway, the two fighters preparing to launch are told to stop and return to the flight line (the parking and servicing area for aircraft). Personnel at the base then set about removing the training munitions and arming the planes with live missiles. Major Tom Cleary, one of the pilots, will later recall, “We launched almost immediately after the Pentagon was hit.” However, apparently his aircraft will not be properly armed. He recalls, “I was still carrying training munitions, but I had live guns.” Col. Mike Cosby, the commander of the 177th FW, indicates the jets may not launch until slightly later, saying, “We were airborne within the hour after the Pentagon attack.” Later on, four F-16s with live missiles will be launched from the unit, followed by another four, also with live missiles. According to Cosby, “We were the first non-alert unit to fly armed ordnance over the Northeast corridor anywhere the Northeast Sector of NORAD wanted us to fly, between New York City and Washington, DC.” [Code One Magazine, 10/2002] Two F-16s with the 177th FW have been airborne already this morning, practicing bombing runs near Atlantic City, and are called back to base following the attacks on the WTC to be re-fitted with live missiles and then re-launched (see 8:46 a.m.-9:03 a.m. September 11, 2001). [Bergen Record, 12/5/2003]

At the CIA’s Langley headquarters, Deputy Director for Operations James Pavitt has arrived back at his office after attending an 8:30 a.m. meeting in the agency’s conference room (see (8:48 a.m.) September 11, 2001). The second WTC tower has already been hit by this time. Pavitt sends a message to all CIA stations, saying, “I expect each station and each officer to redouble efforts of collecting intelligence on this tragedy.” Mary, the CIA’s New York station chief, calls him. In this call, Pavitt and Mary agree that Osama bin Laden is behind the attack. According to journalist and author Ronald Kessler, they believe that “Its scope, temerity, degree of planning, and viciousness fit his way of operating.” [Kessler, 2003, pp. 202-204]

The head of the agency that provides security at the Pentagon informs another military employee that the Pentagon is unprotected against an aerial attack. In reaction to the news of the attacks on New York, Army Deputy Administrative Assistant Sandra Riley telephones John Jester, the chief of the Defense Protective Service (DPS)—the law enforcement agency that guards the Pentagon. She asks him, “What do we have in place to protect from an airplane?” He tells her, “Nothing.” According to the Defense Department’s book about the Pentagon attack: “The Pentagon did not have an antiaircraft system on the roof of the building or on the grounds. Even if DPS had received word of an inbound plane, it had no plan to counter a suicide air attack. Had a warning been issued in time, DPS’s only effective response would have been evacuation and dispersal of the building’s occupants.” [Goldberg et al., 2007, pp. 152] The Washington Post will similarly claim the Pentagon has “no anti-aircraft guns posted on its roof, nor any radars of its own for tracking local air traffic.” [Washington Post, 9/16/2001] Yet, at the nearby White House, the Secret Service is believed to have a battery of ground-to-air Stinger missiles ready to defend the place. [Daily Telegraph, 9/16/2001]

After the second WTC tower is hit, NBC News correspondent Jim Miklaszewski is heading down a hall inside the Pentagon when he runs into a Defense Department official. The official says he doesn’t yet know anything specific about the attack. But, he says, it is so coordinated that “[i]f I were you I would stay off the E-ring [the outermost corridor of the Pentagon] today, because we’re next.” According to Miklaszewski, the official had no specific information, “that was just his gut instinct.” [Gilbert et al., 2002, pp. 43]

Jeffrey Hathaway. [Source: US Department of Defense]Rear Admiral Jeffrey Hathaway of the US Coast Guard is presently temporarily assigned to the Navy Command Center at the Pentagon. For about the last two months, he has been in charge of Navy Anti-Terrorism Force Protection. He’d been at the Command Center earlier on for the morning briefings, but headed back to Coast Guard headquarters at about 8 a.m. He’d been aware of the first plane hitting the WTC, yet, despite his specific anti-terrorism role, apparently did not know immediately that the US was under terrorist attack. He later says it was only “apparent to me after I found out that the second plane had flown into the World Trade Center that the first one was not an accident, and that there was some sort of a coordinated attack.” Furthermore, he will claim, “No one knew where it was coming from. It could have been domestic terrorists for all we knew. No one knew why.” He claims there were no indicators that such an attack was imminent, saying, “There were general indicators in the air of general threats; nothing that was in my role that would have indicated hijacked airliners INCONUS [in the continental US].… There was very little attention being paid to anti-terrorism efforts INCONUS for the Navy. We were mostly focused on the fallout from the USS Cole bombing in Yemen.” [US Coast Guard, 6/20/2002 ; National Defense Magazine, 6/2003]

Military officers exchanging the ‘nuclear football’ under the nose of Air Force One. [Source: J. Scott Applewhite / Associated Press]Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Gould, a military aide who is accompanying President Bush on his visit to Florida, promptly arranges for Air Force One to leave Sarasota after he learns that a second plane has hit the World Trade Center. Gould, one of the president’s five military aides, is currently off duty for a few hours and at the resort on Longboat Key where Bush spent the previous night (see September 10, 2001), while another military aide, Major Paul Montanus, is with Bush at the Emma E. Booker Elementary School in Sarasota. Gould was alerted to the first crash at the WTC but thought it was an accident (see Shortly After 8:46 a.m. September 11, 2001). He is talking on the phone with his wife and watching the coverage of the crash on television when a second plane, Flight 175, hits the WTC at 9:03 a.m. (see 9:03 a.m. September 11, 2001). Realizing this must be a deliberate act, Gould abruptly ends the call with his wife. “At that point I know something has happened,” he will later recall. “It’s bigger than an accident. It’s an attack of some sort. I don’t think I thought through what kind of attack it was, but I knew it was something concerted.” Gould has tactical control of all the military assets that support the president, including presidential aircraft, and he has the ability to move assets on behalf of the president. He therefore calls Colonel Mark Tillman, the pilot of Air Force One, immediately and tells him to get the president’s plane and its crew ready to depart as soon as possible. He then heads to the Sarasota airport, getting there at around 9:30 a.m. After the president’s motorcade arrives at the airport at 9:43 a.m. (see 9:43 a.m. September 11, 2001), Gould meets Montanus under the nose of Air Force One. Following strict protocol, Montanus gives Gould the “nuclear football”—a briefcase carried by the president’s military aide that holds the codes and plans necessary for the president to initiate a nuclear attack. Gould will be on Air Force One with the president when the plane takes off (see 9:54 a.m. September 11, 2001), but Montanus will stay behind in Sarasota, as is procedure. [Lompoc Record, 9/11/2011; Santa Barbara News-Press, 9/11/2011]

Vice President Dick Cheney sees the second plane hitting the World Trade Center live on television while meeting with his speechwriter John McConnell. He later claims that several other officials then come and join him in his White House office: National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, political adviser Mary Matalin, and his chief of staff, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, who has come across from the Old Executive Office Building next door to the White House. [Meet the Press, 9/16/2001] According to journalist and author Stephen Hayes, “As word of the attacks spread throughout the West Wing, many White House officials migrated to Cheney’s office.” As well as Rice, Libby, and Matalin, these include Sean O’Keefe, the deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget; Josh Bolten, the deputy White House chief of staff; and counterterrorism “tsar” Richard Clarke. [Hayes, 2007, pp. 332] However, other accounts contradict this. Clarke claims that when he arrives at the White House shortly after 9:03, he sees the vice president and Rice, but the two are “alone in Cheney’s office” (see (9:05 a.m.) September 11, 2001). (It is possible, though, that the other officials only arrive after Clarke ends his brief visit to the vice president’s office.) [Clarke, 2004, pp. 1-2] In numerous interviews where she discusses her actions this morning, Rice makes no mention of heading to Cheney’s office after the second tower is hit. [O, the Oprah Magazine, 2/1/2002; BBC Radio 4, 8/1/2002 ; Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 9/11/2002; MSNBC, 9/11/2002; New York Times, 9/11/2002] Also, according to some accounts, the Secret Service evacuates Cheney from his office shortly after the second attack occurs (see (Shortly After 9:03 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [New York Times, 9/13/2001; ABC News, 9/14/2002] Cheney claims that President Bush phones him around this time, while he is still in his office. [Meet the Press, 9/16/2001] But according to White House adviser Karl Rove, who is with the president in Florida, Bush is unable to reach the vice president because Cheney is being evacuated from his office (see (9:16 a.m.-9:29 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [MSNBC, 9/11/2002]

Edmund Giambastiani, Jr. [Source: US Department of Defense]Navy Vice Admiral Edmund Giambastiani Jr., who is Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s senior military assistant, returned to his office after attending a breakfast meeting hosted by the secretary of defense (see (8:00 a.m.-8:50 a.m.) September 11, 2001). After learning the second WTC tower has been hit, he says, he realizes “it [is] no longer an accident.” Stephen Cambone, who is Rumsfeld’s closest aide, comes to Giambastiani’s office, which is located near to the defense secretary’s office. Reportedly, he is there “to discuss the Pentagon as a potential target and their course of action if it was attacked.” Then, “Minutes later,” the attack on the Pentagon occurs. [American Forces Press Service, 9/8/2006] Cambone is also reported as being at the Pentagon’s Executive Support Center (ESC), located down the hallway from Rumsfeld’s office, some time between when the attacks on the South Tower and the Pentagon occur (see Shortly After 9:03 a.m. September 11, 2001). [Clarke, 2006, pp. 219-220] It is unclear whether he goes to the ESC before meeting with Giambastiani, or afterwards. Despite Cambone’s concern that the Pentagon could be a target, no attempt is made to evacuate the place before it is struck (see Before 9:37 a.m. September 11, 2001), and it does not appear that any alarms are sounded either. [Newsday, 9/23/2001]

Shortly after the second attack on the World Trade Center, FBI agents call the FAA’s Cleveland Center and warn air traffic controllers there to keep an eye on Delta Air Lines Flight 1989. According to USA Today, controllers at the Cleveland Center, which is tracking Delta 1989, have already been watching this flight, and, like the FBI, suspect “that terrorists plan to hijack [it] next.” Although Delta 1989 is not showing any signs of being hijacked, the reason for their suspicion is that it has many similarities to the two aircraft that hit the World Trade Center: it is also a Boeing 767, heavy with fuel, and had taken off from Boston’s Logan Airport around the same time as they did. [USA Today, 8/13/2002] At 9:27 a.m., the FAA’s Boston Center will—apparently mistakenly—report that Delta 1989 is missing (see 9:27 a.m. September 11, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 5/23/2003] And at around 9:30 a.m., Cleveland Center controllers will mistakenly conclude that it has been hijacked (see (9:28 a.m.-9:33 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [USA Today, 8/13/2002]

Brian Meenan. [Source: US Air Force]The Air Traffic Services Cell (ATSC)—a small office at the FAA’s Command Center in Herndon, Virginia, manned by military reservists—is activated.
Officers Learn of Attacks - Three officers are currently on duty in the ATSC: Colonel John Czabaranek, Lieutenant Colonel Michael-Anne Cherry, and Major Kevin Bridges. Colonel Brian Meenan, the director of the cell, is not in the ATSC at this time, and so Czabaranek, his deputy, is currently in charge. Czabaranek, Cherry, and Bridges learned of the first attack in New York at around 8:55 a.m. when another employee at the Command Center told them to turn on CNN, because an aircraft had crashed into the World Trade Center. The three officers initially thought the crash was an accident, but realized it was not when they saw the second aircraft hitting the WTC at 9:03 a.m. They then established contact with the Air Force Ops Center.
Cell Activated, Though Timing Unclear - The ATSC is activated, although the exact time this happens at is unclear. According to Aviation Week and Space Technology magazine, the cell “quickly became a key communications node during the military’s response to [the] terrorist attacks.” [US Air Force, 9/11/2001; Aviation Week and Space Technology, 6/10/2002] Jeff Griffith, the FAA’s deputy director of air traffic control, will tell the 9/11 Commission that “the military officers assigned to the Air Traffic Services Cell became immediately involved in coordinating FAA… Command Center actions with military elements.” [9/11 Commission, 6/9/2004 ] According to a chronology of the ATSC’s actions on this day, calls to activate the cell are apparently made at unspecified times following the second attack in New York and before the FAA’s ground stop (at 9:26 a.m.). These calls are made by a Lieutenant Colonel Mahoney and a Colonel Litzenberger from the Air Force Ops Center. Apparently shortly after the calls are made, Czabaranek contacts NORAD to let it know that the ATSC is “up and running.” [US Air Force, 9/11/2001]
Military Cell Aided by Recently-Installed Hardware - The ATSC’s response to the terrorist attacks benefits from the fact that, six weeks earlier, the cell had a secure terminal to access the SIPRNET—the military’s classified version of the Internet—installed, along with other hardware, which significantly enhances the movement of vital information. According to Meenan, because the cell has the SIPRNET terminal, “we could immediately look at NORAD and [Defense Department] plans as they evolved; filter, package, and format them, then walk out to the [FAA] national operations manager—who had control of the entire national airspace system—and give him current visibility into… fighter, tanker, and support aircraft activities. It cut down our response time tremendously.” [Aviation Week and Space Technology, 6/10/2002]
ATSC Is a Bridge between FAA and Military - The ATSC is a “part-time military outfit, staffed by part-time Air Force Reserve members” who “provide a bridge between the civilian and military worlds when air traffic issues arise,” according to the Air Force Times. For example, “During a crisis, the armed forces suddenly may need to inject a large number of military airplanes into a sky that typically handles only a few hundred.” [Air Force Times, 2000] However, Czabaranek will tell the 9/11 Commission that the ATSC is “not part of [the] FAA/NORAD hijack notification process.” [9/11 Commission, 4/14/2004]
Presence of ATSC Officers a 'Fluke' - According to Aviation Week and Space Technology, the presence of the three ATSC officers at the FAA Command Center this morning is a “fluke,” since the Pentagon staffs the military cell “only three days per month for refresher training, but September 11 happened to be one of those days.” [Aviation Week and Space Technology, 12/17/2001]
Cell Handles Aircraft after Airspace Shut Down - Later in the day, after the national airspace has been shut down (see (9:45 a.m.) September 11, 2001), the ATSC personnel will coordinate actions relating to military and other special flights that are permitted to fly. [9/11 Commission, 2003] They will be responsible for validating the requests they receive for the movement of aircraft, and issuing permissions in response to those requests. [Federal Aviation Administration, 3/21/2002 ]

Liz Cheney, Vice President Dick Cheney’s eldest daughter, calls her father and tells him a plane has hit the World Trade Center, but he is already aware of both crashes in New York. [Hayes, 2007, pp. 330-332] The vice president, who is in his office at the White House, was informed of the first crash at the WTC (see (Between 8:48 a.m. and 9:00 a.m.) September 11, 2001) and watched the second crash live on television. [Meet the Press, 9/16/2001] Liz Cheney heard about the first crash on her car radio and now phones her father on his private line. She says to him, “A plane has hit the World Trade Center.” He replies: “Two planes have hit. It’s a terrorist attack.” Dick Cheney tells his daughter, “I’ve got to go,” before ending the call. The vice president then picks up a phone with a direct line to President Bush, according to journalist and author Stephen Hayes. He tells the person who answers, “I need to talk to the president,” and then promptly hangs up. [Hayes, 2007, pp. 331-332]

After the second World Trade Center crash at 9:03 a.m., air traffic controllers at the FAA’s New York Center are told by their supervisors to watch for airplanes whose speed indicates that they are jets, but which either are not responding to commands or have disabled their transponders. Controllers in Washington receive a similar briefing, which will help them pick out hijacked planes more quickly. [New York Times, 9/13/2001] Whether controllers at other FAA air traffic control centers receive similar instructions at this time is unclear, but those at its Indianapolis Center, which is handling Flight 77, are apparently not informed by their supervisors of the unfolding crisis. [9/11 Commission, 6/17/2004; Spencer, 2008, pp. 105-107]

Nelson Garabito. [Source: CNN]A senior Secret Service agent at the White House establishes a direct phone line with his counterpart at the FAA and is told there are more suspect planes that are unaccounted for, but this information supposedly does not lead to the evacuation of the vice president from his White House office.
Secret Service Liaison Calls FAA - Secret Service agent Nelson Garabito, who is responsible for coordinating the president’s movements and is also the agency’s liaison to the FAA, is at the Secret Service Joint Operations Center (JOC) at the White House, attending a 9:00 a.m. meeting. After seeing the second attack on the World Trade Center on television, he calls Terry Van Steenbergen, his counterpart at the FAA. According to Garabito, the TV’s sound is off, so it takes a few minutes before he realizes a second plane has hit the WTC and makes the call. But Van Steenbergen, who is at FAA headquarters in Washington, DC, will say Garabito calls him “within 30 seconds” of the attack.
Warning Not Passed On - Shortly into the call, Van Steenbergen tells Garabito there are two unaccounted for planes that are possibly hijacked, in addition to the two that have crashed into the WTC. Garabito tells someone with him to run upstairs and pass this information on to other Secret Service agents, but, according to the 9/11 Commission, “it either was not passed on or was passed on but not disseminated.” As a result, Van Steenbergen’s information “failed to reach agents assigned to the vice president, and the vice president was not evacuated at that time.” [9/11 Commission, 7/28/2003, pp. 9-11; 9/11 Commission, 3/30/2004; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 464]
Conflicting Evacuation Times - According to the 9/11 Commission, the Secret Service does not evacuate Vice President Dick Cheney from his office at the White House until “just before 9:36.” [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 39] However, some accounts will say Cheney is evacuated around the time of the second attack on the WTC (see (Shortly After 9:03 a.m.) September 11, 2001), which would suggest that Van Steenbergen’s information is indeed passed on and disseminated. [New York Times, 9/13/2001; ABC News, 9/14/2002] Garabito and Van Steenbergen will remain in contact over the phone—via a direct line, not a conference call—for the next 14 hours. Garabito feeds information to Van Steenbergen, though Van Steenbergen does not know how Garabito is getting this information. [9/11 Commission, 3/30/2004]

In the Building Operations Command Center (BOCC) inside the Pentagon, Steve Carter and his team are watching the unfolding events in New York on one of the center’s monitors. [Plugged In Quarterly, 3/2002, pp. 4-5 ] As the assistant building manager, Carter is responsible for the operation and maintenance of the Pentagon. [CNN, 3/5/2002] The BOCC, which is staffed 24 hours a day, seven days a week, is where systems such as lighting, heating, fire safety, and security for the Pentagon all come together “through a network of thousands of sensors, actuators, and controllers.” According to Chuck Holland, a technical manager, it “has three eight-foot screens back-to-back that monitor everything.… Anything that happens inside and outside the building, we watch it.” [IEEE Spectrum, 8/2003; Engineer Update, 6/2007] After seeing the television footage of the second WTC tower being hit, Carter tells his assistant: “That’s not an accident. We have an event going.” According to some accounts, he and his team immediately begin lockdowns, securing all the mechanical and electrical areas within the Pentagon. They also begin searching for unauthorized people and unusual packages. [Plugged In Quarterly, 3/2002, pp. 4-5 ; Hi-Tech Security Solutions, 10/2004; Vogel, 2007, pp. 429] However, a report in the Washington Post suggests their response is less determined. It states that, after the second WTC crash, Carter “grew uneasy and called his boss to suggest they begin locking down electrical and mechanical rooms in the Pentagon in the event that officials upgraded building security.” The report does not say whether these actions are implemented before the Pentagon is hit at 9:37 a.m. [Washington Post, 9/11/2006] Carter also telephones the Pentagon’s Defense Protective Service and is informed that the threat condition for the building remains at “Normal” (see Shortly After 9:03 a.m. September 11, 2001). He is told that if it should change, DPS will notify the center. [Goldberg et al., 2007, pp. 137] No steps are taken to evacuate the Pentagon or alert workers before it is attacked. [Vogel, 2007, pp. 429]

James Scott, a Secret Service special agent assigned to the vice presidential protective division, learns of the second plane crash at the World Trade Center and realizes this is a terrorist attack, but reportedly makes no attempt to evacuate Vice President Dick Cheney from his White House office at this time. Scott is the “on-duty shift whip” for Cheney’s Secret Service detail. He has seen the TV coverage of the first crash in New York and contacted Secret Service agents who are members of the “working shift” protecting Cheney to alert them to the incident (see (Shortly After 8:48 a.m.) September 11, 2001). After Flight 175 crashes into the WTC at 9:03 a.m. (see 9:03 a.m. September 11, 2001), Scott confers with the on-duty supervisor who is with him. This is apparently Assistant Special Agent in Charge Scott Johnson. The two men are now “[c]ertain that the airplane crashes were terrorist activities,” they will later recall. They therefore discuss “emergency contingency plans and a heightened security alert.” [United States Secret Service, 10/1/2001] However, Scott will only head to the West Wing of the White House and join the shift agents there at around 9:30 a.m. (see (9:30 a.m.) September 11, 2001). And, he will say, he only evacuates Cheney from his office in the West Wing some time after that, apparently around 9:36 a.m. (see (9:36 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [United States Secret Service, 10/1/2001; United States Secret Service, 11/17/2001 ]

National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice is informed of the second plane hitting the World Trade Center and immediately realizes it is a terrorist attack. Rice’s executive assistant, Army Lieutenant Colonel Tony Crawford, informed Rice of the first crash shortly before 9:00 a.m. while she was in her office at the White House, but, Rice will later say, she had thought it was a “strange accident” (see Shortly After 8:46 a.m. September 11, 2001). Rice had gone down to the conference area of the White House Situation Room for her daily meeting with her top aides. [MSNBC, 9/11/2002; Bumiller, 2007, pp. xi-xii] According to her own later recollections, a few minutes into this meeting, Crawford comes in and hands her a note saying a second plane has hit the WTC. Rice will comment: “I thought, ‘My God, this is a terrorist attack.‘… I knew right away, right away, because that—that couldn’t be coincidence that two planes had hit the World Trade Center that morning.” She gets up and tells Anna Perez, her communications counselor who is with her in the meeting, “Find Dick Clarke,” referring to the White House counterterrorism chief. [White House, 10/24/2001; PBS Frontline, 7/12/2002; MSNBC, 9/11/2002] According to Perez’s later recollection, Rice also tells the others in the room about the second plane hitting the WTC. [White House, 11/1/2001] After saying to her staff, “I have to go,” Rice abruptly heads out. [Newsweek, 12/30/2001] However, Josh Bolten, the deputy White House chief of staff, will contradict Rice’s account and say that he, not Crawford, alerts Rice to the second crash at the WTC. Bolten will recall that he learned of the crash while in the Situation Room and then, realizing it was not an accident, walks into the conference area where Rice is holding her meeting. He asks Rice to step outside the room for a minute and then tells her, “A second plane has hit; this is not an accident, it is an attack” (see (9:03 a.m.-9:05 a.m.) September 11, 2001). Vice President Dick Cheney, Bolten, and Clarke will indicate that Rice initially goes from her staff meeting to Cheney’s office (see (Shortly After 9:03 a.m.) September 11, 2001 and (9:05 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [NBC, 9/16/2001; Clarke, 2004, pp. 1-2; C-SPAN, 10/6/2013] But in her own recollections, Rice will make no mention of this, saying that she goes straight from the conference area to the Situation Room’s operations center, intending to assemble a crisis meeting of the national security team (see (9:05 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [O, the Oprah Magazine, 2/1/2002; PBS Frontline, 7/12/2002; BBC Radio 4, 8/1/2002 ; MSNBC, 9/11/2002; Bumiller, 2007, pp. xii]

In the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) comptroller’s office, on the first floor of the Pentagon’s C-ring, workers are reportedly uneasy at the news of the plane crashes in New York. However, Paul Gonzales, a retired Navy commander who is now a supervisor there, confidently declares that the Pentagon is probably the safest building in the world. So by 9:30 a.m., most of the workers in his section will be settling back to their usual business. The DIA comptroller’s office is one of the areas impacted when the Pentagon is hit at 9:37 (see 9:37 a.m. September 11, 2001). Of the 18 workers there, seven will die and five others will be hospitalized. [Washington Post, 3/11/2002; Vogel, 2007, pp. 429; Tennessean, 9/11/2007]

Commanders at Otis Air National Guard Base in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, begin taking decisive action following the second attack on the World Trade Center. [Spencer, 2008, pp. 153-154] The commanders learned of the attacks in New York from watching the coverage on television. After the second WTC tower was hit, one of them had ordered the base’s battle staff to assemble (see (8:56 a.m.-9:04 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [Spencer, 2008, pp. 87-88]
Commanders Gather in Operations Center - The commanders now convene in the base’s operations building. As officers take their posts, the installation operations center (IOC) there comes to life. In the glass-enclosed battle cab that is at the core of the IOC, senior commanders gather around a large conference table, which overlooks the two main operations centers: these are the command post, from where the air war is coordinated, and the survival recovery center, which handles support functions such as security, food, and medical care.
Commanders Take Pre-Emptive Action - Senior commanders confer with intelligence officers who are with them in the battle cab, over what to do in response to the crisis. Lieutenant Colonel Paul Worcester, the logistics group commander of the 102nd Fighter Wing, which is based at Otis, says, “We need to start doing some things preemptively.” Author Lynn Spencer will describe: “The Otis commanders decided to ‘lean forward’ in anticipation of what they might be called upon to do. But there has never been an air attack on America, and there is no protocol in place to tell them how to respond. They knew intuitively that they could not wait on guidance from the higher echelons of NORAD. This attack could easily expand, and they needed to be prepared.” The senior commanders quickly establish their agenda, which is to recall all the base’s training flights, and begin loading fuel and weapons onto all available fighter jets. According to Spencer, “The officers smoothly undertook the task of transitioning to a wartime posture.” [Spencer, 2008, pp. 153-154] A number of jets that are out on a training mission will be recalled to the base (see (9:25 a.m.-9:45 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [Cape Cod Times, 9/11/2006; Spencer, 2008, pp. 155]

Larry Cockell. [Source: Saint Louis University]Brian Stafford, the director of the Secret Service, activates the Director’s Crisis Center (DCC) at Secret Service headquarters in order to manage the Secret Service’s response to the terrorist attacks. [Secret Service, 9/11/2001; United States Secret Service, 10/1/2001] The DCC is located on the ninth floor of the Secret Service headquarters in Washington, DC, and is used to direct operations in emergencies. [Kessler, 2009, pp. 23-24] It is unclear exactly when it is activated. Larry Cockell, the deputy director of the Secret Service, will later say that the crisis center is activated after he receives “a call from the duty desk” informing him “that we were getting intelligence that there was a potential hijacking.” [Peter Schnall, 10/24/2004] According to a Secret Service timeline provided to the 9/11 Commission, it is activated at 9:00 a.m. [Secret Service, 9/11/2001] But Danny Spriggs, the assistant director of the Secret Service’s Office of Protective Operations, will say that Stafford makes the decision to activate the DCC “after the two airplanes crashed into the World Trade Center towers,” meaning some time after 9:03 a.m. [United States Secret Service, 10/1/2001] Stafford apparently thought the first crash at the WTC (see 8:46 a.m. September 11, 2001) was accidental, and only realized a terrorist attack was under way when the second plane hit the WTC at 9:03 a.m. (see 9:03 a.m. September 11, 2001). “I thought and hoped that it was an accident,” he will recall. “But when the second one hit, we knew that it wasn’t.” [Peter Schnall, 10/24/2004] Spriggs will say that when he arrives at the DCC, at around 9:35 a.m., Stafford and Cockell are already there (see (9:35 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [United States Secret Service, 10/1/2001] However, although the DCC is activated now, the Secret Service will not implement an “emergency call-up” of all its personnel until after 9:37 a.m., when the Pentagon is hit (see After 9:37 a.m. September 11, 2001). [US News and World Report, 12/1/2002]

American Airlines and the FAA Command Center discuss the hijacking of Flight 77 again, apparently at some point between when Flight 175 hits the World Trade Center at 9:03 (see 9:03 a.m. September 11, 2001) and Flight 77 hits the Pentagon at 9:37 (see 9:37 a.m. September 11, 2001). Although American Airlines was initially informed of the hijacking by the FAA (see 8:58 a.m. September 11, 2001 and 9:02 a.m. September 11, 2001), at this point an American Airlines employee calls an FAA employee and tells him that Flight 77 has been hijacked. The FAA employee appears to be unaware of this hijacking, as, when he is told that American Airlines is missing a second plane (in addition to Flight 11, which has hit the World Trade Center) he asks for the flight number and inquires when the company last knew something about the flight. The American Airlines employee responds by saying, “we were talking to them according to Indianapolis Center about 45 minutes ago.” As the last recorded communication with Flight 77 was as at 8:51 (see 8:51 a.m. September 11, 2001), this would put this conversation at around 9:36. However, this conversation is part of a transcript of discussions by FAA employees and others, and in the transcript it appears shortly after the first mention of Flight 175’s crash at 9:03, indicating it may have occurred earlier than 9:36. [Federal Aviation Administration, 10/14/2003, pp. 19-21 ]

People in the vicinity of the Pentagon, including the managers of the high USA Today building, phone the local emergency call center, with concerns about their own safety. [Creed and Newman, 2008, pp. 48; McClatchy Washington Bureau, 2008] The Emergency Communications Center (ECC) is the focal point of all police and fire 911 calls for Arlington County, where the Pentagon is located. [Goldberg et al., 2007, pp. 66] After events in New York make it clear the US is under attack, the phones there light up with calls from local people wanting to know what to do. [Creed and Newman, 2008, pp. 48] According to Assistant Chief James Schwartz of the Arlington County Fire Department, the center is “receiving phone calls from buildings that are along the [Potomac] river and are also along the flight path for [Washington’s Reagan] National Airport,” which is about a mile from the Pentagon. [McClatchy Washington Bureau, 2008]
USA Today Building Managers Concerned - Among the callers to the ECC are the building managers at the USA Today building in Rosslyn, who are worried their complex could be a target and want to know if they should evacuate it. [Creed and Newman, 2008, pp. 48] The USA Today complex is just a few miles down the road from the Pentagon. [USA Today, 9/13/2001] It includes the two tallest high-rise buildings in the county, one of which is 30-stories high. [Washington Business Journal, 9/11/2001; Creed and Newman, 2008, pp. 9] These two buildings are in fact known as the “Twin Towers.” [Washington Business Journal, 9/7/2001]
ECC Suggests Evacuation - The ECC has no specific guidance it can offer the building managers, but tells them that if it makes them feel better, based on what they are seeing on television, then they should evacuate their building. [McClatchy Washington Bureau, 2008] Some employees will begin evacuating from the USA Today building after the Pentagon is hit at 9:37. However, Westfield Realty, the company that owns the building, will not ask the tenants to evacuate until around 11:00 a.m. [Washington Business Journal, 9/11/2001; Washington Business Journal, 9/14/2001]
Firefighters Think USA Today Building Is a Possible Target - Around the time that the ECC is receiving calls from concerned people in the area, firefighters at a local fire station who have seen the television footage of the attacks in New York start speculating what landmarks terrorists might go for if they attacked northern Virginia. The firefighters in fact see the USA Today complex as the most obvious target, but they also consider the Pentagon, CIA headquarters, the White House, and the Capitol building to be potential targets. [Creed and Newman, 2008, pp. 9-10] Just before the time of the Pentagon attack, a fire alarm will go off at the USA Today building, though it is unclear whether this is actually caused by a fire there (see (Shortly Before 9:37 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [McClatchy Washington Bureau, 2008]

Linda Schuessler. [Source: Robert A. Reeder / Washington Post]After staff members at the FAA’s Command Center in Herndon, Virginia, see the second attack on the World Trade Center live on CNN, Linda Schuessler, the deputy director of system operations there, makes the decision to secure the center in order to protect the building and its occupants. The Command Center’s doors are locked and all non-FAA personnel are ordered to leave the premises immediately. [Freni, 2003, pp. 64; Spencer, 2008, pp. 80-81] Schuessler will later say her reason for doing this is “because we didn’t know exactly what the situation was and what was going on.” [Aviation Week and Space Technology, 12/17/2001] At some point early on, she also assigns a member of staff to each manager at the Command Center, to be a note-taker and keep a record of every decision and order given by that manager. She realizes that documentation of all actions will be crucial for later recreating the day’s events. [Freni, 2003, pp. 65]
FAA Managers Gather Information - Schuessler will recall that, following the second attack, those in the Command Center start receiving information from FAA field facilities, “about unusual things that were going on.” National operations manager Ben Sliney, three first-level supervisors, and Schuessler are involved in gathering together information from around the country that the specialists at the Command Center are receiving. Schuessler will recall, “Every few minutes, we would gather in the middle of the operational floor and share the information and discuss what some of our options might be, what we needed to be doing.” [Aviation Week and Space Technology, 12/17/2001; Freni, 2003, pp. 64]
Schuessler Standing in for Absent Manager - Linda Schuessler has come to the Command Center after working at FAA headquarters, and lacks operation-level experience there. [Spencer, 2008, pp. 81] She is in charge of the Command Center this morning only because Jack Kies, the FAA’s manager of tactical operations, who would normally be in charge, is away for a meeting in Nashua, New Hampshire (see 8:30 a.m. September 11, 2001). [Freni, 2003, pp. 65-66; Federal Aviation Administration, 5/18/2006] According to author Lynn Spencer, Schuessler therefore focuses on staying out of Ben Sliney’s way, and taking care of administrative tasks. [Spencer, 2008, pp. 81]

The 1st Fighter Wing at Langley Air Force Base, Virginia, receives notification from NORAD of an increased Information Operations Condition (Infocon) threat level. The message from NORAD directs the 1st Fighter Wing command post to upgrade the Infocon computer security level from Normal to Alpha. According to the wing’s own records, this is “the first message correspondence” the wing receives “to indicate that September 11th would not be an average day.” [1st Fighter Wing History Office, 12/2001] Steps to be taken under Infocon Alpha reportedly include “changing passwords, updating keys used to create classified communication lines, minimizing cell phone use, backing up important documents on hard drive, updating virus protection on home computers, reporting suspicious activity, and reviewing checklists.” [Colorado Springs Gazette, 5/3/2001]
Five Security Levels - The Infocon system provides a structured, coordinated approach for defending against and reacting to attacks on Defense Department systems and networks. It comprises five levels of threat, each with its own protective procedures. These levels go from Normal, through Alpha, Bravo, and Charlie, up to Delta. [IAnewsletter, 12/2000 ; General Accounting Office, 3/29/2001 ] General Ralph Eberhart, the commander of both the US Space Command and NORAD, is responsible for evaluating the threat to military computers and issuing information conditions—“Infocons”—to the US military. [Colorado Springs Gazette, 5/3/2001] He is presumably therefore responsible for currently raising the Infocon level.
Threat Level Lowered on Previous Evening - The Infocon level was in fact lowered to Normal the previous evening, reportedly because of a reduced threat to US computer networks from hacker and virus attacks (see September 10, 2001). [1st Fighter Wing History Office, 12/2001] The 1st Fighter Wing is the “host unit” at Langley Air Force Base, which is about 130 miles from Washington, DC. It includes three fighter squadrons, which fly the F-15 Eagle fighter jet. [Virginian-Pilot, 9/20/2001; Langley Air Force Base, 11/2003; Air Force Print News, 11/9/2006]

Joseph Esposito. [Source: NYPD]Soon after the second plane hits the World Trade Center, the New York Police Department (NYPD) Chief of Department Joseph Esposito calls for the initiation of something called Operation Omega. This puts New York on the highest state of alert, and requires the protection of sensitive locations around the city. NYPD headquarters is secured and all other government buildings are evacuated. [9/11 Commission, 5/18/2004 ; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 302] Operation Omega is reportedly still in effect a month later. [New York Post, 10/6/2001]

Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz has recently left a meeting with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld around 8:46 a.m. (see (Before 8:46 a.m.) September 11, 2001). Wolfowitz will later recall: “We were having a meeting in my office. Someone said a plane had hit the World Trade Center. Then we turned on the television and we started seeing the shots of the second plane hitting, and this is the way I remember it. It’s a little fuzzy.… There didn’t seem to be much to do about it immediately and we went on with whatever the meeting was.” [Vanity Fair, 5/9/2003] Around this time, Rumsfeld is receiving an intelligence briefing from Denny Watson, his regular CIA briefer. [Rumsfeld, 2011, pp. 335] Rumsfeld will recall, “I was in my office with a CIA briefer and I was told that a second plane had hit the other tower.” [9/11 Commission, 3/23/2004] Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs Victoria Clarke headed to Rumsfeld’s office right after the second plane hit. She will recall: “A couple of us had gone into… Secretary Rumsfeld’s office, to alert him to that, tell him that the crisis management process was starting up. He wanted to make a few phone calls.” Rumsfeld tells Clarke and his personal chief of staff, Larry Di Rita, who is with her, to go to the Executive Support Center (ESC) located near his office and wait for him. “In the meantime, he would get his daily intelligence briefing, which was already scheduled for nine thirty.” Di Rita and Clarke head off down the hallway to the ESC, while Rumsfeld stays in his office. Apparently Rumsfeld will not go to the ESC until around 10:15 a.m. (see (10:00 a.m.-10:30 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [WBZ Radio 1030 (Boston), 9/15/2001; Clarke, 2006, pp. 218-219]

John Glenn. [Source: John Glenn Archives, Ohio State University]Despite being a potential target for terrorists, the US Capitol building in Washington is not evacuated when the second World Trade Center tower is hit and it is clear the US is under attack. [CNN, 9/11/2002] Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-SD) is in the lobby of his office at the Capitol, and some of his staff members there are watching the television coverage of events in New York. Daschle has already been told about the first plane hitting the WTC, and then sees the second one hitting the South Tower live on television. As Daschle later recalls, he now realizes, “This is an attack.” Former Senator John Glenn (D-OH), who has stopped by to say hello to Daschle, now warns him: “I’m not sure you ought to be here. This would be a logical target.” Indeed, Daschle will later comment, “I’ve heard people observe since that day what a prime target the Capitol building makes for such an air attack—this brilliant white structure perched on its own terraced hill, its dome outlined against the sky, with the broad, sprawling expanse of the Mall leading up to it like a long open runway.” [Daschle and D'Orso, 2003, pp. 105-107; Kent State University, 5/10/2004] A bestselling 1994 novel by Tom Clancy in fact included the plotline of a suicide pilot deliberately crashing a Boeing 747 into the Capitol building (see August 17, 1994). [New York Times, 10/2/1994; Newsday, 5/20/2002] Yet Daschle is able to continue with his scheduled weekly team meeting with his senior staff, where they discuss budget issues. [Daschle and D'Orso, 2003, pp. 106-107] Even by the time the Pentagon is hit, more than 25 minutes later, there will still have been no evacuation of the Capitol. [CNN, 9/11/2002] The building will eventually be evacuated around 9:48 a.m., reportedly due to fears of a plane approaching it (see 9:48 a.m. September 11, 2001). [Associated Press, 8/21/2002; Daschle and D'Orso, 2003, pp. 109; Hastert, 2004, pp. 8]

Two officers in the Air Traffic Services Cell (ATSC)—a small office at the FAA’s Command Center in Herndon, Virginia, manned by military reservists—contact the National Military Command Center (NMCC) at the Pentagon, to ask about military assistance in response to the terrorist attacks. [US Air Force, 9/11/2001; Aviation Week and Space Technology, 6/10/2002; 9/11 Commission, 4/14/2004]
Military Leaders 'in a Meeting to Determine Their Response' - Apparently shortly after the south World Trade Center tower is hit at 9:03 a.m., Ben Sliney, the national operations manager at the Command Center, asks the ATSC for a military response to the ongoing events (see 9:06 a.m. and After September 11, 2001). Therefore, Lieutenant Colonel Michael-Anne Cherry, one of the three officers on duty in the ATSC, calls the NMCC. However, according to a chronology of the ATSC’s actions on this day, Cherry is told that “senior leaders” at the NMCC are “in a meeting to determine their response” to the attacks, and will call back.
Second Officer Calls NMCC, Told Fighters Have Been Launched - Then, at around 9:08 a.m., Sliney talks to another of the officers on duty in the ATSC, Colonel John Czabaranek, and asks if fighter jets have been launched toward New York. [US Air Force, 9/11/2001; 9/11 Commission, 4/14/2004] Two F-15s have already taken off from Otis Air National Guard Base, Massachusetts, toward the New York area (see 8:46 a.m. September 11, 2001), but, according to the 9/11 Commission, “Lacking a target,” these fighters have been “vectored toward military-controlled airspace off the Long Island coast” (see (8:53 a.m.-9:05 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 20] In response to Sliney’s inquiry, Czabaranek calls the NMCC. The NMCC indicates that it is aware of the request for fighter support, and says aircraft have been scrambled from Otis Air Base. Czabaranek passes this information on to Sliney, telling him that fighters are en route.
ATSC's Secure Phones Initially Not Working - According to the chronology of the ATSC’s actions, the unit’s secure phones do not work for an incoming call from the NMCC that is apparently made shortly after 9:03 a.m. The ATSC’s keys for its secure phones are recalibrated, and the phones then “worked fine.” [US Air Force, 9/11/2001; 9/11 Commission, 4/14/2004]

Acting Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Richard Myers learns of the second attack on the World Trade Center. According to some reports, Myers entered a meeting on Capitol Hill with Senator Max Cleland (D-GA) just minutes before the second plane hit the WTC (see Shortly Before 9:00 a.m. September 11, 2001). There are confused accounts of when he learns of this second attack and what he does in response. Myers later tells NBC News, “[S]omewhere in the middle of that meeting, they came in and said the second tower has been hit… and I think that’s when we figured out something—that America or at least the World Trade Center is under attack.” He adds, “And then I left the office,” and, he says, NORAD Commander Ralph Eberhart then calls him. [MSNBC, 9/11/2002] Similarly, in his 2009 memoirs, Myers will write that Cleland “had started preparing a pot of tea, but we hadn’t taken a sip when a staff person came in from the outer office and informed us that the second tower had been hit. We both knew the interview was over and started out to the TV to see the South Tower erupting with smoke and flame.” [Myers, 2009, pp. 8] In testimony on September 13, 2001, Myers will state, “[A]fter the second tower was hit, I spoke to the commander of NORAD, General Eberhart.” [US Congress, 9/13/2001] In a speech in 2006, Myers says that after the second attack occurs, “The meeting was over very quickly.” [Council on Foreign Relations, 6/29/2006] He will tell CNN, “[W]hen the second target was hit, we knew something was up, so we rushed back to the Pentagon.” [CNN, 4/15/2003] Yet in an interview five weeks after 9/11, Myers claims, “Nobody informed us” when the second tower was hit, “But when we came out [of our meeting], that was obvious.” [Armed Forces Radio And Television Service, 10/17/2001; American Forces Press Service, 10/23/2001] And, according to several accounts, he does not leave Capitol Hill until around the time the Pentagon is hit, which is more than 30 minutes after the second attack happens (see (Shortly After 9:37 a.m.) September 11, 2001). In a speech in 2003, Cleland will recall: “Gen. Myers bolted from his seat. We rushed into an adjoining office as we saw on TV the second plane slam into the second tower. Gen. Myers rushed out of my office, headed for the Pentagon. At that moment, the Pentagon was hit.” [Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 6/16/2003] But on a couple of other occasions, Cleland says he is still meeting with Myers in his office at the time the Pentagon is hit. [US Congress, 9/13/2001; CNN, 11/20/2001] Contradicting both Cleland and Myers, counterterrorism “tsar” Richard Clarke will claim that when he joins a video teleconference shortly after the time of the second attack, he can see Myers on screen, meaning Myers is at the Pentagon at that time rather than on Capitol Hill (see (9:10 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [Clarke, 2004, pp. 1-3]

FAA Administrator Jane Garvey arrives at her office at FAA headquarters in Washington, DC, and is informed that a second aircraft has just hit the World Trade Center. [Spencer, 2008, pp. 88] Garvey learned of the first crash while at the nearby Department of Transportation, where she had been in a meeting with Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta and the Belgian transportation minister (see (8:48 a.m.-9:05 a.m.) September 11, 2001). She had phoned FAA headquarters and was told by a supervisor, “We know a plane has just gone in, but we’re also tracking a hijacking.” She immediately went out to her car and headed back to headquarters, which is located two blocks away from the Department of Transportation. [Boston Globe, 11/4/2001] When Garvey arrives at her office on the 10th floor of the headquarters, she finds Monte Belger, her acting deputy, there. She asks him, “What do we know?” and he replies: “[T]his is something beyond a hijacking. This is not an accident. There is something here. [The Department of] Defense is going to be taking the lead.” Belger also informs Garvey that, just before she arrived, a second plane hit the WTC. Garvey heads across the hall to the Operations Center, where security personnel have already established a “hijacking net”—a teleconference that includes several agencies, including the Defense Department (see (8:50 a.m.) September 11, 2001). According to author Lynn Spencer, Garvey “understands that it will be her job to pull information from the [FAA] Command Center in Herndon and forward that information as quickly as possible up the chain, to the Department of Transportation and any other agencies requiring it.” [Spencer, 2008, pp. 88-89] Garvey and Belger spend the next 40 minutes going back and forth between their offices and the Operations Center. Staffers keep them informed about decisions being made by Ben Sliney, the national operations manager at the FAA Command Center. [USA Today, 8/13/2002]

The Army Operations Center at the Pentagon. [Source: Soldiers]The Army’s Crisis Action Team (CAT) at the Pentagon is activated in response to the attacks on the World Trade Center. It is activated on the orders of Major General Peter Chiarelli, the Army’s director of operations, readiness, and mobilization.
General Instructed Colleague to Activate Crisis Team - At around 9:00 a.m., while he was preparing to go to a scheduled meeting, Chiarelli was called by Major General Julian Burns, deputy chief of staff for operations of the US Army Forces Command. Burns asked him if he had seen what had happened at the WTC on the news. Chiarelli looked up at the muted television in his office and then, after turning up the volume, watched the coverage of the crash at the WTC on CNN. He also called to his office Lieutenant Colonel Kevin Stramara, his chief of operations, who is responsible for the CAT. When Stramara arrived, Chiarelli told him, “We need to look at standing up the CAT because I believe we’ve got ourselves a possibility of a mass casualty [incident].” Although Chiarelli was uncertain whether what happened at the WTC had been a terrorist attack, he told Stramara: “Kevin, it’s time to activate the CAT. Get it set up.”
General Said Pentagon Had to Be a Potential Target - As Stramara was about to leave the room, the two men saw the TV coverage of the second hijacked plane, Flight 175, crashing into the WTC (see 9:03 a.m. September 11, 2001). Realizing this was a terrorist attack, Chiarelli pointed out, “If there are other aircraft up there that have been hijacked or if there are other aircraft getting ready to do this, this building [i.e. the Pentagon] has got to be a target.” He asked Stramara, “Who has responsibility for this building?” Stramara responded: “I don’t know. I will check, but first I’ll stand up the CAT.” [US Army Center of Military History, 2/5/2002; Lofgren, 2011, pp. 95-97]
Crisis Team Assembles in Army's 'Command and Control Center' - The CAT, according to author Robert Rossow, is “an organization of subject matter experts from throughout the Army staff who assemble in times of emergency in a special area within the AOC”—the Army Operations Center. [Rossow, 2003, pp. 64] The AOC is located in the basement of the Pentagon, inside a bunker reinforced by steel and concrete 60 feet below the parking lot, and is equipped with state-of-the-art communications equipment, as well as television sets for monitoring news coverage. Chiarelli will describe it as “the Army’s command and control center.” [Washington Post, 8/25/1995; Soldiers, 9/2004] It is “the place that people will migrate” to during an emergency, according to Brigadier General Clyde Vaughn, the Army’s deputy director of operations, readiness, and mobilization. [US Army Center of Military History, 2/12/2002]
Crisis Team Members Are Summoned to Operations Center - When the CAT is activated, according to Rossow, its members “are called to the AOC to man their battle stations.” [Rossow, 2003, pp. 64] A piece of equipment called a “dialogic machine” sends out a telephonic alert to summon Army personnel to join the CAT. The machine automatically calls these people and gives them a prerecorded message, instructing them to report immediately to the CAT floor. [US Army Center of Military History, 2/5/2002; Lofgren, 2011, pp. 100] Their mission, according to Rossow, is then “to provide information from their organizations and work issues within their particular area of expertise.” [Rossow, 2003, pp. 64]
Crisis Team Is Activated to Provide Assistance in New York - Chiarelli will subsequently be phoned by General Eric Shinseki, the Army chief of staff, and will only head to the AOC to join the CAT after the call ends (see (Shortly Before 9:37 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [US Army Center of Military History, 2/5/2002; Lofgren, 2011, pp. 98] He will tell Shinseki that he has activated the CAT to provide assistance in New York if requested by state and local officials, since he anticipates that the disaster at the WTC will require significant rescue, firefighting, and recovery efforts. [Goldberg et al., 2007, pp. 134] The CAT will be “formally stood up” at 9:43 a.m., according to Rossow (see 9:43 a.m. September 11, 2001). [Rossow, 2003, pp. 66] It will become “a focal point for all Pentagon activities,” according to Lieutenant Colonel Richard Kotch, who is working in the AOC this morning. [St. Louis Jewish Light, 9/8/2011] Army officers are in fact currently preparing for a CAT exercise, which is scheduled to take place during the forthcoming week, based on the scenario of a plane crashing into the WTC (see (September 4, 2001)). [US Army Center of Military History, 2/5/2002; Lofgren, 2011, pp. 96-97]

Victoria Clarke. [Source: US Department of Defense]Just minutes after the second plane hits the World Trade Center, the Executive Support Center (ESC) within the Pentagon goes into operation. The ESC is located next door to the National Military Command Center (NMCC), and comprises several conference rooms that are secure against electronic eavesdropping. The Pentagon’s state-of-the-art communications hub, “Cables,” is establishing secure two-way video links with the White House and other key agencies. Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs Victoria Clarke arrives at the ESC soon after the second crash, accompanied by Larry Di Rita, who is Donald Rumsfeld’s personal chief of staff. They have just visited Rumsfeld and informed him of the second crash, but he has remained in his office to wait for his daily intelligence briefing (see (Shortly After 9:03 a.m.) September 11, 2001). Also at the ESC at this time is Rumsfeld’s closest aide, Stephen Cambone. According to Clarke, the ESC is “the place where the building’s top leadership goes to coordinate military operations during national emergencies.” Yet supposedly the Secretary of Defense does not join them there until about 10:15 A.M. (see (10:00 a.m.-10:30 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [Clarke, 2006, pp. 218-221; Cockburn, 2007, pp. 5-6]

Amraam missiles being loaded onto a 119th Fighter Wing jet at an unknown time on the day of 9/11. The 119th is based at Langley Air Force Base, Virgnina. [Source: William Quinn]Shortly after the second World Trade Center crash, calls from fighter units begin “pouring into NORAD and sector operations centers, asking, ‘What can we do to help?’” From Syracuse, New York, a commander of the 174th Fighter Wing of the New York Air National Guard calls and tells Colonel Robert Marr, the battle commander at NORAD’s Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS): “Give me 10 [minutes] and I can give you hot guns. Give me 30 [minutes] and I’ll have heat-seeker [missiles]. Give me an hour and I can give you slammers [Amraams].” Marr replies, “I want it all.” [Aviation Week and Space Technology, 6/3/2002; News 10 Now, 9/12/2006] Reportedly, Marr says: “Get to the phones. Call every Air National Guard unit in the land. Prepare to put jets in the air. The nation is under attack.” [Newhouse News Service, 1/25/2002] Canadian Major General Rick Findley, based in Colorado and in charge of NORAD on this day, reportedly has his staff immediately order as many fighters in the air as possible. [Ottawa Citizen, 9/11/2002] However, according to another account, NEADS does not accept the offers until about an hour later. The Toledo Blade will report, “By 10:01 a.m., the command center began calling several bases across the country for help.” [Toledo Blade, 12/9/2001] The 9/11 Commission will conclude that an order for other bases to prepare fighters to scramble is not given until 9:49 a.m. In fact, it appears the first fighters from other bases to take off are those from Syracuse at 10:42 a.m. (see 10:42 a.m. September 11, 2001). This is over an hour and a half after Syracuse’s initial offer to help, and not long after a general ban on all flights, including military ones, is lifted at 10:31 a.m. (see 10:31 a.m. September 11, 2001). These are apparently the fourth set of fighters scrambled from the ground. Previously, three fighters from Langley Air Force Base, two from Otis Air National Guard Base, and two from Toledo, Ohio, were scrambled at 10:01 a.m. (see 10:01 a.m. September 11, 2001), but did not launch until 15 minutes later. [Toledo Blade, 12/9/2001]

Dennis Hastert. [Source: Congressional Pictorial Directory]Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, who is third in line for the presidency, is in his office suite on the second floor of the US Capitol building when he sees the second plane hitting the World Trade Center live on television. [Hastert, 2004, pp. 5] He is told that Vice President Dick Cheney will soon be calling him on the secure telephone in his office. [Daily Herald (Arlington Heights), 9/11/2002] However, Cheney is currently having problems using secure phones, and Hastert is too. Hastert later recalls, “To use the secure phone, you have to push a button and turn a key. On that dreadful day I couldn’t make the thing work. No matter what I did, I couldn’t connect with the vice president. As the minutes passed, my frustrations grew.” [Hastert, 2004, pp. 6; Hayes, 2007, pp. 336] Several attempts to reach the vice president are unsuccessful. Hastert’s later explanation is that “Anyone who has used a secure phone can tell you they do not work very well.” However, numerous other people in the Washington area, including senior government officials, are also experiencing serious communications problems throughout the day (see (After 8:55 a.m.) September 11, 2001). Around the time the Pentagon is hit, the light on Hastert’s regular phone starts flashing, but instead of being Cheney it is apparently a nuisance caller, who complains, “I can’t get a hold of Jeb Bush, I can’t get a hold of the president, I can’t get a hold of Colin Powell. All this stuff is happening. What are you guys doing?” When Hastert asks the caller who they are, their reply is, “I’m just a citizen. Who is this?” [Chicago Sun-Times, 9/25/2001; Daily Herald (Arlington Heights), 9/11/2002; Associated Press, 6/16/2007] Shortly afterwards, the Capitol is evacuated (see 9:48 a.m. September 11, 2001) and Hastert’s Secret Service agents hurry him out of the building. It is not until around 11 a.m. that Cheney finally speaks to him. [Hastert, 2004, pp. 8-9; Hayes, 2007, pp. 337 and 340-341]

A NORAD training exercise that is taking place this morning, presumably Vigilant Guardian (see (6:30 a.m.) September 11, 2001), is reportedly canceled shortly after 9:03, when the second World Trade Center tower is hit. [Airman, 3/2002] NORAD Commander Larry Arnold later says that after Flight 175 hits the South Tower, “I thought it might be prudent to pull out of the exercise, which we did.” [Filson, 2003, pp. 59] According to author Lynn Spencer: “The phone calls start flying between the various NORAD command centers. General Arnold calls Maj. Gen. Rick Findley” at NORAD’s operations center in Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado, “to give him the latest information and have him withdraw all forces from the simulated exercise.” [Spencer, 2008, pp. 86] Arnold will recall, “As we pulled out of the exercise we were getting calls about United Flight 93 and we were worried about that.” [Filson, 2003, pp. 59] Some early accounts say the military receives notification of the possible hijacking of Flight 93 at around 9:16 a.m. (see 9:16 a.m. September 11, 2001). [CNN, 9/17/2001; 9/11 Commission, 5/23/2003] However, the 9/11 Commission will later claim that NORAD’s Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS) first receives a call about Flight 93 at 10:07 a.m. (see 10:05 a.m.-10:08 a.m. September 11, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 6/17/2004] Arnold will add, “Then we had another call from Boston Center about a possible hijacking, but that turned out to be the airplane that had already hit the South Tower but we didn’t know that at the time.” [Filson, 2003, pp. 59]

NORAD’s Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS) in Rome, NY, has just received a phone call informing it of the hijacking of Flight 175 (see (9:03 a.m.) September 11, 2001), and several personnel have witnessed the plane crashing into the second World Trade Center tower live on CNN. There is considerable confusion on the operations floor over whether the plane seen on TV is the hijacking they have just been informed of. Tape recordings capture NEADS personnel in the background trying to make sense of things: “Is this explosion part of that that we’re lookin’ at now on TV?“… “And there’s a possible second hijack also—a United Airlines“… “Two planes?” Someone comments, “I think this is a damn input, to be honest.” [Vanity Fair, 8/1/2006] Another person replies, “Then this is a damned messed-up input!” [Spencer, 2008, pp. 84] “Input” refers to a simulations input, as part of a training exercise. [Vanity Fair, 8/1/2006] NORAD has the capacity to inject simulated material, including mass attacks, during exercises, “as though it was being sensed for the first time by a radar site.” [US Department of Defense, 1/15/1999] At least one military exercise this morning is reported to include simulated information injected onto radar screens (see (9:00 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [Toronto Star, 12/9/2001] At the current time, despite the earlier crash of Flight 11, NORAD has yet to cancel a major exercise it is in the middle of (see (Shortly After 9:03 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [Filson, 2003, pp. 59]

Logo of the United States European Command. [Source: United States European Command]Hundreds of US military personnel are preparing for a major exercise in Europe, which is based around the scenario of terrorists threatening to attack the United States with a nuclear, chemical, or biological weapon, but the exercise is canceled in response to the real-world attacks in the US. The exercise, which is run by the US military’s European Command, is called Ellipse Charlie, according to journalists Eric Schmitt and Thom Shanker. [Schmitt and Shanker, 2011, pp. 22-23; Naylor, 2015, pp. ix] Ellipse Charlie, however, is run by the Pacific Command. The exercise is therefore likely to be Ellipse Bravo, a European Command exercise. [Arkin, 2005, pp. 359; GlobalSecurity (.org), 4/27/2005; GlobalSecurity (.org), 4/27/2005]
Participants Have to Stop Terrorists Who Have an 'Unconventional' Weapon - The exercise is set to take place in six European and Mediterranean countries, and on a ship at sea, and is meant to last 16 days. The goal is for participants “to find and thwart terrorists who [have] captured an unconventional weapon”—i.e. a nuclear, chemical, or biological weapon—“and threatened to use it against the United States,” according to Schmitt and Shanker. About 1,800 Special Operations personnel, along with “a handful of other secret government operators,” are set to take part. [Schmitt and Shanker, 2011, pp. 22-23] A smaller exercise called Jackal Cave, which is run by the Joint Special Operations Command and is currently taking place in several European countries, is “nested” in Ellipse Bravo, according to journalist and author Sean Naylor (see (8:46 a.m.-9:03 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [Naylor, 2015, pp. ix-x]
Al-Qaeda Is the Mock Enemy in the Exercise - The hypothetical enemy in Ellipse Bravo appears to be al-Qaeda or a similar terrorist group. Although Naylor will claim that the mock terrorists in Jackal Cave are “not Islamist,” according to Schmitt and Shanker, Ellipse Bravo is going to involve “a complicated mock attack from a foe like al-Qaeda.” [Schmitt and Shanker, 2011, pp. 23; Naylor, 2015, pp. 441] Furthermore, al-Qaeda was apparently the hypothetical enemy in a previous Ellipse Bravo exercise, held in late August to early September 1998. The scenario for that exercise, according to a report by the US Department of Energy, was that “[d]ue to the United States’ continued presence in the Arab world, international terrorist financier Osama bin Laden had called upon the Muslim community to strike back at the United States.” [US Department of Energy, 12/3/1998 ]
'Ellipse' Exercises Involve Weapons of Mass Destruction - Further details of the current Ellipse Bravo exercise are unclear. “Ellipse” exercises, which are led by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, are “highly classified, interagency, major crisis action and management” exercises that involve weapons of mass destruction, according to military analyst William Arkin. [Arkin, 2005, pp. 358] The Ellipse Bravo exercise held in 1998 was intended to “evaluate and validate the US federal response to a radiological weapon of mass destruction in an international environment.” That exercise, which took place outside the US, involved representatives of the US Special Forces and the US Army’s 52nd Ordnance Group, along with personnel from the Department of Energy, including members of its Nuclear Emergency Search Team. [US Department of Energy, 2/1999, pp. 121 ; Richelson, 2009, pp. 172] The current Ellipse Bravo exercise is called off during its final planning stages in response to the terrorist attacks in the US and the commandos involved in it then hurry back to their normal bases. [Schmitt and Shanker, 2011, pp. 23]

Members of President Bush’s staff who are with Bush at the Emma E. Booker Elementary School in Sarasota, Florida, are informed of the second plane crashing into the World Trade Center but then have to find a television in order to see the coverage of it. [White House, 8/12/2002; Rove, 2010, pp. 250; KFDI, 12/11/2012] While Bush goes into a classroom to participate in a reading demonstration (see (9:03 a.m.-9:06 a.m.) September 11, 2001), several members of his traveling staff stay in the “staff hold.” [Rove, 2010, pp. 250] The staff hold, according to deputy White House press secretary Scott McClellan, is “a private room set up as a quiet work space with secure and non-secure phones for us to use during a presidential visit.” [McClellan, 2008, pp. 101] If you pick up one of the secure phones, Bush’s senior adviser, Karl Rove, will later write, “someone with a quiet military voice answers, you make a request, and a moment or two later, you’re talking to anybody you want, anywhere in the world.” [Rove, 2010, pp. 250] The staff hold, on this occasion, is next to the classroom where Bush is participating in the reading demonstration. [McClellan, 2008, pp. 101]
Staffers Think First Crash Was an Accident - Members of Bush’s staff who stay in the staff hold while Bush joins the reading demonstration include White House chief of staff Andrew Card, White House communications director Dan Bartlett, White House staff secretary Harriet Miers, and Rove. [Rove, 2010, pp. 250] Also in the room, according to Rove, are Major Paul Montanus, one of the president’s military aides, and “the military doctor, the surgeon, and the surgical nurse with a full operating kit” who “stand ready to go to the aid of the president if he falls ill or is shot or somehow injured.” [KFDI, 12/11/2012] These individuals are aware of the first crash at the WTC. “All of us are still trying to find out information about that, to confirm what our instincts were,” Bartlett will recall, “and our instincts were that this was a tragic accident.”
Staffers Learn about Second Crash - After the second plane hits the WTC at 9:03 a.m. (see 9:03 a.m. September 11, 2001), the staffers quickly learn about the incident in calls to their cell phones or pager messages. “[Y]ou could see it, the rippling effect of people being informed about what was happening,” Bartlett will recall. However, he will say, “most of the tone was disbelief and not knowing what was going on.” Bartlett learns about the crash in a call from his assistant at the White House, who tells him, “You’re not going to believe this, Dan, but the other tower was hit.” Bartlett asks his assistant what she means and she says, “Another plane, another plane hit the other tower, World Trade Center.” [White House, 8/12/2002; White House, 8/12/2002] Rove learns about the crash when Susan Ralston, his executive assistant, calls him with the news. [New Yorker, 9/25/2001] And Card learns about it from Navy Captain Deborah Loewer, the director of the White House Situation Room, who is traveling with the president in Florida. After she informed Bush of the first crash (see (8:55 a.m.) September 11, 2001), Loewer went to a room next to the school and followed events on a television there. When she sees the second crash, she immediately assumes it is an act of terrorism and goes to inform Card. [Dayton Daily News, 8/17/2003] She tells him: “A second plane has impacted the towers. The nation is under attack.” [Dayton Daily News, 3/16/2003]
Chief of Staff Suspects Al-Qaeda Responsibility for Crash - Card immediately thinks al-Qaeda is responsible for the attack. “My mind focused on the al-Qaeda network, because I knew that they had attacked the World Trade Center before,” he will recall. “I don’t know why I thought that, but I did, and I just presumed that it was an Osama bin Laden or an al-Qaeda attack.” [NBC News, 9/10/2009; BBC, 9/9/2011] Loewer also tells Card to interrupt the reading demonstration and pass on the news to the president. [Springfield News-Sun, 9/9/2011] He therefore enters the classroom and tells Bush what has happened (see (9:06 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [NBC News, 9/10/2009; BBC, 9/9/2011]
No Television Has Been Set Up in the Staff Hold - Unusually, a television has not been set up in the staff hold, so the staffers there are initially unable to see the coverage of the second attack. “Normally there’s a television in the staff hold,” Rove will comment. “But for some strange reason, this morning at Booker Elementary there was no television in there.” Rove therefore has to go out of the room, and run “up and down the hallways of the elementary school trying to find a television.” He eventually finds one in a classroom and then hurriedly rolls it into the staff hold. But he then has trouble connecting it to cable. The first socket he plugs it into doesn’t work. But after he plugs it into another socket, he gets a signal and the TV starts showing footage of the second crash. [KFDI, 12/11/2012; LBJ Presidential Library, 9/3/2013] Around the same time, those in the staff hold make contact with their colleagues at the White House and work with them on coordinating a response to the attacks. [White House, 8/12/2002; White House, 8/12/2002]

The second plane hitting the World Trade Center (see 9:03 a.m. September 11, 2001) causes internal alarms to go off in WTC Building 7, located just a few hundred feet away from the Twin Towers. The alarms warn there is no water pressure and that the building’s emergency power generator has been activated. Office of Emergency Management (OEM) staff, based in Building 7, immediately request air security over New York. They are told that federal support is on its way, but the Federal Aviation Administration instructs them to use NYPD and Port Authority Police Department air assets to clear the airspace around the WTC. They are also warned that the Kennedy Airport control tower is reporting an unaccounted for plane heading towards New York. A report by the Mineta Transportation Institute will claim that this plane is Flight 93, which later crashes in Pennsylvania. [Jenkins and Edwards-Winslow, 9/2003, pp. 16] However, Flight 93 is still flying west at this time, and only reverses course and heads towards Washington at around 9:36 a.m. (see (9:36 a.m.) September 11, 2001). According to at least one person at the scene, WTC 7 is evacuated around this time due to the reports of this incoming third plane (see (9:03 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [Jems And FireRescue, 3/2002, pp. 68 ]

Bill Peacock, the FAA director of air traffic services, is currently away from FAA headquarters for a meeting in New Orleans (see 8:30 a.m. September 11, 2001). His staff called him earlier to alert him to the possible hijacking of Flight 11. He returned to his hotel room in time to see the second attack live on CNN. He quickly phones FAA headquarters, trying to contact his staff, and has his call added to the teleconference being run from the conference room next to his office. [Freni, 2003, pp. 12 and 22] According to a statement provided by the FAA to the 9/11 Commission in 2003, this teleconference began “[w]ithin minutes” of the first WTC tower being hit (see (8:50 a.m.) September 11, 2001). Yet the 9/11 Commission will later claim that it was not established until “about 9:20” (see (9:20 a.m.) September 11, 2001), which is about 15 minutes later than Peacock supposedly joined it. [9/11 Commission, 5/23/2003; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 36]

Logo of the 552nd Air Control Wing. [Source: US Air Force]An Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) plane on a training mission in the Washington, DC, area is instructed to return to its base in Oklahoma, even though its advanced communications and surveillance capabilities would significantly benefit the military’s air defense efforts in response to the terrorist attacks. The AWACS belongs to the 552nd Air Control Wing, located at Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma. [US Air Force, 4/1/2000; GlobalSecurity (.org), 4/16/2006; Spencer, 2008, pp. 265] It has been flying a training mission somewhere near Washington (see Before 9:55 a.m. September 11, 2001). [Code One Magazine, 1/2002]
AWACS Sent Back to Oklahoma - According to author Lynn Spencer, the AWACS is directed to return to Tinker Air Force Base “in the immediate confusion after the attacks.” The exact time the plane’s crew receives this order, and the identity of the person or organization that gives the order, are unstated. NORAD’s Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS) will contact the AWACS later on, and instruct it to turn around and head to Washington, to provide radio and radar coverage over the capital (see (11:25 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [Spencer, 2008, pp. 265-266]
AWACS Has Advanced Surveillance and Communication Capabilities - The AWACS, also called the E-3 Sentry, is a modified Boeing 707 that provides surveillance, command, control, and communications to military commanders. [New York Times, 9/23/1995; GlobalSecurity (.org), 4/16/2006; US Air Force, 11/20/2009] According to a US Air Force manual, the plane’s “advanced surveillance radar provides long-range, low-level detection of aircraft targets over all types of terrain.” [US Air Force, 4/1/2000] It can track friendly and enemy aircraft over a 300-mile radius. [New York Times, 9/23/1995] Mark Rosenker, the director of the White House Military Office, will say that AWACS planes “give you the big picture in the sky. They’re able to identify what’s a friend, what’s a foe.” [White House, 8/29/2002]
AWACS Would Help NEADS Contact Fighters - These planes are particularly important to NEADS. [9/11 Commission, 10/30/2003 ] Spencer will describe: “The NEADS radio transmitter, like all radio transmitters, operates by line of sight. This means that the radio signals, which travel in a straight line, require an unobstructed path between the transmitter and the [fighter] jets” that NEADS is trying to communicate with this morning. Due to the curvature of the earth and the distance between NEADS, in Rome, New York, and Washington, the fighters’ launched to protect the capital (see 9:24 a.m. September 11, 2001 and (9:50 a.m.) September 11, 2001) will be unable to pick up the NEADS signal on their radio receivers when they descend below 20,000 feet, after arriving over Washington (see (Between 9:49 a.m. and 11:00 a.m.) September 11, 2001 and (11:25 a.m.) September 11, 2001). “What’s needed,” Spencer will write, “is an AWACS plane, which has the capability to provide both radar and radio coverage over a citywide area.” [Spencer, 2008, pp. 265]

Pilots with the District of Columbia Air National Guard at Andrews Air Force Base, just outside Washington, have to take time to reprogram the data disks they will need once airborne, apparently because these disks still contain the data from a training exercise their unit has just returned from. The pilots belong to the 121st Fighter Squadron. [Spencer, 2008, pp. 236-237] This is part of the 113th Wing of the DC Air National Guard, which is based at Andrews. [District of Columbia Air National Guard, 7/24/2001; GlobalSecurity (.org), 8/21/2005] According to author Lynn Spencer, pilots with the squadron who are preparing to take off in response to the attacks grab their gear and upload “flight data” onto computer disks. These disks “contain all the navigational waypoints, maps, and frequencies that they will need once airborne.” [Spencer, 2008, pp. 236] The pilots presumably begin uploading the data after learning of the second crash in New York, and realizing this is a terrorist attack (see (9:04 a.m.) September 11, 2001). They apparently need to take the time to upload the data as a consequence of their unit’s recent involvement in a major training exercise: Three days earlier, members of the 121st Fighter Squadron returned from Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada, where they had spent the previous two weeks participating in the “Red Flag” exercise (see Late August-September 8, 2001). [Washington Post, 4/8/2002; Spencer, 2008, pp. 122-123, 156] Spencer will describe one of the squadron’s pilots, Heather Penney Garcia, staying busy this morning, “reprogramming flight data disks, which still contain all the Nellis data from the Red Flag training exercise they just returned from,” before taking off at 10:42 a.m. (see 10:42 a.m. September 11, 2001). [Filson, 2003, pp. 82; Spencer, 2008, pp. 237-238]

American Airlines initiates the “lockout” procedure to protect information about Flight 77. This standard procedure acknowledges an emergency on the flight and isolates information about it, so the airline’s top leadership can manage the case. A lockout safeguards information against being altered or released, and protects the identities of the plane’s passengers and crew. FAA air traffic controllers first alerted American Airlines about their loss of contact with Flight 77 at 8:58 (see 8:58 a.m. September 11, 2001), and called the airline again about the flight at 9:02 (see 9:02 a.m. September 11, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 8/26/2004, pp. 12-13 and 30]