Shoestring 9/11

On 9/11, the U.S. Military Was Preparing for a Simulated Nuclear War

2011-11-19T05:33:00.000-08:00

While September 11, 2001 is well known as the day when the U.S. suffered its worst terrorist attack, what is little known is that it was also a day when large sections of the armed forces around the nation had been preparing to fight a simulated nuclear war, as part of major training exercises being conducted at the time. In their annual exercises "Vigilant Guardian" and "Global Guardian," the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) and the United States Strategic Command (Stratcom) were scheduled to carry out what has been described as a "simulated air war," a "full-blown nuclear war" exercise, a "fictional nuclear war," and a "practice Armageddon."

No official attempts have been made to fully investigate these exercises and what effect they had on the military's response to the 9/11 attacks. But evidence indicates they caused at least some confusion over what was "real-world" and what was simulation, and they may also have been a factor behind the communication problems experienced by military personnel that day. Other evidence suggests that some actions that have been presented as reactions to the terrorist attacks may actually have been related to these exercises--actions such as raising the alert status of American armed services to Defcon 3 and closing the huge "blast doors" to NORAD's operations center in Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado. There is also evidence that other "practice Armageddon" exercises were being conducted at the time of the 9/11 attacks, but details of these are unknown.

AMERICA'S AIR DEFENDERS WERE SET TO FIGHT A 'SIMULATED AIR WAR' ON SEPTEMBER 11
Perhaps the most important exercise to consider is NORAD's exercise called "Vigilant Guardian." Close examination of this exercise is imperative due to the crucial role NORAD had to play in responding to the 9/11 attacks.

NORAD is the military organization responsible for monitoring and defending U.S. airspace. It was created during the Cold War, to protect North American airspace against nuclear attacks from the Soviet Union. Its Cheyenne Mountain Operations Center (CMOC) in Colorado, where numerous staffers were involved in Vigilant Guardian, was described by the BBC as "the nerve centre of North America's air defense." [1] The center's role, according to the Toronto Star, was "to fuse every critical piece of information NORAD has into a concise and crystalline snapshot." [2] And NORAD's Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS) in Rome, New York, which was also participating in the exercise, was responsible for trying to coordinate the military's response to the hijackings on September 11. [3]

Vigilant Guardian, described as a "Cold War-style training exercise," was held annually by NORAD. It was reportedly scheduled to last two weeks and was several days underway on September 11. [4] All of NORAD, including its subordinate units, was participating in the exercise that day. [5] NORAD's CMOC was fully staffed for the exercise, with more than 50 members of staff in the Battle Management Center taking part. [6] According to Ken Merchant, NORAD's joint exercise design manager, the National Military Command Center (NMCC) at the Pentagon--which also played a key role in the military's response to the 9/11 attacks--regularly contributed to NORAD exercises. It was therefore presumably set to play a role in Vigilant Guardian on September 11. [7]

EXERCISE SIMULATED A 'FULL-BLOWN NUCLEAR WAR' AGAINST RUSSIA
Full details of Vigilant Guardian are unknown, but various accounts have given indications of what it involved. The 1st Air Force's book about the 9/11 attacks described Vigilant Guardian as a "simulated air war" and as "an air defense exercise simulating an attack on the United States." [8] It was a "transition to wartime operations command post exercise," according to an information page for exercise participants. [9] Ken Merchant called Vigilant Guardian a "full-blown nuclear war" exercise. [10] According to the Denver Post, it would involve "ever-escalating scenarios, from strained diplomacy to the outbreak of conventional warfare that headed inexorably toward nuclear conflict." [11]

Lieutenant Colonel William Glover, the commander of NORAD's Air Warning Center on September 11, said Vigilant Guardian involved NORAD "simulating war," with "attacks coming from the outside, Soviet-style bombers coming in, cruise-missile attacks, that type of thing." [12] The 9/11 Commission Report said the exercise "postulated a bomber attack from the former Soviet Union." [13] According to Merchant, it included "bomber response and intercontinental ballistic missile response." [14]

The imagined enemy in Vigilant Guardian was Russia. [15] Merchant told the 9/11 Commission that "NORAD must use Russia in its exercises at the strategic level since no other country poses a great enough threat to NORAD's capabilities and responsibilities." [16]

EXERCISE INCLUDED A SIMULATED HIJACKING
Full details of what scenarios were scheduled for September 11 are unknown, but some information has been revealed. Vanity Fair reported that Vigilant Guardian had been "designed to run a range of scenarios" that day, "including a 'traditional' simulated hijack in which politically motivated perpetrators commandeer an aircraft, land on a Cuba-like island, and seek asylum." [17] Jeff Ford, an Air Force lieutenant colonel who was working in the CMOC on September 11, recalled that it involved "air exercise events and then some scripted inputs that we were reacting to ... whether it be unknown aircraft that we scramble aircraft for to intercept, or whatever." According to Ford, "The big event that day was supposed to be a B-1 bomber that was flying out of Fairchild Air Force Base [in Washington State] and going out over the Pacific." [18]

'GLOBAL GUARDIAN' EXERCISE TESTED STRATCOM'S ABILITY TO FIGHT A NUCLEAR WAR
The other major exercise simulating a nuclear war that is known to have been taking place on September 11 was Global Guardian. This annual exercise was run by Stratcom, which is "the single U.S. military command responsible for the day-to-day readiness of nuclear forces." [19] Like Vigilant Guardian, Global Guardian was scheduled to last about two weeks and had already been running for several days by September 11. [20]

Global Guardian was in fact held "in cooperation with" a number of other military exercises, including Vigilant Guardian. [21] Ken Merchant told the 9/11 Commission that it "was coordinated with Vigilant Guardian so the combined Stratcom offensive abilities and the NORAD defensive abilities could be exercised." [22]

Global Guardian, according to an official after-action report on the exercise, was designed to exercise Stratcom "and supporting forces during a simulated crisis, validate war-fighting procedures, and verify command relationships." [23] Military analyst William Arkin described it as an "all-out game involving multiple regional conflicts that lead to a global nuclear war." [24]

The goal of the exercise, according to the Omaha World-Herald, was to test Stratcom's "ability to fight a nuclear war." [25] One reporter said it would involve America fighting "a fictional nuclear war," and would test the "response to a fictional attack from another nation." [26] The adversary preparing this nuclear attack on the United States was a fictional rogue nation called "Slumonia," a small nuclear power in northeast Asia. [27]

SUBMARINES, BOMBERS, AND HUNDREDS OF PERSONNEL PARTICIPATED IN GLOBAL GUARDIAN
Numerous military units were participating in Global Guardian in September 2001. [28] Around the U.S. and off its shores, bombers, missile crews, and submarines were taking part, following orders from Stratcom's command bunker at Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska. [29] As well as Offutt, other Air Force bases around the U.S. that were involved in the exercise included Barksdale, Minot, and Whiteman Air Force bases, where "dozens of aircraft and hundreds of personnel" were participating. [30]

"Other support" for the exercise was provided by personnel at the Pentagon, Camp H. M. Smith in Hawaii, Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado, Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, Scott Air Force Base in Illinois, and NORAD's Cheyenne Mountain Operations Center. [31] According to William Arkin, several senior civilian and military leaders participated in Global Guardian exercises, including individuals from the offices of the secretary of defense and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, so presumably this was the case in the September 2001 Global Guardian. [32]

STRATCOM WAS AT INCREASED STATE OF ALERT, AIRCRAFT WERE 'SIMULATING THEIR WARTIME ROLES'
Admiral Richard Mies, at that time the commander in chief of Stratcom, has described how Global Guardian was proceeding when the 9/11 attacks took place. He said Stratcom had been "ready to respond to a potential attack from a hypothetical adversary. ... We had intelligence indicating that they were preparing to attack us." Stratcom was positioning its forces "to be ready to offer the president the ability to respond in a wide variety of ways. A lot of our command and control systems that, in peacetime, are normally not on alert were at a much, much higher state of alert and we had a number of aircraft, manned control aircraft that were airborne that were simulating their wartime roles." Preparations underway in the exercise included "elevating our readiness status to a heightened state of readiness," "preparing bombers to potentially launch, if required," and "getting submarines that were in port ready to go to sea."

Mies added that Global Guardian involved "a lot of the elements of what ultimately would be the nuclear command and control system in support of a national emergency." It included "an exercise secretary of defense" and "an exercise president." [33] Among the exercise's objectives were disseminating "presidential nuclear decisions ... to the forces," and preparing and issuing National Command Authority directives, so presumably the participants acting as the president and the secretary of defense were involved in these activities. [34] (The National Command Authority refers collectively to the president and the secretary of defense.)

CREWS LOADED LIVE NUCLEAR WEAPONS ONTO BOMBERS
At Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana, according to journalists Eric Schmitt and Thom Shanker, air crews taking part in the exercise were "pulling nuclear bombs and missiles out of their heavily guarded storage sites and loading them aboard B-52s" on the morning of September 11. Real, live nuclear weapons were being used, but "their triggers were not armed." [35]

American History magazine described the scene at the base: "Even though it was only a drill, the command center was tense, everyone proceeding as if the planes would soon take off on bombing runs, instead of just idling at the end of the runway." Then, at precisely 9:00 a.m. (Eastern time), "an alarm sounded across the base and the crews raced to their planes." After news was received about the terrorist attacks in New York, the base's command staff "ended the drill, but left the fueled and armed planes where they were." [36]

Also as part of Global Guardian, three E-4B National Airborne Operations Center planes that were based at Offutt Air Force Base were airborne on September 11. The E-4B, nicknamed the "Doomsday" plane during the Cold War, is a militarized version of a Boeing 747-200. It is equipped with advanced communications equipment, and in times of national emergency can act as an alternative command post from which top government officials can direct forces, execute war orders, and coordinate actions by civil authorities. Even after Global Guardian was terminated, the three E-4Bs remained in the air. [37]

AIR FORCE COMMANDER THOUGHT FIRST ATTACK WAS EXERCISE SIMULATION
That these training exercises were being conducted on the morning of September 11 raises important questions. As the Omaha World-Herald noted, the fact that Global Guardian was "in full swing" when the United States came under attack was "at least an odd coincidence." [38]

We need to investigate how much confusion military personnel experienced because they were preparing for a simulated attack on America at the time an actual attack on America took place. We already know of some instances of confusion caused by the exercises. For example, when Lieutenant General Thomas Keck, the commander of the 8th Air Force at Barksdale Air Force Base, who had been monitoring the Global Guardian exercise, was told a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center, he initially thought this was a simulated scenario. He therefore told the junior officer who had brought him the news: "That's not the way you interject a situation into a training exercise! When you have a scenario injection, you say, 'Sir, this is an exercise input,' and then you give me the information."

Additionally, some of the airmen at Barksdale who had been participating in the exercise appear to have been only vaguely aware of the real-world crisis. American History noted that after Global Guardian was called off, the crews in the B-52 bombers knew only "that something very serious was happening and they were not being ordered to stand down." Even by early afternoon, they had only heard "the most basic reports about the attacks on New York and the Pentagon." [39]

EXERCISE INCLUDED SIMULATED COMMUNICATION OUTAGES
We also need to consider whether actions incorporated into the training exercises affected lines of communication that would have been critical for enabling a swift response to the terrorist attacks. Some evidence indicates this may have been the case. For example, one of the listed objectives of the September 2001 Global Guardian was to "simulate outages between NC2 [nuclear command and control] nodes requiring alternate routes to maintain connectivity." Another objective was for participants to "determine operational impacts and work-arounds to simulated C4I [command, control, communications, computers, and intelligence] outages." The official after-action report on the exercise did not elaborate on what these "simulated C4I outages" involved. [40]

Certainly, those in NORAD's CMOC, who had been participating in Vigilant Guardian, appear to have experienced significant communication problems. William Glover recalled that the time of the 9/11 attacks was his "first time, you know, thinking about the fog of war, because we didn't know what was going on." [41] Major General Rick Findley, NORAD's director of operations, commented, "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." [42] And Lieutenant Colonel Steven Armstrong, NORAD's chief of plans and forces, has complained that he and his colleagues "were out there in an information void, just looking for anything that we could find." He said, "All the information we were getting at the time was really off the TV." [43]

The causes of this "information void" surely need to be investigated. Might it have been the result, at least partly, of an attack on military communications systems that was incorporated into one (or more) of the exercises that day?

Some actions carried out on September 11 have been reported as if they were responses to the terrorist attacks, but evidence suggests they may actually have been conducted as part of an exercise, or at least perceived within the military as being part of an exercise. Two such actions, described below, are the closing of the blast doors to NORAD's Cheyenne Mountain Operations Center and the order to raise the military's alert status to Defcon 3. If these actions were connected to the exercises taking place that day, it would raise further questions about how much confusion was caused by these exercises, and would indicate that the exercises continued even after it became obvious the U.S. was suffering a major terrorist attack.

NORAD CLOSED DOORS PROTECTING OPERATIONS CENTER FROM A NUCLEAR ATTACK
On the morning of September 11, the thick steel doors to NORAD's operations center in Cheyenne Mountain were closed for the first time in a real-world crisis since the CMOC opened in 1966. [44] The two doors are three feet thick and each weighs 25 tons. [45] They were designed to seal the operations center, to protect it from a nuclear blast. [46]

The time the blast doors were closed at is unknown, although a BBC documentary placed the event at 10:15 a.m. [47] The reason they were shut is also unclear. A number of reports suggested they were closed in response to information the CMOC received about an aircraft that was incorrectly thought to have been hijacked and targeting Cheyenne Mountain. [48] However, as the Regina Leader-Post pointed out, "Protected by 2,600 feet of granite, the NORAD command center and hundreds of personnel in their green flight suits were actually in the safest place in North America." [49] The CMOC was therefore already safe against an aircraft crashing into the mountain.

Furthermore, the blast doors are located at the end of a tunnel, about a third of a mile into the mountain. [50] Closing them would therefore have been a needless action as protection against a threatening aircraft, as a plane could hardly have made it all the way along the tunnel to the entrance to the CMOC! Brigadier General Jim Hunter, the vice commander of the CMOC on September 11, commented on the lack of danger, saying, "They could have driven airliners into that mountain all day." [51]

BLAST DOORS WERE CLOSED DURING EXERCISES
It is worth considering if there was a different reason why the blast doors were shut. Might they have been closed as part of one of the exercises? Vigilant Guardian and Global Guardian both involved simulating a nuclear war. And since the doors were designed to protect the CMOC from a nuclear strike, it would seem logical that they might be closed during an exercise simulating a nuclear attack on the United States.

Furthermore, while the doors had never been closed in a real-world crisis before September 11, they had been closed during exercises. Air Force officer William Astore wrote that when he worked inside Cheyenne Mountain between 1985 and 1988, the blast doors were kept open, "except, of course, during 'exercises,' when the mountain 'buttoned up' its self-contained world." [52]

MILITARY'S ALERT STATUS WAS RAISED TO DEFCON 3
Another event on September 11 that has yet to be properly explained is the order to raise the defense readiness condition from Defcon 5, the lowest possible level, to Defcon 3, the highest alert level for 28 years. [53]

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld issued the order to go to Defcon 3 at around 10:45 a.m. after conferring with General Richard Myers, the acting chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Rumsfeld also discussed the issue with Vice President Dick Cheney over the air threat conference call, and later briefed President Bush on his actions and was given the president's approval for what he had done. [54]

DEFCON 3 WAS INTENDED 'TO RESPOND TO A NUCLEAR THREAT'
However, some have questioned the appropriateness of this increased state of readiness to the situation on September 11. John Farmer, the senior counsel to the 9/11 Commission, pointed out that Defcon 3 is "a Cold War-era designation, devised to respond to a nuclear threat." [55] Farmer and other 9/11 Commission staffers have written that it was "suited more to a Cold War conflict than to al-Qaeda's attack." [56] And General Ralph Eberhart, the commander of NORAD on September 11, told the 9/11 Commission that Defcon 3 is "not intended for [events like] the attacks of 9/11 and thus could have complicated the response to the attacks." He said he did not think that raising the defense readiness condition would have "done anything for us" within the continental United States. [57]

Myers told the 9/11 Commission that the reason for going to Defcon 3 was "to improve our readiness and protection of our forces worldwide." [58] But evidence suggests that the order might have had some connection to the exercises taking place that day.

DEFCON CHANGES WERE SIMULATED DURING EXERCISES
While it was apparently inappropriate as a response to the 9/11 attacks, raising the defense readiness condition is something that was incorporated into military exercises at that time. Staff Sergeant Brent Lanier, who was in NORAD's Cheyenne Mountain Operations Center on September 11 and was tasked with sending out a message about the increased alert status, has commented that while he'd never sent out an "actual Defcon change message" before then, he had "sent out false Defcon messages during exercises." [59]

It is also worth noting that details of the increased alert level were sent out in an "emergency action message" (EAM) issued at 10:52 a.m. on September 11. [60] EAMs appear to have been more suited to Cold War-type scenarios--like, perhaps, the practice nuclear wars being conducted by NORAD and Stratcom--than to a terrorist attack. For example, they have been defined by the U.S. military as "highly structured, authenticated messages primarily used in the command and control of nuclear forces." [61]

Furthermore, the EAM put out on September 11 appears to have been issued by the NMCC at the Pentagon. [62] And according to Ken Merchant, during NORAD exercises (like Vigilant Guardian), "More often than not, the NMCC ran conferences and interjected emergency action messages for NORAD." [63] The issuing of EAMs also appears to have been part of Stratcom exercises. One of the listed objectives for the September 2001 Global Guardian was for participants to "exercise first emergency action message via alternate means." [64]

Might the EAM on September 11 therefore have been issued in relation to Vigilant Guardian and/or Global Guardian, rather than in response to the real-world attacks? Or could there have been confusion within the military that this might have been the case?

WERE THERE OTHER 'PRACTICE ARMAGEDDON' EXERCISES ON SEPTEMBER 11?
Another question to address is whether there were other military exercises taking place at the time of the 9/11 attacks, in addition to Vigilant Guardian and Global Guardian, that simulated a nuclear war. William Arkin wrote in 1997 that Global Guardian was "merely one of many practice Armageddons the military continues to stage." He then named other "practice Armageddon" exercises. For example, the "Air Combat Command, which flies B-1, B-2, and B-52 bombers," conducted an exercise called "Crown Vigilance," and the U.S. Space Command, "which operates land-based missiles," ran an exercise called "Apollo Guardian." [65] Furthermore, a 1997 Department of Defense report listed a number of exercises that Global Guardian "links with," indicating that these exercises might run concurrently with Global Guardian. The list included Vigilant Guardian, which is known to have taken place around the same time as Global Guardian in 2001, and also Crown Vigilance, Apollo Guardian, and a NORAD exercise called "Amalgam Warrior." [66]

Ken Merchant in fact told the 9/11 Commission that Apollo Guardian had been "running on September 11, 2001." [67] Whether Crown Vigilance and Amalgam Warrior were also being conducted that day is unknown. And no details have been revealed about these exercises, such as what they involved, what simulations they included, who exactly participated in them, and--if they were taking place on September 11--what effect they had on the military's ability to respond to the real-world crisis.

OFFICIAL INVESTIGATIONS OVERLOOKED THE 9/11 EXERCISES
Considering the nature of these simulated nuclear war exercises and the fact that they were "in full swing" at the time of the 9/11 attacks, it is remarkable that so little attention has been paid to them. The 9/11 Commission Report devoted only a few sentences to Vigilant Guardian in its notes section and made no mention of Global Guardian. [68]

Recently, an interviewer questioned Donald Rumsfeld about Global Guardian. The interviewer pointed out that because of this exercise, there had been "places like Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana where there were literally rows of B-52s loaded with live nuclear weapons," and noted, "With so much unknown about who was attacking in those early hours, there had to have been some urgency to deal with that much live weaponry out and about." He went on to ask Rumsfeld, "Were there concerns about having these live nuclear weapons out in aircraft in places like Barksdale that day?" Rumsfeld's answer was, "I don't know." The most he could say was to add, "Clearly, there's always concern." [69]

NOTES
[1] Clear the Skies. BBC, September 1, 2002.
[2] Scott Simmie, "The Scene at NORAD on Sept. 11: Playing Russian War Games ... and Then Someone Shouted to Look at the Monitor." Toronto Star, December 9, 2001.
[3] Michael Bronner, "9/11 Live: The NORAD Tapes." Vanity Fair, August 2006; Philip Shenon, The Commission: The Uncensored History of the 9/11 Investigation. New York: Twelve, 2008, p. 203.
[4] William M. Arkin, Code Names: Deciphering U.S. Military Plans, Programs, and Operations in the 9/11 World. Hanover, NH: Steerforth Press, 2005, p. 545; "NORAD." The Early Edition, CBC, September 8, 2011; Tom Roeder, "Inside the Mountain: Rumor of a Threatening Jet Fed Tension." Colorado Springs Gazette, September 10, 2011.
[5] "Vigilant Guardian 01-2." Northeast Air Defense Sector, August 23, 2001; "NORAD."
[6] Jason Tudor, "Inner Space." Airman, March 2002; "NORAD."
[7] "Memorandum for the Record: Interview With Major Paul Goddard (Canadian Forces) and Ken Merchant." 9/11 Commission, March 4, 2004.
[8] Leslie Filson, Air War Over America: Sept. 11 Alters Face of Air Defense Mission. Tyndall Air Force Base, FL: 1st Air Force, 2003, pp. 55, 122.
[9] Neil A. Cleveland, "Special Instructions (Spins) Vigilant Guardian 01-2." Northeast Air Defense Sector, August 23, 2001.
[10] "Memorandum for the Record: Interview With Major Paul Goddard (Canadian Forces) and Ken Merchant."
[11] Kevin Simpson, "Rearmed Forces: 9/11 Changed Military Life in Colorado." Denver Post, August 28, 2011.
[12] "NORAD."
[13] 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2004, p. 458.
[14] "Memorandum for the Record: Interview With Major Paul Goddard (Canadian Forces) and Ken Merchant."
[15] Kevin Simpson, "Rearmed Forces."
[16] "Memorandum for the Record: Interview With Major Paul Goddard (Canadian Forces) and Ken Merchant."
[17] Michael Bronner, "9/11 Live."
[18] Thomas Doscher, "In Their Own Words--NORAD Members Recall September 11: Jeff Ford." Defense Video & Imagery Distribution System, September 8, 2011.
[19] Rita Clark, Vincent A. Giroux Jr., and Todd White, History of the United States Strategic Command, June 1, 1992 - October 1, 2002. Offutt Air Force Base, NE: Command Historian's Office, United States Strategic Command, January 2004, p. 50; William M. Arkin, Code Names, p. 59; "Global Guardian." GlobalSecurity.org, May 7, 2011.
[20] Joe Dejka, "When Bush Arrived, Offutt Sensed History in the Making." Omaha World-Herald, September 8, 2002; Bill Kelly, "Military Insiders Tell of Bush 9/11 Visit for the First Time." NET Radio, September 1, 2011.
[21] Nuclear Weapon Systems Sustainment Programs. Washington, DC: Office of the Secretary of Defense, May 1997; William M. Arkin, Code Names, p. 378.
[22] "Memorandum for the Record: Interview With Major Paul Goddard (Canadian Forces) and Ken Merchant."
[23] Exercise Global Guardian 2001-2 Joint After-Action Report. United States Strategic Command, December 4, 2001, p. A1.
[24] William M. Arkin, "The Beat Goes On." Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, November 1, 1997.
[25] Joe Dejka, "Inside Stratcom on Sept. 11 Offutt Exercise Took Real-Life Twist." Omaha World-Herald, February 27, 2002.
[26] Bill Kelly, "Rumsfeld Reflects on Offutt Air Force Base Role on 9/11." NET Radio, August 30, 2011; Bill Kelly, "Military Insiders Recall Bush's 9/11 Stop at Stratcom." NET News, September 7, 2011.
[27] Eric Schmitt and Thom Shanker, Counterstrike: The Untold Story of America's Secret Campaign Against Al-Qaeda. New York: Times Books, 2011; Bill Kelly, "Military Insiders Tell of Bush 9/11 Visit for the First Time."
[28] Exercise Global Guardian 2001-2 Joint After-Action Report, pp. A6-A7.
[29] Stephen Buttry, "Final Words, Final Hours Before All Changed." Omaha World-Herald, September 10, 2002.
[30] Mario Villafuerte, "Practice Becomes Reality Within Minutes." New Orleans Times-Picayune, September 8, 2002; J. J. Green, "Confusion in the Air, Terror on the Ground." WTOP, September 6, 2011.
[31] Exercise Global Guardian 2001-2 Joint After-Action Report, p. A2.
[32] William M. Arkin, Code Names, p. 379.
[33] Bill Kelly, "Military Insiders Tell of Bush 9/11 Visit for the First Time."
[34] Exercise Global Guardian 2001-2 Joint After-Action Report, p. A4.
[35] Eric Schmitt and Thom Shanker, Counterstrike; Bill Kelly, "Military Insiders Tell of Bush 9/11 Visit for the First Time."
[36] Gregory A. Freeman, "Code Alpha: The President is Coming!" American History, October 2006.
[37] Stephen I. Schwartz (Editor), Atomic Audit: The Costs and Consequences of U.S. Nuclear Weapons Since 1940. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 1998, p. 210; "E-4B National Airborne Operations Center." Federation of American Scientists, April 23, 2000; Joe Dejka, "Inside Stratcom on Sept. 11 Offutt Exercise Took Real-Life Twist."
[38] Joe Dejka, "Inside Stratcom on Sept. 11 Offutt Exercise Took Real-Life Twist."
[39] Gregory A. Freeman, "Code Alpha."
[40] Exercise Global Guardian 2001-2 Joint After-Action Report, p. A4.
[41] "NORAD."
[42] Steve Mertl, "Canadian General Who Led NORAD on 9/11 Praises its Performance, Considering." Canadian Press, September 10, 2006.
[43] "In Their Own Words--NORAD Members Recall September 11, Part 3: Steve Armstrong." North American Aerospace Defense Command, September 9, 2011.
[44] Scott Simmie, "The Scene at NORAD on Sept. 11"; William B. Scott, "Exercise Jump-Starts Response to Attacks." Aviation Week & Space Technology, June 3, 2002; Pam Zubeck, "NORAD Chief Will Testify at 9/11 Hearing." Colorado Springs Gazette, June 14, 2004; "In Their Own Words--NORAD Members Recall September 11, Part 3: Steve Armstrong."
[45] Pat McKenna, "The Border Guards." Airman, January 1996; "Facts About Unusual Aspects of NORAD." Colorado Springs Gazette, May 10, 2008.
[46] Scott Simmie, "The Scene at NORAD on Sept. 11"; William J. Astore, "Leaving Cheyenne Mountain." The Nation, May 5, 2008.
[47] Clear the Skies.
[48] Ibid.; Pam Zubeck, "NORAD Chief Will Testify at 9/11 Hearing"; T. R. Reid, "Military to Idle NORAD Compound." Washington Post, July 29, 2006.
[49] Will Chabun, "Regina Airport Authority's CEO Recalls NORAD on 9/11." Regina Leader-Post, September 12, 2011.
[50] Pat McKenna, "The Border Guards"; "NORAD to Patrol Skies Over NYC During Convention, Anticipates Attack on U.S. Before Election." Reuters, August 25, 2004; John Hazlehurst, "Opening Cheyenne Mountain Could be Tourism Boom." Colorado Springs Business Journal, February 2, 2007.
[51] Will Chabun, "Regina Airport Authority's CEO Recalls NORAD on 9/11."
[52] William J. Astore, "Leaving Cheyenne Mountain."
[53] Dan Balz and Bob Woodward, "A Day to Speak of Anger and Grief." Washington Post, January 30, 2002; 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 326; Alfred Goldberg et al., Pentagon 9/11. Washington, DC: Defense Department, Office of the Secretary, Historical Office, 2007, p. 131.
[54] Air Threat Conference Call, Transcript. U.S. Department of Defense, September 11, 2001; "Testimony of U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld Prepared for Delivery to the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States." 9/11 Commission, March 23, 2004; 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report, pp. 326, 554; George W. Bush, Decision Points. New York: Crown, 2010, p. 133.
[55] John Farmer, The Ground Truth: The Untold Story of America Under Attack on 9/11. New York: Riverhead Books, 2009, p. 235.
[56] John Farmer et al., "A New Type of War: The Story of the FAA and NORAD Response to the September 11, 2001 Attacks." Rutgers Law Review, September 7, 2011.
[57] "Memorandum for the Record: Interview With CINC NORAD (Commander in Chief NORAD), General Edward 'Ed' Eberhart." 9/11 Commission, March 1, 2004.
[58] "Statement of General Richard Myers, USAF, Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff, Before the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States." 9/11 Commission, June 17, 2004.
[59] Jason Tudor, "Inner Space."
[60] Air Threat Conference Call, Transcript; "UA93 and Andrews Timeline." 9/11 Commission, n.d.
[61] "JITC EAM OT&E Support." Joint Interoperability Test Command, October 24, 2002; "CJCSI 5721.01E: The Defense Message System and Associated Legacy Message Processing Systems." Joint Chiefs of Staff, August 13, 2010.
[62] Air Threat Conference Call, Transcript.
[63] "Memorandum for the Record: Interview With Major Paul Goddard (Canadian Forces) and Ken Merchant."
[64] Exercise Global Guardian 2001-2 Joint After-Action Report, p. A4.
[65] William M. Arkin, "The Beat Goes On."
[66] Nuclear Weapon Systems Sustainment Programs.
[67] "Memorandum for the Record: Interview With Major Paul Goddard (Canadian Forces) and Ken Merchant."
[68] 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 458.
[69] Bill Kelly, "Rumsfeld Reflects on Offutt Air Force Base Role on 9/11."

Secret Service Simulated Crashing Planes into the White House Before 9/11

2011-09-24T01:50:00.000-07:00

Despite claims by the U.S. government that the events of 9/11 were unexpected, from 1998 the Secret Service was "crashing planes into the White House ... on a simulation program provided by the military" during training exercises, according to a retired Secret Service agent who had been involved with running those simulations. When this individual and his Secret Service colleagues learned that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center on the morning of September 11, 2001, one of those colleagues pointed to him and commented, "You know all about that." [1]

The existence of these plane crash simulations was revealed by Paul Nenninger, who worked for the Secret Service for 26 years, in a chapter he wrote for a book published in 2005. In 1997, Nenninger had been assigned to the Secret Service's James J. Rowley Training Center, just outside Washington, DC, in Beltsville, Maryland, where he served as program manager in charge of the Security and Incident Modeling Lab (SIMLAB). [2]

Nenninger wrote that on the morning of September 11, he had been at the Secret Service headquarters in Washington for a board meeting. One of the last people to arrive for the meeting reported that a plane had just crashed into the World Trade Center. "Across from me sat a lady who was formerly the special agent in charge of the White House," Nenninger wrote. "She pointed at me and said, 'You know all about that.'" Nenninger then explained to the others there for the meeting "that the training center had been crashing planes into the White House since 1998 on a simulation program provided by the military. It was done to test the security responses of the various agencies that interact to provide security and support to the White House." [3]

THE 'JOINT CONFLICT AND TACTICAL SIMULATION' SOFTWARE
For the training simulations Nenninger was involved with, the Secret Service had what Nenninger described as "a very good piece of analytical software" called the Joint Conflict and Tactical Simulation (JCATS), which had been developed by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. [4] The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in California is a research institution for science and technology applied to national security. [5] It has had a longstanding relationship with the U.S. Department of Defense for research and development for advanced defense technologies. [6]

JCATS was unveiled by computer scientists at LLNL in 1997 and was, at that time, the laboratory's most powerful combat program. It was then distributed to the Secret Service by the Joint Warfighting Center at Fort Monroe, Virginia, which was the program's Defense Department sponsor. By the start of 2000, as well as the Secret Service, JCATS was being used by such agencies as the Air Force Security Forces, the Special Operations Command, the Marine Corps., and the Army. [7]

JCATS simulations were particularly popular with the Secret Service's special operations units. Nenninger wrote that when these units "found that their military counterparts used similar software, and when possible did not launch an operation without a chance to have it simulated, they requested more and more time in SIMLAB." [8]

The U.S. military used JCATS "primarily for training individual commanders in battlefield operations and tactics," according to LLNL's magazine, Science & Technology Review. Using JCATS, "war games" that were "extremely accurate" and therefore provided "directly applicable and credible training" could be "set up to simulate combat situations, with teams of officers playing the various forces." [9] JCATS was used, among other things, to rehearse possible combat options in support of the 1999 Kosovo conflict. But as well as combat scenarios, JCATS could simulate exercises for purposes such as counterterrorism, hostage rescue, and site security. [10]

SECRET SERVICE RAN EXERCISES 'IN PREPARATION FOR TERRORIST ATTACKS ON THE WHITE HOUSE'
Nenninger did not state explicitly that the simulated plane crashes in the Secret Service exercises were imagined to be part of a mock terrorist attack, rather than, say, a simple aircraft accident. However, what he wrote did suggest that this had been the case. Nenninger asked, "Can you imagine really crashing planes into buildings?" He then added that "simulations allow you to ... practice something that you will never be able to do live in the real world ... and ... also allow you to practice scenarios that can be attempted by a terrorist or other deranged individual." So presumably the computer simulations of planes crashing into the White House were based around the scenario of a crash that was caused by "a terrorist or other deranged individual." [11]

Supporting this contention, in May 2001, then-Secretary of the Treasury Paul O'Neill testified that the Secret Service had been running "interagency tabletop exercises in preparation for terrorist attacks on the White House." [12] (However, O'Neill did not specify whether the exercises he was referring to included computer simulations of planes crashing into the White House.)

THE POSSIBLE ROLE OF COMPUTER SIMULATIONS IN PLANNING THE 9/11 ATTACKS
If, as has been suggested, rogue individuals working inside the military and other U.S. government agencies were responsible for planning and perpetrating the 9/11 attacks, JCATS would presumably have been a useful tool to help them prepare those attacks. It might, for example, have identified weaknesses in the security at the World Trade Center, therefore making it easier for operatives to sneak in and plant explosives, to be used to bring down the buildings on September 11. Science & Technology Review said JCATS was "ideally suited" to the task of evaluating site security. LLNL itself used the software to "evaluate the effectiveness of existing physical defenses and response actions against different threats." [13]

It would be important to find out whether any of the agencies that used JCATS ever ran computer simulations of attacks on the World Trade Center or Pentagon prior to 9/11. This is certainly a possibility worth considering, since, as Science & Technology Review pointed out, "The realism of JCATS simulations in urban settings makes it extremely valuable for assessing and strengthening site security at a range of government facilities." Furthermore, JCATS allowed users to "import blueprints of specific buildings for urban warfare and site security exercises." [14]

JCATS simulations may also have identified weaknesses in America's air defenses, and might have helped determine how those weaknesses could be exploited so the nation would be unprotected against an aerial attack. Nenninger in fact pointed out that in the Secret Service exercises he was involved with, JCATS could handle "FAA radar"--a feature that would presumably have made the program useful for evaluating air defenses. [15]

WERE SECRET SERVICE SIMULATIONS RELATED TO THE PLANNING OF 9/11?
There is a significant amount of evidence suggesting that training exercises run by the military and other government agencies played an important role in enabling the 9/11 attacks to be prepared and carried out. [16] It would therefore be worth considering whether the Secret Service training exercises described by Paul Nenninger, involving computer simulations of planes crashing into the White House, played a role in the planning and/or perpetration of the attacks. In particular, did the Secret Service conduct any of these simulations in the weeks or months just before 9/11? Was it even running--or scheduled to run--one of these simulations on the day of 9/11 itself?

It is perhaps worth noting that on possibly three occasions during the morning of September 11, suspicious aircraft appeared to be on a collision course for the White House. Just after 9:30 a.m., air traffic controllers spotted "an unidentified aircraft flying at unusually high speed directly toward the White House," according to the Washington Post. This was reportedly the aircraft that subsequently hit the Pentagon. [17] Secret Service agents at the White House believed at one point that the aircraft was less than a minute away from impact with their building. [18]

From 10:02 a.m. until around 10:15 a.m., government officials in the Presidential Emergency Operations Center (PEOC) below the White House were receiving reports that an aircraft, presumably hijacked, was approaching Washington. Then at around 10:30 a.m., those in the PEOC were notified that another hijacked aircraft was approaching, and was only 5 to 10 miles away. This suspicious aircraft turned out to be just a medevac helicopter, according to the 9/11 Commission Report. [19]

In light of the important relationship there appears to have been between training exercises and the events of September 11, it would also make sense to consider the role that could have been played by the Joint Conflict and Tactical Simulation--a powerful computer program that, in Nenninger's words, allowed agencies "to practice scenarios that can be attempted by a terrorist."

NOTES
[1] Paul L. Nenninger, "Simulation at the Secret Service: As Real as it Gets." In Learning Rants, Raves, and Reflections: A Collection of Passionate and Professional Perspectives, edited by Elliott Masie, pp. 175-187. San Francisco: Pfeiffer, 2005, p. 175.
[2] Ibid. p. 299.
[3] Ibid. p. 175.
[4] Ibid. p. 176.
[5] Glenn Chapman, "U.S. Lab Debuts Super Laser." Agence France-Presse, May 30, 2009.
[6] Wayne Shotts, "Tapping the Full Power of Conflict Simulation." Science & Technology Review, January/February 2000.
[7] "Simulating Warfare is no Video Game." Science & Technology Review, January/February 2000; Paul L. Nenninger, "Simulation at the Secret Service," p. 176.
[8] Paul L. Nenninger, "Simulation at the Secret Service," p. 184.
[9] Wayne Shotts, "Tapping the Full Power of Conflict Simulation."
[10] "Simulating Warfare is no Video Game."
[11] Paul L. Nenninger, "Simulation at the Secret Service," pp. 177-178.
[12] "Testimony of Paul H. O'Neill, Secretary of the Treasury, Before the Senate Committee on Appropriations, Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, State, and the Judiciary." Department of the Treasury, May 8, 2001.
[13] Wayne Shotts, "Tapping the Full Power of Conflict Simulation."
[14] "Simulating Warfare is no Video Game."
[15] Paul L. Nenninger, "Simulation at the Secret Service," p. 185.
[16] See, for example, "Pentagon Medics Thought 9/11 Attack Was Part of a Drill." Shoestring 9/11, June 15, 2008; "Rehearsing 9/11: How Training Exercises Foretold the Attacks of September 11." Shoestring 9/11, January 27, 2009; "Did Training Exercises Prevent Andrews Air Force Base From Responding to the 9/11 Attacks?" Shoestring 9/11, October 26, 2009; "NORAD Exercise a Year Before 9/11 Simulated a Pilot Trying to Crash a Plane into a New York Skyscraper--The United Nations Headquarters." Shoestring 9/11, July 27, 2010; "'Let's Get Rid of This Goddamn Sim': How NORAD Radar Screens Displayed False Tracks All Through the 9/11 Attacks." Shoestring 9/11, August 12, 2010; "Army Command Center at the Pentagon Planned to Hold Exercise in Week After 9/11 Based on a Plane Hitting the WTC." Shoestring 9/11, March 26, 2011.
[17] Don Phillips, "Air Traffic Controllers Spotted Unidentified Aircraft." Washington Post, September 11, 2001; 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2004, p. 9.
[18] "The Footnotes of 9/11." CNN Presents, CNN, September 11, 2011.
[19] Air Threat Conference Call, Transcript. U.S. Department of Defense, September 11, 2001; 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report, pp. 41-42.

Aviation Thriller Novel Predicted Plane Hitting WTC and Other Aspects of 9/11

2011-08-24T01:45:00.000-07:00

A thriller novel published in February 2000 predicted the possibility of a commercial aircraft crashing into the World Trade Center in a terrorist attack, and described other scenarios closely resembling aspects of the 9/11 attacks. Indeed, the similarity between these scenarios and events in the United States 19 months after the book's release suggests that someone--perhaps an individual working in the U.S. military or intelligence community--might have had foreknowledge of the 9/11 attacks and passed on some of what they knew to the book's author as storyline ideas, maybe as an attempt at warning people of the impending catastrophe.

The novel, Blackout, was written by New York Times best-selling author John J. Nance, who is "arguably the king of the modern-day aviation thriller," according to Publishers Weekly. [1] The book's plot revolves around the two main characters, Washington Post reporter Robert MacCabe and FBI agent Kat Bronsky, investigating what has caused two American jumbo jets to crash. It appears that terrorists are using a special ray gun stolen from the government to blind or kill pilots in flight, thereby leading to their planes crashing. [2]

TERRORISTS COULD CAUSE A PLANE TO CRASH INTO THE WTC
At one point in the story, Bronsky describes a scenario chillingly similar to what happened in the 9/11 terrorist attacks, when two Boeing 767s were crashed into the World Trade Center. She is explaining to MacCabe her fear that the terrorists will cause another plane crash. She says: "They're going to shoot down another airliner somewhere. You know that, don't you?" She continues: "So who's next? Are we going to get a seven-forty-seven impacting the World Trade Center in New York because the two pilots were neutralized on takeoff from Newark [Airport] or Kennedy [Airport]?" [3]

What is more, one of the terrorists responsible for causing the plane crashes in Blackout is called "Ben Laren"--a name similar to that of (Osama) bin Laden, who, according to the official story, ordered the 9/11 attacks. [4]

PERPETRATORS COULD PROFIT FROM TERRORISM THROUGH INSIDER-TRADING
In the weeks after 9/11, evidence was revealed indicating that some people may have had advance knowledge of the attacks in New York and at the Pentagon, and had therefore been able to profit by trading in companies whose stock plummeted after the attacks. This was another scenario predicted, with remarkable accuracy, in Blackout.

After a third aircraft crashes, Bronsky and MacCabe are considering what the terrorists' motivation might be. Bronsky suggests, "What if the chaos [caused by the terrorist attacks] itself is their objective?" She elaborates, saying: "How can you make lots of money from seriously undermining the airlines? How about selling their stock short or softening up the industry for financial takeovers?" She suggests that the terrorists "may already be getting precisely what they want from collapsing airline market prices." MacCabe asks, "Are the stock prices down today?" to which Bronsky replies: "Big-time. As much as a 10 percent drop. If this continues, they'll go into free fall." MacCabe then suggests, "We should be looking for someone buying a lot of airline stock at the bottom, or selling them short." [5]

This could almost be a description of what happened around the time of 9/11. The San Francisco Chronicle reported, shortly after September 11, that an "international investigation in the United States and several other countries" was "trying to determine whether people with advance knowledge of the attacks sought to profit from the trading" in particular airline stocks. [6]

According to the Associated Press: "In the days before the attacks, unusually high numbers of put options were purchased for the stocks of AMR Corp. and UAL Corp., the parent companies of American Airlines and United Airlines, which each had two planes hijacked. There was no such trend involving other carriers." [7] (Put options are investments that only pay off when a stock drops in price.) There was also a significant jump in short selling of the stocks of AMR Corp. and UAL Corp. during the month before the attacks, with increases of 20 percent and 40 percent, respectively. (A short sale is effectively a financial market bet that a particular stock will drop in value.) [8]

Similar to the "collapsing airline market prices" caused by the attacks on U.S. aircraft in Blackout, shares in the parent companies of the two airlines whose planes were targeted on 9/11 fell by 39 percent and 42 percent on the first day of trading after September 11. [9]

'IF THE THREAT DOESN'T ALREADY EXIST ... YOU MAY HAVE TO INVENT IT'
Nance's book even suggests that rogue employees working inside the government might be involved in perpetrating terrorist attacks against their own people, to help them achieve their political or military goals. A character in Blackout, scientist Dr. Thomas Maverick, asks Robert MacCabe if he is familiar with something called "the Sputnik Syndrome." Maverick explains what this is, saying: "There are many versions of the principle. Pearl Harbor is another. In other words, in order to spark a unified determination to develop a weapon or a military capability, there has to be a substantial threat." He adds, "If the threat doesn't already exist and you're the national leader who knows it's needed, you may have to invent it."

Maverick says, "That's what I'm convinced Franklin Roosevelt did by sacrificing Pearl Harbor to get us in the war in time to win it." [10] (This is presumably a reference to the contention that President Franklin D. Roosevelt knew in advance of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, but chose to do nothing about it, because he wanted some kind of national shock to get the reluctant U.S. into the Second World War. [11]) Maverick adds, "That was also what Sputnik did for our space program and our military abilities in space."

He then describes how this principle might explain the motivation for the attacks on American aircraft. He says, "Up until the past few months, there has been no credible threat out there that anyone was developing anti-eyeball guns for use against military or civilian targets, and thus no reason for the new president to overrule the old ban" on developing such weapons. (Maverick has revealed that a U.S. "black project" to develop antipersonnel laser weapons had been canceled by the president, and work on such projects in the future prohibited, following an accident during testing. But terrorists might have got hold of the laser developed by the project and used it to cause the plane crashes.)

Kat Bronsky asks, "Are you implying that this black project will benefit from having their stolen prototypes used against civilian airliners?" Maverick replies: "Think about the predictable response when these mysterious crashes are revealed as being caused by such lasers. Publicly, there will be a call for an international ban on research. Privately--secretly--we already have advanced technology and can press forward to dominate the science while pretending to adhere to our own international ban. ... We'll order thousands of weapons produced and stockpiled, and more research done, in order to be ready if someone violates the ban."

Therefore, Maverick explains, "If antipersonnel laser weapons were stolen and sold on the black market," the "black project managers" responsible for developing the weapons would know that "it would only be a matter of time before some military or terrorist group used one and created a new Sputnik Syndrome, thus rescuing them from the shadowy netherworld of project shutdown." [12]

9/11 ATTACKS WERE A 'SECOND PEARL HARBOR'
Interestingly, considering that the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor is cited by Dr. Maverick as an example of the "Sputnik Syndrome," the 9/11 attacks were immediately compared, by many individuals, to Pearl Harbor. CNN's Wolf Blitzer noted on the evening of September 11, "There's been a lot of comparisons to Pearl Harbor." [13] Senators Chuck Hagel and John Warner both called the attacks America's "second Pearl Harbor." [14] Indeed, before going to the White House residence on the night of September 11, President Bush dictated for the White House daily log, "The Pearl Harbor of the 21st century took place today." [15]

This "second Pearl Harbor" resulted in dramatic political changes. Domestically, it led to increased surveillance and restrictions on civil liberties, with the anti-terrorism USA Patriot Act being signed into law in a matter of weeks following the attacks, with overwhelming support. [16]

The U.S. also adopted a preemptive military policy, which was formalized when included in the National Security Strategy published in September 2002. This document stated, "To forestall or prevent ... hostile acts by our adversaries, the United States will, if necessary, act preemptively." This was the first time a U.S. president had set out a formal national strategy doctrine that included preemption. [17]

Furthermore, whereas U.S. defense spending had remained fairly steady during the late 1990s, from 2002 it was climbing by about $50 billion each financial year. [18] Federal funding for defense, military operations, homeland security, and related activities was about 35 percent higher in fiscal year 2005 than it had been just prior to 9/11. [19]

Almost exemplifying the "Sputnik Syndrome" principle described in Blackout, one senior Pentagon official told reporter Rowan Scarborough: "I hate to say this and would never say this in public, but 9/11 had its benefits. We never would have gone into Afghanistan and started this war without it. There just was not the national will." [20] In fact, as early as the evening of September 11, President Bush told his most senior principal national security advisers: "This is a great opportunity. We have to think of this as an opportunity." [21]

What needs to be properly investigated is whether 9/11 was an example of "if the threat doesn't already exist ... you may have to invent it." In other words, was it an "inside job"?

WERE 9/11-LIKE SCENARIOS A WARNING OF THE PLANNED ATTACKS ON THE U.S.?
As we can see, Blackout quite accurately predicted several aspects of the 9/11 attacks. And yet this book was released in February 2000, and was therefore likely written about two years before 9/11. How could its author have had such foresight?

Perhaps the similarities between the scenarios in Blackout and what happened around September 11, 2001 were just a remarkable coincidence. But another possibility worth considering is that someone had learned details of the attacks being planned for September 11 and suggested some of what they knew to John Nance as possible storyline ideas for his books. Maybe that person saw this as the only way they could make such information public, or they wanted to warn people of what was being planned. If so, who could this person be, and how did they learn of the plans for 9/11?

As well as being the author of 19 books, John J. Nance is a decorated Air Force pilot and a retired airline captain. He has flown a wide variety of jet aircraft, including Boeing 727s, 737s, and 747s. He is an internationally recognized air safety analyst and works as an aviation consultant for ABC News. [22]

In the acknowledgments section of Blackout, Nance mentions "a cadre of law enforcement, legal, aviation, and communications compatriots" who assisted him with the book. He gives credit to a particular retired FBI agent. And he gives thanks, anonymously, to an "individual inside the U.S. State Department who helped with a myriad of information from Vietnam to the way a secretary of state uses communications," and also to a "source who helped with the capabilities of the National Reconnaissance Office"--the highly secretive U.S. intelligence agency that operates many of the nation's spy satellites. [23] Presumably, with his professional background, Nance has additional contacts in the U.S. military and other government agencies besides those mentioned here.

Might one of these contacts have learned in advance of the 9/11 plot, and suggested some of its details to Nance as possible ideas for his books? If so, this person could potentially be an important whistle-blower on government complicity in 9/11. There are, presumably, numerous other potential whistle-blowers like them.

NOTES
[1] "Fiction Review: Blackout." Publishers Weekly, January 31, 2000.
[2] Ibid.; Eugen Weber, "LA Confidential." Los Angeles Times, April 16, 2000.
[3] John J. Nance, Blackout. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 2000, pp. 319-320.
[4] Ibid. p. 251.
[5] Ibid. pp. 344-345.
[6] Christian Berthelsen, "New Scrutiny of Airlines Options Deals." San Francisco Chronicle, September 19, 2001.
[7] Dave Carpenter, "Exchange Examines Odd Jump." Associated Press, September 18, 2001.
[8] Christian Berthelsen, "Data Shows Heavy Airline-Stock Short Selling." San Francisco Chronicle, September 22, 2001; Christian Berthelsen and Scott Winokur, "Suspicious Profits Sit Uncollected." San Francisco Chronicle, September 29, 2001.
[9] Dave Carpenter, "Exchange Examines Odd Jump."
[10] John J. Nance, Blackout, p. 405.
[11] See, for example, John Hartl, "Videos Examine Pearl Harbor From Different Vantage Points." Seattle Times, December 7, 1991; Richard Bernstein, "'Day of Deceit': On Dec. 7, Did We Know We Knew?" New York Times, December 15, 1999.
[12] John J. Nance, Blackout, pp. 404-406.
[13] "America Under Attack." CNN, September 11, 2001.
[14] Janet Hook and Greg Miller, "Uprooted but Resolute, Congress Vows Justice." Los Angeles Times, September 12, 2001; Joseph Fitchett, "Like the Attack in 1941, Air Terrorism Could Provoke Severe Repercussions." New York Times, September 12, 2001.
[15] David Kohn, "Bush on 9/11: Moment to Moment." CBS News, September 2, 2003.
[16] David Lerman, "Critics Say Patriot Act Could Impose on Civil Liberties." Daily Press, October 28, 2001; George Lardner Jr., "On Left and Right, Concern Over Anti-Terrorism Moves." Washington Post, November 16, 2001.
[17] The National Security Strategy of the United States of America. Washington, DC: The White House, September 2002, p. 15; Stefan Halper and Jonathan Clarke, America Alone: The Neo-Conservatives and the Global Order. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004, pp. 141-142.
[18] "How 9/11 Changed America: In Statistics." BBC News, September 1, 2006.
[19] Steven M. Kosiak, "Funding for Defense, Military Operations, Homeland Security, and Related Activities Since 9/11." Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, October 18, 2004.
[20] Rowan Scarborough, Rumsfeld's War: The Untold Story of America's Anti-Terrorist Commander. Washington, DC: Regnery Publishing, Inc., 2004, pp. iii.
[21] Bob Woodward, Bush at War. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2002, pp. 31-32.
[22] Waka Tsunoda, "With Latest Thriller, Nance Delivers His Richest Characters Yet." Associated Press, August 24, 2003; "John J. Nance." ABC News, January 6, 2006; "John J. Nance Biographic Information." John Nance Productions, n.d.
[23] John J. Nance, Blackout.

The 9/11 Hijackers: Amateur Aviators Who Became Super-Pilots on September 11

2011-07-11T12:37:00.000-07:00

"To hit something with an airplane is easy only if
you have been flying for 20 years."
- Boeing 767 pilot quoted in the Boston Globe

"The conspiracy apparently did not include
a surplus of skilled pilots."
- The Washington Post

In the days after 9/11, numerous pilots and aviation experts commented on the elaborate maneuvers performed by the aircraft in the terrorist attacks, and the advanced skills that would have been necessary to navigate those aircraft into their targets. The men flying the planes must have been "highly skilled pilots" and "extremely knowledgeable and capable aviators," who were "probably military trained," these experts said.

And yet the four alleged hijackers who were supposedly flying the aircraft were amateur pilots, who had learned to fly in small propeller planes, and were described by their instructors as having had only "average" or even "very poor" piloting skills. But on their first attempt at flying jet aircraft, on September 11, 2001, these men were supposedly able to fly Boeing 757s and 767s at altitudes of tens of thousands of feet, without any assistance from air traffic control. Three of them were apparently able to successfully navigate their planes all the way to the intended targets, which they hit with pinpoint accuracy.

For such poor pilots to carry out such skilled flying would surely have been extremely unlikely, perhaps impossible. And yet this is what is claimed in the official account of 9/11.

EXPERTS SAID HIJACKERS 'MUST HAVE BEEN EXPERIENCED PILOTS'
Numerous experts commented that the hijackers who flew the aircraft in the 9/11 attacks must have been highly trained and skillful pilots. Tony Ferrante, the head of the Federal Aviation Administration's investigations division, spent several days after 9/11 carefully piecing together the movements of the four aircraft targeted in the attacks. According to author Pamela Freni, Ferrante's "hair stood on end when he realized the precision with which all four airplanes had moved toward their targets." Ferrante said, "It was almost as though it was choreographed," and explained, "It's not as easy as it looks to do what [the hijackers] did at 500 miles an hour." [1]

Darryl Jenkins, the director of the Aviation Institute at George Washington University, told the New York Times that the men who carried out the attacks "knew what they were doing down to very small details." He said, "Every one of them was trained in flying big planes." The Times reported that a "number of aviation experts agreed" with Jenkins and had said that "the hijackers must have been experienced pilots." John Nance, an airline pilot, author, and aviation analyst, said that "the direct hits on the two towers and on the Pentagon suggested to him that the pilots were experienced fliers." Nance pointed to the "smooth banking of the second plane to strike the towers," and said that "precisely controlling a large jet near the ground, necessary for the Pentagon attack, also required advanced skill." Nance concluded, "There's no way an amateur could have, with any degree of reliability, done what was done" in the 9/11 attacks. [2]

A pilot who had been with a major carrier for more than 30 years told CNN that to "pull off the coordinated aerial attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon ... the hijackers must have been extremely knowledgeable and capable aviators." The pilot added, "They know what they were doing." [3]

Robin Lloyd, a Boeing 737 captain with a British airline, told The Telegraph that "the hijackers had to be experienced pilots with more than just a rudimentary knowledge of navigation." Lloyd, who co-runs the Professional Pilots' Rumour Network website, which is "regarded worldwide as one of the prime sources of accurate information for the aviation industry," said the terrorists at the controls of the hijacked aircraft "had to be 100 percent switched on people, 100 percent experienced pilots, probably military trained." He said someone like Osama bin Laden "wouldn't have access to pilots of the caliber needed to pull it off." [4]

John Roden, the president of Aviation Advisory Service, an Oakland, California, consulting firm, said the piloting necessary to navigate the planes to their targets "was very skillful. This is practically fighter pilot technique." [5] And a U.S. Air Force officer who flew over 100 sorties during the Vietnam War concluded that the hijacked aircraft "either had a crack fighter pilot in the left seat or they were being maneuvered by remote control." [6]

'CONSIDERABLE TRAINING' AND 'IN-DEPTH KNOWLEDGE' NEEDED TO FLY 757 AND 767 AIRCRAFT
Two of the aircraft targeted in the 9/11 attacks were Boeing 757s and the other two were Boeing 767s. Experts have commented how difficult it would have been for amateur pilots, like the alleged hijackers, to fly such aircraft.

Aviation experts told the Chicago Tribune, "Unlike a small private plane where pilots generally fly visually, a commercial plane like those hijacked [on September 11] requires a vast command of navigation techniques as well as in-depth knowledge of their myriad systems, from hydraulics to the autopilot." [7] Michael Barr, the director of aviation safety programs at the University of Southern California, and several commercial airline pilots told the Boston Globe that "they assumed that the terrorists were skilled pilots who had to have received some training in flying transport jets, particularly the Boeing 757 and 767 aircraft." [8]

Steven Wallach, an aviation consultant and former airline captain, said that if the hijackers "took the controls at high altitude and a long distance from their targets"--as allegedly happened--"then they likely had considerable training in a 767 or 757." Wallach said the hijackers "would have had to descend and navigate to Washington and New York. They would have had to know how to operate the autopilot, as well as other intricate functions." Boeing 767s and 757s have highly sophisticated "glass cockpits" that include video screens and digital readouts, which require the pilots to have an advanced level of computer skills. "To navigate with that glass cockpit, it can be pretty tricky," Wallach said. [9]

HITTING THE WTC LIKE 'THREADING THE EYE OF A NEEDLE'
Some experts commented specifically on the flying skills that would have been necessary to crash planes into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center.

Kieran Daly, the editor of the Internet publication Air Transport Intelligence, said, "Flying an aircraft into a building is not as simple as it appears." He said the hijackers "would have needed some experience to have been able to steer the planes into the World Trade Centre." [10] Robin Lloyd compared the targets of the WTC towers to "narrow runways tipped vertically." From "switching off the autopilot," the hijackers "would have to know how to control the aircraft and be able to find the target," he said. Lloyd said that "rag-trousered terrorists with no flying experience could not have hit" the Twin Towers. [11]

Michael Barr said the hijackers who flew the planes into the WTC "had to change course ... had to know how to navigate." [12] Barr, who is a former Air Force fighter-bomber pilot, said the hijacker pilots "almost had to hit the towers like they were threading the eye of a needle." He commented on the difficulty the pilots would have had in synchronizing their attacks so they hit the two WTC towers about 15 minutes apart, saying: "The routes they were flying were very different--one plane coming from the north and the other coming from the south. That adds greatly to the complexity and it requires a degree of skill to prevent the planes from banking too much or descending too fast while keeping on course." Barr added that the piloting skills apparently exhibited by the hijackers indicated that "months and months of planning and training were involved." He concluded, "Unfortunately, these guys were good." [13]

A 767 pilot told the Boston Globe: "The perpetrators were trained pilots and trained to operate the 757-767 family of aircraft. ... [I]t did not seem to bother them that the flying was very demanding." This pilot noted that video showed that the second aircraft to hit the WTC was banked, or turning, as it struck the tower, "making the maneuver more difficult." He added, "To hit something with an airplane is easy only if you have been flying for 20 years." [14]

Niki Lauda, the former Formula One world champion who is also a pilot and owned his own airline, said on German TV that whoever flew the aircraft into the WTC must have been "properly trained to fly a plane like that." He said: "You have to know exactly what the turning radius of a plane like that is, if I am trying to hit the World Trade Center. That means, these had to be fully trained 767 or 757 pilots. ... It certainly could not be the case that some half-trained pilot tries it somehow, because then he will not hit it." [15]

AIRCRAFT THAT HIT THE PENTAGON 'WAS FLOWN WITH EXTRAORDINARY SKILL'
A particularly high level of skill would have been needed to fly an aircraft into the west wall of the Pentagon. CBS News reported: "Radar shows Flight 77 did a downward spiral, turning almost a complete circle and dropping the last 7,000 feet in two and a half minutes. ... [T]he complex maneuver suggests the hijackers had better flying skills than many investigators first believed." [16] A "top aviation source" called the maneuver "a nice, coordinated turn," which, according to one law enforcement official, was the work of "a great talent ... virtually a textbook turn and landing." [17] Other "aviation sources" told the Washington Post that the aircraft that hit the Pentagon "was flown with extraordinary skill." [18]

According to the Chicago Tribune, authorities said the terrorist who flew American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon displayed "proficiency in the aircraft's advanced navigation and automated flight systems. ... Such systems require pilots to program the desired course heading and altitude into an onboard computer, and the plane carries out the instructions." [19]

Dave Esser, the head of the aeronautical engineering department at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Florida, told CNN that "the highest level of navigational ability would have been needed" with Flight 77. Roger Richie, a spokesman for Flight Safety Academy, a flight school in Vero Beach, Florida, added: "It's not that simple when you're heading over [Ohio], to come back and find the Pentagon. You need to know what you are doing." [20]

Ed Soliday, a highly qualified and experienced former airline captain, told the 9/11 Commission that he had been talking about piloting skills with a military officer at the Pentagon, and had remarked to the officer "how tough it would be for any pilot, including himself, to hit the Pentagon directly." Soliday said the "feel" to hit the Pentagon by flying a 757 manually would not have been easy, particularly because of the building's low profile, and would have required the pilot who undertook the task to have had significant "simulator time." Soliday told the Commission that "if he were going to do the Pentagon, he would try to do it all on the autopilot because of how difficult it was." [21] However, the autopilot on Flight 77 was disengaged at 9:29 a.m. and remained off for the final eight minutes the plane was in the air, according to a study of information from the plane's flight data recorder by the National Transportation Safety Board. [22]

The 767 pilot who talked to the Boston Globe similarly said hitting the Pentagon would have been "extremely difficult." He added, "One degree off and [the pilot] either overshoots it or undershoots it." [23] Gary Eitel, an experienced military pilot, said that "the maneuver performed by Flight 77, as described in official reports, was beyond the capabilities of 90 percent of even the best and most experienced pilots in the world." Eitel said that "he was amazed by the piloting skill used to steer Flight 175 into the second tower. Flight 77 boggled his mind." [24]

Niki Lauda said that "to fly downwards out of a curve and still hit the building in its core, I would have to be the best trained [pilot] of all." He speculated that "a normal airline pilot would have a hard time with that, because you are simply not prepared for things like that." Therefore, Lauda concluded, "They must have had some super-training to have been able to handle an airliner so precisely." [25]

While these experts indicated an extraordinary level of piloting skills would have been necessary to carry out the 9/11 attacks, the four men supposedly at the controls of the hijacked aircraft were in fact notable for their lack of such skills and for their limited flying experience.

FLIGHT 11 AND FLIGHT 175 PILOTS HAD 'AVERAGE' SKILLS
Mohamed Atta and Marwan Alshehhi, allegedly the terrorists who flew American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175 into the World Trade Center, were at best mediocre pilots, according to several accounts. They learned to fly between July and December 2000 at a flight school in Venice, Florida. They were enrolled in the school's Accelerated Pilot Program and trained in a Cessna 172, a small single-engine propeller plane. In mid-December 2000, the two men passed their commercial pilot tests and received their licenses. [26] Rudi Dekkers, the owner of the flight school, said he had "heard from the instructors" that Atta and Alshehhi "were average students," and "the examiner told me the same." [27]

The closest Atta and Alshehhi came to flying a jet aircraft before September 11 was the two days they spent at the SimCenter flight school in Opa-Locka, Florida, in late- December 2000, where they had six hours of training in a Boeing 727 simulator. Henry George, the owner of the SimCenter who trained Atta and Alshehhi in the simulator, said the two men were provided with "a mini, mini introduction" to jet flight. George found their flying skills to be unremarkable. He later recalled: "Looking back, they were average pilots for their experience level. Nothing particularly bad about their flying, but nothing remarkable either." [28]

FLIGHT 77 PILOT WAS 'TOTALLY CLUELESS' AND 'COULD NOT FLY AT ALL'
Of the four men supposedly at the controls of the hijacked aircraft on September 11, Hani Hanjour stood out for his particularly weak flying skills. This 29-year-old from Saudi Arabia is alleged to have flown Flight 77 into the Pentagon. That, as we have seen, would have been a particularly difficult task, even for the best pilots. Hanjour, however, was a hopeless pilot.

An Arizona flight school Hanjour attended in 1996 found the young Saudi to be a "weak student" who "was wasting our resources," according to the school's owner. [29] An instructor at another Arizona flight school who taught Hanjour for four months in 1998 later stated: "As a pilot, Hani Hanjour was very poor. His knowledge of the academic side of training was weak, his flying skills were marginal, but most significantly his judgment was very poor." The instructor recalled that Hanjour "was not well educated nor was he very intelligent." Hanjour had "a poor understanding of the basic principles of aviation" and "poor technical skills." [30]

Instructors at a flight school that Hanjour attended early in 2001 "found his piloting skills so shoddy and his grasp of English so inadequate that they questioned whether his pilot's license was genuine," according to the New York Times. The staff at the school "feared that his skills were so weak that he could pose a safety hazard if he flew a commercial airliner." [31] An instructor at the school who trained Hanjour in a Boeing 737 simulator while he was there said Hanjour "proved to be such a bad pilot," and described Hanjour as "totally clueless." [32] One of the school's employees later said of Hanjour: "I'm still to this day amazed that he could have flown into the Pentagon. He could not fly at all." [33]

As the day of the attacks came closer, Hanjour's skills remained weak. An instructor at a Maryland flight school who provided flight lessons to Hanjour in mid-August 2001--less than a month before 9/11--found Hanjour to be "a poor student" who had "particular difficulty landing the aircraft." [34] After he was taken on three test flights at the school, Hanjour's request to rent a plane there was refused without more training. [35]

The Washington Post concluded that Hanjour's "limited flying abilities do afford an insight into one feature of the attacks: The conspiracy apparently did not include a surplus of skilled pilots." [36]

FLIGHT 93 PILOT'S SKILLS WERE 'A LITTLE BIT OUT THERE'
The terrorist allegedly at the controls of United Airlines Flight 93, which reportedly crashed in Pennsylvania after its passengers fought back against their plane's hijackers, was Ziad Jarrah, a 26-year-old from the Lebanon. While he was a better pilot than Hani Hanjour, Jarrah still appears to have had only mediocre flying skills.

Jarrah learned to fly during the latter half of 2000, spending about six months at a flight school in Florida where he trained in a Cessna 152, a small, two-seat propeller plane. [37] Jarrah became an "average" pilot, according to Arne Kruithof, the owner of the flight school. Kruithof said of Jarrah: "We had to do more to get him ready than others. His flight skills seemed to be a little bit out there." [38]

In June 2001, only three months before 9/11, Jarrah had two sessions of training at a flight school in Philadelphia, but his request to rent a plane from the school was denied due to his poor flying skills. Herbert Hortman, the owner of the flight school, told the 9/11 Commission he was surprised that Jarrah had qualified for his pilot's license, considering his limited flying ability. Hortman "speculated that a less than reputable flight school had issued the license." [39]

Despite his mediocre skills, Jarrah intended to crash Flight 93 into the White House or the U.S. Capitol building until he was stopped in his tracks by the plane's courageous passengers, according to the official account of 9/11. [40]

DID THE HIJACKERS JUST HAVE BEGINNER'S LUCK?
We can see that the four men who were allegedly at the controls of the aircraft targeted in the 9/11 attacks had poor or mediocre skills and limited flying experience. So how could these amateur pilots, who had trained in small propeller planes, suddenly exhibit extraordinary proficiency in their first attempts at flying large jet aircraft? Was this the greatest example of beginner's luck in all history? Or is the official explanation of the 9/11 attacks wrong? A new investigation of those attacks is urgently required to address this question and find out the truth of what happened on September 11, 2001.

NOTES
[1] Pamela Freni, Ground Stop: An Inside Look at the Federal Aviation Administration on September 11, 2001. Lincoln, NE: iUniverse, Inc., 2003, p. 76; "Memorandum for the Record: Interview With Tony Ferrante." 9/11 Commission, April 19, 2004.
[2] James Glanz, "Terrorists Were Well Trained, but not Necessarily in Flying." New York Times, September 13, 2001.
[3] "Hijackers 'Knew What They Were Doing.'" CNN, September 12, 2001.
[4] Nicole Martin and Andrew Hibberd, "Hijackers May Have Murdered the Pilots." The Telegraph, September 12, 2001.
[5] Henry K. Lee, "Experts Assess How Skilled Hijackers Were." San Francisco Chronicle, September 13, 2001.
[6] "September 11: U.S. Government Accused." Portugal News, August 3, 2002.
[7] Jon Hilkevitch, "Hijackers Flew Skillfully to Targets, Experts Say." Chicago Tribune, September 13, 2001.
[8] Matthew Brelis, "Pilots Say Crews Likely Overpowered, Slain." Boston Globe, September 12, 2001.
[9] Ken Kaye, "Questions Remain on Flight Training." South Florida Sun-Sentinel, September 22, 2001.
[10] Nicole Martin, "Pilots 'Must Have Been Murdered' Before Jets Were Aimed at Buildings." Irish Independent, September 12, 2001.
[11] Nicole Martin and Andrew Hibberd, "Hijackers May Have Murdered the Pilots."
[12] Matthew Brelis, "Pilots Say Crews Likely Overpowered, Slain."
[13] Jon Hilkevitch, "Hijackers Flew Skillfully to Targets, Experts Say."
[14] Matthew Brelis, "Pilots Say Crews Likely Overpowered, Slain."
[15] Webster Griffin Tarpley, 9/11 Synthetic Terror: Made in USA. Joshua Tree, CA: Progressive Press, 2005, p. 190.
[16] "Primary Target." CBS News, September 21, 2001.
[17] Amy Goldstein, "Hijackers Led by Core Group." Washington Post, September 30, 2001; Steve Fainaru and Alia Ibrahim, "Mysterious Trip to Flight 77 Cockpit." Washington Post, September 10, 2002.
[18] Marc Fisher and Don Phillips, "On Flight 77: 'Our Plane is Being Hijacked.'" Washington Post, September 12, 2001.
[19] Jon Hilkevitch, "Hijackers Flew Skillfully to Targets, Experts Say."
[20] "Experts Say Hijackers Needed Special Skills." CNN, September 14, 2001.
[21] "Memorandum for the Record: Interview With Captain Ed Soliday, Former Vice President of Safety, Security, and Quality Assurance for United Airlines." 9/11 Commission, November 21, 2003.
[22] John O'Callaghan and Daniel Bower, "Study of Autopilot, Navigation Equipment, and Fuel Consumption Activity Based on United Airlines Flight 93 and American Airlines Flight 77 Digital Flight Data Recorder Information." National Transportation Safety Board, February 13, 2002.
[23] Matthew Brelis, "Pilots Say Crews Likely Overpowered, Slain."
[24] Michael C. Ruppert, Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil. Gabriola Island, BC: New Society Publishers, 2004, p. 350.
[25] Webster Griffin Tarpley, 9/11 Synthetic Terror, p. 191.
[26] House Committee on the Judiciary, INS's March 2002 Notification of Approval of Change of Status for Pilot Training for Terrorist Hijackers Mohammed Atta and Marwan Alshehhi. 107th Cong., 2nd Sess., March 19, 2002; 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2004, pp. 224, 227.
[27] Rudi Dekkers, interview by Quentin McDermott, A Mission to Die For. Australian Broadcasting Corporation, October 21, 2001.
[28] David Firestone and Dana Canedy, "FBI Documents Detail the Movements of 19 Men Believed to be Hijackers." New York Times, September 15, 2001; David A. Lombardo, "Hijack Pilots Showed Average Skills, Say Their Instructors." Aviation International News, November 2001.
[29] Amy Goldstein, Lena H. Sun, and George Lardner Jr., "Hanjour a Study in Paradox." Washington Post, October 15, 2001.
[30] Statement of [Name Redacted]. Canfield, Shapiro, Baer, Heller & Johnston, LLP, May 1, 2002.
[31] Jim Yardley, "A Trainee Noted for Incompetence." New York Times, May 4, 2002.
[32] [Name Redacted], interview by the FBI. Federal Bureau of Investigation, September 17, 2001.
[33] Jim Yardley, "A Trainee Noted for Incompetence."
[34] "Memorandum for the Record: Interview of Benjamin L. Connor." 9/11 Commission, April 12, 2004.
[35] Justin Paprocki, "Airport Owners Panic Over Plummeting Profits." Capital News Service, September 19, 2001; Thomas Frank, "Tracing Trail of Hijackers." Newsday, September 23, 2001.
[36] Amy Goldstein, Lena H. Sun, and George Lardner Jr., "Hanjour a Study in Paradox."
[37] Der Spiegel Magazine, Inside 9/11: What Really Happened. New York: St. Martin's Press, 2002, p. 12; "Statement for the Record, FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III, Joint Intelligence Committee Inquiry." U.S. Congress, September 25, 2002.
[38] Jere Longman, Among the Heroes: United Flight 93 and the Passengers and Crew Who Fought Back. New York: HarperCollins, 2002, p. 91.
[39] "Profile: Ziad Samir Jarrah, DOB: May 11, 1975." Federal Bureau of Investigation, March 20, 2002; "Memorandum for the Record: Interview of Herbert Hortman, Owner of Hortman Aviation, Philadelphia, PA." 9/11 Commission, April 27, 2004.
[40] 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 14.

The Mystery of the Helicopter Flying Around the Pentagon Before the Attack There on 9/11

2011-06-11T05:45:00.000-07:00

A mysterious helicopter was seen flying near the Pentagon in the minutes before the attack there on September 11, 2001. Several witnesses have described seeing the helicopter, which circled the Pentagon and then apparently landed for a brief period on the helipad, near where the building was subsequently hit. It then flew off very shortly before the attack took place. And yet there has never been any public acknowledgement of this incident, or any official explanation of what the helicopter was doing at the Pentagon at that time.

While interviewing one of the witnesses to the incident, however, a Navy historian revealed that the helicopter belonged to the United States Park Police, and, the historian said, had been instructed to intercept the aircraft that was on a crash-course for the Pentagon.

Official accounts have claimed that Park Police helicopters only took to the air after the Pentagon was hit, to provide assistance in response to the attack. However, evidence casts doubt on this version of events. A woman who was dating one of the Park Police helicopter pilots has written an account of her experiences on September 11, which clearly supports the contention that the helicopters took off before the Pentagon attack occurred. And there are several contradictions between the various accounts describing the official narrative, indicating this narrative may, at least partly, have been fabricated. Furthermore, it appears there could have been a deliberate attempt to cover up the true details of what happened. The Navy historian in fact told the eyewitness he interviewed: "Don't tell anyone about that story. ... We don't want the press to get this."

WITNESSES SAW HELICOPTER BY THE PENTAGON
Several individuals have recalled seeing a helicopter flying near the Pentagon just before the attack there on September 11. Shortly after the attack occurred, a senior Air Force officer at the Pentagon told CNN's Chris Plante that he had seen "a helicopter circle the building," which had "disappeared behind the building where the helicopter landing zone is ... and he then saw [a] fireball go into the sky" when the Pentagon was hit. [1] Jennifer Reichert had been stuck in traffic on the road in front of the Pentagon. She described that "a helicopter [took] off from the heliport at the Pentagon." Then, "Minutes--maybe seconds--later," she heard the aircraft coming toward the Pentagon and then felt the explosion of the crash. [2]

Jeffrey Mark Parsons, an assistant chief patrol agent with the United States Border Patrol, saw the helicopter from a window on the 17th floor of his hotel, the Marriott Residence Inn in Arlington. Two or three minutes before the Pentagon was hit, Parsons recalled, he saw a blue and white helicopter flying in at "a weird angle" and circling "between the hotel and the Pentagon, going toward the landing pad [at the Pentagon] where that airliner ultimately hit." Parsons said he thought the helicopter "landed on the pad." He recognized the helicopter as a Huey from the noise it made, as he had flown Hueys and knew they made "a very distinct sound." [3]

HELICOPTER BELONGED TO THE PARK POLICE
The identity of this helicopter was revealed by John Darrell Sherwood, a Navy historian who interviewed Parsons about the incident. The helicopter's pilot had previously described what happened to a Marine Corps historian who was a colleague of Sherwood's. According to Sherwood, the helicopter was a Huey belonging to the Park Police that "had been directed to try to intercept that airline" that subsequently hit the Pentagon. The helicopter had been "in the area" of the Pentagon, when the pilot received a call telling him, "Try to intercept this plane, try to distract the plane, try to do something to, you know, prevent the plane from going into the Pentagon." The helicopter had then gone "to try to distract" the approaching aircraft. Although the helicopter had flown away from the Pentagon before the building was hit, its pilot "saw the plane go in, and then the next thing he started doing is medevacing people out of there," according to Sherwood. [4]

The Park Police Aviation Unit is located in Anacostia Park in southeast Washington, DC, across the Potomac River from the Pentagon. It has two Bell 412 helicopters, which are a modern version of the Huey. [5] These helicopters are colored blue and white, like the helicopter Parsons described. [6] The aviation unit's missions include the provision of aviation support for law enforcement, medical evacuation ("medevac"), search and rescue, and presidential and dignitary security. [7]

HELICOPTERS TOLD TO RESPOND TO PLANE HEADING FOR WASHINGTON
Sherwood's claim that at least one of the Park Police Aviation Unit's Hueys was launched prior to the attack on the Pentagon, and was instructed to intercept an approaching aircraft, has been supported by the account of Stephanie Hughes, a nurse at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. At the time of the 9/11 attacks, Hughes was dating Sergeant Keith Bohn, one of the Park Police's helicopter pilots.

On her personal blog, Hughes has written that on the morning of September 11, she was driving to the aviation unit to meet Bohn for a late breakfast after he finished work, having just been on the night shift. On the way, she heard reports on the radio about the first plane crashing into the World Trade Center. When she arrived at the unit, she saw its two helicopters taking off, but assumed that Bohn, having completed his shift, was not flying in either of them.

But, Hughes recalled, "When I got inside the hangar, he was not there." The only person around was the aircraft maintenance technician, who told Hughes that the unit had "just got a call to respond to the White House, that a plane was headed to Washington, DC, and that they were to go airborne." Bohn had left Hughes "a quickly scribbled note" that said, "Got called into the air, there is another plane headed this way, go home and wait for me to call." This clearly appears to have been before the Pentagon was hit. At that time, Hughes recalled, "CNN was on the TV and it was showing video of the World Trade Center." As she headed home, Hughes called her mother and sister, "to tell them what was going on, in case I was the only non-police person who knew a plane was headed to Washington, DC." After she arrived home, Hughes was "glued to the TV, and it was then [that] the Pentagon was being identified as being hit." [8]

However, official accounts told a different story to this. They made no mention of Park Police helicopters taking off to intercept a plane heading toward Washington, or flying around the Pentagon before it was attacked. Instead, these accounts claimed that the aviation unit only launched its helicopters after the Pentagon was hit.

AVIATION UNIT RESPONDED TO THE PENTAGON ATTACK
The morning of September 11, the Park Police Aviation Unit was holding a large training event, in preparation for the upcoming meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank in Washington. [9] Personnel there learned of the first attack in New York from television reports, but initially thought it was an accident. But when they saw the live coverage of the second plane hitting the WTC at 9:03 a.m., they realized it was a deliberate attack. [10]

Shortly after 9:37 a.m., when the Pentagon was hit, the aviation unit's "aircraft crash phone" started to ring. The crash phone is a direct communications line from the control tower at Washington's Reagan National Airport, which enables the aviation unit to respond quickly to incidents at the airport. Sergeant Ronald Galey, one of the unit's helicopter pilots, has said that he answered the call. The caller alerted the unit to the crash. [11]

According to official accounts, the Park Police Aviation Unit then became one of the first agencies to respond to the attack on the Pentagon. Its two Hueys were quickly prepared for takeoff, and then launched and arrived at the Pentagon within minutes. [12]

One of the helicopters, which has the call sign "Eagle I," was piloted by Galey. Also onboard were rescue technician Sergeant John Marsh and rescue team officer John Dillon. Flying in the other helicopter, "Eagle II," were Bohn and his copilot, Sergeant Kenneth Burchell, along with the aviation unit commander Lieutenant Philip Cholak and assistant commander Sergeant Bernard Stasulli, and two Defense Department medics who had been attending the training event: Keith Kettell and Jason Kepp. [13]

Eagle I reached the Pentagon within four minutes of the unit receiving the alert and Eagle II arrived two minutes later, according to Rotor & Wing magazine. [14] Upon arrival at the Pentagon, Eagle II landed to conduct medical evacuations while Eagle I circled overhead. [15]

That the Park Police helicopters were at the Pentagon after the attack there is beyond doubt. They were caught on film and witnessed by reporters. For example, at 9:48 a.m., CNN's Chris Plante reported from the Pentagon, "There is a Park Police helicopter overhead." [16] And at 10:11 a.m., Dave Statter of CBS affiliate Channel 9 reported that medics at the Pentagon were taking a man suffering burn injuries "to the U.S. Park Police Eagle helicopter. ... The Eagle helicopter from [the] Park Police is landing, taking this man to the hospital." [17] Accounts only conflict over whether at least one of these helicopters had also been flying near the Pentagon in the minutes before the attack.

A POSSIBLE COVER-UP
Although official accounts have made no mention of a Park Police helicopter flying near the Pentagon before it was attacked, or being instructed to intercept a hostile aircraft approaching Washington, it is possible that this is because attempts have been made to suppress this information.

Supporting this contention is the fact that after Jeffrey Mark Parsons recalled seeing the helicopter during his interview with John Darrell Sherwood, and after Sherwood then revealed that the helicopter belonged to the Park Police, Sherwood told Parsons to keep quiet about the incident. He said: "Don't tell anyone about that story because that's one of our, I think that's one of the best stories that's going to come out of this. We don't want the press to get this."

Sherwood also seemed uncomfortable about answering why the helicopter was flying near the Pentagon before the attack. After Sherwood explained that the helicopter's pilot had been instructed to try and intercept the aircraft that subsequently hit the Pentagon, Parsons asked him, "Then they knew it was headed toward the Pentagon before it actually hit the Pentagon, then?" Sherwood immediately changed the subject and talked about a fighter jet that had been flying in from North Carolina. Finally, he said, "So, I guess that helicopter swung around, but, by the time he got around the plane was already into the building." [18]

CONTRADICTIONS IN OFFICIAL ACCOUNTS
Casting doubt on the official narrative is the fact that there are a number of contradictions in the various accounts in which that narrative has been put forward. For example, as previously mentioned, Ronald Galey has claimed he was still on the ground at the aviation unit at the time the Pentagon was hit, and he was therefore able to answer the call on the aircraft crash phone in which the crash was reported. [19] However, Galey has given conflicting accounts about what the air traffic controller at Reagan Airport, David Walsh, supposedly told him in the call. [20]

In November 2001, Galey recalled Walsh saying, "We have a 757 down somewhere in the vicinity of the 14th Street Bridge," which goes over the Potomac River, near the Pentagon. [21] Later that month, Galey gave a slightly different account, recalling that Walsh said the control tower had "lost a 757 somewhere in the vicinity of the Pentagon." [22] But in January 2002, Galey said that Walsh specifically mentioned a plane hitting the Pentagon. Walsh supposedly said that "they had a 757 go into the Pentagon and they needed us to respond to the incident." [23]

And then, later that year, Galey gave a very different account. He recalled Walsh saying, "We have a 757 down on the north end of the airport," referring to Reagan Airport, which is about a mile away from the Pentagon. [24] Galey's fellow pilot, Keith Bohn, had earlier given a similar account. In November 2001, he said that in the initial phone call the aviation unit received about the attack, it was told there was "an aircraft down at the end of the runway at National Airport." [25]

A possible explanation for these conflicting accounts is that Galey had taken off before the Pentagon attack took place and therefore did not answer the call on the aircraft crash phone. Perhaps because he was ordered to keep quiet about his actual experiences from that time, Galey had been uncertain over what he should say instead, and so gave differing accounts when interviewed.

CONFLICTING DESCRIPTIONS OF TAKEOFFS
Also casting doubt on the accuracy of the official narrative is the fact that there have been conflicting accounts of which of the Park Police Aviation Unit's Hueys took off first, and how long it took for the two helicopters to launch after the unit was called about the crash.

According to most accounts, Eagle I was the first of the helicopters to take off. [26] Eagle II reportedly took longer to prepare for takeoff, as a few minutes were required to install a mass casualty kit, which would allow it to carry four patients instead of two, and so it took off after Eagle I. [27] However, a couple of months after 9/11, Galey said in an interview that Eagle II in fact took off first, while Eagle I, which he had been piloting, "launched right after." [28]

According to National Park Service reports, Eagle I took off less than two minutes after the aviation unit received the alert over the crash phone and Eagle II followed it about a minute later. [29] However, the Arlington County After-Action Report on the emergency response to the Pentagon attack stated that Eagle I took off at "approximately 9:43 a.m.," five or six minutes after the attack occurred, and "Eagle II launched eight minutes later at 9:51 a.m." [30]

A possible reason for these conflicting accounts is that the Park Police helicopters took off earlier than was being claimed, but the unit's personnel had been told to keep quiet about this. Those personnel may have been uncertain about what they should instead be saying publicly, and so their false accounts of the order of events sometimes contradicted each other.

AVIATION UNIT DECIDED TO 'GET READY' AFTER SECOND WTC ATTACK
There is an additional problem with the official narrative of the Park Police Aviation Unit's actions on September 11. As previously mentioned, when personnel at the unit saw the live television coverage of the second plane hitting the WTC, they immediately realized it was a deliberate attack. At that point, according to Galey, "We just started talking, 'Hey, we'd better get ready.'" Also, Galey has recalled, "we started some further discussion as to what other potential targets might be." [31]

Galey said that when the Pentagon was hit, at 9:37 a.m., he "heard a tremendous explosion" and then saw smoke rising from the vicinity of the Pentagon. [32] He claimed he did not realize the smoke was coming specifically from the Pentagon, only from "some military installation over there." All the same, Galey said, when aviation unit personnel heard the explosion, "We just knew what it was." He said, "I mean we've all been expecting something like this, for an attack of some sort." [33]

And yet, according to the official narrative, the Park Police's two Hueys did not take off to defend potential targets in Washington, or at least keep watch for any approaching hostile aircraft, in the 34 minutes between the second attack in New York and the attack on the Pentagon. This in spite of the fact that the unit's personnel had been "expecting something like" the Pentagon attack to happen, and had decided, "we'd better get ready," right after seeing the second WTC tower being hit on television.

WHY WAS A HELICOPTER FLYING NEAR THE PENTAGON?
As we can see, there is clear evidence that one of the Park Police's helicopters was flying close to the Pentagon, and possibly landing there briefly, very shortly before the attack there took place, and that attempts have been made to suppress this fact.

This leads to important questions that have so far been unaddressed. If, as John Darrell Sherwood and Stephanie Hughes indicated, one, or both, of the Park Police's helicopters were ordered to intercept the suspicious aircraft that was approaching Washington, who issued that order? And why did the helicopter fly away from the Pentagon before the attack there? Might there have been a different reason why the helicopter was flying near the Pentagon? If so, what was it?

Also, why has there been no official acknowledgement of the helicopter's presence near the Pentagon just before the attack there? No official explanation has been put forward as to what the helicopter was doing. And yet surely the authorities would have wanted to publicize what was apparently a courageous attempt at defending the Pentagon from the imminent attack? Why, then, does it appear that there has been a cover-up of this incident?

Clearly, this matter should be investigated further. To begin with, records pertaining to it need to be made public. These would include any unreleased transcripts and recordings of interviews with the relevant individuals, such as Park Police Aviation Unit personnel, the person who ordered the helicopter toward the Pentagon, and additional witnesses who saw the helicopter near the Pentagon. Pilots, crew members, and others connected with the aviation unit could also now be re-interviewed about their experiences on 9/11.

Logs and other records from the aviation unit might also clarify what happened. And the U.S. government reportedly has around 80 unreleased video tapes relating to the Pentagon attack. [34] If these were made public, perhaps one or more of them would show the helicopter and reveal exactly when it first arrived at the Pentagon.

As well as casting light on the mystery of the helicopter flying around the Pentagon, these records might reveal other important details relating to the Pentagon attack. Such information would surely take us closer to knowing the truth about 9/11.

NOTES
[1] "Terrorism Strikes in the United States in a Massive Attack." Breaking News, CNN, September 11, 2001.
[2] "'A Constant Reminder.'" Washington Post, September 5, 2002.
[3] Jeffrey Mark Parsons, interview by John Darrell Sherwood. U.S. Naval Historical Center, December 13, 2001.
[4] Ibid. Although there is no mention of the name of the historian who interviewed Parsons in the transcript of the interview, the fact that Sherwood was the interviewer was revealed in Alfred Goldberg et al., Pentagon 9/11. Washington, DC: Defense Department, Office of the Secretary, Historical Office, 2007, p. 258.
[5] Bill Wagstaff, "Aeromed Helos Find Little to do but Grieve." Aviation International News, October 1, 2001; Mark Forror, "Compassion Under Fire." Rotor & Wing, November 2001; "Aviation Unit." United States Park Police, n.d.
[6] Janet A. McDonnell, National Park Service: Responding to the September 11 Terrorist Attacks. Washington, DC: National Park Service, 2004, p. 24.
[7] "Aviation Unit."
[8] Stephanie Hughes, "Where Were You on 9/11?" A Ditchin' Time Quilts, September 11, 2010.
[9] Keith Bohn, interview by Gary Solis. U.S. Naval Historical Center, November 19, 2001; Janet A. McDonnell, National Park Service: Responding to the September 11 Terrorist Attacks, pp. 18-20.
[10] Ronald Alan Galey, interview by Gary Hall et al. U.S. Naval Historical Center, November 20, 2001; Ron Galey, interview by Mark Schoepfle. National Park Service, January 17, 2002.
[11] Ron Galey, interview by Mark Schoepfle; Janet A. McDonnell, National Park Service: Responding to the September 11 Terrorist Attacks, p. 20.
[12] Ron Galey, interview by Mark Schoepfle; Alfred Goldberg et al., Pentagon 9/11, pp. 161-162.
[13] U.S. Congress. House. Commemorative Joint Meeting of the Congress of the United States in Remembrance of the Victims and Heroes of September 11, 2001. 107th Cong., 2nd sess., September 11, 2002; Bill Line, "National Capital Region Contributes to September 11th Help Efforts." National Park Service, September 21, 2002; Janet A. McDonnell, National Park Service: Responding to the September 11 Terrorist Attacks, p. 20.
[14] Mark Forror, "Compassion Under Fire."
[15] Janet A. McDonnell, National Park Service: Responding to the September 11 Terrorist Attacks, pp. 20-21.
[16] CNN, September 11, 2001.
[17] CBS 9, September 11, 2001.
[18] Jeffrey Mark Parsons, interview by John Darrell Sherwood.
[19] Ron Galey, interview by Mark Schoepfle.
[20] Air Traffic Division Event Summary. Federal Aviation Administration, September 18, 2001.
[21] Mark Forror, "Compassion Under Fire."
[22] Ronald Alan Galey, interview by Gary Hall et al.
[23] Ron Galey, interview by Mark Schoepfle.
[24] Bill Line, "National Capital Region Contributes to September 11th Help Efforts."
[25] Keith Bohn, interview by Gary Solis.
[26] Ibid.; U.S. Congress. House. Commemorative Joint Meeting of the Congress of the United States in Remembrance of the Victims and Heroes of September 11, 2001; "Helicopter Crews Were First on Scene Sept. 11." NBC 4, September 11, 2003.
[27] Janet A. McDonnell, National Park Service: Responding to the September 11 Terrorist Attacks, p. 20.
[28] Ronald Alan Galey, interview by Gary Hall et al.
[29] Bill Line, "National Capital Region Contributes to September 11th Help Efforts"; "9.11.01 Remembrance: Washington DC Area." National Park Service, October 22, 2002.
[30] Arlington County, Virginia, report, Titan Systems Corp., Arlington County: After-Action Report on the Response to the September 11 Terrorist Attack on the Pentagon. 2002, p. A-45.
[31] Ronald Alan Galey, interview by Gary Hall et al.; Ron Galey, interview by Mark Schoepfle.
[32] Ron Galey, interview by Mark Schoepfle; Janet A. McDonnell, National Park Service: Responding to the September 11 Terrorist Attacks, p. 20.
[33] Ronald Alan Galey, interview by Gary Hall et al.; "Helicopter Crews Were First on Scene Sept. 11."
[34] "The Stories Behind the Stories." On the Story, CNN, May 20, 2006.

The Many False Hijackings of 9/11

2011-04-10T03:42:00.001-07:00

"There were a number of false reports out there. What
was valid? What was a guess? We just didn't know."

- Colonel Robert Marr, battle commander at
NORAD's Northeast Air Defense Sector on 9/11

Although it has been widely reported that four commercial aircraft were hijacked over the United States on September 11, 2001, what is less well known is that while the terrorist attacks were taking place and for many hours after, numerous additional aircraft gave indications that they had been hijacked or, for other reasons, were singled out as potential emergencies. More than 20 aircraft were identified as possible hijackings, according to some accounts, and other aircraft displayed signs of emergencies, such as losing radio communication with air traffic controllers or transmitting a distress signal.

Reports about these false alarms have revealed extraordinary circumstances around some of the incidents and bizarre explanations for how they arose. For example, it has been claimed that the pilots of one foreign aircraft approaching the U.S. set their plane's transponder to transmit a code signaling they had been hijacked simply to show authorities that they were aware of what had been taking place in America that morning. [1] Another aircraft reported as transmitting a distress signal while approaching the U.S. was subsequently found to have been canceled, and still at the airport. [2]

There may be innocent explanations for some of the less serious false alarms, such as those simply involving the temporary loss of radio communication with the plane, which is a common occurrence and happens on a daily basis. [3] But, viewed in its entirety, the evidence appears highly suspicious and raises serious questions. Why, for example, were there so many false alarms on September 11? Why did so many of them involve false reports of hijackings or aircraft falsely signaling that they had been hijacked? The details of specific incidents that have been reported, which I describe below, show that these false alarms must have been something more than just the results of confusion caused by the terrorist attacks.

MILITARY EXERCISES INCLUDED SIMULATED HIJACKINGS
One possibility to consider is that some of the false alarms related to training exercises taking place on September 11. There is evidence supporting this contention. For example, shortly after 9/11, the New Yorker reported, "During the last several years, the government regularly planned for and simulated terrorist attacks, including scenarios that involved multiple plane hijackings." [4] And we know that the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), the military organization responsible for defending U.S. airspace, was in the middle of a major exercise called Vigilant Guardian on September 11. [5] This exercise is known to have been scheduled to include at least one simulated plane hijacking on the morning of 9/11. [6] And in the week before 9/11, it included at least four simulated plane hijackings. [7]

The possibility that these false alarms were deliberate and intended to fulfill a sinister purpose needs to be seriously examined. Were they coordinated and pre-planned by rogue insiders working in the military and other U.S. government agencies, so as to ensure the attacks succeeded?

Were the false alarms that occurred at the same time as the attacks intended to cause confusion, and divert personnel and resources, thereby impairing the emergency response to the attacks? Colonel Robert Marr, the battle commander at NORAD's Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS) on 9/11, has indicated that this is what they achieved. He recalled: "There were a number of false reports out there. What was valid? What was a guess? We just didn't know." Major General Larry Arnold, the commander of the Continental United States NORAD Region (CONR) on 9/11, similarly recalled, "A number of aircraft [were] being called possibly hijacked ... there was a lot of confusion, as you can imagine." [8]

And were the false alarms that occurred after the attacks ended intended to prevent principled and honest military or government employees from promptly assessing what had happened, and determining how, against the odds, the attacks had succeeded? As Vanity Fair reported, tape recordings of the operations floor at NEADS reveal that "there was no sense that the attack was over with the crash of United 93," the last of the four hijacked aircraft. Instead, "the alarms go on and on. False reports of hijackings, and real responses, continue well into the afternoon. ... The fighter pilots over New York and DC (and later Boston and Chicago) would spend hours darting around their respective skylines intercepting hundreds of aircraft they deemed suspicious. ... No one at NEADS would go home until late on the night of the 11th." [9]

By tying up personnel, the false alarms could also have prevented anyone from making public information that contradicted the official 9/11 story that was being put out, and that would raise questions about who was actually responsible for the attacks. By the time a person with such information was free to reveal it, after the crisis calmed down, the official story would already have been extensively promoted to the public and generally accepted as true, and so it would be too late to effectively disclose information that would cast serious doubt on that account.

UP TO 29 PLANES REPORTED AS HIJACKED
Several accounts have indicated the large number of false alarms that occurred on September 11. For example, sometime between the attack on the Pentagon and the crash of Flight 93 in rural Pennsylvania, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) administrator, Jane Garvey, received a call from Leo Mullin, the CEO of Delta Air Lines. Mullin complained: "We can't find four of our planes. Four of our transponders are off." [10] (A transponder is a device that sends an aircraft's identifying information, speed, and altitude to air traffic controllers' radar screens.)

After the World Trade Center was hit the second time at 9:03 a.m., the FAA told all air traffic control facilities around the U.S. to notify it of anything unusual that occurred. In response, facilities reported numerous incidents. [11] According to author Pamela Freni, "Upward to two-dozen [aircraft] were listed at one time, but ultimately the number was whittled to 11 highly suspicious cases." The list included the third and fourth aircraft targeted in the attacks--American Airlines Flight 77 and United Airlines Flight 93--and nine false alarms. [12]

Regarding, specifically, incorrect reports of planes being hijacked, the 9/11 Commission Report stated, "During the course of the morning, there were multiple erroneous reports of hijacked aircraft." [13] Defense Department spokeswoman Victoria Clarke, who was in the Pentagon during the attacks and for most of the rest of September 11, has recalled: "There were lots of false signals out there. There were false hijack squawks, and a great part of the challenge was sorting through what was a legitimate threat and what wasn't." [14] Larry Arnold has said, "By the end of the day, we had 21 aircraft identified as possible hijackings." [15] Robert Marr recalled, "At one time I was told that across the nation there were some 29 different reports of hijackings." [16]

I describe below details of some of the flights that were among the false alarms on September 11. Firstly, I examine nine flights that were mistakenly considered to have been hijacked. I then examine flights for which we either do not know the nature of the false alarm, due to the lack of available information (so the aircraft may have been a suspected hijacking, but this fact has not been reported), or the emergency is known to have been something other than a suspected hijacking, such as a loss of radio contact with the aircraft.

AIRCRAFT FALSELY REPORTED AS HIJACKED ON 9/11

• Flight 11 Reported as Still Airborne After Hitting WTC
The first of the "multiple erroneous reports of hijacked aircraft," according to the 9/11 Commission, was a report that American Airlines Flight 11 was still airborne and heading toward Washington, DC, more than half an hour after this plane crashed into the World Trade Center. [17]

Colin Scoggins, the military liaison at the FAA's Boston Center, called NEADS at 9:21 a.m. and said: "I just had a report that American 11 is still in the air, and it's on its way towards--heading towards Washington. ... It was evidently another aircraft that hit the tower." However, Boston Center controllers were not tracking this alleged flight, heading toward Washington, on radar. Instead, according to Vanity Fair, "The plane's course, had it continued south past New York in the direction it was flying before it dipped below radar coverage, would have had it headed on a straight course toward DC." Scoggins has claimed he got the erroneous information about the flight from an FAA teleconference he was monitoring. He said he thought someone was overheard "trying to confirm from American [Airlines] whether American 11 was down," and that "somewhere in the flurry of information zipping back and forth during the conference call this transmogrified into the idea that a different plane had hit the tower, and that American 11 was still hijacked and still in the air." [18]

• United Airlines Plane Reported as Hijacked, but Still at Airport
Another early false report of a hijacking occurred at 9:25 a.m., when Marcus Arroyo, the security division manager for the FAA's eastern region, called Mark Randol, the manager of the FAA's Washington, DC, Civil Aviation Security Field Office, and alerted him to several hijackings. Arroyo mentioned Flight 175 and Flight 77 (the second and third aircraft actually targeted that morning), but also said, incorrectly, that another aircraft, United Airlines Flight 177, had been hijacked. Randol's staff soon discovered that Flight 177 was still on the ground at Logan International Airport in Boston, being held at the gate there. [19] No explanation has been given for why Flight 177 was falsely reported as a hijacking.

• Delta 1989 Gave Numerous Indications of Being Hijacked
Delta Air Lines Flight 1989 was a Boeing 767 bound from Boston to Los Angeles, which repeatedly acted suspiciously and was repeatedly suspected of being hijacked. The aircraft was first suspected of being hijacked at around 9:30 a.m. when controllers at the FAA's Cleveland Center who were monitoring it mistakenly thought the sounds of Flight 93 being hijacked, heard over radio, had come from Delta 1989. But they soon decided that Flight 93 was the source of the communications and that Delta 1989 was not hijacked. [20]

However, at around 9:40 a.m., Colin Scoggins at the FAA's Boston Center called NEADS and said the Boston Center believed Delta 1989 was a hijacked aircraft. [21] It is unclear why Scoggins made this claim, and also why he considered it his responsibility to call NEADS about Delta 1989, since the flight was at that time being tracked by the Cleveland Center, not the Boston Center. [22] The 9/11 Commission Report suggested that Boston Center managers had noted the similarities between Delta 1989 and the two aircraft that had hit the WTC: all were 767s flying from Boston to Los Angeles, which had taken off around the same time. The managers also remembered a radio transmission the center heard, apparently made by a hijacker on Flight 11, saying, "We have some planes," and consequently "guessed that Delta 1989 might also be hijacked." [23]

Over the next 30 to 35 minutes, Delta 1989 repeatedly behaved strangely, creating further suspicion that it might have been hijacked. Delta Air Lines instructed the flight to land in Cleveland, but did not inform air traffic control of this. Consequently, Cleveland Center controllers became suspicious when the plane's pilot contacted them, requesting an immediate change of course. Their level of concern increased when he failed to respond to a message as his plane descended toward Cleveland. [24] Then controllers at another facility had their suspicions of the flight increased when the pilot failed to use standard, and highly important, terminology in his radio communications with them. [25]

Delta 1989 landed at Cleveland Hopkins Airport at around 10:18 a.m. and was directed to a remote area. [26] FBI agents and a police SWAT team approached it, in case any problems arose. [27] It was about two hours after the plane landed that the passengers were allowed off, and it was around mid-afternoon before it was finally confirmed that the flight had never been hijacked. [28]

• Continental Airlines Plane Transmitted Hijack Signal Three Times
Another incident appears to have occurred at around 9:35 a.m., as it was reported at 9:36 a.m., in a phone call between John White, a manager at the FAA's Command Center in Herndon, Virginia, and Doug Davis, the special assistant for technical operations in air traffic services at FAA headquarters. White told Davis that Continental Airlines Flight 321, which was "en route from Cleveland to Denver," had "squawked hijack three times." In other words, the pilot had set the plane's transponder to transmit the code of "7500," which signals that the flight has been hijacked. But, White added, "we have made contact with the pilot and the pilot has told us everything is okay." Just over an hour later, White informed Davis that Flight 321 was "on the ground at Peoria," Illinois, and the FBI was "approaching the aircraft at this time." Although White told Davis, "We are trying to determine why he squawked hijack," further details of this false alarm are unreported. [29]

• American Airlines 189 Sent Text Message Signaling a Hijacking
Employees at the American Airlines System Operations Control (SOC) center in Fort Worth, Texas, became concerned when they temporarily lost communication with one of their planes, and the center also received a message from that plane incorrectly signaling it had been hijacked. Radio contact was lost with the Boston-to-Seattle flight at 9:45 a.m. According to the Wall Street Journal, "Everyone in the room [at the SOC] was convinced it was a ... hijacking." [30]

Evidence indicates this aircraft was American Airlines Flight 189. [31] Donald Robinson, a dispatcher at the SOC, received what he has called a "hijack message" from Flight 189, via the ACARS text messaging system. Robinson then sent a text message back to the plane's pilots, asking them if they were "squawking" the universal code for a hijacking. Ten minutes after communication with Flight 189 was lost, contact was restored. The problem, according to the Wall Street Journal, was due to a "radio glitch." Though Robinson suggested that the pilots may have sent the "hijack message" accidentally, he admitted that it was "unknown why the cockpit sent this message." [32]

• Possible Hijacked Aircraft Heading to U.S. from Canada
Around 10:00 a.m., a Canadian NORAD unit called NEADS and told it that a suspected hijacked aircraft was heading south from Canada, toward Washington, DC. [33] Few details were revealed about this plane. A member of staff at NEADS informed their colleagues that it was from an "unknown departure airport," and they did not "know any codes or anything" else about it. [34] When someone at NEADS then called the Canadian unit for more information, the person who answered the call only said they had seen "something on the chat"--meaning NORAD's computer chat system--about a "possible" aircraft. A few minutes later, the Canadian unit called NEADS again and said the suspected hijacking was a false alarm. The caller said the unit's intelligence team was "not assessing that there's an actual aircraft problem. It's just that there could be problems from our area." He added, "There's no actual aircraft that we suspect as being a danger." [35]

• Korean Airlines 85 Repeatedly Indicated it was Hijacked
One of the aircraft mistakenly suspected of being hijacked on September 11 about which most has been reported is Korean Airlines Flight 85. This plane gave several indications that it had been hijacked, was tailed by fighter jets, and was even threatened with being shot down by the military.

KAL 85 was a Boeing 747 with 215 people on board, flying from Seoul, South Korea, to New York. It had been due to land in Anchorage, Alaska, for a refueling stop when problems began. Shortly before midday, it was discovered that the plane's pilots had sent a text message that included the letters "HJK," the code for a hijacking. [36] Then, after KAL 85 entered their airspace at around 1:00 p.m., Anchorage air traffic controllers asked the pilots coded questions over radio to see if the plane had indeed been hijacked. But instead of giving reassurance that the plane was safe, the pilots switched their transponder to "7500," the code signaling a hijacking. KAL 85 continued transmitting this code for the next 90 minutes, until it landed. [37] In fact, according to an official report, "There were five separate and ongoing indicators of a hijacking situation" on KAL 85, although the report did not specify what those indicators were. [38]

NORAD launched fighter jets to follow KAL 85, ordered that the plane be directed away from Anchorage, and threatened to have it shot down if it refused to change course. [39] KAL 85 was redirected to Whitehorse Airport in Canada. It was escorted there by fighters and landed without incident at 2:54 p.m. [40] Only on the following morning, after a bomb-sniffing dog searched the plane and its cargo was checked, did the Royal Canadian Mounted Police finally confirm that KAL 85 was never hijacked. [41]

KAL 85 has subsequently been treated with much secrecy. The FAA, NORAD, and Transport Canada have declined to answer questions about it. [42] Korean Airlines refused to make available a tape recording of conversations between the pilot and airline officials in Anchorage, and has not even revealed the names of the members of the plane's flight crew on September 11. [43]

In light of the possibility that some of the false alarms on September 11 related to training exercises taking place that day, it is notable that, a few days earlier, one of those exercises included a scenario where an aircraft remarkably similar to KAL 85 was hijacked. On September 6, NORAD's exercise Vigilant Guardian included a simulated scenario in which a plane, Korean Airlines Flight 357, was taken over by terrorists. KAL 357, like KAL 85, was a Boeing 747 flying from Seoul to Anchorage. And on September 6, similar to what it did in response to KAL 85 five days later, NORAD ordered its Alaskan region to intercept and shadow the hijacked plane, and directed fighter jets to get in a position to shoot the plane down if necessary. [44]

• San Diego to Denver Flight Suspected as Hijacked
At some unspecified time, apparently early in the afternoon, it has been reported that NORAD's operations center in Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado, was receiving "reports of a hijacking out of San Diego, California," that was "headed to Denver." Eventually, the aircraft identified itself and landed uneventfully. Further details of this flight are unknown. [45]

• Possibly Hijacked U.S. Airways Flight Approaching From Spain
The last aircraft incorrectly suspected of being hijacked on September 11, according to CONR's Larry Arnold, was a U.S. Airways flight approaching the United States from Madrid, Spain. [46] At 3:20 p.m., it was reported over an FAA teleconference that the White House was saying this flight was heading to Philadelphia International Airport, and the military was scrambling fighter jets in response to it. Accounts conflict over whether the U.S. Airways plane was Flight 930 or Flight 937. [47] Lewis Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, who was in the Presidential Emergency Operations Center below the White House, has recalled, "When we first got word [of the flight], we got word that it was only 30 minutes or so outside of U.S. airspace." Libby indicated that the plane's transponder had been transmitting the code for a hijacking, saying, "I think it was one of those ones where there was an actual report that it was showing hijacking through some electronic signal." [48]

After a short time, the flight was found to be secure. Arnold has recalled that Robert Marr called him from NEADS and said, "We just talked to the airline, and that aircraft is back on the ground in Madrid." [49] According to Libby, "It turned out that, I think, it was only 35 minutes out of Spanish airspace, not out of our airspace." [50]

OTHER AIRCRAFT EMERGENCIES, AND UNSPECIFIED AIRCRAFT EMERGENCIES, ON 9/11

• Coast Guard Reported Three Suspicious Aircraft, but One Flight 'Never Existed'
As previously mentioned, there were some false alarms on September 11 for which the specific nature of the emergency is unstated. These may have been suspected hijackings or they may have been something else, like the loss of radio contact or the loss of a transponder signal. An example of this is an incident that occurred shortly after 11:00 a.m., when three suspicious flights were reported as approaching the U.S.

At 11:18 a.m., it was reported on an FAA teleconference that the Coast Guard in Norfolk, Virginia, had received distress signals from Air Canada Flight 65, Continental Airlines Flight 57, and United Airlines Flight 947. Whether these distress signals were the "7500" transponder code signaling a hijacking, or something else, is unreported. The three aircraft were reported as being over the Atlantic Ocean. Jeff Griffith, the deputy director of air traffic at FAA headquarters, subsequently instructed John White at the FAA's Command Center to alert NORAD to the aircraft, and to also notify the Air Traffic Services Cell (ATSC), an office at the Command Center manned by military reservists.

By 11:46 a.m., it was determined that the distress signals were false alarms. It was reported on the FAA teleconference that "all three aircraft ... are accounted for" and "all are OK." The United Airlines plane returned to Europe and the Continental Airlines flight landed in Gander, Canada. Remarkably, it was discovered that Air Canada 65 hadn't even been airborne. White reported that it "landed last night and was scheduled to depart today, but the flight's canceled." [51] According to an ATSC chronology of the events of 9/11, this flight "never existed." [52]

• FAA Command Center Compiled List of 11 Suspicious Aircraft
As mentioned earlier, following the second attack in New York, the FAA's Command Center instructed air traffic control facilities to notify it of anything unusual. In response, according to Linda Schuessler, the deputy director of system operations at the Command Center, "we started getting more and more calls about bomb threats, about aircraft that we had lost communication or radar identification with." This led to the center compiling a list of 11 aircraft "that we had gotten unusual information on, that we thought seemed worthy of keeping a closer eye on." The list included two of the planes targeted in the terrorist attacks, Flight 77 and Flight 93. [53]

Various accounts have indicated details of the other flights singled out by the Command Center. A 9:10 a.m. entry in a chronology of events at the Command Center on September 11 mentioned seven aircraft for which the center was providing "coordination to assist in finding," although evidence indicates that at least some of these aircraft only aroused suspicion later on than 9:10 a.m. One of the aircraft was Delta Air Lines Flight 1989 (see above). The other six, and the few details we know about them, are as follows:

- American Airlines Flight 2247: At 10:04 a.m., the FAA's Fort Worth Center reported this flight to the Command Center. The aircraft, going from Orlando, Florida, to Shreveport, Louisiana, was "NORDO," meaning radio contact with it had been lost. Communication was restored by 10:17 a.m.

- U.S. Airways Flight 41: The FAA's Memphis Center reported this plane, going from Charlotte, North Carolina, to Los Angeles, to the Command Center. The reason for the report is unknown.

- Northwest Airlines Flight 197: The Command Center appears to have been alerted to this plane, en route from Lansing, Michigan, to Minneapolis, Minnesota, at 10:03 a.m. The reason for the report is unknown. Flight 197 subsequently landed in Marquette, Michigan.

- United Airlines Flight 641: United Airlines lost contact with this plane at around 10:00 a.m., but persistent attempts to communicate with it were eventually successful. The flight subsequently landed in Detroit, Michigan.

- United Airlines Flight 57: This aircraft was reported as missing sometime between 10:55 a.m. and 11:15 a.m. It appears to have been reported to the Command Center by controllers at Denver International Airport, for reasons that are unknown. It subsequently landed in Garden City, Kansas.

- U.S. Airways Flight 633: At 10:55 a.m., controllers at Philadelphia International Airport reported that they had "lost" this flight, which was heading to Las Vegas. The Command Center chronology indicated that the plane subsequently landed at the Philadelphia airport, at 11:14 a.m. [54]

Other accounts have mentioned three additional suspicious aircraft that were on the Command Center's list. (However, if these accounts are correct, it would indicate that the list included 12 aircraft, not 11.) One of the aircraft was a U.S. Airways flight heading to Chicago that was not communicating with air traffic controllers. [55] Another was a TWA flight that was refusing to land in Pittsburgh, and instead wanted to fly on to Washington. The third was a Midwest Express flight that disappeared from radar over West Virginia. [56]

Schuessler has recalled that Command Center personnel later "continued to say [they had] a little discomfort about the information [they] received" about these suspicious flights. But, she said, "We followed up with the security people and got enough information that the specialists here felt very comfortable that they understood the situation." [57]

• United Airlines Worker in England Received Suspicious Call from Pilot
At around 11:16 a.m. (U.S. Eastern time), a United Airlines aircraft maintenance officer at a facility in London, England, received a brief but suspicious phone call from an unidentified aircraft, in which the caller--apparently the plane's pilot--sounded distraught, possibly as if he was being choked. The maintenance officer recognized the call as coming from a particular type of satellite phone that is available on Boeing 767s and 777s, although he believed it was most likely from a 777. He told the 9/11 Commission that the caller sounded strange, and that this was the "only phone call that he'd ever received of that nature in the 10 years he's been on the job for United."

The maintenance officer contacted a United Airlines maintenance facility at San Francisco International Airport to report the suspicious call, and it in turned notified the FBI. The FBI was told that the maintenance officer had said the caller from the plane "sounded as if they were being choked," although the maintenance officer later claimed he was unsure whether this had been the case. [58]

• Other Suspicious Flights
We know of numerous other flights on September 11 that raised concern, although the reported details of these are scant. Andrew Studdert, United Airlines' chief operating officer at the time of the attacks, told the 9/11 Commission that at around 10:00 a.m., as well as losing contact with Flight 641 (see above), United lost contact with two more of its planes, Flights 399 and 415. Studdert also said that between 10:55 a.m. and 11:15 a.m., as well as Flight 57 (see above), eight other United planes were reported as missing. These were Flights 103, 634, 1211, 1695, 2101, 2102, 2256, and 2725. All of them were eventually located at various airports. [59] Furthermore, a Secret Service timeline stated that at 10:55 a.m., United Airlines Flight 182, from Boston to Seattle, was "unaccounted for." [60]

As previously mentioned, the temporary loss of radio contact with aircraft is a common occurrence. [61] And an order issued by the FAA at 9:45 a.m., for all aircraft over the U.S. to land at the nearest airport, presumably complicated interactions between pilots and air traffic controllers. [62] But can these factors account for a single airline losing communication with so many of its planes, all on the same day, and all within such short spaces of time? And on September 11, 2001, of all days, when two of the aircraft targeted in the terrorist attacks belonged to that particular airline?

Additionally, Studdert told the 9/11 Commission that throughout the morning of September 11, United Airlines received "a torrent of reported bomb threats; explosions are reported at two airports, and there are reports of other threats and other hijackings." These turned out to be "misunderstandings or hoaxes," but, Studdert commented, "the presumed threats cannot be dismissed in the high uncertainty of the moment." [63]

It seems reasonable to assume there were other false alarms that have not yet come to light. If Larry Arnold's claim of "21 aircraft identified as possible hijackings" or Robert Marr's claim of "29 different reports of hijackings" are anywhere near accurate, then there must have been additional false reports of hijackings beyond what I have described.

Who or what caused these false alarms? What effect did they have on the ability of the military and other U.S. government agencies to respond to the actual attacks, and to then assess how those attacks had been able to succeed? These questions have not yet been adequately addressed, and need to be investigated thoroughly.

NOTES
[1] Lynn Spencer, Touching History: The Untold Story of the Drama That Unfolded in the Skies Over America on 9/11. New York: Free Press, 2008, p. 196.
[2] Draft: The Air Traffic Organization's Response to the September 11th Terrorist Attack: ATC System Assessment, Shutdown, and Restoration. Federal Aviation Administration, March 21, 2002, p. S-26; "Full Transcription; Air Traffic Control System Command Center, National Traffic Management Officer, East Position; September 11, 2001." Federal Aviation Administration, October 21, 2003.
[3] See Donald A. Robinson Jr., interview by the FBI. Federal Bureau of Investigation, September 11, 2001; "Memorandum for the Record: Staff Visit to the Boston Center, New England Region, FAA." 9/11 Commission, September 22-24, 2003.
[4] "September 11, 2001." New Yorker, September 24, 2001.
[5] William M. Arkin, Code Names: Deciphering U.S. Military Plans, Programs, and Operations in the 9/11 World. Hanover, NH: Steerforth Press, 2005, p. 545.
[6] Michael Bronner, "9/11 Live: The NORAD Tapes." Vanity Fair, August 2006.
[7] "NORAD Exercises: Hijack Summary." 9/11 Commission, n.d.
[8] Leslie Filson, Air War Over America: Sept. 11 Alters Face of Air Defense Mission. Tyndall Air Force Base, FL: 1st Air Force, 2003, p. 73.
[9] Michael Bronner, "9/11 Live."
[10] "Memorandum for the Record: Interview With Jane Garvey." 9/11 Commission, October 21, 2003; Lynn Spencer, Touching History, p. 186.
[11] Lynn Spencer, Touching History, pp. 125-126.
[12] Pamela Freni, Ground Stop: An Inside Look at the Federal Aviation Administration on September 11, 2001. Lincoln, NE: iUniverse, Inc., 2003, p. 65.
[13] 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2004, p. 28.
[14] "Chilling Audio From 9/11 Hijack Played at Hearing." Paula Zahn Now, CNN, June 17, 2004.
[15] "Conversation With Major General Larry Arnold, Commander, 1st Air Force, Tyndall AFB, Florida." Code One, January 2002.
[16] Robert A. Baker, "Commander of 9/11 Air Defenses Retires." Newhouse News Service, March 31, 2005.
[17] 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report, pp. 26, 28.
[18] Ibid. p. 26; Michael Bronner, "9/11 Live."
[19] "Memorandum for the Record: Interview With Mark Randol, Former Manager of the Civil Aviation Security Field Office in Washington, DC." 9/11 Commission, October 8, 2003.
[20] Marilyn Adams, Alan Levin, and Blake Morrison, "Part II: No One Was Sure if Hijackers Were on Board." USA Today, August 12, 2002; "Memorandum for the Record: Interview With John Werth, Air Traffic Controller, Area 4, Lorain Sector." 9/11 Commission, October 1, 2003; "Memorandum for the Record: Interview With Kim Wernica, Operations Manager at Cleveland ARTCC on 9/11." 9/11 Commission, October 2, 2003.
[21] Michael Bronner, "9/11 Live"; Untitled Chronology of FAA and NEADS Communications on September 11, 2001. 9/11 Commission, n.d.
[22] Marilyn Adams, Alan Levin, and Blake Morrison, "Part II: No One Was Sure if Hijackers Were on Board"; Alan Levin, "For Air Controller, Terror Still Vivid 7 Years Later." USA Today, September 11, 2008.
[23] Marilyn Adams, Alan Levin, and Blake Morrison, "Part II: No One Was Sure if Hijackers Were on Board"; 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report, pp. 27-28.
[24] Marilyn Adams, Alan Levin, and Blake Morrison, "Part II: No One Was Sure if Hijackers Were on Board"; Lynn Spencer, Touching History, pp. 167-168.
[25] "DAL 1989 Order of Events." Federal Aviation Administration, September 16, 2001.
[26] Ibid.; Marilyn Adams, Alan Levin, and Blake Morrison, "Part II: No One Was Sure if Hijackers Were on Board."
[27] Michael O'Mara, "9/11: 'Fifth Plane' Terror Alert at Cleveland Hopkins Airport." WKYC, September 11, 2006; Lynn Spencer, Touching History, p. 270.
[28] Marilyn Adams, Alan Levin, and Blake Morrison, "Part II: No One Was Sure if Hijackers Were on Board." For more information about Delta Airlines Flight 1989, see "Was Delta 1989 Part of a Live-Fly Hijacking Exercise on 9/11?" Shoestring 9/11, July 22, 2009.
[29] "Full Transcription; Air Traffic Control System Command Center, National Traffic Management Officer, East Position; September 11, 2001"; Miles Kara, "Transcript of East NTMO, Line 4530, Admin Line." 9/11 Commission, November 4, 2003.
[30] Donald A. Robinson Jr. interview by the FBI; Scott McCartney and Susan Carey, "American, United Watched and Worked in Horror as Sept. 11 Hijackings Unfolded." Wall Street Journal, October 15, 2001.
[31] For example, the Bureau of Transportation Statistics database of "Airline On-Time Data" reveals that Flight 189 was the only American Airlines plane going from Boston to Seattle that day.
[32] Donald A. Robinson Jr. interview by the FBI; Scott McCartney and Susan Carey, "American, United Watched and Worked in Horror as Sept. 11 Hijackings Unfolded."
[33] Michael Bronner, "9/11 Live."
[34] NEADS Audio File, Mission Crew Commander Position, Channel 2. North American Aerospace Defense Command, September 11, 2001.
[35] NEADS Audio File, Identification Technician Position, Channel 4. North American Aerospace Defense Command, September 11, 2001; "NEADS CDs." 9/11 Commission, n.d.
[36] Alan Levin, "Korean Air Jet May Have Narrowly Missed Disaster." USA Today, August 12, 2002; Zaz Hollander, "High Alert." Anchorage Daily News, September 8, 2002.
[37] Alan Levin, "Korean Air Jet May Have Narrowly Missed Disaster"; Lynn Spencer, Touching History, pp. 277-278.
[38] September 11, 2001, Whitehorse International Airport Emergency: Public Findings Report. Whitehorse, Yukon: Yukon Government, November 13, 2001, p. 17.
[39] Alan Levin, "Korean Air Jet May Have Narrowly Missed Disaster"; Lynn Spencer, Touching History, p. 278.
[40] Alan Levin, "Korean Air Jet May Have Narrowly Missed Disaster"; Zaz Hollander, "High Alert."
[41] September 11, 2001, Whitehorse International Airport Emergency, p. 18.
[42] Zaz Hollander, "False Sept. 11 Hijack Signal Put Air Force on Alert." Anchorage Daily News, September 29, 2001; September 11, 2001, Whitehorse International Airport Emergency, p. 27; Alan Levin, "Korean Air Jet May Have Narrowly Missed Disaster."
[43] Zaz Hollander, "False Sept. 11 Hijack Signal Put Air Force on Alert"; Stephanie Waddell, "9/11 Documentary to be Released Next Year." Whitehorse Daily Star, December 31, 2010.
[44] "NORAD Exercises: Hijack Summary." For more details about Korean Airlines Flight 85, see "Was Korean Airlines Flight 85 a Simulated Hijack in a 9/11 Training Exercise?" Shoestring 9/11, April 18, 2010.
[45] Rebecca Grant, The First 600 Days of Combat. Washington, DC: IRIS Press, 2004, p. 26.
[46] "Chronology of Events (All Times are Local Eastern Daylight Time)." Federal Aviation Administration, September 11, 2001; "Conversation With Major General Larry Arnold."
[47] "ADA-30 Operations Center Activity Report, September 11-14, 2001." Federal Aviation Administration, September 2001; "Chronology of Events (All Times are Local Eastern Daylight Time)"; "Eastern Region Operations Center Log: Chronological Events of Hijacking Crisis." Federal Aviation Administration, January 2, 2002.
[48] Lewis Libby, interview by Newsweek magazine. White House, November 16, 2001.
[49] "Eastern Region Operations Center Log"; Leslie Filson, Air War Over America, p. 88.
[50] Lewis Libby, interview by Newsweek magazine.
[51] Draft: The Air Traffic Organization's Response to the September 11th Terrorist Attack, pp. S-26, S-29, S-33; "Full Transcription; Air Traffic Control System Command Center, National Traffic Management Officer, East Position; September 11, 2001."
[52] Untitled Air Traffic Services Cell Chronology of Events. U.S. Air Force, September 11, 2001.
[53] David Bond, "Crisis at Herndon: 11 Airplanes Astray." Aviation Week & Space Technology, December 17, 2001.
[54] Untitled FAA Command Center Chronology of the Events of September 11, 2001. Federal Aviation Administration, September 11, 2001; "Statement of Andrew P. Studdert to the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States." 9/11 Commission, January 27, 2004; "Suspect Aircraft of September 11, 2001." 9/11 Commission, n.d.
[55] Lynn Spencer, Touching History, p. 126.
[56] Marilyn Adams, Alan Levin, and Blake Morrison, "Part II: No One Was Sure if Hijackers Were on Board."
[57] David Bond, "Crisis at Herndon."
[58] Ray Kime, interview by the FBI. Federal Bureau of Investigation, September 11, 2001; "Memorandum for the Record: Interview With Rich Belme, Manager of United Airlines SAMC in San Francisco, CA." 9/11 Commission, November 21, 2003; "Memorandum for the Record: Interview With [Name Redacted], United Airlines." 9/11 Commission, November 21, 2003.
[59] "Statement of Andrew P. Studdert to the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States."
[60] "Secret Service Timeline, Unclassified Extract." United States Secret Service, September 11, 2001.
[61] See Donald A. Robinson Jr., interview by the FBI; "Memorandum for the Record: Staff Visit to the Boston Center, New England Region, FAA."
[62] U.S. Congress. House. Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, Statement of Jane F. Garvey, Administrator, Federal Aviation Administration, Before the House Subcommittee on Aviation, Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. 107th Cong., 1st sess., September 21, 2001; 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 29.
[63] "Statement of Andrew P. Studdert to the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States."

Army Command Center at the Pentagon Planned to Hold Exercise in Week After 9/11 Based on a Plane Hitting the WTC

2011-03-26T05:11:00.000-07:00

Army officers at the Pentagon were planning a training exercise that would take place less than a week after 9/11 and that would, extraordinarily, be based around the scenario of a plane crashing into the World Trade Center. Preparations for the exercise were being made about a week before September 11.

The existence of the planned exercise was revealed by Major General Peter Chiarelli, who on September 11, 2001, was the Army's director of operations, readiness, and mobilization. In that position, which he had moved into about a month before 9/11, Chiarelli was in charge of current operations in the Army Operations Center (AOC) at the Pentagon.

Chiarelli recalled in a February 2002 interview that, after beginning his new position, he had "planned to do an exercise for the Crisis Action Team, the CAT." He said, "In some of my pre-briefings, in learning about the job, it was briefed to me that the Crisis Action Team had not stood up, except for an exercise, in about 10 years in any great role." He therefore had members of his staff design a CAT exercise that, he said, he planned to run on September 17. [1]

SCENARIO FOR MASS CASUALTY PROCEDURE WAS OF A PLANE HITTING THE WTC
Chiarelli also recalled in the interview that the Personnel Contingency Cell in the AOC had been tasked with putting together a new mass casualty standard operating procedure (SOP) for the Army. About a week before 9/11, Chiarelli said, a colleague of his--"Robby Robinson"--and two other officers "came in to brief me on their new SOP for mass casualty."

During the meeting, it was decided that in the CAT exercise Chiarelli was going to run, "we would go ahead and use this SOP as a kind of exercise driver." Chiarelli recalled, "The real amazing thing of that SOP is that the scenario was an aircraft crashing into the World Trade Center." Chiarelli told the others in the meeting, "Hey, not only is this a good SOP and a good plan, but at the same time, to really make this good, what we need to do is exercise it." According to Chiarelli, "We decided that we would use a scenario similar to that to drive this exercise" that he was planning. [2]

Chiarelli did not specify in his February 2002 interview what type of aircraft was envisaged hitting the WTC in the scenario. Nor did he say whether it would have been a hijacked plane or one that crashed into the WTC accidentally. But what his account means is that, in the days before the terrorist attacks in New York and at the Pentagon occurred, a military exercise was being planned that was scheduled to take place less than a week after September 11, with a scenario that was identical--or at least extremely similar--to what happened in New York on 9/11.

The possible significance of Chiarelli's training exercise being based around a plane crashing into the World Trade Center will need to be determined by a new and unrestrained investigation of the 9/11 attacks. However, the odds of this being due to chance, and unrelated to what happened on September 11, must be minute.

ARMY OPERATIONS CENTER AND CRISIS TEAM PLAYED IMPORTANT ROLES ON SEPTEMBER 11
The AOC that Chiarelli was in charge of is located in the basement of the Pentagon, two levels beneath a parking lot. It plays an important role within the Army. Reportedly, "Critical information flows through the high-security worksite, with AOC personnel--almost all in uniform--working day and night to keep senior Army leaders aware of issues and events around the world, helping them make timely, critical decisions." Chiarelli described the AOC as "the Army's command and control center." [3] On September 11, senior Army leaders assembled there in response to the terrorist attacks.

The Crisis Action Team, whose members were going to participate in Chiarelli's training exercise, was activated in response to the attacks on the WTC. Chiarelli said at the time that he had activated it "to respond to the contingency in New York if requested by state and local officials." He said he "anticipated that the World Trade Center disaster would require enormous rescue, firefighting, and recovery efforts." [4]

NOTES
[1] Pete Chiarelli, interview by Frank Shirer. U.S. Army Center of Military History, February 5, 2002. However, in an interview with Chiarelli's deputy, Brigadier General Clyde Vaughn, Army Center of Military History historian Stephen Lofgren mentioned that the exercise was scheduled for "a couple of days" after September 11, meaning September 13. See Clyde Vaughn, interview by Stephen Lofgren, U.S. Army Center of Military History, February 12, 2002. It is unclear which date for the exercise is correct.
[2] Pete Chiarelli, interview by Frank Shirer.
[3] William Schwab and Lorie Jewell, "The Army's Nerve Center." Soldiers, September 2004.
[4] Alfred Goldberg et al., Pentagon 9/11. Washington, DC: Defense Department, Office of the Secretary, Historical Office, 2007, pp. 134-135.

Backup Communications System Was 'Miraculously' Switched on for 'Exercise Mode' and Ready for Use on 9/11

2011-01-10T03:56:00.000-08:00

A special backup network that allows communications between government and military agencies to continue during emergencies was "miraculously" switched on the day before 9/11, and so was already operational when the terrorist attacks in New York and at the Pentagon took place. The Special Routing Arrangement Service (SRAS) was, for reasons unknown, turned on for "exercise mode" on September 10, 2001, and was therefore ready to be utilized the following day, when there was a national emergency like that for which it was intended.

The SRAS is the responsibility of a little-known government agency called the National Communications System (NCS), which works to keep critical telecommunications functioning during emergencies and played a crucial role in the government's response to the 9/11 attacks, helping to maintain and restore communications networks. Furthermore, the SRAS is related to "Continuity of Government"--a plan that was activated for the first time during the attacks.

SRAS TURNED ON FOR 'EXERCISE MODE' ON SEPTEMBER 10
Brenton Greene, the director of the NCS on September 11, told the 9/11 Commission that on September 10, 2001, "miraculously, the SRAS system was turned on for exercise mode and thus it was ready to function on September 11." Therefore, when the NCS was required to assist the government's response to the terrorist attacks, the "SRAS was already in exercise mode and operational." [1]

The SRAS supports the highly secret Continuity of Government (COG) plan, which is intended to keep the government functioning in the event of an attack on the U.S. [2] The NCS's involvement in COG was one of the agency's three main programs. As Greene told the 9/11 Commission, "The main communications system of the country must be kept going or no one can communicate." [3] The SRAS provides "a vehicle for continuity of operations by providing survivable communications linkages to federal and defense end users over the public network," according to a Department of Homeland Security publication. [4]

Apparently describing the SRAS, Greene told the 9/11 Commission, "There is a separate network linking the National Coordinating Center and the major carriers and networks as a backup." (The National Coordinating Center, in Arlington, Virginia, is the "operational arm" of the NCS.) This network "proved its value as a separate link on 9/11 because it coordinated network use between Network Operations Centers while the [telecommunications] network was saturated." Furthermore, again apparently describing the SRAS, Greene said, "In the situation where Continuity of Government is put into play"--as was the case on September 11--"there is a communications system where no one can trace the site of the call on either end." [5]

WAS THE NCS INVOLVED IN A TRAINING EXERCISE ON SEPTEMBER 11?
Greene apparently did not tell the 9/11 Commission why the SRAS was turned on for "exercise mode" on September 10. But a possible explanation that needs to be investigated is that the NCS was scheduled to participate in a training exercise on September 11. We know that the NCS was, in 2001, part of the Department of Defense. [6] And several U.S. military agencies are known to have been conducting exercises on the morning of September 11. For example, the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) was running its annual exercise, "Vigilant Guardian," [7] and the United States Strategic Command (Stratcom) was holding its annual exercise, "Global Guardian." [8] Might the NCS have been participating in one of these, or another exercise?

Furthermore, it is worth noting that beginning at 8:00 a.m. on September 11, representatives from the CIA gave a briefing to the NCS at "a secure facility outside of Washington, DC," where they discussed the threat that international terrorists posed to America's telecommunications infrastructure. Along with Brenton Greene, the briefing was attended by representatives from seven other federal agencies and more than 40 technology and communications companies. The private sector representatives were all "senior executives from their respective companies, and all had government security clearances that granted them access to the most sensitive intelligence data" relating to threats to the nation's telecommunications infrastructure, according to journalist and author Dan Verton. Topics discussed during the briefing included the growing terrorist threat to the telecommunications infrastructure, the information warfare capabilities of foreign nations, and the possibility of a strategic cyber-attack on critical U.S. infrastructures, committed by a foreign nation or a terrorist group. [9]

Considering that the NCS's Special Routing Arrangement Service had been switched on for "exercise mode" the previous day, and considering the topics that were discussed, might this briefing have been an introduction for a training exercise, perhaps preparing participants for a scenario based around a simulated attack against the telecommunications network?

CONTINUITY OF GOVERNMENT WAS ACTIVATED FOR THE FIRST TIME ON SEPTEMBER 11
Continuity of Government is a program dating back to the cold war, which aims to ensure that the government will continue to function in the event of an attack on the United States. During the 1980s it prepared for a possible nuclear attack by the Soviet Union, but during the 1990s it focused instead on the possibility of a terrorist attack in the U.S.

Considering that the SRAS supports COG by "providing survivable communications linkages to federal and defense end users," it is worth noting that sophisticated communications methods have played an important role in the COG program. In the 1980s, for example, much of its budget of hundreds of millions of dollars "was spent on advanced communications equipment that would enable the teams [involved in COG] to have secure conversations with U.S. military commanders," according to journalist and author James Mann.

Furthermore, three of the program's key players during the 1980s and 1990s held critical positions in the U.S. government on September 11. Those individuals--Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Richard Clarke--were the vice president, secretary of defense, and White House counterterrorism adviser, respectively, when the attacks occurred. [10] David Addington, Cheney's legal counsel in 2001, was also involved in the COG program. [11]

It is also notable that the COG plan was activated, apparently for the first time, during the 9/11 attacks. Richard Clarke has said that he gave the order to activate it, apparently at around 9:45 a.m. on September 11, or shortly after. [12] He told ABC News: "On the morning of 9/11, the entire Continuity of Government program was activated. Every federal agency was ordered ... to activate an alternative command post, an alternative headquarters outside of Washington, DC, and to staff it as soon as possible." [13]

Considering that the SRAS is intended to support the COG program, it was convenient, to say the least, that it was already operational on September 11 and therefore immediately ready to be utilized by those involved with COG when the plan was activated.

NCS'S CRITICAL RESPONSE TO THE 9/11 ATTACKS
The National Communications System, which is responsible for the Special Routing Arrangement Service, is a relatively small agency that was established in 1963, in order to provide better communications support to critical government functions during emergencies. [14] Around the time of the 9/11 attacks, it consisted of 22 federal agencies, 100 full-time civilian employees, and 10 military employees. [15]

The NCS played a critical role following the 9/11 attacks, when the destruction caused by those attacks became what Brenton Greene called "the most significant challenge that the National Communications System had ever seen." [16] In partnership with private companies, it "quickly assembled an unprecedented level of resources at the national, state, and local levels to support the response and recovery efforts."

Presumably, the NCS's emergency efforts benefited from having the SRAS already operational when the attacks took place. As previously mentioned, the SRAS is related to the Continuity of Government plan. Notably, in response to the attacks, the NCS's National Coordinating Center operated at four sites, which included a "remote continuity of operations location." [17] And Greene has said he went to his "Continuity of Government site," where personnel operated around the clock to monitor the status of the telecommunications network, and coordinate priorities and repairs. [18]

GOVERNMENT AGENCIES EXPERIENCED COMMUNICATIONS PROBLEMS ON SEPTEMBER 11
So little has been reported about the National Communications System and the Special Routing Arrangement Service, and the role played by each on September 11, that many crucial questions remain unanswered. For example, what capabilities did the SRAS enable? And what use was made of them on September 11, before, during, and after the attacks took place? Why was the SRAS turned on for exercise mode the day before 9/11?

The need for investigation of the roles of the NCS and the SRAS appears increasingly urgent in light of the fact that communication difficulties were a significant problem for government agencies responding to the 9/11 attacks. Indeed, one classified after-action report "does not paint a favorable picture of the government's overall crisis management capabilities," according to Dan Verton. One government official said "the nation was 'deaf, dumb, and blind' for much of that horrible day in September." [19]

NOTES
[1] "Memorandum for the Record: Interview of Brenton C. Greene." 9/11 Commission, March 16, 2004.
[2] House Select Committee on Homeland Security, The Department of Homeland Security's Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection Budget Proposal for Fiscal Year 2005: Prepared Opening Statement of General Frank Libutti, Under Secretary for Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection, Department of Homeland Security. 108th Cong., 2nd sess., March 4, 2004.
[3] "Memorandum for the Record: Interview of Brenton C. Greene."
[4] David M. Barron, J. M. Hickey, and Dan Bart, Communications: Critical Infrastructure and Key Resources Sector-Specific Plan as Input to the National Infrastructure Protection Plan. Washington, DC: Department of Homeland Security, May 2007, p. 106.
[5] "Memorandum for the Record: Interview of Brenton C. Greene."
[6] Ibid.
[7] "Conversation With Major General Larry Arnold, Commander, 1st Air Force, Tyndall AFB, Florida." Code One, January 2002; 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2004, p. 458; William M. Arkin, Code Names: Deciphering U.S. Military Plans, Programs, and Operations in the 9/11 World. Hanover, NH: Steerforth Press, 2005, p. 545.
[8] Joe Dejka, "Inside Stratcom on Sept. 11 Offutt Exercise Took Real-Life Twist." Omaha World-Herald, February 27, 2002; Joe Dejka, "When Bush Arrived, Offutt Sensed History in the Making." Omaha World-Herald, September 8, 2002.
[9] Dan Verton, Black Ice: The Invisible Threat of Cyber-Terrorism. Emeryville, CA: McGraw-Hill/Osborne, 2003, pp. 135-139.
[10] CBS News, September 11, 2001; James Mann, "The Armageddon Plan." The Atlantic, March 2004; Howard Kurtz, "'Armageddon' Plan Was Put Into Action on 9/11, Clarke Says." Washington Post, April 7, 2004; "Worst Case Scenario: Secret Plan to Control U.S. Government After an Attack Went Into Motion on 9/11." ABC News, April 25, 2004; Andrew Cockburn, Rumsfeld: His Rise, Fall, and Catastrophic Legacy. New York: Scribner, 2007, pp. 84-88.
[11] Jane Mayer, "The Hidden Power." New Yorker, July 3, 2006; Jane Mayer, The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals. New York: Doubleday, 2008, p. 49.
[12] Richard Clarke, Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror. New York: Free Press, 2004, p. 8; 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 38.
[13] "Worst Case Scenario: Secret Plan to Control U.S. Government After an Attack Went Into Motion on 9/11."
[14] Dan Verton, Black Ice, p. 136; "Background and History of the NCS." National Communications System, n.d.
[15] Dan Verton, "At NCS, the Focus is on Telecom Preparedness." Computerworld, November 7, 2002.
[16] Dan Verton, Black Ice, p. 151.
[17] 40th Anniversary: Forty Years of Service to the Nation: 1963-2003. National Communications System, 2004, p. 56.
[18] "Memorandum for the Record: Interview of Brenton C. Greene."
[19] Dan Verton, Black Ice, pp. 150-151; see also "'Deaf, Dumb, and Blind': Were Communications Sabotaged on 9/11?" Shoestring 9/11, October 19, 2007.

The Repeatedly Delayed Responses of the Pentagon Command Center on 9/11

2010-11-07T05:37:00.000-08:00

The National Military Command Center (NMCC) is the most secure part of the Pentagon and, at the time of the 9/11 attacks, was "the focal point within [the] Department of Defense for providing assistance" to law enforcement efforts in response to aircraft hijackings in U.S. airspace, according to military instructions. [1] In response to the attacks on New York and Washington, the job of the NMCC, according to the 9/11 Commission, was "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." [2]

The NMCC therefore had a critical role to play that day. And yet evidence reveals that emergency actions conducted from the center were totally inadequate. Numerous obstructions occurred, including technical problems and outside agencies failing to provide the center with the information it required. Furthermore, a number of military leaders were particularly slow in reaching the NMCC, from where they could assist emergency response efforts, and only arrived there after the attacks ended and it was too late to make a difference.

The evidence currently available is insufficient to draw firm conclusions from. But the sheer number of factors that hindered the actions of those in the NMCC, combined with several oddities, raises the possibility that a deliberate and coordinated attempt was made by treasonous U.S. government and military insiders to sabotage the center's ability to respond to the 9/11 attacks, at a time when its rapid actions were imperative.

THE U.S. MILITARY'S 'WORLDWIDE NERVE CENTER'
The NMCC has been described as "a communications hub, a switchboard connecting the Pentagon, the civilian government, and the combatant commanders." [3] It is a maze of offices, cubicles, and conference rooms in an area of the Pentagon where offices of the military's Joint Staff and many top officials, including the secretary of defense, are located. The center is designed to operate in an emergency, and has its own electrical, heating, and air-conditioning systems. [4]

The NMCC's primary task is to monitor worldwide events for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Its other main missions are providing a strategic watch component and providing a crisis response component. At the time of the 9/11 attacks, it was operated by five teams on a rotating basis, with each operations team typically having 17 to 20 personnel on duty and performing a variety of functions. [5]

OFFICERS LACKED URGENCY IN RESPONSE TO FIRST CRASH
The morning of September 11, 2001, the NMCC was receiving live feeds from numerous television stations, which its personnel were monitoring, and those in the NMCC learned of the first plane crashing into the World Trade Center from TV news reports. [6] This was reportedly the first time they learned anything of the crisis in the skies over America that morning. [7]

NMCC personnel supposedly didn't realize that the crash was a terrorist attack. Operations officer Dan Mangino has recalled, "At first, we thought it was a terrible accident." [8] Major Charles Chambers recalled, "My instinct was that the pilot had used the towers to point himself towards the area, lost consciousness, and autopilot had done the rest." Therefore, at that time, "Our interest in the crash ... was no different from anyone else's in the country." [9]

The operations team's response was to continue monitoring media reports and make notifications up the chain of command, simply telling senior Pentagon officials that a plane had crashed into one of the WTC towers. [10]

NMCC STAFF UNAWARE OF CRISIS TAKING PLACE
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) only informed the NMCC of the first hijacking on September 11--of American Airlines Flight 11--at about 9:00 a.m., 14 minutes after that plane hit the WTC and more than 45 minutes after it is supposed to have been hijacked. At that time, Lieutenant Colonel Ryan Gonsalves, the senior operations officer in the NMCC, called the FAA operations center at the agency's Washington, DC, headquarters, seeking information on the crisis. The person that answered the call told Gonsalves that the FAA had a report of the hijacking of Flight 11, which was flying from Boston to Los Angeles. However, the FAA employee apparently did not realize this was the plane that had crashed into the WTC, and told Gonsalves that Flight 11 was "now en route" to JFK International Airport in New York. Furthermore, the FAA employee made no request for help from the military: There was no discussion of possibly scrambling fighter jets to go after the hijacked plane, and when Gonsalves asked if the FAA needed assistance dealing with the hijacking, he was told, "No," and that the pilot "had called in and said everything was under control, and he was going to land at New York shortly." [11]

According to military instructions, the NMCC should have been "notified by the most expeditious means by the FAA" in response to an aircraft hijacking in U.S. airspace. [12] And yet, as we can see, the NMCC learned of the hijacking of Flight 11 when it called the FAA, not vice-versa. The 9/11 Commission Report pointed out that although "FAA headquarters began to follow the hijack protocol" after air traffic controllers concluded that Flight 11 had been hijacked, at around 8:25 a.m., it "did not contact the NMCC to request a fighter escort." [13]

The NMCC's alarming lack of awareness of the crisis taking place that morning continued, as was apparent when the Pentagon was struck at 9:37 a.m. Captain Charles Leidig, who was temporarily in charge of operations in the NMCC during the terrorist attacks, told the 9/11 Commission that "he recalled his situational awareness on the Pentagon crash as being [caused by] an aircraft was from CNN." [14] Steve Hahn, an operations officer in the NMCC that morning, has recalled, "I didn't know [the Pentagon had been hit] until I heard the news report on television." [15] Charles Chambers said that when the Pentagon was hit (on the opposite side of the building to where the NMCC is located), he "heard a strange faint rattling noise through the air ducts and felt a slight vibration." However, he added, "I didn't hear or feel anything else so I didn't pay it much mind." He only realized the Pentagon had been attacked when he subsequently saw this being reported on TV. [16]

OFFICERS UNUSUALLY CALM IN RESPONSE TO ATTACKS
NMCC personnel saw United Airlines Flight 175 hitting the South Tower of the World Trade Center live on television at 9:03 a.m. They then, reportedly, realized the nature of what was happening. Leidig has said that to him "it was obvious it was a terrorist attack or a coordinated attack." Dan Mangino recalled that the staff in the NMCC now "knew immediately that it was a terrorist attack." [17]

According to Leidig, the NMCC "then became a focal point for coordinating information flow." [18] And yet evidence suggests a level of urgency among those in the center far less than we might reasonably expect, considering this was the first attack on America in 60 years. Mangino has said 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 only arrived back at the NMCC sometime after 9:37 a.m., when the Pentagon was hit. Would a military officer in such a key position really have popped out to get money from an ATM if he genuinely believed the U.S. was in the middle of a massive terrorist attack?

Even after the Pentagon was hit, personnel in the NMCC remained very calm. When Mangino arrived back at the center, he was reportedly "greeted by a sea of calm." He has recalled, "There was no panic, no raised voices." His colleague Steve Hahn similarly recalled that the atmosphere in the NMCC "was very professional and very calm." [19] And Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Richard Myers has said that when he arrived at the NMCC, reportedly at around 10:00 a.m., "all the officers on duty were working calmly at their stations, despite the smoke wafting in through the ventilation system, the fact that the Pentagon had just been struck, and the distracting blast of the evacuation alarm." [20]

It is plausible that this calmness was simply an example of the professionalism of the NMCC personnel. As Mangino noted, "We train for emergencies all the time and that training took over." [21] But other evidence of the NMCC personnel's lack of urgency makes this possibility seem less likely. It is particularly notable that the man who should have been in charge of the center's response to the crisis was allowed to remain in a pre-scheduled meeting, unrelated to the attacks, and did not return to his post until more than an hour after the second WTC tower was hit.

NMCC DIRECTOR STAYED IN PRE-SCHEDULED MEETING
Brigadier General Montague Winfield should have been on duty as the deputy director for operations (DDO) in the NMCC throughout the 9/11 attacks, in command of the operations team there. [22] The DDO's responsibilities in a crisis include establishing and moderating an appropriate conference call between military commanders and other relevant agencies, and generating a military response. [23] But, curiously, the previous afternoon, Winfield asked his colleague, Charles Leidig, to take over from him as DDO for a portion of his duty on the morning of September 11, and Leidig agreed to do so.

Leidig--whose usual job was as the deputy for Command Center operations, responsible for the maintenance, operation, and training of the NMCC's watch teams--had joined the operations directorate of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in July 2001, and only qualified to stand in as the DDO in the NMCC about a month before 9/11. He therefore lacked Winfield's experience that would surely have been invaluable when organizing a response to the attacks on the U.S. [24]

The reason Winfield wanted Leidig to take his place as DDO on September 11 appears to have been because he was scheduled to attend a meeting that morning. This was a "closed-door personnel meeting convened by the Air Force to discuss the rating of Air Force officers," according to one 9/11 Commission memorandum. [25] Another Commission memorandum described it as a "session for general officers who rated Air Force officers." Leidig therefore replaced Winfield as DDO at 8:30 a.m. on September 11, 16 minutes before the first plane hit the WTC. [26]

One would reasonably expect someone to have fetched Winfield from his meeting when the second plane hit the WTC and officers in the NMCC "knew immediately that it was a terrorist attack," if not before. [27] And yet that did not happen. Winfield only returned to his post more than an hour later, after Flight 93 apparently crashed in Pennsylvania and the 9/11 attacks had ended.

It is unclear if Winfield and the other officers with him in the meeting were informed immediately of the second attack. It is also unclear when exactly Winfield arrived back in the NMCC, and whether he then resumed his duties as DDO immediately, or instead allowed Leidig to continue in his place even while he was available to return to his post. Leidig told the 9/11 Commission he was "certain that Winfield returned" from the meeting "after the Pentagon was hit" at 9:37 a.m. [28] He also said Winfield took over from him as DDO "right after we resolved what was going on with United 93," meaning at some time after 10:03 a.m. Leidig added that a report over a conference call at 10:37 a.m., about an anonymous threat made against Air Force One, occurred "right after I was relieved on the watch by General Winfield." [29] This would suggest that Winfield returned to his post at around 10:30 a.m.

The closest the 9/11 Commission came to providing an explanation for Winfield avoiding his crucial responsibilities, and instead staying in an unimportant, pre-scheduled meeting, was to state in a memorandum that "such meetings" as Winfield was attending "are generally not disturbed unless the reason is significant." [30] But a major terrorist attack in the U.S. was highly significant. So why didn't Winfield immediately return to his post when the second WTC tower was hit? And why didn't anyone in the NMCC promptly fetch him from the meeting at that time?

Considering the countless oddities that have been identified around the military's response to the 9/11 attacks, we surely need to contemplate the possibility of a more sinister explanation for this apparent lack of urgency among those whose job it was to run the NMCC on September 11. For example, might their calmness have been because they thought the terrorist attacks were in fact simulated as part of a training exercise that morning, rather than being a genuine, real-world emergency? Under such circumstances, it would have been much easier for them to remain calm. It is possible that those in the NMCC could have thought the terrorist attacks were being simulated even when television footage clearly showed what was happening. For example, personnel at an Army base near New York that was conducting an antiterrorism training exercise that morning actually thought TV footage of the burning WTC was an elaborate training video accompanying their exercise. One worker told a training officer, "You really outdid yourself this time." [31]

EMERGENCY CONFERENCE ONLY BEGAN AT 9:29 A.M.
Another area of concern is the serious problems experienced by NMCC personnel in convening and running an emergency teleconference to deal with the terrorist attacks. The NMCC had specific procedures in place to manage a crisis. A 9/11 Commission memorandum described, "As a particular event unfolds, the first action is to convene a significant event conference to gather and disseminate information from government entities according to established checklists." [32] However, Charles Chambers recalled that the NMCC's significant event conference in response to the 9/11 attacks "was taking much longer than expected to bring up." [33] Commander Patrick Gardner, the assistant DDO, told the 9/11 Commission that the NMCC was "struggling to build the conference," which "didn't get off as quickly as hoped," and complained of his "frustration that it wasn't brought up more quickly." [34] The significant event conference only began at 9:29 a.m., 26 minutes after Flight 175 hit the WTC. [35]

At least two factors that contributed to this alarming delay in establishing the conference have been identified: disruption resulting from some NMCC officers having to participate in another conference call that was reportedly of no use in aiding the emergency response to the attacks, and problems connecting some agencies--particularly the FAA--to the NMCC's conference.

UNHELPFUL CIA CONFERENCE DELAYED NMCC RESPONSE
A National Operations and Intelligence Watch Officer Network (NOIWON) conference call was convened by the CIA, reportedly at sometime between 9:16 a.m. and 9:25 a.m. on September 11, to allow government agencies in the Washington area to quickly share information regarding the ongoing crisis. [36] But this call appears to have hindered, rather than helped, emergency response efforts. According to a 9/11 Commission memorandum, while the NMCC was preparing for the significant event conference, the "NOIWON call intervened. The NMCC abandoned its attempt to convene a [significant event conference] so its watch officers could participate in the NOIWON conference." [37]

What is more, the disruption was apparently for nothing. An intelligence officer working at FAA headquarters that morning said that he "does not remember any useful or significant information coming as a result of the NOIWON call." [38] And Charles Leidig told the 9/11 Commission that he "recalled no situational awareness that came from the NOIWON call." [39]

NMCC HAD PROBLEMS CONNECTING TO CIVIL AGENCIES
Attempts to convene the significant event conference were also delayed because, as Charles Chambers recalled, "a couple of the civil agencies" that were going to be included in the conference "couldn't be reached, and others kept dropping off moments after connecting." [40] Leidig finally announced that the NMCC would have to start without those agencies, which could be added to the conference later on. [41]

The significant event conference was brought to an end after just five minutes, and resumed at 9:37 a.m. as an "air threat conference," which continued for over eight hours. [42] According to Chambers, air threat conferences are used when aircraft are considered hostile and involve many more people than are in a significant event conference. But, like the previous conference, "it took longer than expected" to convene the air threat conference. There were again problems connecting some agencies to it. Other agencies hadn't understood what Leidig meant about establishing a new conference, and so they didn't hang up when the previous conference call was disconnected. Therefore, Chambers recalled, "All we got from them was a busy signal." [43]

FAA OUT OF COMMUNICATION
Considering the FAA's crucial responsibilities in responding to hijackings, it is of particular concern that there were serious problems connecting the agency to the NMCC's conference calls. According to military instructions, the FAA administrator had "exclusive responsibility to direct law enforcement activity related to actual or attempted aircraft piracy (hijacking) in the 'special aircraft jurisdiction' of the United States." [44] But when the FAA was asked to provide an update over the significant event conference right after it started, the line was silent. [45] Charles Leidig recalled that the FAA was only "intermittently in," and "most of the time they were not in the conference." He said the problems connecting the FAA to the conference, which occurred "throughout the morning ... hampered information flow to some degree." [46] Charles Chambers complained that because "the FAA wasn't in the conference, they couldn't go secure, and so we couldn't get first-hand information from them." [47]

According to the 9/11 Commission Report, although operators at the NMCC "worked feverishly to include the FAA" in the conference, they had "equipment problems and difficulty finding secure phone numbers." [48] Staff Sergeant Val Harrison, who was responsible for setting up the NMCC's conference calls, tried contacting the operations center at FAA headquarters so as to connect the agency to the air threat conference, but had difficulty getting through. She finally asked the White House switchboard to help her out, but even after a line with the FAA had been established, it was repeatedly lost. [49]

The explanations that have been put forward for these difficulties connecting the FAA to the conference have been vague at best. One 9/11 Commission memorandum attributed them simply to "technical problems." [50] Leidig told the 9/11 Commission it was his understanding that there had been some "compatibility issues" between the FAA's secure phone and the secure phones in the NMCC, though he said he was unaware of the technical aspects of the problem. [51] In light of the numerous other factors that disrupted the NMCC's emergency response that morning, it would be worth carefully investigating whether these problems were in fact the result of a deliberate attempt to sabotage communications between government agencies, so as to make sure the attacks on New York and Washington proceeded unhindered.

FAA REPRESENTATIVE LACKED RELEVANT KNOWLEDGE
What is more, when an FAA representative finally joined the air threat conference, at 10:17 a.m., that person was far from adequate for providing the conference with the information it required. The representative was Rayford Brooks, who was working in the Central Altitude Reservation Function (CARF) at the FAA's Command Center in Herndon, Virginia. Brooks was a most inappropriate person to have representing the FAA on the conference. According to the 9/11 Commission Report, he had "no familiarity with or responsibility for hijackings, no access to decisionmakers, and none of the information available to senior FAA officials."

Brooks only arrived at the Command Center at about 9:30 a.m. and had not been listening to the radio while driving there. As he told the 9/11 Commission, he had "no situational awareness." After arriving at the Command Center, Brooks was not given any instructions regarding the air threat conference or other operational matters. Brooks in fact should not have been on the conference in the first place. He had to join it in place of one of the military officers working in the Air Traffic Services Cell (ATSC), a small office next to the CARF at the Command Center. According to Brooks, the ATSC asked the CARF to monitor the air threat conference on its behalf because it did not have a working secure phone. [52]

Considering the critical role the FAA was required to play in responding to aircraft hijackings, we could reasonably expect a far more knowledgeable FAA employee than Rayford Brooks to have been participating in the NMCC's conference when hijackings were actually taking place. With all the people working at the FAA's Command Center that morning, was there really no one more suitable available?

TOP OFFICIALS REACHED NMCC TOO LATE TO HELP
We can see that numerous factors hindered the actions of those in the NMCC in response to the 9/11 attacks. It is also worth noting that several key officials who should ideally have been in the NMCC while the attacks were taking place were absent from the center, and arrived there only when it was too late to make a difference:

• As already mentioned, Brigadier General Montague Winfield left his position as the deputy director for operations in the NMCC at 8:30 a.m. and only resumed his duties after the attacks ended, apparently around 10:30 a.m.

• Donald Rumsfeld, who as secretary of defense had a vital role to play in defending his country against the terrorist attacks, was at the Pentagon that morning, and yet he too only reached the NMCC after the attacks ended. Rumsfeld learned of the first attack in New York during a breakfast meeting he was holding for several members of Congress. He then returned to his office for his daily CIA intelligence briefing. [53] After the second plane hit the WTC, a couple of Rumsfeld's colleague's went and informed him of this and said that the crisis management process was starting up. But Rumsfeld supposedly "wanted to make a few phone calls," and so remained in his office. [54] After hearing and feeling the explosion when the Pentagon was hit, Rumsfeld still did not head to the NMCC. He instead went outside and helped carry an injured person on a stretcher. After returning to the building, he initially went back to his office. [55] He finally arrived at the NMCC and joined the air threat conference at around 10:30 a.m. [56] Lieutenant Colonel Robert Darling--who on September 11 served as a liaison between the White House Situation Room, Vice President Dick Cheney, and the NMCC--has stated the problem with Rumsfeld's actions that morning. Darling wrote: "I ... believe Secretary Rumsfeld's appointed place of duty was at the helm in the NMCC that day. ... The real questions still remain; why did Secretary Rumsfeld abandon his post that day by not responding to the National Military Command Center the moment the attack on our county was realized?" [57]

• General Henry Shelton, who as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was the highest ranking military officer in the U.S. armed forces, had taken off at around 7:30 a.m. on a military aircraft, and was flying across the Atlantic for a NATO conference in Hungary when the terrorist attacks occurred. Shelton ordered that his plane turn around and return to Washington. [58] However, he only arrived at the NMCC at around 5:40 p.m. [59]

• General Richard Myers, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was on Capitol Hill that morning and, despite seeing the coverage of the first crash in New York on television shortly before 9:00 a.m., continued into his scheduled meeting with Senator Max Cleland. [60] Myers learned of the second attack on the WTC either while he was with Cleland or just after he left the meeting (accounts conflict on this matter). [61] Some accounts indicate that Myers only left the Capitol building to return to the Pentagon around the time of the Pentagon attack. [62] Myers told the 9/11 Commission that he arrived at the NMCC at around 10:00 a.m. or 10:10 a.m. [63] But he further delayed joining the air threat conference by initially leaving the NMCC and heading out to the secretary of defense's office suite, in search of Donald Rumsfeld. Only after an aide there told him that Rumsfeld had gone outside did Myers return to the NMCC. [64]

• As director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Vice Admiral Scott Fry was "responsible for keeping the National Military Command Center operating," according to authors Patrick Creed and Rick Newman. [65] Despite being informed of the first plane hitting the WTC as he was about to leave his office in the Pentagon, Fry continued out to a 9:00 a.m. appointment with his dentist. He reportedly cut short that appointment promptly after his assistant called him on his cell phone when the second plane hit the WTC. But Fry then went not to the NMCC but to the Executive Support Center, located upstairs from it. [66] Fry is reported as having been in the NMCC later on that day, although the time he arrived there, and whether he participated in the air threat conference, is unstated. [67]

Any new investigation of 9/11 would need to determine the extent to which the absence of these key officials from the NMCC hindered the military's response to the attacks. In light of all the other suspicious evidence, it should be seriously considered whether the absence of any of these individuals had been pre-arranged as part of a deliberate attempt at paralyzing the U.S. military, to prevent it from stopping the attacks.

UNRELEASED EVIDENCE DETAILS NMCC'S ACTIONS ON 9/11
We know of several records in existence that would reveal more about what happened in the NMCC on September 11, 2001, and these records would surely be of much use to any new investigations. They include an after action report produced by the NMCC, on its response to the 9/11 attacks, based on notes and other contemporaneous documents. [68] We also know the NMCC's air threat conference call was recorded, and the Pentagon produced a 200-page classified transcript from the recording. [69] Furthermore, a senior officer in the NMCC told the 9/11 Commission that he removed all the tapes from phones and other machines in the NMCC following the 9/11 attacks, and saved them in the DDO's cabinet. Presumably these tapes still exist. [70]

Even without access to important records like these, the limited evidence that is already available shows that an alarming number of factors hindered the emergency response to the 9/11 attacks that was being coordinated from within the NMCC. Considering the U.S. military's failure to stop those attacks, this is something of much concern. We need to know a lot more about what was going on in the NMCC on September 11. And serious attempts need to be made to determine whether deliberate and coordinated actions were undertaken by treasonous U.S. government and military insiders, to disrupt the efforts of the NMCC to put together an effective response to the attacks.

NOTES
[1] "Washington's Heroes." Newsweek, September 28, 2001; Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, CJCSI 3610.01A: Aircraft Piracy (Hijacking) and Destruction of Derelict Airborne Objects. Washington, DC: Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, June 1, 2001.
[2] 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2004, p. 37.
[3] Richard B. Myers and Malcolm McConnell, Eyes on the Horizon: Serving on the Front Lines of National Security. New York: Threshold Editions, 2009, p. 151.
[4] Steve Vogel, The Pentagon: A History. New York: Random House, 2007, p. 440; Patrick Creed and Rick Newman, Firefight: Inside the Battle to Save the Pentagon on 9/11. New York: Presidio Press, 2008, pp. 171-172.
[5] "Memorandum for the Record: Orientation and Tour of the National Military Command Center (NMCC) and National Military Joint Intelligence Center (NMJIC)." 9/11 Commission, July 21, 2003.
[6] Ibid.; "Memorandum for the Record: Interview With Captain Charles Joseph Leidig, USN, Commandant of Midshipmen, U.S. Naval Academy." 9/11 Commission, April 29, 2004; Jim Garamone, "9/11: Keeping the Heart of the Pentagon Beating." American Forces Press Service, September 7, 2006.
[7] 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 35.
[8] Jim Garamone, "9/11: Keeping the Heart of the Pentagon Beating."
[9] Charles Chambers, "Notes on 9/11, Maj. C. Chambers, NMCC, Made Within the Week of 9/11." U.S. Department of Defense, September 2001.
[10] "Memorandum for the Record: Orientation and Tour of the National Military Command Center (NMCC) and National Military Joint Intelligence Center (NMJIC)"; "Memorandum for the Record: Interview With Captain Charles Joseph Leidig, USN, Commandant of Midshipmen, U.S. Naval Academy."
[11] "Memorandum for the Record: Interview With Captain Charles Joseph Leidig, USN, Commandant of Midshipmen, U.S. Naval Academy"; Commander Patrick Gardner, 9/11 Commission Interview Part I, Handwritten Notes. 9/11 Commission, May 5, 2004; 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report, pp. 4, 35, 462.
[12] Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, CJCSI 3610.01A.
[13] 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 19.
[14] "Memorandum for the Record: Interview With Captain Charles Joseph Leidig, USN, Commandant of Midshipmen, U.S. Naval Academy."
[15] Jim Garamone, "9/11: Keeping the Heart of the Pentagon Beating."
[16] Charles Chambers, "Notes on 9/11, Maj. C. Chambers, NMCC, Made Within the Week of 9/11."
[17] "Memorandum for the Record: Interview With Captain Charles Joseph Leidig, USN, Commandant of Midshipmen, U.S. Naval Academy"; Jim Garamone, "9/11: Keeping the Heart of the Pentagon Beating."
[18] National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States: Twelfth Public Hearing. 9/11 Commission, June 17, 2004.
[19] Jim Garamone, "9/11: Keeping the Heart of the Pentagon Beating."
[20] Richard B. Myers and Malcolm McConnell, Eyes on the Horizon, pp. 151-152.
[21] Jim Garamone, "9/11: Keeping the Heart of the Pentagon Beating."
[22] "Memorandum for the Record: Orientation and Tour of the National Military Command Center (NMCC) and National Military Joint Intelligence Center (NMJIC)."
[23] Charles Chambers, "Notes on 9/11, Maj. C. Chambers, NMCC, Made Within the Week of 9/11"; "Memorandum for the Record: Interview With Captain Charles Joseph Leidig, USN, Commandant of Midshipmen, U.S. Naval Academy"; National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States: Twelfth Public Hearing.
[24] "Memorandum for the Record: Interview With Captain Charles Joseph Leidig, USN, Commandant of Midshipmen, U.S. Naval Academy"; "Statement of Capt. Charles J. Leidig, Jr., Commandant of Midshipmen, United States Naval Academy, Before the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States." 9/11 Commission, June 17, 2004.
[25] "Memorandum for the Record: Orientation and Tour of the National Military Command Center (NMCC) and National Military Joint Intelligence Center (NMJIC)."
[26] "Memorandum for the Record: Interview With Captain Charles Joseph Leidig, USN, Commandant of Midshipmen, U.S. Naval Academy"; "Statement of Capt. Charles J. Leidig, Jr., Commandant of Midshipmen, United States Naval Academy, Before the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States."
[27] Jim Garamone, "9/11: Keeping the Heart of the Pentagon Beating."
[28] "Memorandum for the Record: Interview With Captain Charles Joseph Leidig, USN, Commandant of Midshipmen, U.S. Naval Academy."
[29] National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States: Twelfth Public Hearing.
[30] "Memorandum for the Record: Interview With Captain Charles Joseph Leidig, USN, Commandant of Midshipmen, U.S. Naval Academy."
[31] Debbie Sheehan, "Force Protection Plan a 'Timely Alert.'" Monmouth Message, September 21, 2001; Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations and Plans, U.S. Army Communications-Electronics Command, A Concise History of the Communications-Electronics Command and Fort Monmouth, New Jersey. Fort Monmouth, NJ: Fort Monmouth, 2003, p. 71.
[32] "Memorandum for the Record: Orientation and Tour of the National Military Command Center (NMCC) and National Military Joint Intelligence Center (NMJIC)."
[33] Charles Chambers, "Notes on 9/11, Maj. C. Chambers, NMCC, Made Within the Week of 9/11."
[34] Commander Patrick Gardner, 9/11 Commission Interview Part I, Handwritten Notes; Commander Patrick Gardner, 9/11 Commission Interview Take 2, Handwritten Notes. 9/11 Commission, May 12, 2004.
[35] 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 37.
[36] David A. Radi, "Intelligence Inside the White House: The Influence of Executive Style and Technology." Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Program on Information Resources Policy, March 1997, p. 12; "Chronology of Events on 9/11/01." Federal Aviation Administration, September 11, 2001; "ACI Watch Log." Federal Aviation Administration, September 11, 2001; Bob Brewin, "The Consumer's Guide to Intel Nets." Government Executive, June 1, 2009.
[37] "Memorandum for the Record: Orientation and Tour of the National Military Command Center (NMCC) and National Military Joint Intelligence Center (NMJIC)."
[38] "Memorandum for the Record: Interview With Darrel Smith." 9/11 Commission, July 13, 2004.
[39] "Memorandum for the Record: Interview With Captain Charles Joseph Leidig, USN, Commandant of Midshipmen, U.S. Naval Academy."
[40] Charles Chambers, "Notes on 9/11, Maj. C. Chambers, NMCC, Made Within the Week of 9/11."
[41] Commander Patrick Gardner, 9/11 Commission Interview Take 2, Handwritten Notes.
[42] 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 37.
[43] Charles Chambers, "Notes on 9/11, Maj. C. Chambers, NMCC, Made Within the Week of 9/11."
[44] Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, CJCSI 3610.01A.
[45] 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 37.
[46] National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States: Twelfth Public Hearing.
[47] Charles Chambers, "Notes on 9/11, Maj. C. Chambers, NMCC, Made Within the Week of 9/11."
[48] 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 37.
[49] Charles Chambers, "Notes on 9/11, Maj. C. Chambers, NMCC, Made Within the Week of 9/11"; "Memorandum for the Record: Orientation and Tour of the National Military Command Center (NMCC) and National Military Joint Intelligence Center (NMJIC)."
[50] "Memorandum for the Record: Orientation and Tour of the National Military Command Center (NMCC) and National Military Joint Intelligence Center (NMJIC)."
[51] National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States: Twelfth Public Hearing.
[52] Rayford Brooks, 9/11 Commission Interview, Handwritten Notes. 9/11 Commission, April 15, 2004; 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report, pp. 37, 463.
[53] 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 37; Steve Vogel, The Pentagon, p. 428.
[54] Assistant Secretary Clarke Interview With WBZ Boston. WBZ Boston, September 15, 2001; Torie Clarke, Lipstick on a Pig: Winning in the No-Spin Era by Someone Who Knows the Game. New York: Free Press, 2006, pp. 218-219.
[55] Don Van Natta and Lizette Alvarez, "A Hijacked Boeing 757 Slams Into the Pentagon, Halting the Government." New York Times, September 12, 2001; Alfred Goldberg et al., Pentagon 9/11. Washington, DC: Defense Department, Office of the Secretary, Historical Office, 2007, pp. 130-131.
[56] 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 38.
[57] Robert J. Darling, 24 Hours Inside the President's Bunker: 9/11/01 The White House. Bloomington, IN: iUniverse, 2010, pp. 108-109.
[58] Draft: The Air Traffic Organization's Response to the September 11th Terrorist Attack: ATC System Assessment, Shutdown, and Restoration. Federal Aviation Administration, March 21, 2002, p. G-1; Hugh Shelton, Ronald Levinson, and Malcolm McConnell, Without Hesitation: The Odyssey of an American Warrior. New York: St. Martin's Press, 2010, pp. 430-432.
[59] Richard B. Myers and Malcolm McConnell, Eyes on the Horizon, p. 159.
[60] Richard Myers, Interview by Jim Miklaszewski. NBC News, September 11, 2002; "History Makers Series: General Richard B. Myers, U.S. Air Force (Retired), Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff." Council on Foreign Relations, June 29, 2006.
[61] Interview, General Richard B. Myers, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, With Petty Officer Quinn Lyton, USN. Armed Forces Radio and Television Service, October 17, 2001; Richard Myers, Interview by Jim Miklaszewski; Richard B. Myers and Malcolm McConnell, Eyes on the Horizon, p. 8.
[62] Interview, General Richard B. Myers, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, With Petty Officer Quinn Lyton, USN; Richard Myers, Interview by Jim Miklaszewski; "Statement of General Richard Myers, USAF, Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff, Before the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States." 9/11 Commission, June 17, 2004; "History Makers Series: General Richard B. Myers, U.S. Air Force (Retired), Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff."
[63] "Memorandum for the Record: Interview With Richard Myers, Affiliated With NORAD." 9/11 Commission, February 17, 2004.
[64] Richard B. Myers and Malcolm McConnell, Eyes on the Horizon, pp. 152-153.
[65] Patrick Creed and Rick Newman, Firefight, p. xvii.
[66] Ibid. pp. 4-6.
[67] Ibid. p. 288.
[68] "Memorandum for the Record: Interview With Captain Charles Joseph Leidig, USN, Commandant of Midshipmen, U.S. Naval Academy."
[69] Chitra Ragavan and Mark Mazzetti, "Pieces of the Puzzle." U.S. News & World Report, August 31, 2003.
[70] "Memorandum for the Record: Orientation and Tour of the National Military Command Center (NMCC) and National Military Joint Intelligence Center (NMJIC)."

The 9/11 Time Discrepancy Oddity: Distress Signals Indicated Planes Crashed Minutes BEFORE Flights 11 and 175 Hit the WTC

2010-09-08T06:08:00.000-07:00

Radio transmitters that are carried aboard aircraft and that are supposed to activate only in the event of the aircraft crashing went off in the New York area several minutes before the two planes hit the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. In events that, according to the official account of 9/11, should have been impossible, emergency locator transmitters (ELTs), which are intended to help locate crashed aircraft by broadcasting a distinctive signal, were activated over two minutes before American Airlines Flight 11 hit the north WTC tower and over four minutes before United Airlines Flight 175 hit the South Tower. And yet no ELTs went off at the times these planes hit the towers, when we might have expected them to have been activated.

EMERGENCY TRANSMITTER WENT OFF OVER TWO MINUTES BEFORE FLIGHT 11 CRASHED
American Airlines Flight 11 hit the North Tower of the World Trade Center at 8:46 a.m. and 40 seconds. [1] But two and a half minutes earlier, David Bottiglia, an air traffic controller at the FAA's New York Center, had received an important message from one of the planes in the airspace he was monitoring. At 8:44 a.m., the pilot of U.S. Airways Flight 583 told Bottiglia: "I just picked up an ELT on 121.5. It was brief, but it went off." (121.5 megahertz is an emergency frequency that ELTs are designed to transmit their distress signals on.) A minute later--about 90 second before Flight 11 hit the WTC--another plane in the New York Center's airspace reported the same thing. The pilot of Delta Airlines Flight 2433 told Bottiglia: "We picked up that ELT, too. But it's very faint." [2] According to author Lynn Spencer, "several" facilities picked up the ELT signal around this time. [3]

Peter McCloskey, a traffic management coordinator at the New York Center, later recalled that the ELT had gone off "in the vicinity of Lower Manhattan." [4] And, around the time Flight 11 hit the WTC, a participant in an FAA teleconference stated, "We got a report of an ELT in the area that [the radar track for Flight 11] was in." (Before it disappeared from radar screens, the track for Flight 11 had indicated the plane was about 20 miles from New York's JFK International Airport.) [5]

However, while an ELT went off minutes before Flight 11 hit the WTC, it appears that no ELT went off at the time of the crash itself.

EMERGENCY TRANSMITTER WENT OFF OVER FOUR MINUTES BEFORE FLIGHT 175 CRASHED
United Airlines Flight 175 hit the South Tower of the World Trade Center at 9:03 a.m. and 11 seconds. [6] But, as with the first crash, an ELT was activated in the New York area several minutes before this plane hit the tower.

At just before 8:59 a.m., over four minutes before the Flight 175 crash, the pilot of Flight 583, who had reported the ELT signal before the North Tower was struck, told David Bottiglia at the New York Center that he had noticed another ELT going off. The pilot said, "I hate to keep burdening you with this stuff, but now we're picking up another ELT on 21.5." [7]

As with the previous crash, although an ELT went off minutes before Flight 175 hit the South Tower, it seems that no ELT went off at the time of the crash itself.

ELT SHOULD ONLY GO OFF IN EVENT OF A CRASH
An emergency locator transmitter is a battery-operated radio transmitter carried by aircraft, which can emit a distinctive signal on the emergency frequencies of 121.5 and 243.0 megahertz. When "armed," an ELT is designed to automatically activate in the event of a crash and then continually emit the emergency signal, thereby helping rescuers to locate the crashed aircraft. [8] ELTs are required to be installed in almost all U.S.-registered civil aircraft. [9]

Paul Thumser, an operations supervisor at the FAA's New York Center on 9/11, has over 20 years' experience as an air traffic controller and is also an experienced airline pilot. He provided the 9/11 Commission with detailed information about ELTs. Thumser said the ELT in a Boeing 767--the type of plane that hit both of the WTC towers--cannot be activated by a pilot. Therefore, with a 767, "impact would be the only way to trigger one." Furthermore, the sensitivity setting of the ELT in a 767 "is not low," and so it should be impossible for one to be set off by the plane making a hard turn or a hard landing. Thumser therefore judged that "it would have to be a serious impact to set the ELT off." [10] Terry Biggio, the operations manager at the FAA's Boston Center, similarly told the 9/11 Commission: "An ELT is not a signal sent by pilot operators. It is clearly indicative of a crash." [11]

This means that an ELT should not have been activated over two minutes before Flight 11 hit the North Tower, nor should one have been activated over four minutes before Flight 175 hit the South Tower. If such transmitters on Flights 11 and 175 had been set off, this should have happened when these planes struck the WTC, and yet that did not happen. It was perhaps for this reason that Mike McCormick, the air traffic control manager at the FAA's New York Center, told the 9/11 Commission that his "best hypothesis" was that the ELT signal transmitted "moments before the impact of AA 11" was "unrelated to the event" of the crash. [12]

McCormick also told the 9/11 Commission that ELT signals sometimes "happened accidentally," and that "the vast majority are false alarms." [13] However, this could not have been the case with the signals before the WTC crashes. None of the air traffic controllers who were involved with monitoring Flights 11 and 175 have reported any planes' ELTs going off by accident around that time. And for one plane in the New York area to have its ELT set off accidentally just before Flight 11 hit the WTC, and then the ELT on another plane in that area going off accidentally just before Flight 175 hit the WTC, would have been too big a coincidence to be plausible.

INEXPLICABLE EVIDENCE
The strange evidence of emergency locator transmitter signals being broadcast in the New York area before the World Trade Center towers were hit raises serious questions about the official account of the 9/11 attacks. According to that account, if ELTs had been activated, this should have been at the times the planes hit the towers, not several minutes beforehand. [14] The evidence appears inexplicable, and so proper investigation is imperative to make sense of it. But while a number of air traffic controllers mentioned the ELT signals in their interviews with the 9/11 Commission, the 9/11 Commission Report offered no explanation for this anomalous evidence.

Many questions remain unanswered. For example, were the sources of the ELT signals ever determined? If so, did the signals indeed come from the planes that hit the WTC, or were they from somewhere else? And were the transmitters themselves ever found? After all, according to the FAA, "In most installations the [ELT] is attached to the aircraft structure as far aft as practicable in the fuselage; or in the tail surface, in such a manner that damage to the beacon will be minimized in the event of a crash impact." [15] So the transmitters should have survived the crashes, if they were in the planes that hit the Twin Towers. If the ELTs were found, then, were they indeed in the rubble of the World Trade Center? Or were they somewhere else?

Paul Thumser told the 9/11 Commission that "credible" ELT signals (i.e. those not determined to be false alarms) had to be reported to the Air Force Rescue Coordination Center (AFRCC), which, at the time of the 9/11 attacks, was located at Langley Air Force Base in Virginia. [16] So did the AFRCC locate the sources of the ELT signals or determine anything else about them? The only relevant information provided by the 9/11 Commission appears in one of its memorandums, which stated, "We visited the RCC and they receive all ELTs; so many, in fact, that they are a nuisance, and they have special procedures and software to manage that." [17]

We clearly need to know a lot more, since a proper investigation of these emergency signals could help determine what exactly happened on September 11, and point investigators toward those really responsible for perpetrating the terrorist attacks.

NOTES
[1] 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2004, p. 7.
[2] "Transcript of United Airlines Flight 175." New York Times, October 16, 2001; "Memorandum for the Record: Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) New York Air Route Center Interview With David Bottiglia." 9/11 Commission, October 1, 2003; "Sensitive Security Information: Chronology of September 11, 2001." Federal Aviation Administration, n.d.
[3] Lynn Spencer, Touching History: The Untold Story of the Drama That Unfolded in the Skies Over America on 9/11. New York: Free Press, 2008, p. 50.
[4] "Memorandum for the Record: Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) New York Air Route Center Interview With Peter McCloskey." 9/11 Commission, October 1, 2003.
[5] FAA Audio File, Herndon Command Center, Position 14. Federal Aviation Administration, September 11, 2001.
[6] 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 8.
[7] FAA Audio File, New York Center, Position R42, 8:51 a.m.-9:10 a.m. Federal Aviation Administration, September 11, 2001; "Memorandum for the Record: Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) New York Air Route Center Interview With David Bottiglia"; "The Hunt for American Air Eleven After WTC 1 is Hit." 9/11 Commission, n.d.
[8] Christopher G. Morris (Editor), Academic Press Dictionary of Science and Technology. San Diego, CA: Academic Press, 1992, p. 739; U.S. Army Field Manual FM 3-04.300: Airfield and Flight Operations Procedures. Washington, DC: Headquarters, Department of the Army, 2008, p. E-6.
[9] "Regulatory Brief: Emergency Locator Transmitters (ELTs)." Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, January 22, 2009.
[10] "Memorandum for the Record: Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) New York Air Route Center Interview With Paul Thumser." 9/11 Commission, October 1, 2003.
[11] "Memorandum for the Record: Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Interview With Terry Biggio, Facility Deputy Manager, Boston Center." 9/11 Commission, September 22, 2003.
[12] "Memorandum for the Record: Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) New York Air Route Center (ZNY) Follow-up Interview With Mike McCormick." 9/11 Commission, December 15, 2003.
[13] "Memorandum for the Record: Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) New York Air Route Center Interview With Mike McCormick, Air Traffic Manager." 9/11 Commission, October 1, 2003.
[14] Note that while ELTs are activated in a majority of aircraft crashes, they are not perfect, and have sometimes failed to go off when planes have crashed. See "Regulatory Brief: Emergency Locator Transmitters (ELTs)."
[15] "Emergency Locator Transmitters." Federal Aviation Administration, April 2, 1990.
[16] "Memorandum for the Record: Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) New York Air Route Center Interview With Paul Thumser"; "Air Force Rescue Coordination Center." U.S. Air Force, November 12, 2008.
[17] "Memorandum for the Record: Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) New York Air Route Center Interview With Paul Thumser."

'Let's Get Rid of This Goddamn Sim': How NORAD Radar Screens Displayed False Tracks All Through the 9/11 Attacks

2010-08-12T01:38:00.000-07:00

Military personnel responsible for defending U.S. airspace had false tracks displayed on their radar screens throughout the entire duration of the 9/11 attacks, as part of the simulation for a training exercise being conducted that day. Technicians at NORAD's Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS) were still receiving the simulated radar information around the time the third attack, on the Pentagon, took place. Those at NORAD's operations center in Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado, were still receiving it several minutes after United Airlines Flight 93 apparently crashed in rural Pennsylvania.

No one has investigated why false tracks continued being injected onto NORAD radar screens long after the U.S. military was alerted to the real-world crisis taking place that morning. And yet we surely need to know more about these simulated "inputs" and what effect they had on the military's ability to respond to the 9/11 attacks.

NEADS TECHNICIANS TOLD TO TURN OFF 'SIM SWITCHES'
The terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 took place in airspace that was the responsibility of NEADS, based in Rome, New York. NEADS was therefore responsible for trying to coordinate the military's response to the hijackings. And yet, in the middle of it all, at 9:30 a.m. that morning a member of staff on the NEADS operations floor complained about simulated material that was appearing on the NEADS radar screens. He said: "You know what, let's get rid of this goddamn sim. Turn your sim switches off. Let's get rid of that crap." [1] Four minutes later, Technical Sergeant Jeffrey Richmond gave an instruction to the NEADS surveillance technicians, "All surveillance, turn off your sim switches." (A "sim switch" presumably allows a technician to either display or turn off any simulated material on their radar screen.) [2]

This means that at least some of the radar scopes at NEADS were still displaying simulated information--presumably false tracks--57 minutes after an air traffic controller at the FAA's Boston Center called there and announced: "We have a problem here. We have a hijacked aircraft headed towards New York." Forty-eight minutes had passed since the first attack on the World Trade Center occurred, and 31 minutes since the second tower was hit and it became obvious that the U.S. was under attack. It was only three minutes after Richmond gave his instruction, at 9:37 a.m., that the Pentagon was struck in the third successful attack that morning. [3]

Why were NEADS radar scopes displaying simulated information for so long during the real-world crisis, when it appears the technicians could have removed that information at the flick of a switch? Surely any false tracks could have hindered the ability of NEADS personnel to effectively respond to the attacks, so should have been terminated at the first sign of an actual emergency.

And yet this inexplicable behavior was not an exception. A similar thing happened at NORAD's Cheyenne Mountain Operations Center (CMOC) in Colorado, where it appears that false radar tracks were being displayed for even longer than at NEADS.

NORAD OPERATIONS CENTER ASKS FOR 'EXERCISE INPUTS' TO BE STOPPED
At 10:12 a.m., an officer at the NORAD operations center, "Captain Taylor," called NEADS and spoke to Captain Brian Nagel, the chief of live exercises there. After introducing himself, Taylor said, "What we need you to do right now is to terminate all exercise inputs coming into Cheyenne Mountain." Nagel gave Taylor an extension number and asked him to call it to get the exercise inputs stopped. Taylor replied, "I'll do that." [4] "Inputs," according to an article in Vanity Fair, are simulated scenarios that are put into play by a simulations team during training exercises. [5]

Taylor was presumably referring specifically to false tracks that had been transmitted onto radar screens at the CMOC, where more than 50 members of the battle staff had been participating in the exercise conducted that morning. [6] Indeed, the Toronto Star reported, "Any simulated information, what's known as an 'inject'" was "purged from the screens" at the CMOC in response to the news of the real-world attacks. (However, the report indicated, apparently incorrectly, that the false tracks appearing on CMOC screens were terminated earlier on, at some time shortly before 9:03 a.m., when the second WTC tower was hit.) [7]

If simulated material was still being displayed on CMOC radar screens at 10:12 a.m., this would be astonishing. By that time, 95 minutes had passed since--according to the 9/11 Commission--the military was first alerted to the hijacking of American Airlines Flight 11, and more than an hour had passed since the second plane hit the WTC. Flight 93 had apparently crashed in a field in rural Pennsylvania minutes earlier, and so the 9/11 attacks were already over. [8]

Why did it take so long for someone at the CMOC to call NEADS and ask it to "terminate all exercise inputs coming into Cheyenne Mountain?" Surely any simulated information should have been stopped as soon as NORAD learned of the real-world crisis taking place that morning.

The operations center was certainly in a valuable position to assist in the response to the terrorist attacks, so the intrusion of false tracks on its radar screens would presumably have considerably impaired the emergency response capabilities of the military. Airman magazine described the CMOC as the "nerve center of NORAD," and its troops as "the eyes and ears of North America ... nothing escapes their unsleeping watch." [9] According to the Toronto Star, "Whether it's a simulation or a real-world event, the role of the center is to fuse every critical piece of information NORAD has into a concise and crystalline snapshot." [10] NORAD has stated that the center collected data "from a worldwide system of satellites, radars, and other sensors, and processes that information on sophisticated computer systems to support critical NORAD and U.S. Space Command missions."

The CMOC provided "warning of ballistic missile or air attacks against North America, assists the air sovereignty mission for the United States and Canada, and, if necessary, is the focal point for air defense operations to counter enemy bombers or cruise missiles." The Battle Management Center there provided "command and control for the air surveillance and air defense network for North America." In 1994, for example, it monitored over 700 "unknown" radar tracks that entered North American airspace. [11]

NORAD INJECTS SIMULATED RADAR INFORMATION DURING EXERCISES
Simulated information was being transmitted onto radar screens the morning of September 11 as part of an annual command post exercise called Vigilant Guardian. All of NORAD, including NEADS, was participating in this exercise, which has been described as a "simulated air war" and as "an air defense exercise simulating an attack on the United States." [12]

An information page on Vigilant Guardian stated: "All of NEADS, operations personnel are to have their sim switches turned 'on' starting at 1400Z 6 Sept. 01 till endex [the end date of the exercise, which was originally going to be September 13]." The information page added, "A sim test track will be in place and forward told [i.e. transferred to a higher level of command] to both NORAD and CONR," NORAD's Continental United States Region. Presumably this was why the NORAD operations center needed to contact NEADS in order to get the "exercise inputs" terminated. [13]

A memo outlining special instructions for Vigilant Guardian participants described how their equipment needed to be set up to deal with the simulated material. It stated: "The exercise will be conducted sim over live on the air sovereignty string. The Q-93 must be placed in the mixed mode to allow the telling [i.e. the communicating of information between facilities] of sim tracks." [14]

The Q-93 was an important piece of equipment used by NORAD, described as "a suite of computers and peripheral equipment configured to receive plot data from ground radar systems." [15] It had "connectivity to numerous domestic radar sites, receives flight plans from the FAA, and has bi-directional communications with NORAD headquarters and a real-time link to AWACS [Airborne Warning and Control System planes]." It performed "real-time surveillance, identification, and weapons control missions." [16]

According to Master Sergeant Joseph McCain, the NEADS mission crew commander technician, "Q-93 radar screens have the ability to run a multiple input wartime scenario." [17] Indeed, in 1999, then-Deputy Secretary of Defense John Hamre revealed that NORAD could inject "mass attacks" onto its radar screens. [18] In December 1998, for example, it conducted an exercise called Vigilant Virgo, which reportedly "analyzed the Y2K preparedness of the entire ground radar array network. These systems were put through a series of scenarios involving tactical warning." [19] During this exercise, NORAD "injected 30 plus, well over 30 missile events into [its] sensors." This was "data that was injected as though it was being sensed for the first time by a radar site," according to Hamre. Of the more than 30 different simulated scenarios, some were "mass attacks" while others involved just "single missiles." [20]

WHEN WAS VIGILANT GUARDIAN TERMINATED?
Since NEADS and the NORAD operations center were still receiving simulated radar information long after the 9/11 attacks began, this raises the question of when exactly Vigilant Guardian was brought to an end. According to some accounts, it was called off "shortly after" 9:03 a.m., when the second WTC tower was hit. [21] However, when at 9:15 a.m. a caller asked, "Did they suspend the exercise?" NEADS tracking technician Mark Jennings replied, "Not at this time, no." Jennings continued, "I think they're going to," but added, "I don't know." [22]

In fact, one military newspaper has indicated that Vigilant Guardian may have been terminated more than half an hour after the attacks ended. According to the military information website, GlobalSecurity.org, Vigilant Guardian was held each year in conjunction with a U.S. Strategic Command (Stratcom) exercise called Global Guardian, and a 1997 Department of Defense report similarly listed Vigilant Guardian as one of several exercises that Global Guardian "links with." [23]

An article in The Bombardier, the newspaper for Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana, stated that Stratcom ordered a pause in Global Guardian at 9:11 a.m. on September 11, but only "formally terminated" this exercise at 10:44 a.m. [24] Considering that false tracks were still being displayed on NORAD radar screens at 10:12 a.m., and that NORAD's exercise that day was held in conjunction with Global Guardian, did Vigilant Guardian similarly continue until around 10:44 a.m. before being "formally terminated"?

CRITICAL QUESTIONS
The fact that key NEADS and NORAD operations center personnel had false information appearing on their radar screens throughout the 9/11 attacks raises critical questions that have yet to be investigated. We need to know who was responsible for transmitting the simulated "exercise inputs" to radar scopes. It has been reported that there was a "simulations team" working at NEADS the morning of September 11. [25] Was this team putting out the false tracks? If so, who were its members? Why did they continue with the simulation when it should have been obvious that a real-world crisis was taking place? And why didn't their higher-ups order them to stop transmitting the false tracks?

We also need to find out how many radar scopes at NEADS, the CMOC, and other NORAD facilities across the U.S. were receiving the simulated information. And what scenarios were transmitted onto the screens? Considering that Vigilant Guardian has been described as a "simulated air war," one would assume that many false tracks were being displayed.

Furthermore, we need to find out if personnel were able to distinguish genuine radar tracks from the simulated ones. It is worth noting that, since the mid-1990s, a tool called the PAC-3 Mobile Flight Mission Simulator (MFMS) has been available, which is capable of simulating a variety of enemy air vehicles. The MFMS was used by the U.S. Army in training exercises prior to 9/11. Crucially, it has been reported that "the graphic representations of MFMS tracks" on radar screens were "no different than those of actual tracks." To distinguish between real and simulated tracks, an operator had to observe the "Identify Friend or Foe" response of a track. "Simply, a real aircraft will generate an interrogation response whereas the simulated aircraft will return no response." [26]

If NORAD used equipment that simulated enemy aircraft in a similar way to the MFMS, this would presumably mean the task of distinguishing between real and false radar tracks on September 11 was less than straightforward, especially considering that three of the four aircraft targeted that day had their transponders turned off. [27] These aircraft would therefore not have been transmitting anything like an "Identify Friend or Foe" signal.

In sum, we need to determine the extent to which the U.S. military was hindered in its ability to respond on 9/11 as a result of its radar scopes receiving simulated information throughout the terrorist attacks.

It seems possible that the injection of false radar information could have been one way that normal emergency responses were sabotaged, so as to ensure the success of the attacks on New York and Washington, DC. If that is the case, those responsible must be investigated and brought to justice.

NOTES
[1] NEADS Audio File, Mission Crew Commander Position, Channel 2. North American Aerospace Defense Command, September 11, 2001; Transcripts From Voice Recorder, Northeast Air Defense Sector, Rome, NY. North American Aerospace Defense Command, September 11, 2001.
[2] NEADS Audio File, Air Surveillance Technician Position, Channel 15. North American Aerospace Defense Command, September 11, 2001; NEADS Communications 9:20 a.m.-9:54 a.m. September 11, 2001. 9/11 Commission, n.d.
[3] 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2004, pp. 20, 22, 27.
[4] NEADS Audio File, Senior Director Position, Channel 20. North American Aerospace Defense Command, September 11, 2001.
[5] Michael Bronner, "9/11 Live: The NORAD Tapes." Vanity Fair, August 2006.
[6] Jason Tudor, "Inner Space." Airman, March 2002; "Memorandum for the Record: Interview With NORAD Deputy Commander, Lieutenant General Rick Findley, Canadian Forces (CF)." 9/11 Commission, March 1, 2004.
[7] Scott Simmie, "The Scene at NORAD on Sept. 11: Playing Russian War Games ... And Then Someone Shouted to Look at the Monitor." Toronto Star, December 9, 2001.
[8] 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report, pp. 20, 22, 30.
[9] Pat McKenna, "The Border Guards." Airman, January 1996.
[10] Scott Simmie, "The Scene at NORAD on Sept. 11."
[11] "Cheyenne Mountain." North American Aerospace Defense Command, November 27, 1999.
[12] Leslie Filson, Air War Over America: Sept. 11 Alters Face of Air Defense Mission. Tyndall Air Force Base, FL: 1st Air Force, 2003, pp. 55, 122; William M. Arkin, Code Names: Deciphering U.S. Military Plans, Programs, and Operations in the 9/11 World. Hanover, NH: Steerforth Press, 2005, p. 545; "Vigilant Guardian." GlobalSecurity.org, April 27, 2005.
[13] "Vigilant Guardian 01-2." Northeast Air Defense Sector, August 23, 2001.
[14] Neil A. Cleveland, "Special Instructions (Spins) Vigilant Guardian 01-2." Northeast Air Defense Sector, August 23, 2001.
[15] John B. Stephenson, Sally M. Obenski, and Paula Bridickas, Mission-Critical Systems: Defense Attempting to Address Major Software Challenges. Washington, DC: United States General Accounting Office, December 1992, p. 17; "AN/FYQ-93 Communications System." Federation of American Scientists, April 23, 2000.
[16] Charles P. Satterthwaite, David E. Corman, and Thomas S. Herm, "Real-Time Information Extraction for Homeland Defense." Air Force Research Laboratory, June 2002.
[17] "Memorandum for the Record: North Eastern Air Defense Sector (NEADS) Field Site Visit." 9/11 Commission, October 28, 2003.
[18] John J. Hamre, "Dr. Hamre's Briefing on Year 2000 Issues." U.S. Department of Defense, January 15, 1999.
[19] Michael Kraig, "Safe or Sorry: The 'Y2K Problem' and Nuclear Weapons." Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, March/April 1999; William M. Arkin, Code Names, p. 546.
[20] John J. Hamre, "Dr. Hamre's Briefing on Year 2000 Issues."
[21] Jason Tudor, "Inner Space"; Leslie Filson, Air War Over America, p. 59.
[22] NEADS Audio File, Identification Technician Position, Channel 7. North American Aerospace Defense Command, September 11, 2001.
[23] Nuclear Weapon Systems Sustainment Programs. Washington, DC: Office of the Secretary of Defense, May 1997; "Vigilant Guardian."
[24] "Unlikely Chain of Events." The Bombardier, September 8, 2006. Note that the times given in this article are in Central time, which I have converted to Eastern time.
[25] Lynn Spencer, Touching History: The Untold Story of the Drama That Unfolded in the Skies Over America on 9/11. New York: Free Press, 2008, p. 25.
[26] Andrew Yuliano, "Simulations: Changing the Paradigm for Air Defense Operational Testing." Air Defense Artillery, April 2001.
[27] 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 16.

NORAD Exercise a Year Before 9/11 Simulated a Pilot Trying to Crash a Plane into a New York Skyscraper--The United Nations Headquarters

2010-07-27T07:14:00.000-07:00

The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) held a major training exercise in October 2000 that included the scenario of a person stealing a large jet plane, which they planned to crash into the United Nations headquarters building--a 39-story high-rise in New York, just a few miles away from the World Trade Center. Furthermore, a NORAD exercise in June that year included one scenario in which a plane was hijacked with the intention of crashing it into the White House, and another in which a transcontinental flight was hijacked with the intention of crashing the plane into the Statue of Liberty, only a short distance from where the WTC stood.

The existence of these exercise scenarios was revealed in August 2004 by General Richard Myers, at that time the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, during a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee. Senator Mark Dayton (D-MN) asked, "Did NORAD"-- the military organization responsible for defending U.S. airspace--"conduct exercises or develop scenarios, prior to September 11, 2001, to test a military reaction to an aircraft hijacking which appeared destined to result in a suicide crash into a high-value target?" In response, Myers outlined "five exercise hijack events" that NORAD had practiced for between November 1999 and October 2000, which all "included a suicide crash into a high-value target." [1] Yet the details of these chilling scenarios, which were like premonitions of the attacks on New York and Washington that lay ahead, failed to receive the public attention they deserved.

OCTOBER 2000 SCENARIO: STOLEN PLANE TARGETS UN BUILDING
The scenario that included an attempt to crash a plane into the UN headquarters was practiced for twice--on October 16 and October 23, 2000--as part of an exercise called Vigilant Guardian. This annual exercise was conducted by NORAD, and all of the organization, including its headquarters and its three air defense sectors in the continental United States, participated. [2]

The scenario practiced for on October 16 was that, "Due to recent arrests involving illegal drug trafficking in Maine, an individual steals a Federal Express plane and plans a suicide attack into the United Nations building in New York City." The October 23 scenario, according to Myers's summary, was almost identical. It was based around "weapons of mass destruction directed at the United Nations," and in it, "an individual steals a Federal Express aircraft and plans a suicide attack on the United Nations building in New York City." [3] (At the time of this exercise, Federal Express was flying mostly the MD-11 and the DC-10, both large jet aircraft. Presumably one of those planes was the type considered in the scenarios. [4])

The next Vigilant Guardian--for the year 2001--was actually being conducted at the time the 9/11 attacks occurred. [5] One can only imagine what NORAD personnel must have thought when the real-world events of September 11 so closely resembled a scenario they had encountered in the previous instance of that day's exercise--a suicide pilot trying to crash a large jet plane into a New York skyscraper.

JUNE 2000 SCENARIOS: HIJACKERS PLAN TO CRASH PLANES INTO WHITE HOUSE AND STATUE OF LIBERTY
On June 5, 2000, the Continental United States NORAD Region (CONR) was conducting an exercise called Falcon Indian, in which its three air defense sectors in the continental U.S. took part. [6] Two scenarios were practiced for that day in which hijackers planned to crash an aircraft into a well-known, "high-value" target in New York or Washington.

One scenario involved a Learjet being hijacked, and "maintaining tight formation with [a] Canadair airliner, loaded with explosives," according to Myers's summary. (It is unclear from that summary whether it was the Learjet or the Canadair plane that had explosives on board.) The hijackers "planned to crash" the Learjet "into the White House." In the other scenario, a "Communist Party faction" hijacked an aircraft bound from the western to the eastern United States. The hijackers had "high explosives on board," and intended "to crash into the Statue of Liberty." [7]

NOVEMBER 1999 SCENARIO: TERRORISTS PLAN TO CRASH HIJACKED PLANE INTO UN BUILDING
The fifth scenario Myers described was from an earlier Falcon Indian, held in November 1999. Again, NORAD's three air defense sectors in the continental U.S. took part in the CONR exercise. And, again, the exercise included a scenario based around the hijacking of a transcontinental aircraft flying from the western to the eastern United States. In the simulation, a China Airlines plane bound from Los Angeles to JFK International Airport in New York was "hijacked east of Colorado Springs by five terrorists." If the plane was not intercepted by the U.S. military, the hijackers intended "to crash into [the] United Nations building." [8]

OTHER PRE-9/11 PLANE-INTO-BUILDING SCENARIOS
Just a few months before Richard Myers revealed the existence of these five exercise scenarios, USA Today and CNN reported that NORAD had conducted exercises in the years before 9/11 that simulated hijackers crashing aircraft into buildings in the United States. Some of the scenarios that had been practiced for were described. It is unclear whether any of them correspond with the five later outlined by Myers, although, from what has been reported, it appears they were separate scenarios, additional to those in Myers's list.

USA Today reported that "in the two years before the September 11 attacks," NORAD conducted exercises simulating "hijacked airliners used as weapons to crash into targets and cause mass casualties." In one exercise, "One of the imagined targets was the World Trade Center." Another exercise involved fighter jets performing "a mock shootdown over the Atlantic Ocean of a jet supposedly laden with chemical poisons headed toward a target in the United States." These two scenarios were included in "regional drills, not regularly scheduled continent-wide exercises," according to NORAD, and the planes in the simulations were coming from a foreign country, rather than from within the U.S. [9]

CNN reported, "Sometime between 1991 and 2001, a regional sector of the North American Aerospace Defense Command simulated a foreign hijacked airliner crashing into a building in the United States as part of [a] training exercise scenario." That scenario involved the airliner "being hijacked as it flew into U.S. airspace from abroad." The exercise "was conducted at one regional sector, and was not conducted at the [NORAD] headquarters." The identity of the building hit by the aircraft was classified, but military officials said that it "would be recognizable if identified, but was not the World Trade Center or the Pentagon." [10]

How could it have happened that the organization responsible for defending U.S. airspace repeatedly practiced scenarios that so closely resembled the 9/11 attacks in the years leading up to those attacks? And considering that the existence of these plane-into-building training scenarios has largely gone unreported, might there have been other, similar scenarios practiced for by NORAD--or other U.S. military organizations--that we do not yet know of? A new investigation into 9/11 is clearly urgently required. And the role of these training scenarios is one of many aspects of the attacks that must be thoroughly examined.

NOTES
[1] Senate Committee on Armed Services, Implications for the Department of Defense and Military Operations of Proposals to Reorganize the United States Intelligence Community. 108th Cong., 2nd sess., August 17, 2004.
[2] Ibid.; William M. Arkin, Code Names: Deciphering U.S. Military Plans, Programs, and Operations in the 9/11 World. Hanover, NH: Steerforth Press, 2005, p. 545.
[3] Senate Committee on Armed Services, Implications for the Department of Defense and Military Operations of Proposals to Reorganize the United States Intelligence Community.
[4] Greg Schneider, "FedEx to Buy 10 Airbus Super-Jumbo Jets." Washington Post, January 17, 2001.
[5] William M. Arkin, Code Names, p. 545.
[6] Senate Committee on Armed Services, Implications for the Department of Defense and Military Operations of Proposals to Reorganize the United States Intelligence Community; William M. Arkin, Code Names, p. 362.
[7] Senate Committee on Armed Services, Implications for the Department of Defense and Military Operations of Proposals to Reorganize the United States Intelligence Community.
[8] Ibid.
[9] Steven Komarow and Tom Squitieri, "NORAD Had Drills of Jets as Weapons." USA Today, April 18, 2004.
[10] Barbara Starr, "NORAD Exercise Had Jet Crashing into Building." CNN, April 19, 2004.

The Actions and Inactions of the Commander in Charge of the U.S. Air Defense Failure on 9/11

2010-06-18T07:30:00.000-07:00

"During those entire 109 minutes ... this country
and its citizens were completely undefended."

- Senator Mark Dayton

General Ralph Eberhart was the commander in chief of NORAD--the military organization responsible for defending U.S. airspace--when the 9/11 attacks occurred. Considering that NORAD failed to intercept any of the four aircraft targeted in the attacks and successfully defend New York and Washington, one would reasonably expect Eberhart to have been somehow held to account. And yet that did not happen.

In fact, nine years on, we still know very little about what Eberhart did while the 9/11 attacks were taking place. From what we do know, his actions seem far from reassuring. Eberhart at least gave the impression of having an unclear picture of what was going on. Accounts of his actions reveal no decisive attempts to respond to the attacks. He appears to have been particularly slow to order a plan that would give the military control of U.S. airspace and get all aircraft grounded. Furthermore, in the middle of the attacks, he decided to drive from his office at Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado, to NORAD's operations center in Cheyenne Mountain--a journey that apparently put him out of the loop for about an hour.

EBERHART'S ACTIONS ON 9/11
Ralph Eberhart began the morning of September 11, 2001 at NORAD headquarters at Peterson Air Force Base. [1] He told the 9/11 Commission that he learned of the crisis that was unfolding when the command director at NORAD's Cheyenne Mountain Operations Center (presumably Captain Michael Jellinek) called at 8:45 a.m.--one minute before the first World Trade Center tower was hit--and "informed him of the ongoing circumstance of a suspected hijacking on the East Coast." Eberhart subsequently went to his office and saw the television coverage of the first attack on the WTC.

He "asked if the aircraft that was suspected of impacting the World Trade Center was the same aircraft that was a suspected hijack, and was told that they were not." Eberhart has recalled that there was apparently "great confusion in the system" at this time. But after news broke of the second attack on the WTC, he said, it was "obvious" to him that there was "an ongoing and coordinated terrorist attack" taking place. [2] And yet his subsequent actions were hardly impressive, considering the urgency of the situation.

Eberhart tried contacting General Henry Shelton, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, but was unable to, since Shelton was airborne at the time, on his way to a NATO meeting in Europe. Eberhart then "contacted higher command authority at the Pentagon," he has recalled. [3]

He also spoke briefly with General Richard Myers, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who was on Capitol Hill, where he had been meeting with Senator Max Cleland. At some point between 9:03 a.m. and 9:30 a.m., according to Myers's recollection, Eberhart phoned the vice chairman's military aide on his cell phone, which the aide then passed to Myers.

EBERHART UNCLEAR ABOUT DETAILS OF HIJACKINGS AND NORAD'S RESPONSE
Eberhart updated Myers on the crisis, telling him the two WTC towers had been hit and there were "several hijack codes in the system." This, according to Myers, meant "that the transponders in the aircraft [were] talking to the ground, and they're saying ... we're being hijacked." [4] However, if Myers's recollection is correct, Eberhart was apparently either mistaken or deliberately giving false information: None of the pilots of the four flights targeted that morning keyed the code that would indicate a hijacking into their plane's transponder. [5] There should have been no "hijack codes in the system" at that time.

Eberhart told Myers he was working with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to get all aircraft over the U.S. to land. He also said NORAD would be launching fighter jets in response to the attacks. [6] As Myers would recall two days later, "I think the decision was, at that point, to start launching aircraft." [7] However, NORAD's Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS), based in upstate New York, had already launched fighters by that time: Two F-15s had taken off from Otis Air National Guard Base in Massachusetts at 8:46 a.m. [8] So if Myers's account is correct, Eberhart--the man in charge of NORAD--was apparently either unaware of the actions of NORAD's Northeast Air Defense Sector or knowingly giving out false information.

Furthermore, when he was interviewed by the 9/11 Commission in March 2004, Eberhart claimed he'd had "no knowledge of the circumstances that initiated the scramble" of fighter jets from Langley Air Force Base in Virginia at 9:24 a.m. [9] Extensive evidence uncovered by the Commission showed that NEADS scrambled those fighters in response to an incorrect report it had received that American Airlines Flight 11--which hit the WTC at 8:46 a.m.--was still airborne and heading south, toward Washington, DC. [10] At the time of his 9/11 Commission interview, Eberhart said, he had only "recently" been made aware of these circumstances. [11] How could the man in charge of NORAD on September 11 have been unaware of such crucial information for nearly two and a half years after the attacks occurred?

After learning of the attacks in New York, Eberhart stayed at Building 1 at Peterson Air Force Base--the headquarters of the Air Force Space Command, which, as well as NORAD, he was the commander of--because, he said, "he did not want to lose communication." [12] However, he soon set out on a journey that caused him to lose communication with others involved in the emergency response for 45 minutes or longer.

EBERHART OUT OF COMMUNICATION WHILE TRAVELING TO OPERATIONS CENTER
At "approximately 9:30," according to his own recollection, Eberhart left Peterson Air Force Base and headed to the NORAD operations center in Cheyenne Mountain. [13] The operations center was about 12 miles away, a journey that takes "roughly 30 minutes," according to the 9/11 Commission Report. But, as the Washington Post noted, "The trip to Cheyenne Mountain can be time-consuming if traffic is bad," and the drive took Eberhart 45 minutes. [14]

The journey may in fact have taken even longer. Eberhart told the 9/11 Commission that by the time he arrived at the operations center, the authorization for the military to shoot down threatening aircraft had been passed down NORAD's chain of command. NORAD finally passed on this authorization to its three air defense sectors at 10:31 a.m., which would imply that Eberhart reached the operations center shortly after that time, more than an hour after he said he left Peterson Air Force Base. [15]

Furthermore, while he was making the journey to Cheyenne Mountain, Eberhart "couldn't receive telephone calls as senior officials weighed how to respond," according to the Denver Post. [16] He reportedly "lost a cell phone call with Vice President Dick Cheney." The reason why Eberhart had problems receiving phone calls is unclear, though it has been reported that "New repeater stations were installed almost immediately" after 9/11, "to fix the phone problem." [17]

During the period when he was reportedly traveling to the operations center, at 9:49 a.m., Eberhart "directed all air sovereignty aircraft to battle stations, fully armed" over the Pentagon's air threat conference call, according to the 9/11 Commission Report. [18] Presumably he was either able to successfully issue this order himself despite his communication problems, or the order was issued on his behalf by a subordinate who was participating in the air threat conference call. However, when an aircraft is at "battle stations," its pilot is in the cockpit, but with the engines turned off, ready to start them and taxi out only if a scramble order should follow. [19] So Eberhart's order would have meant that any air sovereignty aircraft not already airborne would have remained on the ground, rather than immediately getting into the air, where they could have quickly intercepted a hostile aircraft.

The reason Eberhart decided to relocate to Cheyenne Mountain at such an important time, when his uninterrupted participation in the crisis response would presumably have been essential, is unclear. According to the Colorado Springs Gazette, the Cheyenne Mountain Operations Center "had communications capabilities not available at Peterson." [20] And Eberhart told the 9/11 Commission that, on his communications loop, it had "quieted down" before he decided to head out to the mountain. [21]

All the same, if Eberhart's account of his actions is correct, it would mean that, in the middle of the worst terrorist attack in the history of the U.S., the commander of NORAD was, at least to some degree, out of the loop for maybe an hour or more.

MILITARY ONLY TAKES CONTROL OF SKIES AFTER ATTACKS ENDED
The one key action Ralph Eberhart is known to have taken in response to the 9/11 attacks was to implement a modified version of a plan called "SCATANA," which would clear the skies and give the military control over U.S. airspace. However, Eberhart only ordered that this plan be put into operation at around 11:00 a.m., about two hours after the second WTC tower was hit and it became "obvious" to him that a coordinated terrorist attack was taking place.

When he was asked before the 9/11 Commission why it had taken so long to initiate the plan, Eberhart recalled that people had been approaching him and telling him to "declare SCATANA." However, he added, NORAD "could not control the airspace that day with the radars we had and all the aircraft that were airborne. ... So, if I suddenly say, 'We've got it, we will control the airspace,' we would have had worse problems than we had that morning because I cannot provide [air] traffic deconfliction like the FAA has."

Eberhart therefore requested that a modified version of SCATANA be devised, telling those that were calling for the plan, "I will execute SCATANA once you have a modified SCATANA that clearly delineates the lines in the road and doesn't cause a bad situation to become worse." The modified SCATANA that Eberhart subsequently implemented allowed navigational aids to stay on, and selective approval for specific and necessary flights. [22]

Eberhart was implying to the 9/11 Commission that his delay in ordering SCATANA was due to the time required to put together this modified version of it. However, he has not specified the time at which he asked his colleagues to start preparing the modified SCATANA. Was it at 9:03 a.m., when the second WTC tower was hit and everyone realized that the U.S. was under attack--a time when the value of such a plan would presumably have been obvious? Or was it later on? If later on, how much later?

AMERICA 'COMPLETELY UNDEFENDED' DURING ATTACKS
A fuller analysis of Ralph Eberhart's actions on September 11 will only be possible when more evidence comes to light revealing what he did at the time of the attacks. It seems remarkable that we still know so little about the actions of the man who, as commander of NORAD, was in charge of the air defense of the U.S. In that role, Eberhart oversaw a catastrophic failure, which, in the words of Senator Mark Dayton, meant that for "109 minutes ... this country and its citizens were completely undefended." [23]

And yet, rather than being held accountable, or even just criticized, for that failure, in October 2002 Eberhart was put in charge of the newly created Northern Command (NORTHCOM), described as "the nation's premier military homeland defense organization," which had the mission of countering threats and aggression against the United States. [24]

As Dayton concluded, "The situation is urgent when we do not get protected in those circumstances [that occurred on 9/11], and it is even worse when it is covered up." [25]

NOTES
[1] 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2004, p. 465.
[2] "Memorandum for the Record: Interview With CINC NORAD (Commander in Chief NORAD), General Edward 'Ed' Eberhart." 9/11 Commission, March 1, 2004.
[3] Ibid.; Richard Myers with Malcolm McConnell, Eyes on the Horizon: Serving on the Front Lines of National Security. New York: Threshold Editions, 2009, p. 10.
[4] Richard Myers, interview by Jim Miklaszewski. NBC News, September 11, 2002; "Memorandum for the Record: Interview With Richard Myers, Affiliated With NORAD." 9/11 Commission, February 17, 2004; Richard Myers with Malcolm McConnell, Eyes on the Horizon, p. 9.
[5] "Government Official Has New Evidence Regarding Hijacked Airlines." CNN, September 11, 2001.
[6] "Memorandum for the Record: Interview With Richard Myers, Affiliated With NORAD"; Richard Myers with Malcolm McConnell, Eyes on the Horizon, p. 9.
[7] Senate Armed Services Committee, U.S. Senator Carl Levin (D-MI) Holds Hearing on Nomination of General Richard Myers to be Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. 107th Cong., 1st sess., September 13, 2001.
[8] 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 20.
[9] "Memorandum for the Record: Interview With CINC NORAD (Commander in Chief NORAD), General Edward 'Ed' Eberhart."
[10] 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report, pp. 26-27, 34.
[11] "Memorandum for the Record: Interview With CINC NORAD (Commander in Chief NORAD), General Edward 'Ed' Eberhart."
[12] "General Ralph E. 'Ed' Eberhart." U.S. Air Force, February 2004; "Memorandum for the Record: Interview With CINC NORAD (Commander in Chief NORAD), General Edward 'Ed' Eberhart."
[13] "Memorandum for the Record: Interview With CINC NORAD (Commander in Chief NORAD), General Edward 'Ed' Eberhart."
[14] 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 465; T. R. Reid, "Military to Idle NORAD Compound." Washington Post, July 29, 2006.
[15] 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 42; Lynn Spencer, Touching History: The Untold Story of the Drama That Unfolded in the Skies Over America on 9/11. New York: Free Press, 2008, p. 240.
[16] Bruce Finley, "Military to Put Cheyenne Mountain on Standby." Denver Post, July 27, 2006.
[17] Pam Zubeck, "Cheyenne Mountain's Fate May Lie in Study Contents." Colorado Springs Gazette, June 16, 2006.
[18] 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report, pp. 38, 463.
[19] Leslie Filson, Air War Over America: Sept. 11 Alters Face of Air Defense Mission. Tyndall Air Force Base, FL: 1st Air Force, 2003, p. 55; Lynn Spencer, Touching History, p. 27.
[20] Pam Zubeck, "Cheyenne Mountain's Fate May Lie in Study Contents."
[21] "Memorandum for the Record: Interview With CINC NORAD (Commander in Chief NORAD), General Edward 'Ed' Eberhart."
[22] William B. Scott, "Exercise Jump-Starts Response to Attacks." Aviation Week & Space Technology, June 3, 2002; National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States: Twelfth Public Hearing. 9/11 Commission, June 17, 2004; Lynn Spencer, Touching History, p. 269.
[23] Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs, Making America Safer: Examining the Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission. 108th Cong., 2nd sess., July 30, 2004.
[24] Gerry J. Gilmore, "Eberhart Tabbed to Head U.S. Northern Command." American Forces Press Service, May 8, 2002; "Key Players: Commander, Northern Command, Gen. Ralph Eberhart." Government Executive, April 15, 2003.
[25] Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs, Making America Safer: Examining the Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission.

The WTC Leaseholder and His Associates That Cheated Death on 9/11: Was it Coincidence or Did Someone Have Foreknowledge of the Attacks?

2010-05-28T00:18:00.000-07:00

New York real estate developer Larry Silverstein and several key individuals associated with his firm, Silverstein Properties, appear to have had remarkable luck on September 11, 2001, when changes in their schedule or coincidental circumstances saved them from being high up in the World Trade Center when it was attacked.

Silverstein Properties took over the lease of the World Trade Center seven weeks before 9/11, the only time the complex had gone under private control [1], and after 9/11 Larry Silverstein sought damages of over $7 billion from his insurers for the destruction of the Twin Towers. [2] On September 11, the firm had temporary offices on the 88th floor of the North Tower. (American Airlines Flight 11 impacted that tower between its 93rd and 99th floors.) Of its 160 employees, 54 were working in those offices at the time of the attacks and four of them died. [3]

HIGH-LEVEL INDIVIDUALS AVOIDED DANGER ON 9/11
The fortunate circumstances that kept the high-level individuals out of danger the morning of 9/11 were quite extraordinary. Larry Silverstein survived the attacks supposedly because his wife forced him to go to a doctor's appointment instead of a meeting at the WTC; Silverstein's son and daughter survived because, independently of each other, they were running late; his top aide survived because he cut short a meeting he was in at the top of the North Tower; his publicist agreed to join a meeting at the WTC at 9:00 a.m. instead of 8:00 a.m.; and others associated with Silverstein Properties may have avoided danger due to the cancellation of a meeting on the 88th floor of the North Tower.

There are three possible explanations for the combined good fortune of these individuals on September 11. Maybe it was all due to coincidence. Or, more sinisterly, perhaps some of these individuals had foreknowledge of the attacks and therefore knew of the threat to the WTC. Or maybe they received some kind of forewarning from others who had specific foreknowledge of the danger. While it will be impossible to draw definite conclusions until there is a proper investigation, the accounts of these individuals, described below, make clear why such a new investigation into the 9/11 attacks is needed.

WTC LEASEHOLDER PERSUADED TO GO TO DOCTOR'S APPOINTMENT INSTEAD OF TRADE CENTER
After his company took over the lease of the Twin Towers on July 24, 2001, Larry Silverstein reportedly "spent his days at the towers, meeting and greeting his tenants." [4] According to the New York Times, "Every morning after the deal was finalized, Mr. Silverstein held breakfast meetings at Windows on the World," the restaurant at the top of the North Tower. [5] Those meetings would begin at 8:30 a.m. [6]

All of the approximately 170 people in Windows on the World at the time of the attack on the North Tower--8:46 a.m.--died when the tower subsequently collapsed. [7] Yet September 11 was the one morning when Larry Silverstein was not at the restaurant. Instead, he was at his apartment on New York's Park Avenue. [8] The reason, as the Washington Post described, was that he had "complained of a problem with his skin and the sun. His wife, Klara, demanded that he go to the dermatologist. She even made the appointment, which was scheduled for that morning." Silverstein has recalled that he was "getting dressed to go to the doctor" on 9/11, but complained to his wife: "I have so much to do downtown. This is a horrendous waste of my time. I should be going to work." She retorted, "You're not going to cancel this appointment this morning, you're going to the dermatologist." Silverstein has noted, "When you're married to the same woman for 46 years, you learn early on to say, 'Yes, dear.'" He therefore did not head to the WTC. Referring to these circumstances that saved his life, Silverstein commented, "That morning was the serendipitous quality of life." [9]

LEASEHOLDER'S SON AND DAUGHTER LATE FOR MEETINGS AT WTC
Two of Larry Silverstein's three children, Roger and Lisa, were vice presidents of Silverstein Properties. [10] After the company took over the lease of the WTC, Roger and Lisa Silverstein worked in its temporary offices on the 88th floor of the North Tower and, according to the New York Observer, attended meetings with tenants each morning at Windows on the World. But on the morning of September 11, apparently independently of each other, both of them "were running late." As a result, Roger Silverstein was in the parking garage of WTC Building 7 when the North Tower was hit, and Lisa Silverstein was subsequently turned away from the WTC complex by police further uptown. The New York Observer noted, "If the attack had happened just a little later, [Larry] Silverstein's children would likely have been trapped at Windows" on the World. [11]

LEASEHOLDER'S TOP AIDE ENDS MEETING AT WTC EARLY
An executive with Silverstein Properties who was even more fortunate was Larry Silverstein's top aide, Geoffrey Wharton, who was actually at the 8:30 a.m. meeting at Windows on the World that Silverstein missed. [12] Wharton was meeting with Liz Thompson, the executive director of the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, to discuss the council's relationship with Silverstein Properties, and its studio and performance programs. Fortunately, as Thompson has recalled, Wharton "had to cut the meeting a little short." [13] And, according to the Engineering News-Record, he then "decided to escort his guest down to the lobby." [14] Consequently, Wharton and Thompson got on an elevator at 8:44 a.m., just two minutes before Flight 11 hit the tower. Only two other individuals were in that last elevator down from the 107th floor: Michael Nestor and Richard Tierney, both senior officials with the New York Port Authority, who were leaving the restaurant because Nestor had a meeting downstairs to attend. The four of them were the last people to make it out of Windows on the World alive. [15]

LEASEHOLDER'S PUBLICIST AGREES TO JOIN MEETING AT WTC AN HOUR LATE
Another key individual who was fortunate not to be in the World Trade Center when it was hit was publicist Howard Rubenstein, who had represented Larry Silverstein for over 30 years and would subsequently work with the real estate developer on the reconstruction of the WTC. [16]

The day before 9/11, Rubenstein was called by John O'Neill, the former FBI counterterrorism chief, who had recently started work as head of security at the WTC. O'Neill invited Rubenstein to a meeting he was going to be leading, which would be held in the WTC at 8:00 a.m. on September 11. It was to discuss how the building's management was protecting the Twin Towers against terrorism. Rubenstein has recalled that O'Neill told him, "Bring your staff, two people."

Rubenstein agreed to attend the meeting, because "we were then representing the World Trade Center." However, after further thought he called O'Neill back and said, "I have a staff meeting on Tuesday, do you mind if I don't go?" O'Neill told him to send a colleague in his place, but Rubenstein replied, "But that somebody is also at my staff meeting." So O'Neill told Rubenstein to "come at 9 o'clock instead of 8 o'clock."

According to Rubenstein, the morning of September 11 he was in the staff meeting when his secretary ran in and told him, "The World Trade Center just got hit and you were supposed to be there." While Rubenstein and his staff members were safe, "Everyone at that breakfast meeting died, including John O'Neill." [17]

COMPANY MEETING IN WTC ON 9/11 CANCELED THE NIGHT BEFORE
Furthermore, Silverstein Properties had been scheduled to hold a meeting the morning of September 11 in its offices on the 88th floor of the North Tower, reportedly "to discuss what to do in the event of a terrorist attack." According to the New York Times, that meeting was canceled the night of September 10, "because one participant could not attend." [18] Further details of the meeting--such as who was meant to be there, and whether any people managed to stay away from the WTC on 9/11 thanks to its cancellation--are unknown.

As we can see, some notable people connected with the WTC leaseholder, Larry Silverstein, appear to have been particularly lucky on September 11. Under slightly different circumstances they may well have been among the victims of the attacks. While their accounts, described above, do not prove anything sinister, the series of apparent coincidences that kept these individuals away from danger on 9/11 surely need to be examined as part of a new investigation into the attacks.

NOTES
[1] "Silverstein Properties and Westfield Win $3.2B World Trade Center Lease." International Council of Shopping Centers, April 27, 2001; "Governor Pataki, Acting Governor DiFrancesco Laud Historic Port Authority Agreement to Privatize World Trade Center." Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, July 24, 2001.
[2] Simon English, "Magnate's Tower Plan Under Threat." Daily Telegraph, October 10, 2001; Mark Hamblett, "Jurors Deal World Trade Center Leaseholder Major Setback." New York Law Journal, April 30, 2004.
[3] Doug Saunders, Caroline Alphonso, Colin Freeze, Lisa Priest, and Geoffrey York, "Surviving History." Globe and Mail, September 7, 2002.
[4] Lynne Duke, "At Ground Zero, a Tall Order for the Developer." Washington Post, November 20, 2002.
[5] Deborah Sontag, "The Hole in the City's Heart." New York Times, September 11, 2006.
[6] Nadine M. Post, "World Trade Center's Rebuilders Find Opportunity in the Face of Tragedy." Engineering News-Record, September 13, 2004.
[7] "The Last Elevator." Morning Edition, NPR, September 11, 2003.
[8] Robert Kolker, "Who Wants to Move to Ground Zero?" New York Magazine, May 21, 2005.
[9] Lynne Duke, "At Ground Zero, a Tall Order for the Developer."
[10] Mervyn Rothstein, "Downtown Tower Gets a New Look." New York Times, February 3, 1999; Tracie Rozhon, "Developer Daughters, Born to Build." New York Times, March 22, 2001; Doug Saunders, Caroline Alphonso, Colin Freeze, Lisa Priest, and Geoffrey York, "Surviving History."
[11] Tom McGeveran, "Mike Sees City Taking Control at Ground Zero." New York Observer, March 16, 2003; Robert Kolker, "Who Wants to Move to Ground Zero?"
[12] Nadine M. Post, "World Trade Center's Rebuilders Find Opportunity in the Face of Tragedy."
[13] Jim Dwyer, Eric Lipton, Kevin Flynn, James Glanz, and Ford Fessenden, "Fighting to Live as the Towers Died." New York Times, May 26, 2002; Creative Downtown: The Role of Culture in Rebuilding Lower Manhattan. New York: New York City Arts Coalition, 2002, p. 9.
[14] Nadine M. Post, "World Trade Center's Rebuilders Find Opportunity in the Face of Tragedy."
[15] Jim Dwyer, Eric Lipton, Kevin Flynn, James Glanz, and Ford Fessenden, "Fighting to Live as the Towers Died"; "The Last Elevator."
[16] Dennis Fitzgerald, "The Bold and the Beautiful." The Deal, June 7, 2004.
[17] Charlie Rose. PBS, July 15, 2004; Aliza Davidovit, "Howard Rubenstein: Best Face Forward." Lifestyles Magazine, Fall 2004.
[18] Andrew Ross Sorkin and Simon Romero, "Reinsurance Companies Wait to Sort out Cost of Damages." New York Times, September 12, 2001.

Was Korean Airlines Flight 85 a Simulated Hijack in a 9/11 Training Exercise?

2010-04-18T23:54:00.000-07:00

Several hours after the 9/11 attacks in New York and Washington occurred, a passenger aircraft heading to the U.S. from Seoul, South Korea, was mistakenly considered hijacked. In a little-reported series of events, the pilots of Korean Airlines Flight 85 gave numerous indications that their plane had been taken over by hijackers, even though it had not. KAL 85, a Boeing 747 that had been due to land in Anchorage, Alaska, for a refueling stop, was consequently diverted to an airport in Canada. The military launched fighter jets to tail it and, with authorization from the Canadian prime minister, threatened to shoot the plane down if it refused to change course. Only after KAL 85 landed were officials able to confirm that no hijacking had taken place.

While a person might suggest this crisis was just the result of confusion due to the unprecedented events earlier that day, the number of indications the pilots gave that their plane was hijacked, and their repeated failure to confirm that this was not the case, raises another possibility: Could KAL 85 have been playing the part of a hijacked aircraft in a military training exercise?

This explanation would make sense of the pilots' otherwise inexplicable actions. And there is additional evidence supporting this possibility: On September 11, NORAD--the military organization responsible for defending North American airspace--was in the second week of a major exercise. Five days earlier, that exercise included two scenarios with remarkable similarities to the apparent crisis involving KAL 85. In one scenario, members of a fictitious terrorist group hijacked a Korean Airlines 747 bound from Seoul to Anchorage; in the other, a 747 bound from Japan to Anchorage was hijacked, and changed course for Canada.

We know that the U.S. and Canadian military were in fact conducting several exercises on the morning of September 11. Those exercises were supposedly canceled promptly in response to the attacks. But if KAL 85 was a simulated hijacking, it would mean at least one exercise continued well into the afternoon, hours after the attacks took place. This would raise serious questions: When exactly did the military exercises really end that day? If they were called off promptly, as has been claimed, how many people were aware of this? Did some believe the exercises were continuing in spite of the real-world attacks? And was there a sinister but as-yet-uninvestigated relationship between the real-world attacks and the military exercises they coincided with?

KOREAN AIRLINES FLIGHT 85
Korean Airlines Flight 85 was a Boeing 747 with 215 people on board, flying from Seoul to New York. It was heading for a refueling stop in Anchorage when it began behaving suspiciously. Beginning shortly after 11:00 a.m. (this and all other times given are Eastern time), its pilots gave repeated but inconclusive indications that their plane had been hijacked, even though no hijacking had taken place. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) was alerted to the suspect flight shortly before noon, and it in turn notified NORAD. [1]

Concerns over whether KAL 85 had been hijacked led to the plane being diverted away from Anchorage. It was first redirected toward the remote airport at Yakutat, Alaska. But because of deteriorating weather around Yakutat and because the plane was running low on fuel, the decision was made to instead have KAL 85 land at Whitehorse Airport in Canada's Yukon Territory. [2]

KAL 85 landed at Whitehorse Airport safely and without incident at 2:54 p.m. But only after the co-pilot was escorted off the plane and interrogated were officials able to determine that the flight had not been hijacked. [3]

PILOTS INDICATED PLANE WAS HIJACKED
The first indication of a possible hijacking was at 11:08 a.m., while KAL 85 was flying across the Pacific Ocean and hundreds of miles from mainland Alaska. The pilots sent a text message to Korean Airlines headquarters, which included the letters "HJK." These three letters were a known code for signaling a hijacking. The message did not immediately raise any concerns. However, ARINC--a company that airlines pay to transmit text messages to and from their planes--had begun scanning all the communications it transmitted that day to search for any additional hijacked aircraft, and one of its technicians came across the message, apparently shortly before noon. Concerned that it was a coded plea for help, ARINC officials notified the FAA of the message.

KAL 85 showed its next indications of being hijacked after it entered the airspace of the FAA's Anchorage Center at around 1:00 p.m. An Anchorage Center air traffic controller, aware of the concerns about KAL 85, asked the pilots about the status of their aircraft. In his radio transmissions, the controller included the code word that indicated a query as to whether the plane had been hijacked, in case the pilots were unable to acknowledge this freely. (Pilots are trained how to respond to such coded messages.) However, the pilots of KAL 85 offered no reassurance that their flight had not been hijacked. Instead, at 1:24 p.m., they switched their plane's transponder (a device that sends information about an aircraft to controllers' radar screens) to "7500," which is the universal code meaning a plane has been hijacked. As USA Today put it, "Suddenly ... a routine flight became a potential new attacker."

As KAL 85 continued toward Anchorage, controllers again sought clarification of its situation. But, as author Lynn Spencer described, "each time controllers query the aircraft, the pilots offer no reassurance that they are not, in fact, hijacked." Instead, KAL 85 transmitted the beacon code indicating it had been hijacked for 90 minutes, from 1:24 p.m. until 2:54 p.m., when it landed in Canada. [4] A report published by the government of Yukon in November 2001 in fact stated, "There were five separate and ongoing indicators of a hijacking situation" on KAL 85, although the report did not specify what each of those indicators was. [5]

And yet KAL 85 was never hijacked. The FAA's Command Center in Herndon, Virginia, was in contact with Korean Airlines headquarters, which emphatically maintained it had received no indication that the flight was in trouble. [6] Might the "indicators of a hijacking situation" therefore have been because KAL 85 was playing a hijacked aircraft in a training exercise?

POSSIBLE HIJACKING TAKEN SERIOUSLY
The military and other government agencies took the indications of a possible hijacking very seriously. After the FAA was notified of the letters "HJK" appearing in a text message from KAL 85, it alerted NORAD. [7] NORAD then ordered Elmendorf Air Force Base, near Anchorage, to launch two armed fighter jets to intercept the suspicious plane. [8] These jets flew about a mile behind KAL 85, shadowing it so its crew and passengers would not realize there were fighters close by. Two Royal Canadian Air Force fighters were also launched in response to KAL 85. Fighters escorted the plane until it landed at Whitehorse Airport. They then remained circling overhead, in case the plane tried to depart suddenly. [9]

Lieutenant General Norton Schwartz, the commander of the Alaskan NORAD Region, has recalled his concerns about KAL 85, saying: "[W]e just had three attacks on the East Coast and perhaps a fourth. It was completely plausible to me that so sophisticated an operation on the East Coast could be replicated on the West Coast. So this was a plausible threat." [10]

KAL 85 was even threatened with being shot down. Schwartz told controllers at the FAA's Anchorage Center that the plane would be shot down if it refused to divert and remained on course for Anchorage. [11] A NORAD commander contacted Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien and asked for authorization to shoot down the plane. As Chrétien later recalled, he "authorized it in principle," telling the commander: "Yes, if you think they are terrorists. You call me again, but be ready to shoot them down." [12]

Other agencies also took the possible hijacking seriously. When KAL 85's pilots switched their plane's transponder to the "7500" hijack code, it led to what USA Today described as "a frenzy of activity." The governor of Alaska ordered the evacuation of federal buildings and large hotels in Anchorage, along with the Trans-Alaska Pipeline terminal. [13] After learning that KAL 85 was heading for Whitehorse Airport, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) removed children from local schools and evacuated buildings considered likely terrorist targets, such as Whitehorse City Hall. Part of the Alaska Highway was closed, a security perimeter was established around Whitehorse Airport, and non-essential staff members were evacuated from the airport terminal building. [14]

KAL 85 continued being treated as a potential threat even after it landed at Whitehorse. After touching down, the plane was directed to a secluded area on the tarmac. It was surrounded by heavily armed RCMP emergency response officers. After an officer asked to speak with a member of the flight crew, the co-pilot emerged and was escorted off the plane at gunpoint. According to a local resident who saw the incident, the co-pilot had his hands up and "had everyone drawing down on him, and he had to take some clothes off, wave his shirt in the air and all that." [15] The passengers were not allowed off the plane until more than two hours after it landed.

The following morning, the RCMP had a bomb-sniffing dog search the aircraft. The plane's cargo was also searched for any threats, but none were found. It wasn't until a couple of hours later, still early in the morning of September 12, that the RCMP finally confirmed that KAL 85 had never been hijacked. [16]

CONFUSED EXPLANATIONS WHY PILOTS SIGNIFIED A HIJACKING
One thing that is suspicious is the way Korean Airlines and the government agencies involved with these incidents were subsequently reluctant to explain why KAL 85 had given indications of being hijacked, or they gave conflicting explanations. Could this have been because these organizations needed to cover up the fact that--despite the attacks earlier on in New York and Washington--a hijacking simulation was still being carried out on the afternoon of 9/11, in which KAL 85 played the hijacked aircraft?

Apparently the first explanation for the series of events involving KAL 85 was offered several hours after the plane landed at Whitehorse Airport. An airport spokeswoman announced simply, "There was a communications problem aboard the plane so [the pilots] were unable to communicate and respond properly to the [air traffic control] tower anywhere they went." [17]

The Anchorage Daily News later reported: "At the time of this September 11 incident, little was publicly disclosed about the wayward signals from the Korean pilot. The airline and flight crew have kept mum about what happened that day." But, to explain why the pilots included the letters "HJK," signaling a hijacking, in a text message, Korean Airlines administrator Michael Lim suggested they had intended this as a question rather than a warning, but this was unclear to those who read the message, because pilots are unable to type question marks into their texts. [18]

However, the airline's operations chief, David Greenberg, gave a different explanation. He said the pilots' text message was "innocent, part of a routine discussion on where to divert the flight after airspace in the United States had been closed." Greenberg said the pilots used the three-letter hijack code "to refer to the hijackings that day." [19] Author Lynn Spencer pointed out that this was "an odd idea for the pilots to have, and contrary to their training. But for whatever reason ... they made a very dangerous bad call." [20]

The reason why the pilots switched their transponder to the code signaling a hijacking is, as the Anchorage Daily News put it, "not entirely clear." [21] Eleven months after 9/11, USA Today reported: "To this day, no one is certain why the pilots issued the alert. Airline sources say that exchanges between pilots and controllers were tense that morning. Some pilots objected to orders to reroute their planes. The Korean pilots may have misinterpreted the controller's comments as an order to reset the transponder." [22]

The military reportedly blamed the false alert on "muddled communications between air traffic controllers and the flight crew aboard the plane." But Korean Airlines claimed that the pilot of KAL 85 "believed he was directed by air traffic controllers at the FAA's Anchorage flight control center to send out the hijack signal." The airline's administrator, Michael Lim, said: "Our captain was following their instruction. [The Anchorage Center] even told the captain to transmit code 7500, hijack code. Our captain, who realized how serious it is, they were just following instructions."

Adding to the mystery, two weeks after 9/11 it was reported that Korean Airlines had "declined to make available a tape recording of conversations between the pilot [of KAL 85] and KAL officials on the ground in Anchorage," and that the "FAA won't discuss any details of the case." [23]

There was even some uncertainty and secrecy over why Whitehorse Airport was chosen as KAL 85's new destination after it was diverted. The report published by the government of Yukon in November 2001 stated: "The question of why this potentially dangerous aircraft was directed to Whitehorse rather than another airport remains unanswered by senior national agencies, the [FAA], NORAD, and Transport Canada. ... [Q]uestions about the decision-making process to re-direct [KAL 85] to Whitehorse have not been answered in any significant detail." The report added, "It is expected that greater detail on this will not be forthcoming from these agencies in the short-term." [24]

WAS KAL 85 PART OF AN EXERCISE SIMULATION?
This secrecy and confusion would certainly make sense if these agencies were trying to cover-up KAL 85's involvement in a training exercise. What makes this possibility seem even more likely is that, five days before 9/11, NORAD practiced two exercise scenarios with an uncanny resemblance to the apparent crisis involving KAL 85. Those scenarios were part of its annual exercise, "Vigilant Guardian," which was still taking place on September 11.

In one of the scenarios on September 6, 10 members of a fictitious terrorist group called "Lin Po" hijacked Korean Airlines Flight 357, a Boeing 747 flying from Seoul to Anchorage--in other words, a plane resembling KAL 85. The terrorists issued demands and threatened to blow up the plane if these were not met. They also killed two passengers. NORAD directed fighter jets to get in a position to shoot down the hijacked 747, and ordered its Alaskan region to intercept and shadow the plane--similar to what it did in response to KAL 85 on September 11. The scenario involved the plane eventually landing in Seattle, Washington. [25]

In the other exercise scenario on September 6, a Boeing 747, also bound for Anchorage, was hijacked by terrorists, although in that case the plane had taken off from Tokyo, not Seoul. A fictitious terrorist group called "Mum Hykro" was threatening to "rain terror from the skies onto a major U.S. city unless the U.S. declares withdrawal from Asian conflict." Some of the plane's passengers were killed. The plane changed its course to Vancouver, Canada, and then to San Francisco, California. The military was directed to respond, by providing "covert shadowing" of the hijacked aircraft, presumably by fighter jets. NORAD had to liaise with the appropriate air traffic control center. Its Alaskan region and Canadian region participated in the scenario. Again, we see similarities to the events involving KAL 85 five days later. [26] Might the apparent hijacking of KAL 85 on 9/11 have therefore been a simulation intended as a follow-up to these two previous scenarios?

Clearly, the actions of KAL 85 and the plane's possible involvement in a military exercise require more investigation. But the fact that exercises resembling the real-world attacks were taking place on September 11, and--if my conclusions about KAL 85 are correct--at least one of those exercises was still going on hours after the attacks in New York and Washington took place, should be of concern to us all.

NOTES
[1] Alan Levin, "Korean Air Jet May Have Narrowly Missed Disaster." USA Today, August 12, 2002; Patty Davis, "Korean Jet in 9/11 'Hijack' Scare." CNN, August 14, 2002; Lynn Spencer, Touching History: The Untold Story of the Drama That Unfolded in the Skies Over America on 9/11. New York: Free Press, 2008, pp. 256-257.
[2] Alaska Legislature Joint Senate and House Armed Services Committee, Presentations by Lieutenant General Norton Schwartz and Major General Willie Nance Jr. 22nd Leg., 2nd Sess., February 5, 2002; Zaz Hollander, "High Alert." Anchorage Daily News, September 8, 2002.
[3] Alan Levin, "Korean Air Jet May Have Narrowly Missed Disaster"; Zaz Hollander, "High Alert"; Lynn Spencer, Touching History, pp. 278-279.
[4] Alan Levin, "Korean Air Jet May Have Narrowly Missed Disaster"; Patty Davis, "Korean Jet in 9/11 'Hijack' Scare"; Zaz Hollander, "High Alert"; Lynn Spencer, Touching History, pp. 257, 277-278.
[5] September 11, 2001, Whitehorse International Airport Emergency: Public Findings Report. Whitehorse, Yukon: Yukon Government, November 13, 2001, p. 17.
[6] Lynn Spencer, Touching History, p. 278.
[7] Alan Levin, "Korean Air Jet May Have Narrowly Missed Disaster."
[8] Zaz Hollander, "High Alert"; Lynn Spencer, Touching History, p. 257.
[9] "Stranded Passengers Flood Canadian Airports." CBC News, September 12, 2001; Zaz Hollander, "False Sept. 11 Hijack Signal Put Air Force on Alert." Anchorage Daily News, September 29, 2001; Alaska Legislature Joint Senate and House Armed Services Committee, Presentations by Lieutenant General Norton Schwartz and Major General Willie Nance Jr.; Zaz Hollander, "High Alert."
[10] Alaska Legislature Joint Senate and House Armed Services Committee, Presentations by Lieutenant General Norton Schwartz and Major General Willie Nance Jr.
[11] Alan Levin, "Korean Air Jet May Have Narrowly Missed Disaster"; Lynn Spencer, Touching History, p. 278.
[12] Shawn McCarthy, "PM Says U.S. Attitude Helped Fuel Sept. 11." Globe and Mail, September 12, 2002; Sheldon Alberts, "PM Links Attacks to 'Arrogant' West." National Post, September 12, 2002.
[13] Alan Levin, "Korean Air Jet May Have Narrowly Missed Disaster"; Patty Davis, "Korean Jet in 9/11 'Hijack' Scare."
[14] September 11, 2001, Whitehorse International Airport Emergency, pp. 14-15.
[15] "Korean Passenger Jet Diverted to Whitehorse Treated as Hijacking: RCMP." Canadian Press, September 12, 2001; "Korean Planes Make Emergency Landings." United Press International, September 12, 2001; Zaz Hollander, "False Sept. 11 Hijack Signal Put Air Force on Alert."
[16] September 11, 2001, Whitehorse International Airport Emergency, pp. 17-18.
[17] "Korean Passenger Jet Diverted to Whitehorse Treated as Hijacking: RCMP."
[18] Zaz Hollander, "High Alert."
[19] Alan Levin, "Korean Air Jet May Have Narrowly Missed Disaster."
[20] Lynn Spencer, Touching History, p. 279.
[21] Zaz Hollander, "False Sept. 11 Hijack Signal Put Air Force on Alert."
[22] Alan Levin, "Korean Air Jet May Have Narrowly Missed Disaster."
[23] Zaz Hollander, "False Sept. 11 Hijack Signal Put Air Force on Alert."
[24] September 11, 2001, Whitehorse International Airport Emergency, p. 5.
[25] "NORAD Exercises: Hijack Summary." 9/11 Commission, n.d.
[26] Ibid.

9/11 Counterterrorism Chief Richard Clarke and the Rwandan Genocide

2010-02-23T05:42:00.000-08:00

On September 11, 2001, Richard Clarke served in the crucial position of national coordinator for security and counterterrorism, and he ran the U.S. government's response to the terrorist attacks from the White House Situation Room. It was not until March 2004, though, that Clarke came to wider attention, when he went public with his complaints about members of the Bush administration, who, he said, ignored the threat posed by al-Qaeda before September 11, despite his attempts at alerting them to it. [1] Clarke received praise from some quarters for his various criticisms of then-President Bush.

What is little known, however, is that in 1994 Richard Clarke was one of the key individuals responsible for the lack of international response to the genocide in the small African nation of Rwanda, where an estimated 800,000 Rwandans were killed in just 100 days. At the time of the genocide, Clarke was head of the office of global issues and multilateral affairs on the National Security Council, and was therefore in charge of the White House response to Rwanda issues.

CLARKE CLAIMS U.S. 'DID THE RIGHT THING' OVER RWANDA
BBC correspondent Fergal Keane, who won an Amnesty television prize for his investigation of the Rwandan genocide, commented in March 2004: "Nearly a million people were killed and the most powerful nation on earth actively worked to ensure there was no international intervention until it was too late. But Richard Clarke still says they did the right thing. He told [an] interviewer that the U.S. should not be embarrassed. ... You may now understand why I felt a certain sense of astonishment watching Richard Clarke denounce George Bush the other night." [2]

Based on Clarke's indifference to the genocide, one Clinton administration official described him as "a man who has no heart." Describing the woman who, half-way through the genocide, took over from Clarke in dealing with the Rwandan peacekeeping process, a Pentagon official responsible for African affairs said this woman "did not appear to have the malice in her that Dick Clarke appeared to have in him." [3]

ARTICLE REVEALS CLARKE ROLE IN RWANDA CRISIS
Clarke's role in the U.S. response to the Rwandan genocide was described in an extensively researched major article by Samantha Power, published in the September 2001 issue of the Atlantic Monthly. [4] This article was summarized in April 2004 by Paul Street in the Internet newsletter Dissident Voice. Street contrasted Clarke's supposed concern about an imminent terrorist attack against the U.S. in the months up to 9/11 with the indifference he'd exhibited toward the plight of victimized Rwandans.

Quoting Power, Street wrote:

"In reality," Power shows, "the United States did much more than fail to send troops. It led a successful effort to remove most of the UN peacekeepers who were already in Rwanda. It aggressively worked to block UN reinforcements. It refused to use its technology to jam radio broadcasts that were a crucial instrument in coordination and perpetuation of the genocide. And even as, on average, 8,000 Rwandans were being butchered each day, U.S. officials shunned the term 'genocide,' for fear of being obliged to act. The United States in fact did virtually nothing 'to try to limit what occurred.'"

Street continued:

Richard A. Clarke, Power shows, was the leading policy actor behind the Clinton administration's refusal to acknowledge and act upon the threat of genocide in Rwanda. As special assistant to the president from the National Security Council and official overseer of U.S. "peacekeeping" policy, Clarke was chief manager of U.S. Rwanda policy before and during the genocide. For Clarke, Power notes, "the news" of mass Rwandan slaughter "only confirmed [his] deep skepticism about the viability of UN deployments" and sparked his fear that "UN failure could doom relations between Congress and the United Nations."

Clarke, Power shows, was a dark force behind U.S. rejection of an aggressive plan to save Rwandan lives put forth by Romeo Dallaire, the Canadian general who commanded the UN Assistance Mission in Rwanda at the time of the genocide. The empty U.S. proposal advanced by Clarke to counter Dallaire, Power shows, abandoned "the most vulnerable Rwandans, awaiting salvations deep inside Rwanda." It falsely assuming (or pretended to assume) "that the people most in need were refugees fleeing to the border" and could actually make it to the border. "My mission," Dallaire told Power, "was to save Rwandans. Their [the U.S.] mission was to put on a show at no risk."

CLARKE 'SCANDALOUSLY OBLIVIOUS' TO EVIDENCE OF LOOMING GENOCIDE
Street then drew a parallel between the actions of the Bush administration prior to 9/11 that Clarke complained about, and Clarke's own actions during the Rwandan crisis:

U.S. officials like Donald Steinberg and Joyce Lawson, a key State Department deputy who argued early on for the U.S. to "send in the troops," were frustrated by official U.S. bureaucratic inaction in much the same way that Clarke credibly claims to have been stymied by Bush and Rice et al. prior to 9/11. "Steinberg," Power notes, "managed the African portfolio at the NSC and tried to look out for the dying Rwandans, but he was not an experienced infighter and, colleagues say, he 'never won a single fight with Clarke.'"

Furthermore:

Clarke was the "primary architect" of Presidential Decision Directive (PDD)-25, "a new peacekeeping doctrine" unveiled on May 3, 1994 (the genocide began the previous month). This directive "circumscribe[d] U.S. participation in UN missions" and "limited U.S. support for other states that hoped to carry out UN missions," subordinating basic humanitarian concerns to cold calculations of global realpolitik and "U.S. interests."

Additionally, "Before the mass killing began, Clarke and his colleagues and subordinates in the NSC were scandalously oblivious to abundant, widely available evidence indicating the terrible fate that lay around the corner for Rwanda's Tutsis and moderate Hutus."

CLARKE HELPED PREVENT POSITIVE ACTIONS
In her article, Power had suggested several potentially life-saving actions the U.S. government could have taken in response to the Rwandan genocide. It could have:

● agreed to Belgian pleas for UN reinforcements prior to the genocide;

● deployed U.S. troops to Rwanda once the mass killing had begun;

● joined Dallaire's forces;

● intervened unilaterally with UN Security Council support, "as France eventually did in late June";

● made the case to Congress that genocide was underway, that this reality challenged core American values, and that U.S. forces could "stop the extermination of a people" at "relatively low risk."

But, as Street noted, "None of these basic acts of civilized imperial statecraft occurred, thanks in part to the structurally empowered skepticism and stonewalling of Richard A. Clarke."

Street concluded:

[T]he government and many citizens of Rwanda carried out what Power calls "the fastest, most efficient killing spree of the 20th century." This horrific mass butchery was deeply enabled by the U.S. through stubborn and systematic inaction, reflecting in part the successful "bureaucratic infighting" and moral vapidity of top White House imperial functionary Richard A. Clarke, the chief official accuser of pre-9/11 inaction in the White House. [5]

And, keep in mind, this man--Richard Clarke--is the person described as "the nation's crisis manager on 9/11." [6]

NOTES
[1] See, for example, Rebecca Leung, "Clarke's Take on Terror." CBS News, March 21, 2004; "National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States: Eighth Public Hearing." 9/11 Commission, March 24, 2004; Joe Conason, "Richard Clarke Terrorizes the White House." Salon, March 24, 2004; Romesh Ratnesar, "Richard Clarke, at War With Himself." Time, March 25, 2004.
[2] Fergal Keane, "The Shocking Story of Richard Clarke and the U.S. Failure to Stop Genocide in Rwanda." The Independent, March 27, 2004.
[3] Jared Cohen, One Hundred Days of Silence: America and the Rwanda Genocide. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2007, pp. 101-102.
[4] Samantha Power, "Bystanders to Genocide." Atlantic Monthly, September 2001.
[5] Paul Street, "A Curious Backdrop for the 9/11 Hearings: Richard A. Clarke, Rwanda, and 'Narcissistic Compassion.'" Dissident Voice, April 10, 2004.
[6] Richard Clarke, Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror. New York: Free Press, 2004, from the book's back flap.

The 90-Minute Stand Down on 9/11: Why Was the Secret Service's Early Request for Fighter Jets Ignored?

2009-12-20T02:00:00.000-08:00

Shortly after the second World Trade Center tower was hit, at 9:03 a.m. on September 11, 2001, an officer at Andrews Air Force Base, just outside Washington, DC, was notified that the Secret Service wanted fighter jets launched over the nation's capital. It was now obvious the U.S. was under terrorist attack, and Washington would have been an obvious potential target. And yet the Secret Service's request came to nothing.

No fighters had taken off from Andrews by 9:37 a.m., when the Pentagon was hit. Nor had any launched by the time Flight 93 apparently crashed in Pennsylvania, shortly after 10:00 a.m., while flying toward Washington. In fact, fighters did not launch from Andrews until over 90 minutes after the second attack in New York. The first fully armed fighters did not launch from there until more than two hours after that attack. So why was the Secret Service's early request for help not acted upon? Why did fighter jets only take off from this massive Air Force base to defend the capital well after the morning's attacks had ended?

SECRET SERVICE CALLS FAA HEADQUARTERS
The Secret Service agent who made the early request that fighter jets be launched appears to have been Nelson Garabito. Garabito was responsible for coordinating the president's movements, and was also the Secret Service's liaison to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). He was in the Secret Service Joint Operations Center (JOC) at the White House that morning. Just after Flight 175 crashed into the South Tower at 9:03 a.m., Garabito called Terry Van Steenbergen, his counterpart at the FAA, who was at the FAA headquarters in Washington. According to the 9/11 Commission, shortly into the call, Van Steenburgen told Garabito "that there were more planes unaccounted for--possibly hijacked--in addition to the two that had already crashed."

Possibly in response to this information, Garabito appears to have asked Van Steenbergen to arrange for fighters to be launched over Washington. Van Steenbergen asked three of his colleagues at the FAA to call various air bases to see if they could get fighters into the air. One of these colleagues, Karen Pontius, had previously worked at Andrews Air Force Base, so she made the call to the FAA air traffic control tower there. [1] Garabito would have been unable to call the tower himself, because, according to a 9/11 Commission memorandum, the Secret Service "did not have a phone line to the Andrews tower."

FAA HEADQUARTERS REQUESTS FIGHTERS
Pontius spoke to Steve Marra, an air traffic controller in the Andrews tower. Marra has recalled that Pontius "told him to launch F-16s to cap the airspace over Washington." He relayed this information to the District of Columbia Air National Guard (DCANG), which is based at Andrews, across the airfield from the control tower. [2] Marra appears to have done so when DCANG officer Major Daniel Caine phoned the tower and asked if any air traffic control measures were being implemented in response to the attacks. [3] Caine later recalled that the tower controller--i.e. Marra--told him "that they just received the scramble order." However, oddly, Caine told the 9/11 Commission that the Andrews tower "would not have been in the loop for any Secret Service orders to scramble aircraft." [4]

If the DC Air National Guard was notified of this early "scramble order," why was that order not acted upon? Pilots and others working for the DCANG at Andrews were already well aware of the crisis taking place. Upon learning of the second crash, someone at the unit reportedly yelled, "We're under a terrorist attack!" [5] And, seeing the television coverage of the burning WTC towers, an officer exclaimed, "Well, holy shit, if this is a terrorist attack, we need to get something in the air!"

Furthermore, a request from the Secret Service should have carried considerable weight. According to author Lynn Spencer, "Given that the Secret Service provides protection to the president--and that the president, and the vice president when the president is not available, is the ultimate commander in chief of the military--the Secret Service also has certain authority over the military and, in this case, the DC Guard." [6]

CAINE CALLS HIS SECRET SERVICE CONTACT
After his call to the control tower, Daniel Caine called his contact at the Secret Service, Kenneth Beauchamp, who was at the White House JOC. Caine later told the 9/11 Commission that, on reflection, he believed it was his hearing that the tower had received the "scramble order" that prompted him to call Beauchamp. [7]

And yet Beauchamp supposedly contradicted the Secret Service's request for fighters. Even though it was obvious that the U.S. was under attack, and it should have been clear that Washington was a likely target for any further attacks, he said the Secret Service did not require assistance from the DCANG. Caine had asked: "Do you have any additional information? Are you guys going to need some help?" and Beauchamp replied, "No, but I'll call you back if that changes." [8]

Caine has said that during this call, which he described as "a very quick, confusing conversation," Beauchamp told him that "things were happening and he'd call me back." [9] However, Beauchamp did not call Caine back. [10] (Another Secret Service agent, though, did subsequently call Caine, and asked about getting fighters launched. [11])

According to Lieutenant Colonel Marc Sasseville, the acting operations group commander under the 113th Wing of the DCANG, at the time Caine spoke to Beauchamp, "we weren't thinking about defending anything. Our primary concern was what would happen to the air traffic system." [12] But when Brigadier General David Wherley, the commander of the DC Air National Guard, subsequently called the Secret Service JOC shortly after the Pentagon was hit and spoke to Beauchamp, Beauchamp implored him to launch jets to protect Washington. Beauchamp said: "We want you to put a CAP [combat air patrol] up over the city. We need some fighters now." [13]

DCANG PILOT 'STANDING BACK, WAITING'
Between the second WTC attack at 9:03 a.m. and the Pentagon attack at 9:37 a.m., the DCANG fighter pilots on duty at Andrews appear to have been waiting around and doing very little, when they should have been hurrying to get airborne.

One of those pilots, Captain Brandon Rasmussen, was promptly informed of the second crash in New York after it occurred, and immediately realized its implications. He recalled: "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." And yet, he said: "At that point, 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."

This is extraordinary! An Air Force base just 10 miles from Washington had learned that the nation was under attack. And yet the immediate response of its pilots was to stand around watching television!

Rasmussen said it was only after the news broke about the Pentagon being hit that "we knew that we were going to be sticking around home and being quite busy," and "the squadron leadership went into action." [14] DCANG commander David Wherley only headed across the base from his office to the fighter squadron building, to assist his unit's response to the attacks, after a woman at his office saw on television that the Pentagon had been hit and started shrieking. [15]

But even after the Pentagon attack, the DCANG pilots were not immediately told to prepare for takeoff. Rasmussen recalled that at that point, "I'm just kind of standing back, waiting for somebody to task me with something." He added, "I was just waiting at the ops desk for someone to say, 'Okay, we've been cleared to take off and go.'" [16]

FIRST JET LAUNCHES AT 10:38
The first DCANG jet to take off from Andrews Air Force Base was an F-16 that had just returned from a training mission over North Carolina. It had little fuel remaining, carried no missiles, and had only practice ammunition. It took off at 10:38 a.m., an hour after the attack on the Pentagon. [17] Two more F-16s took off at 10:42 a.m., but these were also armed with only practice ammunition and had no missiles. [18] At 11:11 a.m., Rasmussen and Daniel Caine took off in their F-16s, the first fighters to launch from Andrews armed with missiles as well as bullets. [19] By that time, the attacks were long over.

Rasmussen has expressed his and the other DCANG pilots' frustration at having to wait around before being allowed to get airborne. He said that when his unit finally received authorization for its jets to take off, "We were relieved to actually be given permission to go up and do something, instead of feeling totally helpless. I mean, we are fighter pilots, just like guard dogs chomping at the bit, ready to go." [20]

DCANG PROVIDES 'CAPABLE AND READY RESPONSE FORCES'
Although the DC Air National Guard was not part of the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) air defense force, its mission at the time of the 9/11 attacks included providing "capable and ready response forces for the District of Columbia in the event of a natural disaster or civil emergency." Lieutenant Colonel Phil Thompson, the chief of safety for the DCANG, said, "We practice scrambles, we know how to do intercepts and other things." [21] The unit was in fact known as the "Capital Guardians," implying that it was responsible for protecting Washington, DC. [22]

The fact that, in spite of an early request for help from the Secret Service, it took the DC Air National Guard so long to put together a response to the attacks should be of concern to all Americans. The unit's disastrously slow emergency response needs to be thoroughly probed as part of a rigorous new investigation of the 9/11 attacks.

NOTES
[1] "USSS Statements and Interview Reports." 9/11 Commission, July 28, 2003; 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (Authorized Edition) . New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2004, pp. 464-465; "Memorandum for the Record: Interview With Terry Van Steenbergen." 9/11 Commission, March 30, 2004.
[2] "Memorandum for the Record: Visit to Reagan National Airport Control Tower in Alexandria, VA and Andrews Air Force Base Control Tower." 9/11 Commission, July 28, 2003.
[3] Leslie Filson, Air War Over America: Sept. 11 Alters Face of Air Defense Mission. Tyndall Air Force Base, FL: 1st Air Force, 2003, p. 76.
[4] "Memorandum for the Record: Interview With Major John Daniel Caine, USAF, Supervisor of Flying at 121st Squadron, 113th Wing, Andrews Air Force Base on September 11, 2001." 9/11 Commission, March 8, 2004.
[5] Steve Vogel, "Flights of Vigilance Over the Capital." Washington Post, April 8, 2002.
[6] Lynn Spencer, Touching History: The Untold Story of the Drama That Unfolded in the Skies Over America on 9/11. New York: Free Press, 2008, p. 123.
[7] "Memorandum for the Record: Interview With Major John Daniel Caine."
[8] Lynn Spencer, Touching History, p. 124.
[9] Leslie Filson, Air War Over America, p. 76.
[10] "Memorandum for the Record: Interview With Major John Daniel Caine."
[11] Leslie Filson, Air War Over America, p. 78.
[12] William B. Scott, "F-16 Pilots Considered Ramming Flight 93." Aviation Week & Space Technology, September 9, 2002.
[13] "Memorandum for the Record: BG David Wherley, on September 11, 2001, Commander of the 113th Wing of the USAF Air National Guard, Andrews AFB." 9/11 Commission, August 28, 2003; Lynn Spencer, Touching History, pp. 184-185.
[14] Brandon Rasmussen, interviewed by Leslie Filson, September 18, 2003.
[15] Steve Vogel, "Flights of Vigilance Over the Capital"; Steve Vogel, The Pentagon: A History. New York: Random House, 2007, pp. 445-446; Lynn Spencer, Touching History, p. 184.
[16] Brandon Rasmussen, interviewed by Leslie Filson.
[17] Steve Vogel, "Flights of Vigilance Over the Capital"; William B. Scott, "F-16 Pilots Considered Ramming Flight 93"; "UA93 and Andrews Timeline." 9/11 Commission, n.d.
[18] William B. Scott, "F-16 Pilots Considered Ramming Flight 93"; Leslie Filson, Air War Over America, p. 82; Brandon Rasmussen, interviewed by Leslie Filson.
[19] Leslie Filson, Air War Over America, p. 84; "Relevant Andrews Transmissions." 9/11 Commission, February 17-18, 2004.
[20] Brandon Rasmussen, interviewed by Leslie Filson.
[21] "Andrews Air Force Base: Partner Units." DCMilitary.com, Summer 2001; William B. Scott, "F-16 Pilots Considered Ramming Flight 93"; Leslie Filson, Air War Over America, p. 76.
[22] Lynn Spencer, Touching History, p. 122.

Did Training Exercises Prevent Andrews Air Force Base From Responding to the 9/11 Attacks?

2009-10-26T10:18:00.000-07:00

Why did airplanes fly around for an hour and a half without
interceptors being scrambled from Andrews [Air
Force Base] ... right next to the capital?

- Paul Hellyer, Canadian minister of national defense, 1963-1967

Many aircraft at a military base just outside Washington, DC, were taking part in training exercises around the time the terrorist attacks occurred on September 11, 2001, it has been revealed. But whether these exercises impaired the ability of the various units at the base to effectively respond to the attacks has never been properly investigated.

On September 11, FAA air traffic controller James Ampey was on duty in the control tower at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland, near the District of Columbia border. He later told the 9/11 Commission that there was "an unusually high number of aircraft taking off and landing at Andrews that morning, because previously scheduled military exercises were under way." Ampey apparently did not tell the Commission what specific exercises these were, or the time period during which the aircraft were "taking off and landing" at the base. [1] However, other publicly available information offers minor clues about these exercises.

'GLOBAL GUARDIAN' EXERCISE
Journalist and author Dan Verton has described that, around the time of the Pentagon attack on 9/11 (9:37 a.m.), "civilian and military officials were boarding a militarized version of a Boeing 747, known as the E-4B National Airborne Operations Center (NAOC), at an airfield outside of the nation's capital. They were preparing to conduct a previously scheduled Defense Department exercise." [2] The airfield Verton referred to could well have been Andrews Air Force Base, as this is located only 10 miles from Washington. [3] Indeed, according to Miles Kara, who was a professional staff member of the 9/11 Commission, primary source information reveals that an E-4B took off from Andrews that morning, and was airborne at 9:27 a.m. [4] The exercise Verton referred to was likely "Global Guardian," which was "in full swing" when the attacks began, and for which three E-4Bs were launched. Global Guardian was an annual exercise run by the U.S. Strategic Command, to test its ability to fight a nuclear war. [5] Whether other aircraft taking off or landing at Andrews were also participating in Global Guardian is unknown.

NORAD EXERCISE ON 9/11
Another major exercise taking place on September 11 was "Vigilant Guardian." It seems less likely, however, that aircraft at Andrews would have participated in this.

The annual Vigilant Guardian exercise was being conducted by the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), including its Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS). [6] Vigilant Guardian has been described as "an air defense exercise simulating an attack on the United States," and was scheduled to include a simulated hijacking during the morning of September 11. [7] However, the DC Air National Guard (DCANG), which is based at Andrews, was not part of the NORAD air defense force. [8] Furthermore, members of the DCANG had just returned from a major training exercise in Nevada. With only a few pilots available, 9/11 was reportedly a "light flying day" for the unit, which would indicate that it would not have participated in Vigilant Guardian or any other major exercises that morning. [9] And since Andrews was not one of NORAD's seven "alert" sites around the U.S., it seems unlikely that any of the other military organizations there would have been involved in a NORAD exercise. [10]

NUMEROUS ORGANIZATIONS AT ANDREWS
While only limited information is available indicating what exercises the planes at Andrews were involved in, we know that numerous military organizations are located at the base, in addition to the DCANG, some of which may have had air defense capabilities. And some of them could well have been participating in the exercises Ampey referred to.

Among more than 60 separate organizations located at Andrews Air Force Base are units from the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force Reserve, and Air National Guard. [11] These include Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 321, which flies the F/A-18 Hornet fighter jet, and Naval Air Facility, Washington, DC, which has numerous aircraft available, including the F/A-18 Hornet. [12] Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 321 at least appears to have had air defense capabilities that may have been able to provide protection against the attacks on September 11: At around 9:50 a.m. that morning, one of its officers called a friend who worked at NEADS, and said: "Dude, get us in the war. I've got wrench turners on our planes uploading weapons. What can we do?" [13]

Another unit at Andrews was the 1st Helicopter Squadron. Its primary mission was "to support [Department of Defense] contingency plans for transport of key government officials should a national emergency arise." It had around 200 members of staff, and possessed 19 twin-engine UH-1N "Huey" helicopters. Many of these helicopters reportedly flew throughout the day of September 11. [14] Whether the 1st Helicopter Squadron was involved in the training exercises that morning is unknown.

DID EXERCISES AFFECT THE EMERGENCY RESPONSE?
It is essential to investigate whether the training exercises impaired the organizations at Andrews in their ability to respond to the 9/11 attacks. Were any of them delayed or otherwise hindered as a result of their participation in an exercise? Were assets, such as aircraft and personnel, which could otherwise have been utilized in the response to the attacks, unavailable because they were being used in an exercise? Were military and civilian air traffic controllers in the Washington area perhaps confused about flights in their region because of the exercises taking place?

In a news report published on the day of 9/11, Knight Ridder stated, "Air defense around Washington, DC, is provided mainly by fighter planes from Andrews Air Force Base." [15] Indeed, the DC Air National Guard is known as the "Capital Guardians." [16] According to a 9/11 Commission memorandum, "Many planes were scrambled out of Andrews" throughout the day of September 11. [17] And yet the first fighter jet to take off from there in response to the attacks was an unarmed DCANG F-16, which took off at 10:38 a.m., more than 30 minutes after the attacks had come to an end. [18] Might fighter jets have been able to respond earlier on, only the emergency responses of units at Andrews were somehow delayed by the training exercises?

AIR GUARD HINDERED BY TRAINING MISSION AND RECENT EXERCISE
As mentioned above, it seems unlikely that the DC Air National Guard would have been involved in a major training exercise on September 11. However, other circumstances seem to have significantly reduced its ability to respond to the attacks.

Three days earlier, on September 8, members of the DCANG returned from a major exercise in Nevada, called "Red Flag." Most of its fighter pilots, who flew commercial planes in their civilian lives and were involved with the unit on only a part-time basis, were consequently away, either back at their airline jobs or on leave, according to different accounts. The unit reportedly had just seven pilots available on 9/11. [19] At least three of these were inexperienced, junior pilots. [20] And of the seven pilots, three had taken off shortly before the first attack in New York occurred, for a routine training mission around 200 miles away from base, over North Carolina. They did not arrive back at Andrews until after the attacks had ended. [21]

While discussing the 9/11 attacks, in 2004, Paul Hellyer, a former Canadian minister of national defense, posed the question, "Why did airplanes fly around for an hour and a half without interceptors being scrambled from Andrews [Air Force Base] … right next to the capital?" He said: "With a quick-reaction alert they should have been in the air in five minutes or 10 minutes. If not, as a minister of national defense, which in the United States would be the secretary of defense, I would want to say, 'Why not?'" [22]

His questions are as pertinent today as they were five years ago.

NOTES
[1] "Memorandum for the Record: Visit to Reagan National Airport Control Tower in Alexandria, VA and Andrews Air Force Base Control Tower." 9/11 Commission, July 28, 2003.
[2] Dan Verton, Black Ice: The Invisible Threat of Cyber-Terrorism. Emeryville, CA: McGraw-Hill/Osborne, 2003, pp. 143-144.
[3] "Andrews AFB, Maryland." GlobalSecurity.org, March 3, 2002.
[4] Miles Kara, "9/11: The Mystery Plane; Not so Mysterious." 9/11 Revisited, June 30, 2009.
[5] Joe Dejka, "Inside StratCom on Sept. 11 Offutt Exercise Took Real-Life Twist." Omaha World-Herald, February 27, 2002; Joe Dejka, "When Bush Arrived, Offutt Sensed History in the Making." Omaha World-Herald, September 8, 2002.
[6] William B. Scott, "Exercise Jump-Starts Response to Attacks." Aviation Week & Space Technology, June 3, 2002; William M. Arkin, Code Names: Deciphering U.S. Military Plans, Programs, and Operations in the 9/11 World. Hanover, NH: Steerforth Press, 2005, p. 545.
[7] Leslie Filson, Air War Over America: Sept. 11 Alters Face of Air Defense Mission. Tyndall Air Force Base, FL: 1st Air Force, 2003, p. 122; Michael Bronner, "9/11 Live: The NORAD Tapes." Vanity Fair, August 2006.
[8] William B. Scott, "F-16 Pilots Considered Ramming Flight 93." Aviation Week & Space Technology, September 9, 2002; Leslie Filson, Air War Over America, p. 76.
[9] "Memorandum for the Record: Interview With Major David McNulty, Chief of Intelligence, 121st Fighter Squadron, Air National Guard, Andrews Air Force Base." 9/11 Commission, March 11, 2004.
[10] Pat McKenna, "FANGs Bared." Airman, December 1999.
[11] "Andrews Air Force Base: Welcome." DCMilitary.com, Summer 2001; "Andrews AFB, Maryland."
[12] "Andrews Air Force Base: Tenant Units." DCMilitary.com, February 9, 2001; "Andrews Air Force Base: Partner Units." DCMilitary.com, Summer 2001.
[13] Lynn Spencer, Touching History: The Untold Story of the Drama That Unfolded in the Skies Over America on 9/11. New York: Free Press, 2008, p. 188.
[14] "Capital Flying." Air Force Magazine, January 2001; "Andrews Air Force Base: Andrews Units." DCMilitary.com, Summer 2001; "Memorandum for the Record: Visit to Reagan National Airport Control Tower in Alexandria, VA and Andrews Air Force Base Control Tower."
[15] Steve Goldstein, "Focus of Training for Terrorist Attacks has Been Chemical, Biological Warfare." Knight Ridder, September 11, 2001.
[16] Steve Vogel, "Flights of Vigilance Over the Capital." Washington Post, April 8, 2002; William B. Scott, "F-16 Pilots Considered Ramming Flight 93."
[17] "Memorandum for the Record: Visit to Reagan National Airport Control Tower in Alexandria, VA and Andrews Air Force Base Control Tower."
[18] 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (Authorized Edition). New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2004, p. 44; Miles Kara, "Relevant Andrews Transmissions." 9/11 Commission, February 17-18, 2004; Steve Vogel, The Pentagon: A History. New York: Random House, 2007, p. 446.
[19] Steve Vogel, "Flights of Vigilance Over the Capital"; "Memorandum for the Record: Interview of Major Billy Hutchison, 113th Fighter Wing Air National Guard, Andrews Air Force Base." 9/11 Commission, February 27, 2004; "Memorandum for the Record: Interview With Major David McNulty"; Lynn Spencer, Touching History, p. 156.
[20] "Memorandum for the Record: Interview of Major Billy Hutchison"; Lynn Spencer, Touching History, pp. 236-237. These pilots were Eric Haagenson, Lou Campbell, and Heather Penney Garcia.
[21] "Memorandum for the Record: Visit to Reagan National Airport Control Tower in Alexandria, VA and Andrews Air Force Base Control Tower"; Miles Kara, "Relevant Andrews Transmissions"; "Memorandum for the Record: Interview With Major John Daniel Caine, USAF, Supervisor of Flying at 121st Squadron, 113th Wing, Andrews Air Force Base on September 11, 2001." 9/11 Commission, March 8, 2004.
[22] "Paul Hellyer, Former Defence Minister of Canada Questions the Lack of Fighter Response on 9/11 and Comments on the Shallowness of the 9/11 Investigation." Connect the Dots, May 27, 2004.

Bobcats Over Washington on 9/11: What Were Two Mystery Aircraft Doing Overhead at the Time of the Pentagon Attack?

2009-09-02T07:16:00.000-07:00

Two military aircraft were flying at high altitude near the Pentagon around the time it was hit on 9/11, but the identities of these aircraft and what they were doing over the Pentagon are unknown.

The planes had the call signs "Bobcat 14" and "Bobcat 17." A partial transcript of air traffic controller communications reveals they were communicating with the control tower at Washington's Reagan National Airport, which is less than a mile from the Pentagon, between at least 9:31 a.m. and 9:40 a.m. on September 11. [1] (The attack on the Pentagon took place at 9:37 a.m. [2]) Radar data has shown that the two aircraft flew "in trail" (in single file, with one directly behind the other) at an altitude of 21,000 feet, and were overhead in the few minutes before the Pentagon was hit. [3]

LAUNCHED FROM DOVER AIR BASE
It would seem essential to establish the exact identities of these aircraft and find out what they were doing in the vicinity of the Pentagon at such a critical time. Yet, eight years after the attacks took place, we still do not have this information. (The fact that these aircraft were near the Pentagon at the time it was hit is itself virtually unknown.)

According to a 9/11 Commission memorandum, "flight strips and other information" indicate that the two aircraft, Bobcat 14 and Bobcat 17, "originated out of Dover Air Force Base in Delaware." The memorandum added, "It is possible, but not confirmed, that they were Air Force corporate passenger jets." When questioned by the 9/11 Commission, Bob Lazar, the acting operations manager at Reagan Airport on September 11, said he "did not remember any aircraft with the call sign 'Bobcat' that hung out over the National airspace" that day. All he could say was that he did remember two aircraft "coming from the north, but he did not think that they entered National's airspace." [4]

OTHER AIRCRAFT NEAR THE PENTAGON
Furthermore, there were at least two other military aircraft near the Pentagon at the time it was hit. A C-130 cargo plane that took off from Andrews Air Force Base, which is 10 miles from the Pentagon, was airborne by 9:33 a.m., and was seen by numerous witnesses above the Pentagon just after the attack there. [5] Its pilot reportedly witnessed the explosion from the Pentagon crash. [6]

And television news reporters described a "white jet" plane that was "circling the White House" a few minutes after the Pentagon was hit. [7] (The White House is about three miles from the Pentagon.) Two government sources familiar with the incident later told CNN that the plane was a military aircraft, but its details were classified. An analysis by CNN suggested the aircraft was an E-4B, which is a militarized version of a Boeing 747 that is used as a flying command post. [8] One such aircraft is known to have taken off from an airfield outside Washington, DC, shortly before the Pentagon was hit. [9]

Considering the historical significance of the 9/11 attacks, which have had devastating consequences that affect us to this day, it is essential that important details surrounding those attacks be thoroughly investigated. We therefore need to know exactly what the two aircraft--Bobcat 14 and Bobcat 17--were, and why they were flying above the Pentagon around the time it was attacked on September 11.

NOTES
[1] "Partial Transcript; Aircraft Accident; AAL77; Washington, DC; September 11, 2001." Federal Aviation Administration, September 20, 2001.
[2] 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (Authorized Edition). New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2004, p. 10.
[3] "Memorandum for the Record: Visit to Reagan National Airport Control Tower in Alexandria, VA and Andrews Air Force Base Control Tower." 9/11 Commission, July 28, 2003.
[4] Ibid.
[5] "AA 77 Radar-Based Timeline and Maps." 9/11 Commission, n.d.; "9:37 a.m. September 11, 2001: Witnesses See Military Cargo Plane Near Flight 77; Pilot Later Implies he is Far Away." Complete 9/11 Timeline.
[6] "The Secret History of 9/11: The U.S. Government Reacts." CBC, September 10, 2006.
[7] "Planes Crash Into World Trade Center." ABC News, September 11, 2001; "The White House Has Been Evacuated." Breaking News, CNN, September 11, 2001.
[8] "Tropical Storm Humberto Heads for Texas; Democrats Blast Petraeus Timeline for Troop Withdrawal; Interview With General David Petraeus." Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees, CNN, September 12, 2007.
[9] Dan Verton, Black Ice: The Invisible Threat of Cyber-Terrorism. Emeryville, CA: McGraw-Hill/Osborne, 2003, pp. 143-144. According to former 9/11 Commission staff member Miles Kara, this E-4B aircraft took off from Andrews Air Force Base and was airborne at 9:27 a.m. See Miles Kara, "9/11: The Mystery Plane; Not so Mysterious." 9/11 Revisited, June 30, 2009.

Was Delta 1989 Part of a Live-Fly Hijacking Exercise on 9/11?

2009-07-22T05:39:00.000-07:00

It has been widely reported that on September 11, 2001, four passenger aircraft were hijacked, and three of them subsequently hit their intended targets in New York and Washington. Less well known is that, during the two hours over which the 9/11 attacks occurred, air traffic controllers and military personnel had to devote significant time to a fifth plane that was incorrectly reported as hijacked. This aircraft was, in the words of one military official, "the first red herring of the day." [1]

The aircraft was Delta Air Lines Flight 1989, a Boeing 767 that had taken off from Boston. From around 9:30 a.m., it was repeatedly suspected of having been hijacked. Even though subsequent events had indicated the aircraft was fine, a police SWAT team and FBI agents were sent out to it after it made an emergency landing in Cleveland, Ohio, and it was not until about two hours after the plane landed that all its passengers had been allowed off.

While a person might dismiss the suspicions about Delta 1989 as understandable mistakes in the chaos and confusion of the attacks, there is another possible explanation for what happened. We know that the U.S. military and other government agencies were running various training exercises on September 11. At least one military exercise was scheduled to include the scenario of a plane being hijacked. In light of this, the possibility arises that Delta 1989 was playing the part of a hijacked aircraft in a training exercise, and this led to all the mistaken reports about it. Certainly, the number and nature of suspicious incidents around Delta 1989 make this possibility seem worthy of serious consideration.

While much remains speculative, if this explanation is correct, it would have serious implications. It would mean that, at the time the attacks took place, a "live-fly" exercise was being conducted, which involved a real aircraft pretending to be hijacked. It would imply that this exercise was not promptly canceled, but instead continued throughout the entire duration of the attacks. And it would raise a sinister possibility: that the role of Delta 1989--and the exercise it participated in--was to somehow help rogue individuals within the U.S. military and government to successfully perpetrate the 9/11 attacks.

TWO CATEGORIES OF EVIDENCE
There are two specific categories of evidence indicating that Delta 1989 was a mock hijacked aircraft in an exercise. Firstly, there were incidents where the plane and its pilots behaved unusually, such as failing to respond to radio communications. It was as if they were playing the part of a plane under siege, in order to test the ability of Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and military personnel on the ground to recognize and respond to a hijacking. Secondly, there were incidents where some government personnel and members of the military alerted others that Delta 1989 had been hijacked, or was in danger of being hijacked, apparently with little justification for doing so. It is at least possible that these individuals were 'injecting' false information into the system, for the sake of the exercise, in order to create a realistic impression that Delta 1989 had been hijacked, when in reality it was fine.

I will describe this evidence later on, and then conclude by examining a military exercise that was held in mid-2002, which makes clear what kind of role Delta 1989 might have played in an exercise on September 11.

DELTA 1989 RESEMBLED FLIGHTS 11 AND 175
One thing that is notable about Delta 1989 is how much it resembled American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175--the first planes to be hijacked, which crashed into the World Trade Center. Like these aircraft, Delta 1989 was a Boeing 767, heavy with fuel, and making a transcontinental flight across America. Also like these two flights, it had taken off from Boston's Logan Airport, at around the same time as they had done. [2] And according to numerous accounts, it had the same destination as Flights 11 and 175, of Los Angeles, California. [3] (However, a few accounts have said its destination was Las Vegas. [4])

Some accounts have claimed that Delta 1989's similarity to Flights 11 and 175 contributed to it mistakenly being suspected as hijacked. But if Delta 1989 was involved in a training exercise, this would mean that an exercise was scheduled for 9/11 in which the mock hijacked aircraft had almost identical characteristics as two of the aircraft targeted in the real-world attacks. This would be an extraordinary "coincidence," to say the least, if not highly suspicious.

Not only did Delta 1989 resemble the first two hijacked planes, it also happened to be just 25 miles behind the fourth hijacked plane--United Airlines Flight 93--at the time this aircraft was apparently taken over by hijackers. This caused air traffic controllers at the FAA's Cleveland Center to initially conclude that Delta 1989, not United 93, had been hijacked. When, at 9:28, controller John Werth heard screaming over the radio, he was unsure which aircraft, out of seven or eight in the airspace he was monitoring, it had come from. When the Cleveland Center controllers then heard a voice with a heavy accent over the radio, saying "Ladies and gentlemen: Here the captain. ... We have a bomb on board," they thought it had come from Delta 1989. They concluded that the Delta flight had been hijacked and started notifying their chain of command of this. It was only after Flight 93 was subsequently observed flying erratically and its pilots failed to respond to radio communications that Werth concluded this flight, and not Delta 1989, had been hijacked. [5]

WAS DELTA 1989 PLAYING A HIJACKED AIRCRAFT IN AN EXERCISE?
It has been well established that the U.S. military and other government agencies were conducting training exercises at the time the 9/11 attacks occurred, and some of the exercise scenarios had uncanny similarities to the actual attacks. [6] One exercise, which was being conducted by the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), was scheduled to include a simulated aircraft hijacking. As Vanity Fair described, this exercise "was designed to run a range of scenarios, including a 'traditional' simulated hijack in which politically motivated perpetrators commandeer an aircraft, land on a Cuba-like island, and seek asylum." [7]

When NORAD's Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS) in Rome, New York, was notified of the first real-world hijacking at 8:38 a.m., its mission crew commander, Major Kevin Nasypany, thought this was part of the exercise, which he'd helped to design. He said out loud, "The hijack's not supposed to be for another hour." [8] NEADS was in fact alerted to the suspected hijacking of Delta 1989 almost exactly one hour later, at 9:39 a.m. [9] This was therefore around the time it was due to be notified of the simulated hijacking in the exercise, and supports the contention that Delta 1989 was playing the targeted aircraft in that exercise.

Delta 1989 made an emergency landing at Cleveland Hopkins Airport shortly after 10:15 a.m. [10] Cleveland was one of six major Ohio cities that for several years had been part of a federal program to help defend against domestic terrorism. [11] A possibility therefore worth considering is that the decision to land Delta 1989 in Cleveland was made before 9/11, so that personnel on the ground there would be able to respond to a simulated hijacking, as part of a training exercise for this federal program.

DELTA 1989 INDICATED THAT IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN HIJACKED
As previously mentioned, there are two categories of evidence that suggest Delta 1989 was playing a hijacked aircraft in an exercise. The first category involves incidents where the plane and its pilots behaved suspiciously. These incidents are summarized below.

i) Just after 9:39 a.m., when a radio transmission was heard coming from the hijacked Flight 93 in which a hijacker said, "There is a bomb on board," Cleveland Center controller John Werth started handing off the flights he was dealing with to other controllers so he could devote his attention to Flight 93. But, according to author Lynn Spencer, the crew of Delta 1989 missed the hand-off to their new frequency. The new sector controller dealing with Delta 1989 called out to the plane several times but received no response from its pilots. According to Spencer, Delta 1989 "was out of radio contact for several minutes," and this news soon reached an FAA teleconference. [12]

ii) Cleveland Center controllers again became suspicious when, at 9:44 a.m., the pilot of Delta 1989, Captain Paul Werner, called and requested a change of course so he could land in Cleveland. As USA Today noted, "the captain's request comes before he can know that the FAA wants every flight down." [13] (The FAA Command Center instructed air traffic control centers to tell all aircraft to land at the nearest airport a minute later, at 9:45. [14]) USA Today continued: "On this day, the fact that the pilot requests to be rerouted before he is ordered to land seems suspicious. Why the urgency?" The reason was reportedly that Delta Air Lines had been alerted to the concerns about Flight 1989's safety and had been closely monitoring the aircraft. It had then sent the pilots an instruction to "Land immediately in Cleveland." But even though Cleveland Center was in charge of Delta 1989, for some reason it was not informed of this. [15] Its air traffic controllers then noticed Delta 1989 making a 30-degree turn back toward its new destination of the Cleveland airport. Spencer described, "An abrupt change of course for a transcontinental [Boeing] 767 out of Boston raises further suspicion." [16]

iii) As Delta 1989 descended toward Cleveland, controllers at the Cleveland Center became suspicious again because pilot Paul Werner failed to reply to a message. According to USA Today, the reason was simply that Werner was "busy." But the controllers grew "alarmed. Why didn't he respond? Have both jets--the United [Flight 93] and the Delta flights--been hijacked?" [17]

iv) A notable example of Delta 1989 behaving unusually--perhaps because it was playing a hijacked plane in an exercise--occurred while it was under the control of the Cleveland Terminal Radar Approach Control (TRACON). TRACONs are FAA facilities that guide aircraft approaching or departing an airport. The Cleveland TRACON was in contact with Delta 1989 as it descended from 9,000 feet down to 3,000 feet. [18]

According to a detailed chronology produced shortly after 9/11 by the Cleveland Airport air traffic control tower, "One anomaly that perpetuated concern" at the TRACON was that Paul Werner "never used the 'heavy' designator in his communications." [19] The term "heavy" notifies controllers that they need to provide extra space behind very large aircraft, which are above a certain weight, because these aircraft generate significant wake turbulence. [20] The TRACON controllers used this important term in their communications with Delta 1989, but "the pilot did not respond with it."

Although this may seem a minor technicality, it is of much significance. The control tower's chronology stated: "The use of 'heavy' in the terminal environment is of the highest importance. Increased separation standards are required, and misapplication of separation standards can be disastrous. For pilots, not referring to a heavy aircraft as 'heavy' is tantamount to calling a doctor 'Mister.'" Therefore, Werner's failure to use the term "kept everyone alert and skeptical of the security" of Delta 1989. [21]

Could the reason Werner failed to use the 'heavy' designator be that he was acting the part of a pilot who was surreptitiously trying to alert controllers that something was wrong on his flight, as part of an exercise?

v) A curious final incident occurred after Delta 1989 landed at Cleveland Hopkins Airport. The plane was directed to park at a remote area, and its pilots were told not to allow passengers off. Eventually, the Cleveland Police SWAT (special weapons and tactics) team and a team of FBI agents went out to the aircraft. [22] Members of the SWAT team, who'd taken up a position just behind the aircraft, saw Paul Werner with blood running down his face as he leaned out of the window to give them the "all clear" signal. The explanation Spencer has given for his bleeding face is that Werner accidentally knocked his head and cut it when he returned to his seat, after going to the cabin to speak to the plane's passengers. While this may be correct, in light of the evidence described above, might Werner's bloodied face alternatively have been simulated--using fake blood--because he was acting the part of the pilot of a plane under siege? Perhaps this was supposed to convey the impression that he had been assaulted by one of the exercise's mock hijackers. [23]

If Delta 1989 was taking part in a training exercise, the evidence above raises an important question: How aware were the pilots that real-world attacks had occurred in New York and Washington? Reportedly, at around 9:15 a.m., they heard over the radio that two aircraft had crashed into the World Trade Center. According to USA Today, Werner figured these planes "must be small ones--not passenger jets like the Boeing 767 he commands." The pilots also heard the hijacker transmissions, apparently coming from Flight 93, between 9:28 and 9:39 a.m. [24] But did they think these hijacker communications and the news of the attacks in New York were real, or did they believe they were part of an exercise? The question remains uninvestigated and, therefore, unanswered.

MILITARY AND OTHER GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS WRONGLY REPORTED DELTA 1989 AS HIJACKED
The second category of evidence that Delta 1989 was playing a hijacked aircraft in an exercise is a series of incidents where personnel within the military and other government agencies reported that the flight had been hijacked, or was in danger of being hijacked, apparently without having much evidence that this was the case.

Again, individually these incidents could be dismissed as understandable results of the morning's confusion, or as concerns elicited by the unprecedented and shocking events taking place. But the number of incorrect reports suggests the possibility that false information was being deliberately 'injected' into the system for an exercise, to create a realistic impression that Delta 1989 was a hijacked aircraft. The incidents are summarized below.

i) The first three notable incidents occurred before anyone claimed Delta 1989 had been hijacked. Shortly after 9:03 a.m., when the second plane hit the World Trade Center, FBI agents called the FAA's Cleveland Center and warned its controllers to keep an eye on Delta 1989. According to USA Today, the FBI suspected "that terrorists plan to hijack [Delta 1989] next." Apparently they had seen no indications that the flight was in danger, but were concerned because of its similarities to the first two hijacked aircraft, such as it having taken off from Boston at around the same time as them. [25]

ii) Then, at 9:19 a.m., the FAA's New England regional office called the FAA's Command Center in Herndon, Virginia, and asked it to tell the Cleveland Center to contact Delta 1989 and advise its pilots to use extra cockpit security. It is unclear why the New England regional office made this request. In response to it, as the 9/11 Commission described, the Command Center "ordered controllers to send a cockpit warning to Delta 1989 because, like American 11 and United 175, it was a transcontinental flight departing Boston's Logan Airport." [26]

The FAA's Boston Center had previously asked the Command Center to contact all FAA centers, with the instruction to tell airborne aircraft to increase their cockpit security. What is curious is that the Command Center's instruction to the Cleveland Center regarding Delta 1989 was apparently an exception: the 9/11 Commission has said it found "no evidence to suggest that the Command Center acted on [the Boston Center's] request." [27]

iii) The third incident from before Delta 1989 was suspected as hijacked occurred at 9:27 a.m. Colonel Alan Scott, the former vice commander of the Continental United States NORAD Region, told the 9/11 Commission that, at this time, the FAA's Boston Center reported to NEADS "a fifth aircraft missing, Delta Flight '89." [28] Boston Center's report to NEADS was odd for two reasons. Firstly, Delta 1989 "never turned off its transponder," according to the 9/11 Commission, so it was never missing and should have been clearly visible on radar at all times. [29] Secondly, at 9:27, Delta 1989 was being handled by the FAA's Cleveland Center, not the Boston Center. [30] So why did the Boston Center contact NEADS about a flight that was not under its command?

iv) Boston Center called NEADS again at 9:39 a.m. regarding Delta 1989. Colin Scoggins, the center's military liaison, reported that the flight was a possible hijack. [31] Again, the question applies as to why the Boston Center made this call, since Delta 1989 was still under the control of the FAA's Cleveland Center. [32] And it appears that Scoggins had no evidence that the flight had been targeted. According to the 9/11 Commission, Boston Center simply "guessed that Delta 1989 might also be hijacked," apparently because--like Flights 11 and 175--it was a transcontinental 767 that had departed Boston's Logan Airport. [33]

v) At 9:45 a.m., one of the ID technicians at NEADS called the FAA's Cleveland Center and incorrectly said that Delta 1989 was "a confirmed hijack." This prompted a supervisor there to go "running back and forth" around the center, informing the controllers and managers of the news. [34]

The supervisor, Kim Wernica, spoke to John Werth, the controller who had been handling Delta 1989. She told him, "It's the Delta, it's the Delta!" She said a military liaison on the phone had confirmed that the Delta jet had been hijacked. However, due to its pilots' normal responses to his instructions, Werth had already concluded that Delta 1989 had not been hijacked. He told Wernica he was pretty sure that Flight 93, not Delta 1989, had been hijacked, and when she returned a few moments later, he said Delta 1989 was "fine, at least for now." But after Wernica consulted again on the phone, she came back and said to Werth, "They said it's a confirmed hijack and a bomb threat." Convinced that Delta 1989 was being confused with United 93, Werth responded, "Tell them they're full of it!" [35]

MILITARY, FAA, POLICE, AND FBI RESPONDED TO HIJACK REPORTS
Although they turned out to be incorrect, the reports that Delta 1989 had been hijacked were taken seriously at the time and acted upon. NEADS commanders ordered their troops to call Air National Guard bases in the vicinity of the Delta aircraft, to see if any of them could launch fighter jets. [36] According to the 9/11 Commission, NEADS ordered jets from Ohio and Michigan to intercept Delta 1989. [37]

When Delta 1989 was coming in to land, Cleveland Hopkins Airport was evacuated. As Spencer wrote, this was because the flight was "confirmed hijacked," and air traffic controllers "believe it contains a bomb intended to detonate when the aircraft crashes into the terminal." [38] Furthermore, for the first time in his administration, Mayor Michael White ordered the evacuation of all federal and city buildings in Cleveland; a parking ban was issued downtown; and owners of large commercial high-rises in Cleveland were asked to evacuate their buildings. [39]

After it landed, Delta 1989 had to park at a remote area of Cleveland Airport, far away from the terminal. Its passengers were only allowed off after a police SWAT team came out, and FBI agents then carefully took the passengers off the plane in small groups. [40] Bomb-sniffing dogs were subsequently taken onboard and the aircraft was searched, but no explosives were found. [41]

EXERCISE MAY HAVE CONTINUED DESPITE REAL-WORLD ATTACKS
If, as the evidence above indicates, Delta 1989 was part of a military exercise based around a fictitious aircraft hijacking, this raises serious questions about the events of 9/11 and the emergency response to the attacks.

The evidence casts doubt on the claim that a NORAD exercise that morning was canceled after Flight 175 hit the South Tower of the WTC at 9:03 a.m. According to Airman, the official magazine of the U.S. Air Force, "Shortly after the second airliner smashed into [the] World Trade Center ... the exercise ceased." [42] Larry Arnold, the commanding general of the Continental United States NORAD Region, said that after Flight 175 hit the South Tower, "I thought it might be prudent to pull out of the exercise, which we did." [43]

But if Delta 1989 was participating in it, then the evidence indicates that this exercise continued for much longer. For example, NEADS received the incorrect report that Delta 1989 was a possible hijacking at 9:39 a.m., and called the FAA's Cleveland Center to report the aircraft as a "confirmed hijack" at 9:45 a.m. These two communications could have been part of the exercise, intended to 'inject' a realistic impression of a hijacking into the system.

And it appears that Delta 1989 may still have been playing a hijacked aircraft while it came in to land (with the pilot failing to use the 'heavy' designator), and continued doing so after it landed at around 10:18 a.m. (when the pilot appeared out of the plane's window, apparently with blood running down his face). This would mean the exercise continued throughout the entire duration of the real-world attacks, ending only after the fourth aircraft to be targeted--Flight 93--supposedly crashed in Pennsylvania at 10:03 a.m. [44] If this was indeed the case, why was the simulated hijacking allowed to continue for so long? And who was responsible for this?

A LIVE-FLY EXERCISE IN 2002
We can better understand the role Delta 1989 might have played on September 11 by examining a later NORAD training exercise. "Amalgam Virgo 02" was a "live-fly" exercise conducted in June 2002, although NORAD was planning it as early as July 2001. [45]

This exercise involved two real aircraft being "hijacked," with actors playing the terrorists. One aircraft, a Delta Air Lines 757, was bound from Utah to Alaska and was taken over by FBI agents acting as hijackers. The other was a Navy C-9 bound from Washington State to Vancouver, Canada, with members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police playing the hijackers. On both planes, military personnel acted as civilian passengers, but the 757 had actual Delta Air Lines pilots at the controls. According to a NORAD spokesman, "both aircraft ... were to receive instructions once in-air, detailing the hijacking scenario affecting them and the roles they were to play."

NORAD launched fighter jets in response to the simulated hijackings. CNN reported before the exercise: "We don't know exactly how these [simulated] hijackings will play out. Neither do the pilots. Even their bases from which the U.S. and military--the U.S.-Canadian jets will be scrambled, don't know they are." After NORAD ran through a number of scenarios, the mock hijacked planes landed and law enforcement officers on the ground ran through scenarios around dealing with the hijackers.

About 1,500 people participated in Amalgam Virgo 02, including employees of NORAD, the FAA, the FBI, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), and Delta Air Lines. The NORAD spokesman said the exercise was "very intense, very realistic." [46]

Could Delta 1989 have been taking part in a similar exercise on September 11? Were some of its passengers played by military personnel or other government employees? Only a thorough new investigation of the 9/11 attacks can answer these and the many other crucial questions that remain, around Delta Air Lines Flight 1989 and its possible involvement in a training exercise on September 11.

NOTES
[1] National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States: Public Hearing. 9/11 Commission, May 23, 2003.
[2] Matthew L. Wald and Don Van Natta Jr., "Impact of Grounding Jets is Still Unclear." New York Times, October 18, 2001; Marilyn Adams, Alan Levin, and Blake Morrison, "Part II: No One Was Sure if Hijackers Were on Board." USA Today, August 12, 2001; 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (Authorized Edition). New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2004, pp. 27-28.
[3] Paul Singer, "No Explosives Found on Cleveland Plane." Associated Press, September 11, 2001; Matthew L. Wald and Don Van Natta Jr., "Impact of Grounding Jets is Still Unclear"; Marilyn Adams, Alan Levin, and Blake Morrison, "Part II: No One Was Sure if Hijackers Were on Board"; Tiana Velez, "How a Tiny Ladybug Changed the World for a Pilot on 9/11." Arizona Daily Star, September 24, 2007; Lynn Spencer, Touching History: The Untold Story of the Drama That Unfolded in the Skies Over America on 9/11. New York: Free Press, 2008, p. 167.
[4] 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 28; Michael Bronner, "9/11 Live: The NORAD Tapes." Vanity Fair, August 2006.
[5] Marilyn Adams, Alan Levin, and Blake Morrison, "Part II: No One Was Sure if Hijackers Were on Board"; "Memorandum for the Record: Interview With John Werth, Air Traffic Controller, Area 4, Lorain Sector." 9/11 Commission, October 1, 2003; 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report, pp. 11-12, 28.
[6] See "Complete 9/11 Timeline: Training Exercises on 9/11." History Commons.
[7] Michael Bronner, "9/11 Live: The NORAD Tapes."
[8] Ibid.
[9] "Timeline of the Events of the Day of 9/11 Drafted by the 9/11 Commission." 9/11 Commission, n.d.
[10] "DAL 1989 Order of Events." Federal Aviation Administration, September 16, 2001.
[11] "Cleveland Security." The Spotlight, WCPN, September 20, 2001.
[12] Lynn Spencer, Touching History, pp. 167-168.
[13] Marilyn Adams, Alan Levin, and Blake Morrison, "Part II: No One Was Sure if Hijackers Were on Board"; Alan Levin, "For Air Controller, Terror Still Vivid 7 Years Later." USA Today, September 11, 2008.
[14] U.S. Congress. House. Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, Statement of Jane F. Garvey, Administrator, Federal Aviation Administration, Before the House Subcommittee on Aviation, Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. 107th Cong., 1st sess., September 21, 2001; Alan Levin, Marilyn Adams, and Blake Morrison, "Part I: Terror Attacks Brought Drastic Decision: Clear the Skies." USA Today, August 12, 2002; 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 29.
[15] Marilyn Adams, Alan Levin, and Blake Morrison, "Part II: No One Was Sure if Hijackers Were on Board"; Lynn Spencer, Touching History, p. 167; Alan Levin, "For Air Controller, Terror Still Vivid 7 Years Later."
[16] Lynn Spencer, Touching History, p. 168.
[17] Marilyn Adams, Alan Levin, and Blake Morrison, "Part II: No One Was Sure if Hijackers Were on Board."
[18] "DAL 1989 Order of Events"; "Co-Located TRACONs (Terminal Radar Approach Control)." Federal Aviation Administration, March 24, 2006.
[19] "DAL 1989 Order of Events."
[20] Meryl Getline, "Who You Calling Heavy?" USA Today, June 1, 2005; Meryl Getline, "Organs on Board." USA Today, May 22, 2006.
[21] "DAL 1989 Order of Events."
[22] Ibid.; Michael O'Mara, "9/11: 'Fifth Plane' Terror Alert at Cleveland Hopkins Airport." WKYC, September 11, 2006.
[23] Lynn Spencer, Touching History, p. 270.
[24] Marilyn Adams, Alan Levin, and Blake Morrison, "Part II: No One Was Sure if Hijackers Were on Board"; 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report, pp. 11-12; Lynn Spencer, Touching History, pp. 166-167.
[25] Marilyn Adams, Alan Levin, and Blake Morrison, "Part II: No One Was Sure if Hijackers Were on Board."
[26] 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report, pp. 10, 455.
[27] Ibid. p. 23; Staff Report: The Four Flights. 9/11 Commission, August 26, 2004, pp. 25-26.
[28] National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States: Public Hearing; "Timeline 6/17/03 Based on NEADS-FAA Transcripts." 9/11 Commission, June 17, 2003; "Timeline of the Events of the Day of 9/11 Drafted by the 9/11 Commission."
[29] 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 28.
[30] Marilyn Adams, Alan Levin, and Blake Morrison, "Part II: No One Was Sure if Hijackers Were on Board"; 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 10.
[31] Michael Bronner, "9/11 Live: The NORAD Tapes"; "Timeline of the Events of the Day of 9/11 Drafted by the 9/11 Commission."
[32] Marilyn Adams, Alan Levin, and Blake Morrison, "Part II: No One Was Sure if Hijackers Were on Board."
[33] 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report, pp. 27-28.
[34] "NEADS Audio File, Identification Technician, Channel 4." North American Aerospace Defense Command, September 11, 2001; "Memorandum for the Record: Interview With Kim Wernica, Operations Manager at Cleveland ARTCC on 9/11." 9/11 Commission, October 2, 2003; "Timeline of the Events of the Day of 9/11 Drafted by the 9/11 Commission."
[35] "Memorandum for the Record: Interview With Kim Wernica, Operations Manager at Cleveland ARTCC on 9/11"; Alan Levin, "For Air Controller, Terror Still Vivid 7 Years Later."
[36] Michael Bronner, "9/11 Live: The NORAD Tapes."
[37] 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 28.
[38] Lynn Spencer, Touching History, pp. 191-192.
[39] Paul Singer, "Plane Makes Emergency Landing." Associated Press, September 11, 2001; "Cleveland Reacts to the Terror." The Spotlight, WCPN, September 12, 2001; "Cleveland Security."
[40] Michael O'Mara, "9/11: 'Fifth Plane' Terror Alert at Cleveland Hopkins Airport"; Lynn Spencer, Touching History, p. 229.
[41] Paul Singer, "No Explosives Found on Cleveland Plane"; Lynn Spencer, Touching History, p. 271.
[42] Jason Tudor, "Inner Space: Cheyenne Mountain Operations Evolve Following Sept. 11 Hijacking." Airman, March 2002.
[43] Leslie Filson, Air War Over America: Sept. 11 Alters Face of Air Defense Mission. Tyndall Air Force Base, FL: 1st Air Force, 2003, p. 59.
[44] 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 30.
[45] "NORAD to Sponsor Multi-Agency, Bi-Lateral Exercise." U.S. Department of Defense, May 31, 2002; Steven Komarow and Tom Squitieri, "NORAD Had Drills of Jets as Weapons." USA Today, April 18, 2004.
[46] Gerry J. Gilmore, "NORAD-Sponsored Exercise Prepares for Worst-Case Scenarios." American Forces Press Service, June 4, 2002; "Airborne Anti-Terrorist Operation Getting Underway." Live Today, CNN, June 4, 2002; "Mock Hijacks Play out Over U.S., Canada." United Press International, June 4, 2002; Nick Wadhams, "Joint U.S., Canadian Hijacking Drill Takes off With Whidbey Flight." Associated Press, June 5, 2002.