FAA Personnel Went Outside Normal Operating Procedures as They Responded to the Apparent Hijacking of American Airlines Flight 11
While air traffic controllers and other FAA personnel were busy responding to the hijacking of American Airlines Flight 11, incidents occurred that indicate there was more going on than the official narrative of the 9/11 attacks suggests. The occurrence of a few anomalies could plausibly be explained as well-intentioned FAA personnel making mistakes as they tried to deal with an unusual situation. However, the sheer number of inappropriate actions that were taken indicates there may have been a deliberate effort to undermine normal procedures and impair the response to the crisis.
Specific actions--or failures to take action--may have been planned in advance with the intention that they would increase the likelihood of the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York succeeding. If this was the case, a number of corrupt U.S. officials must have been involved in organizing and perpetrating the 9/11 attacks, and some FAA employees must have played a role.
Evidence also suggests that a training exercise taking place on the morning of September 11 could have been used to undermine normal FAA procedures. Actions of some air traffic control personnel may in fact have been carried out as part of the personnel's roles in an exercise rather than in response to real-world events, as appeared to be the case. Additionally, FAA employees may have responded inappropriately to the hijacking of Flight 11 because they mistakenly thought signs of the plane being in distress were part of an exercise.
It is certainly worth noting that a military exercise taking place that day was scheduled to include a simulated hijacking. Any FAA personnel who were participating in the exercise--or at least knew about it--may therefore have thought the hijacking of Flight 11 was this simulated hijacking.
FLIGHT 11 WAS THE FIRST PLANE TO BE HIJACKED ON SEPTEMBER 11
American Airlines Flight 11 was the first of four commercial aircraft to apparently be hijacked by Arab terrorists on September 11. The plane was a Boeing 767 bound from Logan International Airport in Boston, Massachusetts, to Los Angeles International Airport in California. It had on board two pilots, nine flight attendants, and 81 passengers, and it took off at 7:59 a.m. [1]
At the time it was apparently hijacked, it was in airspace managed by the Boston Air Route Traffic Control Center--the FAA's "Boston Center"--in Nashua, New Hampshire. [2] The FAA is the government agency responsible for operating a system of air traffic control and the Boston Center was one of its 21 Air Route Traffic Control Centers (also called en route centers), which were responsible for controlling long distance, high-altitude flights in the United States. [3] The plane was being handled by an air traffic controller called Pete Zalewski. [4]
About 15 minutes into the flight, at around 8:14 a.m., five Arab terrorists armed with knives are believed to have violently seized control of the plane. [5] The first indication Zalewski had that something was wrong occurred right away, when radio contact with Flight 11 was lost. At 8:13:29 a.m., he had instructed the plane to "turn 20 degrees right" and the pilot had acknowledged the instruction. But when he then told the plane to climb to 35,000 feet, he received no response. He made numerous attempts to contact Flight 11's pilots over the next 10 minutes, but all of them were unsuccessful. [6] He therefore became worried. "I called and called and called and called ... and I start to get concerned, obviously, as he's not answering me," he recalled. [7]
The first indication of the seriousness of the crisis, however, occurred several minutes after communication with the plane was lost. At 8:17:59 a.m., a brief sound that could have been someone screaming came over Zalewski's radio. Unfortunately, Zalewski may have failed to notice this, since the possible scream occurred while he was attempting to reach the pilots of Flight 11. [8]
Another indication that something was seriously wrong may have occurred a couple of minutes later. At 8:20 a.m., Flight 11 "abruptly" changed course, "turning to the northwest," according to a report by NBC based on interviews with air traffic controllers who dealt with the hijackings that day. [9] However, there is no mention of this change of course in most accounts of the events of September 11. Significantly, a flight path study produced by the National Transportation Safety Board based on various sources of recorded radar data made no mention of it. The radar data the flight path study depicted instead showed that Flight 11 changed course at 8:26 a.m., when it began a sharp turn to the south while it was over Albany, New York. [10]
TRANSPONDER WENT OFF MINUTES AFTER FLIGHT 11'S PILOTS STOPPED COMMUNICATING
Regardless of whether Flight 11 turned sharply to the northwest at 8:20 a.m., as NBC claimed, the severity of the crisis became apparent around this time because, at 8:20:48 a.m., the plane's transponder signal was lost. [11]
A transponder is a device that sends an aircraft's identifying information, speed, and altitude to the radar screens of air traffic controllers on the ground. Controllers track airliners primarily by following the data emitted in a signal by each plane's transponder. [12] However, while the loss of transponder signal made it harder for Zalewski and other controllers to identify Flight 11 and monitor its flight path, they were still able to observe its location. After changing the configuration of their radar scopes and giving the flight a data tag, they could see the plane as a simple blip--what is called a "primary radar target" or a "primary target"--and track it. They were just unable to see its altitude and speed. [13]
It was now apparent that something much out of the ordinary was taking place, since the combined loss of radio communications and transponder signal was a rare event. Such an occurrence was "highly unusual" to the extent that "many controllers had never experienced that combination," according to the 9/11 Commission--the body created by Congress and the president in 2002 to look into the 9/11 attacks. [14]
This was certainly what Boston Center controllers who discussed the issue when they were interviewed by the 9/11 Commission in September 2003 said. When one of them, John Hartling, was asked, "Would it be fair to say [the combined loss occurred] not often?" he replied, "I'd say even less than that, to get them both." [15] When another one, Lino Martins, was asked if he had ever experienced an emergency in which there was a loss of radio communications and a loss of transponder signal "together with the [plane] not coming back on course," he replied, "No ... nothing like this." [16]
Zalewski acknowledged that he knew from experience that the combined loss of radio communications and transponder signal was unusual. When he was asked, "Had you ever encountered controlling an aircraft, in your career at the FAA, that had both lost radio communications and transponder," he replied, "I believe not." [17] In light of this, the way he responded when he encountered the situation--for the first time in his career--on September 11 is puzzling.
SITUATION WAS AN 'ALARMING OCCURRENCE'
The 9/11 Commission Report--the final report of the 9/11 Commission, released in July 2004--noted that the "simultaneous loss of radio and transponder signal" would be an "alarming occurrence." [18] "Before 9/11, controllers would have interpreted the rare instance of simultaneous or nearly simultaneous loss of radio contact and transponder signal as a serious in-flight emergency," Priscilla Jones of the Air Force History Office explained. [19]
Indeed, several Boston Center employees who dealt with Flight 11 concluded that something was seriously wrong when the plane's transponder signal was lost. "The first thing we thought" was "that he was having something, equipment failures," Shirley Kula, a supervisor, recalled. [20] Martins thought the combined loss of radio communications and transponder signal represented "an electrical problem, a mechanical problem." "I obviously felt it was an emergency because that's not supposed to happen," he commented. [21]
Daniel Bueno, the supervisory traffic management coordinator, recalled, "We thought initially it was an electrical failure, something catastrophic." [22] And traffic management unit coordinator Joseph Cooper thought there was "some kind of electrical problem or something like that." He said he was thinking "possible accident" and that "anything could happen at this point." [23]
And yet the rare and potentially catastrophic incident appears to have been responded to with a lack of urgency. Zalewski discretely alerted his supervisor, Jon Schippani, to what was happening after Flight 11's transponder signal was lost. He said he thought Flight 11 had "some sort of serious problem" and explained what he had done to try and reach it. He said he had called the plane 12 times, checked with the sector that was previously handling the flight, and tried talking to the pilots of another American Airlines plane. [24]
Upon receiving this information, Schippani went from Area C of the Boston Center control room, where he and Zalewski worked, to Area B and asked the controllers there if they were in contact with the errant plane. But he made no attempt to initiate any emergency procedures. [25]
CONTROLLER HEARD THREATENING COMMUNICATIONS
A few minutes after the plane's transponder signal was lost, further developments clearly indicated that Flight 11 had been hijacked. At 8:24:38 a.m., Zalewski heard a communication in which a man stated: "We have some planes. Just stay quiet and you'll be okay. We are returning to the airport." [26] The communication was made by "a foreign voice," Zalewski noted. [27]
Seconds later, at 8:24:56 a.m., he heard another sinister message. The man who spoke in the previous communication said: "Nobody move. Everything will be okay. If you try to make any moves, you'll endanger yourself and the airplane. Just stay quiet." [28] This communication "sounded very threatening," Zalewski commented. [29]
A third message made by the same man would be heard nine minutes later. At 8:33:59 a.m., the man said: "Nobody move please. We are going back to the airport. Don't try to make any stupid moves." [30]
The three messages were apparently intended for Flight 11's passengers rather than air traffic controllers. The 9/11 Commission Report suggested that Zalewski heard them because "the hijackers probably did not know how to operate the cockpit radio communication system correctly and thus inadvertently broadcast their message over the air traffic control channel instead of the cabin public address channel." [31]
It is worth noting, however, that while the threatening communications have been widely assumed to have come from Flight 11, their origin was uncertain. "We didn't know where the transmission came from ... and who said it," Bill Peacock, the FAA director of air traffic services on September 11, recalled. "The broadcast wasn't attributed to a flight. Nobody gave a flight number," David Canoles, then FAA manager of air traffic evaluations and investigations, explained. [32] Indeed, in a statement he wrote shortly after 9/11, Zalewski described the first communication as coming from "one of the aircrafts on frequency," rather than specifically from Flight 11. [33]
QUALITY ASSURANCE SPECIALIST LISTENED TO THE RECORDING OF THE CONTROLLER'S RADIO COMMUNICATIONS
After the second threatening communication was made, Bob Jones, a quality assurance specialist at the Boston Center, was asked to get the tape of Zalewski's radio communications and listen to it. [34] This was because Zalewski supposedly hadn't understood what was said in the first threatening communication. "I couldn't really decipher it," he told the 9/11 Commission. [35] "The controller had heard something but wasn't sure what he had heard ... so I was gonna help clarify what was heard," Jones explained.
After he obtained the tape of Zalewski's communications, Jones "went to our playback room and rewound the tapes to approximately the period involved and listened to the tapes." He was able to find the threatening communications and make out what was said. "I was able to hear clearly what [the hijacker] said and obviously the first thing we heard was, 'We have some planes, just stay quiet and you'll be okay, we are returning to the airport,'" he told the 9/11 Commission.
He relayed his findings to Terry Biggio, the operations manager in charge at the Boston Center. "I had the phone on and [was] talking to Terry up at the watch desk," he recalled. He told Biggio, "Yeah, we do have a hijack, it appears to be a Middle Eastern male."
The exact time when he did this is unclear. When he was asked, "Does your timeline show when you actually forwarded that information back upstairs?" he replied, "No, it doesn't have that." [36] However, we can deduce that he likely did so at just before 9:03 a.m. This is because Biggio appears to have relayed the information to someone at the FAA's New England Regional Operations Center (ROC) at around 9:03 a.m. [37] And Biggio indicated that he passed on the information immediately after Jones gave it to him. "As soon as that went from Bob, Bob's message, [I] hang up, went to the ROC," he recalled. [38]
CONTROLLER CONCLUDED THAT FLIGHT 11 WAS HIJACKED
Meanwhile, since he understood right away what was said in the second threatening communication, Pete Zalewski determined at 8:25 a.m. that Flight 11 had been hijacked. [39] "And then came the [second] transmission and in that transmission I immediately knew something was very wrong, and I knew it was a hijack," he recalled. [40]
There were clear procedures that were meant to be followed when a hijacking occurred. "An air traffic controller's first response to an aircraft incident is to notify a supervisor, who then notifies the traffic management unit and the operations manager in charge," the 9/11 Commission Report explained. "The FAA center next notifies the appropriate regional operations center, which in turn contacts FAA headquarters" in Washington, DC, it added. [41]
A hijack coordinator at FAA headquarters was then expected to take charge. This person "would contact the National Military Command Center to ask for a military escort aircraft and the center would then seek permission from the office of the secretary of defense to accede to the FAA request," Priscilla Jones wrote. If the request was approved, the National Military Command Center (NMCC) at the Pentagon would "send the necessary orders down the NORAD chain of command." [42] (NORAD stands for North American Aerospace Defense Command. It is the military organization responsible for monitoring and defending the airspace over North America. All of the apparent hijackings on September 11 took place in airspace protected by its Northeast Air Defense Sector--NEADS--based in Rome, New York.)
Colin Scoggins, a military operations specialist at the Boston Center, explained what was meant to happen after NORAD was alerted to a hijacking. "NORAD would notify one of three air defense control facilities (ADCFs), in our case [the] Northeast Air Defense Sector, [and] the ADCF would call the alert site, in our case Otis Air National Guard Base" on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, he stated. [43]
In line with protocol, the first thing Zalewski did after he determined that Flight 11 had been hijacked was call Jon Schippani, the operational supervisor in charge of Area C, over and tell him there was a hijacking. [44] Schippani then went to the traffic management unit (TMU) and notified Daniel Bueno of the situation.
Bueno recalled what happened when he was interviewed by the 9/11 Commission in September 2003. He said his "first inkling of something strange" on September 11 was when Schippani came to the TMU and told him, "There's a hijack," "American 11 is a hijack," "There's a hijack in progress," or "something like that." [45] He mentioned on another occasion that Schippani told him that "the controller at the sector had heard voices in the background of the flight deck making threatening statements." [46] Upon hearing the alarming news, he promptly alerted Terry Biggio.
Biggio described what happened. "That day I was on [at] 8:20. I went down, go to the bathroom, stop in my office, which was right down the hall. As I got out of the bathroom, Danny paged me," he said. "I paged him and he answers, and then I said, 'We have a hijack in progress,'" Bueno explained. Biggio said he would "be right there" and returned to the TMU immediately. "Did about three steps on the way up and was there about 8:24, 8:25," he recalled.
Back in the TMU, he was briefed by Bueno and Schippani. The briefing "was just, they knew that something was wrong initially," he said. He surmised that Zalewski had "heard something that was out of the ordinary ... but they could not pin it down exactly, word for word." He recalled that he "took a look at the scenario [to] try to determine why or how they determined that they had a hijack."
Bueno and Schippani also showed him Flight 11 on a radar display. "Danny had pulled up on the display, on the radar display, the primary target," he explained. [47]
SUPERVISOR NOTIFIED THE FAA COMMAND CENTER OF THE HIJACKING
Boston Center managers then started informing their chain of command that a suspected hijacking was in progress. [48] While protocol required them to contact the FAA's New England Regional Operations Center, the first outside facility they notified was the FAA's Air Traffic Control System Command Center in Herndon, Virginia. [49]
The Command Center was a facility that's "primary purpose" was "to monitor the flow of air traffic from a system-wide perspective, combine data from the individual FAA centers, and adjust the flow of air traffic based on weather forecasts," the 9/11 Commission was told. Personnel there also had to "make decisions regarding capacity and demand of the national airspace." [50] Staffers on its main floor were in almost constant contact with the FAA's 21 en route centers around the nation. [51]
Bueno called it at 8:27:50 a.m. and spoke to a member of staff called Anthony Smith. He explained what was happening, saying: "I got a situation here with American one one, America 11, Boston departure to LAX. We believe it's a possible hijack situation." He gave further details, telling Smith, "We lost radio communications with him, then we lost his transponder, and they believe that they heard in the background something, a threat."
He also provided the plane's location, saying that Flight 11 was "just west of Albany, going southbound," and noted, "We have no idea where this aircraft is going." He suggested that the Command Center give a "heads up to [the FAA's] New York Center" and Smith agreed, saying, "Okay, let's do that."
Bueno recalled that as a result of the discussion, "We conferenced New York Center [and] Cleveland Center." These facilities were told that "American 11 had made a turn southbound, [was] not conforming to his flight plan," and its "last altitude known was flight level 290," meaning 29,000 feet. [52]
REGIONAL OPERATIONS CENTER WAS NOTIFIED OF THE HIJACKING
A couple of minutes after Bueno called the Command Center, at 8:30 a.m., Terry Biggio reported the suspected hijacking to the New England Regional Operations Center. He spoke to Barry O'Connor, an operations officer there. [53]
He told O'Connor, "It looks like we may have a hijacking going on at this time," or words to that effect. O'Connor asked, "Why do you think you have a hijack?" and in reply Biggio explained the situation with Flight 11. "Lost comm, no transponder, 10 [miles] southwest of Albany, and there are some threatening voices that came out on the frequency," he said. He also told O'Connor that the plane's last known altitude was 29,000 feet. [54]
After the call ended, O'Connor promptly contacted FAA headquarters and passed on Biggio's information, as protocol required. [55] "I coordinated with the Washington Operations Center and I advised them [of] basically what [Biggio] had told me," he recalled. [56] (The Washington Operations Center was the operations center at FAA headquarters. This facility "receives notifications of incidents, including accidents and hijackings," the 9/11 Commission Report noted. [57])
A teleconference was then set up. "We basically established a conference call with Washington and we were adding people to it at that point to monitor the situation," O'Connor explained. [58]
FAA HEADQUARTERS FAILED TO CONTACT THE MILITARY
Shortly after O'Connor reported what was happening, FAA headquarters was notified about the possible hijacking a second time when, at 8:32 a.m., Tom Paccione, a supervisor at the Command Center, called about it.
Paccione spoke to Jesse McKie, a watch officer in the operations center. He explained: "I've just been given notification from Boston Center. They were working a flight, American 11, departed Boston Logan, going to Los Angeles." McKie indicated that he already knew about the suspected hijacking. "This concerning the, a possible hijack?" he asked. "Yes," Paccione replied. [59]
However, even though FAA headquarters had now been told what happened by both the regional operations center and the Command Center, personnel there failed to follow the protocol for dealing with a hijacking. Specifically, they made no attempt to contact the NMCC at the Pentagon to inform it of the suspected hijacking and request a fighter escort for Flight 11. [60]
If they had followed protocol, the NMCC would have been notified of the suspected hijacking just after 8:30 a.m. But as a result of their failure to do so, NMCC personnel only learned a plane had been hijacked around half an hour later, at 9:00 a.m. At that time, an officer in the NMCC called FAA headquarters as he sought more information about the recent plane crash at the World Trade Center and the person he talked to mentioned the hijacking of Flight 11 during their conversation. [61]
FLIGHT 11 ENTERED ANOTHER CONTROLLER'S AIRSPACE
Although Pete Zalewski continued trying to communicate with Flight 11 after he lost radio contact with its pilots, the plane actually entered another air traffic controller's airspace shortly after it was apparently hijacked.
It was handed over to Lino Martins just before 8:15 a.m.--after its pilots made their last radio communication but several minutes before its transponder signal was lost. During the handoff, at 8:14:45 a.m., Zalewski described to Martins the problems he was experiencing. "I turned American 20 [degrees] left and I was going to climb him. He will not respond to me now, at all," he said. After Martins observed, "Looks like he's turning right," Zalewski explained, "I turned him 20 [degrees] right and he's only going to, I think, 29 [i.e., 29,000 feet]." [62]
Martins was initially unconcerned about the loss of radio contact with Flight 11. "I didn't find that too out of the ordinary because that's not uncommon for the aircraft to go NORDO for short periods of time," he commented. ("NORDO" means there is no radio contact with a plane.) His course of action after Zalewski explained the situation to him was therefore simply to follow the plane on his radar screen. "I was just tracking him, watching my other traffic, setting up the traffic flow, get him back on course," he recalled. [63]
At the same time, efforts to reach the plane were made by Shirley Kula, who was working as his radar associate controller. (A radar associate controller is an air traffic controller who works with a radar controller to plan the separation of aircraft, and coordinate with other sectors and facilities.) "I started going through the list of things that we've been trained to do when we have a NORDO aircraft," Kula recalled. "We were wracking our brains, trying to figure out how to reach this plane," she said. [64]
Meanwhile, Zalewski continued monitoring Flight 11, even though it was no longer in his airspace. He recalled that after Martins "accepted the handoff," he "continued to watch [Flight 11] into [Martins's] airspace and kept the data block on my scope." [65]
CONTROLLERS 'GOT EXTREMELY CONCERNED' WHEN FLIGHT 11'S TRANSPONDER WENT OFF
Martins noticed when, at 8:20:48 a.m., Flight 11's transponder signal disappeared. "We lost the transponder in the vicinity of the Martin Intersection and so I had to track him up on primary [radar]," he recalled. "I tracked him up with primary and then we started the whole procedure of trying to track him down, find out what's going on," he explained.
Despite his initial lack of concern about Flight 11, his feelings now changed. "At this stage I felt there was something seriously wrong, because we weren't talking to him and lost his transponder," he commented. Kula, too, became worried. "When the transponder went off, we got extremely concerned," she recalled.
Since Martins and Kula were unable to see the plane's altitude, Kula contacted other controllers to alert them to the situation, in case Flight 11 had descended to a lower altitude. "I started calling the sectors underneath us to let them know that potentially he could be down at their altitudes," she recalled. [66]
Whereas Zalewski only notified his supervisor about the problems with Flight 11 when the plane's transponder went off, Kula had alerted Martins's supervisor, Pete Pasquale, promptly after Flight 11 entered Martins's airspace. She recalled that when she observed the data block for Flight 11 "north of course and diverging from his assigned route," she informed Pasquale "that we were tracking a NORDO aircraft."
After being alerted to the flight, Pasquale tried to regain contact with it. He "called ARINC and American Airlines to ask for them to help to re-establish communications," Kula wrote. [67] (ARINC, which stands for Aeronautical Radio Incorporated, is a company that airlines pay to transmit text messages to and from their planes using something called ACARS--the Aircraft Communications Addressing and Reporting System.)
FLIGHT 11 LEFT THE NEW CONTROLLER'S AIRSPACE AFTER 14 MINUTES
After Flight 11 had been in Martins's airspace for about 14 minutes, it entered the airspace handled by John Hartling, the controller at the Kingston Sector Radar position. [68] "A data block appeared on the scope around the Albany area," Hartling recalled. Flight 11 "was a primary target only" and "was heading north to south when it entered the sector," he noted. [69]
The plane was handed off to the Kingston Sector. "They took control of the data block by accepting the handoff and he continued southbound," Martins recalled. [70] The handoff appears to have been carried out by Kula and William Dean, Hartling's radar associate controller, rather than Martins and Hartling. At 8:28 a.m., Kula "completed coordination" with Dean, an FAA report stated. [71]
During the handoff, Kula explained the situation with Flight 11 to Dean. [72] "He is NORDO, has been since he talked to Boston High. We assume he's at flight level two nine zero [i.e., 29,000 feet]," she said. Strangely, she did not state explicitly that the plane was thought to have been hijacked. Instead, she just indicated this was the case. "We think there's someone in the cockpit with him," she said.
She then described the attempts that had been made to resolve the crisis. "We broadcasted over guard, we've gone ARINC, we have gone company," she explained. She ended by giving Dean a summary of what was wrong. "Nobody is talking to [Flight 11], we don't know where he's going, we don't know what altitude he's at," she said. [73]
CONTROLLER ASKED OTHER PLANES TO LOOK FOR FLIGHT 11
Hartling noticed the plane's unusually high speed when Flight 11 appeared on his radar screen. It was flying at "roughly 530 knots, which I thought was extremely fast," he recalled. [74] Five hundred and thirty knots--about 610 miles per hour--was certainly much faster than the 450 miles per hour the plane was meant to be flying at. [75]
Hartling also noticed that Flight 11 was heading toward New York. However, because there was no transponder signal, he had no indication of its altitude. He could see a data block for the flight on his radar screen, but while the data block "still had the speed ... we don't have the altitude," he noted.
He did at least learn Flight 11's last known altitude. "One of the controllers that was in that area, [Area] B, which the Athens Sector's in, come over and said he was last reported at 29,000 [feet]," he recalled. (The Athens Sector was the sector handled by Martins and Kula.)
Because he wanted to know the plane's current altitude, he asked the pilots of two other flights to try and spot Flight 11 and estimate its altitude. Curiously, he only did this eight to nine minutes after the plane entered his airspace.
At 8:36:14 a.m., he spoke to the pilots of US Airways Flight 583. "I want you to look out your right side, maybe your three o'clock and about 10 miles," he said. He told the pilots there was "an American 767," which controllers had lost contact with. "I want to know if you can tell me if he's over at roughly 29,000 feet there," he explained. However, the pilots were unable to give him the information he sought. "We're not showing anybody on the TCAS [traffic collision avoidance system]," one of them replied.
He then spoke to the pilots of United Airlines Flight 175. (Flight 175 was in fact apparently hijacked just a few minutes later. However, at this time it was still under the control of its original pilots.) At 8:37:08 a.m., he told them: "Look at your 12 to one o'clock at about 10 miles southbound. See if you can see an American 767 out there, please." But, like the pilots of Flight 583, the pilots of Flight 175 were unable to see an American Airlines Boeing 767. "Negative contact 175," one of them replied.
Less than a minute later, though, the pilots of the US Airways and United Airlines planes spotted the 767 and provided estimates of its altitude. At 8:37:21 a.m., Hartling asked the pilots of Flight 583, "Can you see it?" One of them initially reported, "We still don't have him yet." However, seconds later, they saw the plane and gave Hartling the information he'd requested. The 767 was "at three o'clock, approximately at 29,000 [feet], looks like he's gonna pass behind us here in just a minute or two," they said. Then, at 8:38:05 a.m., one of Flight 175's pilots reported, "We have him, he looks about 27, 29, 28,000 [feet]." [76]
SUPERVISOR TRIED TO CONTACT AN AIR BASE TO REPORT THE HIJACKING
Meanwhile, Daniel Bueno attempted to alert the military to the hijacking of Flight 11 in an unconventional way. He tried reaching Otis Air National Guard Base directly to report what was happening and request a fighter escort for the hijacked plane. Otis Air Base was one of two facilities in the Northeast U.S. that kept fighter jets on "alert"--armed, fueled up, and ready to take off within minutes of a scramble order.
At 8:34 a.m., in order to reach it, he called the Cape Terminal Radar Approach Control (TRACON), an air traffic control facility about 150 to 200 meters from Otis, which had a direct link with the base. He spoke to Tim Spence, the operational supervisor there.
"I have a situation with American 11, a possible hijack," he explained. He said Flight 11 had "departed Boston, going to LAX," and was "south of Albany." He told Spence, "I'd like to scramble some fighters to go tail him." "Okay, well we'll talk to Otis here," Spence replied. "I'll talk to these guys over here, see what we can do," he added. [77]
SUPERVISOR ASKED NUMEROUS PEOPLE HOW TO GET FIGHTERS LAUNCHED
Spence then made numerous calls as he tried to fulfil Bueno's request. He asked everyone he spoke to what he needed to do. "Every time [I called someone], I asked, 'Who do I call next to get this going?'" he explained.
His first call was to the control tower at Otis Air Base. He recalled that he wanted to give the people there "a heads up--this is gonna be happening." He therefore told the person who answered the call, "Just to let you know, there's a possible hijacking of American Flight 11."
He also wanted to find out "How can I get this done as fast as possible?" and "Where do I get the authority to scramble fighters?" He therefore explained to the person who answered the call, "Boston TMU in the center is trying to get a couple of fighters scrambled to get up and follow them," and asked, "Who can I call over there at ops to give them that information?" He needed to reach out to others to find this out because helping respond to a hijacking was "certainly not something in my normal chain of duty here, or command," he noted. In reply, the person at the control tower gave him the number for "base ops and command post with the SOF [supervisor of flying] desk."
Spence recalled that his next calls were to "the SOF desk" and "the base operations people" at Otis Air Base. (However, he was unable to say whether he called the operations desk, the supervisor of flying desk, or both. "I talked to either one or both of them," he explained.) He gave all the people he called details of the situation they were dealing with. He also told the people at base operations, "I don't have the authority to scramble these guys, to get them going."
He was apparently told during one of the calls that scrambling fighters would require authorization from NORAD's Northeast Air Defense Sector--NEADS. "The people they [at Otis Air Base] respond to was NEADS, so then they give me the number there [for NEADS]," he said.
Presumably as a result of receiving this information, at around 8:40 a.m. he called NEADS. However, by then NEADS already knew about hijacking. "They said that they had already been informed by Boston Center," he recalled. The man he spoke to told him "that they were already aware of [the hijacking] and [the fighter jets] were on their way." He also called Bueno, at 8:43:07 a.m., and informed him that Otis Air Base needed authorization from NEADS before it could scramble fighter jets. [78]
His efforts to get fighters scrambled led to the operations desk at Otis Air Base being called and Michael Kelly, the duty controller there, being told about the hijacking of Flight 11. Kelly in turn called the supervisor of flying desk and notified Jonathan Treacy, the commander of the 101st Fighter Squadron, about it. Kelly also called NEADS and reported, "There might be a hijack." NEADS already knew about the hijacking, though. "We're working it right now," the person who answered the call said. [79]
EFFORT WAS MADE TO GET FIGHTERS SCRAMBLED FROM ATLANTIC CITY
An attempt was also made to get in touch with another facility, in addition to Otis Air Base, and have fighter jets launched from there. Someone at the Boston Center "tried to contact a former alert site in Atlantic City, unaware it had been phased out," the 9/11 Commission Report stated. The 9/11 Commission Report provided no further details of this alleged call, though. [80]
The "former alert site in Atlantic City" it referred to was presumably Atlantic City International Airport, where the 177th Fighter Wing of the New Jersey Air National Guard was based. The airport was one of NORAD's alert sites until 1998, when the 177th Fighter Wing was redesignated a general-purpose unit. [81]
An attempt to reach the 177th Fighter Wing is known to have been made by Colin Scoggins. However, it appears that rather than calling the unit himself, Scoggins advised NEADS to contact the unit. He took this action after Daniel Bueno advised him to try and get the 177th Fighter Wing to launch aircraft.
Bueno seems to have made this suggestion shortly after he spoke to Tim Spence at the Cape TRACON. When Scoggins arrived on the Boston Center operational floor that morning, Bueno told him, "Talk to Northeast [Air Defense Sector], get these fighters going, because there's, nothing was happening." "If they're not coming out of Otis, I want you to scramble something like Atlantic City," he added. "Get [fighters] up from the south and meet him from the south," he said.
He suggested this because the Atlantic City fighter unit was closer to New York than Otis Air Base was. "The distance, the close proximity; I'm just thinking of where the fighters are," he told the 9/11 Commission. [82]
NEADS WAS ADVISED TO CONTACT THE ATLANTIC CITY UNIT
Presumably in response to Bueno's instruction, Scoggins called NEADS and advised it to contact the 177th Fighter Wing. He suggested that NEADS make use of the unit's fighter jets that were in the air at the time. "I requested that we take from Atlantic City very early in the [morning], not launch from the ground but those already airborne," he recalled.
He knew that although Atlantic City International Airport was no longer an alert base, "most of the [Air National Guard] bases fly [morning] missions" and their fighters "are up by 8:30 to 9:00 a.m." He therefore surmised that the 177th Fighter Wing had some aircraft up in a military training area off the New Jersey coast called Whiskey 107 "by now or just ready to go." And although these aircraft would have been unarmed, he reasoned that "their presence may [have] been enough to cause the hijackers to crash or persuade them to try and land." [83]
His effort was in vain, though. According to a book about the FAA and military response to the 9/11 attacks by author Lynn Spencer, when the NEADS employee he spoke to subsequently tried to call the 177th Fighter Wing, no one answered the phone.
"The NEADS tech takes [Scoggins's] advice and dials the only number he has for Atlantic City, the one they used to scramble Atlantic City's F-16s before the unit was removed from the shrinking air defense mission," and "the number connects him directly to the highly secured command post," Spencer wrote. But since the command post was by then "more of a highly secured storage area, opened just once a month for drill weekends," the call went unanswered. "The phone rings and rings," Spencer described. [84]
The 9/11 Commission Report gave the impression that someone at the Boston Center tried to contact the 177th Fighter Wing shortly after 8:34 a.m., since it mentioned the alleged call to the unit immediately after it described Bueno's 8:34 a.m. call to the Cape TRACON. [85] However, Scoggins indicated that any attempt to call the unit would likely have been made about 10 minutes later.
He recalled that "when [Flight 11] got down around 20 miles north of JFK [International Airport in New York], I also called NEADS and told them the fighters [at Otis Air Base] had not gone" and suggested, "Maybe you wanna activate the guys off Atlantic City, because they also do this." [86] This means he called NEADS perhaps two or three minutes before Flight 11 crashed into the World Trade Center. Any attempt by NEADS to call the 177th Fighter Wing in response to his call would presumably therefore have occurred just before 8:46 a.m., when the crash occurred.
BOSTON CENTER CALLED NEADS AND REPORTED THE HIJACKING
The Boston Center's only successful attempt to get the military to take action in response to the hijacking of Flight 11 was made at 8:37 a.m. At that time, Joseph Cooper, who worked in the traffic management unit, called NEADS to report the hijacking and request that fighter jets be scrambled. [87]
The call was answered by Jeremy Powell, a senior director (weapons) technician. After introducing himself, Cooper said: "We have a problem here. We have a hijacked aircraft headed towards New York and we need you guys to, we need someone to scramble some F-16s or something up there, help us out." Powell wanted to know if Cooper was reporting a hijacking as part of a training exercise. "Is this real-world or exercise?" he asked. "No, this is not an exercise, not a test," Cooper replied. Powell put Cooper on hold and went to fetch Dawne Deskins, the aircraft control and warning officer. Deskins then took over from Powell, answering the call.
After she introduced herself, Cooper repeated his request. "We have a hijacked aircraft headed towards the New York metro area. Wondering if you could send someone up there, some F-16s or something, help us out, maybe out of Otis," he said. He explained that the hijacked aircraft was a primary target only on radar. "We lost the Mode C on it," he said, referring to the plane's transponder code in FAA parlance. "So you'd have to get [fighter jets] up in the air and we would have to vector you towards the aircraft," he added.
Because Deskins could not see a radar blip for the flight, she asked for latitude and longitude coordinates. In response, Cooper said the aircraft was "4115 north" and "07346 west." [88] This was a location 40 miles north of JFK International Airport. [89] He also said the aircraft was flying at 387 knots (about 445 miles per hour), its "approximate heading" was 190, and its last known altitude was 29,000 feet. He added that the plane was a Boeing 767-200 bound from Boston to Los Angeles and he had no idea how many people were on board.
Deskins subsequently told him she anticipated that fighter jets would be scrambled from Otis Air Base in response to the hijacked flight, since the fighters at Otis "would be our closest asset." Then, just before the call ended, Cooper mentioned that if Deskins called the Boston Center that day, she could "talk to anyone here" because "everybody knows what's going on."
Curiously, Cooper never mentioned during the call that the hijacked aircraft was an American Airlines plane and that it was Flight 11, and neither Powell nor Deskins asked him to provide the airline or flight number of the hijacked aircraft. [90]
CALL TO NEADS WAS 'THE FIRST NOTIFICATION RECEIVED BY THE MILITARY' OF THE HIJACKING
Cooper's call to NEADS was "the first notification received by the military--at any level--that American 11 had been hijacked," according to the 9/11 Commission Report, and it led to fighter jets being scrambled from Otis Air Base. "The air defense of America began with this call," the 9/11 Commission Report noted. [91]
It therefore appears that the FAA took an alarmingly long time to alert the military to the crisis, since Cooper's call was made 24 minutes after Pete Zalewski had his last communication with Flight 11, 17 minutes after Flight 11's transponder signal was lost, and around 12 minutes after Zalewski concluded that Flight 11 had been hijacked. The agency's slowness must surely have impaired the military's response to the hijacking since, Priscilla Jones noted, "The expeditious launch of NORAD air defense fighters depended largely on timely hijack notification by the Federal Aviation Administration." [92]
Indeed, the late notification meant the military had no realistic chance of stopping the first attack on the World Trade Center, since Flight 11 crashed into the North Tower of the Trade Center just nine minutes after Jeremy Powell answered the call from the Boston Center, at 8:46:40 a.m. [93] F-15s in fact only took off from Otis Air Base six minutes after the crash, at 8:52:25 a.m. [94]
Unfortunately, the catastrophe was far from over when Flight 11 crashed. Three more commercial aircraft were apparently taken over by hijackers in the 75 minutes after Flight 11 was apparently hijacked: United Airlines Flight 175, like Flight 11 a Boeing 767 bound from Logan International Airport in Boston to Los Angeles International Airport; American Airlines Flight 77, a Boeing 757 bound from Dulles International Airport in Washington, DC, to Los Angeles International Airport; and United Airlines Flight 93, a Boeing 757 bound from Newark International Airport in New Jersey to San Francisco International Airport in California. [95]
Just like there had been to the hijacking of Flight 11, there were many problems with the responses of the FAA and the U.S. military to the hijackings of these aircraft. [96] And, again, the consequences were disastrous.
Fighter jets were nowhere near Flight 175 when it crashed into the South Tower of the World Trade Center, at 9:03 a.m. The F-15s launched from Otis Air Base were 71 miles from the Trade Center at the time. And fighters were nowhere near the Pentagon when Flight 77 apparently crashed into it, at 9:37 a.m. Two F-16s launched from Langley Air Force Base in Hampton, Virginia, were 150 miles away at the time of the attack. [97]
Whether fighters would have been able to prevent Flight 93 from crashing into a building had it continued on its course toward Washington, DC, is unclear. Intervention in this case was unnecessary, though, since the airliner apparently crashed into the ground in rural Pennsylvania at 10:03 a.m., supposedly after some of its passengers tried to seize control of the plane from the hijackers. [98]
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. 4; Staff Report: The Four Flights. 9/11 Commission, August 26, 2004, pp. 6-7.
[2] 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 4; Priscilla D. Jones, The First 109 Minutes: 9/11 and the U.S. Air Force. Washington, DC: Air Force History and Museums Program, 2011, p. 18.
[3] Administrator's Fact Book. Federal Aviation Administration, July 2001, p. 36; 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 14; "Memorandum for the Record: Interview With Benedict Sliney." 9/11 Commission, May 21, 2004; 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. 6.
[4] Personnel statement of Peter A. Zalewski. Federal Aviation Administration, November 2, 2001; Priscilla D. Jones, The First 109 Minutes, p. 18; Mitchell Zuckoff, Fall and Rise: The Story of 9/11. New York: HarperCollins, 2019, pp. 45-46.
[5] 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report, pp. 4-5; Staff Report: The Four Flights, p. 8.
[6] Personnel statement of Peter A. Zalewski; Full transcript: Boston ARTCC Boston Sector, Sector 46, Radar position, September 11, 2001, 1204 UTC to September 11, 2001, 1240 UTC. Federal Aviation Administration, February 15, 2002; Staff Report: The Four Flights, p. 7; Priscilla D. Jones, The First 109 Minutes, pp. 18-19; Mitchell Zuckoff, Fall and Rise, pp. 45-47.
[7] "Memorandum for the Record: Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Boston Center Field Site Interview With Peter Zalewski, Air Traffic Control Specialist Area C." 9/11 Commission, September 22, 2003; 9/11 Commission audio file, Commission interview with Peter Zalewski. 9/11 Commission, September 22, 2003.
[8] FAA audio file, Boston Air Route Traffic Control Center position 46R, 1204-1240 UTC. Federal Aviation Administration, September 11, 2001; "Summary of Air Traffic Hijack Events: September 11, 2001." Federal Aviation Administration, September 17, 2001; Full transcript: Boston ARTCC Boston Sector, Sector 46, Radar position, September 11, 2001, 1204 UTC to September 11, 2001, 1240 UTC; Mitchell Zuckoff, Fall and Rise, pp. 46-47.
[9] "The Skies Over America: The Air Traffic Controllers in Charge of the Skies Over America on 9/11 Saw the Nightmare Coming." Dateline, NBC, September 10, 2006.
[10] "Summary of Air Traffic Hijack Events"; "Flight Path Study: American Airlines Flight 11." National Transportation Safety Board, February 19, 2002; 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report, pp. 4-7.
[11] "Summary of Air Traffic Hijack Events"; "Report of Aircraft Accident: Boeing 767-200, (B762), AAL11." Federal Aviation Administration, November 13, 2001; Staff Report: The Four Flights, p. 9; Priscilla D. Jones, The First 109 Minutes, pp. 68-69.
[12] David Maraniss, "September 11, 2001; Steve Miller Ate a Scone, Sheila Moody Did Paperwork, Edmund Glazer Boarded a Plane: Portrait of a Day That Began in Routine and Ended in Ashes." Washington Post, September 15, 2001; 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 16; "The Skies Over America."
[13] Staff Report: The Four Flights, p. 9; Priscilla D. Jones, The First 109 Minutes, p. 19; Mitchell Zuckoff, Fall and Rise, p. 47.
[14] "Memorandum for the Record: Staff Visit to the Boston Center, New England Region, FAA." 9/11 Commission, September 22-24, 2003.
[15] "Memorandum for the Record: Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Boston Center Field Site Interview With John Hartling." 9/11 Commission, September 22, 2003; 9/11 Commission audio file, Commission interview with John Hartling. 9/11 Commission, September 22, 2003.
[16] 9/11 Commission audio file, Commission interview with Brazalino Martins. 9/11 Commission, September 22, 2003.
[17] Peter Zalewski, 9/11 Commission interview, handwritten notes. 9/11 Commission, September 22, 2003; 9/11 Commission audio file, Commission interview with Peter Zalewski.
[18] 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 16.
[19] Priscilla D. Jones, The First 109 Minutes, p. 16.
[20] Shirley Kula, 9/11 Commission interview, handwritten notes. 9/11 Commission, September 22, 2003; 9/11 Commission audio file, Commission interview with Shirley Kula. 9/11 Commission, September 22, 2003.
[21] 9/11 Commission audio file, Commission interview with Brazalino Martins.
[22] "Memorandum for the Record: Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Boston Center Field Site Interview 1 With Daniel D. Bueno, Traffic Management Supervisor, Boston Center." 9/11 Commission, September 22, 2003; 9/11 Commission audio file, Commission interview with Dan Bueno, part 1. 9/11 Commission, September 22, 2003.
[23] "Memorandum for the Record: Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Boston Center Field Site Interview With Joseph Cooper, Traffic Management Unit Coordinator." 9/11 Commission, September 22, 2003; 9/11 Commission audio file, Commission interview with Joseph Cooper, part 2. 9/11 Commission, September 22, 2003.
[24] 9/11 Commission audio file, Commission interview with Peter Zalewski.
[25] "Memorandum for the Record: Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Boston Center Interview With Jon Schippani, Operational Supervisor in Charge, Boston Center." 9/11 Commission, September 22, 2003; 9/11 Commission audio file, Commission interview with Jon Schippani. 9/11 Commission, September 22, 2003.
[26] FAA audio file, Boston Air Route Traffic Control Center position 46R, 1204-1240 UTC; Full transcript: Boston ARTCC Boston Sector, Sector 46, Radar position, September 11, 2001, 1204 UTC to September 11, 2001, 1240 UTC; 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 19.
[27] Personnel statement of Peter A. Zalewski.
[28] FAA audio file, Boston Air Route Traffic Control Center position 46R, 1204-1240 UTC; Full transcript: Boston ARTCC Boston Sector, Sector 46, Radar position, September 11, 2001, 1204 UTC to September 11, 2001, 1240 UTC; 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 19.
[29] Personnel statement of Peter A. Zalewski.
[30] FAA audio file, Boston Air Route Traffic Control Center position 46R, 1204-1240 UTC; Full transcript: Boston ARTCC Boston Sector, Sector 46, Radar position, September 11, 2001, 1204 UTC to September 11, 2001, 1240 UTC; 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 19.
[31] 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 6.
[32] Frank J. Murray, "Americans Feel Touch of Evil; Fury Spurs Unity." Washington Times, September 11, 2002.
[33] Personnel statement of Peter A. Zalewski.
[34] "Memorandum for the Record: Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Boston Center Field Site Interview With Robert Jones, Quality Assurance Officer, ZBW." 9/11 Commission, September 22, 2003; Robert Jones, 9/11 Commission interview, handwritten notes. 9/11 Commission, September 22, 2003.
[35] "Memorandum for the Record: Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Boston Center Field Site Interview With Peter Zalewski, Air Traffic Control Specialist Area C" (draft version). 9/11 Commission, September 22, 2003; Peter Zalewski, 9/11 Commission interview, handwritten notes; 9/11 Commission audio file, Commission interview with Peter Zalewski.
[36] "Memorandum for the Record: Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Boston Center Field Site Interview With Robert Jones, Quality Assurance Officer, ZBW"; 9/11 Commission audio file, Commission interview with Robert Jones. 9/11 Commission, September 22, 2003.
[37] 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report, pp. 22-23; Priscilla D. Jones, The First 109 Minutes, p. 21.
[38] "Memorandum for the Record: Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Boston Center Interview With Terry Biggio, Deputy of Facility, Boston Center." 9/11 Commission, September 22, 2003; 9/11 Commission audio file, Commission interview with Terry Biggio. 9/11 Commission, September 22, 2003.
[39] 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 19; Staff Report: The Four Flights, p. 10; Priscilla D. Jones, The First 109 Minutes, p. 20.
[40] "The Skies Over America."
[41] 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 458.
[42] Priscilla D. Jones, The First 109 Minutes, p. 16.
[43] "Q&A With 9/11 Boston Center Air Traffic Controller." 9/11 Guide, October 28, 2007.
[44] "The Skies Over America."
[45] 9/11 Commission audio file, Commission interview with Dan Bueno, part 1.
[46] Personnel statement of Daniel D. Bueno. Federal Aviation Administration, September 11, 2001.
[47] "Memorandum for the Record: Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Boston Center Interview With Terry Biggio, Deputy of Facility, Boston Center"; "Memorandum for the Record: Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Boston Center Field Site Interview 1 With Daniel D. Bueno, Traffic Management Supervisor, Boston Center"; 9/11 Commission audio file, Commission interview with Terry Biggio; 9/11 Commission audio file, Commission interview with Dan Bueno, part 1.
[48] "Summary of Air Traffic Hijack Events"; 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 19.
[49] Staff Report: The Four Flights, p. 11.
[50] "Memorandum for the Record: Visit to the FAA Air Traffic Control System Command Center ('ATCSCC' or 'Command Center') in Herndon, VA and Dulles Airport Control Tower." 9/11 Commission, July 22, 2003.
[51] Pamela S. Freni, Ground Stop: An Inside Look at the Federal Aviation Administration on September 11, 2001. Lincoln, NE: iUniverse, Inc., 2003, p. 64.
[52] Transcript: Air Traffic Control System Command Center position 15, line 5115, parts 2 and 3. Federal Aviation Administration, September 11, 2001; Air Traffic Control System Command Center position 15 Area East log. Federal Aviation Administration, September 11, 2001; Personnel statement of Daniel D. Bueno; Timeline of the events of the day of 9/11 drafted by the 9/11 Commission. 9/11 Commission, n.d.
[53] "Quality Assurance Bulletin: Boston Center Bulletin." Federal Aviation Administration, September 20, 2001; "Memorandum for the Record: Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Boston Center Field Interview of Jennifer Donahue, Regional Executive Manager (REM) for Communications Information Security (COMSAT), FAA Regional Operations Center (ROC)." 9/11 Commission, September 22, 2003; Terry Biggio, 9/11 Commission interview, handwritten notes. 9/11 Commission, September 22, 2003.
[54] 9/11 Commission audio file, Commission interview with Barry O'Connor. 9/11 Commission, September 22, 2003; 9/11 Commission audio file, Commission interview with Terry Biggio.
[55] New England Region daily log. Federal Aviation Administration, September 11, 2001; "Summary of Air Traffic Hijack Events."
[56] 9/11 Commission audio file, Commission interview with Barry O'Connor.
[57] 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 16.
[58] 9/11 Commission audio file, Commission interview with Barry O'Connor.
[59] Transcript: Air Traffic Control System Command Center National Operations Manager position, line 4525, September 11, 2001, 1232 UTC to September 11, 2001, 1515 UTC. Federal Aviation Administration, October 2, 2003; Staff Report: The Four Flights, p. 11.
[60] 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 19.
[61] Ibid. pp. 35, 462; "Memorandum for the Record: Interview With Captain Charles Joseph Leidig, USN, Commandant of Midshipmen, U.S. Naval Academy." 9/11 Commission, April 29, 2004; "Memorandum for the Record: Interview With Lt. Col. Ryan Gonsalves." 9/11 Commission, May 14, 2004; Senior operations officer log, September 11, 2001, to September 16, 2001. U.S. Department of Defense, n.d.
[62] "Report of Aircraft Accident: Boeing 767-200, (B762), AAL11"; Full transcript: Boston ARTCC Athens Sector, Sector 38, Radar position, September 11, 2001, 1209 UTC to September 11, 2001, 1231 UTC. Federal Aviation Administration, April 12, 2002.
[63] "Memorandum for the Record: Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Boston Center Field Site Interview With Brazalino Martins, Certified Professional Controller." 9/11 Commission, September 22, 2003; 9/11 Commission audio file, Commission interview with Brazalino Martins.
[64] 9/11 Commission audio file, Commission interview with Shirley Kula.
[65] Personnel statement of Peter A. Zalewski.
[66] 9/11 Commission audio file, Commission interview with Brazalino Martins; 9/11 Commission audio file, Commission interview with Shirley Kula.
[67] Personnel statement of Shirley Kula. Federal Aviation Administration, October 16, 2001.
[68] Personnel statement of John Hartling. Federal Aviation Administration, November 5, 2001; "Report of Aircraft Accident: Boeing 767-200, (B762), AAL11"; "The Skies Over America."
[69] Personnel statement of John Hartling.
[70] 9/11 Commission audio file, Commission interview with Brazalino Martins.
[71] "Report of Aircraft Accident: Boeing 767-200, (B762), AAL11."
[72] Ibid.
[73] Full transcript: Boston ARTCC Athens Sector, Sector 38, Radar Associate position, September 11, 2001, 1213 UTC to September 11, 2001, 1240 UTC. Federal Aviation Administration, April 24, 2002.
[74] Personnel statement of John Hartling.
[75] "The Skies Over America."
[76] Full transcript: Boston ARTCC Kingston Sector, Sector 20, Radar position, September 11, 2001, 1231 UTC to September 11, 2001, 1244 UTC. Federal Aviation Administration, January 28, 2002; "Memorandum for the Record: Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Boston Center Field Site Interview With John Hartling"; 9/11 Commission audio file, Commission interview with John Hartling.
[77] Personnel statement of Daniel D. Bueno; Full transcript: Boston ARTCC Boston TMU Severe Weather position, September 11, 2001, 1222 UTC to September 11, 2001, 1250 UTC. Federal Aviation Administration, April 19, 2002; "Memorandum for the Record: Follow Up Visit to FAA." 9/11 Commission, June 12, 2003; Partial transcript: Cape TRACON Flight Data position, September 11, 2001, 1229 UTC to September 11, 2001, 1253 UTC. Federal Aviation Administration, October 10, 2003; Priscilla D. Jones, The First 109 Minutes, p. 23.
[78] "Memorandum for the Record: Interview With Tim Spence, Cape TRACON Operational Supervisor." 9/11 Commission, September 30, 2003; 9/11 Commission audio file, Commission interview with Tim Spence. 9/11 Commission, September 30, 2003; Partial transcript: Cape TRACON Supervisor position, September 11, 2001, 1229 UTC to September 11, 2001, 1253 UTC. Federal Aviation Administration, October 10, 2003; Priscilla D. Jones, The First 109 Minutes, pp. 25-30.
[79] "Transcripts From Voice Recorder, 11 September 2001 1227Z-1417Z, Northeast Air Defense Sector, Rome, NY." North American Aerospace Defense Command, September 11, 2001; Transcript: NEADS audio file, Mission Crew Commander position, channel 2. North American Aerospace Defense Command, September 11, 2001; 9/11 Commission visit to Otis Air National Guard Base, handwritten notes. 9/11 Commission, October 14, 2003; "Memorandum for the Record: Interview With Tech. Sgt. Michael Kelly." 9/11 Commission, October 14, 2003; Priscilla D. Jones, The First 109 Minutes, p. 30.
[80] 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 20.
[81] Adam J. Hebert, "Black September 11." Air Force Magazine, September 2002.
[82] 9/11 Commission audio file, Commission interview with Dan Bueno, part 1.
[83] David Ray Griffin, Debunking 9/11 Debunking: An Answer to Popular Mechanics and Other Defenders of the Official Conspiracy Theory. Northampton, MA: Olive Branch Press, 2007, p. 62; "Q&A With 9/11 Boston Center Air Traffic Controller."
[84] Lynn Spencer, Touching History, p. 34.
[85] 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 20.
[86] 9/11 Commission audio file, Commission interview with Colin Scoggins, part 1. 9/11 Commission, September 22, 2003.
[87] Priscilla D. Jones, The First 109 Minutes, p. 24; "Otis Story Board." 9/11 Commission, n.d.
[88] Full transcript: Boston ARTCC Military Operations Specialist position, September 11, 2001, 1232 UTC to September 11, 2001, 1259 UTC. Federal Aviation Administration, April 12, 2002; "Memorandum for the Record: Interview With Lt. Col. Dawne Deskins." 9/11 Commission, October 30, 2003; 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 20.
[89] Miles Kara, "9/11: NEADS Mission Crew Commander; a Valiant Effort, Ultimately Futile, Part I." 9/11 Revisited, June 4, 2011.
[90] Full transcript: Boston ARTCC Military Operations Specialist position, September 11, 2001, 1232 UTC to September 11, 2001, 1259 UTC.
[91] 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 20.
[92] Priscilla D. Jones, The First 109 Minutes, p. 17.
[93] 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 7.
[94] Priscilla D. Jones, The First 109 Minutes, p. 33; "Otis Scramble." 9/11 Commission, n.d.
[95] 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report, pp. 32-33; Staff Report: The Four Flights, pp. 6, 18, 28, 35.
[96] See 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report, pp. 21-34; Michael Bronner, "9/11 Live: The NORAD Tapes." Vanity Fair, September 2006.
[97] "NORAD's Response Times, Sept. 11, 2001." North American Aerospace Defense Command, September 18, 2001; Staff Report: The Four Flights, p. 34.
[98] 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report, pp. 13-14.
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