The Andrews Air Force Base Stand Down: How the 'Capital Guardians' Failed to Guard the Capital on 9/11

"Thank God that guy's there! Where has he been?"

- Firefighter Mike Smith, upon seeing the first military fighter jetarriving over the Pentagon, 10:40 a.m., September 11, 2001

At the time the 9/11 attacks began, many of the pilots with the District of Columbia Air National Guard (DCANG) were in the headquarters of the 121st Fighter Squadron at Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland. They had been suspicious upon learning of the first crash in New York, but when a second plane hit the World Trade Center the emergency became obvious. "We're under a terrorist attack!" someone yelled. One DCANG officer at the base exclaimed, "Well, holy shit, if this is a terrorist attack, we need to get something in the air!" According to Lt. Col. Steve Chase, who was at the operations desk there: "People just launched into action. There was a buzz in the unit." [1]

Andrews Air Force Base is located just 10 miles southeast of Washington, DC, and has been described as "one of the most modern bases in the Air Force." [2] Yet the first fighter jet did not take off from there until well after the time the Pentagon was hit--possibly as late as 10:38 a.m.--and this was armed only with training ammunition. [3] The first properly armed jets took off at 10:52 a.m. [4]

Why did the units at Andrews perform so badly? Why did this base fail to protect the nation's capital and prevent an attack on the nearby Pentagon? Despite the absence of any serious official investigation of these questions, evidence already available indicates that a number of subtle but effective measures may have been used to deliberately sabotage the emergency response and render the DC Air National Guard useless.

ANDREWS AIR FORCE BASE AND THE DC AIR NATIONAL GUARD
Andrews Air Force Base is a huge military installation in Prince George's County, Maryland. [5] It is the home of the 113th Wing and associated units of the DC Air National Guard, including the 121st Fighter Squadron. [6]

According to a book published by the 1st Air Force, the 113th Wing "is not part of the NORAD [North American Aerospace Defense Command] air sovereignty force and did not have an alert mission" in 2001. [7] However, evidence clearly indicates it still should have been involved in defending the Washington area in response to the 9/11 attacks. Shortly before September 11, the "DC Military" website stated that the 113th Wing's mission included providing "capable and ready response forces for the District of Columbia in the event of a natural disaster or civil emergency." [8] The day of 9/11, Knight Ridder reported, "Air defense around Washington, DC, is provided mainly by fighter planes from Andrews Air Force Base." [9] Indeed, the DC Air National Guard was known as the "Capital Guardians." [10] And while he has said, "We've never been an air defense unit," Lt. Col. Phil Thompson--the chief of safety for the 113th Wing--admitted, "We practice scrambles [i.e. taking off as fast as possible, to inspect enemy aircraft], we know how to do intercepts and other things." [11]

Why then didn't Andrews AFB successfully defend Washington? The following five key pieces of evidence suggest its ability to respond to the attacks may well have been sabotaged:

1) ONLY SEVEN PILOTS WERE AVAILABLE FOLLOWING THE 'RED FLAG' TRAINING EXERCISE
The 121st Fighter Squadron had recently participated in a massive training exercise in Nevada. "Red Flag," an exercise held four times a year at Nellis Air Force Base, ran from August 11 to September 7, 2001, and the 121st FS only returned from it on September 8. [12] Most of the DC Air National Guard pilots are involved with the unit on a part-time basis, while flying commercial jet planes in their civilian lives. [13] Apparently as a result of Red Flag, most of the 121st FS's pilots were back at their usual airline jobs, and the unit only had seven pilots available on September 11. [14] Prior to taking off in response to the attacks, some of these pilots had been uploading onto disks the flight data they would need once airborne, such as navigational waypoints, maps, and frequencies. Reportedly, these disks "still contain[ed] all the Nellis data from the Red Flag training exercise they just returned from." [15] This raises the question of whether the job of replacing the exercise data delayed the takeoffs.

2) THREE ANDREWS JETS WERE AWAY ON A TRAINING MISSION IN NORTH CAROLINA
Furthermore, when the 9/11 attacks began, three F-16s belonging to the 121st FS were 207 miles away from base, flying a training mission in North Carolina, where they'd gone "to drop some bombs and hit a refueling tanker." [16] Therefore, three of the squadron's seven pilots were unavailable to respond to the attacks. Critically, the F-16s were out of radio range with the base. So when weapons officer Major Daniel Caine wanted to recall them, he had to contact a tanker refueling plane they were scheduled to meet and ask its pilot to pass on an urgent "return to base" message. [17] The three fighter jets did not arrive back at Andrews until after the Pentagon was hit. [18]

3) THE SECRET SERVICE SAID IT DIDN'T NEED HELP
Unlike other Air National Guard units, the DC Air National Guard reported to the president rather than a state governor. The president, in turn, had delegated that authority to the Department of Defense. Also, because of its responsibility to protect the president, the Secret Service had a level of authority over the DCANG, and 121st FS officers had a close relationship with Secret Service agents who worked at Andrews Air Force Base. [19]

After the second attack in New York, at 9:03 a.m., Daniel Caine called a contact in the Secret Service that he was friends with. He asked: "Do you have any additional information? Are you guys going to need some help?" Even though it was now obvious the U.S. was under attack and that Washington was a likely target for terrorists, the agent responded, "No, but I'll call you back if that changes." Lt. Col. Marc Sasseville, the commander of the 121st FS, has claimed: "At that time, we weren't thinking about defending anything. Our primary concern was what would happen to the air traffic system." [20]

It wasn't until after 9:34 a.m., when the Secret Service learned of an unidentified aircraft approaching the White House, that an agent at the White House Joint Operations Center called Caine to request help. He asked: "Can you guys do anything? Can you get some fighters in the air as soon as possible?" [21] This was more than half an hour after the second plane hit the WTC. However, the emergency response was delayed even further. Caine has recalled, "Then [the Secret Service agent] told us to stand by and that somebody else would call." The 113th Wing's maintenance section started getting several F-16s armed and ready to fly. Finally, in a subsequent phone call, the Secret Service ordered Andrews AFB, "Get in the air now!" [22]

4) THE INTELLIGENCE OFFICE WAS UNABLE TO GET INFORMATION
The DC Air National Guard's ability to respond to the attacks may also have been hindered because it was being denied the information it needed about what was happening, and had to rely instead upon CNN. At around 9:30 a.m., its intelligence officer went onto the SIPRNET--the Department of Defense's classified version of the Internet--in search of pertinent information, but to no avail. He phoned anyone he could think of who might be able to help, including the Air Combat Command Intelligence Squadron at Langley Air Force Base, the 9th Air Intelligence Squadron at Shaw Air Force Base in South Carolina, Washington's FBI field office, and the White House Joint Operations Center. Yet he was unable to find out anything more than what he'd learned from television. Author Lynn Spencer has claimed, "As DCANG is a general purpose F-16 unit, no one [was] specifically tasked with keeping the squadron informed." [23]

The question to be investigated is whether this apparent agency-wide information blackout can be dismissed as the result of mere confusion, or was it due to sabotage?

5) THE SLOW REACTIONS OF GENERAL DAVID WHERLEY
The actions of Brigadier General David Wherley Jr. are particularly notable. As the commander of the DC Air National Guard, Wherley surely had a crucial role to play in responding to the attacks. However, although accounts are vague and sometimes contradictory, descriptions of what he did give us serious cause for concern.

Wherley was in the headquarters of the 113th Wing the morning of September 11. Yet reports indicate he only started taking action after 9:37 a.m., when the Pentagon was hit. According to the Washington Post, Wherley's "first inkling that the attacks would go beyond New York was when one of his officers, whose husband worked at the Pentagon, saw on television that the building had been hit and began shrieking." [24] After taking a moment to comfort the officer, he "raced out of his office and ran several hundred yards to the headquarters of the DC Guard's 121st Fighter Squadron." But then, upon learning that the Secret Service wanted Andrews to launch fighter jets, Wherley told squadron officers he wanted more explicit authorization, saying: "We have to get instructions. We can't just fly off half-cocked." [25]

Wherley talked over the phone with the Secret Service, which wanted the DCANG to establish a combat air patrol (CAP) over Washington. Yet he seemed reluctant to help. He told the Secret Service agent, "I would feel more comfortable receiving such an order from someone higher in the chain of command, preferably in the military." He was given the number for the Presidential Emergency Operations Center--a bunker below the White House--which he then called. The Secret Service agent who answered implored Wherley: "We want you to put a CAP up over the city. We need some fighters now." Yet Wherley was "not very comfortable taking orders from a Secret Service agent. That's just not how things are done." He asked, "Is there anybody else there from the military available to talk?" As there was not, he asked, "Is the vice president available?" The vice president was on the phone with the president. Only after further reflection did Wherley finally agree to help, saying: "Okay, then. What exactly do they want me to do?" [26]

Wherley then had to wait for the Secret Service to determine "exactly" what it wanted. According to the Washington Post, the instructions came "within a half-hour." Again, another delay. [27] The Secret Service agent who got back to Wherley said he had received instructions that came from the vice president. The guidance was "to send up the aircraft, with orders to protect the White House and take out any aircraft that threatened the Capitol." If the 9/11 Commission is correct, these instructions were not passed on to the first fighter jet that took off from Andrews, but instead only to "the pilots that launched at 10:42 and afterward." By that time, of course, the attacks were long over. [28]


ANDREWS JETS ONLY TOOK OFF AFTER THE PENTAGON ATTACK
Taking into account these five pieces of evidence (and presumably there are other relevant details that we are as yet unaware of) it is unsurprising that the DCANG was so slow in responding to the 9/11 attacks. The first fighter jet to take off from Andrews Air Force Base in response was an F-16 piloted by Major Billy Hutchison--one of the aircraft that had been away on a training mission in North Carolina and had just returned to the base. Hutchison's was the only one of the three returning jets with enough fuel remaining to take off again immediately, though he had just 2,800 pounds, which is equivalent to one-eighth of a tank in a car. He had no missiles and only training ammunition. He took off "without afterburner to conserve fuel, go across the White House over the Georgetown area and continue northwest up the Potomac." [29]

The time when Hutchison took off is unclear. Different accounts have said he did so "Within minutes of American Airlines Flight 77 hitting the Pentagon," [30] some time roughly around 10:00 a.m. [31], or "about 50 minutes after the Pentagon was hit." [32] According to 113th Wing operations desk records, he did not take off until 10:33 a.m. [33], and, according to the 9/11 Commission, he was not airborne until 10:38 a.m. [34]

Hutchison has recalled that he circled low over the Pentagon some time after taking off. [35] Many witnesses who were on the ground have recalled seeing the first military jet arriving over the Pentagon following the attack there at around 10:40 a.m., or "closer to 11" o'clock, according to the New York Times. In other words, the first Andrews jet to reach the Pentagon in response to the 9/11 attacks only arrived an hour or more after it had been hit--far too late to have been any use in preventing the attack there. Understandably, upon seeing the F-16 above, one firefighter exclaimed: "Thank God that guy's there! Where has he been?" [36]

The next two F-16s to launch from Andrews took off at 10:42 a.m. These also had no missiles, and only non-explosive training rounds for their Gatling guns--"hardly enough to bring down an airliner," the pilots have conceded. Finally, at 10:52 a.m., the first fighters armed with live ammunition and AIM-9 air-to-air missiles took off. [37] Their pilots were instructed to establish a combat air patrol over Washington and intercept any incoming aircraft. [38]

So, although the DC Air National Guard is meant to have realized, "We're under a terrorist attack!" when the second plane hit the World Trade Center, and immediately to have "launched into action," its first properly armed fighters did not take off until more than an hour after the Pentagon was hit, and more than two hours after the first attack in New York.

OTHER UNITS AND UNANSWERED QUESTIONS
The information currently available on Andrews Air Force Base and what happened there on 9/11 is vague, often contradictory, and only serves to raise new questions. For example, we know that, as well as the 113th Wing, there were other units at the base with fighter jets available. These included Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 321, which flew the sophisticated F/A-18 Hornet, and Naval Air Facility, Washington, DC, which provided "Naval air operations support for the Naval District of Washington," and also had F/A-18 Hornets available. [39] Yet little is known about these units' activities on September 11 and what they could have done to defend the capital.

It seems logical to assume, however, that fighter jets from Andrews should have been in the air protecting Washington and the Pentagon long before the Pentagon was hit. The question of why they failed to do so needs to be part of a serious and unrestrained new investigation of the 9/11 attacks.

NOTES
[1] Steve Vogel, "Flights of Vigilance Over the Capital." Washington Post, April 8, 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, p. 123.
[2] "Andrews AFB, Maryland." GlobalSecurity.org, March 3, 2002.
[3] NBC Nightly News. NBC, September 11, 2001; Steve Vogel, "Flights of Vigilance Over the Capital"; 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.
[4] Steve Vogel, The Pentagon: A History. New York: Random House, 2007, p. 446.
[5] "Andrews Air Force Base: Welcome." DCMilitary.com, Summer 2001; "Andrews AFB, Maryland."
[6] "Andrews Air Force Base: Partner Units." DCMilitary.com, Summer 2001; "113th Wing." GlobalSecurity.org, October 21, 2001.
[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. 76.
[8] "Andrews Air Force Base: Partner Units."
[9] Steve Goldstein, "Focus of Training for Terrorist Attacks has Been Chemical, Biological Warfare." Knight Ridder, September 11, 2001.
[10] Lynn Spencer, Touching History, p. 122.
[11] William B. Scott, "F-16 Pilots Considered Ramming Flight 93." Aviation Week & Space Technology, September 9, 2002.
[12] "Photo: Exercise Routine." Las Vegas Review-Journal, August 22, 2001; Steve Vogel, "Flights of Vigilance Over the Capital"; William M. Arkin, Code Names: Deciphering U.S. Military Plans, Programs, and Operations in the 9/11 World. Hanover, NH: Steerforth Press, 2005, p. 476.
[13] Steve Vogel, "Flights of Vigilance Over the Capital."
[14] Lynn Spencer, Touching History, p. 156.
[15] Ibid. pp. 236-237.
[16] William B. Scott, "F-16 Pilots Considered Ramming Flight 93"; Leslie Filson, Air War Over America, p. 79.
[17] Lynn Spencer, Touching History, p. 124.
[18] Leslie Filson, Air War Over America, p. 79; Lynn Spencer, Touching History, pp. 216-218.
[19] Steve Vogel, The Pentagon, p. 445; Lynn Spencer, Touching History, pp. 122-123.
[20] William B. Scott, "F-16 Pilots Considered Ramming Flight 93"; Lynn Spencer, Touching History, p. 124.
[21] 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 9; Lynn Spencer, Touching History, p. 156.
[22] William B. Scott, "F-16 Pilots Considered Ramming Flight 93"; Leslie Filson, Air War Over America, p. 78.
[23] Leslie Filson, Air War Over America, p. 79; Lynn Spencer, Touching History, pp. 155-156.
[24] Steve Vogel, "Flights of Vigilance Over the Capital."
[25] Steve Vogel, The Pentagon, pp. 445-446.
[26] Lynn Spencer, Touching History, pp. 184-185.
[27] Steve Vogel, "Flights of Vigilance Over the Capital."
[28] 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 44.
[29] Steve Vogel, "Flights of Vigilance Over the Capital"; Leslie Filson, Air War Over America, pp. 79-81.
[30] William B. Scott, "F-16 Pilots Considered Ramming Flight 93."
[31] Lynn Spencer, Touching History, pp. 216-220.
[32] Steve Vogel, "Flights of Vigilance Over the Capital."
[33] Leslie Filson, Air War Over America, pp. 81 and 89.
[34] 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 44.
[35] Leslie Filson, Air War Over America, pp. 81-82.
[36] David E. Sanger and Don Van Natta Jr., "In Four Days, a National Crisis Changes Bush's Presidency." New York Times, September 16, 2001; Patrick Creed and Rick Newman, Firefight: Inside the Battle to Save the Pentagon on 9/11. New York: Presidio Press, 2008, pp. 130-131.
[37] William B. Scott, "F-16 Pilots Considered Ramming Flight 93"; Leslie Filson, Air War Over America, pp. 82-84; Steve Vogel, The Pentagon, p. 446.
[38] Lynn Spencer, Touching History, p. 238.
[39] "Andrews Air Force Base: Partner Units."

"Shockingly Calm": The Phone Calls From the Planes on 9/11

A number of people received phone calls the morning of September 11, 2001 that they believed were made by individuals on board the planes that crashed in New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania. Descriptions of these calls, however, reveal something odd. According to the official story we have been told, the callers were in an unprecedented crisis, stuck on planes under the control of murderous terrorists, and with no knowledge of whether they were going to be allowed to live or die. Yet in many of the phone calls, the caller appears to have been remarkably calm. Perhaps if just a few of them--for example, those with specific personal experiences, like the flight attendant who was a former police officer--had maintained their composure, then this would be less remarkable. Yet the large majority of the callers displayed this same calmness. In their recollections, some of the people who received the calls have indeed commented on this fact, apparently surprised by it. Some of them have also commented on the absence of panic, screaming, or other sounds of chaos in the background.

At the very least, these details appear highly unusual. As with much else about the events of 9/11, these phone calls raise serious questions. Were they really being made from the four planes targeted that morning, by passengers and crew members? Or is it possible the perpetrators of the attacks were faking them, in a cruel deception intended to help establish the official story, and this was why the callers were able to maintain such calmness? The calls need to be subjected to far closer and more critical scrutiny than has so far occurred, as part of a real investigation into the attacks, in order to establish the truth.

The following summary shows how odd the calls appear to be:

FLIGHT 11
A computer presentation shown during the 2006 trial of Zacarias Moussaoui summarized the phone calls allegedly made from the four flights targeted on 9/11. According to this presentation, two people successfully made calls from Flight 11, the first plane to supposedly be taken over by hijackers: flight attendants Betty Ong and Madeline "Amy" Sweeney. [1]

Betty Ong called the American Airlines Southeastern Reservations Office in North Carolina, and spoke for about 25 minutes with employees there. Ong said she thought her plane was being hijacked, that two flight attendants had been stabbed and injured, and that a passenger had perhaps been fatally stabbed. She said Mace spray had been used, and "we can't breathe." [2] Despite these harrowing circumstances, as the New York Times described, Ong "could not have sounded much calmer." [3] Nydia Gonzalez, one of the American Airlines employees who received the call, described Ong as speaking in "a very calm, professional, and poised demeanor," and added, "Betty was calm, professional, and in control throughout the call." [4] Reportedly, when Ong's family heard the recording of her call, they "couldn't believe the calm in Betty's voice." [5] In the plane's final moments, when Ong asked those on the other end of her call to "pray for us," she was still speaking "in a composed voice." [6] As the plane approached the World Trade Center, according to Vanessa Minter, another of the employees receiving Ong's call: "You didn't hear hysteria in the background. You didn't hear people screaming." [7]

Amy Sweeney contacted the American Airlines Flight Services Office at Boston's Logan Airport. After her first calls got broken off, she was finally able to speak for 13 minutes, up to about 8:45. Sweeney reported "that the plane had been hijacked; a man in first class had his throat slashed; two flight attendants had been stabbed ... the flight attendants were unable to contact the cockpit; and there was a bomb in the cockpit." [8] Michael Woodward, the manager with whom Sweeney talked, later told the FBI that despite reporting such horrific events, "during the entire conversation," Sweeney's voice "remained calm and even." [9] Even just before Flight 11 crashed, Sweeney retained her composure. After reporting that her plane was flying very low, Woodward recalled, she "took a very slow, deep breath and then just said, 'Oh, my God!' Very slowly, very calmly, very quietly. It wasn't in panic." [10] Furthermore, Woodward noted, he "did not hear any noise in the background during the conversation." [11]

FLIGHT 175
Three people reportedly made successful phone calls from Flight 175, the plane that hit the South Tower of the WTC: one flight attendant and two passengers. While brief descriptions are available of the call made by the attendant--thought to be Robert Fangman--these reveal no details of his level of composure. [12] Some relevant information is available regarding the other calls from this aircraft.

Passenger Brian Sweeney left a short message on his wife's answering machine, and then called his mother. [13] In his message to his wife, Julie, he stated, "The plane I'm on has been hijacked, and it doesn't look good." According to Julie Sweeney, Brian "sounded calm. ... He was not crying." [14] Details of his composure during the call to his mother are unstated. The other passenger, Peter Hanson, twice called his father, and told him about the hijacking. [15] According to the Los Angeles Times, "In the first call, Peter was calm." According to Hanson's father, "His voice was soft, not too nervous." Whether he was also calm in his second call is unstated. [16]

FLIGHT 77
Two individuals have been reported as making phone calls from the third hijacked plane, Flight 77: attendant Renee May and passenger Barbara Olson. No details have been revealed of whether Renee May remained calm during her call. But, according to Newsweek, Barbara Olson phoned her husband and "was calm and collected as she told him how hijackers had used boxcutters and knifes to take control of the plane and had herded the passengers and crew to the back." [17] Her husband Ted Olson--who at that time was the United States solicitor general--described to CNN: "She sounded very, very calm. ... In retrospect, enormously, remarkably, incredibly calm." [18]

FLIGHT 93
The majority of the phone calls made from the planes allegedly came from Flight 93, the aircraft said to have crashed in Pennsylvania after passengers attempted to retake control from the hijackers. At least 12 individuals reportedly made calls. Most of them displayed a surprising degree of calmness.

1) Flight attendant Sandy Bradshaw phoned the United Airlines maintenance facility in San Francisco and reported her plane had been hijacked, and that the hijackers had pulled a knife and killed a flight attendant. The manager who took the call later described Bradshaw as being "shockingly calm." [19] Bradshaw subsequently phoned her husband, who later recalled, "She sounded calm, but like her adrenaline was really going." [20]

2) Another flight attendant, CeeCee Lyles--who was a former police officer--called her husband. He described, "She was surprisingly calm," considering the screaming he heard in the background. [21]

3) Passenger Mark Bingham called his family, and talked to his aunt and his mother. His aunt found him sounding "calm, matter-of-fact." His mother recalled: "His voice was calm. He seemed very much composed, even though I know he must have been under terrible duress." [22] She also said a background discussion between passengers she could hear, about taking back the plane from the hijackers, sounded like a "calm boardroom meeting." [23]

4) Another passenger, Tom Burnett, called his wife Deena four times. Deena Burnett later recalled his third call: "[I]t was as if he was at Thoratec [the company he worked for], sitting at his desk, and we were having a regular conversation. It was the strangest thing because he was using the same tone of voice I had heard a thousand times. It calmed me to know he was so confident." [24] According to journalist and author Jere Longman, in his fourth call, Tom was "speaking in a normal voice, calm." [25]

5) Passenger Lauren Grandcolas called her husband, Jack, and left a message on the answering machine. Jack Grandcolas later recalled, "She sounded calm." [26] According to Jere Longman, "It sounded to Jack as if she were driving home from the grocery store or ordering a pizza." [27] Furthermore, Jack Grandcolas has described: "There is absolutely no background noise on her message. You can't hear people screaming or yelling or crying. It's very calm, the whole cabin, the background, there's really very little sound." [28]

6) Jeremy Glick called his wife, Lyz, and told her his plane had been hijacked. She recalled, "He was so calm, the plane sounded so calm, that if I hadn't seen what was going on on the TV, I wouldn't have believed it." [29] She has added: "I was surprised by how calm it seemed in the background. I didn't hear any screaming. I didn't hear any noises. I didn't hear any commotion." [30]

7) Todd Beamer talked for 13 minutes with GTE-Verizon supervisor Lisa Jefferson. According to Jefferson, Beamer "was amazingly calm and composed as he told her of the hijacking of Flight 93 and passengers' plans to rush their captors." [31] Jefferson said he "stayed calm through the entire conversation. He made me doubt the severity of the call." [32] She later told Beamer's wife, "If I hadn't known it was a real hijacking, I'd have thought it was a crank call, because Todd was so rational and methodical about what he was doing." [33]

8) Honor Elizabeth Wainio spoke with her stepmother, Esther Heymann. Heymann has said that Wainio "really was remarkably calm throughout our whole conversation." [34] According to Jere Longman, when Wainio was not talking, Heymann "could not hear another person. She could not hear any conversation or crying or yelling or whimpering. Nothing." [35]

9) Linda Gronlund left a voice mail message at the home of her sister, saying that terrorists who said they had a bomb had hijacked her plane. [36] Her sister has described that, during the call, Gronlund "got real calm and said, 'Now my will is in my safe and my safe is in my closet. And this is the combination.'" [37]

10) Edward Felt spoke with 911 dispatcher John Shaw just minutes before Flight 93 reportedly crashed, and said his plane had been hijacked. According to Shaw, Felt "was crying ... frightened, scared, and anxious." But Felt's brother Gordon, who heard the recording of the call, has disputed this, saying: "My brother was not scared. He was very composed, under the circumstances." [38] Felt's wife, who heard the recording of the 911 call and also the Flight 93 cockpit voice recording, said Edward "was very calm in the face of death." [39]

Indeed, author Jere Longman said he'd "heard tapes of a couple of the phone calls made from [Flight 93] and was struck by the absence of panic in the voices." [40]

Only two other people are reported to have made successful calls from Flight 93. Passenger Marion Britton appears to be the only clear example of a caller sounding panicked. She called her friend Fred Fiumano. According to Fiumano, Britton "was crying and--you know--more or less crying and screaming and yelling." [41] Fiumano said he heard a lot of screaming in the background near the end of the call. [42] Joseph DeLuca, also a passenger, called his father and reported there were terrorists on his plane. But he has been described simply as having "sounded sad" during the call. [43]

NOTES
[1] U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, "Summary From Flight 93 Depicting: The Identity of Pilots and Flight Attendants, Seat Assignments of Passengers, and Telephone Calls From the Flight." July 31, 2006.
[2] Public Hearing. 9/11 Commission, January 27, 2004; 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. 5.
[3] Philip Shenon, "A Calm Voice as Disaster Unfolded in the Sky." New York Times, January 28, 2004.
[4] Public Hearing. 9/11 Commission, January 27, 2004.
[5] Jennifer Julian, "One of the Last Calls." ABC11 Eyewitness News, September 11, 2002.
[6] Steven Knipp, "Sept. 11: An Angel Named Betty Ong." Pacific News Service, September 8, 2004.
[7] "Calm Before the Crash." ABC News, July 18, 2002.
[8] 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report, pp. 6 and 453; U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, "Summary From Flight 93."
[9] "FBI FD-302, Michael Woodward." Federal Bureau of Investigation, September 14, 2001.
[10] "Calm Before the Crash."
[11] "FBI FD-302, Michael Woodward."
[12] Scott McCartney and Susan Carey, "American, United Watched and Worked in Horror as Sept. 11 Hijackings Unfolded." Wall Street Journal, October 15, 2001; "The Four Flights: Staff Statement No. 4." 9/11 Commission, January 27, 2004; 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report, pp. 7-8; 9/11 Commission, Staff Report. August 26, 2004, p. 21.
[13] 9/11 Commission, Staff Report, p. 22; U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, "Summary From Flight 93."
[14] K. C. Myers, "Message From Air is Final Goodbye." Cape Cod Times, September 12, 2001.
[15] 9/11 Commission, Staff Report, pp. 21-23.
[16] Richard A. Serrano, "Moussaoui Jury Hears the Panic From 9/11." Los Angeles Times, April 11, 2006.
[17] Michael Isikoff, "'I Can't Just Sit Back.'" Newsweek, September 19, 2001.
[18] "Recovering From Tragedy." Larry King Live, CNN, September 14, 2001.
[19] 9/11 Commission, Staff Report, p. 40; United States of America v. Zacarias Moussaoui. United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, April 11, 2006.
[20] Angie Cannon, "Final Words From Flight 93." U.S. News & World Report, October 29, 2001.
[21] Brad Townsend, Chip Brown, and Gerry Fraley, "Trapped in the Skies, Captives Fought Back." Dallas Morning News, September 17, 2001.
[22] "World Leaders Express Horror, Outrage." CNN, September 12, 2001; Jere Longman, Among the Heroes: United Flight 93 and the Passengers and Crew Who Fought Back. New York: HarperCollins, 2002, pp. 129-130.
[23] Phil Hirschkorn, "More 9/11 Families Testify for Moussaoui." CNN, April 21, 2006.
[24] Deena Burnett with Anthony Giombetti, Fighting Back: Living Life Beyond Ourselves. Altamonte Springs, FL: Advantage Books, 2006, p. 66.
[25] Jere Longman, Among the Heroes, p. 118.
[26] David Segal, "A Red Carpet Tragedy." Washington Post, April 26, 2006.
[27] Jere Longman, Among the Heroes, p. 128.
[28] United 93: The Families and the Film. Directed by Kate Solomon, Working Title Films, 2006.
[29] Matthew Brown, "Hero's Family Perseveres." Bergen Record, October 5, 2001.
[30] Jane Pauley, "No Greater Love." NBC News, September 11, 2006.
[31] Jim McKinnon, "13-Minute Call Bonds her Forever With Hero." Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, September 22, 2001.
[32] Wendy Schuman, "'I Promised I Wouldn't Hang Up.'" Beliefnet, 2006.
[33] Lisa Beamer and Ken Abraham, Let's Roll!: Ordinary People, Extraordinary Courage. Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 2002, p. 211.
[34] "Stories of Flight 93." Larry King Live, CNN, February 18, 2006.
[35] Jere Longman, Among the Heroes, pp. 171-172.
[36] 9/11 Commission, Staff Report, p. 44.
[37] Jane Pauley, "No Greater Love."
[38] Richard Gazarik, "Felt Reaches 911 Just Before Crash." Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, September 8, 2002.
[39] Chuck Biedka, "911 Dispatcher Recalls Frantic Cell Phone Call From Flight 93." Valley News Dispatch, September 11, 2002.
[40] Jere Longman, Among the Heroes, p. xi.
[41] Jane Pauley, "No Greater Love."
[42] "FBI FD-302, Unidentified Person re: Marion Britton." Federal Bureau of Investigation, September 20, 2001; United States of America v. Zacarias Moussaoui.
[43] Jere Longman, Among the Heroes, p. 161.

Pentagon Medics Thought 9/11 Attack Was Part of a Drill

The morning of September 11, 2001, the U.S. Army's DiLorenzo Tricare Health Clinic (DTHC) had over 200 staff members working in its offices at the Pentagon, available to offer primary and emergency care to Department of Defense employees. [1] Following the attack on the Pentagon, DTHC workers were involved with the emergency response, performing triage and treatment in the clinic and at other locations within the building. [2]

Curiously, several DTHC workers have indicated that, when they were ordered to evacuate after the Pentagon was hit, they initially thought this was a drill. Admittedly, the clinic is located in the basement and on the east of the building--the opposite side to where it was impacted--and so people there had not heard or felt the crash. [3] Yet, considering that the two crashes occurring in New York made it obvious the U.S. was under attack, this reaction seems surprising. An examination of the accounts of these workers and other evidence raises the possibility that their confusion was because a drill was scheduled to take place there that day. Remarkably, there is evidence that such a drill might have been based around a plane hitting the Pentagon.

WITNESS ACCOUNTS
Captain Jennifer Glidewell, the chief nurse at the acute care section of the DTHC, has described how she mistook the evacuation for part of a training exercise. Like numerous others at the clinic, Glidewell had seen the TV coverage reporting the attacks in New York. When informed that two planes--not one--had hit the World Trade Center, she said out loud: "That wasn't an accident. That was terrorism." A man had then run through the clinic, looking serious and yelling, "Everybody get out!" Glidewell started evacuating the place, herself leaving with Sergeant Matthew Rosenberg, a medic there. Yet Glidewell has recalled that, as she and Rosenberg saw "throngs of people going out," they were "thinking fire drill. I still had not made the connection." [4]

After being told there was a patient in the Pentagon's center courtyard requiring attention, Glidewell and Rosenberg headed there. [5] Authors Patrick Creed and Rick Newman have described, "When they entered the courtyard, the first thing they saw was smoke, billowing up out of the opposite side of the building." They saw a man, "running with his arms up in the air, screaming, his clothes hanging off him like rags." Yet Glidewell thought this was part of a training exercise: "When Glidewell saw his face, her first thought was that it was the best moulage job she had ever seen. Moulage was the makeup medical practitioners put on mock patients during exercises, to simulate injuries." Only as she realized his injuries were genuine did reality sink in. She grabbed her radio and yelled into it: "This is not a drill! This is real!" [6]

Other DiLorenzo Clinic employees have also recalled mistaking the response to the Pentagon attack for a drill:

• Dr. Veena Railan was examining a patient when she heard the call to evacuate. She recalled: "I was not very sure what was happening, what was going on at that time. Maybe this is a drill because of what happened in New York." [7]
• U.S. Air Force Surgeon General Paul Carlton had been at the Pentagon for a meeting. [8] After the building was hit, he'd gone to the DTHC and volunteered to head a team of medics that was going to the center courtyard. [9] As they rushed there, a young sergeant "was under the impression that this crash was yet another exercise." Carlton told him, "I think this one's for real, my friend." [10]
• Captain Liza Lindenberg, a physician at the DTHC, heard about the WTC being hit. She was discussing this with a couple of colleagues, "and we were jokingly saying that maybe we should go home for the day because of the incident." She then "heard a thud, like a construction crane, and then all of a sudden people started yelling that we should be evacuating." However, "Not until we went out the door did I see these plumes of smoke and thought, this is definitely not a drill." [11]
• Major Bridget Larew had been told two planes had hit the WTC. She realized, "That wasn't a coincidence; that is terrorism." After the man ran through the clinic, yelling at everyone to evacuate, she saw "people streaming by the glass doors as they were exiting the building." She said aloud, "I don't think this is an exercise." After helping an injured victim, she "went back out to the front desk to see if I had other providers because, by now, the people, our medical teams were starting to come back in the building, realizing that this was not a drill and that they needed to be here with us to get supplies and stuff." [12]
• Staff Sergeant Keith Pernell saw the television footage of the second plane hitting the WTC and was thinking, "What's going on?" Although he did not hear or feel the impact when the Pentagon was hit, he heard the order to "Get out!" Yet, he has recalled, "We just thought it was a regular fire drill." [13]
• Sergeant Mark Maxey Davis knew about the first--but not the second--plane hitting the WTC. When someone walked into the office he was in and said they all needed to evacuate the building, he has recalled, "I just thought it was a routine fire drill or something like that." As he walked out, he "didn't grab anything because, again, I just thought it was something routine." When he got outside, he saw people running from the center courtyard. As he was leaving the North Parking area, he looked back and saw the smoke coming from the Pentagon. Yet he "wasn't even afraid then because I just thought it was maybe something caught on fire." [14]

While these accounts do not prove the DTHC was due to take part in a training exercise that day, other evidence further supports this possibility.

MORE EVIDENCE OF A DRILL AT THE PENTAGON ON 9/11
Major Lorie Brown was the chief nurse at the DiLorenzo Tricare Health Clinic on September 11. According to Brown, the clinic "actually had our MASCAL equipment out of the storage areas" that morning, "because we were doing an inventory." ("MASCAL" equipment is that which is required for situations with "mass casualties.") Brown has continued: "So there were many pieces that just fell into place and worked so well on that day. It was just fortuitous. It was just amazing that way that things kind of happened the way they did." [15]

Sergeant Matthew Rosenberg said that, on September 11: "We had virtually completed our MASCAL plan. I was setting up training for medics, I was in the process of ordering new supplies, and trying to reinvent what we would do, how we would go about it." Furthermore, "Believe it or not, the day prior to" September 11, he had been "on the phone with the FBI, and we were talking, 'so who has command should this happen, who has the medical jurisdiction, who does this, who does that,' and we talked about it and talked about it, and he helped me out a lot." [16] Might Brown and Rosenberg have been implying they had been preparing for a training exercise due to take place on 9/11?

What is more, as the Washington Post reported, early in the morning of September 11, before the attacks occurred in New York, Rosenberg had been "down on Corridor 8" of the Pentagon (where the DTHC is located), "grateful for an uninterrupted hour in which he could study a new medical emergency disaster plan based on the unlikely scenario of an airplane crashing into the place." [17] Could he have been studying this in preparation for an exercise that day, which would be based on a plane crashing into the Pentagon?

PRE-9/11 PLANE CRASH EXERCISES
Extraordinary as this possibility may sound, it would not have been the first time the DTHC participated in such a drill. The clinic had been involved in at least two training exercises in the 12 months prior to 9/11, based around the scenario of an aircraft crashing into the Pentagon. The DiLorenzo Clinic's Action Response Team (DART) had been developing a new MASCAL plan and, for that purpose, participated in several large tabletop exercises with other organizations such as the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and civilian medical agencies. [18]

In late October 2000, Lorie Brown and others from the DTHC took part in the Pentagon Mass Casualty Exercise, held in the Office of the Secretary of Defense conference room. One of the scenarios practiced for was a passenger aircraft crashing into the Pentagon, with 341 victims. [19] And in May 2001, the DTHC held an exercise along with the Air Force Flight Medicine Clinic and Arlington County Emergency Medical Services, which practiced for the scenario of an airplane with 35 passengers on board crashing into the Pentagon's west face--the same side as was impacted in the attack on 9/11. [20]

We therefore have evidence indicating the DiLorenzo Tricare Health Clinic was due to hold a training exercise on September 11, and that this exercise may have been based around the scenario of a plane hitting the Pentagon. Certainly this possibility is something that needs to be urgently examined as part of a new investigation of 9/11. If a training exercise was scheduled to take place at the Pentagon that day, what precisely did it involve? When was it due to start? Who planned it? And why has its existence never been publicly admitted?

NOTES
[1] Alfred Goldberg et al., Pentagon 9/11. Washington, DC: Defense Department, Office of the Secretary, Historical Office, 2007, p. 107.
[2] 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. B1.
[3] Janet Boivin, "Pentagon Nurse Quells Chaos of Terrorist Attack." Nursing Spectrum, September 24, 2001; Soldiers to the Rescue: The Medical Response to the Pentagon Attack. Washington, DC: Office of Medical History, September 2004, pp. 7 and 111; Alfred Goldberg et al., Pentagon 9/11, p. 107; Patrick Creed and Rick Newman, Firefight: Inside the Battle to Save the Pentagon on 9/11. New York: Presidio Press, 2008, p. 57.
[4] Soldiers to the Rescue, p. 19; Patrick Creed and Rick Newman, Firefight, pp. 57-58.
[5] Soldiers to the Rescue, p. 39.
[6] Ibid. p. 19; Patrick Creed and Rick Newman, Firefight, p. 58.
[7] Soldiers to the Rescue, p. 125.
[8] Dean E. Murphy, September 11: An Oral History. New York: Doubleday, 2002, p. 216.
[9] Alfred Goldberg et al., Pentagon 9/11, p. 109.
[10] Dean E. Murphy, September 11: An Oral History, p. 222.
[11] Soldiers to the Rescue, p. 85.
[12] Ibid. p. 83.
[13] Ibid. p. 111.
[14] Ibid. p. 69.
[15] Ibid. p. 7.
[16] Ibid. p. 39.
[17] David Maraniss, "September 11, 2001." Washington Post, September 16, 2001.
[18] Soldiers to the Rescue, p. 7.
[19] Dennis Ryan, "Contingency Planning Pentagon MASCAL Exercise Simulates Scenarios in Preparing for Emergencies." MDW News Service, November 3, 2000.
[20] Arlington County, After-Action Report on the Response to the September 11 Terrorist Attack on the Pentagon, p. B17; James A. Geiling, "Overview of Command and Control Issues: Setting the Stage." Military Medicine, September 2002; Alfred Goldberg et al., Pentagon 9/11, pp. 23 and 107.

Richard Clarke, 9/11, and the Continuity of Government Plan

The morning of 9/11, a highly secret plan was activated for the first time. Called continuity of government (COG), it dated back to the cold war and had originally been designed to ensure the U.S. government would continue to function in the event of a nuclear war. According to author James Mann, this little-known plan "helps to explain the thinking and behavior" of the Bush administration, "in the hours, days, and months after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001." [1]

Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney, who on 9/11 were the secretary of defense and vice president, were key players in the COG program throughout the 1980s. Both regularly participated in secret exercises rehearsing the plan. Furthermore, a third Bush administration official was also a major player. That person was Richard Clarke, who on September 11 was the White House chief of counterterrorism. Not only was he a regular participant in the COG exercises, Clarke also wrote a presidential directive that in 1998 changed the focus of the program from the Soviet threat to the threat posed by terrorists. And, according to his own recollection, it was Clarke that initiated COG on the morning of 9/11. This means that on September 11, individuals in three of the most important positions within the U.S. government, who all had crucial roles to play during the attacks, had in common their participation in this most secretive and mysterious program.

RICHARD CLARKE ON 9/11
In his book Against All Enemies, Richard Clarke described how he personally ordered the COG plan into effect during the 9/11 attacks. At around 9:45-9:55 that morning, he had been joined in the White House Situation Room by the coordinator for continuity of government. Clarke asked him, "How do I activate COG?" According to Clarke, "In the exercises we had done, the person playing the president had always given that order." But the coordinator replied, "You tell me to do it." Clarke ordered him, "Go." [2]

If this account is accurate, then Clarke's central role in COG becomes obvious: He was able to initiate the plan, performing a task conducted by the acting president during exercises.

Clarke has explained what happened next: "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." Cabinet officers were dispatched around the U.S., and members of Congress were taken to alternative locations. According to ABC News, "If executive branch leaders and large numbers of congressmen had been killed ... the plan could have gone further, officials suggest, perhaps even with non-elected leaders of the United States taking control and declaring martial law." [3]

RICHARD CLARKE PARTICIPATES IN COG EXERCISES
In 2004, Clarke revealed that over the previous 20 years he had been a regular participant in exercises where he had "gone off into caves in mountains in remote locations and spent days on end in miserable conditions, pretending that the rest of the world had blown up." [4] As part of a program with a secret budget of hundreds of millions of dollars per year, these exercises rehearsed the COG plan. During the 1980s, teams of 40 to 60 federal officials, plus a member of President Reagan's Cabinet, would disappear at least once a year to a remote location such as an underground bunker or a disused military base. There they would practice in detail how to keep the federal government running during and after a nuclear war with the Soviet Union. Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney were also among those who regularly participated in these exercises. [5]

Despite the fall of the Soviet Union, the exercises continued throughout the 1990s and the program's budget remained at over $200 million a year. But now the exercises practiced for the threat posed by terrorists. [6]

PDD-67: TERRORISM BECOMES THE NEW THREAT
In early 1998, while he was the chair of the White House's Counterterrorism Security Group (CSG), Richard Clarke wrote the Presidential Decision Directive (PDD) that updated the COG program to make its focus terrorism rather than the Soviet Union. As he later explained: "We thought that individual buildings in Washington, and indeed perhaps all of Washington, could still come under attack, only it might not be from the former Soviet Union. ... It might be with a terrorist walking a weapon into our city." [7] Clarke has recalled, "If terrorists could attack Washington, particularly with weapons of mass destruction, we needed to have a robust system of command and control, with plans to devolve authority and capabilities to officials outside Washington." President Clinton signed Clarke's directive on October 21, 1998, as Presidential Decision Directive 67, "Enduring Constitutional Government and Continuity of Government Operations." [8]

This top-secret document has never been released, and there is no White House fact sheet summarizing its contents. [9] But Knight Ridder reported in 1999 that PDD-67 required "agencies to prepare plans for governmental continuity if the country is hit by a major terrorist attack." According to Energy Department emergency planning documents, the continuity plans "could be triggered by an event worse than what's expected from the Y2K problem and comparable to the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing." [10] The Washington Post reported that, under PDD-67: "[E]very single government department and agency was directed to see to it that they could resume critical functions within 12 hours of a warning, and keep their operations running at emergency facilities for up to 30 days. FEMA [the Federal Emergency Management Agency] was put in charge of this broad new program." [11] The fact that he wrote such a key document again shows the central role Clarke must have had within the COG program. And, as it could be triggered "by an event ... comparable to the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing," it appears that Clarke's directive may be what enabled COG to be activated in response to the 9/11 attacks.

REPUBLICAN HAWKS
In light of his involvement with the continuity of government program, it is worth noting that, while he has become well known for his criticisms of the Bush administration's pre-9/11 failures, Richard Clarke is by no means a peace-loving liberal. Some who have known him have in fact described quite the opposite. According to the Washington Post, many in the Clinton administration viewed him as a hawk. [12] Robert Gelbard, who worked with him at the State Department in the early 1990s, said Clarke is "no liberal. He is very hawkish." [13] Larry DiCara, the former president of the Boston City Council, who knew Clarke when he was younger, has described him as "fiercely conservative at a time when just about everyone in Boston was a Democrat." DiCara added, "I'm amazed he worked for [President] Clinton." [14]

As early as February 1999, Clarke was articulating the desire for a particularly aggressive foreign policy, telling the Associated Press: "We may not just go in a strike against a terrorist facility. We may choose to retaliate against the facilities of the host country, if that host country is a knowing, cooperative sanctuary." [15] In April 2000, he told the Washington Post: "We should have a very low barrier in terms of acting when there is a threat of weapons of mass destruction being used against American citizens. We should not have a barrier of evidence that can be used in a court of law." [16] That year, The Independent called Clarke "the Dr. Strangelove de nos jours," while The Spectator magazine later described him as having "frequently sounded more Bush-like than Bush," prior to his much-publicized attacks on the president in 2004. [17]

Indeed, according to journalist and author Andrew Cockburn, during the 1990s, the COG exercises Clarke participated in were attended "almost exclusively" by Republican hawks. A former Pentagon official with direct knowledge has described: "It was one way for these people to stay in touch. They'd meet, do the exercise, but also sit around and castigate the Clinton administration in the most extreme way. You could say this was a secret government-in-waiting. The Clinton administration was extraordinarily inattentive, [they had] no idea what was going on." [18]

NOTES
[1] James Mann, "The Armageddon Plan." Atlantic Monthly, March 2004.
[2] Richard Clarke, Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror. New York: Free Press, 2004, p. 8.
[3] "Worst Case Scenario: Secret Plan to Control U.S. Government After an Attack Went Into Motion on 9/11." ABC News, April 25, 2004.
[4] Howard Kurtz, "'Armageddon' Plan Was Put Into Action on 9/11, Clarke Says." Washington Post, April 7, 2004.
[5] James Mann, "The Armageddon Plan."
[6] Andrew Cockburn, Rumsfeld: His Rise, Fall, and Catastrophic Legacy. New York: Scribner, 2007, p. 88.
[7] CBS News, September 11, 2001.
[8] Richard Clarke, Against All Enemies, pp. 167 and 170; William M. Arkin, "Back to the Bunker." Washington Post, June 4, 2006.
[9] "PDD-NSC-67: Enduring Constitutional Government and Continuity of Government Operations (U) 21 October 1998." Federation of American Scientists, December 12, 2000.
[10] Jim Landers, "Government Uses Y2K Lessons in its Blueprint for Cyber-Terror Defenses." Knight Ridder, November 17, 1999.
[11] William M. Arkin, "Back to the Bunker."
[12] Dan Eggen and Walter Pincus, "The Book on Richard Clarke." Washington Post, March 23, 2004.
[13] David E. Kaplan, "Clarke: A Man on a Mission." U.S. News & World Report, April 5, 2004.
[14] David Abel, "Conservative Side Showed in Hub Days." Boston Globe, March 29, 2004.
[15] "USA Claims Right to Bomb Kabul." Associated Press, February 8, 1999.
[16] Michael Dobbs, "An Obscure Chief in U.S. War on Terror." Washington Post, April 2, 2000.
[17] Andrew Marshall, "Losing the War for Justice Against the 'Islamic Menace.'" The Independent, August 23, 2000; Mark Steyn, "Murderous Rhetoric." The Spectator, April 10, 2004.
[18] Andrew Cockburn, Rumsfeld, p. 88.

Was 10:45 a.m. the Originally Planned Demolition Time of WTC 7?

At 11:07 a.m. in the morning of September 11, 2001, a CNN correspondent in New York reported that a third tower had possibly collapsed. While this report was incorrect, it is interesting to note that the reporter's description could have applied to World Trade Center Building 7. This huge skyscraper was indeed the third tower to collapse on 9/11. However it did not come down until late in the afternoon, more than six hours after this report.

CNN correspondent Allan Dodds Frank reported by phone from Lower Manhattan. He described: "[J]ust two or three minutes ago there was yet another collapse or explosion. I'm now out of sight, a Good Samaritan has taken me in on Duane Street. But at a quarter to 11, there was another collapse or explosion following the 10:30 collapse of the second tower. And a firefighter who rushed by us estimated that 50 stories went down. The street filled with smoke. It was like a forest fire roaring down a canyon." [1]

WTC 7 was a 47-story tower, so would have fitted the description of the estimated "50 stories" described by Frank. And it did indeed collapse completely. One could in fact accurately describe its demise with Frank's words: "The street filled with smoke. It was like a forest fire roaring down a canyon." However, this collapse did not happen until 5:20 that afternoon.

What could have led Frank to make his incorrect report? Surely, even in the chaos of that morning, it would have been quite difficult for a mistaken report of another massive skyscraper coming down to have emerged out of nothing. Could the reason be that WTC 7 had originally been scheduled to be brought down (with explosives) at 10:45 a.m.? The incorrect information Frank reported had therefore been put out, by persons unknown, on the assumption that this would be the case. However, something--as yet unknown to us--happened that meant the demolition had to be delayed, and so Building 7 was not ready to be brought down until late that afternoon.

10:45 a.m. would certainly seem a far more logical time for the masterminds behind 9/11 to have wanted to bring down WTC 7. At that time, just 17 minutes after the North Tower had come down, the collapse of a third skyscraper would have appeared less obviously suspicious. It would have been easier for those involved with covering up the truth about 9/11 to claim this collapse was simply a consequence of the two earlier ones. Instead, however, the collapse at 5:20 p.m. appeared completely inexplicable. (Unless, of course, it was a controlled demolition.)

MORE REPORTS OF A THIRD COLLAPSE
What makes Frank's report particularly notable is that there were other incorrect reports of a third building having collapsed--or at least being in danger of collapsing--later in the day, though these made specific reference to WTC 7. These went out in the hour or so before Building 7 came down:

At 4:15 p.m., CNN reported, "We're getting information that one of the other buildings ... Building 7 ... is on fire and has either collapsed or is collapsing." At 4:27, Greg Barrow reported from New York for the BBC radio channel Five Live, "We are hearing reports from local media that another building may have caught light and is in danger of collapse." He added, "I'm not sure if it has yet collapsed, but the report we have is talking about Building 7." At 4:54, presenter Gavin Esler reported on the BBC's domestic television news channel, BBC News 24: "We're now being told that yet another enormous building has collapsed. ... It is the 47-story Salomon Brothers building." At 4:57, presenter Phil Hayton announced on the BBC's international channel, BBC World, "We've got some news just coming in actually that the Salomon Brothers building in New York right in the heart of Manhattan has also collapsed." [2] However, WTC 7 (the "Salomon Brothers building") did not collapse until almost 25 minutes later.

WHY PUT OUT ADVANCE REPORTS OF THE COLLAPSE?
These reports indicated that some people knew in advance that Building 7 was going to come down. This would have been quite a feat, since, as the New York Times put it, "before then, no modern, steel-reinforced high-rise in the United States had ever collapsed in a fire." [3]

Perhaps the real reason we heard these premature reports was that this information had somehow been passed to the media by the 9/11 perpetrators, as a cautious attempt at preventing speculation that WTC 7 was brought down with explosives. This was clearly what the collapse resembled, with the building falling completely and symmetrically into its own footprint in just 6.6 seconds. Indeed, CBS News anchor Dan Rather commented at the time that it was "reminiscent of ... when a building was deliberately destroyed by well-placed dynamite to knock it down." [4]

Speculation such as this would surely have been a threat to the official 9/11 story, as it might lead people to ponder whether--rather than being committed by Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda--the attacks were an "inside job." To stifle any such debate, an official narrative would need to have been put out promptly. Perhaps this was why at 5:10 p.m.--still before WTC 7 had come down--the BBC's Phil Hayton reported: "[Y]ou might have heard I was talking a few moments ago about the Salomon building collapsing and indeed it has. ... It seems this wasn't the result of a new attack but because the building had been weakened during this morning's attack." [5] It appears the information had been put out already, not only that WTC 7 had collapsed, but also that it had come down without the use of explosives: It collapsed because "the building had been weakened during this morning's attack."

And thus, the cover-up had begun.

NOTES
[1] "America Under Attack." Breaking News, CNN, September 11, 2001.
[2] These reports are summarized in Richard Porter, "Part of the Conspiracy? (2)." BBC News, March 2, 2007.
[3] James Glanz and Eric Lipton, "Burning Diesel is Cited in Fall of 3rd Tower." New York Times, March 2, 2002.
[4] CBS News, September 11, 2001.
[5] Quoted in Richard Porter, "Part of the Conspiracy? (2)."

Husband of Flight 93 Attendant: "Cell Phones Don't Work on a Plane ..."

The husband of a flight attendant on one of the four planes that crashed on 9/11 has, during an interview, revealed his astonishment at receiving a cell phone call from his wife that morning. The reason for his surprise: "because cell phones don't work on a plane."

The interview appeared on the 2006 documentary DVD, Portrait of Courage: The Untold Story of Flight 93. In it Lorne Lyles, a police officer in Florida, described how, at around 9:51 a.m. on September 11, he received a call from his wife, CeeCee Lyles, who was a flight attendant on United 93. She told him her plane had been hijacked and that she and some others were getting ready to "go to the cockpit." Lorne described that, after the call got disconnected: "I looked at the caller ID, and noticed that it was a call, and it was from her cell phone. And I'm like, OK, wait a minute. How can she call me from on the plane from a cell phone, because cell phones don't work on a plane? That's what I'm thinking." [1]

EXPERT OPINIONS
Lorne Lyles' concern was understandable. An article published by the Travel Technologist shortly after 9/11 stated: "[W]ireless communications networks weren't designed for ground-to-air communication. Cellular experts privately admit that they're surprised the calls were able to be placed from the hijacked planes, and that they lasted as long as they did." [2] Wireless Review similarly commented: "Because wireless networks are designed for terrestrial use, the fact that so many people were able to call from the sky [on September 11] brings into question how the phones worked from such altitudes. Alexa Graf, AT&T spokesperson, said systems are not designed for calls from high altitudes, suggesting it was almost a fluke that the calls reached their destinations." [3]

To investigate this matter, scientist A. K. Dewdney conducted a series of experiments using mobile phones from a small propeller aircraft, over the city of London, Ontario in Canada. (He noted that, "not only is the cell phone technological base in Canada identical to its U.S. counterpart, but Canadian communication technology is second to none, Canada being a world leader in research and development." [4]) Dewdney found:

[C]ell phone calls from commercial aircraft much over 8,000 feet are essentially impossible, while those below 8,000 feet are highly unlikely down to about 2,000, where they become merely unlikely. Moreover, even at the latter altitude (and below), the handoff problem appears. Any airliner at or below this altitude, flying at the normal speed of approximately 500 mph, would encounter the handoff problem. An aircraft traveling at this speed would not be over the cell site long enough to complete the electronic "handshake" (which takes several seconds to complete) before arriving over the next cell site, when the call has to be handed off from the first cell site to the next one. This also takes a few seconds, the result being, in the optimal case, a series of broken transmissions that must end, sooner or later, in failure. [5]

TOM BURNETT'S FOUR CELL PHONE CALLS
A similar concern to that expressed by Lorne Lyles may also have been hinted at by Deena Burnett, whose husband Tom Burnett apparently called her four times from on board Flight 93. In her own book, published in 2006, Deena Burnett described receiving the first of these calls from her husband at 9:27 a.m. on September 11: "I looked at the caller ID and indeed it was Tom's cell phone number." Deena, who during the early 1990s had worked as a flight attendant for Delta Airlines, asked Tom: "Where are you? Are you in the air?" She commented in her book, "I didn't understand how he could be calling me on his cell phone from the air." [6]

Later in the day of 9/11, Deena told the FBI that "only one" of the calls she'd received from her husband "did not show on the caller identification." The reason for this was simply that "she was on the line with another call" when it was made. Otherwise, she had been "able to determine that her husband was using his own cellular telephone" on all his calls, "because the caller identification showed his number." [7]

Yet if cell phone calls like these would have been so unlikely from an aircraft in flight, what was really going on that morning? Was it just a "fluke" that these and other alleged passenger cell phone calls got through? Or, alternatively, might the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks have been involved in a sinister and malicious deception, to make the victims' relatives mistakenly believe they had been called from the hijacked flights?

NOTES
[1] Portrait of Courage: The Untold Story of Flight 93. DVD. Directed by David Priest. Baker City, OR: Grizzly Adams Productions, 2006.
[2] Christopher Elliott, "Will They Allow Cell Phones on Planes?" Travel Technologist, September 19, 2001.
[3] Betsy Harter, "Final Contact." Wireless Review, November 1, 2001.
[4] A. K. Dewdney, "'Project Achilles': Final (Third) Report and Summary of Findings." Physics 911, April 19, 2003.
[5] A. K. Dewdney, "The Cellphone and Airfone Calls from Flight UA93." Physics 911, undated.
[6] Deena Burnett with Anthony Giombetti, Fighting Back: Living Life Beyond Ourselves. Altamonte Springs, FL: Advantage Books, 2006, p. 61.
[7] "Interview with Deena Lynne Burnett (re: Phone Call from Hijacked Flight)." Federal Bureau of Investigation, September 11, 2001.

Bombs in the Pentagon on 9/11? Witness Accounts Raise Questions

Several accounts reveal that some witnesses who were at the Pentagon when it was attacked on 9/11, and located close to where the building was struck, initially were quite sure a bomb--or bombs--had gone off. These accounts are particularly notable since these individuals were members of the armed forces, and therefore familiar with what explosives sounded and felt like. While they may not tell us anything conclusive, these reports raise questions about what actually happened at the Pentagon that morning:

• John Thurman, a U.S. Army lieutenant colonel, was in a second floor office just above where the Pentagon was hit. He has described the attack: "To me it didn't seem like a plane." Although he was aware that aircraft had hit the World Trade Center, he has recalled: "[T]o me, it seemed like it was a bomb. Being in the military, I have been around grenade, artillery explosions. It was a two-part explosion to me. ... [I]t seemed like that there was a percussion blast that blew me kind of backwards in my cubicle to the side. And then it seemed as if a massive explosion went off at the same time." He described what happened next: "[I]t just felt like this rolling earthquake going on underneath me. And in reflection, I realize that it was the plane that was actually underneath me. But at the time, again, I had thought that perhaps the terrorists had surreptitiously gotten construction workers to come in and place explosives, and they had perhaps commanded--detonated them synchronous with what was going on in New York." [1]

• Lieutenant Nancy McKeown ran a small meteorological unit in the Navy Command Center on the first floor of the Pentagon's D Ring--an area that was mostly destroyed when the building was hit. She described the attack: "[T]he building started to vibrate and things started to fall. And it initially felt like an earthquake. As the, as time progressed, the shaking of the building got violent. The noises got louder and louder." She added, "It sounded like a series of explosions going off." A colleague yelled out, and she "yelled back, bomb." When asked about the incident, "At that point you thought a bomb had gone off in the Pentagon?" McKeown replied: "That's correct. It sounded like a series of bombs exploding, similar to like firecrackers when you light them and you just get a series going off. But they got very loud, very extensive." [2]

• Army Major Craig Collier and his colleagues were in their second floor office, about 200 feet from where the Pentagon was hit. Collier described the moment of the attack: "[T]he building jolted and we heard a muffled boom, then a rumble. ... All of my peers in the area are experienced combat arms officers, and we quickly agreed that it sounded and felt like a bomb." [3]

Considering these accounts, it is perhaps interesting to note the following description of the physical effects of the attack, which was given in the U.S. Department of Defense's book Pentagon 9/11: "The Jet A fuel atomized and quickly combusted, causing explosive bursts as the plane hurtled into the building. A detonation 150 feet inside the building resulted from a 'fuel-air' explosion after the Jet A tanks disintegrated on impact. Here, as elsewhere, there was no uniform pattern of death and destruction. The vagaries of the fuel-air explosions and freakish blast effects meant deaths occurred randomly inside the Pentagon, with the occupants of seemingly more secure interior offices sometimes suffering worse fates than those nearer the outside wall." [Emphasis added] [4]

While these accounts provide us with no clear answers, they do show, again, why we need a proper investigation of 9/11--one that will include a thorough and unrestrained examination of what happened at the Pentagon that day.

NOTES
[1] United States of America v. Zacarias Moussaoui. United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, April 11, 2006.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Alfred Goldberg et al., Pentagon 9/11. Washington, DC: Defense Department, Office of the Secretary, Historical Office, 2007, p. 26.
[4] Ibid. p. 37.