9/11 Live: The NORAD Tapes

[Guest guest]

Please to listen to recordinds at NORAD on 9/11:

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http://www.vanityfair.com/features/general/060801fege01

 

9/11 Live: The NORAD Tapes

How did the U.S. Air Force respond on 9/11? Could it have shot down

United 93, as conspiracy theorists claim? Obtaining 30 hours of

never-before-released tapes from the control room of NORAD's Northeast

headquarters, the author reconstructs the chaotic military history of

that day—and the Pentagon's apparent attempt to cover it up. VF.com

exclusive: Hear excerpts from the September 11 NORAD tapes. Click PLAY

after each transcript to listen

By MICHAEL BRONNER

 

ucked in a piney notch in the gentle folds of the Adirondacks'

southern skirts—just up from a derelict Mohawk, Adirondack & Northern

rail spur—is a 22-year-old aluminum bunker tricked out with antennae

tilted skyward. It could pass for the Jetsons' garage or, in the

estimation of one of the higher-ranking U.S. Air Force officers

stationed there, a big, sideways, half-buried beer keg.

 

As Major Kevin Nasypany, the facility's mission-crew commander, drove

up the hill to work on the morning of 9/11, he was dressed in his

flight suit and prepared for battle. Not a real one. The Northeast Air

Defense Sector (NEADS), where Nasypany had been stationed since 1994,

is the regional headquarters for the North American Aerospace Defense

Command (NORAD), the Cold War–era military organization charged with

protecting North American airspace. As he poured his first coffee on

that sunny September morning, the odds that he would have to defend

against Russian " Bear Bombers, " one of NORAD's traditional simulated

missions, were slim. Rather, Nasypany (pronounced Nah-sip-a-nee), an

amiable commander with a thick mini-mustache and a hockey player's

build, was headed in early to get ready for the NORAD-wide training

exercise he'd helped design. The battle commander, Colonel Bob Marr,

had promised to bring in fritters.

 

NEADS is a desolate place, the sole orphan left behind after the

dismantling of what was once one of the country's busiest bomber

bases—Griffiss Air Force Base, in Rome, New York, which was otherwise

mothballed in the mid-90s. NEADS's mission remained in place and

continues today: its officers, air-traffic controllers, and

air-surveillance and communications technicians—mostly American, with

a handful of Canadian troops—are responsible for protecting a

half-million-square-mile chunk of American airspace stretching from

the East Coast to Tennessee, up through the Dakotas to the Canadian

border, including Boston, New York, Washington, D.C., and Chicago.

 

It was into this airspace that violence descended on 9/11, and from

the NEADS operations floor that what turned out to be the sum total of

America's military response during those critical 100-some minutes of

the attack—scrambling four armed fighter jets and one unarmed training

plane—emanated.

 

The story of what happened in that room, and when, has never been

fully told, but is arguably more important in terms of understanding

America's military capabilities that day than anything happening

simultaneously on Air Force One or in the Pentagon, the White House,

or NORAD's impregnable headquarters, deep within Cheyenne Mountain, in

Colorado. It's a story that was intentionally obscured, some members

of the 9/11 commission believe, by military higher-ups and members of

the Bush administration who spoke to the press, and later the

commission itself, in order to downplay the extent of the confusion

and miscommunication flying through the ranks of the government.

 

The truth, however, is all on tape.

 

Through the heat of the attack the wheels of what were, perhaps, some

of the more modern pieces of equipment in the room—four Dictaphone

multi-channel reel-to-reel tape recorders mounted on a rack in a

corner of the operations floor—spun impassively, recording every radio

channel, with time stamps.

 

The recordings are fascinating and chilling. A mix of staccato bursts

of military code; urgent, overlapping voices; the tense crackle of

radio traffic from fighter pilots in the air; commanders' orders

piercing through a mounting din; and candid moments of emotion as the

breadth of the attacks becomes clearer.

 

For the NEADS crew, 9/11 was not a story of four hijacked airplanes,

but one of a heated chase after more than a dozen potential

hijackings—some real, some phantom—that emerged from the turbulence of

misinformation that spiked in the first 100 minutes of the attack and

continued well into the afternoon and evening. At one point, in the

span of a single mad minute, one hears Nasypany struggling to parse

reports of four separate hijackings at once. What emerges from the

barrage of what Nasypany dubs " bad poop " flying at his troops from all

directions is a picture of remarkable composure. Snap decisions more

often than not turn out to be the right ones as commanders kick-start

the dormant military machine. It is the fog and friction of war

live—the authentic military history of 9/11.

 

" The real story is actually better than the one we told, " a NORAD

general admitted to 9/11-commission staffers when confronted with

evidence from the tapes that contradicted his original testimony. And

so it seems.

 

Subpoenaed by the commission during its investigation, the recordings

have never been played publicly beyond a handful of sound bites

presented during the commission's hearings. Last September, as part of

my research for the film United 93, on which I was an associate

producer, I requested copies from the Pentagon. I was played snippets,

but told my chances of hearing the full recordings were nonexistent.

So it was a surprise, to say the least, when a military public-affairs

officer e-mailed me, a full seven months later, saying she'd been

cleared, finally, to provide them.

 

" The signing of the Declaration of Independence took less

coordination, " she wrote.

 

I would ultimately get three CDs with huge digital " wav file "

recordings of the various channels in each section of the operations

floor, 30-some hours of material in full, covering six and a half

hours of real time. The first disc, which arrived by mail, was

decorated with blue sky and fluffy white clouds and was labeled, in

the playful Apple Chancery font, " Northeast Air Defense Sector—DAT

Audio Files—11 Sep 2001. "

 

" This is not an exercise " t 8:14 a.m., as an Egyptian and four Saudis

commandeered the cockpit on American 11, the plane that would hit the

north tower of the World Trade Center, only a handful of troops were

on the NEADS " ops " floor. That's the facility's war room: a dimly lit

den arrayed with long rows of radarscopes and communications equipment

facing a series of 15-foot screens lining the front wall. The rest of

the crew, about 30 Americans and five or six Canadians, were checking

e-mails or milling around the hall. A briefing on the morning's

training exercise was wrapping up in the Battle Cab, the glassed-in

command area overlooking the ops floor.

 

On the Dictaphone decks, an automated voice on each channel ticked

off, in Greenwich Mean Time, the last few moments of life in pre-9/11

America: " 12 hours, 26 minutes, 20 seconds " —just before 8:30 a.m.

eastern daylight time.

 

The first human voices captured on tape that morning are those of the

" ID techs " —Senior Airman Stacia Rountree, 23 at the time, Tech

Sergeant Shelley Watson, 40, and their boss, Master Sergeant Maureen

" Mo " Dooley, 40. They are stationed in the back right corner of the

ops floor at a console with several phones and a radarscope. Their job

in a crisis is to facilitate communications between NEADS, the

civilian F.A.A., and other military commands, gathering whatever

information they can and sending it up the chain. Dooley—her

personality at once motherly and aggressive—generally stands behind

the other two, who are seated.

 

The tapes catch them discussing strategy of an entirely domestic order:

 

08:37:08O.K., a couch, an ottoman, a love seat, and what else … ? Was

it on sale … ? Holy smokes! What color is it?

 

In the background, however, you can make out the sound of Jeremy

Powell, then 31, a burly, amiable technical sergeant, fielding the

phone call that will be the military's first notification that

something is wrong. On the line is Boston Center, the civilian

air-traffic-control facility that handles that region's high-flying

airliners.

 

08:37:52BOSTON CENTER: Hi. Boston Center T.M.U. [Traffic Management

Unit], we have a problem here. We have a hijacked aircraft headed

towards New York, and we need you guys to, we need someone to scramble

some F-16s or something up there, help us out.POWELL: Is this

real-world or exercise?BOSTON CENTER: No, this is not an exercise, not

a test.PLAY | STOP

 

Powell's question— " Is this real-world or exercise? " —is heard nearly

verbatim over and over on the tapes as troops funnel onto the ops

floor and are briefed about the hijacking. Powell, like almost

everyone in the room, first assumes the phone call is from the

simulations team on hand to send " inputs " —simulated scenarios—into

play for the day's training exercise.

 

Boston's request for fighter jets is not as prescient as it might

seem. Standard hijack protocol calls for fighters to be

launched— " scrambled " —merely to establish a presence in the air. The

pilots are trained to trail the hijacked plane at a distance of about

five miles, out of sight, following it until, presumably, it lands. If

necessary, they can show themselves, flying up close to establish

visual contact, and, if the situation demands, maneuver to force the

plane to land.

 

At this point, certainly, the notion of actually firing anything at a

passenger jet hasn't crossed anyone's mind.

 

In the ID section, the women overhear the word " hijack " and react,

innocently enough, as anyone might with news of something exciting

going on at work:

 

8:37:56WATSON: What?DOOLEY: Whoa!WATSON: What was that?ROUNTREE: Is

that real-world?DOOLEY: Real-world hijack.WATSON: Cool!PLAY | STOP

 

For the first time in their careers, they'll get to put their training

to full use.

 

Almost simultaneously, a P.A. announcement goes out for Major

Nasypany, who's taking his morning constitutional.

 

08:37:58P.A.: Major Nasypany, you're needed in ops pronto. P.A.: Major

Nasypany, you're needed in ops pronto.[Recorded phone line:]SERGEANT

MCCAIN: Northeast Air Defense Sector, Sergeant McCain, can I help

you?SERGEANT KELLY: Yeah, Sergeant Kelly from Otis, how you doing

today?SERGEANT MCCAIN: Yeah, go ahead.SERGEANT KELLY: The—I'm gettin'

reports from my TRACON [local civilian air traffic] that there might

be a possible hijacking.SERGEANT MCCAIN: I was just hearing the same

thing. We're workin' it right now.SERGEANT KELLY: O.K., thanks.PLAY | STOP

 

" When they told me there was a hijack, my first reaction was 'Somebody

started the exercise early,' " Nasypany later told me. The day's

exercise was designed to run a range of scenarios, including a

" traditional " simulated hijack in which politically motivated

perpetrators commandeer an aircraft, land on a Cuba-like island, and

seek asylum. " I actually said out loud, 'The hijack's not supposed to

be for another hour,' " Nasypany recalled. (The fact that there was an

exercise planned for the same day as the attack factors into several

conspiracy theories, though the 9/11 commission dismisses this as

coincidence. After plodding through dozens of hours of recordings, so

do I.)

 

n tape, one hears as Nasypany, following standard hijack protocol,

prepares to launch two fighters from Otis Air National Guard Base, on

Cape Cod, to look for American 11, which is now off course and headed

south. He orders his Weapons Team—the group on the ops floor that

controls the fighters—to put the Otis planes on " battle stations. "

This means that at the air base the designated " alert " pilots—two in

this case—are jolted into action by a piercing " battle horn. " They run

to their jets, climb up, strap in, and do everything they need to do

to get ready to fly short of starting the engines.

 

Meanwhile, the communications team at NEADS—the ID techs Dooley,

Rountree, and Watson—are trying to find out, as fast as possible,

everything they can about the hijacked plane: the airline, the flight

number, the tail number (to help fighter pilots identify it in the

air), its flight plan, the number of passengers ( " souls on board " in

military parlance), and, most important, where it is, so Nasypany can

launch the fighters. All the ID section knows is that the plane is

American Airlines, Flight No. 11, Boston to Los Angeles, currently

somewhere north of John F. Kennedy International Airport—the point of

reference used by civilian controllers.

 

ID tech Watson places a call to the management desk at Boston Center,

which first alerted NEADS to the hijack, and gets distressing news.

 

08:39:58WATSON: It's the inbound to J.F.K.?BOSTON CENTER: We—we don't

know.WATSON: You don't know where he is at all?BOSTON CENTER: He's

being hijacked. The pilot's having a hard time talking to the—I mean,

we don't know. We don't know where he's goin'. He's heading towards

Kennedy. He's—like I said, he's like 35 miles north of Kennedy now at

367 knots. We have no idea where he's goin' or what his intentions

are.WATSON: If you could please give us a call and let us know—you

know any information, that'd be great.BOSTON CENTER: Okay. Right now,

I guess we're trying to work on—I guess there's been some threats in

the cockpit. The pilot—WATSON: There's been what?! I'm

sorry.UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Threat to the … ?BOSTON CENTER: We'll call

you right back as soon as we know more info.

 

Dooley is standing over Watson, shouting whatever pertinent

information she hears to Nasypany, who's now in position in the center

of the floor.

 

08:40:36DOOLEY: O.K., he said threat to the cockpit!PLAY | STOP

 

This last bit ratchets the tension in the room up considerably.

 

At Otis Air National Guard Base, the pilots are in their jets,

straining at the reins. ( " When the horn goes off, it definitely gets

your heart, " F-15 pilot Major Dan Nash later told me, thumping his

chest with his hand.) But at NEADS, Nasypany's " tracker techs " in the

Surveillance section still can't find American 11 on their scopes. As

it turns out, this is just as the hijackers intended.

 

Radar is the NEADS controllers' most vital piece of equipment, but by

9/11 the scopes were so old, among other factors, that controllers

were ultimately unable to find any of the hijacked planes in enough

time to react. Known collectively as the Green Eye for the glow the

radar rings give off, the scopes looked like something out of Dr.

Strangelove and were strikingly anachronistic compared with the

equipment at civilian air-traffic sites. (After 9/11, NEADS was

equipped with state-of-the-art equipment.)

 

In order to find a hijacked airliner—or any airplane—military

controllers need either the plane's beacon code (broadcast from an

electronic transponder on board) or the plane's exact coordinates.

When the hijackers on American 11 turned the beacon off, intentionally

losing themselves in the dense sea of airplanes already flying over

the U.S. that morning (a tactic that would be repeated, with some

variations, on all the hijacked flights), the NEADS controllers were

at a loss.

 

" You would see thousands of green blips on your scope, " Nasypany told

me, " and now you have to pick and choose. Which is the bad guy out

there? Which is the hijacked aircraft? And without that information

from F.A.A., it's a needle in a haystack. "

 

At this point in the morning, more than 3,000 jetliners are already in

the air over the continental United States, and the Boston

controller's direction— " 35 miles north of Kennedy " —doesn't help the

NEADS controllers at all.

 

On tape, amid the confusion, one hears Major James Fox, then 32, the

leader of the Weapons Team, whose composure will stand out throughout

the attack, make an observation that, so far, ranks as the

understatement of the morning.

 

08:43:06FOX: I've never seen so much real-world stuff happen during an

exercise.PLAY | STOP

 

Less than two minutes later, frustrated that the controllers still

can't pinpoint American 11 on radar, Nasypany orders Fox to launch the

Otis fighters anyway.

 

08:44:59FOX: M.C.C. [Mission Crew Commander], I don't know where I'm

scrambling these guys to. I need a direction, a destination—NASYPANY:

O.K., I'm gonna give you the Z point [coordinate]. It's just north

of—New York City.FOX: I got this lat long, 41-15, 74-36, or

73-46.NASYPANY: Head 'em in that direction.FOX: Copy that.PLAY | STOP

 

Having them up, Nasypany figures, is better than having them on the

ground, assuming NEADS will ultimately pin down American 11's

position. His job is to be proactive—to try to gain leverage over the

situation as fast as possible. His backstop is Colonel Marr, the

battle commander and Nasypany's superior up in the Battle Cab, whose

role is more strategic, calculating the implications of each move

several hours down the line.

 

Marr, 48 at the time (and since retired), is a well-liked leader. Most

of his conversations on 9/11 are unrecorded: he speaks over a secure

phone with his superior, Major General Larry Arnold, stationed at

NORAD's command center at Tyndall Air Force Base, in Florida, or over

an intercom with Nasypany. In the latter case, only Nasypany's side of

the conversations is recorded.

 

In the last lines of his first briefing to Marr, Nasypany unwittingly,

in his last line, trumps Fox in the realm of understatement.

 

08:46:36NASYPANY: Hi, sir. O.K., what—what we're doing, we're tryin'

to locate this guy. We can't find him via I.F.F. [the Identification

Friend or Foe system]. What we're gonna do, we're gonna hit up every

track within a 25-mile radius of this Z-point [coordinate] that we put

on the scope. Twenty-nine thousand [feet] heading 1-9-0 [east]. We're

just gonna do—we're gonna try to find this guy. They can't find him.

There's supposedly been threats to the cockpit. So we're just doing

the thing … [off-mic conversation] True. And probably right now with

what's going on in the cockpit it's probably really crazy. So, it

probably needs to—that will simmer down and we'll probably get some

better information.PLAY | STOP

 

American 11 slammed into the north tower of the World Trade Center

four seconds into this transmission.

 

ore than 150 miles from Manhattan, within the same minute as American

11 hits the tower, the stoplight in the Alert Barn at Otis Air

National Guard Base on Cape Cod turns from red to green, Colonel Marr

and General Arnold having approved Nasypany's order to scramble the

fighters. The pilots taxi out and fire the afterburners as the planes

swing onto the runway. NEADS has no indication yet that American 11

has crashed.

 

Five minutes later, Rountree, at the ID station, gets the first report

of the crash from Boston Center (as her colleagues Watson and Dooley

overhear).

 

08:51:11ROUNTREE: A plane just hit the World Trade Center.WATSON:

What?ROUNTREE: Was it a 737?UNIDENTIFIED MALE (background): Hit

what?WATSON: The World Trade Center—DOOLEY: Who are you talking to?

[Gasps.]WATSON: Oh!DOOLEY: Get—pass—pass it to them—WATSON: Oh my God.

Oh God. Oh my God.ROUNTREE: Saw it on the news. It's—a plane just

crashed into the World Trade Center.DOOLEY: Update New York! See if

they lost altitude on that plane altogether.

 

Watson places a call to civilian controllers at New York Center.

 

WATSON: Yes, ma'am. Did you just hear the information regarding the

World Trade Center?NEW YORK CENTER: No.WATSON: Being hit by an

aircraft?NEW YORK CENTER: I'm sorry?!WATSON: Being hit by an

aircraft.NEW YORK CENTER: You're kidding.WATSON: It's on the world

news.PLAY | STOP

 

In light of this news, someone asks Nasypany what to do with the

fighters—the two F-15s from Otis Air National Guard Base—which have

now just blasted off for New York at full afterburner to find American

11. (The flying time at full speed from Cape Cod to New York is about

10 minutes.) Pumped with adrenaline, Nasypany doesn't miss a beat.

 

08:52:40NASYPANY: Send 'em to New York City still. Continue!

Go!NASYPANY: This is what I got. Possible news that a 737 just hit the

World Trade Center. This is a real-world. And we're trying to confirm

this. Okay. Continue taking the fighters down to the New York City

area, J.F.K. area, if you can. Make sure that the F.A.A. clears it—

your route all the way through. Do what we gotta do, okay? Let's press

with this. It looks like this guy could have hit the World Trade

Center.PLAY | STOP

 

" I'm not gonna stop what I initially started with scrambling

Otis—getting Otis over New York City, " Nasypany recalled when I played

him this section of his tape. " If this is a false report, I still have

my fighters where I want them to be. "

 

Meanwhile, confusion is building on the ops floor over whether the

plane that hit the tower really was American 11. Rumors that it was a

small Cessna have started to circulate through the civilian

air-traffic system. ID tech Rountree is on the phone with Boston

Center's military liaison, Colin Scoggins, a civilian manager, who at

first seems to confirm that it was American 11 that went into the tower.

 

08:55:18BOSTON CENTER (Scoggins): Yeah, he crashed into the World

Trade Center.ROUNTREE: That is the aircraft that crashed into the

World Trade Center?BOSTON CENTER (Scoggins): Yup. Disregard

the—disregard the tail number [given earlier for American

11].ROUNTREE: Disregard the tail number? He did crash into the World

Trade Center?BOSTON CENTER (Scoggins): That's—that's what we believe,

yes.PLAY | STOP

 

But an unidentified male trooper at NEADS overhears the exchange and

raises a red flag.

 

08:56:31MALE NEADS TECH: I never heard them say American Airlines

Flight 11 hit the World Trade Center. I heard it was a civilian aircraft.

 

Dooley, the ID desk's master sergeant, takes the phone from Rountree

to confirm for herself, and the story veers off course …

 

DOOLEY (to Boston): Master Sergeant Dooley here. We need to have—are

you giving confirmation that American 11 was the one—BOSTON CENTER

(Scoggins): No, we're not gonna confirm that at this time. We just

know an aircraft crashed in and …DOOLEY: You—are you—can you say—is

anyone up there tracking primary on this guy still?BOSTON CENTER

(Scoggins): No. The last [radar sighting] we have was about 15 miles

east of J.F.K., or eight miles east of J.F.K. was our last primary

hit. He did slow down in speed. The primary that we had, it slowed

down below—around to 300 knots.DOOLEY: And then you lost 'em?BOSTON

CENTER (Scoggins): Yeah, and then we lost 'em.PLAY | STOP

 

The problem, Scoggins told me later, was that American Airlines

refused to confirm for several hours that its plane had hit the tower.

This lack of confirmation caused uncertainty that would be compounded

in a very big way as the attack continued. (Though airlines have their

own means of monitoring the location of their planes and communicating

with their pilots, they routinely go into information lockdown in a

crisis.)

 

Amid the chaos, Nasypany notices that some of his people are beginning

to panic, so he makes a joke to relieve the tension.

 

08:57:11NASYPANY: Think we put the exercise on the hold. What do you

think? [Laughter.]

 

Just at that moment, in one of the dark, U-shaped air-traffic-control

areas at New York Center, on Long Island, a half-dozen civilian

controllers are watching a second plane that's turned off course:

United 175, also scheduled from Boston to Los Angeles. As the

controllers try to hail the pilots, a manager comes running in and

confirms that the plane that hit the first tower was, indeed, a

commercial airliner, rather than a small Cessna. It's just at that

moment that United 175, 38 minutes into its flight and now near

Allentown, Pennsylvania, moving southwest farther and farther off

course, makes a sudden swing northeast toward Manhattan.

Suddenly—instinctively—the civilian controllers know: it's another

hijacking, and it's not going to land.

 

The controllers start speculating what the hijacker is aiming at—one

guesses the Statue of Liberty—and the room erupts in profanity and

horror. One controller is looking at his scope, calling out the rate

of descent every 12 seconds as he watches the radar refresh. It is not

until the last second, literally, that anyone from New York Center

thinks to update NEADS. ID tech Rountree fields the call.

 

09:03:17ROUNTREE: They have a second possible hijack!PLAY | STOP

 

Almost simultaneously, United 175 slams into the south tower of the

World Trade Center, something several NEADS personnel witness live on

CNN, including Colonel Marr, the commanding officer. (Dooley told me

she remembers looking up toward the Battle Cab and, for a long moment,

seeing Marr's jaw drop and everyone around him frozen.)

 

On the ops floor, there is considerable confusion as to whether the

second hijacking New York Center just called in is the same plane that

hit the second tower, or whether there are now three missing planes.

 

09:03:52NASYPANY (to Marr): Sir, we got—we've got unconfirmed second

hit from another aircraft. Fighters are south of—just south of Long

Island, sir. Right now. Fighters are south of Long Island.

 

There's seemingly enough commotion in the Battle Cab that Nasypany

needs to clarify: " Our fighters … " The two F-15s, scrambled from

Otis, are now approaching the city.

 

In the background, several troops can be heard trying to make sense of

what's happening.

 

09:04:50—Is this explosion part of that that we're lookin' at now on

TV?—Yes.—Jesus …—And there's a possible second hijack also—a United

Airlines …—Two planes?…—Get the fuck out …—I think this is a damn

input, to be honest.PLAY | STOP

 

The last line— " I think this is a damn input " —is a reference to the

exercise, meaning a simulations input. It's either gallows humor or

wishful thinking. From the tape, it's hard to tell.

 

" We've already had two. Why not more? " eanwhile, flying southwest over

the ocean, the two fighters from Otis Air National Guard Base are

streaking toward Manhattan. The pilots are startled, to say the least,

when they see billowing smoke appear on the horizon; no one's briefed

them about what's going on. They were scrambled simply to intercept

and escort American 11—a possible hijacking—and that is all they know.

 

" From 100 miles away at least, we could see the fire and the smoke

blowing, " Major Dan Nash, one of the F-15 pilots, told me. " Obviously,

anybody watching CNN had a better idea of what was going on. We were

not told anything. It was to the point where we were flying supersonic

towards New York and the controller came on and said, 'A second

airplane has hit the World Trade Center.' … My first thought was 'What

happened to American 11?' "

 

With both towers now in flames, Nasypany wants the fighters over

Manhattan immediately, but the weapons techs get " pushback " from

civilian F.A.A. controllers, who have final authority over the

fighters as long as they are in civilian airspace. The F.A.A.

controllers are afraid of fast-moving fighters colliding with a

passenger plane, of which there are hundreds in the area, still flying

normal routes—the morning's unprecedented order to ground all civilian

aircraft has not yet been given. To Nasypany, the fact that so many

planes are still in the sky is all the more reason to get the fighters

close. ( " We've already had two, " he told me, referring to the

hijackings. " Why not more? " )

 

The fighters are initially directed to a holding area just off the

coast, near Long Island.

 

asypany isn't happy, and he makes sure that's duly noted for posterity

as he calls out to Major Fox, the leader of the Weapons Team.

 

09:07:20NASYPANY: Okay, Foxy. Plug in. I want to make sure this is on

tape.… This is what—this is what I foresee that we probably need to

do. We need to talk to F.A.A. We need to tell 'em if this stuff's

gonna keep on going, we need to take those fighters on and then put

'em over Manhattan, O.K.? That's the best thing. That's the best play

right now. So, coordinate with the F.A.A. Tell 'em if there's more out

there, which we don't know, let's get 'em over Manhattan. At least we

got some kinda play.PLAY | STOP

 

He tells the Battle Cab he wants Fox to launch two more fighters from

Langley Air Force Base, in Virginia, to establish a greater presence

over New York, but the request is refused. The order from the Battle

Cab is to put the Langley jets on battle stations only—to be ready,

but not to launch.

 

" The problem there would have been I'd have all my fighters in the air

at the same time, which means they'd all run out of gas at the same

time, " Marr later explained.

 

Incredibly, Marr has only four armed fighters at his disposal to

defend about a quarter of the continental United States. Massive

cutbacks at the close of the Cold War reduced NORAD's arsenal of

fighters from some 60 battle-ready jets to just 14 across the entire

country. (Under different commands, the military generally maintains

several hundred unarmed fighter jets for training in the continental

U.S.) Only four of NORAD's planes belong to NEADS and are thus

anywhere close to Manhattan—the two from Otis, now circling above the

ocean off Long Island, and the two in Virginia at Langley.

 

Nasypany starts walking up and down the floor, asking all his section

heads and weapons techs if they are prepared to shoot down a civilian

airliner if need be, but he's jumping the gun: he doesn't have the

authority to order a shootdown, nor does Marr or Arnold, or Vice

President Cheney, for that matter. The order will need to come from

President Bush, who has only just learned of the attack at a photo op

in Florida.

 

On the ops floor, you hear Nasypany firmly pressing the issue. He

briefs Marr on the armaments on board the F-15s, and how he sees best

to use them " if need be " :

 

9:19:44NASYPANY: My recommendation, if we have to take anybody out,

large aircraft, we use AIM-9s in the face.… If need be.PLAY | STOP

 

If there's another hijacking and the jets can engage, Nasypany is

telling Marr, a missile fired into the nose of the plane will have the

greatest chance of bringing it down.

 

But the prospect soon becomes real. Mo Dooley's voice erupts from the

ID station on the operations floor.

 

9:21:37DOOLEY: Another hijack! It's headed towards

Washington!NASYPANY: Shit! Give me a location.UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Okay.

Third aircraft—hijacked—heading toward Washington.PLAY | STOP

 

This report, received from Colin Scoggins at Boston Center, will set

off a major escalation in the military response to the attack,

resulting in the launch of additional armed fighter jets. But 20

months later, when the military presents to the 9/11 commission what

is supposed to be a full accounting of the day, omitted from the

official time line is any mention of this reported hijacking and the

fevered chase it engenders.

 

t was the Friday before Memorial Day weekend, 2003, and the hearing

room in the Hart Senate Office Building, in Washington, was half empty

as the group of mostly retired military brass arranged themselves at

the witness table before the 9/11 commission. The story the NORAD

officers had come to tell before the commission was a relatively

humbling one, a point underscored by the questions commission chairman

Thomas Kean introduced during his opening remarks: How did the

hijackers defeat the system, and why couldn't we stop them? These were

important questions. Nearly two years after the attack, the Internet

was rife with questions and conspiracy theories about 9/11—in

particular, where were the fighters? Could they have physically gotten

to any of the hijacked planes? And did they shoot down the final

flight, United 93, which ended up in a Pennsylvania field?

 

On hand, dressed in business suits (with the exception of Major

General Craig McKinley, whose two stars twinkled on either epaulet),

were Major General Larry Arnold (retired), who had been on the other

end of the secure line with NEADS's Colonel Marr throughout the

attack, and Colonel Alan Scott (retired), who had been with Arnold at

NORAD's continental command in Florida on 9/11 and who worked closely

with Marr in preparing the military's time line. None of the military

men were placed under oath.

 

Their story, in a nutshell, was one of being caught off guard

initially, then very quickly ramping up to battle status—in position,

and in possession of enough situational awareness to defend the

country, and the capital in particular, before United 93, the fourth

hijacked plane, would have reached Washington.

 

Major General Arnold explained to the commission that the military had

been tracking United 93 and the fighters were in position if United 93

had threatened Washington. " It was our intent to intercept United

Flight 93, " Arnold testified. " I was personally anxious to see what 93

was going to do, and our intent was to intercept it. "

 

Colonel Marr, the commanding officer at NEADS on 9/11, had made

similar comments to ABC News for its one-year-anniversary special on

the attacks, saying that the pilots had been warned they might have to

intercept United 93, and stop it if necessary: " And we of course

passed that on to the pilots: United Airlines Flight 93 will not be

allowed to reach Washington, D.C. "

 

hen I interviewed him recently, Marr recalled a conversation he had

had with Arnold in the heat of the attack. " I remember the words out

of General Arnold's mouth, or at least as I remember them, were 'We

will take lives in the air to save lives on the ground.' " In

actuality, they'd never get that chance.

 

In the chronology presented to the 9/11 commission, Colonel Scott put

the time NORAD was first notified about United 93 at 9:16 a.m., from

which time, he said, commanders tracked the flight closely. (It

crashed at 10:03 a.m.) If it had indeed been necessary to " take lives

in the air " with United 93, or any incoming flight to Washington, the

two armed fighters from Langley Air Force Base in Virginia would have

been the ones called upon to carry out the shootdown. In Colonel

Scott's account, those jets were given the order to launch at 9:24,

within seconds of NEADS's receiving the F.A.A.'s report of the

possible hijacking of American 77, the plane that would ultimately hit

the Pentagon. This time line suggests the system was starting to work:

the F.A.A. reports a hijacking, and the military reacts

instantaneously. Launching after the report of American 77 would, in

theory, have put the fighters in the air and in position over

Washington in plenty of time to react to United 93.

 

In testimony a few minutes later, however, General Arnold added an

unexpected twist: " We launched the aircraft out of Langley to put them

over top of Washington, D.C., not in response to American Airlines 77,

but really to put them in position in case United 93 were to head that

way. "

 

How strange, John Azzarello, a former prosecutor and one of the

commission's staff members, thought. " I remember being at the hearing

in '03 and wondering why they didn't seem to have their stories

straight. That struck me as odd. "

 

The ears of another staff member, Miles Kara, perked up as well. " I

said to myself, That's not right, " the retired colonel, a former army

intelligence officer, told me. Kara had seen the radar re-creations of

the fighters' routes. " We knew something was odd, but we didn't have

enough specificity to know how odd. "

 

As the tapes reveal in stark detail, parts of Scott's and Arnold's

testimony were misleading, and others simply false. At 9:16 a.m., when

Arnold and Marr had supposedly begun their tracking of United 93, the

plane had not yet been hijacked. In fact, NEADS wouldn't get word

about United 93 for another 51 minutes. And while NORAD commanders

did, indeed, order the Langley fighters to scramble at 9:24, as Scott

and Arnold testified, it was not in response to the hijacking of

American 77 or United 93. Rather, they were chasing a ghost. NEADS was

entering the most chaotic period of the morning.

 

" Chase this guy down " t 9:21 a.m., just before Dooley's alert about a

third hijacked plane headed for Washington, NEADS is in the eye of the

storm—a period of relative calm in which, for the moment, there are no

reports of additional hijackings.

 

The call that sets off the latest alarm ( " Another hijack! It's headed

towards Washington! " ) comes from Boston and is wholly confounding:

according to Scoggins, the Boston manager, American 11, the plane they

believed was the first one to hit the World Trade Center, is actually

still flying—still hijacked—and now heading straight for D.C. Whatever

hit the first tower, it wasn't American 11.

 

The chase is on for what will turn out to be a phantom plane.

 

9:21:50NASYPANY: O.K. American Airlines is still airborne—11, the

first guy. He's heading towards Washington. O.K., I think we need to

scramble Langley right now. And I'm—I'm gonna take the fighters from

Otis and try to chase this guy down if I can find him.PLAY | STOP

 

Arnold and Marr approve scrambling the two planes at Langley, along

with a third unarmed trainer, and Nasypany sets the launch in motion.

 

It's a mistake, of course. American 11 was, indeed, the plane that hit

the first tower. The confusion will persist for hours, however. In

Boston, it is Colin Scoggins who has made the mistaken call.

 

" When we phoned United [after the second tower was hit], they

confirmed that United 175 was down, and I think they confirmed that

within two or three minutes, " Scoggins, the go-to guy at Boston Center

for all things military, later told me. " With American Airlines, we

could never confirm if it was down or not, so that left doubt in our

minds. "

 

An unwieldy conference call between F.A.A. centers had been

established, and Scoggins was monitoring it when the word came

across—from whom or where isn't clear—that American 11 was thought to

be headed for Washington. Scoggins told me he thinks that the problem

started with someone overheard trying to confirm from American whether

American 11 was down—that somewhere in the flurry of information

zipping back and forth during the conference call this transmogrified

into the idea that a different plane had hit the tower, and that

American 11 was still hijacked and still in the air. The plane's

course, had it continued south past New York in the direction it was

flying before it dipped below radar coverage, would have had it headed

on a straight course toward D.C. This was all controllers were going

on; they were never tracking an actual plane on the radar after losing

American 11 near Manhattan, but if it had been flying low enough, the

plane could have gone undetected. " After talking to a supervisor, I

made the call and said [American 11] is still in the air, and it's

probably somewhere over New Jersey or Delaware heading for Washington,

D.C., " Scoggins told me.

 

ver the next quarter-hour, the fact that the fighters have been

launched in response to the phantom American 11—rather than American

77 or United 93—is referred to six more times on Nasypany's channel

alone. How could Colonel Scott and General Arnold have missed it in

preparing for their 9/11-commission testimony? It's a question Arnold

would have to answer later, under oath.

 

In the middle of the attack, however, the hijackers' sabotaging of the

planes' beacons has thrown such a wrench into efforts to track them

that it all seems plausible.

 

9:23:15ANDERSON: They're probably not squawking anything [broadcasting

a beacon code] anyway. I mean, obviously these guys are in the

cockpit.NASYPANY: These guys are smart.UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yeah, they

knew exactly what they wanted to do.PLAY | STOP

 

Another officer asks Nasypany the obvious question.

 

9:32:20MAJOR JAMES ANDERSON: Have you asked—have you asked the

question what you're gonna do if we actually find this guy? Are we

gonna shoot him down if they got passengers on board? Have they talked

about that?PLAY | STOP

 

Approval for any such order would have to come from the commander in

chief. Just after 9:30, however, the president was in his motorcade

preparing to leave the Emma Booker Elementary School, in Sarasota, for

the airport and the safety of Air Force One. The 9/11 commission

determined that the president had not been aware of any further

possible hijackings and was not yet in touch with the Pentagon.

 

But a clear shootdown order wouldn't have made a difference. The

Langley fighters were headed the wrong way—due east, straight out to

sea into a military-training airspace called Whiskey 386, rather than

toward Washington, which NEADS believed was under attack. According to

the 9/11 commission, the Langley pilots were never briefed by anyone

at their base about why they were being scrambled, so, despite having

been given the order from NEADS to fly to Washington, the pilots ended

up following their normal training flight plan out to sea—a flight

plan dating from the Cold War. As one pilot later told the commission,

" I reverted to the Russian threat—I'm thinking cruise-missile threat

from the sea. "

 

At NEADS, a 28-year-old staff sergeant named William Huckabone,

staring at his Green Eye, is the first to notice that the Langley jets

are off course. His voice is a mix of stress and dread as he and the

controller next to him, Master Sergeant Steve Citino, order a navy

air-traffic controller who's handling the fighters to get them turned

around toward Baltimore to try to cut off the phantom American 11. The

navy air-traffic controller seems not to understand the urgency of the

situation.

 

9:34:12NAVY A.T.C.: You've got [the fighters] moving east in airspace.

Now you want 'em to go to Baltimore?HUCKABONE: Yes, sir. We're not

gonna take 'em in Whiskey 386 [military training airspace over the

ocean].NAVY A.T.C.: O.K., once he goes to Baltimore, what are we

supposed to do?HUCKABONE: Have him contact us on auxiliary frequency

2-3-4 decimal 6. Instead of taking handoffs to us and us handing 'em

back, just tell Center they've got to go to Baltimore.NAVY A.T.C.: All

right, man. Stand by. We'll get back to you.CITINO: What do you mean,

" We'll get back to you " ? Just do it!HUCKABONE: I'm gonna choke that

guy!CITINO: Be very professional, Huck.HUCKABONE: O.K.CITINO: All

right, Huck. Let's get our act together here.PLAY | STOP

 

All hell is breaking loose around them. Boston Center has called in

with another suspected hijacking—the controllers there don't know the

call sign yet—and ID tech Watson is speed-dialing everyone she can to

find a position on the resurrected American 11. In the course of a

call to Washington Center, the operations manager there has sprung new

information about yet another lost airplane: American 77.

 

9:34:01WASHINGTON CENTER: Now, let me tell you this. I—I'll—we've been

looking. We're—also lost American 77—WATSON: American 77?DOOLEY:

American 77's lost—WATSON: Where was it proposed to head,

sir?WASHINGTON CENTER: Okay, he was going to L.A. also—WATSON: From

where, sir?WASHINGTON CENTER: I think he was from Boston also. Now let

me tell you this story here. Indianapolis Center was working this

guy—WATSON: What guy?WASHINGTON CENTER: American 77, at flight level

3-5-0 [35,000 feet]. However, they lost radar with him. They lost

contact with him. They lost everything. And they don't have any idea

where he is or what happened.PLAY | STOP

 

his is a full 10 minutes later than the time Major General Arnold and

Colonel Scott would give in their testimony; reality was a lot

messier. Forty minutes prior, at 8:54 a.m., controllers at

Indianapolis Center had lost radar contact with American 77, flying

from Washington Dulles to LAX, and assumed the plane had crashed

because they weren't aware of the attack in New York. Though they soon

realized this was another hijacking and sent warnings up the F.A.A.

chain, no one called the military; it was only by chance that NEADS's

Watson got the information in her call to Washington Center.

 

As Watson takes in the information from Washington Center, Rountree's

phone is ringing again. By this point, the other ID techs have taken

to calling Rountree " the bearer of death and destruction " because it

seems every time she picks up the phone there's another hijacking. And

so it is again. At Boston Center, Colin Scoggins has spotted a

low-flying airliner six miles southeast of the White House.

 

9:35:41ROUNTREE: Huntress [call sign for NEADS] ID, Rountree, can I

help you?BOSTON CENTER (Scoggins): Latest report, [low-flying]

aircraft six miles southeast of the White House.ROUNTREE: Six miles

southeast of the White House?BOSTON CENTER (Scoggins): Yup. East—he's

moving away?ROUNTREE: Southeast from the White House.BOSTON CENTER

(Scoggins): Air—aircraft is moving away.ROUNTREE: Moving away from the

White House?BOSTON CENTER (Scoggins): Yeah.…ROUNTREE: Deviating away.

You don't have a type aircraft, you don't know who he is—BOSTON CENTER

(Scoggins): Nothing, nothing. We're over here in Boston so I have no

clue. That—hopefully somebody in Washington would have

better—information for you.PLAY | STOP

 

This will turn out to be American 77, but since the hijackers turned

the beacon off on this plane as well, no one will realize that until

later. Depending on how you count, NEADS now has three reported

possible hijackings from Boston (the phantom American 11 and two

unidentified planes) as well as Washington Center's report that

American 77 is lost.

 

Of these four vague and ultimately overlapping reports, the

latest—word of a plane six miles from the White House—is the most

urgent. The news sets off a frenzy.

 

9:36:23NASYPANY: O.K., Foxy [Major Fox, the Weapons Team head]. I got

a aircraft six miles east of the White House! Get your fighters there

as soon as possible!MALE VOICE: That came from Boston?HUCKABONE: We're

gonna turn and burn it—crank it up—MALE TECH: Six miles!HUCKABONE: All

right, here we go. This is what we're gonna do—NASYPANY: We've got an

aircraft deviating eight [sic] miles east of the White House right

now.FOX: Do you want us to declare A.F.I.O. [emergency military

control of the fighters] and run 'em straight in there?NASYPANY: Take

'em and run 'em to the White House.FOX: Go directly to

Washington.CITINO: We're going direct D.C. with my guys [Langley

fighters]? Okay. Okay.HUCKABONE: Ma'am, we are going A.F.I.O. right

now with Quit 2-5 [the Langley fighters]. They are going direct

Washington.NAVY A.T.C.: Quit 2-5, we're handing 'em off to Center

right now.HUCKABONE: Ma'am, we need to expedite that right now. We've

gotta contact them on 2-3-4-6.PLAY | STOP

 

" Six miles south, or west, or east of the White House is—it's seconds

[away], " Nasypany told me later. " Airliners traveling at 400-plus

knots, it's nothing. It's seconds away from that location. "

 

The White House, then, is in immediate danger. Radar analysis in the

following weeks will show that the plane abruptly veers away and turns

toward the Pentagon, though the controllers at NEADS have no way of

knowing this in the moment. Looking in the general capital area, one

of the tracker techs thinks he spots the plane on radar, then just as

quickly loses it.

 

9:37:56MALE TECH: Right here, right here, right here. I got him. I got

him.NASYPANY: We just lost track. Get a Z-point [coordinate] on that.…

O.K., we got guys lookin' at 'em. Hold on.… Where's Langley at? Where

are the fighters?PLAY | STOP

 

The fighters have no chance. They're about 150 miles away, according

to radar analysis done later. Even at top speed—and even if they know

the problem is suicide hijackings of commercial airliners rather than

Russian missiles—it will take them roughly 10 minutes to get to the

Pentagon.

 

9:38:50NASYPANY: We need to get those back up there—I don't care how

many windows you break!… Goddammit! O.K. Push 'em back!

 

But the Pentagon is already in flames, American 77 having plowed

through the E-ring of the west side of the building seconds before, at

9:37:46. The Langley fighters will not be established over Washington

for another 20 minutes.

 

" You were just so mad " n the ops floor, everyone is staring at CNN on

the overhead screen. Seeing the first pictures of the Pentagon in

flames is gut-wrenching. Nasypany's voice can be heard cursing in

frustration: " Goddammit! I can't even protect my N.C.A. [National

Capital Area]. " You hear troops prod one another to stay focused.

 

CITINO: O.K.—let's watch our guys, Huck. Not the TV.

 

" The more it went on, the more unbelievable it got, and then the one

that did the Pentagon, " Dooley told me, " we just couldn't believe it.

You were just so mad that you couldn't stop these guys and so you're

looking for the next one. Where are they going next? "

 

It looks like Washington again. Three minutes after the Pentagon is

hit, Scoggins, at Boston Center, is back on the phone. The Boston

controllers are now tracking Delta 1989—Boston to Las Vegas—which fits

the same profile as the other hijackings: cross-country, out of

Boston, lots of fuel, and possibly off course. But this one's

different from the others in one key respect: the plane's beacon code

is still working. In this chase, NEADS will have a chance, as the

excitement in Dooley's last line reflects:

 

9:40:57ROUNTREE: Delta 89, that's the hijack. They think it's possible

hijack.DOOLEY: Fuck!ROUNTREE: South of Cleveland. We have a code on

him now.DOOLEY: Good. Pick it up! Find it!MALE TECH: Delta

what?ROUNTREE: Eight nine—a Boeing 767.DOOLEY: Fuck, another one—PLAY

| STOP

 

They quickly find the plane on radar—it's just south of Toledo—and

begin alerting other F.A.A. centers. They're not sure where the plane

is headed. If it's Chicago, they're in big trouble, because they don't

have any planes close enough to cut it off. Marr and Nasypany order

troops to call Air National Guard bases in that area to see if anyone

can launch fighters. A base in Selfridge, Michigan, offers up two

unarmed fighters that are already flying, on their way back from a

training mission.

 

9:54:54SELFRIDGE FLIGHT OFFICER: Here—here's what we can do. At a

minimum, we can keep our guys airborne. I mean, they don't have—they

don't have any guns or missiles or anything on board. But we—NEADS

TECH: It's a presence, though.PLAY | STOP

 

But NEADS is victim again to an increasingly long information lag.

Even before Rountree gets the urgent call that Delta 1989 is hijacked,

a civilian air-traffic controller in Cleveland in contact with the

pilot has determined that the flight is fine—that Delta 1989 isn't a

hijacking after all.

 

eanwhile, however, NEADS has gotten a call from a NORAD unit in Canada

with yet another suspected hijacking headed south across the border

toward Washington. In the barrage of information and misinformation,

it becomes increasingly difficult for the controllers to keep count of

how many suspected hijackings are pending. So far, it is known that

three have hit buildings, but given the uncertainty about the fates of

American 11 and American 77—no one knows yet that this is the plane

that hit the Pentagon—the sense at NEADS is that there are possibly

three hijacked jets still out there, and who knows how many more yet

to be reported. At this point, no one on the military side is aware

that United 93 has been hijacked.

 

Then, over a crackly radio, one of the Langley fighter pilots, now in

a combat air patrol over Washington, is calling in urgently.

 

10:07:08PILOT: Baltimore is saying something about an aircraft over

the White House. Any words?CITINO: Negative. Stand by. Do you copy

that, SD [Major Fox]? Center said there's an aircraft over the White

House. Any words?FOX: M.C.C. [Nasypany], we've got an aircraft

reported over the White House.PLAY | STOP

 

A fourth hijacking? Nasypany, who's running full throttle, replies

instinctively.

 

NASYPANY: Intercept!FOX: Intercept!NASYPANY: Intercept and divert that

aircraft away from there.PLAY | STOP

 

On one channel, you hear a weapons tech very dramatically hailing the

fighters and ordering the intercept.

 

CITINO: Quit 2-5 [Langley fighters], mission is intercept aircraft

over White House. Use F.A.A. for guidance.FOX: Divert the aircraft

away from the White House. Intercept and divert it.CITINO: Quit 2-5,

divert the aircraft from the White House.PILOT: Divert the

aircraft.…PLAY | STOP

 

Meanwhile, Nasypany calls the Battle Cab. With a plane headed straight

for the White House, Nasypany needs an update on his rules of

engagement—fast.

 

10:07:39NASYPANY: Do you hear that? That aircraft over the White

House. What's the word? … Intercept and what else? … Aircraft over the

White House.PLAY | STOP

 

The " what else? " is the big question: do they have the authority to

shoot? The request skips up the chain to Arnold.

 

" I was in Vietnam, " Arnold later told me. " When people are shooting at

you, you don't know when it's going to stop. And that same thought

went through my mind [on 9/11]. You begin to wonder, How can I get

control of this situation? When can we as a military get control of

this situation? "

 

Arnold, in turn, passes the request for rules of engagement farther up

the chain.

 

It is in the middle of this, simultaneously, that the first call comes

in about United 93. ID tech Watson fields it.

 

10:07:16CLEVELAND CENTER: We got a United 93 out here. Are you aware

of that?WATSON: United 93?CLEVELAND CENTER: That has a bomb on

board.WATSON: A bomb on board?! And this is confirmed? You have a

[beacon code], sir?CLEVELAND CENTER: No, we lost his transponder.

 

The information is shouted out to Nasypany.

 

NASYPANY: Gimme the call sign. Gimme the whole nine yards.… Let's get

some info, real quick. They got a bomb?PLAY | STOP

 

But by the time NEADS gets the report of a bomb on United 93, everyone

on board is already dead. Following the passengers' counterattack, the

plane crashed in a field in Pennsylvania at 10:03 a.m., 4 minutes

before Cleveland Center notified NEADS, and a full 35 minutes after a

Cleveland Center controller, a veteran named John Werth, first

suspected something was wrong with the flight. At 9:28, Werth actually

heard the guttural sounds of the cockpit struggle over the radio as

the hijackers attacked the pilots.

 

Werth's suspicions about United 93 were passed quickly up the F.A.A.'s

chain of command, so how is it that no one from the agency alerted

NEADS for more than half an hour?

 

A former senior executive at the F.A.A., speaking to me on the

condition that I not identify him by name, tried to explain. " Our

whole procedures prior to 9/11 were that you turned everything

[regarding a hijacking] over to the F.B.I., " he said, reiterating that

hijackers had never actually flown airplanes; it was expected that

they'd land and make demands. " There were absolutely no shootdown

protocols at all. The F.A.A. had nothing to do with whether they were

going to shoot anybody down. We had no protocols or rules of engagement. "

 

n his bunker under the White House, Vice President Cheney was not

notified about United 93 until 10:02—only one minute before the

airliner impacted the ground. Yet it was with dark bravado that the

vice president and others in the Bush administration would later

recount sober deliberations about the prospect of shooting down United

93. " Very, very tough decision, and the president understood the

magnitude of that decision, " Bush's then chief of staff, Andrew Card,

told ABC News.

 

Cheney echoed, " The significance of saying to a pilot that you are

authorized to shoot down a plane full of Americans is, a, you know,

it's an order that had never been given before. " And it wasn't on

9/11, either.

 

President Bush would finally grant commanders the authority to give

that order at 10:18, which—though no one knew it at the time—was 15

minutes after the attack was over.

 

But comments such as those above were repeated by other administration

and military figures in the weeks and months following 9/11, forging

the notion that only the passengers' counterattack against their

hijackers prevented an inevitable shootdown of United 93 (and

convincing conspiracy theorists that the government did, indeed,

secretly shoot it down). The recordings tell a different story, and

not only because United 93 had crashed before anyone in the military

chain of command even knew it had been hijacked.

 

At what feels on the tapes like the moment of truth, what comes back

down the chain of command, instead of clearance to fire, is a

resounding sense of caution. Despite the fact that NEADS believes

there may be as many as five suspected hijacked aircraft still in the

air at this point—one from Canada, the new one bearing down fast on

Washington, the phantom American 11, Delta 1989, and United 93—the

answer to Nasypany's question about rules of engagement comes back in

no uncertain terms, as you hear him relay to the ops floor.

 

10:10:31NASYPANY (to floor): Negative. Negative clearance to shoot.…

Goddammit!…FOX: I'm not really worried about code words at this

point.NASYPANY: Fuck the code words. That's perishable information.

Negative clearance to fire. ID. Type. Tail.PLAY | STOP

 

The orders from higher headquarters are to identify by aircraft type

and tail number, and nothing more. Those orders—and the fact that the

pilots have no clearance to shoot—are reiterated by NEADS controllers

as a dramatic chase towards the White House continues. Two more

problems emerge: the controllers can't find the White House on their

dated equipment, and they have trouble communicating with the Langley

fighters (which are referred to by their call signs, Quit 2-5 and Quit

2-6).

 

CITINO: Quit 2-6, Huntress. How far is the—suspect aircraft?PILOT:

Standby. Standby.… About 15 miles, Huntress.CITINO: Huntress copies

two-two miles.PILOT: 15 miles, Huntress.CITINO: 15 miles. One-five …

noise level please … It's got to be low. Quit 2-6, when able say

altitude of the aircraft.… Did we get a Z-track [coordinates] up for

the White House?HUCKABONE: They're workin' on it.CITINO: Okay. Hey,

what's this Bravo 0-0-5 [unidentified target]?FOX: We're trying to get

the Z-point. We're trying to find it.HUCKABONE: I don't even know

where the White House is.CITINO: Whatever it is, it's very low. It's

probably a helicopter.MALE VOICE: It's probably the helicopter you're

watching there.… There's probably one flying over the [Pentagon].MALE

VOICE: It's probably the smoke. The building's smoked. [They're seeing

more pictures of the flaming Pentagon on CNN.]HUCKABONE: Holy shit.…

Holy shit …CITINO: Yes. We saw that. O.K.—let's watch our guys, Huck.

Not the TV.… Quit 2-6, status? SD, they're too low. I can't talk to

'em. They're too low. I can't talk to 'em.FOX: Negative clearance to

fire.CITINO: O.K. I told 'em mission is ID and that was it.FOX: Do

whatever you need to divert. They are not cleared to fire.PLAY | STOP

 

As it turns out, it's just as well the pilots are not cleared to

shoot. Delta 1989 and the Canadian scare turn out to be false alarms.

American 11 and United 93 are already down. And the fast-moving target

near the White House that the armed fighters are racing to intercept

turns out to be a friendly—a mistake by a civilian controller who was

unaware of the military's scrambles, as weapons techs Huckabone and

Citino, and their senior director, Fox, suddenly realize.

 

HUCKABONE: It was our guys [the fighters from Langley].CITINO: Yup. It

was our guys they saw. It was our guys they saw—Center saw.FOX: New

York did the same thing….CITINO: O.K., Huck. That was cool. We

intercepted our own guys.PLAY | STOP

 

At that point in the morning, Marr later told me, preventing an

accidental shootdown was a paramount concern. " What you don't want

happening is a pilot having to make that decision in the heat of the

moment where he is bearing all that burden as to whether I should

shoot something down or not, " Marr said.

 

It is 12 minutes after United 93 actually crashed when NEADS's Watson

first hears the word. Her voice is initially full of hope as she

mistakenly believes she is being told that United 93 has landed safely.

 

10:15:00WATSON: United nine three, have you got information on that

yet?WASHINGTON CENTER: Yeah, he's down.WATSON: What—he's

down?WASHINGTON CENTER: Yes.WATSON: When did he land? Because we have

confirmation—WASHINGTON CENTER: He did—he did—he did not land.

 

Here, on the tape, you hear the air rush out of Watson's voice.

 

WATSON: Oh, he's down down?MALE VOICE: Yes. Yeah, somewhere up

northeast of Camp David.WATSON: Northeast of Camp David.WASHINGTON

CENTER: That's the—that's the last report. They don't know exactly

where.PLAY | STOP

 

" I know what spin is " n June 17, 2004, a year after the 9/11

commission's initial public hearing, Major General Arnold and a more

robust contingent of NORAD and Pentagon brass arrived to testify

before the commission at its 12th and final public meeting. This time,

they would testify under oath.

 

The hearing began with an elaborate multi-media presentation in which

John Farmer Jr., the commission's senior counsel, John Azzarello, and

another staff attorney, Dana Hyde, took turns illustrating, in

withering detail, the lag time between when the F.A.A. found out about

each of the hijacked aircraft and the time anyone from the agency

notified the military. Excerpts from the NEADS tapes and parallel

recordings from the F.A.A., which show the civilian side in equal

turmoil, were played in public for the first time. (Both sets of

recordings were provided to the commission only after being subpoenaed.)

 

The focus of the pointed questioning that followed wasn't on why the

military didn't do better, but rather on why the story Major General

Arnold and Colonel Scott had told at the first hearing was so wrong,

in particular with respect to the phantom American 11, which the

officers had never mentioned, and United 93, which they claimed to

have been tracking. Commissioner Richard Ben-Veniste, who cut his

teeth 30 years earlier working for the Watergate special prosecutor,

led off the questioning and came out swinging.

 

" General, is it not a fact that the failure to call our attention to

the miscommunication and the notion of a phantom Flight 11 continuing

from New York City south in fact skewed the whole reporting of 9/11? "

he asked Arnold, who replied that he had not been aware of those facts

when he testified the year before.

 

" I've been in government and I know what spin is, " Farmer, the senior

counsel, told me. The military's story was " a whole different order of

magnitude than spin. It simply wasn't true. " Farmer says he doesn't

understand why the military felt the need to spin at all. " The

information they got [from the F.A.A.] was bad information, but they

reacted in a way that you would have wanted them to. The calls Marr

and Nasypany made were the right ones. "

 

Both Marr and Arnold bristled when I asked about the commission's

suspicion that there had been an effort to spin the story. " I can't

think of any incentive why we'd want to spin that, " Marr said, his

eyes tensing for the first time in what had been friendly interviews.

" I'll be the first to admit that immediately after—in fact, for a long

time after—we were very confused with who was what and where, what

reports were coming in. I think with having 29 different reports of

hijackings nationwide, for us it was next to impossible to try and get

back there and figure out the fidelity [about the morning's

chronology] that the 9/11 commission ended up being able to show. "

 

zzarello, Farmer, and several other commission members I spoke to

dismissed this fog-of-war excuse and pointed out that not only had the

military already reviewed the tapes but that the false story it told

at the first hearing had a clear purpose. " How good would it have

looked for the government in general if we still couldn't have stopped

the fourth plane an hour and 35 minutes [into the attack]? " Azzarello

asked. " How good would it have looked if there was a total breakdown

in communication and nothing worked right? "

 

If nothing else, it might have given the public a more realistic sense

of the limitations, particularly in the face of suicide terrorism, of

what is, without doubt, the most powerful military in the world.

 

As one of its last acts before disbanding, in July 2004, the 9/11

commission made referrals to the inspector general's offices of both

the Department of Transportation (which includes the F.A.A.) and the

Defense Department to further investigate whether witnesses had lied.

" Commission staff believes that there is significant evidence that the

false statements made to the commission were deliberately false, "

Farmer wrote to me in an e-mail summarizing the commission's referral.

" The false testimony served a purpose: to obscure mistakes on the part

of the F.A.A. and the military, and to overstate the readiness of the

military to intercept and, if necessary, shoot down UAL 93. " A

spokesman for the Transportation Department's inspector general's

office told me that the investigation had been completed, but he

wasn't at liberty to share the findings, because the report had not

been finalized. A spokesman at the Pentagon's inspector general's

office said its investigation had also been completed, but the results

are classified.

 

oring over time-stamped transcripts that undercut the Pentagon's

official story, one is tempted to get caught up in a game of " gotcha. "

For those on the operations floor in the thick of it that day,

however, the cold revelations of hindsight are a bitter pill to swallow.

 

Listening to the tapes, you hear that inside NEADS there was no sense

that the attack was over with the crash of United 93; instead, the

alarms go on and on. False reports of hijackings, and real responses,

continue well into the afternoon, though civilian air-traffic

controllers had managed to clear the skies of all commercial and

private aircraft by just after 12 p.m. The fighter pilots over New

York and D.C. (and later Boston and Chicago) would spend hours darting

around their respective skylines intercepting hundreds of aircraft

they deemed suspicious. Meanwhile, Arnold, Marr, and Nasypany were

launching as many additional fighters as they could, placing some 300

armed jets in protective orbits over every major American city by the

following morning. No one at NEADS would go home until late on the

night of the 11th, and then only for a few hours of sleep.

 

Five years after the attack, the controversy around United 93 clearly

eats at Arnold, Marr, Nasypany, and several other military people I

spoke with, who resent both conspiracy theories that accuse them of

shooting the flight down and the 9/11 commission's conclusion that

they were chasing ghosts and never stood a chance of intercepting any

of the real hijackings. " I don't know about time lines and stuff like

that, " Nasypany, who is now a lieutenant colonel, said in one of our

last conversations. " I knew where 93 was. I don't care what [the

commission says]. I mean, I care, but—I made that assessment to put my

fighters over Washington. Ninety-three was on its way in. I knew there

was another one out there. I knew there was somebody else coming

in—whatever you want to call it. And I knew what I was going to have

to end up doing. " When you listen to the tapes, it couldn't feel more

horrendously true.

 

When I asked Nasypany about the conspiracy theories—the people who

believe that he, or someone like him, secretly ordered the shootdown

of United 93 and covered it up—the corners of his mouth began to

quiver. Then, I think to the surprise of both of us, he suddenly put

his head in his hands and cried. " Flight 93 was not shot down, " he

said when he finally looked up. " The individuals on that aircraft, the

passengers, they actually took the aircraft down. Because of what

those people did, I didn't have to do anything. "

 

On the day, however, there was no time for sentiment. Within 30

seconds of the report that United 93 has crashed, killing everyone on

board, once again, the phone is ringing.

 

10:15:30POWELL: Southeast just called. There's another possible hijack

in our area.…NASYPANY: All right. Fuck …

 

Michael Bronner was an associate producer on the movie United 93. His

article about military recruiters appeared in the September 2005 issue

of Vanity Fair.