Confusion Prevented 9/11 Response
By James Gerstenzang, Times Staff Writer
latimes.com
WASHINGTON - The commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001
terrorist attacks drew a portrait today of confused and delayed responses to
the four hijackings that targeted New York and Washington and overwhelmed
civilian agencies and the military.
In a detailed account of each hijacking and the responses by the White House,
the Pentagon and the Federal Aviation Administration, the staff of the
bipartisan commission said in its 17th report that the operating procedures in
place at the time of the attacks were "unsuited in every respect for what was
about to happen."
The report follows by a
day the publication of
two commission reports
that said the terrorist
organization Al Qaeda
had considered a plan
that would have tried to
hijack 10 airplanes to
strike targets on both
U.S. coasts, and that the
panel could find no
evidence linking Al
Qaeda and Saddam
Hussein, the Iraqi leader
driven from power by
the U.S. invasion of
Iraq.
The 29-page document recounts conversations among air traffic controllers,
FAA officials, the North American Aerospace Defense Command
(NORAD), radio transmissions from the hijackers, and deliberations of senior
government officials, including President Bush and Vice President Dick
Cheney.
Bush was arriving at an elementary school in Florida as the plot unfolded, and
Cheney, in his office, was hustled to a presidential emergency command post
beneath the White House shortly after the second plane struck the World
Trade Center.
In the final minutes of the attacks, Cheney issued the only order that had even
a chance of preventing part of the catastrophe: He gave permission for military
aircraft then deployed over Washington to shoot down a hijacked aircraft
believed to be headed to the city. But the pilots in the warplanes thought they
were looking for an incoming Russian missile, and in the end, the plane that
officials thought was targeting the nation's capital crashed in Pennsylvania.
The commission said that three assumptions that lay at the heart of the
government's preparations turned out to be false: That "the hijacked aircraft
would be readily identifiable and would not attempt to disappear; there would
be time to address the problem through the appropriate FAA and NORAD
chains of command; and the hijacking would take the traditional form, not a
suicide hijacking designed to convert the aircraft into a guided missile."
With the multiple agencies involved with the response unprepared for the sort
of attack that unfolded, "what ensued was the hurried attempt to create an
improved defense by officials who had never encountered or trained against
the situation they faced," the report said.
It added: "On the morning of 9/11 there was no one decision-maker in
Washington with perfect information. Various people had various pieces of
information, and they were in different locations."
Bush was in the elementary school and then began an odyssey that took him
to air bases in Louisiana and Nebraska before he reached the capital; Cheney
and other senior White House officials were in the White House Situation
Room or the underground Presidential Emergency Operations Center. The
Pentagon's crisis management team was at the national Military Command
Center, and key FAA personnel were at their headquarters in Washington and
their command center in Herndon, Va.
The FAA said in a written response that since the attacks it had "developed
specific plans and procedures that now ensure a rapid response to any
potential aviation threat."
The report said that the four hijacked airplanes were monitored by four FAA
Air Route Traffic Control Centers, in Boston, New York, Cleveland and
Indianapolis.
Each knew part of what was happening, but did not necessarily know what
the others knew, it said.
The efforts to track the aircraft was made more complicated because the
hijackers on three planes turned off the transponders that emit a unique signal
in flight.
The military response was complicated by a shrinking of the air defense system after the Cold War
ended. On Sept. 11, 2001, the report said, NORAD was operating seven alert sights, with two fighter
aircraft on alert at each. To counter the threat posed by the terrorists, the Northeast Air Defense
Sector, based in Rome, N.Y., could call on a pair of fighter jets on alert at the Otis Air National Guard
Base on Cape Cod, Mass., and at Langley Air Force Base in Langley, Va.
The procedures for the FAA to gain military help, the report said, "required multiple levels of
notification and approval at the highest levels of government."
"The protocols," it said, "did not contemplate an intercept."
The report tracked the progress of each flight, from takeoff to hijacking to crash. The accounts are
chilling, beginning with the routine of controller-to-airplane contact that takes place hundreds of times a
day at thousands of airports.
American Airlines Flight 11 began its takeoff roll at Logan Airport in Boston at 8 a.m., carrying 81
passengers, 11 crew members, and 24,000 gallons of fuel aboard a Boeing 767. Thirteen minutes later,
a controller instructed it to "turn 20 degrees right." That was the last transmission to which the flight
responded.
Sixteen seconds later, the controller ordered the plane to climb to 35,000 feet. There was no response.
At 8:21 a.m., the plane's transponder was turned off, "immediately degrading the available information
about the aircraft," and raising suspicions that "something was seriously wrong with the plane," the
report said.
At 8:24:38, the report said, the following transmission came from the plane: "We have some planes.
Just stay quiet, and you'll be OK. We are returning to the airport."
Seconds later, another transmission: "Nobody move. Everything will be OK. If you try to make any
moves, you'll endanger yourself and the airplane. Just stay quiet."
Although the controller realized that a hijacking had occurred, he was ordered to play a tape recording
of the transmission and listen to it closely because the first part of the transmission was unclear.
Between 8:25 and 8:32, following FAA procedures, managers at the Boston air traffic control center,
located in New Hampshire, notified the chain of command of a hijacking in progress.
At 8:34 a.m., the Boston Center, as it is known, jumped ahead of the chain of command. Working
through the FAA's Cape Cod facility, it gave the first notification to the military that an airplane had
been commandeered.
According to the report, this was the conversation that began at 8:37:52:
FAA: "Hi. Boston Center TMU, 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."
The Northeast Air Defense Sector: "Is this real-world or exercise?
FAA: "No, this is not an exercise, not a test."
The air defense office ordered two F-15 alert aircraft to battle stations.
"The air defense of America began with this call," the report said.
The order to scramble the fighters came at 8:46 - with no specific destination because the hijacked
airplane had disappeared from the primary tracking device. Forty seconds later, American 11 struck
the World Trade Center. Six minutes later, the fighters were airborne.
As the terror escalated, so too did the confusion, fed both by a lack of information as the hijackers
masked their whereabouts and intentions, and by a lack of planned responses that could be carried out
with split-second timing.
United Flight 175, another Boeing 767 headed from Boston to Los Angeles, was 14 minutes behind
the American flight. Just as American Flight 11 hit the North Tower of the trade center, United 175's
transponder code was changed, then changed again. As the second hijacking became apparent, the
manager at the New York Center told the FAA's command center in Herndon, Va.: "We have several
situations going on here. It's escalating big, big time. We need to get the military involved with us."
And at just about that moment, the New York center said in a transmission to the New York terminal
approach control: "All right. Heads up man, it looks like another one coming in."
Within a minute, United 175 struck the trade center's South Tower.
American Flight 77 began its takeoff roll from Dulles International Airport outside Washington at 8:20
a.m. All was routine for roughly 34 minutes. But the Indianapolis center that was tracking it did not
learn until 9:20 a.m. that there had been other hijackings. Controllers at the center never saw the plane
reverse course and head back toward Washington.
"American 77 traveled undetected for 36 minutes on a course heading due east for Washington, D.C.,"
the report said. When the airplane, still unidentified, was found on radar, it was six minutes from striking
the Pentagon.
Similar confusion followed the flight of United 93, which took off from Newark, N.J., at 8:42 a.m. The
plane, which the hijackers were believed to have been aiming at the Capitol or the White House,
crashed in Pennsylvania. The commission's staff statement does not deal with reports that the
passengers fought with the hijackers.
Correcting what it said was erroneous testimony, the report said that the military did not have 14
minutes to respond to the hijacking of American 77.
"It had at most one or two minutes to respond to the unidentified plane approaching Washington, and
the fighters were in the wrong place to be able to help. They had been responding to a report about an
aircraft that did not exist," it said, referring to a mistaken report that Flight 11, the first plane to hit the
World Trade Center, was headed to Washington.
"Nor did the military have 47 minutes to respond to United 93, as would be implied by the account that
it received notice about it at 9:16. By the time the military learned about the flight, it had crashed," the
report said.
And while Flight 93, which crashed in Pennsylvania, was forecast to reach Washington about 10:15
a.m., as late a 10:10 a.m. the two fighters dispatched from Langley did not have permission to shoot it
down.
In moments, however, that permission came from Cheney. He had spoken minutes before with Bush,
who, the vice president said, according to the report, "signed off on that concept."
Bush, according to the report, "said he remembered such a conversation, and that it reminded him of
when he had been a fighter pilot."
Some time between 10:10 a.m. and 10:15 a.m., the report said, "a military aide told the vice president
and others that the aircraft was 80 miles out. Vice President Cheney was asked for authority to engage
the aircraft.
"The vice president's reaction was described as quick and decisive: 'in about the time it takes a batter
to decide to swing.' He authorized fighter aircraft to engage the inbound plane."
Had the United flight not crashed at 10:03 a.m., it would not have reached Washington any earlier than
10:13 a.m., and possibly not until 10:23 a.m. By then, there were two fighters flying a combat air patrol
over the capital. But the pilots had not been briefed on why they had been sent aloft, and one said later:
"I reverted to the Russian threat.… I'm thinking cruise missiles threat from the sea. You know you look
down and see the Pentagon burning and I thought the bastards snuck one by us….[Y]ou couldn't see
any airplanes, and no one told us anything."
Underlining his point, the report said the pilots "did not know that the threat came from hijacked
commercial airliners." Tracing the controversial decision that kept Bush out of Washington for roughly
10 hours after the attacks, the report said the president came under strong pressure to not return to the
capital. Before the president left Florida, White House chief of staff Andrew H. Card Jr., the lead
Secret Service agent, Bush's military aide and the pilot conferred about a destination. The Secret
Service agent felt strongly, the report said, that it was too unstable in Washington for the president to
return, and Card agreed. Bush, it said, "needed convincing."
With the plane taking off, Bush spoke with Cheney, who said, according to the report, that he also
urged Bush to stay out of Washington.
"Air Force One departed at approximately 9:55, with no destination at take-off," the report said. "The
objective was to get up in the air - as fast and as high as possible - and then decide where to go." |
