9-11 Revisited

This article documents a call from Ron Ruggieri, Eastern Region, to John Hendershot, Dulles TRACON manager.  It is clear and explicit primary source evidence that the alert about the fast mover later identified as AA77 passed to NEADS by Boston Center was a result of Colin Scoggins listening to the results of this conversation.

In this call Ruggieri is turned over to the Supervisor, John Hendershott,  and asked about UA 175, but then confirmed it was out of Boston.  Here is the the start of that call.  0934 Ruggieri to Hendershott about UA 175

Hendershott then told Ruggieri that they were tracking a primary target headed toward  the White House [P56].   Hendershott advised that National Approach and the White House had been notified.  It is clear from this next cut that Ruggieri was briefing someone else who was then passing along the information.  0935 IAD Tracking a fast moving unknown toward White House

Ruggieri asked for a position and was told the target was six miles southwest of the White House, identical to the information that Colin Scoggins was concurrently passing to NEADS.

0936 six miles SW of White House

Note the confusion, however.  Hendershott opined that the target could be military.  In the background a voice is heard saying that the military had been notified.  That is either a garble of Hendershott’s opinion or an acknowledgement of the Boston Center notification to NEADS.  There is no evidence that anyone in the military other than NEADS was notified.  The FAA primary net did not include the NMCC and the NMCC had closed down its Significant Event Conference and was in the process of bringing up an Air Threat Conference, one that did not include FAA.

Hendershott, clearly looking at a TRACON radar scope, then provided near-real time updates to Eastern Region.   It’s “maneuvering,” now turning back “towards the White House.” A background voice asked if it was military.  Hendershott responded, “we have no knowledge.”  The background voice immediately passed along that information, “they have no knowledge, Dave.”  0937 Turning Back Toward the White House

That is likely a reference to Dave Canoles.  If so, then Eastern Region was passing the information immediately to FAA Headquarters.  Given that Colin Scoggins was listening to the Eastern Region phone bridge, then it is likely that the false earlier report that AA11 was still airborne originated on that bridge.  Scoggins has long contended that the false report came from Canoles’ office, if not from Canoles, himself.

Headquarters, via Eastern Region, became concerned that National was not on the bridge and that the hot line to the White House had not been activated.  National had done that immediately when Daniel O’Brien and her supervisor sounded the alarm, but no one at FAA Headquarters or Eastern Region apparently knew that.  Hendershott took an action to call National and confirm that the hot line had been activated.  0937 Concern About Hot Line to White House

Hendershott reported that  the primary dissappeared shortly after 9:38.  Then reporting got confused as apparent false returns from the aftermath of the Pentagon impact caused Hendershott to also report that the target was a mile from the White House.  It was a chaotic moment and in that moment Hendershott confirmed that the White House hot line had been activated.  0938 Target Disappeared False Returns Confuse White House Hot Line Confirmed

A  little more than a minute later Ruggieri told  Hendershott, with resignation, that  ”he went into the Pentagon, West side.”  Ruggieri heard that first in background just as he was explaining that the only reason he called had to do with UA 175.  0939 He Just Went into the Pentagon West Side

The Ruggieri call provides a unique and perhaps the only real time window into the FAA’s Eastern Region.  Once John Hendershott was asked to keep the line open the window opened.  Eastern Region was and is an administrative headquarters.  It served FAA poorly by interjecting itself into a battle being fought by Herndon Center.

Eastern Region had no business being in the middle of the situation once the focus changed from UA175 to a fast moving unknown being tracked by Dulles TRACON.  Yet, ironically, had Eastern Region not made the call looking for UA175 then FAA Headquarters would not have had near real-time information from a radar scope displaying the track of what would later be determined to be AA77.

The purpose of this brief article is to document the NEADS successful search for AA77 when cued with accurate, timely information.

The primary source documentation is found on Ch 5 ID TK, in the first NEADS delivery of audio files to the Commission.  The Channel recorded as an open mike and the stream of audio conversations is chaotic, intermingled, and largely in the background.  Here is a 39 second segment of that file.  The time is approximately 0936 EDT.

There he is Ch 5 ID TK

From the moment MSGT Dooley announced the first results of a Colin Scoggins alert call to the Sector floor it took 34 seconds for the aircraft to be found.  Here is a partial transcript of what can be made out on the file

Watson:  OK, copy

Dooley:  We have an aircraft 6 miles southeast of the White House

Dooley:  Southwest

Dooley:  He’s deviating

Watson:  OK, sir, it’s six miles

Male Voice:  Here it is

For comparison, here is the clear call between Scoggins and Watson.  Dooley began here floor announcements as soon as Watson said, “OK, copy.”

093536 AA77 Scoggins VFR 6 Miles

This establishes the metric by which to measure the NEADS response time when provided timely, accurate information.  Note that in this case, they did not have specific information–a mode 3, a lat long, or a range and bearing from a known navigation point.  The general point out, “six miles from the White House” was sufficient.  NEADS was then able to establish a track, B032, which faded [Pentagon impact] before the track could be forward told to CONR and NORAD.

Some researchers speculate that NEADS was unable to locate targets on 9/11, based on the fact that AA11 was not found.  Those who so speculate overlook the fact that NEADS did not have timely, accurate information concerning AA11.  NEADS established a “last known” Z point to the north of where AA11 actually was.  Further, New York TRACON, when given a general reference was also unable to spot AA 11, as can be heard on this third audio file.

NY TRACON difficulty finding AA11

Addendum, Feb 20, 2011

Warren Stutt has updated his AA77 FDR output files.

Addendum, Feb 19, 2011

An additional piece of research and analysis has come to me attention that adds to the work cited in my original post.  John (not Commission) Farmer has provided a link to a definitive, primary source-based, analysis of radar pertinent to 9-11.  His paper is titled, “Radar and NTSB Time Normalization for 9/11 Data Sources.”

Here is Farmer’s lead paragraph:

“Perhaps one of the most contentious aspects of the analysis of American Airlines Flight 77’s (AAL77) flight path is the reconciliation of the radar data released by the U.S. Air Force’s 84th Radar Evaluation Squadron (84 RADES), the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), and National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). However, this should not be the case since alignment of the individual data sets is rather straight- forward in the case of AAL77. Also, the abundance of data from such a wide spectrum of sources and measurement systems, from take-off to within seconds of the termination of flight, gives a complete and unequivocal historical record.”

Farmer’s work is technical and, based on my all-source knowledge of the radar issue, is definitive.  Taken together with the other sources I cited earlier the public has an articulate, rigorous, and nearly complete story of AA 77 and the Pentagon, one constructed independent of the work of the Commission.

This body of work is a logical extension of the work of the Commission and the Congressional Joint Inquiry before it.  The work stands on its own merit and can be replicated, a measure of its validity.  Historians and researchers now have available a body of work, one that can be used and cited with a high degree of confidence in its accuracy.

Purpose

The purpose of this article is to acknowledge responsible research and investigation concerning AA 77 and the Pentagon.  A body of work has now been completed largely independent of the work of the Commission and the Joint Inquiry before it.  Taken together, three independent efforts comprise a valuable publicly available source of accurate information.

The three are the work of Legge and Stutt in reconstructing the data from the AA 77 flight data recorder, the work of the American Society of Civil Engineers in assessing the damage to the Pentagon, and the work of Creed and Newman in detailing the rescue and recovery efforts by first responders.  We start with the recent web publication of the work of Legge and Stutt

Frank Legge and Warren Stutt

Warren Stutt, a knowledgeable and dedicated researcher, spent months obtaining and analyzing the most critical and accurate primary source information available, the data from the Flight Data Recorder (FDR) for AA 77.  The result of that work, “Flight AA77 on 9-11: New FDR Analysis Supports the Official Flight Path Leading to Impact with the Pentagon,” resolves multiple issues that arose because the National Traffic Safety Board’s own work did not account for the final seconds of the flight of AA 77.

Legge and Stutt conclude that: “Previous analyses were…confounded by uncertainty of the position of the last data point; failure to consider possible calibration errors in the pressure altimeter data, caused by high speed and low altitude; and false information in the NTSB flight animation.  The recent complete decoding of the FDR file has enlarged and clarified the information available and has thereby enabled resolution of the contradictions. It is clear that this file supports the official account of the course of flight AA 77 and the consequent impact with the Pentagon. The file thus also supports the majority of eyewitness reports.”

The words “complete decoding” are important.  The authors took the raw data from the FDR and reconstructed every frame of data, to include data previously thought not to have been recorded.  Their dedicated effort completes the work of the National Traffic Safety Board (NTSB) which left the technical story hanging.

However, their work only takes the AA77 story up to the point it impacted the Pentagon.  For the rest of the story we turn to two previous studies, “The Pentagon Building Performance Report” and the Creed/Newman book Firefight: the Battle to save the Pentagon on 9-11. We begin with the building performance report.

The Pentagon Building Performance Report (PBPR)

The Performance Report, [PDF file available at this URL: http://fire.nist.gov/bfrlpubs/build03/PDF/b03017.pdf (copy/paste into browser] published in January 2003 under the auspices of the American Society of Civil Engineers and the Structural Engineering Institute, provides a detailed technical analysis of what happened once AA 77 penetrated the building.

According to the authors the purpose of the report was to “…examine the performance of the structure in the crash and the subsequent fire for the benefit of the building professions and the public.”  Their work extends the trajectory established by Legge and Stutt into the Pentagon and describes the resultant damage. 

Together, the two analyses so far discussed conclusively document the final moments of AA 77 and provide a technical account of what happened.  Although the Performance Report  did consider some eye witness testimony the human aspect of the story has best been told by Creed and Newman.

Creed and Newman

In their 2008 book, Firefight: Inside the Battle to Save the Pentagon on 9/11, Creed and Newman tell the story of the emergency response, what happened in the immediate aftermath once AA 77 slammed into the Pentagon.  According to the dust jacket summary, the authors were “Granted unprecedented access to the major players in the valiant response efforts, [the authors] take us step-by-step throught the harrowing minutes, hours, and days following the crash…into the Pentagon’s western facade.

According to Creed and Newman, “The instant its nose struck the outer wall of the Pentagon, Flight 77 ceased to be an airplane.”  At that moment physics [and chemistry, the laws of science] took over.  It became a “roaring mass of fluid and debris…a tidal wave…”  “The Pentagon finally arrested the forward movement of Flight 77. The mass plowed through the C Ring and blew a round hole, about 12 feet in diamenter, through the ring’s inner wall.”  From the moment of impact, the entire event had taken place in eight-tenths of a second.”

Independent of the 9-11 Commission

The three investigative efforts described, taken together, tell a complete story of the last moments of flight AA 77 and the Pentagon.  There work can be replicated and it stands apart from the work of the 9-11 Commission and the Joint Inquiry.  The work of Legge, Stutt, Creed, Newman, and the authors of the ASCE report is definitive and validates and verifies the work of the 9-11 Commission.

Moreover, it provides an independent baseline for assessing the multiple eye witness and participant recall accounts.  Some researchers have speculated, based on eye witness accounts that somehow something quite different happened to both AA 77 and the Pentagon.

Creed and Newman have this to say concerning eye witness accounts in their Epilogue:  “In addition to the documentary evidence we’ve cited as source material, we have relied on the memories and personal records of more than 150 people…Memories, of course, can be incomplete and faulty…We checked personal recollections against official documents wherever possible…”

Eye Witness Accounts

Eye witness and participant recall accounts are important but only when validated and verified by primary sources and secondary information.  Given the complete story of AA 77 and the Pentagon we can now add to the account an exceptional eye witness account, that of Penny Elgas.  Her detailed, articulate, and reflective narrative is consistent in its detail and provides a vivid picture to complement the technical work of Legge and Stutt.

This short article serves to document the work of Warren Stutt.  Warren has taken it upon himself to parse the data from the AA 77 flight data record down to its most elemental level.  His work is definitive and significantly extends the work of the Commission on this issue.

For those interested in definitive, supportable research on the technical details of the flight of AA 77 this is your best source.

There is a dedicated group of individuals who are working diligently and thoroughly to document technical information pertaining to the flight of AA 77.  Their work builds on the work of the Commission and extends that work in depth and detail. One such individual is Tom Lusch whose interest is the radar coverage issue.  Here is a portion of his vitae.