Archive for the ‘May 23 2003 Hearing’ Category

9-11: NORAD briefings prior to May 23, 2003 hearing, some comments

Thursday, August 6th, 2009

I mentioned two briefings in the article “9-11: NORAD’s Sudoku Puzzle; a briefing askew, an addendum” that NORAD knew about before the May 23, 2003 hearing.  Thanks to some out of cycle work at NARA by paxvector and History Commons those two briefings are now available on the web.  Here is Cheri Gott’s 2002 briefing to the Satellite Toolkit (STK) Conference.  Here is her briefing to CONR to help prepare them for the hearing.

It is clear from both briefings, based on 84th RADES radar data, that NORAD knew the true story of the Otis and Langley scrambles.  They failed to tell that story at the first air defense hearing on May 23, 2003.  We also learn from these briefings that a “scramble” does not mean aircraft were launched.

A scramble defined

NORAD (Gott), on one sllide,  provides researchers and historians the definition of a scramble:  “Scramble = an order to get aircraft airborne as soon as possible.”  The important point here is that a scramble does not mean that planes were necessarily ever launched.

In my own work for the DoD Inspector General we examined the history of SEADS-directed scrambles concerning air activity over the Florida Straits concerning flight activity by the Brothers To The Rescue and Cuban response to that activity.  We determined the universe of scrambles over a several-month period and then further refined the data to focus only on those cases in which air defense fighters actually launched.  The number was quite small in comparsion to the number of “scrambles.”  My recall is that many of the scramble orders were cancelled because the information was determined to be spurious before the air defense pilots could get airborne.

A scramble order was and is a precautionary step, one in a sequence that can be stopped.  In the case of the Mission Crew Commanders at SEADS their task was to issue the scramble order and then quickly seek authority to actually launch.  The sequence of events on the morning of 9-11 was much the same.  The Mission Crew Commander and Colonel Marr scrambled Otis and immediately sought approval to launch.  General Arnold granted approval.

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9-11: NORAD’s Sudoku Puzzle; a briefing askew, an addendum

Sunday, July 5th, 2009

This article provides information as it was briefed to the Commission on May 23, 2003. It complements the article “NORAD’s Sudoku Puzzle; a failure to tell the truth,” which should be read first. In that article you were introduced to Colonel Scott, USAF, retired. It is Colonel Scott who presented the briefing to the Commission. The video of that briefing is available on the Commission’s web site; it does not, however, clearly show the briefing charts used. The charts have recently been made available by NARA and the purpose of this addendum is to share them.

Colonel Scott made it very clear that times on his charts were derived solely from logs, primarily the NEADS MCC/T log; no other source. It is understandable, then, why he would brief a Pentagon impact time of 8:43, for example, as opposed to the actual time. On the other hand, it does not make clear why he would show UA93 impacting near Pittsburgh, as show on his introductory chart.

More important, however, is his treatment of the flight path of the Otis fighters and to some extent, the flight path of the Langley fighters as they neared the capital. Scott gave  the impression that the Otis fighters hugged the coast and proceeded directly to New York City, consistent with the account given by the pilots during interviews in 2002. When asked during an interview at CONR why he blurred the scramble path Scott claimed limitations of the Powerpoint program, a disingenuous answer, at best.

The rest of Scott’s charts were timelines, included here for the record. Better renditions will become available when paper copies in Team 8, Box 8 at NARA are uploaded.

NORAD Hearing First Time Chart

second-time-chart1third-time-chart1fourth-time-chart1

See the May 23, 2003 hearing article for a discussion of the discrepancies. In sum, NORAD read the MCC/T log wrong, twice; first when they prepared their Sep 18, 2001 press release and again when they prepared for the first air defense hearing. In my interviews with both Michael Bronner and Phil Shenon I attributed this to shoddy staff work, primarily at NEADS, which was not adequately vetted at either CONR (Generals Arnold and McKinley) or NORAD (General Eberhart).

The NORAD staff had clear and explicit information available; the radar files, the tapes, and the logs of the day.  On September 25, 2001, in a memo to the US Space Command Directorate of Analysis the 84th RADES included an analysis of radar data for 11 Sep 2001 which included radar text files and Powerpoint slides showing flight paths. On June 3, 2002, a NORAD analyst, Cheri Gott made a presentation to the annual Satellite Toolkit (STK) Conference which was based on 84th RADES data. Moreover, she followed that with a May 13, 2003, briefing to CONR just 10 days prior to the first Commission hearing on air defense. A purpose of Gott’s staff work was to produce a product for the CINC (Gen Eberhart) to use from a Headquarters perspective. Relevant Gott source material is in Team 8, Box 8 at NARA.

NORAD’s failure to provide an accurate accounting of the day is inexcusable for any staff and particularly for a staff that had been at the air defense business for decades.  NORAD failed to accurately read its own logs, tapes and radar files.  Together with FAA it failed to reach agreement on the basic facts of the day in the immediate aftermath when events were fresh.  The NORAD staff failed to adequately prepare its CINC for questions it knew were coming during General Eberhart’s annual testimony to Congress.  Ultimately, NORAD failed to tell the story of the valiant battle by Alpha and Delta flights at NEADS; a story that General Arnold conceded was better than the one they did tell.  Thanks to Michael Bronner that story has been told.

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NORAD’s Sudoku Puzzle, a failure to tell the truth

Thursday, June 11th, 2009

This is an unpublished letter submitted to the Editors, Washington Post.  It details how the NORAD testimony at the May 23, 2003, 9-11 Commission hearing came to be.

August 4, 2006

Letters to the Editor
The Washington Post
1150 15th Street, N.W.
Washington, DC 20071

Dear Editors,

Recent news media highlight the issue of why the NORAD account was so wrong about the events of September 11, 2001. Answers range from the position of NORAD officials that they were telling the truth as they knew it to the opposing position that they deliberately lied to the 9-11 Commission. My assessment is that poor staff work and a single error in logic, compounded, led NORAD far astray from the facts of the day.

Metaphorically, the NORAD task was to solve a difficult Sudoku puzzle. An early mistake in logic makes such a puzzle impossible to solve. The NORAD mistake was made prior to September 18th, 2001, the day it published an official timeline. That mistake led to inaccurate accounts in every official government story at every level thereafter, including NORAD testimony before the 9/11 Commission on May 23, 2003.

I arranged for the presence of General McKinley, General Arnold, and Colonel Scott at that hearing. General Eberhart, the NORAD Commander, had a previously scheduled trip to Europe and seconded Major General McKinley, CONUS Region (CONR) Commander, to represent him. In my initial conversation with General McKinley he was inclined to testify alone, even though he was not in the NORAD chain-of-command on September 11, 2001.

The Commission staff had the NORAD and FAA timelines, the military radar data, and an initial document delivery from the Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS). We knew from that limited data that fighters had not flown directly from either Otis or Langley and that the NORAD and FAA timelines were not in agreement. General McKinley was advised that we needed a definitive explanation of the scrambles and an accurate timeline.

General McKinley added Major General Arnold, former CONR Commander to the attendee list. General McKinley was again advised that the scrambles were a critical issue and asked if General Arnold could speak to that issue. General McKinley then added Colonel Scott explaining that Scott, alone, knew more about the scrambles and the timelines than any other NORAD official; he was the definitive source.

Scott had the original NORAD timeline of September 18, 2001. That timeline showed notification times of 8:40 for AA11, 8:43 for UA175, 9:24 for AA77, and no time for UA93, alluding to the fact that Langley fighters were already airborne. An accompanying note explained that: “The FAA and NEADS established a line of open communication discussing AA Flt 77 and UA Flt 93.”

There was one critical and two other serious mistakes in the timeline. The critical error was the 9:24 time for AA77. The accurate NEADS log information was: “American Airlines No. N334AA hijacked.” N334AA is the tail number for AA11, not AA77, a basic fact apparently never checked by any NORAD, CONR, or NEADS staff officer with either American Airlines or FAA.

The 8:43 time for UA175, was impossible and never explained in any document or during any interview conducted by the Commission staff. It was most likely a NORAD misunderstanding of information from FAA. That is the approximate time that UA175 was hijacked, a fact only known post facto.

The “open line” caveat was disingenuous. FAA called the National Military Command Center at 9:20 on an unclassified line but no operational information was ever passed. NEADS tapes show that about 9:23 [sic: the time was actually 9:33, the original letter submitted contained a typo] the FAA representative to NEADS began work to establish a secure line. That effort was not completed until after 10 am, and had no relationship to real time information about either AA77 or UA93.

Both NORAD and FAA separately engaged in staff deliberations during the period Sep 11-17, 2001, and they were in periodic contact. According to the lead official for FAA she was in frequent contact with her NORAD counterpart, General Arnold. The two organizations could not agree. NORAD pre-empted and published its timeline on Sep 18. FAA did not publish a timeline until some months later.

NORAD was also preparing General Eberhart for October 2001 testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee. In that appearance, Senator Levin asked about notification on AA77, citing a time of 9:25. Eberhart responded: “I show it as 9:24 that we were notified.” Eberhart’s testimony solidified the critical error in formal CINC testimony before the Congress. It became the CINC-approved NORAD story.

Essential NORAD files and data were held at NEADS. The single, most important document was the MCC/T (Mission Crew Commander/Technician) log, a handwritten journal maintained in real time. It is that log, in particular, to which Colonel Scott refers when he stated to the Commission on May 23, 2003; “I will tell you the times on this chart come from our logs.”

Therefore, the 8:43 notification time for UA 175 was not mentioned by Scott. It was not in any log and had never existed. Scott’s review repeated the original mistake concerning the 9:24 entry for AA11 and made another mistake in interpretation by attributing a 9:16 entry concerning a United flight (probably UA175) to UA93. (The 9:16 time may come from a different log than the MCC/T log) Nearly two years after the initial mistake about AA77 was made and became CINC-approved, it was repeated and compounded to include UA93.

On the day after the hearing Colonel Scott sent an e-mail to Colonel Marr, with a copy to the Commission staff, stating that it became easier to explain the Langley fighter scramble in terms of UA93 than AA77. It is clear from that email that neither Scott nor Marr, whose staff supported Scott, took the time to listen to the tapes or look at the actual transcripts. The NEADS staff, and Colonel Scott, had sufficient data available to them to find the rebirth of AA11 misinformation and the real reason for the Langley scramble. If they found it they did lie. If they did not they could not tell the truth. They could not solve their Sudoku puzzle.

We await the findings of the Inspectors General of the Department of Transportation and the Department of Defense.

/s/

Miles L. Kara, Sr., Former Staff, 9/11 Commission

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