This article is the first in a series.  It sets the stage for a discussion of the national level’s descent into chaos as it pursued a plane which no longer existed, UA 93.  I will show that, threat aircraft aside, real or imagined, the national level had little situation awareness of friendly forces.

National Level

I define the national level as the National Command Authority; the Vice President; relevant Departments of government, specifically Defense and Transportation (including the FAA); and certain supporting organizations, specifically the National Military Command Center and the White House Situation Room.

The national level did not start getting organized until 9:20–I will speak to that in a later article-and never gained situational awareness of the threat during the terrorist attack.  What is little understood is that decision makers and their supporting staff apparently had little awareness of the friendly situation.

The Decision

The decision at hand was whether or not to allow Air Force One to continue north and return the President to the nation’s capital.  The collective wisdom dictated that the President not return, that he seek safe haven to the west, ultimately Omaha, Nebraska, with a short stop in Louisiana.

The danger was knowledge of another hijacked aircraft (UA 93) and a vague, false threat to Air Force One.  Yet, there were adequate friendly forces available to support the President’s return.

Friendly Force Disposition

At 10:10 EDT, the moment Air Force One turned west just south of Ocala, Florida, there were at least six fighters in the air that could have provided protection or escort, and there was an E4B, Venus 77, that had been positioned south of Washington D.C. specifically to support Air Force One.

Friendly Forces 10:10 EDT, September 11, 2001

Three Langley air defense fighters, two fully armed, had established a combat air patrol over the nation’s capital at 10:00.  Three Andrews fighters had just been recalled from scheduled training over Dare range in North Carolina.  One, Bully 2, was already en route home base, the other two were just beginning the flight north.

Other military aircraft, Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine, were active in Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, and Virginia.  Here is a powerpoint screen print of the Mode 2 (military) tracks during the period 10:00-10:30, as contained in the 84th RADES radar files from the Southeast Air Defense Sector.

Military Air Activity (view as slide show for better clarity)

Although the Andrews fighters had training ammunition only, they did have tanker support and could have escorted Air Force One until the Langley fighters, also supported by tankers, could take over.

Retrospectively, it is clear that the National Military Command Center and, by extension, the White House Situation Room, was not able to accurately advise the National Command Authority concerning either the enemy or the friendly situation.  That was more than a failure of imagination it was a failure of execution.

I did not work on the World Trade Center story while on the Commission and, therefore, have not written much about it.  However, Langewiesche touches on an issue important to me, Chaos Theory, and I need to address it.

Chaos Theory

Langewiesche, as do nearly all writers, researchers and historians, uses the word “chaos” ubiquitously and without definition.  The word is used as an accepted descriptor, understood by all.

In earlier articles I have established my use of Chaos Theory to understand and put in context the events of 9-11.  In particular, I have established that we can use Chaos Theory as a metaphor and that we can use its language to describe things.

One such description is the fact that in Chaos things self organize in ways that cannot be predicted and strange attractors emerge because information flows to entities or people around which things can reorganize.

Langewiesche describes such a set of circumstances concerning the “unbuilding” of the World Trade Center, one in which an unlikely entity and actors emerged and around  whom things organized to deal with what the author, time and again, refers to as chaos.

[page 9] “The agency charged with managing the physical work was an unlikely one.  It was the Department of Design and Construction (DDC), an obscure bureaucracy…whose offices were not even in Manhattan but in Queens.  The DDC was given the lead for the simple reason that its two top officials, a man named Kenneth Holden and his Lieutenant, Michael Burton, had emerged from the chaos of September 11 as the most effective of the responders.”

And later, [page 11] “Their success in the midst of chaos was an odd twist in the story of these monolithic buildings that in the final stretch of the twentieth century had stood so visibly for the totalitarian ideals of planning and control.”  But the buildings were not buildings anymore, and the place where they fell had become a blank slate for the United States.  Among the ruins now, an unscripted experiment in American life had gotten under way.”

And finally, a description of the task [page 12]: “The weight alone defied imagination.  What does a chaos of 1.5 million tons really mean?”  Thereafter, the author will refer to the debris pile, itself, as “chaos.”

But how good is Langewiesche as a contemporary historian?  The author provides us the answer.  He took the time to describe the flights of AA 11 and UA 175 in a way that allows us to gage his research.

Primary source information, accurately reported

Beginning on page 75 and in seven succinct pages, Langewiesche, accurately told the primary source story of AA 11 and UA 175 using transcripts of the audio files from air traffic control and from American Airlines.  His account is flawless, based on my own understanding and my own work with the air traffic control tapes.  Using that benchmark to establish Langewiesche’s due diligence as an historian and writer, we can reasonably accept the rest of his work, specifically the following:

1.  Beginning on page 54 Langewiesche described the deaths of, first, the South Tower, and then the North Tower as a specific result of the impacts of UA 175 and AA 11.  ”One of the many astonishments of that day was that the building [South Tower] was able to swallow an entire 767 and slow it from 590 MPH to a stop in merely 209 feet.”  ”…the building would have remained standing indefinitely.  But then, of course, there was the fire…”

2.  ”On the debris pile in the northeast corner the fire melted the remnants of the shattered airliner, which half an hour after entering the building began to flow in a stream of molten aluminum down the tower outside.”

3.  With its support giving way beneath it the top of the [South] tower tilted  east and then south., rotating in a clockwise direction, and suddenly slammed down.” “…it was not felled from below, it was hammered from above and it accelerated as it fell crushing the core and peeling back the exoskeleton with each successive floor.”

4.  [North Tower] “…the 351-foot transmission tower on the roof sank a little…Half a second later the floors above the impact zone dropped as a unit straight down through the office fire, creating a flare-up and the illusion of a secondary explosion before striking the first blow in the chain of blows that pancaked the monolith to the ground.”

5. The words of one of the last persons found alive, one who survived the fall of the North Tower, Pasquale Buzzelli.  ”Buzzelli felt the building rumble, and immediately afterward heard a tremendous pounding coming at him from above, as one after another  the upper floors collapsed in sequence.  Buzzelli’s memory of it afterwards was distinct.  The pounding was rhythmic, and it intensified fast, as if a monstrous boulder were bounding down the stairwell toward his head.”

Based on Langewiesche’s demonstrated due diligence in research and reporting I am confident that the conflagrations–the office fires–brought the towers down, that the molten metal “flowing out” was aluminum, and that the speculation by a few about controlled demolition is simply false.

Langewiesche’s work was criticized, but that criticism had nothing to do with his technical descriptions of the flights, their impact, the fires, or the collapse of the towers.  It had to do with his treatment of the stakeholders, primarily the New York Fire Department, in the demolition effort.  In the afterword to his paper back edition, Langewiesche showed his established due diligence by acknowledging and addressing the criticism of his original book.

Introduction

This article is one of the primary reasons I established my web site.  I wanted to continue the work begun by the Commission, relying on the primary and secondary sources of the day.  One such primary source is the NEADS audio files.

The NEADS files are difficult to listen to and even more difficult to transcribe.  The Commission-contracted effort with Alderson to transcribe the NEADs tapes is indicative of how difficult the transcription process was, and is.  Alderson attempted to provide continuity by concentrating on specific voices.  Captain Brian Nagel, the Senior Director 2, is male speaker 13, for example.  Their transcription effort for the Senior Director 2 position is available.

Background

The Commission [pp 42-43]reported that: “The NEADS commander [Colonel Marr] told us he did not pass along the order because he was unaware of its ramifications.  Both the mission commander [Major Nasypany] and the senior weapons director [Major Fox] indicated they did not pass the order to the fighters circling Washington and New York because they were unsure how the pilots would, or should proceed with this guidance.  In short, while leaders in Washington believed that the fighters above them had been instructed to “take out” hostile aircraft, the only orders actually conveyed to the pilots were to “ID type and tail.”

That set of circumstances pertained to the initial order that NEADS received over a chat network passed from the Region Commander [General Arnold] with explicit reference to the Vice President.  According to the Commission Report: “Okay? Okay, you read that the Vice President, right?  Vice President has cleared.  Vice President has cleared us to intercept traffic and shot the down if the do not respond per [General Arnold].”

At the time, circa 10:31, the “DO [Director of Operations] [said] no.”  That would later change as we shall hear as we examine the continued NEADS effort to generate fighters from bases in the Mid-West.  The position of interest on the NEADS floor is the SD2 [Senior Director 2] position manned by Captain Brian Nagel.

Nagel’s chain of command was Nasypany to Marr.  His situational awareness was that Cleveland Center (ZOB) would evacuate and that there may still be unknown hostile aircraft in the sky.  His guidance became to protect major cities.

New Directions Coming Down

Captain Nagel time stamped this primary source information for us.  He exchanged information with Cobra 1, the lead of a flight of two fighters out of Syracuse.  Cobra 1 told him his “play time” (time available in the air).  The Cobra flight was awaiting directions while in a holding pattern in Misty Thunder, a training area over Lake Ontario.

Nagel glanced at a clock or watch and verbalized the time as 1453 [10:53, actual tape stamp time is circa 10:55].  Cobra 1 informed Nagel that he and a second Syracuse pair of fighters (Apex) had hot guns only.  Nagel acknowledged that and informed Cobra 1 that there was new direction coming down and that he would brief him once he got the word.  That exchange can be heard here.  1453 New Directions Coming Down

Nagel briefs Cobra 1

Ten minutes later (circa 11:03 EDT) Nagel briefed Cobra 1. The new guidance coming down from above, “as in Presidential,” was to protect the major centers.  Nagel told Cobra 1 he would direct them to Pittsburgh once he arranged for tanker support.  He told Cobra 1, “there is clearance to kill, if required,” and that he would provide a further brief but had to “confirm the details on that.”  All subsequent clips in this article are a continuation and the first clip, the brief, can be heard here.  1503 Protect Major Cities

Cobra 1 responds

Cobra 1 advised that the previous transmission from Nagel was interfered by Guard (emergency frequency) and he needed a repeat.  Nagel again told him the mission and advised that Cleveland Center was evacuated and that Cobra [and Apex] would be on “auto ops.”  He also made reference to the earlier report that one aircraft [UA 93] reported a bomb threat.  1504 ROE shortly

Nagel asks the MCC for clarification

Nagel asked for the “kill direction,” what to tell “these guys.”  He was just going to give them a brief, wasn’t going to tell them to do anything.  The MCC’s response was overridden by Cobra 1.  150430 MCC When Able

Nagel again asks for clarification

Nagel briefed the MCC on what he was doing with the Syracuse fighters.  The MCC’s response can poorly be made out; he was speaking to lack of response [by a potential target] and divert procedures.  Nagel responded, “Wilco.”  1505 Wilco

Nagel briefs Cobra 1

Nagel told Cobra 1: “direction is…protect the major centers, when you are overhead the major center, it will be Pittsburgh in this case, you have intercept authority on any traffic in the area,  if the traffic does not respond to hand signals, divert procedures, anything like that and they continue to press in a threatening manner towards the major center you are cleared to engage.”  Cobra 1, “copies.”  1506 Cobra Copies

Perspective

In the 10:50-11:00 time frame, after the battle of 9-11 was over, the nation began the transition to Operation Noble Eagle (ONE), protect the major centers, a labor-intensive, around-the-clock, resource-draining effort.  The exchange between Captain Nagel and Cobra 1 provides specific primary-source information that new guidance, Presidential guidance, had been issued and had reached the cockpit level.

It is an open question as to when ONE began.  In an earlier article I suggested that ONE began the moment the third Andrews fighter, Quit 27, lifted off; the first expansion of the established air defense mission.  It is also reasonable to establish that ONE began with the new mission to protect the major centers, as we heard in the audio clips from the NEADS floor.  I leave it to the Air Force historians to set the time line for ONE; I am comfortable with either of the two times I have suggested.

Previously, I have written about the inadequacy of the Alderson transcription of NEADS audio files.  I recommend that researchers and historians use the transcripts in conjunction with the audio files and, if appropriate, the radar files.  In other words, rely on primary source information.  The purpose of this article is to demonstrate how an apparent dramatic call, out of context, from Cheyenne Mountain to NEADS, turns out to be a simple administrative action, not apparent from a simple reading of the Alderson transcript.

Introduction

The relevant conversation is contained in NEADS audio file DRM2, DAT1, Channel 20, SD2 position.  The audio file was recorded at the position of Captain Brian Nagel.  He was dealing with track B089 (D 1989); the track that NORAD in the aftermath will conflate with concurrent information received about UA 93.

Nagel was busy trying to generate fighter assets from anywhere he could get them; Syracuse, Selfridge, Alpina, Springfield, and Toledo are mentioned.  Approximately 10:12, Nagel received a call from Captain Taylor, Cheyenne Mountain tech control.  Taylor asked that exercise inputs coming into Cheyenne Mountain be terminated.

Nagel, busy with real world activity, simply gave Taylor and administrative number to call.  The call, 101200 Cheyenne Mt Call, lasted just 15 seconds.  Nagel effeciently and effectively handled the call; it had no impact on his work.  In fact exercise activity is never mentioned during Nagel’s work to generate additional fighter resources.

A listen to Nagel’s work will serve researches and historians well as they strive to put together the pieces of the NEADS story.  Nagel’s position was “SD2,” Senior Director 2.  He worked directly for the Senior Director, Major Fox.

I recently obtained some of the seismic data concerning UA 93 and that provides an opportunity to discuss an old issue about 9-11, the impact time..

Readers may recall that there was at one time some speculation that a study based on the seismic data suggested that UA 93 impacted at 10:06, three minutes later than all available primary source information indicated.  The Commission Staff treated that speculation seriously and ran the issue to ground. 

This article is the story of the data and of how the Staff dealt with one of the 9-11 family questions.

Data Source

The Incorporated Research Institution for Seismology (IRIS) has protocols for assisting educators, researchers, students, committees, and the public.  The link provided is to the protocol for researchers.  I found the IRIS staff helpful in obtaining the information available.

To run the data I used GEE, Global Earthquake Explorer, and an IRIS-provided link to AmaSeis. (Amateur Seismometer).  Readers with seismology experience will find additional programs available from IRIS at the same link.

My point of contact provided me the files I actually used.  He obtained them by submitting a Seismic Query to determine what data were available.  He then submitted a request via email using BREQ-FAST.  Finally, he converted the files to .SAC format via rdseed.

The Data

An undated report, “Seismic Observations during September 11, 2001, Terrorist Attack,” concluded: “we infer that the Flight 93 crashed around  14:06:05 +/- 5 (UTC).”  The primary author, Won-Young Kim considered data from four seismographic stations.  From closest to Shanksville to the furtherest, the sites were: Mont Chateau, (MCWV); Standing Stone, (SSPA); Soldier’s Delight, (SDMD); and Millersville, (MVL)PA.

In his vertical component assessment, Kim initially considered all four seismic stations.  He assessed that the signal to noise ratio was too small for both the closest site (MCWV) and SDMD, on the order of 1:1.  Therefore, he reduced his analysis to the Standing Stone station where the ratio was 2.5:1.  He also established that the ratio at the most distance site, Millersville, was about 2:1.

Kim based his analysis on the Standing Stone station only, ignoring the fact that the data from the closest station was inconclusive.  Further he extrapolated only two minutes of data beginning with an estimated origin time of “14:06:05 (10:06:05)”  We have no evidence that Kim examined earlier times, specifically 10:03.

IRIS has available only the data from Mont Chateau and Standing Stone, the two stations closest to Shanksville. My contact provided 10 minutes of data, from 10:00 to 10:10.

I examined the data as far as my expertise would take me (undergraduate geophysics classes) and found nothing anomalous to support a time of 10:06 rather than 10:03.  I leave it to practicing seismologists that might be interested to provide a more definitive assessment.

Let’s now return to the issue raised to the Commission.

The Question Posed

A 9-11 Family Member told  me via e-mail that seismologists agreed that UA 93 crashed at 10:06, not 10:03 as NORAD said.  I took that request for action and we obtained a copy of the report.  It was not a U.S. Army document; the Army referred us to the Maryland Geological Survey website for a copy.

We found that the time in the study, 10:06, was at odds with all other primary source information, the convergence of which supported a crash time of 10:03.  Despite that convergence we took the time to fully consider an alternative time of 10:06, as requested.

Primary source information

Data from the UA 93 Cockpit Voice Recorder (CVR) and Flight Data Recorder (FDR), air traffic control communications, FAA radar, and Air Force radar established a crash time of 10:03.

The seismic data was also primary source information; the study that inferred at time of 10:06 was not.  Statements that the seismic data show that UA 93 crashed at 10:06 are inaccurate.  Further, statements that leading seismologists and scientists concluded that UA 93 impacted at 10:06 are disingenuous.  The work was that of a single person, as it turned out.  Here is how we proceeded.

Steps taken

The study was sponsored by the Department of Natural Resources, State of Maryland under contract number SMGS/AG1-01-075.  The authors were Won-Young Kim, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University, and Gerald R. Baum, Environmental Geology and Mineral Resources Program, Maryland Geological Survey.

Our first step was a request to the Maryland Geological Survey (MGS) asking them to validate and verify the study done by one of its employees. The MGS declined stating that the work was primarily that of Won-Young Kim and that we should address our request to him.  The MGS, literally, walked away from the issue.

The second step, then, was to contact Mr. Kim, which I personally did.  Over time, I exchanged a series of emails and phone calls with Mr. Kim.  I informed him that multiple other primary sources of information did not support his work.  His position was that, if so, he still had confidence in his work.  Ultimately Mr. Kim agreed to a statement that the seismic data was not conclusive concerning the crash of UA 93.

Given that statement, we reconfirmed that the preponderance of evidence supported a time of 10:03 and that became our position.  There was, however, another avenue we could explore.

Going the extra step

Even though we had a high degree of confidence in the 10:03 time, we decided to treat the two times as equal and sought and obtained additional primary source information, infra-red satellite data.  We asked the Defense Special Missile and Astronautics Center (DEFSMAC) for the times it had established for the impacts of all four hijacked planes.

We had noticed in the Cheyenne Mountain Operations Center (CMOC) logs that some “IR [infrared] event” times had been entered that morning and assumed that DEFSMAC had recorded all four “IR events.”  They had, and the data provided was consistent not only with the 10:03 time for UA 93 but for the other three impact times, as well.  The DEFSMAC response is in the classified Commission files held by NARA.

To put it another way, we gave the two disparate times–10:03 and 10:06– equal weight and went to a tie breaker, even though there was no compelling analytical reason to do so.

A comment on DEFSMAC

Accurately reporting “IR events” is vital to the defense of the nation.  Missile launches are serious business and DEFSMAC provides the earliest possible indications and warning of  such a potential threat.  The DEFSMAC times, alone, are sufficient to establish the impact times of the four hijacked aircraft.

In the end

We spent considerable time running the seismic issue to ground.  Yet the answer did not matter, it wasn’t the “right” answer.  During the reading of Staff Statement 17 at the final air defense hearing we presented the list of sources for 10:03 time of impact for UA 93.  Behind us, someone in the audience commented, what about the seismic data?

Questions answered that don’t provide the expected or wanted answer become…more questions.

Introduction

The public domain explanation for the Otis scramble is simple and straightforward: the Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS) learned of a hijack in Boston airspace and launched alert fighters, which flew, direct and supersonic, to defend New York City.  None of that conformed to the reality I saw when I first ran the 84th RADES radar files and saw not a direct flight, but a path resembling a pretzel.

We asked General Craig McKinley, General Larry Arnold, and Colonel William Scott to clarify that for us at the May 23, 2003, air defense hearing.  They did not, and possibly could not because they had never sorted it out.  One example of their inability: Colonel Scott blurred the path of the Otis fighters, blaming to Commission Staff in a later interview the inadequacies of PowerPoint.

So how did the Otis scramble actually proceed?  There is not and will not be a complete primary source historical record for the specific guidance and direction given by NEADS to the Otis fighters.  In a previous article, I established that the audio channels at NEADS for the Otis flight military controllers were not recorded the morning of 9-11. However, one of the controller voices, most likely the WD/T, was recorded at FAA’s Boston Center (ZBW), Cape Sector, during the time the fighters were vectored to Whiskey 105.

Even with limited primary source information for the NEADS controllers, we have enough other primary source information–NEADS tapes, FAA air traffic control tapes, radar–to explain what happened. We cannot, however, explain why the Otis fighters ended up over New York City.

Useful Commission Work Papers

I created screen print slide sets for planes of interest–the hijacked planes, fighters, and observers, such as Gofer 06 and the Falcon Jet vectored to the Shanksville site.  The set for the Otis fighters can be found at this link.

Another useful source is a compilation of the air traffic control contacts with the Panta flight.  (Panta 45 and 46 Scramble Timeline)  The flight was controlled by CAPE TRACON until Boston Center (ZBW), Cape Sector (18RA) gained radar contact at 8:55.  Thereafter, FAA contact was continuous as the flight was passed from Cape Sector to ZBW, Hampton Sector (31R) at 9:01, and then to New York Center (ZNY), Kennedy Sector at 9:17.  Ultimately, Panta 46 was handed off to Kennedy Approach (N90) at 10:10.

A third document, a chronological compilation of condensed audio transcripts, is a useful guide to conversations recorded at NEADS.

A fourth helpful document is a draft “Otis Story Board.”  This was a work paper created to provide a list of potentially useful audio clips for an oral monograph.  (Team 8 wrote the monograph, but it was not published because we ran out of time.  The draft should be available in the Commission’s electronic files, once they are released.)

There are multiple other useful work files, but the four listed are sufficient for the task at hand.  We begin with the scramble order.

The Scramble

NEADS obtained operational information, a set of coordinates, at 8:40, the notification time from FAA as entered in the MCC/T log, the official log book of the day.  The Otis fighters were placed on battle stations soon after 8:41, the scramble order-heading 290, flight level 290—-was issued at 8:46; and the air defense fighters, Panta 45 and 46, were airborne shortly after 8:52.  It was a rapid response, but NEADS did not have a target.

Joe Cooper at ZBW told Major Dawn Deskins at NEADS that “it’s just a primary, we lost mode so you’d have to get up and we would have to vector you.”  Deskins responded, “Okay you’d want to control intercept because…,” and Cooper broke in and concluded, “We’d have to until you pick up on primary.”

This exchange just before 8:40 established that FAA would always control the fighters, which they did.  Lynn Spencer’s narrative to the contrary, AFIO (Authority For Intercept Operations) was never declared for the Otis fighters.  Nor, according to the 84th RADES radar files, did they ever squawk AFIO, “quad sevens,” 7777.

Fighter speed, a useful source

A short digression at this point is in order.  A press release, “Air Force Says 911 Interceptors Flew Slow,” was released on November 17, 2003.  The argument was based on the NORAD timeline of events on 9/11, which stipulated that a rate of progression of .9 Mach could be used for fighter speed.  The NORAD staff wrote two point papers in response, one written by an officer in NJ33 (an operations office) and the other by Cheri Gott.  The two papers, combined, provide explicit information on how fast the Otis and Langley fighters flew, and why.  They also provide additional insight as to why fighters at Andrews AFB were not considered as a reaction force.

Now back to the Otis scramble.

NEADS did not find the primary target but did establish a “Z” point at 8:44 based on the coordinates provided by ZBW.  At that time AA 11 was well south of the “Z” point, rapidly approaching its own target.  Even though a fixed point was established, contemporary records reveal that NEADS altered its own plan to vector the fighters to that point, as we shall see.

Standard scramble procedures

As was the case with the Langley fighters later, Panta 45 and 46 launched to the east (runway 5) and proceeded toward Cape Cod before turning back at 8:54 at an altitude of 10,000 feet.  It was standing operating procedure that air defense fighters would take off easterly and fly runway heading to a certain altitude or distance.  Those standard tactics, techniques, and procedures allowed for routinized transition to FAA control and safety in the air.

Here is a Google Earth image of Otis AFB, Dec 2001.  Note that the alert area was at the southwestern end of Runway 5, with a dedicated short taxi strip.  The same configuration applied at Langley except that the alert area was on the north side.

At both facilities the fighters had the ability to start takeoff from the taxi strip.  Also, at both facilities, the pilots had the ability to “back taxi” the runway and take off westerly: this was an available procedure, but one that was rarely used.

In sum, the Otis fighters were quickly airborne and ready to fly somewhere, but the scramble order did not provide two necessary elements of information, a distance to fly and a target to find.  NEADS had an option of vectoring the air defense fighters to a military training area, Whiskey 105, and that’s exactly what happened.

Whiskey 105 and Giantkiller

Whiskey 105 (W105) is one of many offshore military training areas; its westernmost extension is southeast of New York City.  Aircraft operating in any such area come under the control of Giantkiller (Fleet Area Control and Surveillance Facility, Virginia Capes, Oceania Naval Air Station, Virginia Beach, VA), a Navy-operated facility and one recipient of the scramble order.

Giantkiller played a brief role in the control and vectoring of both the Otis fighters and the Langley fighters.  However, the only time we hear the voices of Giantkiller is when they appear on either FAA tapes or NEADS tapes.

Giantkiller long-standing policy was to recycle its tapes, and that is what they did post 9/11.  No one in the Giantkiller chain-of-command gave them instructions to alter the policy and retain the 9/11 tapes.  No one at Giantkiller had the presence of mind to realize that their tapes might be a valuable primary source of information concerning events of the day.

Getting to Whiskey 105

Whiskey 105 was activated by Giantkiller after the Otis fighters launched and before they turned back to the west.  Shortly before 8:50 that fact was reported to ZBW Cape Sector.  Minutes earlier, the NEADS Mission Crew Commander (MCC) Major Nasypany, summarized the situation for Colonel Robert Marr in the Battle Cab.  ”I have scrambled Otis, and already, as per your direction, we’re sending them in that general direction, we’re sending them right to that Z point, and then we can maneuver them, um, as deemed uh right.”

By 8:51, however, NEADS knew that a plane had hit the World Trade Center.  Still, just before the fighters turned the MCC said, “send them to New York City, still considered a go.”  He then changed his mind.

“Okay, continue taking the fighters down to the New York City area, JFK area, best that we can, make sure the FAA clears your route all the way…just press with it.”  And then, “until it’s confirmed it’s gonna be a lot easier to get them down to this area [Whiskey 105].”  ”…if he didn’t crash into the world trade center [he] is 20 miles south of JFK, so I want you to take them down into this area, hold as needed.”

The FAA transcript for Boston ARTCC Cape Sector, Sector 18, Radar position, is definitive on what happened.  The transcript shows that FAA, NEADS, Giantkiller, and Panta 45 worked together to vector the fighters, first on a heading of 260 vice the scramble heading of 290, and then a direct heading of 250 to Whiskey 105.

At 8:54, HUNTRESS called Cape Sector and asked to change the Panta heading: “the heading that we gave him …is a bad heading now, actually he’s now south of JFK.”  Panta 45 checked in with Cape Sector at 8:55 and was given a new heading of 260, based on Cape Sector’s conversation with HUNTRESS.

NEADS had concluded that holding the fighters south of JFK in W105 was the best course of action.  At 8:59, according to the 84th RADES radar files, the Panta flight veered slightly south and headed directly for W105.  At 9:01, Panta 45 told Cape Sector he was “proceeding our present heading of two five zero for about a hundred miles and HUNTRESS wants us to hold just south of Long Island.”

At 9:01, Panta 45 checked in with ZBW Hampton Center and reported he was looking to hold in the corner, the west end of W105.  Hampton asked him for his destination.  Panta 45 did not know.  At 9:05, Hampton informed, probably, Giantkiller that “Panta is going to hold in W105, left to right turns at 290.”

Panta awareness

The primary sources of the day are clear that the Panta flight knew about both impacts at the World Trade Center.  First, on check-in with ZBW Cape Sector at 8:56, Panta 45 was told about the crash into World Trade Center One.

Second, at 9:08, ZBW Hampton Sector told Panta 45 about the second impact.  A minute later Panta 45 told Hampton Sector he needed to move to a holding pattern over New York City, and immediately modified that request to be a CAP over New York City, if available.  Panta was instructed to navigate for the Kennedy VOR.

The Panta pilots were angry, and that anger comes clearly across in the one cockpit voice recorder (CVR) tape that is part of the Commission’s records.

The primary sources of the day include the CVR from one of the two Panta fighters and both of their HUD (Heads Up Display).  Those tapes are in the Commission master files and have not been released by NARA.

None of the three is accurately time-stamped.  Further, the HUD tapes require a knowledgeable person to explain what is displayed.  The Air Force provided such support to the Commission Staff.

Getting out of Whiskey 105

The first left turn back east in the holding pattern began about 9:09.  The MCC’s voice is actively heard on the NEADS tapes talking to both the Senior Director (Major Fox) and to the Battle Cab and Colonel Marr.  To Fox he directed at 9:08 that “we need to talk to FAA…let’s get them over Manhattan, at least we have some kind of play.”  And at 9:09 he directed a scramble at Langley, modified by Colonel Marr to be battle stations, only.

NEADS did not know how many planes were missing out of Boston, and the MCC believed he needed to get the fighters over Manhattan.  Yet no specific orders were apparently given.  At 9:10, he told probably Fox that he did not like the fighters there, W105, and he wanted them closer in.  ”I want them south of JFK.”

South of JFK and over Manhattan are two different things.  At 9:11, on the guard [emergency] channel, NEADS broadcast “Panta 45 remain current position until FAA requests assistance.”  Two minutes later the Panta flight did not make the second left turn to continue the holding pattern, but broke formation and made a sharp right U-turn and headed directly for New York City, arriving over Manhattan at 9:25.

We have no primary source information that informs us as to why the Panta flight abandoned the holding pattern.  There is no amplifying information for the odd, one-time use of the guard channel to communicate with the Panta flight.

What we do know is that the MCC was not immediately aware that the fighters were on their way to New York City.  At 9:17, four minutes after the Panta flight abandoned the holding pattern, the MCC told Colin Scoggins at Boston Center that, “I’ve got fighters in Whiskey 105 rignt now, and I’ve got a tanker there as well, I’ve got other aircraft on alert at Langley as well.”  ”I’ve got trackers [looking] over JFK…just looking for anything suspicious.”

Moreover, at 9:22, after learning of the rebirth of AA 11 as a threat to Washington, the MCC wanted to “take the fighters from Otis and chase this guy down if I can’t find him.”  By then, the Panta flight was over Long Island quickly approaching New York City.

Panta flight under FAA control

As of 9:09, Panta 45 had approval from Boston Hampton Sector  to move to a holding pattern over New York City and was told to navigate to the Kennedy VOR.  That was the time that the Panta flight entered the holding pattern in W105.  The problem was that they were actually in Giantkiller-controlled air space and Hampton Sector had no control authority over New York City airspace.

Giantkiller asked for the Panta frequency shortly after 9:11, as the Panta flight was transiting west to east in its airspace.  Concurrently, Panta 45 told Hampton Sector that he was talking to HUNTRESS.

HUNTRESS is NEADS, and it is that conversation that we do not have because console 19, the console for the Weapons Director and the Weapons Director/Technician for the Panta flight, was not recorded.

Time for a short summary

Let’s step back a moment and assess what we have.  We have Panta 45 with FAA (ZBW Hampton Sector) approval to move to a holding pattern over New York City.  That approval was modified to be a controller direction to navigate to the Kennedy VOR.

We have the Panta pilots angry and, from their view, headed in the direction from which they came, not the direction of the visible evidence of the attack.  We know that they knew about both crashes into the World Trade Center.

We have the MCC under the assumption that the fighters are at his tactical direction in Whiskey 105, and we have NEADS broadcasting on guard for the Panta flight not to go to New York City without FAA approval.  They knew that FAA’s New York Center had issued an order for no more planes to enter its airspace.

So, what happened?

Absent the audio files from the NEADS controllers, we do not know what actions they took, and when.  What we do know is that at 9:14, the MCC told Colonel Marr that “we got [a tanker, MAINE 85] going to W105 right now, we also have the fighters holding there, we’re trying to move them down south of JFK, okay, we got some bad poop from FAA.”

The “bad poop” reference is possibly a reference to the original coordinates that established the “Z” point.  As the MCC was briefing Colonel Marr, the Panta flight was no longer holding in W105 and was not just navigating to the Kennedy VOR; it was headed directly for New York City.

Back to FAA control

Given what the ZBW Hampton Sector controller observed on radar, the Panta flight headed directly for New York City, he did what he was required to do: he made a “point out” to the gaining Sector, ZNY’s Kennedy Sector.  Shortly before 9:15, he pointed out the flight, “East of Kennedy 40 miles.”  Kennedy Sector acknowledged that he had radar contact, a necessary step before transfer of control can take place.

However, Hampton Sector maintained control for nearly two minutes and told the Panta flight to maintain Flight Level 240, the altitude of the holding pattern in W105.  The handoff to ZNY Kennedy Sector came at 9:17, the same time that the NEADS MCC was telling Colin Scoggins that the flight was holding in W105.

Kennedy Sector assumed responsibility for the flight and worked with adjacent sectors and New York TRACON to establish the parameters of a combat air patrol, which the Panta flight entered at 9:25, flight level 180.  Thereafter, both Panta 45 and 46 worked under Sector, NEADS, and TRACON control to check out potential targets of interest.

My Assessment

I have puzzled over the Otis scramble for the past five years and have reached this conclusion.  Retrospectively, it made tactical sense for the Panta flight to remain in W105.  The situation was fluid, they had no target, and tanker support was arriving. There was no compelling tactical imperative to send them to a combat air patrol (CAP) over New York City.

It is understandable that the Panta flight, and perhaps their controllers, felt compelled to establish a presence over New York City.  But to what end?

NEADS had no target for them.  Further, that cut NEADS’ available assets in half, and the other half, at Langley, was still on the ground, but had gotten the scramble order at 9:24.

From 9:25, the time the Panta flight began its CAP, and 9:37, the time NEADS declared AFIO for the Quit flight, NEADS had no available air defense-capable fighters immediately ready to combat the threat to the nation’s capital.

By this time the 9:21 report of a still airborne AA 11 represented a threat from the North.  A few minutes later NEADS learned that AA 77 was missing; and soon identified the track as B-32, a fast-moving unknown threatening the capital.

So, did the Panta flight proceed with FAA approval?  The answer is yes, except that the approval was granted by Boston Center, not New York Center.  Did the Otis pilots proceed with NEADS approval?  We do not know.

I have written about the Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS) audio files in two previous articles.  First, I explained  the Alderson transcripts.  Second, I addressed an issue–a non-issue really–raised about the Commission’s ability to obtain the NEADS files.  Both of those articles should be read before continuing with this article.

My purpose in this third article is to provide additional insight and guidance especially for future historians.  Modern day researchers and writers will benefit, but the intent is to facilitate work in the broad reach of history.  We start with the NEADS partial transcript.

The NEADS partial transcript

The NEADS partial transcript was the first secondary source document the Commission Staff obtained to provide insight into the activities at NEADS on 9-11.  Its direct and necessary complement is the first primary source information received, the radar files of the 84th Radar Evaluation Squadron (RADES).

Multiple copies of the partial transcript were archived as workpapers by the Commission Staff, each annotated or cut and pasted in some fashion.  I archived at least two copies.

The most useful, partially color-coded as to speaking voice, is available at this link.  Retrospectively, I believe this is the copy I took with me on the first NEADS visit, based on the annotations.

A second, earlier copy is at this link.  In that copy I specifically annotated an important point about the NEADS partial transcript; it is partial for a reason.

According to the transcript: “MEMO FOR RECORD: 21 SEP 01.  Due to an equipment malfunction, the rest of the information recorded on DRM 2, DAT 2 was lost.  The incident tape was in the data recorder for playback purposes by SSgt James D. Tollack, 305 OSS [Operations Support Squadron], McGuire AFB, who was performing the transcription, when the computer equipment failure occurred.”

SSgt Tollack was the one person designated to transcribe the NEADS audio files in the immediate aftermath of 9-11.  He did his work at the NEADS Sector Operations Center.

The Sector Operations Center (SOCC)

NEADS had two main facilities, the Headquarters and the SOCC.  The two were located on Rome Air Force Base but physically separated by a distance of several hundred yards.  Typically, the Command and primary staff were at the Headquarters, but on 9-11 Colonel Marr and key staff were in the Battle Cab at the SOCC; there was an exercise scheduled.

My SOCC work files are available to researchers and historians.

The Tollack Saga

SSgt Tollack was the only person who listened, iteratively, to the NEADS tapes prior to the Commission Staff’s first visit in late fall, 2003. A copy of notes taken during our interview document the basic story.  Tollack said that, according to Jeremy Powell, NEADS personnel did listen to the tapes prior to Tollack’s arrival.

Tollack stated he arrived at NEADS on Sep 20, 2001; (added Jul 14, 2001) his travel voucher is for the period Sep 20 – Oct 4.  If so, his work did not inform the effort of General Arnold working with Jeff Griffith at FAA to establish an agreed upon timeline, the preparation of either agency for a White House meeting, or the release of the NORAD timeline on September 18, 2001.

A copy of Tollack’s travel orders is in the Commission’s paper files; that document will establish his time on station. (para deleted Jul 14, 2001)

Tollack worked long hours to accomplish the work that led to the NEADS partial transcript.  He did not type the transcript, but did type his notes which he gaive to two secretaries dedicated to him; they created the transcript.

Because of the equipment malfunction, Colonel Marr stopped Tollack’s work on DRM 2.  According to Marr during his inbrief for our first visit, he sequestered all the NEADS tapes to preserve them.  There was no attempt to further listen to or use the tapes between the time Tollack ceased work and the time the Commission requested the tapes and transcripts.

During our interview with Tollack I asked him about “Freedom files–should not have 20 min error.”  I will return to the Freedom Files subject later.  Tollack said there was no error in the NEADS audio files and he was, in fact, the person who discovered the 25 second error in the NEADS radar files, later documented by NTSB.

Getting the audio files

Despite Commission formal requests for a copy of the tapes and a transcript, NEADS was unable to deliver in time for our first visit the last week in October, 2003.  I arranged with our POC to obtain a copy of the tapes on site; there would be no transcript.

As agreed, NEADS provided, piecemeal, digitized copies of their tapes as Commission Staff was conducting interviews.  We worked with a copy of the partial transcript and the audio files and attempted to walk interviewees through the events of the morning of 9-11.  It quickly became apparent that the transcript was insufficient for the task at hand.  Our Team Leader, John Farmer, consulted with Colonel Marr and informed him that we were terminating the visit prior to the final interview with him.

The direct result of our termination of the visit was the issuance of a subpoena to DoD.  The audio files were delivered under a schedule provided by the Under Secretary of Defense in a November 6, 2003, memo.  There were no transcripts and Commission Staff contracted that effort, as I discussed in the Alderson article.

There was still a problem with the missing channels from DRM2.  The manufacturer, Dictaphone, took control of the tapes and was able to recover “most of the tracks,” as the Under Secretary reported in a November 25, 2003, memo.  Working with our DoD point-of-contact we were able to obtain digitized files from Dictaphone for all of the recorded channels from all three digital recording machines at NEADS.

The “Freedom Files”

The Dictaphone-provided files are the “Freedom Files,” alluded to in my question to Tollack about timing errors.  For a reason never determined, Dictaphone’s recovery process introduced a 20-minute error across the board for all NEADS audio files provided as a result of the manufacturer’s recovery process.  That error has no analytical impact except that it must be accounted for and analysts, researchers, and historians need to remember which set of files is at hand as they work.

Two sets of NEADS audio files

There are two sets of NEADS audio files in the Commission master files; the NEADS-provided set as documented in the DoD memo of November 6, 2003, and the Dictaphone-provided Freedom Files set as mentioned in the DoD memo of November 25, 2003.  Each set is useful in its own way.

The Freedom Files set has more channels, but none of the additional channels contains audio files that change anything, analytically.  The essential NEADS story is contained in the NEADS-provided files, the NEADS partial transcript, and the Alderson transcripts.

The NEADS audio files. These files are accurately time-stamped.  Researchers, however, need to make sure they line up clock time and tape time as they work with the files.  The files have the advantage of containing all the dead space, and some of the channels are just that, dead space.

It is not analytically useful to listen to the tapes using a basic media player.  A program such as Adobe Audition provides an easy way of identifying dead space, locating potential recordings of background conversations, and reducing noise and clicks.

I strongly recommend the NEADS audio files for researchers and historians, especially those examining the NEADS audio files for the first time.  Those files are in the public domain.

The Freedom Files. These files are not yet in the public domain.  They have the unique advantage of being conversation only; all dead space is eliminated.  Each conversation segment is time-annotated from the basic NEADS time clock, but does have a 20-minute offset.

Some of the conversation segments approach 30 minutes in length.  These are the information-dense segments from the MCC, ID, SD, and WD areas where conversation was near continuous.

The Freedom Files are extremely useful for researchers and historians who are familiar with the NEADS floor conversations and are looking for specific conversation segments.  Toward the end of our work I tended to use the Freedom Files almost exclusively, for example.

Two Channels not recorded

Nowhere in either set of primary source audio files from NEADS do we hear the voices of the controllers–the Weapons Director and Weapons Director/Technician–for the Otis fighters.  There is no primary source information that tells us how and why the Otis fighters established a combat air patrol over New York City, despite Lynn Spencer’s narrative in Touching History.

But that is a story for another article.  For our purpose in this article it is sufficient to identify the two channels that were not recorded.

According to my SOCC work charts, one console, ODC 19 was not recorded.  ODC 19 was the position for the Otis controllers.  The two channels missing are channels 15 and 16, DRM 2, according to the matrix on the second page of my archived work files.  That second page is a summation page and is more accurate than any following chart.

We asked Dictaphone for a determination as to why the two channels were not recorded.  Dictaphone could not make a forensic determination because the SOCC equipment suite had changed too much since 9-11.  It was, however, their judgment that the two channels were, for whatever the technical reason, not recorded on 9-11.

I agree with that assessment.  Anyone who has listened to the NEADS tapes knows that there is a cacophony of sound, especially at critical times.  It was that feature that caused Alderson to conclude that it was easier to try and follow individual voices.

That cacophony was caused, in part, because individual channels recorded side by side on the master tape bled over to each other during the process of copying individual channels to digital form.  For example, the voices of the Langley controllers are heard on multiple channels.  On the contrary, the voices of the Otis controllers are never heard, there was no bleed over because there was nothing to bleed.

What’s next?

This concludes our discussion of the NEADS files, a necessary step before the Otis scramble can be discussed, given that the military controllers for that scramble were not recorded.

I will refer back to this article when we begin our discussion of the Otis story.

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

This article is a work in progress; consider it version 1.0.  I am publishing it now because its content may inform the work of writers, historians, and other researchers.  To that end I am breaking with my usual practice and am allowing comments.

Background

When UA 175 flew into the World Trade Center south tower at 9:03 a.m, on September 11, 2001, is was generally understood that the nation was under attack.  What is little understood today is the time it took the national level to get itself organized and how poorly it gained situational awareness, even after the fact.

In the aftermath, participants at all levels were unable to accurately explain what happened; not to the Commission, not to the public, and not to themselves.  The net result was a garbled official story that took the 9-11 Commission Staff an extended period of time to sort out and accurately report.

Historians, researchers and writers are independently unable to accurately assess events for two primary reasons.  First, no one has access to the totality of information made available to the 9-11 Commission and to the Congressional Joint Inquiry before it.  Second, many writers and bloggers base their theses on participant recall or other anecdotal information, exactly the wrong place to start.  Such information is only useful when validated and verified by primary and secondary source information.

Introduction

My purpose is to provide a framework for researchers, one based almost exclusively on primary sources, the voices of the day as taped at multiple Federal Aviation Agency (FAA) sites and at the Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS).  I will use the language of Chaos Theory to graphically depict the attack, the situational awareness of the attack as it occurred, and the very limited amount of time that FAA and NEADS had to do anything.

This portrayal should help knowledgeable and interested people understand why mid-level action officers such as Terry Van Steenburgen at FAA and Nelson Garabito of the Secret Service were unable to explain during interview what the threat actually was to the nation’s capital and to Air Force One.  They were the among the first action officers to deal with the potential threat as the President made plans to return to the nation’s capital

It will help explain why senior FAA and NORAD officers were unable to establish an agreed upon position as to what happened; why persons who testified before the Commission, such as Jane Garvey, Norman Mineta, and Generals McKinley and Arnold, were unable to accurately inform the Commission as to what happened; and why the Air National Guard, twice, tried to glamorize and glorify a battle it did not fight.

No one in government could adequately inform the Commission, the Congressional Joint Inquiry that preceded it, or the people of the nation and the world as to what happened because they did not know; their staffs did not figure out the attack and the response to the attack.  That is most evident in the garbled testimony of, first, Jane Garvey, and then Norman Mineta to the Commission.

I will use the lens of Chaos Theory to explain things.  My earlier articles on the relevance of Chaos Theory to the events of 9-11 explain why I have taken this theoretical approach.  As I said, my understanding comes almost exclusively from listening, multiple times, to primary sources, the voices of the day, as recorded at FAA air traffic control facilities and at NEADS.

We begin with a description of the attack.

The Attack

Previously, I published two articles on the attack. One described the attack as a battle in a larger war on terror.  The other drew upon the “testimony” of Khalid Sheik Mohammed at the Moussaoui trial to provide a different perspective.  In this article I will focus on the language of Chaos Theory, specifically the term bifurcation, to describe the attack.

Simply put, bifurcation means to divide into two parts.  In Chaos Theory cascading periodic bifurcation leads to chaos and complex mathematical constructs are called for.  That is well beyond the scope of this article.  My intention here is to use Chaos Theory as a metaphor and to borrow its language to describe the bifurcations of the attack and, more important, the bifurcating situational unawareness of what was actually happening. The chart at this link depicts the attack as we now know it.

The Attack Retrospectively

In military terms the attack was straight forward, a two-pronged attack, each prong two-pronged.  However, none of that sophistication was known prior to and during the attack.  In its initial stages the attack was treated as a linear event, the hijacking of a single aircraft.

FAA’s Boston Center (ZBW) followed existing linear processes to manage the event, with one exception.  ZBW short-circuited the hijack notification process and contacted NEADS directly.  That was the only request for assistance made to NORAD/NEADS that morning.

Beginning shortly after 8:40 the northern prong bifurcated when UA 173 was hijacked and the main attack, itself, bifurcated a few minutes later when AA 77 was hijacked.  That double bifurcation was not recognized or understood at any level within FAA or the government.

The FAA’s New York Center (ZNY) and Indianapolis Center (ZID), separately and unknowingly, one to the other, picked up the emerging diversity of the attack, but there was no correlation of disparate events.  Specifically, the hub of FAA air traffic control management, the Air Traffic Control System Command Center (Herndon Center) did not have the situational awareness to correlate events, primarily because they did not know what ZID knew, that AA 77 was lost off radar.

At 9:03, when UA 175 flew into the World Trade Center South Tower, the nation knew it was under attack; confirmed within FAA when ZBW reported the results of the AA 11 tape review–we have some planes.

The attack was unfolding, the battle commanders, Ben Sliney at Herndon Center and Colonel Bob Marr at NEADS, were not talking to each other, and the national level had not yet organized to be of any help.  Sliney and Marr, separately, were on their own.

The attack plan, UA 93 considered

I and others have wondered what the circumstances would have been had UA 93 not been delayed in takeoff

Retrospectively, had UA 93 taken off with the same delay time as the other three hijacked aircraft, then the introduction of chaos into the system would have been a compound double bifurcation.  The main attack and both prongs would have bifurcated before UA 175 impacted.

That means that one additional FAA air traffic control center, Cleveland (ZOB), would also have had essential information.  We do not know and will likely never know if the nation would have responded more effectively to the southern prong of the attack had UA 93 been hijacked according to plan.

Given what the primary source information tells us, my assessment is that a more effective response would have only been possible had Sliney and Marr been talking to each other and that they were sharing  accurate information before 9:09.

9:09 EDT, 1309 Zulu, an opportunity missed

At 9:09 the Joint Surveillance System (JSS) radars supporting NEADS reacquired AA 77.  The chart at the following link depicts that time in comparision to the awareness FAA and NEADS had of the four hijacked aircraft.

Awareness of the attack

At the same time NEADS radars reacquired AA 77 the NEADS Mission Crew Commander asked that the Langley fighters be scrambled.  He knew nothing about AA 77 or the fact that it could have been tracked.  Colonel Marr opted to place the Langley fighters on battle stations only.  Concurrently ZID escalated the information that AA 77 was lost off radar and presumed down to its higher administrative headquarters, Great Lakes Region (AGL).  The flow of information stopped there and Herndon Center was not informed by either ZID or AGL.

It is clear from the NEADS surveillance technicans’ audio tapes, and their ability to establish a track on AA 77 just before it flew into the Pentagon, that NEADS would have been able to establish a track on AA 77 within a few minutes after 9:09 had they been cued.  Moreover, they would also have been able to establish a track on UA 93 after it was hijacked and before it dropped off the JSS radars in the area of Pittsburgh.

The dotted line terminating the extended track of UA 93 at 10:28 depicts the time that UA 93 was, notionally, visible on TSD, Traffic Situation Display.  I mention it here because that is the “plane” to which Norman Mineta refers in his statements and testimony.  We will continue that discussion later.

Situational awareness,  bifurcation after bifurcation

The chart at this link depicts what was understood in real time by those trying to grapple with a chaotic situation.  It was chaotic and that chaos can be clearly depicted using a bifurcation chart.  Here it is the information about the attack that is bifurcating.

Chaotic Situational Awareness

The paths shown in red are what actually happened concerning each of the four hijacked aircraft.  Every other bifurcation was either an artifact in the air traffic control system or a misread of the actual situation by someone at some level.

The artifacts are the notional paths of all four aircraft in the traffic situation display system.  AA 11 and UA 175 original flight plans were unchanged.  The AA 77 flight plan was changed by ZID but only to assist controllers to the west, not the east.  The UA 93 flight plan was changed by Cleveland Center with a new destination of DCA, Washington Reagan National.  AA 11A was a new plane entered into the system to enable air traffic controllers to follow the actual path of AA 11.

AA 77

The most problematic hijacked plane was AA 77.  It was presumed lost and down; American Airlines thought it might be one of the two aircraft that hit the World Trade Center.  No one knew its whereabouts until it became the fast moving threat to the nation’s capital from the West.

There is no evidence in primary source information that anyone at any level of government or in the airline industry knew about the threat of AA 77 until a few minutes after 9:30 when the alarm was sounded by Dulles TRACON.

The reporting that it was lost and down apparently became conflated with the report that AA 11 was still airborne and approaching the capital from the North.  That false report did alert both FAA and NEADS and resulted in the launch of the Langley fighters.

Two planes threaten the capital

Near concurrent reports that the Pentagon was hit and that a plane was moving toward and then away from the White House became two separate entities.  There is no equating of the two incidents at either FAA Headquarters or Herndon Center, according to the tapes from Herndon.  The report of the plane threatening the White House became a threat separate from the plane that hit the Pentagon.

The second threat was the track of UA 93 observable notionally in the traffic display system as it proceeded to “land” at DCA.  When Cleveland Center entered the new flight plan for UA 93 the icon for that plane jumped, literally, on TSD to a location in the general vicinity of Camp David.  When I observed that jump while watching a replay of the TSD tape at Herndon Center my immediate assessment was that the jump was the most likely source for the false information that UA 93 had crashed near Camp David.  I know of no verification of that assessment.

National Level awareness

No one on any staff at any level sorted out the situational awareness on the morning of 9-11 to support the later statements and testimony of Administrator Garvey, Secretary Mineta, or Generals McKinley, Arnold and Eberhart.  Testimony by all senior officials was inaccurate and garbled.

Timelines developed by NORAD and FAA were never in agreement and were individually flawed. Further, military officials conflated information about D 1989 with UA 93 because D 1989 was the only plane on which NEADS/NORAD established a track that morning.

The Air National Guard twice perpetuated its misunderstanding.  First, they commissioned Leslie Filson to publish Air War Over America. Second, they misinformed Lynn Spencer in her earnest effort to tell the story in the skies that morning in her book Touching History.

My Assessment

The attack was well planned and well executed, the northern prong more so than the southern prong. After several years of synthesis of both primary and other source information I’m reasonably convinced that we know why the northern prong proceeded as it did.

The Attack against New York

Why did Atta choose Portland and Logan?  Elsewhere in my writings I have described the choice of Portland as simply a “plan B.”  Atta intended to succeed at some level with just himself and one accomplice.  Hence their entry into the National Airspace System at a remote location.

The choice of Logan was logical for at least two reasons.  First, it cancelled out the delay factor that morning, which could not be predicted at any airport.  By choosing Logan, Atta had some degree of confidence that whatever the delay for the planes hijacked by Atta and Al Shehhi the delay would be on the same order of magnitude.

Second, Al Shehhi as a passenger on a United airplane had a reasonable opportunity to hear transmissions on frequency from AA 11 by listening to cabin channel 9.  Given the restricted airways out of Logan westbound, it was likely that both planes would be on the same frequency during their time in Boston Center’s airspace.  Both planes were on the same frequency when Atta transmitted over the air.  The pilot of UA 175 reported that fact to New York Center (ZNY) air traffic control shortly after the hand off from ZBW to ZNY.

We will likely never know to what degree Atta and Al Shehhi planned what happened, but they had the acumen, the training, and the time to calculate their plan in detail.  Nowhere is that more evident than in the fact that Al Shehhi changed the transponder code on UA 175 just as soon as AA 11 flew into the World Trade Center north tower.

The Attack against Washington

The southern attack was poorly conceived in contrast to the attack against New York City.  The choice of two different departure airports meant the attackers could not negate the delay factor.  Further, there was no chance that the two planes would ever be on the same frequency.

What we can surmise, given the scheduled times and the boarding times, is that the southern attack was intended to lag the northern attack and that it would begin in  the same time frame that the northern attack was finished.  Given that UA 93 had departed 30 minutes earlier then UA 93 would have lagged AA 77 by roughly 20 minutes.  UA 175 lagged AA 11 by 17 minutes.

Terrorism as Theater

Brian Jenkins has long held the position that “terrorism is theater.”  Nowhere is that more evident than in the attack on the morning of 9-11.  Atta set the scene for Act I; he captured a world-wide audience as Al Shehhi closed the Act.

That same act was supposed to repeat itself in Washington.  Hanjour set the scene for Act II; he captured the same world-wide audience, but Jarrah failed to close.  The passengers aboard UA 93 had figured things out and they closed the Act prematurely.

Norman Mineta

The convergence of evidence is clear that Mineta misspoke when he testified to a time of “9:20.”

First, it is simply not possible to do everything Mineta said he did after 9:03 and be in the PEOC by 9:20 in action and receiving information.  Moreover, there was no information to receive.  The FAA’s primary net was not activated until 9:20, the first national level conference to be so activated.  No operational information was ever passed on that net.

Clarke’s SVTS conference was activated at 9:25 and did not become operational until 9:40.  The NMCC began its Significant Event Conference at about the same time as SVTS was activated; the Conference was terminated and an Air Threat Conference was convened about the time the Pentagon was struck.

Second, Mineta arrived at the White House as it was being evacuated.  CNN raw footage and BBC footage supporting “Clear The Skies” is conclusive that the evacuation did not begin until after the Pentagon was struck.

Third, Mineta still had to pass through the gates and checkpoints and then proceed all the way across the White House and then down to the PEOC.

The 9-11 Commission Staff concluded that Mineta and the Vice President were not together in the PEOC until after 10:00.  The plane they dealt with was the by then notional UA 93 as it completed the flight plan entered by Cleveland Center and “landed” at Reagan National at 10:28.

My Assessment

The simplest explanation may be the best.  Norman Mineta internalized what he saw and heard to rationalize a story that made sense at the time to himself and his staff.

The UA 93 story was straightforward, other than the conflation with D 1989, as shown in the bifurcation chart.  So, that was a given to those working the timeline issue; it was known down.  Therefore, it must have been AA77 that was the problematic threat.  That notion persisted and manifested specifically as NORAD prepared for the May 23, 2003 first air defense hearing.

So how did 10:20 the actual time at issue for Mineta become 9:20?  There are three plausible explanations, based on my own experience in two major operations centers dealing with the problem of accurately establishing event times.

First, he glanced at a clock for Central Daylight Time and internalized that time.  Second, his staff later confused the difference between Eastern Daylight Time and GMT, five hours vice four.  Third, his staff confused the time of interest for UA 93 to be Central Daylight Time, the time zone for Cleveland Center.

Only Norman Mineta can clear this up.