9-11: UA93; The Gofer 06 story, explained

Addendum added Feb 27, 2014

Here are links that provide additional insight into my work on the UA 93 story.

Seismic data considered

A 2009 article with a graphic showing tracks

Introduction

A correspondent recently contacted me to discuss the relationship of United Airlines flight 93 (UA 93) and Gofer 06, the Minnesota Air National Guard C130H.  The correspondent speculated that there was an important relationship which was crucial to an incident time of 10:06 for UA 93.  The 10:06 time was an extrapolation from seismic data by a single individual who, when queried by the 9-11 Commission Staff, agreed that the seismic data was not conclusive concerning UA 93.

Nevertheless, the correspondent concocted this explanation:

I need to review the testimony of C-130 pilot Captain Steve O’Brien before the 9/11 Commission. What he had to say is highly relevant. Why? Simple. That morning, O’Brien had a bird’s eye view of the Shanksville crash site – and was in position at the right moment to be a witness to whatever happened at 10:06 AM, which is the crash time indicated by the seismic signal.

At that very moment, he was in the cockpit of his C-130 looking straight at the crash site from 24,000 feet, after being prompted by the Cleveland ATCs.

Are you aware of what O’Brien told the commission? Do you know if his testimony has been released? I have searched for it without success. Did the commission ask him what he saw at Shanksville?

The issue looks to be of primary interest, because it does appear that someone tampered with the 20-page transcript of the real time conversation that O’Brien had with ZOB Cleveland ATCs, on the morning of 9/11.

I believe that transcript offers some powerful clues about what transpired. I am attaching the file below. It’s pretty big — apologies for the size. Or you can download it at [https://www.911datasets.org/]

The file includes a number of transcripts. The relevant ATC transcript has 20 pages. The key page is 18 of 20. You will notice that at 1405:45 O’Brien mentions that he sees smoke at the site. But, notice, he says the smoke is at 3,000-5,000 feet. There is no indication it rose from the ground, i.e., from a crash. This is an extremely important detail, as we shall see.

Then, after 1406:27, something strange happens. Four minutes of the transcript, from 1407-1411, appears to have been deleted. It’s gone!

Why do you think?

Could it be because O’Brien saw the unspeakable, i.e., saw a cruise missile crash at 10:06 AM — and reported this to the ATCs? This observation, had it been reported to the commission and/or made public, would have exposed the entire official 9/11 story as a HUGE lie, and at the same time would have revealed a criminal conspiracy in the act of “cleaning up” flight UAL 93, which had turned into a fiasco.

I now suspect that the Shanksville witness [redacted] saw a cruise missile just before it crashed — not a UAV. She told me it was “tubular” and “cylindrical” and had fins — but no wings. This sounds like a missile.

But why a cruise missile? Well, if the perpetrators decided to terminate UAL 93 by detonating explosives which had been pre-planted on the aircraft — they still needed a crater in the ground to serve as the basis for a cover story that UAL 93 had crashed, when in fact it was exploded at 3-5,00 feet.

Any help you can provide in locating O’Brien’s testimony before the commission would be greatly appreciated.

Sincerely for 9/11 truth,

Perspective

I interviewed Lt Col O’Brien by telephone. The interview has not been released, according to the National Archives. My contact there reports that they have found a pointer to the interview and they will have it reviewed for release. I do not recall if the report of interview was an MFR or a recording.

O’Brien was asked the key questions.  Did he at any time at all see a military aircraft and/or any evidence of a missile?  Was he armed, had his C130H ever been armed, had any C130H model ever been armed? O’Brien responded in the negative to that round of questions.

I have again reviewed the transcript, the radar, and the audio files.  The correspondent distorted the story.  O’Brien never had a birds eye view. He was never prompted by air traffic control.  He initiated the report of smoke.  He was briefly considered as a candidate aircraft to circle the crash site but was not so tasked. A civilian aircraft was vectored to circle the crash site and provide GPS coordinates.

This is an old story, recycled.  Now is a good time to set the record straight.

Air Traffic Control Communications

The tape of interest is file 148-911-03003840k.s1, the Cleveland Air Traffic Control Center tape of Imperial Sector for the period 1340-1418 UCT (0940-1018 EDT).

Gofer 06 checked in, routinely, shortly before 10:03 EDT reporting an altitude of “two four zero” (24,000 feet.) Here is that exchange.

1002 Gofer 06 Checks in

A minute later, air traffic control turned Gofer 06 to a heading of 030 (North North East) away from the projected path of UA 93. Concurrently, Cleveland Center was losing UA 93 on radar, telling Gofer 06 that he was heading east, but now turned to the south.

The radar clearly shows the turn to the south to be the plunge to earth. UA 93 impacted during this conversation with Gofer 06.

1003 Gofer 06 Turned to 030

Over a minute later, Gofer 06 was told he would be run north about 26 miles before a return to original heading.  Gofer 06 then volunteered a report of black smoke at his “9 o’clock” (easterly).  The pilot could not tell if the smoke originated from the ground or from the air. Air traffic control was satisfied with the report and cleared him “direct Dryer,” about 10:06. The radar shows that Gofer 06 did return to original heading at that time.

1005 Gofer 06 reports black smoke

None of O’Brien’s report or subsequent conversation with air traffic control correlates to a speculated crash time of 10:06.  It is clear from this primary source information that UA 93 was down well before that time.  O’Brien was not queried further by air traffic control about anything that might have happened in the 10:06 time frame.

The Next Five Minutes

The Correspondent claimed, “Four minutes of the transcript, from 1407-1411, appears to have been deleted. It’s gone!”  That is a misinterpretation of the transcript. Here is what the certified transcript (ZOB-ARTCC-287 N591UA(UAL 93) for Imperial Sector actually contains:

1406:27 GOF06 ok direct dryer gopher zero six
1407
1408
1409
1410
1411
1411.11 UNKN (unintelligible)

Here is the actual audio for that nearly five-minute period during which there were no transmissions. All the transcriber was doing was noting, for the transcipt record, the minutes that were passing with nothing to transcribe.

1007 Five Minutes no transmission

Crash Site Confirmation, Gofer 06 Considered, Not Tasked

Once Gofer 06 returned to original heading its path took it a few miles north of the crash site. The controller advised another controller that he could vector Gofer 06 to verify the crash site. This next conversation, an internal one at Cleveland Center, confirms that Cleveland had used a different plane and that the “lat long” of the crash site had been verified.

1011 Positive ID Gofer 06 not tasked

Grounding all flights

The order by the FAA’s Air Traffic Control System Command Center to ground all airplanes played out differently at different locations.  The emphasis was on grounding commercial traffic.  There was initial confusion as to whether or not the order pertained to military and emergency response aircraft. Here is how that order played out in the airspace controlled by Cleveland Center that included Gofer 06.

 1015 Only One in Air is a Military Plane

After that internal Cleveland Center conversation, the controller thought that he should ask Gofer 06 why he was still in the air.  Gofer 06 responded, no one told me to land. Gofer 06 then asked if anyone else was in the air. The last thing heard on the tape is the Cleveland controller telling Gofer 06 that “he would expand,” meaning he would zoom out so his scope would display a larger area.

 1017 No One Told Me to Land

Grounding of All Traffic, A Comment

One air traffic control facility posed a direct question about the status of military and emergency response flights.  I believe the question came from National TRACON and that the answer was that such flights would be allowed. I will update with that audio clip when I find it.

At no time was Gofer 06 told to land, nor were other military aircraft in the air. The only specific restriction to all flights, regardless of status, was a warning not to enter Class B airspace in the DC area. Those warnings started after 10:05 EDT.

9-11: The Andrews Fighters; A Complex Story, itself chaotic

[NOTE: blockquote html errors were corrected on Feb 27, 2014]

Introduction

The Washington Post series, “Mission: Unimaginable,” by Steve Hendrix, featured on page 1 of the “Style section, September 9 and September 15, 2011, speaks to the Major Heather Penney story, a very personal account of events on the morning of September 11, 2001.  Major Penney was wingman for the Caps flight, the first Andrews fighters airborne with verbal “weapons free” shootdown authority, an authority the Langley fighters already in a combat air patrol over the nation’s capital did not have. The emergence of Penney’s story resurfaced with it the complicated story about the national level response that day.

Commission Staff determined that the Andrews fighters were not involved in the actual defense that morning. By the time any Andrews fighter was airborne the attack was over. Nevertheless, the fighter wing at Andrews perceived that it had been involved and their story reemerged in 2008 with the publication of Touching History by Lynn Spencer.  Now, the story has reemerged a second time in the Washington Post articles. The story was, and still remains complex and poorly understood.

Writers such as Summers and Swan, The Eleventh Day, have detailed the complexity of the day and aftermath, the story of which remains unfinished.  Before them, Creed and Newman, Firefight, Inside the Battle to Save the Pentagon on 9/11, touched on the Andrews Air Force Base story.  The Air Force, itself, published an accounting of the Air Force story,  Air War Over America, in 2004. Lynn Spencer provided additional insight into the United States Air Force response, including the Andrews story.  The collective literature of 9/11, including the authors mentioned, has not yet provided a theoretical construct to place stories such as Major Penney’s in context.

One way, therefore, to tell the Andrews story is to provide an overarching thesis, a construct that is grounded in theory.  I have chosen chaos theory. That theory provides a language suited to the events of the day and the aftermath, a language that enlightens in a way not possible otherwise.

The one word used ubiquitously on the day of 9/11 and in the telling in the aftermath is “chaos.”  The word is never defined; it is simply used to describe events in a way that allows one to understand that which cannot be otherwise understood.  Given that ubiquity, it is a logical extension to apply the theory, itself.

The Andrews Connection

The Andrews story is inextricably tied to the story of United 93, the one plane that the air defenders could have had a chance to do something about, and which the Andrews expeditionary force, pressed into an air defense role, thought they could do something about.  Summers and Swan, in their discussion of United 93 wrote, “Far below, all was chaos.  At the very moment that the attendant in 93’s cockpit had fallen ominously silent…Flight 77 had slammed into the Pentagon.” In that passage, Summers and Swan linked together the two hijacked planes that would confound those who attempted to set the record straight concerning the attack on the nation’s capital.

During testimony on May 22 and 23, 2003, FAA Administrator, Jane Garvey could not, Transportation Secretary Mineta could not, and the NORAD delegation that followed them could not set the record straight.

The two prongs of the southern axis of a two-axis attack became the story that could not and would not be told accurately. “All was chaos,” at the time, in the aftermath and even today.  Major Heather Penney took to the sky with orders to “bring down United Flight 93.”  But that is not what transpired once the Andrews fighters took to the air and discovered the reality of the situation.

The fact that Penney’s memories, as told by Hendrix, don’t line up with the chronology of events is a reflection of the chaos of the morning and the misinformation that may have been available to her, then or since.  It does not constitute a judgement that Penney was anything but a heroine for her actions that morning.  She was heroic.

Chaos Theory, briefly considered

I have written about chaos theory in other articles.  Here, a brief summary is in order.  It is understood in the literature that the mathematics and science of chaos theory cannot be rigorously applied to an event such as 9/11.  The literature does allow, however, the use of chaos theory metaphorically.  Further, the language of chaos theory is useful to describe and correlate events in some sensible manner.  Specifically, I use four terms from chaos theory: strange attractors; non-linearity, cascading bifurcation, and disruptive feedback.

Strange Attractors. There are at least two pair of strange attractors that emerged from 9-11, both predicable in retrospect, but their dominant role could not be and was not predicted.  One pair, the Northeast Air Defense Sector and the FAA’s Boston Center, is not germane to this article.  The other pair, the Secret Service and Andrews Air Force Base, is.

Nonlinearity. Chaos is nonlinear, most of the responses to the attack, especially at the national level, were linear; by rote, SOP, or TTP (tactics, techniques and procedures). The Secret Service rote response was to protect the President, the Vice President, and the White House.  To do that it reached to the assets it knew, the air wing at Andrews.  The Service did not pick up the phone and call the National Military Command Center.

Cascading bifurcation. The attack itself was a double bifurcation, a two-axis attack each axis with two prongs.  Any student at any of the senior military schools can draw arrows depicting such an attack.  However, the situational awareness of the attack continued to bifurcate far beyond the simple military elegance of the attack. The saga of United 93, the most vulnerable of the four hijacked aircraft, became unmanageable.

Even though Cleveland Center provided clear and explicit reporting in near real-time all the way to FAA headquarters, that clarity became myopic almost immediately.  The flight was confused with Delta 1989 and was thought at one point to have landed in Cleveland. Once Cleveland changed the UA 93 flight plan to assist Washington Center, that change confused non-air traffic control observers who watched the “track” continue towards Washington on a traffic situation display, similar in every respect to the flight tracker that the general public uses to follow commercial airplanes of specific interest.

That “track” faded at 1028 when the notional United 93 “landed” at Reagan National.  Even the impact of United 93 bifurcated into two reports, one accurate, one false.  The false report that it crashed at Camp David came from the Secret Service, the very organization that was providing information to the Andrews unit.

Disruptive Feedback

Disruptive feedback becomes, literally, white noise to anyone who has had an amplifier or other audio device go haywire.  Two major disruptive events of the day were the false report that AA 11 was still airborne and the understandable but inaccurate report that Delta 1989 was hijacked.

However, there was a third disruptive event the one we just discussed and the one that concerns us here, the fact that United 93 was perceived to be rapidly approaching the nation’s capital.

Despite explicit information from Cleveland Center that United 93 was down, Monte Belger provided specific data points to Secretary Mineta, then in the PEOC, concerning the approach of United 93.  Here is the ground trace of the Hagerstown to Reagan National flight plan entered by Cleveland Center.

The graphics were created by Brian Stark (Boone870 on the web). Here is a YouTube link to Brian Stark’s assessment, including some audio. Here is a YouTube link to Stark’s post on the UA 93 flight plan change, at the controller level.

Here is the recording of Cleveland Center Traffic Management Unit (TMU) notifying Washington Center TMU via Herndon Center of the UA 93 flight plan change.  ZOB to ATCSCC on UA93 flight plan change

All of that primary source information establishes that the perceived flight of UA 93 was being followed on a Traffic Situation Display (TSD), was apparently noticed near Dulles, and was lost.  By 1028 UA 93 was both known down, actually, and known lost, notionally, as a TSD track by air traffic control.

“The four data points: Great Falls, USA Today building, down river approach (red), and National Airport are taken from a 2002 MSNBC interview with Transportation Secretary, Norman Mineta.  Even though Belger said he was watching radar he had no access to an air traffic control scope.  The one thing he could watch was a TSD.  Mineta was in the PEOC (President’s Emergency Operations Center) at the time.  This threat, even though notional, was the likely threat passed by the Secret Service to General Wherley at Andrews and thereafter to the Andrews pilots.

At that time, 1028, the Secret Service first made sure they were in contact with Quit 25, the Langley lead pilot, via National TRACON on the DCA approach frequency.  Quit 25 changed frequency to allow that.  Once Quit 25 came up on frequency the DCA controller broke off, most likely to talk to the Secret Service.

The controller came back with a question, “you are in contact with the companies (reference to Langley fighters) that are flying around at 240 and 250 just north and east of you? Quit 25 responded, “affirmative that’s my number 2 and number 3 wingmen.”  In the same time frame, Bully One was “cleared for visual” to land at Andrews. 102838 Quit Secret Service Wash Tower

The DCA controller was careful to document the presence of three Langley fighters and the absence of a target.  As a result the Secret Service had clear and explicit knowledge that three air defense fighters, two fully armed, were in a combat air patrol over the National Capital Authority with no actionable target.  Yet the Service still pressed Andrews to launch.

Why?  The one reason that makes sense is that the Secret Service could pass shootdown authority to the Andrews fighters over whom they had some control.  That was not possible with the Langley fighters without going through the Department of Defense.

Andrews, the developing story.

Here, in the voices of the day, is how events transpired. There is no mention of United flight 93, but Andrews Air Force Base was taking things seriously. We pick up the story with one of a series of broadcasts on frequency warning any aircraft listening to Andrews to stay out of Class Bravo airspace or be shot down.

That example of broadcasts that began at 1005 is followed by the launch of Bully One (Hutchison) followed by Caps 1 and 2 (Sasseville and Penney). Bully One has just returning from a training flight to a range in North Carolina. Both flights soon learned, once in the air and away from the misinformation flowing from the Secret Service to Andrews, the real story. Each audio clip is partially transcripted.

1015

Andrews Position T-4: Attention, all aircraft monitoring Andrews Tower. This is a warning. I repeat, all aircraft monitoring Andrews Tower frequencies, this is a warning. All aircraft are warned to remain clear of Class Bravo airspace. Any aircraft intruding into Class Bravo airspace will be shot down. 101557 Andrews Maddox Warning from Tower Local Control

1033

Krant: Swan 91 line

Swan: Swan

Krant: Yeah, we’re trackin’ some primary targets 10 miles northwest and 14 miles northwest of Washington if you can tell your F-16s about them, we don’t know who they are

Swan: [indistinct] Quit 25 come over to you, did he come over?

Krant: We’re talking to him now, thanks.

Unknown: [indistinct] 62

Krant: [indistinct]

Unknown: [indistinct] military aircraft can go back to their base, this guard helicopter, for example, he got authorization to go back to Davison to his base

Krant: Alright, Thanks

Unknown: Keeping him on my side, when he gets abeam Davision go directly to it

Krant: Where is he now

Unknown: He’s about 20 north of Dulles right now

Krant: Alright 1033 primary targets northwest

Those recordings establish three things.  First, the Secret Service and, by extension, Andrews, was serious about protecting the airspace immediately above the nation’s capital.  Here is a conversation recorded at the Air Traffic Control System Command Center (Herndon Center) just prior to the commencement of periodic warnings broadcast by Andrews Tower.  0911100443 Secret Service going to start shooting

Second, the presence of the Langley fighters in the area was known.  Third, there were unknown tracks to the northwest and at least one helicopter had been given approval to return to base, a southerly route from north of Dulles airport to Davison Airfield at Fort Belvoir.

1035

Andrews Tower: Bully One, I’ve lost your transmission, I’m sorry. Turn right, when able, taxi to parking

Bully One: And Tower, be advised Bully One will be, Bully One and Two will be parking on Echo and arming with live

Andrews Tower: Bully One, understood, Echo is yours

Bully One: Bully One  1035 Andrews Arming with Live

1036

Krant: Just let us know about anybody you have going in or out so these F-16’s don’t shoot them down

Unknown: Baltimore will tell you who it is

Krant: Baltimore, 36 line. Make sure your coordinate anybody prior to entering the airspace, the medevac helicopters, like that 1036 Krant coordinate anyone entering airspace

1037

Bully One: Andrews Ground, this is Bully One

Andrews Tower: [indistinct]

Bully One: Yes sir, I was just given instructions by the Commanding General that I need to take back off immediately for an aircraft coming up the river 1037 Andrews Instructions from Commanding General

1039

Krant:  Bully One, you taking off as a flight of two or just a single?

Bully One:  Bully One, single ship

Krant:  Bully One, change direction  and approved

Krant: [indistinct} Bully One departure…for radar intercept 1039 Bully One radar intercept

1040

Krant: Bully One, Washington  departure

Bully One: Yes sir, go ahead this is Bully one

Krant: I just thought you checked in, go ahead

Bully: Yes sir, I was given instructions that there is an aircraft flying down the river, and I was given instructions to take a look at what aircraft it is

Krant: Bully One, All right let me find out….Head towards Georgetown, Bully One 1040 Krant aircraft flying down river

These clips establish that Bully One, on landing, understood he was to get armed and refueled, but not to go back up in the air.  That plan was superseded at about 1036 by orders from General Wherley to get back up in the air immediately.

The immediacy of that order is likely the combined result of the Belger-Mineta conversation about 93 and the Secret Service Joint Operations Center direct contact with DCA and learning about the unknowns up river.  Based on the consistent story told by Andrews pilots, the predominant cause of the order was the perceived approach of United 93.

NEADS notified

Concurrently, at 1039, Colonel Brooks from the Air National Guard  Crisis Action Team (CAT) called NEADS to provide notification that two Andrews fighters from the 113th [Caps One and Two]  would be airborne.  The Brooks call reached the weapons controllers.  NEADS was told, “these guys don’t have a clue who they’re talking to and who [is] your command and control.”  He was referred to the Senior Director.  1039 Andrews CAT checks in with NEADS

Just as he did two hours earlier when Boston Center called sounding the intial alarm of the morning to NEADS, Sergeant Powell answered the phone, “HUNTRESS Weapons, Sergeant Powell.” Powell advised that the fighters would “stay under FAA control for now.”

Then Powell asked, “and the 113th, I hate to ask, where’s that?”  That matter-of-fact statement signaled that the merge of air defense and expeditionary force fighters would not be easy.  1039 Huntress Weapons Sergeant Powell

Back to the Andrews Chronology

1041

Krant: Bully One, the airspace belongs to the military for the operation right now, I showed several helicopters northwest of the airport if you’d like to perhaps [indistinct] south of the airport and go up towards Gerogetown, I don’t see anything else right now.

Bully One. I understand. According to shop, we were given instructions for me to launch immediately [overridden by Caps One checking in]

Krant: Bully One proceed where ever you need to go. Like I say, that information probably came through your source not ours.

Bully One. Right now I’m about two miles, three miles west of National Airport at about three point five 1041 Krant info from your source not ours

Fighter Disposition 1042 EDT

At 1042 EDT, Major Hutchison, Bully One, overflew the Pentagon, east to west, at 600 feet altitude.  That event was described by Patrick Creed and Rick Newman in Firefight, Inside the Battle to Save the Pentagon on 9/11, as follows:

The FAA was no longer able to track the precise location of the plane; somehow it seemed to have slipped beneath radar coverage. But based on its last known position, heading, and airspeed, the FAA was estimating the time until it reached Washington…[FBI Agent] Rice had been giving [FBI Agent] Combs updates every five minutes…Then Rice broke the pattern. ‘Chris you got four minutes,’ he said somberly….T-minus-zero came and went…[then] in the distance there was a buzz..it was the unmistakable roar of a jet engine winding up…Then an Air Force F-16 zoomed low and fast over the courtyard…On Washington Boulevard, frustration was suddenly transformed into jubilation. When the F-16 flew over, it appeared to dip its wing, as if signaling to the people on the ground that the cavalry had arrived.

The picture of Hutchison’s flyover became iconic and the story is a good one, except that Hutchison was not the cavalry.  Not quite 45 minutes earlier, the Langley fighters arrived and set up an east-west combat air patrol protecting the nation’s capital.  In fact, a couple minutes prior to Hutchison’s 1042 flyover the Langley wingman, Quit, 26 was at 23000 feet over the Pentagon, unseen by those below.  To the east, one minute prior, Caps One and Two, Major Sasseville and Captain Penney, took off from Andrews.

So, at the moment the Sasseville/Penney flight began its quest for UA 93, according to the Post article, there were a total of six fighters in the sky over Washington D.C.: three air defense fighters with weapons, authentication tables, and no delegated authority; and three expeditionary force fighters with no weapons, no authentication tables, and delegated oral “weapons free” authority.

That jumble of fighters was yet another chaotic situation of the day, one with no national level control or supervision.  Here is a graphic showing the relationship of five of the six fighters (Quit 27 is not shown for simplification)

The narrative continues in the words of Creed/Newman.

At the command post, Chris Combs was on the radio again to Jim Rice, his FBI boss, who had an official update on the second hijaked aircraft. ‘You’re all clear,’ Rice informed him. “The plane hit Camp David.’ …. [Two other individuals] were getting the same information from the tower at National Airport…[one relayed] ‘Per the airplane operations center, there is no additional threat. No additional threat per the airport operations center. Okay?’

The “Camp David” report was accurate as to the fate of UA 93, but wrong on the location.  More important, Reagan National TRACON and FAA’s Washington Center, the controllers for the Sasseville/Penney flight knew that there was no further air threat.

Hutchison was near his maximum altitude he would fly that morning, “three point five” (3500 feet).  He descended and flew over the Pentagon at 600 feet, turned left and climbed back to his maximum altitude and then descended and landed at Andrews. We pick up the real time audio with the arrival of the Caps flight on the scene and the concurrent return to base by Bully One.

1042 (nearly 3 minute conversation)

Krant: Swan

Swan: You talking to that four six six five code, south of the airport about..

Krant: Yeah, that’s a Bully aircraft he’s going to check out a report of an aircraft going in by the river or something

Caps One: Caps one airborne passing two thousand with two

Caps one: Caps one

Krant: Caps one, go ahead

Caps One. I’m out of Andrews with two fighters.

Caps One. Caps One

Krant: Caps One, roger, proceed as requested

Caps One. I need a vector for that unknown, unidentified aircraft inbound

Krant: Caps one, not as far as we know, we have reports of a C-130 west, I’m sorry, west of the airfield, it’s a friendly

Caps One: Copy that, are you in contact with the national command authority

Krant: Caps one, affirmative

Caps One: We will [go to] whatever location you desire, at whatever alititude

Krant: Caps one, roger, fly direct to an orbit about 10 miles to the northwest of Washington at six thousand, what’s good for you eleven thousand?

Cap One: That will be fine

Krant: Roger. Bully One I’m not able to provide you service in that area due to the helicopter traffic

Bully One: I have no other aircraft on my radar. All we have out here are helicopters out here so I’m going to proceed back to Andrews

Krant: Bully One, thank you, and Caps departed, they are going to hold northwest of Washington at eleven thousand 1042 Krant You in contact with NCA

Sasseville and Penney, however, continued their mission.  And the radar does show, in fact, that on their first leg they did go north, “up river,” for about three minutes, something Hutchison before them did not do.  Here is a graphic depicting the spatial relationship between the Cap flight and Quit 26.

At the moment the Cap flight turned back, Quit 26 was due south a few miles.  That relationship is important as we pick up the story at the Northeast Air Defense Sector.

The Situation

At 1043,  Bully One was landing and Caps One, Sasseville, had learned, as did Hutchison before him, there was no target, as both were told.  Sasseville deferred to an air traffic control request to hold at eleven thousand feet.  As the Caps flight flew back southeasterly in their holding pattern they came to the attention of the very busy military controllers at NEADS.

NEADS Enters the Picture

Neads was working tanker support across its entire sector and specifically to the West.  In the midst of that work the Weapons Controller Technician for the Langley fighters was told “Quit 26, BRA, 5 miles.  He immediately issued the order, “Quit 26, stranger BRA 060, 7 miles, estimate 13,000 thousand feet.” Mission is “ID by type and tail.”

That is a direct reference to the Caps flight which was ten thousand feet below and in the same area.  The recording of that order shows how dynamic the situation in the air was.  What the Weapons Controller saw as 5 miles became 7 miles in seconds when the Technician gave the order. 1047 Stranger ID Type and Tail

Quit 26 reported that he was descending and the controller told him to look east for a target tracking southeast, now showing fourteen thousand (altitude), another specific reference to the flight path of the Caps flight. 1047 Look East Tracking Southeast

Quit 26 reported back ten minutes later after apparently sorting the situation out with air traffic control and reported that “we don’t know who he is, but Washington has a handle on it and he’s part of the package,” a military working with us. 1056 Military working with us don’t know who

At 1102 Caps Two, Penney contacted Huntress.  The Technician immediately asked her for her mode 3 and intentions. 1102 Caps 2 contacts Huntress

Penney did not respond and as the Technician attempted to contact her a different mission came along.  A tanker needed to orbit overhead Andrews to refuel an arriving E-3, Sentry 40, Mission Crew, Bandsaw Kilo.  NEADS arranged that with no resolution of the Caps mission. 1102 Nothing from Caps but E-3 on the way

At some point, perhaps over ridden by continuous communications about tankers, NEADS must have gotten a mode 3 from Caps 2.  In this next clip we hear the technician deciding that “if this is Caps 2 then this must be Caps 1. 1109 Caps Two is here

Apparently, he also learned that both Caps fighters were squawking the same mode 3 and he tried to direct a change as he apparently unplugged from the console.  According to 84th RADES radar files, Caps 1 and Caps 2 were squawking mode 3 4605 and the same mode 2.  They were indistinguishable by NEADS controllers who were trying to change that. 1110 Change mode 3

Eventually, training and professionalism took over and the CAP over the nation’s capital sorted itself out.

CAP Established

After 11:15 EST, once a fully armed pair of Andrews fighters finally got airborne, the CAP was complete, responsibilities were allocated and all fighters were on the same frequency.

We first learn of the final CAP configuration at 1046 when Wild One (Major “Raisin” Caine)  advised Andrews Tower of his impending takeoff in five minutes. It would be a full armed pair of fighters with “weapons free” authority.  In that same conversation we learn that Bully One was to be armed. 1046 Wild One status report.

The Wild flight did not take off until 11:07 EDT, despite Wild One’s five minute estimate. This is an example of the fact that it took time, measurable time, for each aspect of the nation’s reaction time that morning. In this instance the estimated departure time was 1051 EDT. The actual time was 16 minutes later.

The air traffic control tapes from Andrews provide perspective. Concurrently, Andrews Tower was working Continuity of Government/Continuity of Operations issues as heard in this next audio file. 1107 Wild takeoff sequence

Once airborne, Major Caine took pains to let the National Command Authority know that he was “fully configured.”  He passed instructions to air traffic control to so inform the “NCA.”1112 Wild fully configured

Shortly thereafter, the voice of Caps 2, Penney is heard, apparently on the same frequency as Caps 1 and Wild 1. The audio continuity is erratic, but here is Penney’s voice.1113 Penney voice heard

Major Caine ultimately established CAP discipline and got things organized, but not without a hiccup.  The Langley fighters, not knowing who the Andrews fighters were, “spiked” (illuminated with a target acquisition radar) one of the Andrews fighters as the Langley fighters were completing refueling.

This next audio clip contains that vignette and also provides some insight into CAP defensive measures.  Tankers were present and acknowledged, but Caps 1 cautioned Wild 1 about a ‘bait and switch’ danger.

1115 Stop Spiking Me

Summation

Once the Andrews fighters became airborne they quickly found they had no search mission. The battle was over and National TRACON had no targets for them.

Ultimately, they had to organize an efficient combat air patrol over the nation’s capital integrating 7 fighters with disparate armament, rules of engagement, and command and control. Major Caine, Wild 2, forcefully and persuasively got all parties in sync.

That was a job well done, thanks in large part to the key role played by the air traffic controller at National TRACON. That was the Andrews story; it got lost in the telling.

Major Heather Penney played an integral part in bringing order out of chaos.  In conclusion, we hear her voice calmly going about her mission.

1138 Caps 2 Medstar flight

 

 

9-11: United Flight 175; Transpoder Code 3321, an interesting anomaly.

Introduction

Retrospectively, the attack against New York City was well planned and well executed.  Both hijacked aircraft, American Airlines flight 11 (AA 11) and United Airlines flight 175 (UA 175), took off within a few minutes of each other from the same airport, Logan in Boston, thus increasing the likelihood that both planes, if delayed, would be delayed the same amount of time.

The narrow exit corridor from Logan increased the likelihood that both planes would be on the same frequency at the same time.  It was possible, but not a given, that Marwan Al Shehhi, as a passenger on UA 175 could listen to the air traffic control communications from the cockpit and hear the voice of Mohammed Atta.

(See “9-11 United Airlines; Cabin Channel 9, a policy change,” for perspective.)

Al Shehhi, in the cockpit, knowing that Atta was flying AA 11 and knowing where to look, would have easily seen the fireball from the impact of AA 11. At that moment the transponder code on UA 175 changed to 3020, thus creating an unknown radar target in the sky, a Mode C intruder, for air traffic control.  That was tactical planning, well executed.  There was no need for a second code change, but there was one a minute later.

Why that second, tactically unnecessary, code change was made has never been and may never be explained. But happen it did.  For a possible explanation we turn to the hijackers’ preparation prior to the attack.

The Final Hours
(link updated Feb 7, 2014 to prosecution exhibit BS01101T for the Moussaoui trial)

The coordinated attack against the World Trade Center was swift, violent, and devoutly executed.  That devotion was revealed in the “The Last Night” instructions to the hijackers.  Those detailed, explicit instructions contained many Quran references.  Such devotion, in meticulous detail, to the final hours suggests that such devotion, detail, and meticulous planning also pertained to the planning for the actual attack.

Mohammed Atta and Murwan al Shehhi had countless quality hours together, measured in days, weeks and months prior to the attack against New York City to plan each and every detail and to do so in light of the Quran.

A Key Observation

A significant clue to that devotion and detail was found by a correspondent, Tom Lusch, during an extended email conversation about hijacker tactics and techniques.  Tom was of the opinion that the code change on United Airlines flight 175 was a matter of cockpit unfamiliarity on the part of the hijackers.  My view was different, based on an in-cockpit demonstration by the senior United Airlines pilot.  I thought the code changes to be intentional, but had no understanding of why the particular code, 3 3 2 1, came about.

Tom consulted an informed website and observed that Chapter 33 (The Combined Forces), Verse 21 of the Quran offered an explanation.  Here is a translation by Yusef Ali, take from the “Quranic Arabic Corpus.”

“Ye have indeed in the Messenger of Allah a beautiful pattern (of conduct) for any one whose hope is in Allah and the Final Day, and who engages much in the Praise of Allah.”

And one by Muhammad Sarwar from the same source:

“The Messenger of God is certainly a good example for those of you who have hope in God and in the Day of Judgment and who remember God very often.”

Those and other translations of that chapter and verse speak specifically to the “Day of Judgment,” the “Last Day,” the “Final Day.”

The correlation to the events of September 11, 2001, is chilling, especially so when we consider Mohammed Atta’s choice for his lead plane that day.

American Airlines Flight Eleven.

American Flight Eleven was, in this context, “America, Quran Chapter 1 (The Opening), Verse 1.”

“In the name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful”

And the choice of planes for Marwan al Shehhi was equally chilling

United Airlines Flight One Seventy Five

In the context of the Quran, United Flight One Seventy Five was “United [States] Quran Chapter 17, Verse 5, rendered in the Yusef Ali translation as:

“When the first of the warnings came to pass, We sent against you Our servants given to terrible warfare: They entered the very inmost parts of your homes; and it was a warning (completely) fulfilled.”

And in the Mohsin Khan translation

“So, when the promise came for the first of the two, We sent against you slaves of Ours given to terrible warfare. They entered the very innermost parts of your homes. And it was a promise (completely) fulfilled.”

Assessment

So what do we make of this?  I asked Robbyn Swan, coauthor of The Eleventh Day, a correspondent with ties to scholars specializing in Islam to help.  Two scholars responded to her.  They both agreed that the hijackers were “rational actors” and “practical in the extreme.”  One doubted that they would “get carried away with such numerological mysticism.” The other observed that the change “increased the difficulty and complexity of the operation.”

And that latter observation is precisely the point.  The second code change from 3 0 2 0 to 3 3 2 1 was tactically unnecessary and while not difficult did add an additional task that wasn’t needed.  So why would Al Shehhi take the time to do that as he was preparing to turn UA 175 around and plummet into the World Trade Center from high altitude?  It was not the act of a “rational actor,” but someone motivated beyond the tactical necessity of the day.

The scholars and I are in agreement that the hijackers knew what they were doing and were rational and “practical to the extreme.”  One scholar made the additional observation that there are hundreds of verses that refer to “final judgment” or “final day.”  We do not know why that particular chapter and verse, but the demonstrable evidence is that Al Shehhi took a measured action to transmit that particular code.

And that leads us to the impact on air traffic control.

A Message for Air Traffic Control and History

The numbers of the code changes had no special meaning to air traffic control except that they did not belong in the scheme of things. An “intruder” is not unusual and typically resulted from pilot error or inattention.  The method of handling an intruder was simple; ask the pilot to recycle his transponder.

Which was done, except that UA 175 had become a Mode C intruder, 3 3 2 1. The intruder came to the attention of air traffic control. According to a Washington Post article on September 17, 2001, “a controller…shouted, There’s an intruder over Allentown.” (Lane, et al, “A Sky Filled With Chaos, Uncertainty and True Heroism”)

Any message intended by the code change was not for air traffic control. It was an enduring message for history.

 

9-11: UA175; 42d Street, the Allentown PA story

Introduction

The female lead in the stage play “42d Street” was a young woman from Allentown, PA. She was sometimes referred to as “Allentown.” I use the 42d Street reference to remind me of the story of three planes in the skies over Allentown on the morning of September 11, 2001.

The Three Planes

It has long been known that two of the hijacked planes on 9-11, United 93 and United 175, crossed paths on 9-11.The location has never been given much thought, but it was over Allentown. What is not known is that a third commercial aircraft of note also crossed paths with both planes in the same time frame over Allentown.

The three planes were well separated in altitude, but closely spaced, in time, United 93 westbound, United 175 southbound and a third plane eastbound.  United 93 was still climbing, United 175 was at altitude, and the third plane was midway between the two, altitude-wise. None of the three aircraft were a danger to the others and none were aware of their proximity.

The third plane was Midwest Express Flight Seven (MIDEX 7) the centerpiece of Lynn Spencer’s book Touching History.

Midwest Express Flight Seven

I will tell the MIDEX-7 story in an article currently in draft. For now, let me just sketch in the details.

According to the pilot’s account as told to Spencer, the path of MIDEX-7 was intertwined with and integral to the final moments of the descent of United 175 into the World Trade Center, South Tower. The story as told was sufficient compelling that Darlow Smithson Productions wanted to make it a vignette in its “Voices From the Air” production for National Geographic.

I was the consultant for Darlow Smithson and they tasked me to pull together the audio communications supporting the MIDEX-7 story. I found little of substance in the collection of air traffic control files provided to the 9/11 Commission and reported to Darlow Smithson that the vignette should not be used.

So, what happened?  As with many eyewitness and participant accounts of the day, the pilot’s recall compressed time and conflated events. He had internalized what he recalled, but what he recalled is not quite what happened, a story for another day.

The MIDEX 7 story is an interesting one, but it is not the story that Spencer told. MIDEX 7 was still over New Jersey when United 175 impacted.

MIDEX 7 actually crossed paths twice with UA 175, but it is the first crossing that concerns us here. So, back to Allentown we go.

United 175

At the moment American Airlines 11 impacted the World Trade Center, North Tower, the transponder code for United 175 changed to 3020.  That one change was all that was tactically necessary to introduce a Mode C intruder into the national airspace system. Such an intruder, a transponding plane without an associated data block, is not uncommon and controllers deal with the situation by asking the pilot to recycle the transponder. That is what the controller did that morning, except nothing happened.

By that time, the transponder code had changed to 3321, an unnecessary and extraneous tactical move by the hijacker pilot.  I am drafting an article to help us understand why the second code change was made.

Thus, by the time UA 175 was asked to recycle its transponder the code had twice changed but not to the original code as instructed.  The plane was a dangerous intruder into the National Air Space System and that fact was noted by an air traffic controller  when United 175 was over Allentown, PA.

“A Sky Filled With Chaos, Uncertainty and True Heroism”

On Monday, September 17, 2001, Charles Lane, Don Phillips and David Snyder, Washington Post Staff Writers published an article with the title, above. It was about specific hijacked planes but the skies over Allentown suddenly became the focus.

The authors report that while the controllers were looking for American 11, “a controller glanced at another radar screen and shouted, “Look. There’s an intruder over Allentown.”

That was a reference to United 175 under its new code of 3321, a lethal intruder which made a broad U-turn over New Jersey and then plummeted at 6000 feet per minute in the direction of 42d Street. Intruder code 3321 impacted the World Trade Center, South Tower at 9:03 EST.

9/11: Air Threat Conference Transcript; DoD Release, in perspective

Author’s Note, February 5, 2014

Minor typo corrections, bolded, have been made.

Background

On the morning of September 11, 2001, the National Military Command Center (NMCC) convened  an Air Threat Conference. The tape of that conference and accompanying transcript are among the most important primary source documents of the day. The tape has never been released. Only late last year, via a FOIA request in 2006, has a heavily redacted copy of the transcript been released. (Link added February 3, 2014, an oversight in the original posting.)

The release underwhelms and DoD has done a great disservice to the families, the public, and most of all to itself by releasing an important document in a way that confuses rather than clarifies. However, the release, while largely unhelpful, does provide some noteworthy insight.

It is my purpose in this article to provide insight for researchers and historians as they attempt to fathom what the Air Threat Conference transcript in its current public form adds to the conversation. But first, some overarching comments and then some perspective.

Overarching Comments

The initial report to the NMCC was stark, two aircraft into the World Trade Center and one confirmed hijack, AA11, headed towards the nation’s capital.  There was no mention of either AA77 or UA93. That information from the Air Threat Conference, or lack thereof, should have been a part of the DoD/NORAD preparation of General Eberhart for testimony before Congress, construction of the NORAD timeline, and preparation of General McKinley, General Arnold, Administrator Garvey, and Secretary Mineta for testimony before the Commission. None of that happened. Instead, a garbled government story emerged.

The initial NMCC attempt to switch from a Significant Events Conference to an Air Threat Conference failed because the classification level,  TOP SECRET, was too high for some intended conferees; FAA specifically, according to Commission Staff interviews with NMCC officers.  The conference was reconvened at the SECRET level but FAA was still unable to join.

Most important, the redacted transcript clearly establishes that the Air Threat Conference was “SIOP,” (Single Integrated Operations Plan).  My estimate is that this is the genesis of the national level attempt to implement Continuity of Operations (COOP) and Continuity of Government (COG) procedures.

The redacted transcript clearly depicts the confusion at the national level. Confusion about the threat, the attack, and its aftermath is understandable.  What is not is the consistent confusion about the disposition of friendly forces. The transcript, even in redacted form, describes chaos.

Chaos Theory Considered

In other articles I have established that Chaos Theory is useful in examining the events of the day, not in its pure mathematical form but in its language. We can use the language of Chaos Theory as a metaphor to aid in understanding what happened, retrospectively.  Specifically in this instance, chaos is nonlinear. Linear processes and procedures such as the NMCC attempt to convene a suitable conference, therefore, are largely futile and may even be counter-productive.

The series of teleconferences available to the NMCC were all linear processes, set procedures that allowed the orderly convention of the right voices at the right time to deal with a crisis. Except that never happened that morning. The attack was against the National Air Space system, a system operated by a single individual, Benedict Sliney, the FAA’s National Operations Manager, and defended on the East Coast by a single individual, Colonel Robert Marr, Commander of NORAD’s Northeast Air Defense Sector.

For the nation to have any chance at all that morning those two individuals had to be in communication and sharing a common operating picture of the attack. Nothing the NMCC did during the actual attack and defense that morning ever assisted the operator and defender of the National Airspace System.

The Tape and Transcript

At about 9:29 EDT, as a precursor Significant Event Conference was being convened, the acting Duty Director of Operations (DDO) pushed the record button on a small, inexpensive reel-reel recorder on his desk.  That was the state of the art in the NMCC that morning.  The recording was not time stamped and the system required that the DDO turn the tape over at the end of each side.  He missed the fact that the first tapes first side had run out, according to his interview with Commission Staff. As a result, there is a period of time, perhaps a minute or so, that was not recorded.

The fact of an Air Threat Conference was determined by Commission Staff based on information contained in NORAD documents. A formal request to DoD surfaced the fact of the existence of the tape which was not released to the Commission until DoD had time to make a transcription, not a trivial process.  As DoD staff worked through the tape making the transcript they found that the equities involved in the conference exceeded DoD. Thereafter, the tape and transcript came under the purview of the National Security Council (NSC).

The Commission negotiated a protocol that allowed DoD to retain a copy of the transcript for Commission staff use during interviews. A second copy, the original as I recall, was retained at the NSC.  At no time did Commission Staff have either the transcript or tape available at our offices for a detailed contrast and comparison with other responsive information.  No copy of the transcript or tape will be found in the Commission’s archived files; we had nothing to archive.

Commission Staff was allowed to listen to the tape at the NSC under the supervision of a junior staffer whose task was to stop the tape at certain specified times and fast forward beyond brief snippets of information.  It was a boring job for the staffer and on one occasion as I listened he forgot to stop the tape.  What he was supposed to suppress in that instance was specific call sign reference to Continuity of Government (COG) helicopters.  To me, it was nonsensical. What he was suppressing was the same information I had routinely heard on air traffic control communications provided by FAA.

There is, in my estimation, no credible reason for the tape and transcript, unredacted, to be withheld beyond the minimum statutory limits for doing so.

A Note for Researchers and Historians

The redacted transcript is best used in conjunction with two other, more definitive documents. First, is the Commission Report, itself. A critical portion of the narrative concerning the events of 9/11 was based on the Air Threat Conference, as detailed in Chapter One notes. Keep the Report handy as you make your personal assessment of the DoD redacted transcript

Second, is the staff generated transcript surfaced under a Mandatory Declassification Review orchestrated by Robbyn Swan, co-author of the Eleventh Day. That document, “Air Traffic Conference Call, DJH Notes,” provides needed time correlation and should be concurrently used in order to understand the times and timing of the line entries in the redacted transcript. The staff made that transcript in order to integrate the Air Threat Conference into our own timeline.

With that background and guidance let us now consider the recently released redacted transcript.

The Situation

The national level did not start to get itself organized until 9:16 EDT, when CIA convened a NOIWON (National Operational Intelligence Watch Officer’s Network) to find out what was going on. The NOIWON, with which I had personal familiarity, is a desk/center level analyst information exchange network to quickly discuss things that go bump in the night. The network ties the WAOC consortium (Washington Area Operations Centers) together in real time.

No one on the NOIWON had any information beyond that which was being learned from news networks.  The important point is that all the key organizations, specifically the FAA and the NMCC, were on the network. The network, however, was not suited for operational coordination. The FAA node, for example, was on the 3rd floor of the FAA building, several floors below the FAA’s crisis center.

At 9:20 EDT, FAA activated its primary net, a mechanism for crisis coordination outside the FAA. One of the first entities called was the NMCC. The officer who answered told Commission Staff that he quickly learned that nothing was happening on that net.  He tasked a newly assigned non-commissioned officer, one not yet assigned to a specific NMCC watch team, to sit and listen to the network.  I interviewed her and found that nothing happened on the net that morning.

What happened was the FAA relied primarily on its internal tactical net. The NMCC was never a party to the FAA’s tactical net.

At 9:25 EDT, the SVTS (Secure Video Teleconference System) was activated. It became operational at 9:40 EDT, when the FAA Administrator and the CIA Director entered the conference. The SVTS was a cold war legacy system heavily layered with security which isolated conferees from their staffs. While both the NMCC and the FAA were active on the conference, participants had to communicate via runners to the DDO and the FAA crisis center.

Amidst all this activity the NMCC, which had simply been listening in on the NOIWON conference, decided it had to do something and a Significant Event Conference was convened at 9:29 EDT.  Staff officers told Commission Staff during interviews that they were literally pulling binders off the shelves in their effort to convene an operational conference that made sense.

The Conference Begins

The NMCC soon learned that FAA was not a party to the Significant Event Conference and decided to do something else. In response to information from the Air Force that they had established a crisis action team, the DDO said, “I concur, convene an air threat conference.”  NORAD concurred and announced it was “proceeding with an air threat conference.” Notably, NORAD also verified that “hijacked aircraft is still airborne heading toward Washington DC.”

The Threat

The threat was established immediately after the SECRET level Air Threat Conference was convened. The DDO announced, “An air attack against North America may be in progress.” NORAD concurred; “We have radar and visual indication of a possible threat to CONUS. Unknown country of origin.”

Given that a Russian air launched cruise missile exercise was scheduled, the die was cast. The nation prepared for an air attack not a terrorist attack and a COOP/COG response was required.

In NORAD’s defense it did attempt to dampen the situation. A possible hijack was mentioned. No CINC’s assessment, a critical necessary step was forthcoming; “CINC NORAD is not declaring air defense emergency at this point. And, NORAD recommends that this conference be reconvened when further information and unconflicted reports are available.”

By then it was too late.  The next communication recorded was, “This is the DDO providing an update. There’s a report that an aircraft has crashed into the Mall side of the Pentagon.”

Chaos ensued. The next threat report was that Delta flight 89 was possibly hijacked. That was followed by a report of a “possible inbound to D.C. 25 minutes out..” The NORAD response was explicit. “NORAD has no indication of a hijack heading to Washington, D.C. at this time.”

Things then took another chaotic turn for the worse. The DDO asked the Air Force for an update “on fighter cap” for the D.C. area. No one knew, Air Force or NORAD, even though three Langley fighters were in the process of establishing the ‘cap.’ The NMCC further request was, “I say again my previous request. Have any aircraft been scrambled in response to this United 93 and what is that status of fighter cap over D.C.?”

The NORAD response was nonsensical, in retrospect. “Roger, We currently have two aircraft out of Atlantic City; additional scramble pending and stand by for ETI (sic, should read ETA) to Washington, D.C. NORAD complete.”

Andrews mentioned

In other articles I have established that the Andrews fighters were not part of the air defense force that morning. They did not have the tactics, techniques, and procedures, or authentication tables to engage.  Even when finally tasked it took them well over an hour to get fighters in the air, well after the United 93 threat had been resolved.

Nevertheless, Andrews was considered. The DDO asked; “Have the assets out of Andrews been launched?” NORAD responded, “NORAD, no information on assets out of Andrews.”

The FAA joins

Sometime after 10:15 EDT, the FAA joined the conference, not from FAA headquarters but from the CARF (Central Altitude Reservation Function) at the FAA’s Air Traffic Control System Command Center, Herndon, Virginia.

The specific question to FAA was, “This is the DDO. Vice Chairman would like to know who’s controlling the aircraft over Washington D.C.”  The response: “If there are any aircraft that are airborne over the Washington area they are being controlled by our Washington Center.”

The NMCC did not have a grip on the disposition of friendly forces. The FAA voice advised that “we understand that there are some military fighters that have been launched to patrol the Washington area.” The DDO responded, “That’s correct. We have reports of two aircraft currently over Washington.”  There were actually three, from Langley.

The FAA voice responded, “That I do not know. I’m back in secure area in the command center. I’d have to go out on the floor to find out who is out there.” He reiterated that “Washington Center is controlling all aircraft in the Washington area at this time.” That was an accurate statement.

The confusion goes on and is worth reading even with the redactions keeping in mind the Commission Report and the Commission Staff version of the Air Threat Conference.

Other Interesting items

Page 62 contains a direct reference to COOP/COG operations. The DDO reported, “We’re still working the number of passengers for that first aircraft for SITE-R.”

Page 78 establishes NMCC awareness of the accurate disposition of friendly forces. CONR reported, “total of 7 airplanes over Washington D.C. right now. Four F-16s [Andrews] and three F-15s [Langley] over Washington D.C. Two F-15s [Otis] over New York City at the moment.”  That time was no earlier than 11:15 EDT, or so.

Page 93 establishes the arrival of Air Force One in Barksdale. General Arnold, CONR, reported, “ABC news, unfortunately, just announced that Air Force One is in Barksdale.”

Page 150 establishes that MOLINK was at least periodically on the conference.  During a polling of conferees, “MOLINK: this is MOLINK.”  MOLINK was/is a long existing Moscow-Washington hot line established in the early 1960’s.

It was likely a charter member any time an air threat conference was convened since the most likely threat was Soviet/Russian.  It is possible that MOLINK was used that morning in the concerted effort to convince the Russians to cancel their ongoing live fire exercise. They did.

As an example of the effort, during my work on the Congressional Joint Inquiry we established from logs of the NMIC (National Military Intelligence Center) that the Director, Defense Intelligence Agency directed the DDI (Duty Director of Intelligence) to call the Defense Attache’ in Moscow to ask the Russians to cancel the exercise.  A later log entry established that the Director, himself, made the call to the Attache’.

Page 164 establishes that “VENUS CONTROL” was responsible for Presidental movement. “VENUS CONTROL: This is Venus Control confirming that we did just talk to Air Force One and they are airborne on their way to Andrews Air Force Base.

Recall that the so called “mystery plane” was Venus 77, an E4B that took off hurriedly at 9:43 EDT, headed west and then turned back east to establish a 60-mile long racetrack orbit centered on Richmond, Virginia in support of the departure of Air Force One from Florida.  It was that turn back east which was noticed and photographed with subsequent ungrounded speculation as to its presence.

The continued DoD insistence on heavy redaction of the air threat conference ensures that unwarranted speculation will continue.

 

9-11: United Airlines; Cabin Channel 9, a policy change

Introduction

United Airlines Cabin Channel 9, Flight Deck, has long been available to passengers interested in communications from the cockpit to air traffic controllers.  That line of indirect communication was likely available to hijackers Mohammed Atta and Marwan al Shehhi on September 11, 2011.  As of January, 2014, the ability to listen to Flight Deck is no longer available on United Airlines flights, at least on Airbus 320 flights.

Recent Information

During the period Jan 21-29, 2014, I flew cross county on United Airlines fully expecting to listing to air traffic control conversations as I always have in the past.  I flew Airbus 320 flights both ways.

On the outbound trip to the West Coast the Airbus had just been reconfigured inside.  I asked a flight attendant where the plug for audio channels was and she pointed to the arm rest. Except there was no plug in, much to her surprise.

After looking a bit she consulted with the rest of the crew and reported back that there was no longer an in-flight capability for either audio channels or movies.  She reported that United had made a corporate decision to no longer provide such service because the majority of passengers used their own electronic devices.  The plane was wifi-capable, at a cost, of course.

On the return trip the Airbus had not been reconfigured and an audio plug was available, but not useable.  When asked, the flight attendant responded that the in-flight audio and media equipment had been removed.  That plane was also wifi-capable.

Comment

This United Airlines policy change ends an era.  A quick web search suggests that there was at least a small segment of the flying population that routinely listened to Flight Deck and was unhappy with the decision to remove the audio channel equipment.

The hijacker pilots on 9/11 would have known of the existence of the Flight Deck channel because of their cross-country orientation flights in preparation for the attack.  On 9/11, because of the narrow departure route out of Boston, American Airlines flight 11 and United Airlines flight 175 were on the same air traffic control frequency at the same time.

Whether or not  Marwan al-Shehhi heard Mohammed Atta’s communications on frequency it is likely that the hijacker plan was that he could and that Atta’s communication, “we have some planes,” was a cue to al-Shehhi that Atta had cockpit control of his flight.

 

9-11: Twelfth Anniversary; a quick update

I continue to  be largely inactive because of a continuing family situation. Nevertheless, there are some important developments that deserve mention on this the 12th 9/11 anniversary.

Congress

Both the Commission and Joint Inquiry Staffs considered Congress to be dysfunctional in its ability to provide proper oversight of the terrorist threat to the nation. That dysfunction continues, to the point that Commission chairs Tom Kean and Lee Hamilton  co-authored a serious New York Times article today, “Homeland Confusion.”

The former co-chairs of the 9/11 Commission specifically address the oversight of the Department of Homeland Security. The pair wrote:

In a cumbersome legacy of the pre-9/11 era, Congress oversees the Department of Homeland Security with a welter of overlapping committees and competing legislative proposals. The department was created in 2002 out of 22 agencies and departments. More than 100 congressional committees and subcommittees currently claim jurisdiction over it. This patchwork system of supervision results in near-paralysis and a lack of real accountability.

That “patchwork” system existed prior to 9/11 concerning oversight of the government’s counterterrorism policies and practices.  Kean and Hamilton pull no punches. “That has to change.”

Syria

“Carrie Cordero, writing for the “Lawfare” blog,  recently wrote an assessment, “What the 9/11 Commission Report says about Syria.”

Cordero twice quotes the Commission Report

Our enemy is twofold: al Qaeda, a stateless network of terrorist that struck us on 9/11; and a radical ideological movement in the Islamic world, inspired in part by al Qaeda, which has spawned terrorist groups and violence across the globe. The first enemy is weakened, but continues to pose a grave threat. The second enemy is gathering, and will menace Americans and American interests long after Usama Bin Ladin and his cohorts are killed or captured. Thus our strategy must match our means to two ends: dismantling the al Qaeda network and prevailing in the longer term over the ideology that gives rise to Islamist terrorism.

and,

The U.S. government must define what the message is, what it stands for. We should offer an example of moral leadership in the world, committed to treat people humanely, abide by the rule of law, and be generous and caring with our neighbors. America and Muslim friends can agree on respect for human dignity and opportunity. To Muslim parents, terrorist like Bin Ladin have nothing to offer their children but visions of violence and death. America and its friends have a crucial advantage—we can offer these parents a vision that might give their children a better future. If we heed the views of thoughtful leaders in the Arab and Muslim world, a moderate consensus can be found.

She concludes:

Government leaders, in considering whether it is appropriate to take action in Syria, and to what degree, should, this week [article written August 13, 2013] in particular, reflect on the advice and observations provided by the 9/11 Commission. I think they will find that the takeaway is, to borrow a phrase that is of the moment, don’t blink.

American Airlines Flight 77 (AA77)

Serious, important work has been done on the radar issue concerning AA 77 by Tom Lusch.  Lusch has published his extensive work in a detailed article, “Radar Sort Boxes in the area of American Airlines Flight 77’s Turnaround/Disappearance,”  that refines the work of the Commission staff.  Two members of the Commission Staff have reviewed Lusch’s work and have found it to be an authoritative and responsible extension of our work.

Lusch has worked radar issues for many years and for at least the past four years has conducted a detailed investigation into both the work of the Commission and the disappearance of AA77.  He has published a chronology of that work since 2010.  It is fair to say that the false flag theorist, Paul Schreyer, played a key role in the final analysis.  Schreyer conducted detailed separate email conversations with both Tom and me.  Schreyer provided Lusch a link to critical information that he had not previously considered.  Schreyer’s analysis is available at this link.

Correction, Sep 12, 2013. Tom Lusch advises that the key information came via a conversation with Vincent Moreau  not Schreyer.

9-11: July 4, 2001; a retrospective comment

Today, July 4, 2013, we celebrate Independence Day, a symbolicly significant day a dozen years ago. On that day, the 9/11 terrorist attack transitioned from planning to exection. Not one government agency recognized that transition and the rapid, increasing activity that followed.

On July 4, 2001, Khalid al Mihdhar reentered the United States, unhindered, for the second time. He traveled alone and was the last of the 19 hijackers to enter the country.  The four designated pilots and Nawaf al Hazmi had been in the country for some time. The remaining hijackers infiltrated in five pairs and in one group of three between late April and mid-June.  Mihdhar’s entry three weeks later completed the infiltration phase of the attack.

The transtion from planning to attack was swift; just two months and one week. Mohammed Atta traveled to meet with Mihdhar and then left the county for Spain to coordinate with Ramsi binalshibh. Atta reentered with ease, the second time that year he had done so. After Atta’s return, plans were finalized, tickets were purchased, and the teams moved to assembly areas near their departure airports. None of that activity caused any national, state, or local agency to sound the alarm.

On the day of September 11, 2001, the hijackers passed through every required wicket to enter the National Airspace System–arrival, check-in, security, boarding, push-back from the gate, and takeoff. They passed through the jurisdiction of multiple national, state, and local agencies with little difficulty. Not one agency hindered their progress.

Once in the air only two agencies were left to defeat, FAA and NORAD. The battle had long since been won; nothing the remaining two agencies did was to any avail. The failure of those last two agencies continues to fascinate people who, out of proportion, believe that failure was paramount.

The fact is that failure pales in comparison to the multiple failure of national, state, and local agencies, across the board. Once Mihdhar arrived on July 4, those agencies had two months and a week to thwart the attack.  FAA and NORAD had less than two hours.

Presumably, national, state, and local agencies have paid extra attention today, a dozen years later, to who might be arriving on the nation’s shores.

9-11: NORAD; the Crux of the Matter, two perspectives

Introduction

On January 16, 2013, Kevin Ryan published a Foreign Policy Journal” article: “The Case Against Ralph Eberhart, NORAD’s 9/11 Commander.” Ryan’s work will stand or fall on its own merit and needs no further comment. General Eberhart’s Air Force biography is at the following link

https://www.af.mil/information/bios/bio.asp?bioID=5317

Researchers, Historians, and Academicians will need additional perspective to judge the “case.” The issue of NORAD performance is long standing, and I have written multiple articles that directly relate to the issue at hand. The purpose of this article is  to pull together a body of information, including my articles, that illuminates the issue for those interested in the subject. But first the crux of the matter.

Crux of the Matter

The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) failed, in the aftermath of 9/11, to reach agreement on the essential times of the day. Specifically, they could not agree on the military response times. NORAD, unilaterally, made a rush to judgment and published its own flawed timeline as a news release on September 18, 2001. NORAD’s haste was to get something pulled together for a pending White House meeting to discuss how the nation responded.

The NORAD timeline carried the day and doomed national level entities and persons from that point forward to construct a nonsensical narrative to fit the NORAD timeline.The timeline was set in concrete later that year when General Eberhart testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee.

FAA, for its part, acquiesced and several months later published its own timeline which did nothing to set straight the original NORAD news release. As a result, FAA poorly prepared Administrator Jane Garvey and Transportation Secretary Norman Minetta for their May 2003 testimony to the 9/11 Commission. Both presented testimony that confused rather than clarified.  They were immediately followed by NORAD representatives who not only stuck closely to the original timeline but compounded the matter by making yet another error in timeline preparation.

NORAD made three small but critical staff errors in three years worth of work. NORAD’s failure to validate and verify simple facts caused national level leaders, including the President, to believe that the government had been responsive to the attack against the nation’s capital and gave the appearance of being responsive to the second plane in the attack against New York City.

The Errors

NORAD determined in September, 2001, that it was notified about American Airlines Flight 77 at 9:24 EDT. Concurrently, they determined that the notification concerning United Airlines Flight 175 came at 8:43 EDT. During preparation for its May, 2003, testimony NORAD determined that it had been notified of  United Airlines Flight 93 at 9:16 EDT. All three time were wrong. Two of the three (AA 77 and UA 93) were the result of a staff failure to read the official log of the day. The third (UA 175) was the result of the NORAD and FAA failure to reach agreement.

The 9/11 Commission staff sorted all that out and reported an accurate timeline, one based on primary source information, the radar and audio files of the day, and the key secondary document, the official Northeast Air Defense Sector log.

With that understanding of the crux of the matter and the errors that were made we now turn to the body of information necessary for researchers and historians to judge Ryan’s perspective and my perspective, which follows. And we begin with two in-depth articles I wrote in past years which provide my perspective.

A Different Perspective

January 2010: “9-11: NORAD; Should It and Could It Have Done More”

June 2011: “9-11: NORAD and FAA Timelines; in perspective”

Those two articles, taken together, provide a detailed account of the events of 9-11 based on primary source information and supporting secondary source material, specifically the official Northeast Air Defense Sector record, the Mission Crew Commander/Technician log.

The January, 2010, article includes a discussion of a NORAD analysis, “9-11 Excursion (AA77 and UA93),” directed by General Eberhart.

The perspective I provide is also based on the cumulative history of my continued interest in the events of 9-11 since the Commission was disestablished. For additional background information we begin with the conclusion of the work of the Commission Staff and the referrals we made.

Referrals

The Commission Staff understood that work on the issue of NORAD and FAA notification and response times was not finished. The matter was referred to the Inspectors General, Department of Defense and Department of Transportation on July 29, 2004. Both officials, statutory appointees confirmed by the United States Senate, took the matter for action.

Here is a link to the Scribd.com file concerning the referral. That referral concluded the formal work of the Commission on this issue. It is noted for the record that we have ready access to these documents because of the dedicated, persistent work of Erik Larson. His diligent work to upload all of the released Commission files saved me, personally, hundreds of tedious hours to retrieve my own staff work.

Finished in final draft but unpublished, was the Team 8 Monograph, an audio project that told the story in the air on 9/11 through the actual voices of those involved. The Monograph lacked formal agency clearance and the embedded audio files had not been transcribed. More on that later.

I summarized my perspective in a 2006 letter to the Editor, Washington Post, unpublished, but directly relevant to this discussion.  I used a Sudoku metaphor to highlight how an early error in analysis makes a puzzle or problem unsolvable.  Once the Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS) staff made a critical error in reading its master log of the days events it was not possible for anyone, at any level up to and including the President, to make sense of what happened that day.

And there the matter stood in my mind until Lynn Spencer published her book, Touching Historyin June 2008.

An Old Story Resurfaces

Spencer’s book caught former Team 8 members by surprise.  We thought that we had laid to rest any notion that the air defense on 9/11 had been responsive or that the Andrews Air Force Base fighters had been involved in the hunt for any of the hijacked planes. Yet, the story, largely told in 2004 by Leslie Filson in Air War Over Americaemerged once again.  Team 8 wrote an OpEd article in rebuttal, published in the New York Times on September 13, 2008.

And looming on the horizon was a date certain in the work of the 9/11 Commission, August 2009.  By agreement, our files as archived at the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), were to be made public five years after the Commisson’s charter ended.

The NARA Release

NARA released primarily work files and officials files that had been committed to paper and stored. The full release of Commission files is an ongoing project and will ultimately include electronic files and classified files not yet agency-cleared.

I had printed out and boxed an extensive amount of my own work so that I and others would have access to it.  Again, thanks to Erik Larson, we have access to most of that work. For my part, I struggled with how to manage future work, based on the release of the work files, and decided to create my own website so that I could work on issues important to me and so that I could control establish my own baseline to address (edited Feb 27, 2013, underlined text added) the questions posed by others. (www.oredigger61.org) That has worked well over time and has allowed me to set the pace of my own work. I have also started a second website (www.9-11revisited.org) to serve as a more concise, Cliff Notes version of my primary site.

The most important outcome  of the release of Commission files was the reconstruction of the Team 8 Audio Monograph, “A New Kind Type of War.”  That effort required that NARA find the text and audio files; both had been archived separately.  That was a non-trivial task which required that I review file listings and point archivists in the right direction.  They succeeded in finding all the files and I contacted Team 8 leader, John Farmer, who orchestrated the transcription of the audio files and publication of the Monograph in “The Rutgers Law Review,” on September 8, 2011. (Correction made Feb 28, 2013)

Concurrently, Jim Dwyer, New York Times, wrote a front page article publicizing the effort and the imbedded audio files.

A second important outcome was that I have been able to develop a theoretical construct, Chaos Theory, that helps explain and clarify how events of the day occurred and the impact those events had in the aftermath.

Chaos considered, briefly

The 9-11 attack was a two-axis assault on the National Airspace System, each axis with two prongs. One expected outcome of such an attack is to cause confusion and chaos for the defenders. One aspect of chaos is disruptive feedback. The attack that day produced at least four disruptive feedback events: the false report that AA11 was still airborne; the false report that Delta 1989 had been hijacked; the creation of a new flight plan for UA93 which gave the illusion that it was still airborne well after it crashed; and the report of a fast-moving unknown near the White House.

The ripple effect was such that NORAD and FAA, working together and separately, were unable to provide national level authorities an accurate account of the attack and the defense against it. The ripple effect continues to this day and has transcended the events of September 11, 2001, to the continuing worldwide unrest, most recently in Africa.

That ripple effect was best captured by Ted Koppel in a statement several months ago.  Koppel said, “Could bin Laden in his wildest imaginings, have hoped to provoke greater chaos.” Current events aside, Koppel’s statement perfectly describes the government’s failure in the aftermath of September 11, 2001, to explain to the administration, the people, the Commission, and, ultimately, the families, what happened that day.

So, What Did Happen?

We do not have to guess. The primary sources of the day, radar files and audio communications, in conjunction, tell us what happened.  And that is the account told in the Commission Report and augmented by the publication of “A New Kind of War” by the Rutgers Law Review in August, 2011.

I have also augmented the Commission Report by telling the story of that day from multiple perspectives. The most important perspective is that of the voice of the single individual on point that morning to fight the air defense battle, the NEADS Mission Crew Commander, Major Kevin Nasypany. That story was recorded in Nasypany’s voice in real time.

We know how NEADS operated that day and we also know how they operated in the days leading up to 9/11. NARA has archived the NEADS audio files for Exercise Vigilant Guardian for the period September 3-11, 2001, and has made those files available.  The Vigilant Guardian story is also told by real voices recorded in real time.

Historical Perspective

My assessment will also stand or fall on its own merit.  The broad reach of history will decide those merits. Historians may well conclude that the air defense story and its interpretations are interesting, but pale in comparison to the long list of defensive failures that occurred in the hours, days, weeks, months, and years before an air defense response was necessary.

 

9-11: Hijack Procedures: A Deliberative Process, the AA Flight 269 story

Background

Prior to 9/11, handling hijack situations was a deliberative process under the assumption that the end result would be the landing of the hijacked aircraft at a negotiated location. FAA scope level procedures were also deliberative for both hijack situations and aircraft experiencing electrical and mechanical problems.  American Airlines flight 11 was in the latter category until Mohammed Atta announced his presence in the cockpit over the air.

The exchanges between an air traffic controller at Boston Center and the cockpit of American Airlines flight 269 (AA 269) provide specific real-time information on how the hijack situation was handled.  Here is that story as recorded at the Departure Flow Management Position, Traffic Management Unit, Boston Center (ZBW). (NARA Batch 5, tape 148-911-03007988L1.s1 for the period 1200-1245Z)  The traffic management position was monitoring the channel of the controller for AA 269.

Controller-Cockpit Communications

AA 269 was handed off from Boston TRACON to Boston Center at 8:18 EDT climbing out of flight level 190 for 230.  The flight was cleared to proceed to flight level 350.

0818 AA 269 Checks in with ZBW

Previously, shortly before 8:14, AA 11 turned 20 degrees right at controller direction and was then told to climb and maintain flight level 350.  There was no response to that second controller direction.  AA11 was over northwestern Massachusetts when AA 269 checked in with Boston Center.

Concurrently, the controller for AA 11 had begun a series of deliberate steps to regain contact with AA 11 by contacting Boston TRACON to see if AA 11 had inadvertently reverted to a previous frequency, a not unusual happenstance.

Then, at 8:21, AA 269 became part of the Boston Center attempt to gain contact with AA 11.  The AA 269 controller advised that AA 11 was “nordo” (no radio), 80 miles to the west, and asked AA 269 to contact “company” (American Airlines) to assist.

0821 AA 269 Contact Company AA 11 Nordo

At the time, Boston Center had no indication that the situation with AA 11 was anything other than a technical problem.  The AA 269 controller routinely asked the crew what their projected mach speed would be (.80) and AA 269 volunteered to try to reach AA 11 “on this frequency.”  The crew was told that was not necessary since AA 11 had never been on the frequency.

At that same time the transponder aboard AA11 was turned off and the plane became a primary only, a search only, target.  The last reinforced (radar and transponder) return from AA 11 was at 8:20:51, as recorded by the Riverhead radar supporting the Northeast Air Defense Sector. (84th RADES radar files)

0822 AA 269 Tried to Assist Further

Boston Center was trying everything, to include using planes in the air. Boston had ample evidence of a serious electrical or mechanical problem but no evidence that AA 11 was hijacked.  The state of thinking at Boston Center was communicated to the crew of AA 269. Shortly after 8:23, the AA 269 controller advised the cockpit that “there may be some kind of electrical problem with your company flight.” AA 269 was also advised that Boston Center had “lost the transponder.”  Boston Center also advised that AA 11 was “overhead Albany VOR.”

 0823 AA 11 transponder lost and over Albany VOR

The estimate that AA 11 “had some kind of electrical problem” changed dramatically shortly before 8:25 when the microphone in the AA 11 cockpit was keyed at least twice followed by two pronouncements by Mohammed Atta in short order.

Summation to this point

Commission Staff concluded, “8:14 Last routine radio communication; likely takeover,” (p. 32, Commission Report). For nearly ten minutes Boston Center struggled with the problem of trying to gain contact with a commercial flight gone astray, with no success. This is a good example of the amount of time it takes in real time to identify, assess, and deal with unexpected circumstances. What was not known was that a member of the cabin crew aboard AA 11 had reported shortly before 8:20 to American Airlines that “I think we’re getting hijacked.” (Commisison Report, p. 5) Absent that information, Boston Center first knew the seriousness of the problem when Atta came on the air at 8:25.

Controller activity continues

At 8:27, the controller for AA 269 vectored a Northwest flight to avoid “nordo traffic.” At least one controller or traffic manager  thought that AA 11 might be landing Albany and advised that the airspace needed to be cleared.

0827 Might Land Albany Clear Airspace

It was at that time that Boston Center made the first call to Herndon Center to advise about AA 11 and to request a patch to notify New York and Cleveland Centers of a potential problem aircraft entering their airspace.

The AA 269 controller then advised its crew to “make future attempts to contact company.” The crew asked if Boston Center had got a hold of him (AA 11) and was told “can’t talk about it.”

0829 Can’t Talk About It

Comment

This short, focused article provides researchers, historians and academicians a different perspective on the hijack of AA 11. It records the actions taken by a controller not directly involved with the situation, as monitored by the departure traffic manager. The fact of the traffic manager’s monitoring is established in the next clip. The traffic manager took a phone call about 8:32 in which advice was given to stop all departures going to the Kingston Sector, we have an “emergency down there.” Concurrently, the controller on position can be heard conducting a turnover with his relief in which AA 11 is discussed.

0832 TMU Guidance and Controller Turnover

At 8:38, about the time that Boston Center was contacting the Northeast Defense Sector for the first time, AA 269 was handed off by the new controller to a different Boston Center sector.

 0838 AA 269 So Long