This is a continuation of my review of NEADS tapes covering the days prior to 9-11. \u00a0In this article I provide details concerning exercise activity on Sep 7, 2001. Sep 6 was devoted to a military cargo plane, Cargo 45, in distress and squawking the hijack code 7700.\u00a0 The main event for Sep 7 was something different; a defection<\/p>\n
There are several things of interest in the tapes, including examples of NEADS distinction between real world and exercise. \u00a0However, the most important event of the day was the defection and how it was handled by both the control staff and the exercise staff.<\/p>\n
Defection discussed Soon after the exercise started that morning a short conversation revealed that a defection was on the schedule.\u00a0 Here is that conversation intermingled with another, separate conversation.\u00a0 0907134746 Defection planned for later<\/a><\/strong>.\u00a0 And in this next clip additional descriptive material was added.\u00a0 0907134913 Added information<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n Routine exercise activity<\/strong><\/p>\n Beginning in the afternoon the audio files reveal routine activity as NEADS dealt with tracks of interest.\u00a0 By midafternoon NEADS was dealing with an unknown track B337.\u00a0 Here is the clip which shows a call to the sim cell for clarification and the acknowledgement that someone did not reach out to FAA.\u00a0 0907191845 Exercise Insight<\/a><\/strong> The decision was made to hold a scramble.<\/p>\n And here is the official announcement by the ID section to the floor that the unknown was friendly.\u00a0 This is an example of how exercise announcements are correctly handled, the ID technician began and ended his announcement stating it was for the exercise.\u00a0 0907191935 Keeping Exercise Separate<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n Tracking the Russians (and Cubans)<\/strong><\/p>\n Here is a specific example of an “intel” input to the exercise, this one concerns an IL 96 to Cuba.\u00a0 0907193918 IL 96 to Cuba Intel Input<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n At this point in the exercise it becomes apparent that NEADS was concerned about potentially hostile foreign aircraft.\u00a0 A brief conversation about a Cubana flight was followed by this more extensive exchange concerning a Russian flight.\u00a0 0907195250 Tracking the Russians<\/a><\/strong> In this case the flight of interest was a Moscow to Havana flight that was being special tracked.<\/p>\n The concern for Russian and Cuban aircraft was mirrored in the real world as an exchange a few minutes later shows.\u00a0 0907195950 Russian Real World<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n Despite the rigorous split between exercise and real world a Russian plane became confused.\u00a0 According to information in this clip the NEADS scopes could be changed from exercise to real world at the flip of a switch.\u00a0 0907200630 Live Side Sim Side discussion<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n Things got a bit more confusing.\u00a0 NEADS was dealing with a northern track and a southern track as is clear from the previous clip.\u00a0 In this next clip NEADS discussed a northern track with their Canadian counterparts who reported the aircraft, a Beechcraft, probably crashed and that search and rescue had been notified.\u00a0 0907200830 Canada discussion crashed aircraft<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n The NEADS floor continued to confuse Russian flights.\u00a0 In this clip the issue is whether an Aeroflot flight is civilian or military.\u00a0 The clip includes a simulation conversation with New York Center.\u00a0 0907203209 More Russian confusion<\/a><\/strong>.\u00a0 Huntress ID confirmed it to be civilian, real world, JFK to Moscow. 0907203455 Real World JFK to Moscow<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n The position we are listening to also had real world duties.\u00a0 In this clip we hear calls the command group and the DO (Director of Operations) with the evening brief, an apparent daily requirement.\u00a0 The real world was quiet and the exercise was mentioned as something with which they were busy.\u00a0 0907204328 Briefing Key Personnel<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n Deviating Aeroflot flight, what to do<\/strong><\/p>\n A few minutes later the NEADS floor had to deal with a deviating Russian aircraft that wanted to land at JFK.\u00a0 FAA’s New York Center (ZNY) military desk is simulated and NEADS learned that FAA did not want the airplane to land at JFK.\u00a0 Here is how NEADS initially reacted; battle stations only.\u00a0 0907205030 Aeroflot defection to JFK<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n In this next clip we learn that the purpose of the event was to exercise how NEADS handles a defection not a deviation.\u00a0 0907205328 Defection not Deviation<\/a><\/strong> NEADS immediately sought clarification as to whether FAA authorized the deviation or not.\u00a0 0907205458 Clarification sought<\/a><\/strong> However, ZNY became insistent that the plane not land at JFK and pushed the NEADS floor which, in turn, passed the decision along to, most likely, the battle cab.\u00a0 We hear only one end of the conversation with the battle cab.\u00a0 0907205543 ZNY becomes insistent<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n The NEADS floor decision was to divert the aircraft to Suffolk County Airport and turned the problem over to FAA; there would not be a scramble.\u00a0 0907205703 Suffolk County no scramble<\/a><\/strong> A floor discussion ensued about alternate fields, that Suffolk was too small.\u00a0 Moreover, according to FAA (simulated) the pilot did not want to land at Suffolk.<\/p>\n The controllers were insistent that a scramble be generated.\u00a0 0907205933 Controllers force a scramble<\/a><\/strong> NEADS did scramble Atlantic City, the order can be heard in the background\u00a0 0907210138 Scrambled generated<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n Thereafter, the NEADS floor decided the event would be treated as a deviation and they went down their checklist.\u00a0 One voice raised the question about what they were going to do with the plane.\u00a0 The answer was to not to intercept pending approval from higher headquarters.\u00a0 This an example of how NEADS would have handled an intercept on 9-11 had they been notified of a deviation.\u00a0 0907210428 Scramble discussed<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n Once NEADS had gone through the checklist procedures the control cell representing ZNY informed NEADS that the situation had been resolved by “higher headquarters,” mililtary and civilian, the aircraft was to be allowed to land at JFK.\u00a0 0907210858 Resolution land JFK<\/a><\/strong> However, the problem remained about what to do with the flight once it landed.<\/p>\n Event end game<\/strong><\/p>\n NEADS continued to discuss intercept authority and decided that the defector should land at Westover; FAA said the pilot agreed.\u00a0 While NEADS was working the issue they received a call from CONR for an update.\u00a0 0907211426 CONR call<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n Here is a clip with additional insight as to how NEADS operated.\u00a0 0907211753 How NEADS operated<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n Apparently the FBI was supposed to field eercise calls concerning defectors.\u00a0 However, when NEADS attempted to reach them the desk was not manned.\u00a0 Therefore, the controllers handled the NEADS request.\u00a0 This clip provides insight into the phone list that NEADS used for the exercise.\u00a0 0907211952 FBI and Exercise Phone List<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n There was little to do thereafter except keep the fighters in the area and at altitude until the defector actually “landed” at Westover, which he did.\u00a0 Thereafter the fighters were ordered to return to base, “RTB.”\u00a0 0907214444 Aircraft secured RTB<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n There was one other later call that further defined the simulation aspects of the exercise.\u00a0 In this clip we hear the simulated air operations cell at Atlantic City report the status of an aircraft previously not available.\u00a0 0907215250 Atlantic City simulated air operations<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n A real world call of interest<\/strong><\/p>\n That evening the NEADS floor received a routine call from Boston Center asking for the next days air activity.\u00a0 That exchange of information can be heard on this clip.\u00a0 0907224845 Real World Coord with Boston Center<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n I asked Colin Scoggins (at ZBW on 9-11) to listen to the clip and verify that it was a known voice to him; it was.\u00a0 He further said that ZBW did not participate in Vigilant Guardian.<\/p>\n Here is Colin’s email response:<\/p>\n “Yes that is ZBW, that is ***** (not sure of the spelling)…That is the daily scheduling for the next day, they coordinate it the night before.\u00a0\u00a0 The call was normally initiated by ZBW, once we received the FAX for their request.\u00a0 Then we would normally call around 7 PM, this is followed in the morning at around 6 AM local when we reconfirm the schedule.\u00a0 I beleive that call is initated by us as well.\u00a0 We had no play in Vigilant Guardian at ZBW, didn’t even know a thing about it.\u00a0 That would be normal by the way.”<\/p>\n A Personal Comment<\/strong><\/p>\n I consider this article to be a final draft. \u00a0When I have time I want to go back and review the floor conversations concerning the several Russian aircraft and tracks. \u00a0I will revise this post if\/when necessary.<\/p>\n It will be a few weeks before I post concerning Sep 8. \u00a0This is a tedious, iterative process and I won’t have further access to my audio files until after Dec 1, 2010.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This is a continuation of my review of NEADS tapes covering the days prior to 9-11. \u00a0In this article I provide details concerning exercise activity on Sep 7, 2001. Sep 6 was devoted to a military cargo plane, Cargo 45, in distress and squawking the hijack code 7700.\u00a0 The main event for Sep 7 was … Continue reading 9-11: NEADS; Exercise Vigilant Guardian, in perspective, Sep 7<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-exercise-vigilant-guardian-2001"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oredigger61.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2961","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oredigger61.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oredigger61.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oredigger61.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oredigger61.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2961"}],"version-history":[{"count":41,"href":"https:\/\/www.oredigger61.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2961\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4010,"href":"https:\/\/www.oredigger61.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2961\/revisions\/4010"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oredigger61.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oredigger61.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oredigger61.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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