10:07 a.m.-10:21 a.m. September 11, 2001: FAA’s Cleveland Center Receives Bomb Threats

The FAA’s Cleveland Center receives a number of bomb threats. The Cleveland Center, which had the last contact with Flight 93 before it crashed, receives the first of these bomb threats at 10:07 a.m., according to an FAA report published in 2002. Then, at 10:17 a.m., the report will state, the center says over an FAA teleconference that it is “receiving a bomb threat,” although it is unclear if this is a second threat or a reference to the earlier one. At 10:21 a.m., the center reports over the teleconference that it has received “two more” bomb threats. [Federal Aviation Administration, 3/21/2002, pp. S-17, S-19] The Cleveland Center will subsequently be searched and found to be secure. It is unclear whether the search is made in response to the bomb threats. [Federal Aviation Administration, 9/19/2001, pp. 6-7 ] Newsweek will later report, “Officials suspect that the bomb threats [on September 11] were intended to add to the chaos, distracting controllers from tracking the hijacked planes.” [Newsweek, 9/22/2001] However, the Washington Post will subsequently state that according to FAA officials, “reports of multiple threats were apparently the result of confusion during the early hours of the investigation and miscommunication in the Federal Aviation Administration.” [Washington Post, 9/27/2001] The Cleveland Center is evacuated at around 10:17 a.m. (see (10:17 a.m.) September 11, 2001), although this is in response to a report of a suspicious aircraft flying above it rather than the bomb threats. [Federal Aviation Administration, 3/21/2002, pp. S-19; Newsnet5, 8/12/2002; Associated Press, 8/15/2002]