10:15 a.m. September 11, 2001: Air Traffic Controller Mistakenly Reports that First Aircraft to Hit WTC Was a Helicopter

Tom White, a New York air traffic controller, incorrectly reports over an FAA teleconference that the first aircraft to hit the World Trade Center appears to have been a Sikorsky helicopter. [Federal Aviation Administration, 9/11/2001; Federal Aviation Administration, 1/2/2002; 9/11 Commission, 5/21/2004] White is an operations manager at the FAA’s New York Terminal Radar Approach Control (TRACON) in Westbury, Long Island. [9/11 Commission, 12/15/2003 ] He says over the FAA teleconference that the Sikorsky helicopter had been heading south from Poughkeepsie, New York, and appeared to hit the WTC at 8:27 a.m. (see 8:27 a.m. September 11, 2001)—nearly 20 minutes before the first crash there actually took place (see 8:46 a.m. September 11, 2001).
TRACON Previously Said Small Plane Hit the WTC – About 20 minutes earlier, someone from the TRACON—presumably White—suggested over the teleconference that the first aircraft to hit the WTC was a small twin-engine plane. At around 9:55 a.m. they said: “I think we’ve identified the location of a departure point for aircraft number one [presumably a reference to the plane that hit the North Tower]. At approximately 12:03 Zulu time [i.e. 8:03 a.m. Eastern time], aircraft number one appears to have departed Poughkeepsie airport and established a southerly heading at a speed of about 160 knots [i.e. 184 miles per hour]. The profile looks like it might be a light twin.” Asked if they had any more information, the TRACON employee replied: “I tried to get in touch with Poughkeepsie tower. However, the phone lines are overloaded and the circuits are busy.” [Federal Aviation Administration, 9/11/2001] The “Poughkeepsie airport” the helicopter took off from is presumably Dutchess County Airport. Sikorsky bases a fleet of its S-76 helicopters at Dutchess County Airport, which it dispatches to the New York metro areas as needed. [Site Selection, 5/2000; Aviation International News, 8/1/2003] Poughkeepsie is about 70 miles north of New York City. [Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 2/3/2008]
Radar Information Suggests Helicopter Hit WTC – White now gives an update over the FAA teleconference, and suggests the first aircraft to hit the WTC was in fact a helicopter. He says: “We tracked a Sikorsky helicopter… from Poughkeepsie to the Trade Center. It appeared to fly into the Trade Center at 12:27 [Zulu time, or 8:27 a.m. Eastern time]. That is preliminary information.” White then clarifies that this conclusion has been reached partly through replaying radar data. He says: “[T]he only target that we saw in the vicinity of the Trade Center at 12:27, to fly into the Trade Center, we, we played the radar and tracked it up through Westchester and Stewart. We had a departure off a Poughkeepsie at 12:03. The tower says the only thing they had southbound at that time was a Sikorsky helicopter, which is consistent with the speed that we followed it down.” [Federal Aviation Administration, 9/11/2001; Federal Aviation Administration, 9/11/2001]
Long Delay before False Information Is Corrected – The New York TRACON’s reports about a helicopter or small plane hitting the WTC are subsequently confirmed to be mistaken. However it apparently takes several hours before the erroneous information is corrected. David LaCates, the deputy operations manager at the FAA’s New York Center, will tell the 9/11 Commission that “he did hear rumors that the aircraft that struck the WTC was in fact a small airplane from Poughkeepsie,” and he “believes this rumor persisted for over an hour.” [9/11 Commission, 10/2/2003 ] According to one FAA chronology of this day’s events, it is only at 1:00 p.m. that the “Sikorsky helicopter” is “now believed not to have hit the WTC.” [Federal Aviation Administration, 1/2/2002] Another FAA chronology will state that at 1:04 p.m. it is reported that the Sikorsky helicopter “landed 20 minutes early, normal GE run at 12:28Z [i.e. 8:28 a.m. Eastern time] to WTC.” (It is unclear what is meant by “normal GE run.”) [Federal Aviation Administration, 9/11/2001]