8:30 a.m. September 11, 2001: Battle Cab at NEADS Is Already Manned because of the Ongoing NORAD Exercise

The battle cab at NORAD’s Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS) is staffed this morning due to the sector’s participation in the training exercise, Vigilant Guardian. [9/11 Commission, 10/28/2003 ; 9/11 Commission, 10/30/2003 ; Jones, 2011, pp. 24] The battle cab is a glass-walled command area that overlooks the NEADS operations floor. [Filson, 2003, pp. 55; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 460] The “battle staff”—presumably the personnel working in it—is only formed when a training exercise or an “air defense event” is underway, according to Lieutenant Colonel Dawne Deskins, who is on duty in the battle cab. [9/11 Commission, 10/30/2003 ] Because NEADS is currently participating in an exercise, therefore, the battle cab is manned this morning. [9/11 Commission, 10/30/2003 ] “If the exercise had not been planned, there would not have been any staffing in the battle cab,” Lieutenant Colonel Ian Sanderson, who is also in the battle cab this morning, will later say. He will add that if a battle cab has not already been formed and is required, it would be necessary to call the NEADS director of operations in order to arrange for one to be set up. Forming a battle cab would only take a few minutes once it is understood that a serious incident is taking place, according to Sanderson. Sanderson will comment that if the battle staff had not already been in place when the terrorist attacks began this morning, the NEADS operations floor would still have functioned the same way. But the advantage of already having the battle staff in place is that “key figures of authority [are] there and ready to respond” when NEADS learns of the crisis. [9/11 Commission, 10/29/2003 ] Vigilant Guardian is a major annual air defense exercise simulating an attack on the United States (see (6:30 a.m.) September 11, 2001). Across NORAD, “from Alaska to Canada and throughout the continental United States,” author Leslie Filson will describe, “battle staffs [are] poised to fight the simulated air war” this morning, due to their participation in it. [Filson, 2003, pp. 55, 122; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 458; Arkin, 2005, pp. 545]