8:45 a.m.-9:00 a.m. September 11, 2001: NORAD Commander Eberhart Learns of the Hijacking but Isn’t ‘Too Excited’ about It

General Ralph Eberhart, the commander of NORAD, learns that a plane has been hijacked and then drives to his office, where he sees the television reports showing an aircraft has crashed into the World Trade Center, but he does not initially realize a terrorist attack is taking place. Eberhart has just arrived back at his home in Colorado after going for a jog when, at around 8:45 a.m., he receives a call from Captain Michael Jellinek, command director at NORAD’s operations center in Cheyenne Mountain. Jellinek tells Eberhart that the FAA has reported a suspected hijacking on the East Coast. He says this is a “real-world” hijacking and not part of an exercise, and that NORAD has authorized the scrambling of fighter jets in response. Eberhart will later recall that he isn’t “too excited” about the incident at this time and is thinking it is a “traditional” hijacking. Shortly after receiving the call, he drives to his office, at NORAD’s headquarters at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs. He arrives there at around 9:00 a.m. to 9:10 a.m., he will recall, and then sees CNN’s coverage of the burning WTC on television. He calls the Cheyenne Mountain Operations Center and asks if the aircraft that crashed into the WTC was the plane that was suspected of being hijacked. The person he speaks to says reports on CNN indicated that a small aircraft, and not the hijacked commercial aircraft, hit the WTC. There is apparently “great confusion in the system” at this time, Eberhart will comment. He will say the information NORAD currently has is only as good as what the FAA has provided. Eberhart will see the second hijacked plane, Flight 175, crashing into the WTC live on television at 9:03 a.m. and then realize that a coordinated terrorist attack is taking place (see (9:03 a.m.-9:30 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 3/1/2004; 9/11 Commission, 3/1/2004 ; 9/11 Commission, 3/1/2004; 9/11 Commission, 3/1/2004]