9:35 a.m. September 11, 2001: Secret Service, Concerned about Aircraft Approaching the White House, Orders Evacuation of Vice President Cheney

The Secret Service calls for the immediate evacuation of Vice President Dick Cheney from his office after learning that a suspicious aircraft is flying toward the White House. Air traffic controllers informed the Secret Service that an unidentified aircraft was heading toward the White House at around 9:33 a.m. (see (9:33 a.m.) September 11, 2001 and (9:33 a.m.) September 11, 2001), but the aircraft then turned away from the White House and so, according to the 9/11 Commission Report, the Secret Service made no attempt to evacuate Cheney from his office at that time. Now, however, the Secret Service learns that the aircraft is “beginning to circle back.” This news prompts it to order “the immediate evacuation of the vice president.” [Federal Aviation Administration, 9/17/2001 ; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 39] Someone at the Secret Service Joint Operations Center at the White House passes on the details of the suspicious aircraft to Special Agent James Scott, the “on-duty shift whip” for Cheney’s Secret Service detail, and the shift agents with him in the West Wing of the White House, where Cheney’s office is located. The agents hear the “broadcast alert” over their radios, telling them, “Unidentified aircraft coming toward the White House.” [United States Secret Service, 10/1/2001; United States Secret Service, 11/17/2001 ] Some or possibly all of the agents will immediately go into Cheney’s office, and hurry the vice president out of there and down toward the Presidential Emergency Operations Center, a bunker below the White House (see (9:36 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [United States Secret Service, 11/17/2001 ; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 39-40; Gellman, 2008, pp. 114-116] However, a number of accounts will indicate that Cheney was evacuated from his office earlier on, at around 9:03 a.m., when the second plane crashed into the World Trade Center (see (Shortly After 9:03 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [New York Times, 9/13/2001; Daily Telegraph, 12/16/2001; ABC News, 9/14/2002]