The North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), the military organization responsible for monitoring and defending US airspace, gradually reduces the number of aircraft it has on “alert”—armed and ready for immediate takeoff—in response to the changing nature of the threats it has to defend against, so that there will be just 14 fighter jets on alert across the continental United States when the 9/11 attacks take place. [Jones, 2011, pp. 7-8]
NORAD Has 1,200 Interceptor Aircraft in 1960 – NORAD is a bi-national organization, established by the US and Canada in 1958 to counter the threat posed by the Soviet Union. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 16] It is initially responsible for intercepting any Soviet long-range bombers that might attack the Northern Hemisphere. By 1960, it has about 1,200 interceptor aircraft dedicated to this task. But during the 1960s, the Soviets become less reliant on manned bombers, and shift instead to ballistic missiles. In response to this changed threat and also budget constraints, the number of NORAD interceptor aircraft goes down to about 300 by the mid-1970s.
NORAD’s Mission Changes after Cold War Ends – With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact in 1991, the threats NORAD has to counter change significantly. During the early 1990s, NORAD’s mission consequently changes from one of air defense to one of maintaining “air sovereignty,” which NORAD defines as “providing surveillance and control of the territorial airspace.” The new mission includes intercepting suspicious aircraft, tracking hijacked aircraft, assisting aircraft in distress, and counterdrug operations. [General Accounting Office, 5/3/1994, pp. 14-15; 9/11 Commission, 2/3/2004 
; Jones, 2011, pp. 7] As this change takes place, the number of aircraft defending American airspace is reduced. In 1987, there are 52 fighters on alert in the continental United States. [Filson, 1999, pp. 112-113] But by December 1999, there are just 14 alert fighters remaining around the continental US. [Airman, 12/1999]
Number of Alert Sites Goes Down Prior to 9/11 – The number of NORAD “alert sites”—bases where the alert aircraft are located—is also reduced in the decades prior to 9/11. During the Cold War, there are 26 of these sites. [9/11 Commission, 6/17/2004; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 16] By 1991, there are 19 of them, according to Major General Larry Arnold, the commander of NORAD’s Continental US Region from 1997 to 2002. [Filson, 2003, pp. v] By 1994, according to a report by the General Accounting Office, there are 14 alert sites around the US. [General Accounting Office, 5/3/1994, pp. 1] And by 1996, only 10 alert sites remain. [Utecht, 4/7/1996, pp. 9-10]
Military Officials Call for Eliminating Alert Sites – In the 1990s, some officials at the Pentagon argue for the alert sites to be eliminated entirely. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 16-17] The Department of Defense’s 1997 Report of the Quadrennial Defense Review indicates that the number of alert sites around the continental US could be reduced to just four, but the idea is successfully blocked by NORAD (see May 19, 1997). [Filson, 2003, pp. iv-v, 34-36; 9/11 Commission, 2/3/2004 ] However, three alert sites are subsequently removed from the air sovereignty mission. These are in Atlantic City, New Jersey; Burlington, Vermont; and Great Falls, Montana. [American Defender, 4/1998]
Seven Alert Sites Remain – By December 1999, therefore, there are just seven alert sites around the continental US, each with two fighters on alert. These sites are Homestead Air Reserve Base, Florida; Tyndall Air Force Base, Florida; Portland Air National Guard Base, Oregon; March Air Reserve Base, California; Ellington Air National Guard Base, Texas; Otis Air National Guard Base, Massachusetts; and Langley Air Force Base, Virginia. Only two of these sites—Otis ANGB and Langley AFB—serve the northeastern United States, where the hijackings on September 11 will take place. [Airman, 12/1999; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 17]
September 6-12, 1970: Hijackers Try to Take Over Three Planes Bound for New York Simultaneously
Terrorists try to simultaneously hijack three airliners heading to the United States from Europe in a series of events that culminate in two of the airliners, along with another plane, being blown up at an airfield in Jordan. The hijackers are members of a group called the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) who want to gain the release of Palestinian militants held in Europe and Israel.
Hijackers Carry Hidden Weapons onto the Planes – The series of events begins on September 6, 1970, when the PFLP members board three commercial aircraft at various European airports: Swissair Flight 100 from Zurich, TWA Flight 74 from Frankfurt, and El Al Flight 219 from Amsterdam. All three planes are bound for New York. The terrorists are able to carry concealed guns and grenades onto them.
Pilot Manages to Prevent One Hijacking – The pilot of one of the planes, Flight 219, is alerted to four suspicious passengers—actually the PFLP members—before he takes off and has two of them removed from the plane. However, the other suspicious passengers, Leila Khaled and Patrick Arguello, are allowed to stay on board. Once the plane is airborne, they go to the front of it carrying hand grenades and demand to be let into the cockpit. But, to prevent the hijacking, the pilot puts the plane into a steep dive, thereby throwing the two terrorists off their feet. Arguello is shot dead by an air marshal in the ensuing struggle while Khaled is disarmed and held captive. The plane makes an emergency landing at Heathrow Airport, near London, and Khaled is then arrested by British authorities.
Two Hijacked Planes Land in Jordan – Flight 100 and Flight 74, unlike Flight 219, are easily hijacked and, on the instruction of the hijackers, head to Jordan. They land at Dawson’s Field, a disused airstrip in the desert. Dozens of PFLP members are waiting there to assist the hijackers. The planes’ passengers are held at the airstrip for days. The terrorists demand the release of PFLP prisoners in Israel and Europe, and threaten to kill the hostages if their demands are refused. Meanwhile, reporters and television cameramen assemble around the airstrip, and the events taking place there are broadcast to the world.
Fourth Plane Is Flown to Egypt and Blown Up – Remarkably, one of the PFLP members forced to get off Flight 219 in Amsterdam is able to get on another plane bound for New York, Pan Am Flight 93, with a hand grenade hidden in his groin area. He hijacks the flight once it is airborne and asks to be flown to Dawson’s Field. The pilot tells him the plane is too large to land there and so he instead flies to Cairo, Egypt. [Jewish Journal, 2/23/2006; Wall Street Journal, 2/24/2006; PBS, 2/27/2006; Jerusalem Post, 9/16/2011; Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 8/19/2016] On the way, the plane stops in Beirut, Lebanon, where it is laced with explosives. [9/11 Commission, 5/23/2003 ] After it lands in Cairo, the passengers are able to get off just before it blows up.
Fifth Plane Is Hijacked and Flown to Jordan – On September 9, PFLP sympathizers hijack another plane, BOAC Flight 775 bound from Bombay, India, to Beirut. On their direction, the plane is flown to Dawson’s Field, where it joins Flight 100 and Flight 74. The PFLP thus has three planes and 310 hostages, the majority of them Americans, under its control at the airstrip. The group sets a deadline of September 12 for its demands to be met. On September 11, 200 of the hostages are taken to Amman, the Jordanian capital, for release. However, Jewish passengers and the planes’ flight crews remain as hostages at the airstrip.
Three Planes Are Blown Up but No One Is Killed – On September 12, the PFLP blows up the three planes at Dawson’s Field. Fortunately, no one is on them when it does this, but the dramatic scene is filmed and broadcast around the world. Despite the approach of Jordanian troops, the PFLP members at the airstrip are then able to get away, taking the remaining hostages with them. [Trento and Trento, 2006, pp. 59; Jerusalem Post, 9/16/2011] On September 29, the PFLP will release these hostages. The following day, Khaled, along with six Arab prisoners held in European jails, will be released and flown to Cairo. [Daily Telegraph, 1/1/2001] However, the hijackings will fail to result in the freedom of most of the prisoners whose release the PFLP demanded.
Day of the Hijackings Is the ‘Blackest Day in Aviation History’ – The series of events will become known as “Black September.” [Jerusalem Post, 9/16/2011] Until 9/11, September 6, 1970, when the first hijackings occur, will be known as “the blackest day in aviation history.” [Jewish Journal, 2/23/2006; PBS, 2/27/2006] The events will lead the international aviation community to finally take coordinated action to prevent hijackings. Additionally, they are “the first major terrorist hijacking attempt that captured the media’s attention,” according to Norman Shanks, the security manager at Heathrow Airport from 1986 to 1991. [New York Times, 3/29/2016]
Hijackings Have Similarities with the 9/11 Attacks – Mary Schiavo, inspector general of the Department of Transportation from 1990 to 1996, will later note the similarities between the Black September hijackings and the events of September 11, 2001, when she criticizes the failure of authorities to prevent the 9/11 attacks. While the events of September 11 were “astonishing in the numbers of casualties and the enormity of the devastation,” she will comment, “the modus operandi of the terrorists” was not new. “Almost 31 years after four planes were hijacked and blown up in an Islamic jihad staged in Jordan, four US planes were hijacked in what Osama bin Laden would call, in congratulatory messages, a jihad,” she will state. “Astonishingly,” she will add, “we heard, even from the FAA and the Department of Transportation, that ‘nothing like this ever happened before.’” [9/11 Commission, 5/23/2003 ]
November 10-12, 1972: Hijackers Threaten to Crash a Plane into a Nuclear Facility in ‘the Most Chilling Domestic Hijacking in US History’
Three men hijack a commercial airliner and threaten to crash it into a nuclear plant, and authorities also fear they might crash it into President Richard Nixon’s winter home in Florida. [Graff, 2011, pp. 43-47] The hijacking occurs on Southern Airways Flight 49, a DC-9 bound from Memphis, Tennessee, to Miami, Florida, with scheduled stops in Birmingham, Alabama, Montgomery, Alabama, and Orlando, Florida. [Slate, 6/19/2013] The plane has 27 passengers and four crew members on board. The hijackers—three men with criminal records—are Lewis Moore, Henry Jackson, and Melvin Cale. The aim of the hijacking, Moore will later say, is to bring attention to the brutality and racism of the Detroit Police Department. The ordeal, which lasts 29 hours, is, at the current time, “the most chilling domestic hijacking in US history,” according to national security historian Timothy Naftali. [Naftali, 2005, pp. 61; Detroit Free Press, 6/6/2016]
Hijackers Demand a $10 Million Ransom – The hijackers manage to smuggle guns and grenades onto Flight 49 in a raincoat. [Slate, 6/19/2013] The plane takes off from Memphis at 5:05 p.m. on November 10. The hijackers seize control of it at 7:22 p.m., during the second leg of the flight. One of them enters the cockpit carrying a revolver and with an arm around the neck of a flight attendant. He tells the pilot, William Haas, “Head north, Captain, this is a hijacking.” [Detroit Free Press, 11/12/1972; Graff, 2011, pp. 43] The hijackers demand $10 million to release the plane. [Naftali, 2005, pp. 61] Haas transmits a hijack code to air traffic controllers who, in response, begin the well-known and widely used procedures for dealing with a hijacking. They notify the FBI in Washington, DC, and the Federal Aviation Administration’s special hijacking command post.
Airline Is Told of the Hijackers’ Ransom Demand – The plane lands in Jackson, Mississippi, at 8:10 p.m. to be refueled and then takes off at 8:36 p.m., heading for Detroit, Michigan, where the hijackers intend to settle their complaints with city officials. At around 10:30 p.m., while the plane is circling over Detroit, the FBI notifies the city’s mayor and Southern Airways of the hijackers’ ransom demand. At 12:05 a.m. on November 11, the plane leaves the Detroit area due to bad weather and heads for Cleveland, Ohio, where it lands and is refueled. It takes off from Cleveland at 1:38 a.m. and heads for Toronto, Canada.
Hijackers Threaten to Crash the Plane into a Nuclear Facility – While it is on the ground in Toronto, the hijackers learn that Southern Airways has only gathered $500,000 in ransom money. They refuse to take this and release the passengers. Consequently, after being refueled, the plane takes off at 6:15 a.m. and flies back to the US. It heads for Knoxville, Tennessee. As it is ascending, the hijackers tell controllers that unless their demands are met, they will crash Flight 49 into the Oak Ridge nuclear facility, near Knoxville. [Detroit Free Press, 11/12/1972; Graff, 2011, pp. 43-45] Jackson says: “We’re tired of all this bull. No more foolin’ around. We’re taking this f_cker to Oak Ridge and dive it into a nuclear reactor.” [Burleson, 2007, pp. 66] By this time, the White House, the Pentagon, and the Atomic Energy Commission are all involved in dealing with the crisis. [Graff, 2011, pp. 45] Meanwhile, key personnel at Oak Ridge discuss the possible outcomes of Flight 49 crashing into their facility. At the bare minimum, they all agree, the impact could rupture the protective shell and result in a massive release of radioactivity; the worst possibility is a core meltdown. [Burleson, 2007, pp. 66-67]
White House Official Talks to the Hijackers – The plane diverts to Lexington, Kentucky, to be refueled and, by 11:00 a.m., is again over Oak Ridge. The hijackers are then connected to the White House. John Ehrlichman, the president’s top domestic aide, comes on the radio and Jackson tells him, “I’m up over Oak Ridge, where I’ll either throw a grenade or I’ll put this plane down nose first.” He says he and the other hijackers want a letter signed by the president stating that their ransom money is a grant from the government and they won’t be prosecuted. Ehrlichman says it will take some time to fulfil their request.
Hijackers Receive the Ransom Money – The hijackers then direct the plane to Chattanooga, Tennessee, where it lands at 1:30 p.m. It is refueled and the hijackers are given the ransom money, along with food and other supplies. Southern Airways has only been able to put together $2 million, but the airline is assuming—correctly, as it turns out—that the hijackers will lack the time to count the money and realize it is much less than the amount they demanded. The plane leaves Chattanooga at 2:35 p.m. and heads to Cuba, where many hijackers fled during the 1960s and early 1970s.
Authorities Fear the Plane May Be Crashed into the President’s Winter Home – As Flight 49 is flying south over Florida, authorities become concerned that the hijackers might crash it into the president’s retreat in Key Biscayne, where Nixon is currently staying. Military officials contact Florida’s Homestead Air Reserve Base and fighter jets there are placed on alert as a precaution. Fortunately, no incident occurs and Flight 49 lands in Havana at 4:49 p.m. However, to the surprise of the hijackers, the Cubans are unhappy about the plane’s arrival and soldiers surround the aircraft after it touches down. José Abrantes, President Fidel Castro’s head of security, explains to the hijackers the nation’s discomfort about the situation. Therefore, after being refueled, Flight 49 leaves Havana and heads back to the US.
FBI Agents Shoot the Plane’s Tires – It lands at McCoy Air Force Base in Orlando at 9:17 p.m. By now, Robert Gebhardt, assistant director of the FBI’s investigative division, has given the order to disable the plane when it is next on the ground. Consequently, after it lands, FBI agents start shooting at its tires. The hijackers, realizing what is happening, order Haas to start the plane’s engines. In the panic that follows, Jackson threatens Harold Johnson, the co-pilot, and shoots him in the arm in front of the terrified passengers. The hijackers give the order to take off and, despite now having two flat tires, the plane is able to get off the ground. Jackson then orders Haas to fly to Cuba again. The damaged plane makes an emergency landing in Havana at 12:32 a.m. on November 12. [Detroit Free Press, 11/12/1972; Graff, 2011, pp. 45-52] Cuban soldiers then arrest the hijackers and seize the ransom money, so it can be returned to Southern Airways. [Slate, 6/19/2013]
New Security Measures Will Be Introduced in response to the Hijacking – The catastrophic incident will lead to increased security in the aviation industry. Within two months, mandatory screening of all passengers and carry-on luggage will be introduced. The Justice Department will sign an agreement with the Department of Defense, making military assistance available to the FBI in the event of a terrorist emergency. Other measures will be considered but not introduced, such as armoring cockpit doors, allowing pilots to carry weapons, and centralizing airport security nationwide under a single agency. [Naftali, 2005, pp. 66-67; Graff, 2011, pp. 53] “No one understands the impact that this flight and this 30-hour ordeal had on the nation, and transforming everyone, from the White House to the FBI, to the way that we board an airplane every day,” Brendan Koerner, author of a book about aircraft hijackings, will comment in 2016. [Detroit Free Press, 6/6/2016] As a result of the hijacking of Flight 49, “the American public for the first time began to take the question of terrorism seriously and began to accept trade-offs of civil liberties in exchange for greater security,” journalist and author Garrett Graff will write. [Graff, 2011, pp. 53-54]
March 1989: Possibility of Suicide Attacks Using Planes Is ‘Nightmare’ of Governments, Paper Says
Authorities are aware of, and concerned about, the possibility of a suicide attack using a hijacked plane, according to a paper on the threat of terrorism against commercial aviation by Brian Michael Jenkins of the RAND Corporation. “The nightmare of governments is that suicidal terrorists will hijack a commercial airliner and, by killing or replacing its crew, crash into a city or some vital facility,” the paper says. “It has been threatened in at least one case: In 1977, an airliner believed to have been hijacked, crashed, killing all on board. And in 1987, a homicidal, suicidal ex-employee boarded a commercial airliner where he shot his former boss and brought about the crash of the airliner, killing all 44 on board. Fear of such incidents is offered as a powerful argument for immobilizing hijacked aircraft on the ground at the first opportunity and also, some argue, for armoring the flight deck.” The paper asks: “What are we likely to see in the future? Perhaps fewer but deadlier and more sophisticated terrorist hijackings.” [Jenkins, 3/1989, pp. 10-11] The 1987 incident refers to Pacific Southwest Airlines Flight 1771, which is believed to have been hijacked on its way from Los Angeles to San Francisco by a disgruntled former employee. [Time, 12/21/1987] Jenkins will repeat his warning of terrorists possibly using a plane as a weapon in a threat assessment for the New York Port Authority in 1993 (see After February 26, 1993). [Jenkins and Edwards-Winslow, 9/2003, pp. 11 ]
1990-2001: NORAD Regularly Launches Fighters to Intercept Suspicious Aircraft before 9/11
Fighter jets are regularly scrambled by the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) in response to suspicious or unidentified aircraft flying in US airspace in the years preceding 9/11. [General Accounting Office, 5/3/1994, pp. 4; Associated Press, 8/14/2002] For this task, NORAD keeps a pair of fighters on “alert” at a number of sites around the US. These fighters are armed, fueled, and ready to take off within minutes of receiving a scramble order (see Before September 11, 2001). [American Defender, 4/1998; Air Force Magazine, 2/2002; Bergen Record, 12/5/2003; Grant, 2004, pp. 14] Various accounts offer statistics about the number of times fighters are scrambled: 
A General Accounting Office report published in May 1994 states that “during the past four years, NORAD’s alert fighters took off to intercept aircraft (referred to as scrambled) 1,518 times, or an average of 15 times per site per year.” Of these incidents, the number of scrambles that are in response to suspected drug smuggling aircraft averages “one per site, or less than 7 percent of all of the alert sites’ total activity.” The remaining activity, about 93 percent of the total scrambles, “generally involved visually inspecting unidentified aircraft and assisting aircraft in distress.” [General Accounting Office, 5/3/1994, pp. 4] In the two years from May 15, 1996 to May 14, 1998, NORAD’s Western Air Defense Sector (WADS), which is responsible for the “air sovereignty” of the western 63 percent of the continental US, scrambles fighters 129 times to identify unknown aircraft that might be a threat. Over the same period, WADS scrambles fighters an additional 42 times against potential and actual drug smugglers. [Washington National Guard, 1998] In 1997, the Southeast Air Defense Sector (SEADS)—another of NORAD’s three air defense sectors in the continental US—tracks 427 unidentified aircraft, and fighters intercept these “unknowns” 36 times. The same year, NORAD’s Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS) handles 65 unidentified tracks and WADS handles 104 unidentified tracks, according to Major General Larry Arnold, the commander of the Continental United States NORAD Region on 9/11. [American Defender, 4/1998] In 1998, SEADS logs more than 400 fighter scrambles. [Grant, 2004, pp. 14] In 1999, Airman magazine reports that NORAD’s fighters on alert at Homestead Air Reserve Base in Florida are scrambled 75 times per year, on average. According to Captain Tom Herring, a full-time alert pilot at the base, this is more scrambles than any other unit in the Air National Guard. [Airman, 12/1999] General Ralph Eberhart, the commander of NORAD on 9/11, will later state that in the year 2000, NORAD’s fighters fly 147 sorties. [9/11 Commission, 6/17/2004 ] According to the Calgary Herald, in 2000 there are 425 “unknowns,” where an aircraft’s pilot has not filed or has deviated from a flight plan, or has used the wrong radio frequency, and fighters are scrambled 129 times in response. [Calgary Herald, 10/13/2001] Between September 2000 and June 2001, fighters are scrambled 67 times to intercept suspicious aircraft, according to the Associated Press. [Associated Press, 8/14/2002]
Lieutenant General Norton Schwartz, the commander of the Alaskan NORAD Region at the time of the 9/11 attacks, will say that before 9/11, it is “not unusual, and certainly was a well-refined procedure” for NORAD fighters to intercept an aircraft. He will add, though, that intercepting a commercial airliner is “not normal.” [Air Force Magazine, 9/2011 ] On September 11, 2001, NEADS scrambles fighters that are kept on alert in response to the hijackings (see 8:46 a.m. September 11, 2001 and 9:24 a.m. September 11, 2001). [New York Times, 10/16/2001; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 20, 26-27]
1991-2000: Airport Later Used by Ten Hijackers Has Poor Security Record and Lacks Surveillance Cameras
Data compiled by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) shows that over this period Boston’s Logan Airport has one of the worst records for security among major US airports. Flight 11 and Flight 175 depart from Logan on 9/11. While it is only America’s eighteenth busiest airport, it has the fifth highest number of security violations. FAA agents testing its passenger screening are able to get 234 guns and inert hand grenades and bombs past its checkpoint guards or through its X-ray machines. Though it is possible that the high number of violations is because the FAA tests more frequently at Logan than elsewhere, an official later quoted by the Boston Globe says lax security is the only explanation, as all checkpoints at every major airport are meant to be tested monthly. In contrast, Newark Airport, from where Flight 93 departs on 9/11, has an above average security record. Washington’s Dulles Airport, from where Flight 77 takes off, is below average, though not as bad as Logan. Officials familiar with security at Logan will, after 9/11, point to various flaws. For example, the State Police office has no video surveillance of the airport’s security checkpoints, boarding gates, ramp areas, or perimeter entrances. [Boston Globe, 9/26/2001] Security cameras had been put into use at most US airports in the mid-1980s. When Virginia Buckingham takes over as executive director of Massachusetts Port Authority in 1999, she is surprised at the lack of cameras at Logan, and orders them that year. Yet by 9/11, they still will not have been installed. [Boston Herald, 9/29/2001; Boston Globe, 9/30/2001] In spite of Logan’s poor security record, after 9/11 the Boston Globe will report, “[A]viation specialists have said it is unlikely that more rigorous attention to existing rules would have thwarted the 10 hijackers who boarded two jets at Logan on Sept. 11.” [Boston Globe, 10/17/2001]
1992-2002: Violations of Prohibited Airspace over White House Frequent; Pilots Rarely Sanctioned
According to a 2002 review of FAA records by the Associated Press, the prohibited airspace protecting the White House is violated at least 94 times during the years from 1992 to 2002. Most violations do not lead to significant sanctions against the offending pilots, usually just a letter of warning. [CBS News, 4/4/2002]
1992: Small Knives Used in Hijackings, FAA Memo Warns
A Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) internal memo warns that small knives have been used in hijackings. The memo states, “Small knives (blade length of four inches or less), the most frequently employed weapon to hijack aircraft (in the US), were used in three incidents.” Details of the memo will later be provided to the 9/11 Commission by Steve Elson, an FAA special agent for security. According to Elson, the memo is widely distributed to agency security officials. Elson will quit the FAA 1999 in frustration over lax security. [New York Magazine, 9/24/2001; Elson, 9/4/2003; Salon, 8/3/2004; Linda Ellman, 2005; Village Voice, 2/8/2005] By 9/11 it will still be legal to bring small knives onto planes (see July 8-August 30, 2001).
February 1993-May 1994: US Military Head and GAO Recommend Reducing Units Dedicated to Continental Air Defense
Colin Powell, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, recommends that the number of aircraft dedicated to defending US airspace be reduced, a recommendation echoed by the General Accounting Office (GAO) over a year later. The continental air defense mission, carried out by the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), was developed during the Cold War to protect against any Soviet bombers that might try to attack the US via the North Pole. In 1960, NORAD had about 1,200 fighter jets dedicated to this task, but now its US portion comprises 180 Air National Guard fighters, located in 10 units and 14 alert sites around the US. In February 1993, Powell issues a report in which he suggests that, due to the former Soviet Union no longer posing a significant threat, the air defense mission could be transferred to existing general-purpose combat and training forces. In May 1994, the GAO issues a report agreeing with Powell, saying that a “dedicated continental air defense force is no longer needed.” The report also says: “NORAD plans to reduce the number of alert sites in the continental United States to 14 and provide 28 aircraft for the day-to-day peacetime air sovereignty mission. Each alert site will have two fighters, and their crews will be on 24-hour duty and ready to scramble within five minutes.” [US Department of Defense, 2/12/1993; General Accounting Office, 5/3/1994] NORAD will play a key role in responding to the hijackings on 9/11. By then, it will have just 14 fighters available around the US on “alert”—on the runway, fueled, and ready to take off within minutes of being ordered into the air. [Code One Magazine, 1/2002; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 17]
February 11, 1993: Hijacking Raises Concern of Plane Being Crashed into New York Building
A 20-year-old Ethiopian man hijacks a Lufthansa Airbus bound from Frankfurt to Addis Ababa, via Cairo. Wielding a gun (which is subsequently found to be just a starter pistol), he forces the pilot to divert the plane to New York. The 11-hour ordeal ends after the plane lands at JFK International Airport and the hijacker surrenders to the FBI. [CNN, 3/14/1996; Guardian, 2/8/2000; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 457]
Fears of Plane Being Crashed – Journalist Eric Margolis, who is on the plane, will later say that he and the other passengers are “convinced the hijacker… intended to crash the plane into Manhattan.” [Eric Margolis (.com), 2/13/2000] While giving television commentary on the morning of 9/11, Larry Johnson—currently the deputy director of the State Department’s Office of Counter Terrorism—will say it was feared when the plane was flown to New York “that it might be crashed into something.” [NBC, 9/11/2001]
Air Force Responds – In response to the hijacking, F-15 fighter jets are scrambled from Otis Air National Guard Base in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, from where fighters will also be launched in response to the first hijacking on 9/11 (see 8:46 a.m. September 11, 2001). Later, F-16s are scrambled from Atlantic City, New Jersey. The fighters intercept the Lufthansa aircraft off the coast of eastern Canada, and initially trail it from a distance of about ten miles. As the plane approaches JFK Airport, the fighters move in to a distance of five miles. They do a low fly-by as the plane lands at JFK. They circle overhead for a while, until the hijacking situation is resolved, and then return to their bases. [Spencer, 2008, pp. 29]
Participants in Response Also Involved on 9/11 – This is the last hijacking to occur prior to 9/11 involving US air traffic controllers, FAA management, and military coordination. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 14; Utica Observer-Dispatch, 8/5/2004] At least two of the military personnel who participate in the response to it will play key roles in responding to the 9/11 attacks. Robert Marr, who on 9/11 will be the battle commander at NORAD’s Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS), is currently the assistant deputy commander of operations at Griffiss Air Force Base in Rome, NY. [Post-Standard (Syracuse), 3/27/2005] On this occasion, he talks with his counterpart at the FAA and explains that the FAA needs to start a request up its chain of command, so the military can respond quickly if the hijacking—which takes place in Europe—comes to the United States. He then informs his own chain of command to be prepared for a request for military assistance from the FAA. Several hours later, Marr is notified that military assistance has been authorized, and the fighter jets are scrambled from Otis and Atlantic City. [Spencer, 2008, pp. 26-27] Timothy Duffy, who will be one of the F-15 pilots that launches from Otis Air Base in response to the first hijacking on 9/11, is also involved. His role on this occasion is unreported, though presumably he pilots one of the jets scrambled from Otis after the Lufthansa plane. [Spencer, 2008, pp. 29]
