The most senior manager on duty at Washington’s Reagan National Airport tries to contact Special Operations personnel at FAA headquarters, but his call is not answered. Bob Lazar, the airport’s acting operations manager, was in his office in the administrative wing of Reagan Airport at the time the first attack in New York took place. Upon hearing news of the crash, he went to the nearby break room to watch the television coverage of it. Lazar has a background in Navy Special Operations, and immediately suspected that terrorism was involved. Therefore, at around the time the second attack is taking place, he tries calling Special Operations people at the FAA headquarters in Washington, DC. However, no one answers his call. The reason for this is unknown. [9/11 Commission, 7/28/2003 
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9:31 a.m.-9:40 a.m. September 11, 2001: Unidentified Military Planes Fly near Pentagon
Two unidentified military aircraft fly in the vicinity of the Pentagon at an altitude of over 20,000 feet, and are in the area during the minutes before the Pentagon is hit. [Federal Aviation Administration, 9/20/2001 ; 9/11 Commission, 7/28/2003 ] Between at least 9:31 a.m. and 9:40 a.m., the two aircraft communicate with the air traffic control tower at Washington’s Reagan National Airport, which is less than a mile from the Pentagon. [Federal Aviation Administration, 9/20/2001 ; St. Petersburg Times, 10/3/2001] Radar data will show that they fly “in trail” (in single file, with one aircraft directly behind the other) at 21,000 feet, and are overhead during the last few minutes that Flight 77 is airborne, before it hits the Pentagon at 9:37 a.m. (see 9:37 a.m. September 11, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 7/28/2003 ]
Launched from Delaware Base – The identities of the two aircraft are unclear. They have the call signs “Bobcat 14” and “Bobcat 17.” [Federal Aviation Administration, 9/20/2001 ] A 9/11 Commission memorandum will state that “flight strips and other information indicate that Bobcat 14 and Bobcat 17 originated out of Dover Air Force Base in Delaware.… It is possible, but not confirmed, that they were Air Force corporate passenger jets.”
Airport Managers Do Not Recall Planes – Two key officials will later be unable to specifically recall the aircraft when questioned by the 9/11 Commission. Bob Lazar, the acting operations manager at Reagan National Airport, will say he “did not remember any aircraft with the call sign ‘Bobcat’ that hung out over the National airspace” on this day. However, as well as two of the fighter jets that are inbound from Langley Air Force Base (see (9:25 a.m.-9:30 a.m.) September 11, 2001), he will recall two aircraft “coming from the north, but he did not think that they entered National’s airspace.” Donny Simons, the airport manager at Baltimore-Washington International Airport in Linthicum, Maryland, will stress “that he did not remember the Bobcats specifically,” but he speculates that controllers at his airport “were working the two ‘Bobcats’ and needed vectors from National controllers.” [9/11 Commission, 7/28/2003 ]
