After receiving a call from her husband Tom Burnett, who is on the hijacked Flight 93 (see 9:27 a.m. September 11, 2001), Deena Burnett calls 911 to report the hijacking. She used to be a flight attendant, so knows what to say in an emergency. Her 911 call is recorded and she will later be provided with a tape of it. According to journalist and author Jere Longman, who is played this tape, Deena reports: “My husband just called me from United Flight 93. The plane has been hijacked. They just knifed a passenger and there are guns on the airplane.” [Longman, 2002, pp. 107-108 and 278] However, in her 2006 book, Deena Burnett will give a slightly different account according to which she makes no mention of guns on the plane, instead telling the dispatcher: “My husband is on an airplane that has been hijacked. He just called me from the airplane on his cellular telephone. He told me they have a bomb on board.” [Burnett and Giombetti, 2006, pp. 62-63] (Note that the 9/11 Commission later concludes that the Flight 93 hijackers do not possess guns (see 9:27 a.m. September 11, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 13] ) Deena then tells the dispatcher the flight number and route. Her call is transferred to a man at the police department, who then switches her to the FBI. She repeats her story to a special agent, who initially misunderstands her, thinking she is saying her husband was on one of the planes that hit the World Trade Center. Once she has clarified that he is on another plane, the agent gives her a list of questions to ask her husband if she speaks with him again, such as how many hijackers are there and what weapons do they have? At that moment, her call waiting beeps, as Tom Burnett is calling a second time (see 9:34 a.m. September 11, 2001). [Sacramento Bee, 9/11/2002; Burnett and Giombetti, 2006, pp. 63] Deena will be unable to ask Tom the questions the agent has asked her to during his subsequent calls from Flight 93, because, she later recalls, “I didn’t want to take up any precious time talking any more than was necessary,” and “I had wanted to hear Tom’s voice.” Instead, she writes down everything he says and everything that is going on. [Burnett and Giombetti, 2006, pp. 68] According to Longman, Deena will call the FBI back minutes later, following her husband’s second call (see (Between 9:36 a.m. and 9:45 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [Longman, 2002, pp. 110] But according to Deena Burnett’s 2006 book, she will not speak to the FBI agent again until around 10:00 a.m., after her husband’s final call to her from Flight 93 (see (Shortly After 9:56 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [Burnett and Giombetti, 2006, pp. 68-69]
Between 9:36 a.m. and 9:45 a.m. September 11, 2001: Flight 93 Passenger’s Wife Deena Burnett Calls FBI, according to One Account
According to journalist and author Jere Longman, after her husband Tom Burnett has called her a second time from the hijacked Flight 93 (see 9:34 a.m. September 11, 2001), Deena Burnett calls the FBI again. She had previously spoken with an FBI agent after she’d called 911 following her first call from her husband (see 9:31 a.m.-9:34 a.m. September 11, 2001). Longman provides no details of what is said during this second call to the FBI. [Longman, 2002, pp. 110-111] Deena Burnett’s account, presented in her own 2006 book, will make no mention of any call to the FBI at this time. She only says that at this time she speaks by phone with her husband’s two sisters and his parents. According to her 2006 account, Deena will not speak to the FBI a second time until around 10:00 a.m., after Tom has made his fourth and final call to her from Flight 93 (see (Shortly After 9:56 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [Burnett and Giombetti, 2006, pp. 64-65 and 68-69]
After 9:37 a.m. September 11, 2001: FBI Confiscates Film of Pentagon Crash
An employee at a gas station located across the street from the Pentagon servicing military personnel later says the station’s security cameras should have recorded the moment of impact. However, he says, “I’ve never seen what the pictures looked like. The FBI was here within minutes and took the film.” [Richmond Times-Dispatch, 12/11/2001] A security camera atop a hotel close to the Pentagon also records the impact. Hotel employees watch the film several times before the FBI confiscates the video. [Washington Times, 9/21/2001] The Justice Department will refuse to release the footage, claiming that if they did it might provide intelligence to someone who would want to harm the US, but some Pentagon officials say they see no national security value to the video. [CNN, 3/7/2002] The gas station footage and video taken from one nearby hotel, the Doubletree, will eventually be released in 2006, but do not show much (see September 13, 2006-Early December 2006). Reporter Sandra Jontz, who is evacuated from the Pentagon some time after it is hit, notices a Department of Transportation camera that monitors traffic backups pointed towards the crash site. [Bull and Erman, 2002, pp. 281] As of the end of 2006, the footage from this camera has not been released.
Between 9:38 a.m. and 11:37 a.m. September 11, 2001: Dulles Airport Is Locked Down
Washington’s Dulles International Airport, from where Flight 77 departed earlier this morning (see (8:20 a.m.) September 11, 2001), is locked down on the orders of the FAA. Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon at 9:37 a.m. (see 9:37 a.m. September 11, 2001) and within two hours, the FBI, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, and other authorities lock down Dulles Airport. This means no one is allowed to enter or leave, according to investigative journalists Joseph Trento and Susan Trento. [Trento and Trento, 2006, pp. 36; Priska Neely, 10/21/2010] However, the airport’s terminals are evacuated at around 10:00 a.m., according to Edward Cox, the airport security coordinator. The evacuation is coordinated by the FAA and airport operations. [9/11 Commission, 10/16/2003 
] The goal within the system is to get passengers out of the terminals as quickly as possible, according to Frank Dunn, deputy chief of police with the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority. Once the terminals have been evacuated, they are closed. [9/11 Commission, 9/29/2003 ]
9:38 a.m. September 11, 2001: FBI Agents Already at Military Building near Pentagon; Assist with Evacuation
A number of FBI agents are, for unknown reasons, already at the Navy Annex—a building near the Pentagon—when the Pentagon is hit, and help clear the Navy Annex when it is evacuated in response to the attack. [Naval Historical Center, 12/21/2001] The Navy Annex is a massive building located a few hundred yards uphill from the Pentagon. It has enough room for 6,000 employees. Currently, about 100 Navy personnel work in it, and most of the space is used by the Marine Corps. [American Forces Press Service, 9/24/2001; Goldberg et al., 2007, pp. 14; GlobalSecurity (.org), 5/7/2011]
Building Manager Sounds Fire Alarm, Starts Evacuation – Coneleous Alexander, a building manager at the Navy Annex, hears the explosion from the Pentagon attack (see 9:37 a.m. September 11, 2001). Alexander “knew immediately it was the Pentagon” that had been hit, he will later recall. He runs to the front of the Navy Annex and sees the smoke coming from the Pentagon. Alexander immediately sounds the fire alarm and starts getting people out of the Navy Annex. He receives no directions from the Defense Protective Service (DPS)—the law enforcement agency that guards the Pentagon—on what to do, but knows from his training that he has to get people out of the building.
FBI Agents Already at Navy Annex, Assist Evacuation – As the evacuation begins, Alexander notices about 10 FBI agents going down the halls of the Navy Annex. He knows what they are because they have “FBI” written on the backs of their jackets. However, he does not know where they have come from. Interviewed three months later, Alexander will speculate that the FBI agents may have come to the Navy Annex because they received prior notification of a hijacked aircraft heading toward Washington, DC, but he will say their presence at his building “puzzles him to this day.” Because there are no members of the DPS on hand to help evacuate the building, the FBI agents assist in this task. The agents will also give Alexander updates on alerts about potential further attacks. People are moved “farther and farther” from the building following each threat warning, according to Alexander. Later in the day, Navy and Marine Corps senior officers will re-enter the Navy Annex to establish a command center there (see (3:00 p.m.) September 11, 2001). [Historical Office, Office of the Secretary of Defense, 11/5/2001; Naval Historical Center, 12/21/2001]
Shortly After 9:37 a.m. September 11, 2001: Many Staffers Evacuate from FBI Headquarters
Nonessential employees are evacuated from the FBI headquarters in Washington, DC. [New Yorker, 9/24/2001; Kessler, 2002, pp. 421] The FBI headquarters is located in the J. Edgar Hoover Building on Pennsylvania Avenue, between Ninth and Tenth Streets, six blocks away from the White House. The building is seven stories high along Pennsylvania Avenue and rises to 11 stories at the rear. [Kessler, 2007, pp. 15; US Government Accountability Office, 11/2011, pp. 6 ; Associated Press, 12/10/2012; Capital News Service, 10/6/2016]
Headquarters Is Evacuated after the Pentagon Attack – The evacuation apparently takes place shortly after 9:37 a.m., when the Pentagon was hit (see 9:37 a.m. September 11, 2001). Denise Smith, a forensic scientist, is at work in a laboratory in the Hoover Building when she and her colleagues learn of the attacks on the World Trade Center. “Then, all of a sudden, we could see flames and smoke coming from the Pentagon,” she will later recall. “Seconds later,” according to the Baraboo News Republic, “everyone in the building was told to evacuate.” [Baraboo News Republic, 9/10/2011] Author Cindi McMenamin will write that her brother Dan, who is working at FBI headquarters this morning, and his colleagues “immediately evacuated” after “getting word that the Pentagon had been hit.” [McMenamin, 2012, pp. 64] It apparently takes a considerable time to get everyone away from the building. “The backup to leave the FBI’s underground garage was half an hour,” according to journalist and author Ronald Kessler. [Kessler, 2002, pp. 421]
Headquarters Is Feared to Be a Terrorist Target – The headquarters is apparently evacuated due to fears that it may be the target of a terrorist attack. “Assuming that FBI headquarters would be the next target, nonessential employees were being evacuated from the J. Edgar Hoover Building,” Kessler will describe. [Kessler, 2007, pp. 15] McMenamin will write that her brother and his colleagues evacuate “as they guessed their building—and any other federal building—could be next.” [McMenamin, 2012, pp. 64] Attorney General John Ashcroft, who will arrive at FBI headquarters early this afternoon (see (Between 1:00 p.m. and 2:00 p.m.) September 11, 2001), will state that sometime before his arrival it had been thought “that one of the [hijacked] planes might be headed for the FBI headquarters building.” [9/11 Commission, 12/17/2003 ] Many FBI agents and senior FBI officials who remain in the headquarters work from the Strategic Information and Operations Center (see (Shortly After 9:03 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [Washington Post, 10/14/2001; Kessler, 2002, pp. 5] The center, on the building’s fifth floor, is fortified so its occupants can survive a bombing or other kind of attack. [New York Times, 11/2/2001] Other security measures are also taken around this time. Police block off Ninth and Tenth Streets alongside the Hoover Building. Bomb-sniffing dogs and FBI police officers armed with submachine guns then patrol the perimeter around the building. [Kessler, 2002, pp. 421]
Between 9:41 a.m. and 10:00 a.m. September 11, 2001: Mother of Flight 93 Passenger Mark Bingham Speaks to the FBI and Tries Calling Her Son on His Cell Phone
Alice Hoglan, the mother of Mark Bingham, a passenger on Flight 93, informs the FBI that her son has just phoned her from the plane, and then calls Bingham’s cell phone and leaves two voicemail messages. [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 9/17/2001; Barrett, 2002, pp. 157-158] Alice Hoglan is currently staying at the home of her brother, Vaughn Hoglan, and his wife in Saratoga, California. [Longman, 2002, pp. 129; San Francisco Chronicle, 9/10/2003] Bingham has just called her and told her his flight was taken over by three men who said they had a bomb, but the call got broken off after less than three minutes (see (9:37 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 9/11/2001; 9/11 Commission, 5/13/2004 ; 9/11 Commission, 8/26/2004, pp. 41, 99]
Bingham’s Mother Realizes Flight 93 Will Likely Crash – No one in the Hoglan household was aware of the terrorist attacks in New York and at the Pentagon. But after the call from Bingham ends, Vaughn Hoglan switches on the television to see if there is any news about Flight 93 and the family sees, for the first time, the recorded footage of Flight 175 crashing into the World Trade Center (see 9:03 a.m. September 11, 2001). [BBC, 12/2001; Barrett, 2002, pp. 157] Alice Hoglan then realizes the hijacking of Flight 93 is part of a “grand and ugly scheme,” and that her son’s plane will likely crash, too. [San Francisco Chronicle, 1/28/2005; San Jose Mercury News, 9/10/2011]
Bingham’s Mother Tells the FBI about the Hijacking – Being a flight attendant with United Airlines, she calls her airline to ask about her son’s plane. [Los Gatos Patch, 8/25/2011] However, she will later recall, all she gets is a recorded message, which states, “United Flight 93 left Newark at 8:01 a.m. and will arrive San Francisco, Gate 82, at 11:19 a.m.” [BBC, 12/2001] She also calls 9-1-1 to report what has happened. She is put through to the San Francisco division of the FBI and speaks to an agent there. [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 9/17/2001] The agent asks her a series of questions about the hijackers on Flight 93, but she is unable to answer them.
Bingham’s Mother Leaves Messages for Her Son – Alice Hoglan then tries calling her son twice on his cell phone, intending to let him know the full scale of the attack that his plane’s hijacking is part of. On both occasions, she has to leave messages on his voicemail. She makes the first call at 9:54 a.m. (Because she is flustered, she miscalculates the East Coast time by an hour during the call and also mistakenly says Flight 93 might be used as a “target” rather than as a “weapon.”) She says: “Mark, this is your mom. It’s 10:54 a.m. [Eastern Time]. The news is that it’s been hijacked by terrorists. They are planning to probably use the plane as a target to hit some site on the ground. So, if you possibly can, try to overpower these guys if you can, ‘cause they will probably use the plane as a target. I would say go ahead and do everything you can to overpower them, because they’re hellbent. Try to call me back if you can. You know the number here. Okay, I love you sweetie. Bye.” A minute or so later she calls Bingham’s cell phone again and leaves a second, similar message. Among other things, she urges her son to “group some people and perhaps do the best you can to get control of [the plane].” [Barrett, 2002, pp. 157-158; San Jose Mercury News, 9/10/2011; McMillan, 2014, pp. 122] Bingham will never receive these messages. [ABC News, 3/30/2002] His plane will crash in a field in Pennsylvania at 10:03 a.m. (see (10:03 a.m.-10:10 a.m.) September 11, 2001 and (10:06 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 14, 30]
9:41 a.m. September 11, 2001: FBI Agent Already Aware of Flight 93 Hijacking
Newark, New Jersey, flight controller Greg Callahan is talking on the phone to an FBI agent. The agent says about Flight 93: “We suspect that this aircraft has now been taken over by hostile forces.” The agent describes the sharp turn it has made over eastern Ohio and that it is now heading back over southwestern Pennsylvania. Callahan says he could tell the plane is on a course for Washington. [MSNBC, 9/11/2002] The FBI has been in contact with Deena Burnett and informed of what her husband, Flight 93 passenger Tom Burnett, has been saying since at least 9:34 a.m. (see 9:34 a.m. September 11, 2001) [Longman, 2002, pp. 110] It is unclear where in the chain of command details of these Flight 93 calls reach, and the 9/11 Commission has not clarified the issue of what the FBI knew and when.
9:42 a.m. September 11, 2001: FBI Arrives at the Pentagon; Assumes Responsibility for Investigation
Within five minutes of the Pentagon being hit, the first group from the FBI’s National Capital Response Squad arrives there. Due to this being a terrorist attack, the Pentagon and its grounds are immediately declared a federal crime scene. Under the terms of a 1995 presidential directive, this makes them the exclusive responsibility of the FBI. The FBI immediately begins collecting evidence and is also responsible for recovering bodies. Its agents are able to confiscate security videos from a nearby gas station within minutes of the crash (see (After 9:37 a.m.) September 11, 2001). More than 700 FBI agents, assisted by hundreds of individuals from other organizations, will participate in the recovery operation. [US President, 6/21/1995; Washington Times, 9/12/2001; US Department of Health and Human Services, 7/2002, pp. A-7, A-23, C-1, C-54 ]
Shortly After 9:41 a.m. September 11, 2001: Park Police Helicopter Provides Live Video Feed of Pentagon Crash Scene to FBI and Other Agencies
A US Park Police helicopter that is responding to the attack on the Pentagon and flying above the building transmits a live video feed of the crash scene to the FBI and other agencies, providing them with instant information about the extent of the damage and destruction at the Pentagon. [US Congress. House, 9/11/2002; National Park Service, 9/21/2002] The helicopter, which has the call sign “Eagle I,” is one of two helicopters belonging to the Park Police Aviation Unit that arrived at the Pentagon minutes after the attack there (see Shortly After 9:37 a.m. September 11, 2001). [Rotor and Wing, 11/2001] It has microwave “downlink” capability, which enables its crew to fly over a particular location and transmit instantaneous video images to the Park Police chief’s command post and other locations.
FBI Requests Video of Crash Scene – Shortly after Eagle I arrives over the Pentagon, the crew receives a request from the FBI to send it information using the downlink on their helicopter’s video camera. [McDonnell, 2004, pp. 22 ] According to Sergeant Ronald Galey, the pilot of Eagle I, the FBI arrives on the scene “within 10 minutes or 15 minutes” of his helicopter reaching the Pentagon. Galey will later recall: “We heard from them immediately: ‘Start your downlink, we want to capture everything that we can.’” [US Naval Historical Center, 11/20/2001] The downlink capability then enables the crew of Eagle I “to transmit real-time images and information to people who needed them to make decisions,” according to the National Park Service’s account of 9/11. As well as the FBI, the images are sent to the Secret Service, the Washington, DC, Metropolitan Police, and Park Police headquarters. Eagle I spends “the next four or five hours flying overhead and transmitting video images to the FBI.” [National Park Service, 9/21/2002; McDonnell, 2004, pp. 23 ]
Fire Department Chief Goes Up in Helicopter – The Park Police’s two Bell 412 helicopters are packed with sophisticated equipment. As well as the microwave downlink, they have an infrared heat detection system known as FLIR (forward looking infrared). When the Arlington County Fire Department later has difficulty getting its equipment to the proper locations to fight the fires in the Pentagon, its chief will be taken up in Eagle I and flown low over the building. The infrared imagery will help him locate the fires under the roof so he can better position his firefighting crews and equipment. [National Park Service, 1/17/2002; Rotor and Wing, 2/2002; McDonnell, 2004, pp. 23-24 ]
