General Richard Myers, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, gives Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld an update on what he knows about the crisis and the military’s response to it, which includes details of the rules of engagement for fighter jets. Since 12:19 p.m., the two men have been in the Executive Support Center on the third floor of the Pentagon (see 12:19 p.m. September 11, 2001). [Goldberg et al., 2007, pp. 132; Myers and McConnell, 2009, pp. 156-157]
Myers Says Planes Are Inbound from the Far East – Myers now informs Rumsfeld that the FAA has reported that five airliners inbound to the United States from the Far East have come too far on their journeys to head back due to low fuel. One of these, Korean Airlines Flight 85, is squawking the hijack code on its transponder, although this may be the result of pilot error rather than evidence of another hijacking, Myers will later recall telling Rumsfeld. [Myers and McConnell, 2009, pp. 157] (However, according to USA Today, while the FAA has been alerted to this suspicious flight (see (Shortly Before 12:00 p.m.) September 11, 2001), the plane will only start squawking the hijack code over 40 minutes later, at 1:24 p.m. (see 1:24 p.m. September 11, 2001). [USA Today, 8/12/2002] ) Fighters have been scrambled to escort all five airliners, Myers says (see (12:00 p.m.) September 11, 2001).
NORAD Wants More Air Defense Units – He tells Rumsfeld that NORAD has contacted the Pentagon requesting an additional Reserve call-up of air defense units and this request will be routed through the secretary of defense’s office to the president. To avoid any confusion, he reminds Rumsfeld that air defense and air sovereignty are primarily Air National Guard missions. He also says the US Coast Guard is completing its own Reserve call-up and Admiral James Loy, commandant of the Coast Guard, has given his commanders authority to challenge any inbound vessels. [Myers and McConnell, 2009, pp. 157]
Rumsfeld Wants to Settle the Issue of Rules of Engagement – Rumsfeld brings up the subject of “rules of engagement” for fighters defending US airspace. [Clarke, 2006, pp. 225] Since they arrived at the Pentagon’s National Military Command Center, at around 9:58 a.m. and 10:30 a.m. respectively, Myers and Rumsfeld have worked on these rules, which include guidelines for when fighter pilots should shoot down a suspicious aircraft (see (Between 10:15 a.m. and 10:30 a.m.) September 11, 2001 and (10:30 a.m.-1:00 p.m.) September 11, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 3/23/2004 
; George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies, 8/3/2012] “I want to tie up the rules of engagement,” Rumsfeld says. He adds: “We need granularity here. This is not simple for a pilot, especially if he knows he’s shooting down a plane over a civilian area like Washington.” [Clarke, 2006, pp. 225]
Rumsfeld Approves NORAD’s Rules of Engagement – “I’ve got the final recommended [rules of engagement] from General [Ralph] Eberhart at NORAD,” Myers tells Rumsfeld. He describes what these are. “If our fighters intercept an aircraft obviously heading for a runway, they will let it land, but if a plane is on a glide path toward a possible government target or civilian installation, they will shoot it down,” he says. “Clearly, shooting down a civilian airliner with innocent men, women, and children on board was not a good option, but given the circumstances, it was really the only course of action to minimize the death and destruction planned by the hijackers,” he will reflect. “Our pilots will have to exercise great discipline and judgment,” he tells Rumsfeld, since, “If that aircraft veers off, it will be too late.” Rumsfeld approves these rules. “This was not a time to be indecisive,” Myers will comment, since rules of engagement are “a deadly serious matter.” [Myers and McConnell, 2009, pp. 157-158] However, the Department of Defense will only circulate written rules of engagement sometime after 1:00 p.m., according to the 9/11 Commission Report (see (1:45 p.m.) September 11, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 465]
September 20-October 4, 2001: Officer Works on Transcribing NEADS Audio Tapes from 9/11
Technical Sergeant James Tollack, an officer from McGuire Air Force Base in New Jersey, is tasked with transcribing tape recordings from September 11 of the operations floor at NORAD’s Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS) in Rome, New York. [9/11 Commission, 3/22/2004; 9/11 Commission, 7/29/2004; Farmer, 2009, pp. 274] On September 11, NEADS was responsible for coordinating the US military’s response to the hijackings. In a corner of its operations floor, four Dictaphone multi-channel tape recorders were recording every radio channel. [Vanity Fair, 8/1/2006; Shenon, 2008, pp. 203-204] Tollack will later say that NEADS Technical Sergeant Jeremy Powell maybe tells him that personnel at NEADS have already listened to the tapes prior to his arrival there.
Digital Recording Expert Spends Two Weeks Working on Transcripts – Tollack is the resident expert in digital voice recording systems at McGuire Air Force Base and also has experience of doing transcription work. He arrives at NEADS on September 20 and stays there for 11 to 14 days, leaving on either October 1 or October 4. His first day at NEADS is spent on orientation, and so September 21 is his first full day of transcribing. Tollack will later recall that Colonel Robert Marr, the battle commander at NEADS, probably advises him to only transcribe the tapes from September 11 up to around 10:15 a.m., which is about 10 minutes after the fourth hijacked plane, Flight 93, crashed in Pennsylvania. For his first few days at NEADS, Tollack spends 14 to 16 hours per day working on the task. He works at a desk on the operations floor, drafting notes by hand and then typing them out with the assistance of two secretaries.
Transcripts Needed for Investigations – Tollack works directly for Marr, and also reports to Lieutenant Colonel Dawne Deskins, the assistant director of the Sector Operations Control Center. Marr tells Tollack that the transcripts of the tapes are required for investigation purposes. General Ralph Eberhart, the commander of NORAD, tells Tollack the information is needed for a Congressional report or hearing (see (Between September 23 and September 24, 2001)).
Tollack’s Work Not Reviewed – While Tollack is at NEADS, no one there reviews his work as he goes through the tapes. [9/11 Commission, 3/22/2004] On September 21, one of the tapes is damaged during the transcription process, causing information on it to be lost (see September 21, 2001). [North American Aerospace Defense Command, 9/21/2001]
9/11 Commission Not Initially Made Aware of NEADS Tapes – During its investigation of the September 11 attacks, the 9/11 Commission will only learn of the existence of the recordings of the NEADS operations floor in late October 2003 (see Late October 2003), and it subsequently subpoenas NORAD for the tapes (see November 6, 2003). Despite the efforts of Tollack, according to journalist and author Philip Shenon, by the time the Commission receives the tapes, around December 2003, NORAD has still “not prepared transcripts itself” of the tapes’ contents. [Kean and Hamilton, 2006, pp. 86-88; Shenon, 2008, pp. 203-208]
Between September 23 and September 24, 2001: NORAD Commander Visits NEADS and Stresses Importance of Transcribing Recordings from 9/11
General Ralph Eberhart, the commander of NORAD, visits NORAD’s Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS) in Rome, New York, and emphasizes to an officer there the importance of promptly transcribing the recordings of the NEADS operations floor from September 11. Technical Sergeant James Tollack, the resident expert in digital voice recording systems at McGuire Air Force Base, New Jersey, arrived at NEADS on September 20, in order to transcribe the facility’s tape recordings from September 11 (see (September 20-October 4, 2001)). Three or four days later, Eberhart comes to NEADS and sees Tollack personally. Eberhart stresses to Tollack the importance of getting the information from the tapes as quickly and as accurately as possible. He says the information is needed for a Congressional report or hearing. [9/11 Commission, 3/22/2004; 9/11 Commission, 7/29/2004] Presumably Eberhart is referring to his appearance before the Senate Armed Services Committee on October 25, in which he will put forward the military’s account of what happened on September 11. [US Congress. Senate, 10/25/2001; Farmer, 2009, pp. 248] When the 9/11 Commission interviews Tollack during its investigation of the terrorist attacks and asks him what order of priority his task of transcribing the tapes had been given, he will indicate that he knew it was a high-priority assignment when he was visited by Eberhart. [Farmer, 2009, pp. 274]
October 25, 2001: NORAD Commander Gives Inaccurate Account of Military’s Response to the 9/11 Attacks during Hearing
General Ralph Eberhart, the commander of the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), appears before the Senate Armed Services Committee and gives NORAD’s account of the events of September 11 and the military’s response to the terrorist attacks that day, but the 9/11 Commission will later find that some of the information he provides is incorrect. [US Congress. Senate, 10/25/2001; 9/11 Commission, 7/29/2004; Farmer, 2009, pp. 248] Eberhart was at NORAD headquarters at Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado, and then went to NORAD’s operations center in Cheyenne Mountain when the 9/11 attacks were taking place. [9/11 Commission, 3/1/2004 ; 9/11 Commission, 3/1/2004] NORAD released a timeline of its response to the hijackings on September 18 (see September 18, 2001) and Eberhart’s testimony is consistent with that account. [North American Aerospace Defense Command, 9/18/2001]
Eberhart Says Fighters Were Scrambled in Response to First Hijacking – During the hearing, Eberhart tells Senator Wayne Allard (R-CO) that after the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) alerted NORAD to the first hijacking, of Flight 11 (see (8:37 a.m.) September 11, 2001), NORAD ordered two F-15 fighter jets to take off from Otis Air National Guard Base in Cape Cod, Massachusetts (see 8:46 a.m. September 11, 2001), “almost simultaneously to the first crash” at the World Trade Center (see 8:46 a.m. September 11, 2001). Eberhart says that after he learned a plane had hit the WTC, he was initially unsure if that plane was Flight 11. “I’m sitting there hoping that someone has made a mistake; there has been an accident; that this isn’t the hijacked airplane [that hit the WTC], because there is confusion,” he recalls. He says he was informed that “it was a light commuter airplane” that hit the WTC, although, he says, it “didn’t look like that was caused by a light commuter airplane.”
Fighters Didn’t Have Enough Time to Stop Second Crash – Eberhart says the FAA notified NORAD that there was “a second hijacked plane”—referring to Flight 175—“somewhere in there,” but although the Otis fighters were “flying toward New York” after being scrambled, they were still eight minutes away from the city when Flight 175 crashed into the WTC at 9:03 a.m. (see 9:03 a.m. September 11, 2001). “Tragically, there was just too much distance between Otis and New York City to get there in time,” Eberhart comments.
Eberhart Says NORAD Learned Flight 77 Was Hijacked before It Crashed – Eberhart says the first documented instance NORAD has of the FAA notifying it about Flight 77, the third aircraft to be hijacked, was at 9:24 a.m. After the hearing, in responses submitted for the record, Eberhart adds that the FAA notified NORAD’s Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS) that Flight 77 “was headed towards Washington, DC.” NEADS, he states, “then passed this information to NORAD’s Air Warning Center and Command Center in Cheyenne Mountain, and to the Continental US NORAD Region’s Regional Air Operations Center.”
Fighters Were Scrambled Too Late to Prevent the Pentagon Attack – Eberhart says NORAD launched two F-16 fighters from Langley Air Force Base in Virginia “as soon as” the FAA alerted it to the hijacking of Flight 77 (see 9:24 a.m. September 11, 2001). However, he says, these fighters were still “approximately 13 minutes away from Washington, DC, when that tragic crash [at the Pentagon] occurred.”
Eberhart Is Unaware of Reason for FAA’s Delay in Contacting NORAD – Senator Carl Levin (D-MI) tells Eberhart: “The timeline that we’ve been given is that at 8:55 on September 11, American Airlines Flight 77 began turning east, away from its intended course. And at 9:10, Flight 77 was detected by the FAA radar over West Virginia heading east. That was after the two planes had struck the World Trade Center towers. Then 15 minutes later, at 9:25, the FAA notified NORAD that Flight 77 was headed toward Washington.” In light of this, he asks, “[D]o you know why it took 15 minutes for the FAA to notify NORAD?” Eberhart replies: “I do not know, sir, why it took that amount of time for FAA. I hate to say it, but you’ll have to ask FAA.” Senator John Warner (R-VA), who has an extensive military background, tells Eberhart he is “a little bit stunned that you don’t know why that delay occurred.” He continues, saying, “I would have thought by now all of you in this chain would have gone back, rehearsed these things, figured out what happened, what went wrong, so that we ensure it won’t happen again.” In his responses submitted for the record, Eberhart suggests possible reasons for the delay, stating that after the FAA lost radar contact with Flight 77, it “began to receive calls from outside agencies with reports of a possible downed aircraft. Additionally, the loss of radio contact with the aircraft added to the confusion.” Consequently, he states, “I believe the FAA was faced with conflicting information, which hindered them from making an accurate assessment of the actual location of the aircraft.”
Eberhart Says NORAD Was Following Flight 93 before It Crashed – Eberhart says NORAD was aware of the problems with Flight 93, the fourth hijacked plane, before it crashed in Pennsylvania (see (10:03 a.m.-10:10 a.m.) September 11, 2001 and (10:06 a.m.) September 11, 2001). He tells Allard that the FAA “knew before it deviated its flight pattern” that Flight 93 “was hijacked.” He says NORAD had been “trying to decide, initially, if that flight was going to continue west and if there was some other target for that flight. Was it Chicago? Was it St. Louis? And what might we do to launch an aircraft to intercept it.” But he says that after the FAA reacquired Flight 93 on radar, NORAD thought the plane “was headed probably for Washington, DC, but maybe New York.” He says NORAD decided at that time to keep the Otis and Langley fighters in place over New York and Washington. If another suspicious plane was approaching, he says, “our intent was to go out and meet that aircraft and destroy it if we needed to, if it entered either Washington, DC, or New York City airspace.” However, in his responses submitted for the record, Eberhart states that the “data/log entries received by NORAD from the FAA [after September 11] do not show a time or entry indicating the FAA specifically notified the Pentagon that United Airlines Flight 93 was hijacked.” He also states that NORAD “did not notify” the National Military Command Center (NMCC) at the Pentagon that Flight 93 had been hijacked.
9/11 Commission Disputes Some of Eberhart’s Claims – Several claims Eberhart makes in the hearing will be contradicted by evidence uncovered by the 9/11 Commission during its investigation of the terrorist attacks. Whereas Eberhart says the military was first notified about the hijacking of Flight 77 at 9:24 a.m. and implies that this notification prompted the scrambling of fighters from Langley Air Force Base, according to John Farmer, the senior counsel to the 9/11 Commission, “[T]he first notification regarding American 77 occurred at 9:34, when it was reported ‘lost’” (see 9:34 a.m. September 11, 2001). [US Congress. Senate, 10/25/2001; Farmer, 2009, pp. 248-254] The notice NEADS received at 9:24 a.m., according to the 9/11 Commission Report, was the incorrect claim that Flight 11 “had not hit the World Trade Center and was heading for Washington, DC” (see 9:21 a.m. September 11, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 34] Consequently, Farmer will write, “the scramble of the Langley fighters did occur as an immediate reaction to a notification about hijacking, but that notification was not, as [Eberhart’s] testimony implies, a report that American 77 was hijacked, but the report that American 11 was still airborne and heading for Washington.” And while Eberhart claims the FAA told NEADS that Flight 77 was heading toward Washington, according to Farmer: “The FAA never notified NEADS that American 77 was heading for Washington, DC. There is no such notification recorded on any tape or in any log maintained at NEADS or at NORAD.” Furthermore, while Eberhart claims the military was following Flight 93 on radar before it crashed and was in position to shoot it down if it approached Washington, Farmer will write that “in fact, NEADS never located United 93 on radar, because the plane had already crashed by the time NEADS was notified.” [Farmer, 2009, pp. 251, 254-255]
4:30 p.m., June 9, 2004: Capitol Evacuated as Unidentified Aircraft Nears; Plane Carrying Governor Almost Shot Down
For a few tense minutes, an unidentified plane flying inside Washington’s no-fly zone comes close to being shot down by the military. The plane, a Beechcraft King Air, is carrying Governor Ernie Fletcher (R-KY), who is coming to attend the funeral of former president Ronald Reagan. The plane’s transponder is broken, but the pilot notified the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) of the problem earlier in the flight. However, the FAA failed to inform the military, which was therefore unable to identify the plane. In addition to the lack of transponder identification, the plane is flying deep inside the no-fly zone around the White House. The Capitol is evacuated at around 4:30 p.m., when thousands are awaiting the arrival of President Reagan’s coffin. An F-16 is scrambled to identify the plane but is unable to do so because of cloud cover. NORAD’s commander, General Ralph Eberhart, is asked if the plane should be shot down. Fortunately, the pilot turns toward National Airport at this time, ending the crisis. [Courier-Journal (Louisville, KY), 7/4/2004; USA Today, 7/4/2004; Washington Post, 7/8/2004] A new mobile radar command post, called the Joint-Based Expeditionary Connectivity Center (JBECC), which merges civil and military radar data and which was deployed in the Washington area immediately after 9/11 (see September 12, 2001), is used by the military to identify the plane and avoid a shoot-down. [Associated Press, 11/29/2004]
