Shortly After 9:35 a.m. September 11, 2001: Senior Secret Service Agent Tells Colleague about Suspicious Plane Approaching Washington

Danny Spriggs, the assistant director of the Secret Service’s Office of Protective Operations, informs Carl Truscott, the Secret Service special agent in charge of the presidential protective division, that a suspicious aircraft is flying toward the White House. Spriggs is currently in the Director’s Crisis Center (DCC) on the ninth floor of the Secret Service headquarters in Washington, DC (see (9:35 a.m.) September 11, 2001). Truscott is at his office in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, next to the White House, meeting with three other senior Secret Service agents to discuss security enhancements at the White House (see (9:18 a.m.) September 11, 2001).
Deputy Director Tells Colleague about Approaching Aircraft – Spriggs phoned Truscott after learning that a Secret Service agent he was inquiring about is in Truscott’s office. Now, while he is talking to Truscott, Spriggs is told by Larry Cockell, the deputy director of the Secret Service, who is with him in the DCC, that an aircraft is flying toward the White House and the Secret Service is evacuating the White House. Spriggs passes this information on to Truscott. According to Truscott, Spriggs says that “the intelligence division duty desk [is] reporting Federal Aviation Administration information that a suspicious aircraft [is] coming toward Washington, DC, and that the White House [is] being evacuated.” [United States Secret Service, 10/1/2001; United States Secret Service, 10/1/2001] (Personnel from the intelligence division at Secret Service headquarters are participating in a phone conference with Federal Aviation Administration headquarters, according to the 9/11 Commission Report. Presumably this is where the intelligence division duty desk received its information from. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 464] )
Agent Says He Will Evacuate the White House – Truscott tells Spriggs he had been unaware of the approaching aircraft, and says he will initiate the evacuations of the White House and the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. Truscott will later recall that while Spriggs is telling him about the approaching aircraft, a Secret Service agent who is with him in his office is receiving “similar FAA information via telephone” from another agent. The name of that agent is unstated. The exact time at which Spriggs tells Truscott about the aircraft flying toward the White House is unclear. Truscott will say that Spriggs called him at 9:43 a.m. However, Spriggs will say he arrived at the DCC at “approximately 9:35 a.m.,” and he apparently called Truscott shortly after that. [United States Secret Service, 10/1/2001; United States Secret Service, 10/1/2001]