Shortly After 9:45 a.m. September 11, 2001: Langley Pilots Start Receiving Confused Radio Communications

The three pilots launched from Langley Air Force Base in Virginia start receiving confusing communications over their radios. Apparently, shortly after one of them first sees the Pentagon on fire (see (9:45 a.m.) September 11, 2001), the pilots’ radio frequencies become cluttered with orders and chatter. One of them will later describe: “It was like getting 10 hours of conversation in about 10 minutes. No one knew what was going on.” [New York Times, 11/15/2001] Journalist and author Jere Longman will refer to the pilots receiving a “jumble of radio communications.” [Longman, 2002, pp. 76] According to one of the pilots, Craig Borgstrom, he and the two others are on different frequencies but share a common intra-flight channel, and are “hearing a lot of chatter but nothing about airliners crashing into buildings.” He will later recall: “There was some confusion for us, this was very abnormal. We were all three on different frequencies… and were getting orders from a lot of different people.” [Filson, 2003, pp. 66]