At some unknown point after the hijacking begins, Flight 11’s talkback button is activated, which enables Boston flight controllers to hear what is being said in the cockpit. It is unclear whether John Ogonowski, the pilot, activates the talkback button, or whether a hijacker accidentally does so when he takes over the cockpit. A controller later says, “The button [is] being pushed intermittently most of the way to New York.” An article later notes that “his ability to do so also indicates that he [is] in the driver’s seat much of the way” to the WTC. Such transmissions continue until about 8:38 a.m. [Christian Science Monitor, 9/13/2001; MSNBC, 9/15/2001] However, Ogonowski fails to punch a four-digit emergency code into the plane’s transponder, which pilots are taught to do the moment a hijack situation is known (see (8:13 a.m.-9:28 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [Christian Science Monitor, 9/12/2001; CNN, 9/13/2001; Boston Globe, 11/23/2001]
8:15 a.m. September 11, 2001: President Bush Prolongs Briefing about Planned School Visit
Sandy Kress, President Bush’s unpaid education adviser, meets with Bush in his hotel on Longboat Key, Florida, to brief him on their planned 9 a.m. visit to the Emma E. Booker Elementary School in nearby Sarasota. With them are Secretary of Education Rod Paige, Bush’s senior adviser Karl Rove, and White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card. Kress goes over some key points for the talk Bush is due to give to the press after reading with the students at the school. However, Kress will later recall that the “president is a very punctual person,” and “I’ve never known him to be late.” Yet, “we finished the briefing on that fateful day, and we continued to talk for another ten minutes about people and politics in Texas. The time to leave came and passed.” Kress adds, “That struck me as unusual.” [Kessler, 2004, pp. 136-137; Dallas Morning News, 9/10/2006] According to the official schedule, the president is supposed to leave the resort at 8:30 a.m. for the drive to the school. [St. Petersburg Times, 7/4/2004] Yet, according to one account, he will not leave until as late as 8:39 (see (8:35 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [Washington Times, 10/7/2002]
8:15 a.m. September 11, 2001: Flight Controllers Cannot Contact Flight 11
Two Boston flight controllers, Pete Zalewski and Lino Martins, discuss the fact that Flight 11 cannot be contacted. Zalewski says to Martins, “He won’t answer you. He’s nordo [no radio] roger thanks.” [CNN, 9/17/2001; New York Times, 10/16/2001; Guardian, 10/17/2001; MSNBC, 9/11/2002]
8:16 a.m.-8:28 a.m. September 11, 2001: Four Calls Made From Flight 11 by Unknown Individual, Possibly Flight Attendant Sara Low
According to a computer presentation put forward as evidence in the 2006 trial of Zacarias Moussaoui, an unknown person—or persons—makes four calls from Flight 11. These are at 08:16:50, 08:20:11, 08:25:31, and 08:28:33. The calls do not appear to have gone through properly: they are each described as “On button pressed, no call made.” Though the trial exhibit identifies the caller(s) only as “Unknown Caller,” other evidence suggests that at least one of the calls is made by—or on behalf of—Sara Low, who is one of the plane’s flight attendants. Her father, Mike Low, later says he learned from FBI records that his daughter had given her childhood home phone number in Arkansas to another of the flight attendants, Amy Sweeney, for her to report the hijacking. Low speculates that the reason his daughter gave this particular number was that she had just moved home, and so, in the stress of the hijacking, her childhood phone number was the only one she could remember. The Moussaoui trial presentation lists Sweeney as making five calls from the plane. However, it says these are all to the American Airlines office at Boston’s Logan Airport. [US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006; New York Times, 9/4/2007] Sara Low lets Sweeney use her father’s calling card in order to make these five calls from an Airfone (see 8:22 a.m.-8:24 a.m. September 11, 2001). [New York Observer, 6/20/2004]
8:18 a.m. September 11, 2001: Flight 11 Attendant Betty Ong Calls Airline Reservations Office to Report Hijacking
Betty Ong, a flight attendant on Flight 11, calls the American Airlines Southeastern Reservations Office in Cary, North Carolina, to report the emergency on her plane. Ong makes the call using an Airfone. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 5; US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006] Flight attendants know the reservations 800 number that she calls because they often call it to help passengers with reservations questions. Calls made to the number are routed to the first available phone station at one of several facilities, including the office in Cary. [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 9/11/2001, pp. 72-74; 9/11 Commission, 11/19/2003 
; 9/11 Commission, 8/26/2004, pp. 8]
Ong Tells Agent, ‘We’re Being Hijacked’ – The call is answered by Vanessa Minter, a reservation agent. The first thing Ong says is, “I think we’re being hijacked.” [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 9/12/2001, pp. 38-41; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 453] Minter will later reflect: “There was something in her voice that said: ‘Okay, this isn’t funny. This isn’t a joke. This is real.’” [WRAL, 9/9/2011]
Resolution Agent Joins Call – Minter asks Ong to hold for a moment. She then phones the American Airlines international resolution desk, which is on the other side of the building. Winston Sadler, the resolution agent, answers, and Minter tells him she has a woman on the phone who is calling from an American Airlines flight that is being hijacked. Minter says she cannot find the “emergency button” on her phone, and Sadler notices that she seems panicked. He offers to take over the call, and so Minter transfers it to him. The phone system allows Sadler to be connected to Minter’s line while Minter remains on it.
Alarm Sent Out to Notify Supervisor – Realizing the seriousness of the situation, Sadler pushes the emergency button on his phone, which initiates a tape recording of Ong’s call and also sends out an alarm that notifies Nydia Gonzalez, a supervisor at the reservations office, to pick up the call. Gonzalez will join the call from Ong a short time later (see 8:21 a.m. September 11, 2001). Sadler will tell the FBI that as soon as he joins Ong’s call, he is convinced it is a genuine phone call from an airplane, because he is used to hearing the background noise that occurs in calls from airplane telephones, and he can hear such noise during Ong’s call. [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 9/12/2001, pp. 38-41; Federal Bureau of Investigation, 9/12/2001, pp. 42-44; 9/11 Commission, 11/19/2003 ; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 453]
Only First Four Minutes of Call Recorded – Ong’s call will last over 25 minutes, ending at around 8:44 a.m. or 8:45 a.m. (see (8:43 a.m.) September 11, 2001), and in it Ong will relay crucial information about what is happening on her plane. [9/11 Commission, 8/26/2004, pp. 8; US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006] However, only the first four minutes of the call are recorded. This is because the recently installed recording system at the reservations office has a default time limit. The recording system it replaced did not have such a time limit. [9/11 Commission, 11/19/2003 ; 9/11 Commission, 8/26/2004, pp. 8]
8:19 a.m. September 11, 2001: Flight 11 Attendant Betty Ong Describes Emergency on Her Plane
Betty Ong, a flight attendant on Flight 11, begins relaying information about the trouble on her plane to employees at the American Airlines Southeastern Reservations Office in Cary, North Carolina. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 5] Ong has just called the reservations office to report the hijacking of Flight 11, and is on the line with two employees there: Vanessa Minter and Winston Sadler (see 8:18 a.m. September 11, 2001). [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 9/12/2001, pp. 38-41; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 453]
Ong Describes Hijacking but Gives Wrong Flight Number – Ong tells Minter and Sadler: “The cockpit’s not answering, somebody’s stabbed in business class, and I think there’s Mace, that we can’t breathe.… I think we’re getting hijacked.” Sadler asks Ong what flight she is on and Ong replies, incorrectly, “Flight 12.” She says her plane just left Boston and is supposed to go to Los Angeles, and the pilots are not answering the phone in the cockpit. She says she is in the jump seat, 3R, which is at the back of the plane, behind the coach section. [American Airlines, 9/11/2001, pp. 3-6; 9/11 Commission, 8/26/2004, pp. 6, 8] However, Amy Sweeney, another flight attendant who makes a call from Flight 11, is in the next-to-last row of passenger seats in the coach section of the plane, and she will say that Ong is sitting next to her (see (8:32 a.m.-8:44 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [New York Observer, 2/15/2004; New York Observer, 6/20/2004; 9/11 Commission, 8/26/2004, pp. 11]
Ong Says Two Flight Attendants Stabbed – Sadler asks Ong her name and she replies: “My name is Betty Ong. I’m number three [flight attendant] on Flight 11.” She says the number one flight attendant and the number five flight attendant have been stabbed. [American Airlines, 9/11/2001, pp. 3-6] These two attendants are Barbara Arestegui and Karen Martin. [9/11 Commission, 8/26/2004, pp. 6] Ong says, “Nobody knows who stabbed who and we can’t even get up to business class right now, ‘cause nobody can breathe.” She also says: “We can’t get into the cockpit. The door won’t open.” [American Airlines, 9/11/2001, pp. 3-6] Sadler takes notes of the call, using his computer “scratch pad.” [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 9/12/2001, pp. 42-44] He notifies Ong of this, saying, “I’m taking it down, all the information.” He tells Ong, “We’re also, you know, of course, recording this.” [American Airlines, 9/11/2001, pp. 3-6]
Ong Receiving Details of Hijacking from Colleague – During the entire conversation, Sadler will later recall, Ong seems to be talking to someone in the background and receiving information from them. [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 9/12/2001, pp. 42-44] This person is presumably Sara Low, another of the flight attendants, who was assigned to the front of the plane and so would have witnessed the hijacking when it happened. [Associated Press, 3/5/2009; New York Daily News, 3/6/2009; Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 9/11/2011] Ong will keep repeating herself during the call, Minter will recall, such as repeatedly mentioning the stabbings on her plane. [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 9/12/2001, pp. 38-41] Nydia Gonzalez, a supervisor at the reservations office, has been alerted to the call and will soon join it (see 8:21 a.m. September 11, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 11/19/2003 ; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 453]
8:20 a.m. September 11, 2001: American Airlines Flight Notifies Dispatcher of Problem with Contacting Flight 11
Peggy Houck, a flight dispatcher at the American Airlines System Operations Control (SOC) center in Fort Worth, Texas, is contacted by an American Airlines flight and told that air traffic control has asked the aircraft to try to contact Flight 11. Houck is working at the desk for American Airlines’ transcontinental flights and is therefore the dispatcher responsible for Flight 11. [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 9/11/2001, pp. 5-7; 9/11 Commission, 1/8/2004 ; 9/11 Commission, 8/26/2004, pp. 9] Under FAA rules, dispatchers licensed by the agency are responsible for following aircraft in flight. Once a plane is in the air, a dispatcher must monitor its progress, relay safety information to the captain, and handle any problems. American Airlines assigns a dispatcher to each of its flights. [Dallas Morning News, 6/13/2002; Sydney Morning Herald, 6/14/2002; 9/11 Commission, 8/26/2004, pp. 86] Houck will later tell the FBI that the flight that calls her has sent a message to Flight 11 stating something along the lines of, “Good morning, ATC [air traffic control] wants you on [a certain radio frequency] and requests an acknowledgment,” but received no reply. Houck has, until now, had no direct contact with Flight 11 and the communication she receives from this other aircraft is the first indication she has of any problem on Flight 11. [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 9/11/2001, pp. 5-7; 9/11 Commission, 8/26/2004, pp. 9] Details of the aircraft that calls Houck are unclear. Houck will tell the 9/11 Commission, in 2004, that it is a “Seattle-Boston” flight. [9/11 Commission, 1/8/2004 ] However, interviewed by the FBI later today, she will refer to it as “another Boston flight,” suggesting that—like Flight 11—it had taken off from Logan International Airport in Boston. [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 9/11/2001, pp. 5-7] Houck, or another dispatcher at the SOC, will subsequently send an ACARS text message to Flight 11, but receive no response to it (see 8:23 a.m.-8:25 a.m. September 11, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 8/26/2004, pp. 9]
8:20 a.m. September 11, 2001: Flight 11 IFF Signal Transmission Stops
Flight 11 stops transmitting its IFF (identify friend or foe) beacon signal. [CNN, 9/17/2001]
8:20 a.m. September 11, 2001: Flight 11 Veers Off Course
Flight 11 starts to veer dramatically off course. It now heads in a northwesterly direction toward Albany, New York. [MSNBC, 9/11/2002]
8:20 a.m. September 11, 2001: NEADS Commander Marr and CONR Commander Arnold Discuss NORAD Training Exercise
Colonel Robert Marr, the battle commander at NORAD’s Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS), speaks over the phone with Major General Larry Arnold, the commander of the Continental United States NORAD Region (CONR), about the day’s training exercise. Marr is in the battle cab at NEADS, in Rome, New York, while Arnold is at the CONR headquarters at Tyndall Air Force Base, Florida. [9/11 Commission, 1/23/2004 ; 9/11 Commission, 2/2/2004 ] All of NORAD, including NEADS, is currently participating in the major annual exercise, Vigilant Guardian. [Northeast Air Defense Sector, 8/23/2001; Arkin, 2005, pp. 545; Defense Video and Imagery Distribution System, 9/8/2011] Marr has just been in a staff meeting, and now checks in with Arnold to make sure their communication lines are up and ready for the exercise. [Grant, 2004, pp. 19] Marr tells Arnold that the personnel on the NEADS operations floor are ready to begin the exercise. Marr will tell the 9/11 Commission that his “primary communication” on this day “is to higher headquarters,” presumably meaning Arnold. However, the two men are not on a continual open line. [9/11 Commission, 1/23/2004 ] Arnold will tell the Commission that he and Marr “did not stay on the line continually, but spoke when information needed to be passed,” throughout the day. [9/11 Commission, 2/3/2004 ]
