Colonel Mark Tillman, the pilot of Air Force One, the president’s plane, receives no contact from any US government agency, such as the CIA or the FBI, about the first plane crash at the World Trade Center, although numerous agencies call the plane immediately after the second crash. Air Force One is currently at Sarasota-Bradenton International Airport in Florida, where it has been since the previous evening (see September 10, 2001). Tillman boarded the plane at around 8:15 a.m. this morning, and he has been preparing to take off at 10:45 a.m. and take President Bush back to Washington, DC.
Pilot Sees the Coverage of the First Crash but Thinks It Is an Accident – While he is walking around the plane and checking all the rooms, Tillman is called upstairs by the plane’s radio operator. Upstairs, the radio operator shows him the coverage of the first crash at the WTC on television and says: “I don’t know what’s going on; neither does the media. But it doesn’t look like it’s anything important; it looks like it’s an aircraft accident.” Air Force One, according to Tillman, has 42 phone lines that specifically connect to government agencies such as the FBI, the CIA, and the National Security Agency. But, Tillman will later recall: “None of those phones were going off. Everybody thought this was just an aircraft accident.” He will say that the plane’s crew receives “no information from any command and control authority” at this time. Tillman believes that, in light of what has happened, Bush will want to visit New York. Everyone on the plane is therefore told to be ready to go. He tells the radio operator simply to keep monitoring what is happening in New York and then heads downstairs to continue checking the rooms on Air Force One.
All the Phones Start Ringing after the Second Attack – After the second plane hits the WTC at 9:03 a.m. (see 9:03 a.m. September 11, 2001), Tillman is again called upstairs. The radio operator alerts him to the television coverage of what has happened. “We now have an understanding that it’s a deliberate attack on the [Twin] Towers,” Tillman will say. “All the information we had was from the news media at this point,” he will comment. But whereas no government agencies previously called Air Force One, suddenly, Tillman will recall: “All the phone lines are coming alive. Every agency in the world wants to know what our status is [and] if we’re ready to go.” “We were hooked into the PEOC [the Presidential Emergency Operations Center, a bunker below the White House] and the JOC [Joint Operations Center] for the Secret Service,” he will say, adding, “They’re all in the link now.” In response to the second attack, security around Air Force One will be increased (see (9:04 a.m.-9:55 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [United Services Automobile Association, 9/11/2011; US Air Force, 2/29/2012 
; Politico Magazine, 9/9/2016] The plane will take off from the Sarasota airport with Bush on board at 9:54 a.m. (see 9:54 a.m. September 11, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 39]
8:47 a.m.-9:50 a.m. September 11, 2001: Engineer Finds Major Damage in Basement and Lobby of North Tower
Mike Pecoraro, an engineer who is part of the crew that services the World Trade Center complex, is at work in the mechanical shop in the second subbasement of the north WTC tower when it is hit. When the room he is in starts filling with white smoke and he can smell kerosene (jet fuel), he heads upstairs with a co-worker toward a small machine shop on the C level. Yet, he will later recall: “There was nothing there but rubble. We’re talking about a 50 ton hydraulic press—gone!” He then heads for the parking garage, yet finds that “there were no walls, there was rubble on the floor, and you can’t see anything.” He ascends to the B level where he sees a 300-pound steel and concrete fire door, which is lying on the floor, wrinkled up “like a piece of aluminum foil.” Pecoraro recalls seeing similar things at the WTC when it was bombed in 1993 and is therefore convinced that a bomb has gone off this time. When he makes it into the main lobby, he sees massive damage. “The whole lobby was soot and black, elevator doors were missing,” he will describe. “The marble was missing off some of the walls. Twenty-foot section of marble, 20 by 10 foot sections of marble, gone from the walls.… Broken glass everywhere, the revolving doors were all broken and their glass was gone.” Pecoraro will say he only later hears that “jet fuel actually came down the elevator shaft, blew off all the [elevator] doors, and flames rolled through the lobby. That explained all the burnt people and why everything was sooted in the lobby.” He makes it out of the North Tower before it collapses. [Chief Engineer, 8/1/2002]
Shortly After 8:46 a.m. September 11, 2001: Automated Announcement in WTC’s North Tower Instructs Workers Not to Evacuate
An automated announcement is reportedly activated in the North Tower of the World Trade Center, advising workers to stay in their offices rather than evacuate, although a senior official will later dispute the accounts of security officers who describe hearing it. The announcement is heard by workers in the Port Authority’s Security Command Center (SCC) on the 22nd floor of the North Tower.
Automated Announcement Heard by ‘a Lot of People’ – The recorded female voice that makes the announcement usually comes on automatically in situations such as when a sprinkler is loose, telling people to return to their offices, according to Hermina Jones, a security guard in the SCC. Jones will recall that the automated recording now comes on, apparently after being activated by the impact of Flight 11 hitting the North Tower. She will say that “a lot of people listened to that and went back to their offices. When tenants called me on the intercom, I told them to ignore it and take Stairway A.” Jones will add, “You could hear [the recording] in the background, telling them over and over, ‘Please go back in your office.’” Nancy Joyner, a security supervisor, also notices the recorded announcement. “Whenever there is smoke, sometimes the alarm will trigger, and that’s when you heard [the recording],” she will say. She will add, “That day [i.e. September 11], the recording came on.”
Port Authority Official Says There Are ‘No Automated Announcements’ – However, Alan Reiss, the director of the World Trade Department of the Port Authority, will dispute the recollections of Jones and Joyner, and claim that no recording goes off. He will state, “There were no automated announcements used anywhere in the World Trade Center, as such recordings are not permitted by fire codes.” Furthermore, Reiss will state, “no messages of any kind—live or otherwise—could be heard over [the North Tower’s] public address system, which was severed by the impact of the first plane.” [Newsday, 9/10/2002; Newsday, 10/8/2002] The 9/11 Commission Report will indicate, however, that announcements might be heard in a few areas of the North Tower. “Because of damage to building systems caused by the impact of the plane,” the report will state, “public address announcements were not heard in many locations.” Around the time that the automated announcement is reportedly going off in the North Tower, an announcement is made in the South Tower, advising workers to stay in their offices, instead of evacuating (see (8:50 a.m.) September 11, 2001). That announcement, though, is made by a deputy fire safety director, rather than being a recorded message. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 286-288]
After 8:46 a.m. September 11, 2001: Joint Chiefs of Staff’s Crisis Team Activated at the Pentagon
The Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) activates its Crisis Action Team (CAT) at the Pentagon to respond to the terrorist attacks, although the time this occurs at is unclear. [US Congress, 9/13/2001; 9/11 Commission, 7/21/2003 ; US Air Force, 9/9/2003] General Richard Myers, the vice chairman of the JCS, will later tell a congressional hearing that in response to the attacks on the World Trade Center: “We stood up our Crisis Action Team.… And we started talking to the federal agencies.” [US Congress, 9/13/2001] The JCS’s CAT apparently assembles in the National Military Command Center (NMCC), which is located in the JCS area of the Pentagon and is responsible for monitoring worldwide events for the JCS. [9/11 Commission, 7/21/2003 ; GlobalSecurity (.org), 7/24/2011; Effingham Daily News, 9/12/2011] Myers will state that the CAT is activated just after 8:46 a.m., when the first hijacked plane crashed into the WTC (see 8:46 a.m. September 11, 2001). He will say it is activated “[a]t the time of the first impact on the World Trade Center.” “That was done immediately,” he will add. [US Congress, 9/13/2001] However, other accounts will indicate that the CAT is activated after 9:37 a.m., when the Pentagon attack occurs (see 9:37 a.m. September 11, 2001). Lieutenant Colonel Lyndon Willms is an Air Force officer currently assigned to the Pentagon, working as a joint strategic planner for the JCS. After he and his colleagues in the Joint Vision and Transformation Division of the JCS learn from television reports of the second hijacked plane hitting the WTC, at 9:03 a.m. (see 9:03 a.m. September 11, 2001), they “knew a decision would be made to either send us to augment one of the crisis action teams forming in the National Military Command Center across the hall or be evacuated to another site,” Willms will recall. It appears from Willms’s account, however, that the CAT is only activated later on. By around 9:51 a.m., Willms will state, the CAT is forming in the NMCC, but he and his colleagues are “a bit confused because we thought we would be going in to augment” it. Instead, they are evacuated from the Pentagon. [Effingham Daily News, 9/12/2011] Lieutenant Colonel James Foley, the NMCC operations officer, will also indicate that the CAT is only activated after the Pentagon is hit. He will state that “a Joint Staff Crisis Action Team assembled… within the first two hours, while the situation was entirely uncertain and the Pentagon was burning.” [US Air Force, 9/9/2003] And when they visit the NMCC in 2003, members of the 9/11 Commission staff will be told that a CAT “was stood up” in the NMCC “sometime in the afternoon on 9/11.” [9/11 Commission, 7/21/2003 ] It is apparently standard procedure for the JCS to activate its CAT during a terrorist attack. A Department of Defense memorandum sent in March 2001, about how the US military responds to terrorism, will state that in a crisis, the operations directorate of the JCS “establishes a Crisis Action Team (CAT) to prepare and coordinate deployment, and execute orders.” [US Department of Defense, 3/15/2001]
8:47 a.m.-9:02 a.m. September 11, 2001: Security Officials Advise Workers Evacuating WTC’s South Tower to Return Upstairs
Security officials in the South Tower of the World Trade Center instruct people who are evacuating the building to return to their offices. [Observer, 9/16/2001; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 289] After Flight 11 crashed into the North Tower at 8:46 a.m. (see 8:46 a.m. September 11, 2001), many people in the South Tower, who were unclear about what had happened, decided to leave their building. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 287] But on their way down, some of them encounter officials who are telling people to head back upstairs.
Official with Megaphone Says People Can Return to Their Floors – Arturo Domingo, who works for Morgan Stanley on the 60th floor of the South Tower, is among those trying to leave. When he reaches the 44th floor, he finds a man there with a megaphone who is telling people: “Our building is secure. You can go back to your floor. If you’re a little winded, you can get a drink of water or coffee in the cafeteria.” Domingo and some of his colleagues return to their office, but head down again after Flight 175 hits their building at 9:03 a.m. (see 9:03 a.m. September 11, 2001). [New York Times, 9/13/2001]
Workers Told They Are Safest inside Tower – John Howard, also a Morgan Stanley employee, similarly encounters a man with a megaphone—perhaps the same person—as he is evacuating. The man is saying, “Don’t panic!” and telling people they are safer staying in the building than leaving it. But there is then a “huge explosion,” presumably the sound of Flight 175 hitting the tower. At that moment, Howard will later recall, “We all ran over the guy with the bullhorn to get out.” [Newsday, 9/12/2001] And another Morgan Stanley employee makes it to the staircase and has gone down more than 20 floors when she hears a voice on a megaphone instructing people to head back upstairs. [Observer, 9/16/2001]
Workers Sent Back from Ground Floor – On the 78th floor of the tower, people waiting for express elevators to take them down to the lower floors are told by security officials to return to their offices. And a group of 20 workers who have descended to the ground-floor lobby is told by security officials to go back upstairs. Nineteen of them do so, and 18 of these will subsequently die in the tower. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 289, 544] The Observer will comment that the instructions for workers to return to their offices, rather than evacuate, mean that “during the crucial 15 minutes of what should have been escape”—after the attack on the North Tower but before the attack on the South Tower—“there was confusion and a two-way rush along the panic-stricken arteries of life.” [Observer, 9/16/2001]
Security Officials Work for Port Authority – The security officials advising workers to return upstairs are “not part of the fire safety staff,” according to the 9/11 Commission Report. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 289] According to The Observer, they are “officials of the Port Authority.” [Observer, 9/16/2001] Following the attack on the North Tower, an announcement goes out over the public address system in the South Tower that similarly tells workers their building is safe and they should stay in, or return to, their offices, rather than evacuate (see (8:50 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 287-288; Dwyer and Flynn, 2005, pp. 72] That announcement is made on the orders of George Tabeek, the Port Authority’s security manager for the WTC (see Shortly After 8:46 a.m. September 11, 2001). [New Jersey Star-Ledger, 9/6/2011; ABC News, 9/10/2011] It is unclear if the security officials who instruct workers to return upstairs in person are acting on orders from Tabeek, or if someone else has told them what to do.
Shortly After 8:46 a.m. September 11, 2001: Head of the FBI’s New York Office Orders Specialized Teams to Respond to the Crash and Goes toward the WTC
Barry Mawn, director of the FBI’s New York office, sends specialized teams to the World Trade Center site after hearing Flight 11 crashing into the North Tower, even though he initially thinks the crash is an accident. Mawn is in his office on the 28th floor of 26 Federal Plaza in Lower Manhattan and has just heard the explosion when Flight 11 hit the WTC, at 8:46 a.m. (see 8:46 a.m. September 11, 2001). Kathy MacGowan, his secretary, shouted: “The World Trade! The World Trade!” Mawn now goes to her window, from where he can see smoke billowing from the North Tower. MacGowan says a commercial jet has crashed into the building. However, it supposedly does not occur to Mawn that the incident was a terrorist attack. [Kessler, 2002, pp. 1-2; CNN, 2/18/2002; Wright, 2006, pp. 357] “At that point, I thought it was an accident,” he will later recall. [Washington Post, 10/20/2001] Mawn’s colleagues look to the director for guidance. “People were turning to me and asking, ‘What are we going to do next, boss?’” Mawn will recall. Mawn instructs MacGowan to call the FBI evidence response team. Despite thinking the crash is an accident, he adds, “Just in case, call the SWAT [the FBI special weapons and tactics team] and the Joint Terrorism Task Force,” which has exclusive jurisdiction over local terrorism investigations. He tells MacGowan to send the teams to Church and Vesey Streets, and says he will head that way himself. Before he leaves his office, though, he is called by David Kelley, chief of Manhattan US Attorney Mary Jo White’s terrorism unit. [Kessler, 2002, pp. 2; Wright, 2006, pp. 357; Lawrence Eagle-Tribune, 9/10/2016] White has instructed Kelley to go to the WTC site. [New York Metro Super Lawyers, 7/2006] Mawn agrees to meet him and then goes and joins him outside his building. The two men make their way toward the WTC, which is eight blocks away from the FBI office. They stop at the corner of Church and Vesey Streets, at the northeast corner of the WTC site. There, they join Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik and other law enforcement officials. [Washington Post, 10/20/2001; Kessler, 2002, pp. 2] Mawn and Kelley will be at the WTC site when Flight 175 crashes into the South Tower, at 9:03 a.m. (see 9:03 a.m. September 11, 2001), and Mawn will then realize that the US is under attack (see After 9:03 a.m. September 11, 2001). [New York Daily News, 10/1/2001; CNN, 2/18/2002; New York Metro Super Lawyers, 7/2006]
After 8:46 a.m. September 11, 2001: FEMA Director Allbaugh and State Emergency Managers Learn of Attacks and Respond While at Conference in Montana
Emergency managers from around the US, including Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Director Joseph Allbaugh and representatives from the emergency management agencies of 47 states, are away from their home states at the time of the terrorist attacks, attending the annual conference of the National Emergency Management Association (NEMA) at a resort in Big Sky, Montana. The main focuses of the event have included the issues of domestic terrorism and weapons of mass destruction. [New York Times, 9/12/2001; State Government News, 10/2001 ] The conference began on September 8, and was originally planned to continue until September 12 (see September 8-11, 2001). [Natural Hazards Observer, 3/2001; National Emergency Management Association, 8/15/2001]
Emergency Managers Learn of Attacks – At 9:00 a.m., conference attendees are scheduled to participate in a series of sessions on domestic preparedness, which has been a key topic for NEMA over the past three years. [National Emergency Management Association, 8/15/2001; State Government News, 10/2001 ] According to the New York Times, “One of the day’s main seminar topics was how to prepare for terrorist attacks.” [New York Times, 9/12/2001] However, numerous pagers go off as officials are notified of the events in New York. By the time officials gather around the television in the resort’s bar to see what is happening, the second plane has hit the World Trade Center (see 9:03 a.m. September 11, 2001) and the nature of the emergency is obvious. [Stateline (.org), 9/10/2002]
Emergency Managers Respond to Attacks – After the emergency managers at the conference see the coverage of the attacks on television, they “automatically organized themselves into particular groups to focus on transportation issues or to capture information,” Trina Hembree, the executive director of NEMA, will later recall. [Stateline (.org), 10/11/2001] The emergency managers, along with federal personnel and private-sector members, go about coordinating their jurisdictions’ responses to the attacks from the resort. Hotel employees add phone lines and equipment so as to enable communication and the tracking of events. A 24-hour emergency operations center is set up, and teams are organized to address specific areas, such as transportation and medical needs. The emergency managers monitor events and stay in contact with their agencies by phone, and also attend briefings at the resort, where they are updated on the national situation. [State Government News, 10/2001 ]
State of Emergency Declared in Montana – Partly due to concerns over the safety of the emergency management officials at the conference, Montana Governor Judy Martz declares a state of emergency. [Stateline (.org), 9/13/2001] Furthermore, roads to the Big Sky resort are closed, and security for the resort is provided by the local sheriff’s department and volunteer fire department, the Montana Highway Patrol, the Montana National Guard, and the FBI.
Arrangements Made to Fly Key Officials Home – The conference’s organizers arrange for military aircraft to fly state emergency management leaders back to their capitals. [New York Times, 9/12/2001; State Government News, 10/2001 ] Allbaugh and officials from several states that are directly involved in the attacks are flown home throughout the day (see (After 11:00 a.m.) September 11, 2001, (After 11:00 a.m.) September 11, 2001, and (After 4:30 p.m.) September 11, 2001), but others at the conference have to drive long distances back to their states.
Emergency Managers ‘Not Where They Wanted to Be’ – As one news report will later describe, when the attacks occur, “emergency managers were not where they wanted to be.” FEMA spokesman Mark Wolfson will note the inconvenient timing of the attacks, saying that FEMA officials do not know whether they were timed to catch emergency officials off guard. “That would be speculation,” he says. “But it is something that law enforcement investigators might be looking at.” [Stateline (.org), 9/13/2001; State Government News, 10/2001 ] NEMA is the professional association of state emergency management directors. [Natural Hazards Observer, 3/2001] Hundreds of state emergency management officials, including almost all of the US’s state emergency management directors, and most of the senior FEMA staff are in Montana for its annual conference. [Stateline (.org), 9/13/2001; State Government News, 10/2001 ]
After 8:46 a.m. September 11, 2001: Traders at the Investment Bank Goldman Sachs Are Told to Keep Working, Allegedly so as to Profit from the Attacks
Gary Cohn, head of commodities at the investment bank Goldman Sachs, instructs employees at the bank’s offices in Lower Manhattan to continue trading after the planes crash into the World Trade Center, so the company can make money out of what is happening. This is according to Nomi Prins, a managing director at the bank who is working in the Lower Manhattan offices this morning. [HuffPost, 9/3/2012; Mic, 1/27/2017] Just after the first hijacked aircraft crashed into the WTC, at 8:46 a.m. (see 8:46 a.m. September 11, 2001), Prins is on the fourth-floor trading floor, which is the commodities trading floor. [Jerome Fritel and Marc Roche, 9/4/2012] She and her colleagues have little idea what has happened, but they follow the coverage of events on the television screens dotted around the trading floor. [Drum Major Institute for Public Policy, 9/11/2006; Progressive, 5/5/2014] “We just knew that there was an airplane that had hit the building,” she will later recall. “It wasn’t like we necessarily knew at that particular moment about it being a terrorist attack or not, but that was the initial instinct,” she will say.
Traders on the Oil Desk Continue Working during the Attacks – However, Cohn, who is in charge of the commodities trading floor, apparently makes no effort to find out more about what is happening, nor does he tell employees to evacuate the building, even though it is located just a few blocks away from the WTC. Instead, he instructs his traders to keep working. This, according to Prins, is “because his gut instinct was there could be money made out of whatever was going on, because it had to do with planes; so, if it had to do with planes, it had to do with oil; if it had to do with oil, [Goldman Sachs] could make money.” [Jerome Fritel and Marc Roche, 9/4/2012; Mic, 1/27/2017] Some employees find it “really off-putting” that the traders on the oil desk are “making market” at such a perilous time, “because people were trying to figure out what was going on,” Prins will comment. “It was just really strange,” she will add. [Progressive, 5/5/2014]
Commodities Head Is Trying to ‘Take Advantage of That Volatility’ – Reflecting on what happened in 2017, Prins will say she doesn’t think Cohn was “trying to put anybody in danger” by telling them to keep trading at a time of such uncertainty. Instead, she thinks that “while there was a sort of questioning as to what was going on and [a] combination of, at that point, both panic and uncertainty, what he wanted to have continue was for Goldman and the traders [to] take advantage of that volatility or that chaos in the trading of oil, which would be the commodity most related to airplanes.” Prins will leave Goldman Sachs a few months after 9/11 and become a journalist. She will write extensively and critically about the bank she previously worked for. [Drum Major Institute for Public Policy, 9/11/2006; PBS, 3/19/2012; Mic, 1/27/2017]
After 8:46 a.m. September 11, 2001: FEMA Official Baughman Takes Charge at FEMA Headquarters while the Agency’s Director Is Away
Bruce Baughman, director of the planning and readiness division of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), takes charge at FEMA headquarters in Washington, DC, because more senior FEMA officials, including the agency’s director, are away from the capital. FEMA Director Joseph Allbaugh and Lacy Suiter, FEMA’s assistant director of readiness, response, and recovery, are in Big Sky, Montana, attending the annual conference of the National Emergency Management Association (see September 8-11, 2001 and After 8:46 a.m. September 11, 2001). Baughman, who led FEMA’s response to the Oklahoma City bombing in April 1995 (see 8:35 a.m. – 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995), therefore has to take charge of FEMA’s response to today’s terrorist attacks. In this capacity, he is responsible for activating FEMA’s emergency operations center, dispatching disaster medical personnel to the scenes of the attacks, and establishing emergency communications for New York. After the Twin Towers come down (see 9:59 a.m. September 11, 2001 and 10:28 a.m. September 11, 2001), he calls up the first FEMA urban search and rescue teams, which specialize in rescuing people from collapsed structures. [Block and Cooper, 2006, pp. 73-75] He will subsequently personally brief President Bush on three days while response operations are underway. [9/11 Commission, 11/17/2003 ]
FEMA Will Help Local Agencies Respond to the Attacks – In May, Bush put FEMA in charge of responding to terrorist attacks in the United States (see May 8, 2001). [White House, 5/8/2001; Los Angeles Times, 5/9/2001] The agency therefore plays a key role in the government’s response to today’s attacks. The emergency response team at its headquarters is activated today, along with all 10 of its regional operations centers. It also activates its federal response plan, which, it states, “brings together 28 federal agencies and the American Red Cross to assist local and state governments in response to national emergencies and disasters.” It deploys eight urban search and rescue teams to New York to search for victims in the debris from the collapsed World Trade Center buildings, and four urban search and rescue teams to the Pentagon to assist the response there. These teams consist mainly of local emergency services personnel, and are trained and equipped to handle structural collapses. [Federal Emergency Management Agency, 9/11/2001; Federal Emergency Management Agency, 9/11/2001; US National Response Team, 2014, pp. 2 ] In the days and weeks following the attacks, it will work with state and city officials to carry out the task of removing the debris from the WTC site. [Block and Cooper, 2006, pp. 75]
Shortly After 8:46 a.m. September 11, 2001: WTC Security Manager Orders Announcement Advising Workers Not to Evacuate the South Tower
George Tabeek, a security manager with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, decides to have an announcement made in the South Tower of the World Trade Center, instructing workers to stay in, or return to, their offices, instead of evacuating. [New Jersey Star-Ledger, 9/6/2011; ABC News, 9/10/2011] After Flight 11 hits the North Tower at 8:46 a.m. (see 8:46 a.m. September 11, 2001), many people in the South Tower, who are unclear about what has happened, decide to leave their building. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 287]
Security Manager Passes on Decision to Fire Command Desk – However, around the same time, Tabeek, the Port Authority’s security manager for the WTC, decides not to evacuate the South Tower and to issue instructions advising workers to go back to their offices. [ABC News, 9/10/2011] Tabeek will later recall that he contacts his “fire safety command” and tells the person he talks with “to evacuate the North Tower, but keep people inside the South Tower.” [New Jersey Star-Ledger, 9/6/2011] Presumably Tabeek means that he contacts the fire command desk in the lobby of the South Tower, which is currently manned by Philip Hayes, a deputy fire safety director. A button at the desk allows fire safety directors to deliver announcements over the tower’s public address system. [Dwyer and Flynn, 2005, pp. 26]
Security Manager’s Instruction Leads to Announcement – Shortly after Tabeek gives his instruction to the fire command desk, an announcement, later believed to have been made by Hayes, will go out over the public address system, telling workers in the South Tower that their building is safe and advising them to stay in, or return to, their offices (see (8:50 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 287-288; Dwyer and Flynn, 2005, pp. 72] That announcement “may have led to the deaths of hundreds of people,” USA Today will suggest. [USA Today, 9/2/2002] Some security officials in the South Tower will instruct workers, in person, to return upstairs, rather than evacuate (see (8:47 a.m.-9:02 a.m.) September 11, 2001). It is unclear if those officials are, like Hayes, acting on instructions issued by Tabeek. [Observer, 9/16/2001; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 289]
Instruction Is Inconsistent with Protocol – Tabeek’s instruction reportedly goes against protocol. The 9/11 Commission Report will state: “When a notable event occurred [at the WTC], it was standard procedure for the on-duty deputy fire safety director to make an ‘advisory’ announcement to tenants who were affected by or might be aware of the incident, in order to acknowledge the incident and to direct tenants to stand by for further instructions. The purpose of advisory announcements, as opposed to ‘emergency’ announcements (such as to evacuate), was to reduce panic.” Therefore, according to the 9/11 Commission Report, “A statement from the deputy fire safety director informing tenants that the incident had occurred in the other building” would be “consistent with protocol.” However, “the expanded advice” that Tabeek asks to be given—for workers to stay in, or return to, their offices—“did not correspond to any existing written protocol.” [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 288, 544]
Security Manager Thinks Evacuation Would Put Workers in Danger – Tabeek will explain why he decided to instruct workers to stay in the South Tower, telling ABC News he was “worried about the debris raining down from the crippled North Tower onto the plaza below,” and he was therefore “afraid that if he evacuated people who he thought were safe in the South Tower… they’d be in grave danger from the falling debris.” He will tell the New Jersey Star-Ledger, “If these people’s lives in [the South Tower] are not in danger, if I put them outside, their life is in danger.” Tabeek will also explain his decision by saying, “We never took into consideration a dual attack.” In response to criticism of his decision, he will say, “I can’t go back on the orders I gave, because at the time it was the right thing to do.” [New Jersey Star-Ledger, 9/6/2011; ABC News, 9/10/2011]
