When Lieutenant General Thomas Keck, the commander of the 8th Air Force at Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana, is told that a plane has crashed into the World Trade Center, he mistakenly thinks this is a simulated scenario as part of a training exercise. [2d Bomb Wing, 6/30/2002, pp. 40 
; American History, 10/2006 ] Barksdale is one of a number of Air Force bases where aircraft and personnel are currently participating in the exercise Global Guardian (see 8:48 a.m. September 11, 2001). [Times-Picayune, 9/8/2002] This annual exercise is run by the US Strategic Command (Stratcom) and aims to test the command’s ability to fight a nuclear war (see 8:30 a.m. September 11, 2001). [Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 11/1/1997; Omaha World-Herald, 2/27/2002; Omaha World-Herald, 9/8/2002; GlobalSecurity (.org), 4/27/2005]
Keck Thinks Crash Is a ‘Scenario Injection’ – Keck is sitting in a windowless command center at Barksdale, monitoring the base’s participation in Global Guardian. Ground crews are practicing getting a fleet of B-52 bombers fueled, armed, and ready to get airborne for bombing runs. Keck watches on a monitor as, at exactly 9:00 a.m., an alarm sounds across the base and the crews rush to their planes. Then a younger officer taps him on the shoulder and tells him, “Sir, we just had an aircraft hit the World Trade Center.” Keck mistakenly thinks the officer is describing a simulated crisis that is being included in the exercise. He says: “That’s not the way you interject a situation into a training exercise! When you have a scenario injection, you say, ‘Sir, this is an exercise input,’ and then you give me the information.” But the younger officer replies, “No, sir,” and points at a television showing CNN, which is broadcasting live coverage of the burning WTC in New York.
Keck Thinks First Crash Is an Accident – Keck’s initial thought upon seeing the TV coverage is reportedly, “How could such a terrible accident happen?” It is only when Keck sees the second plane hitting the WTC at 9:03 a.m. that he will realize the US is under attack. He then yells to his staff, “Lock it down,” thereby signaling that the exercise is over. [American History, 10/2006 ] (However, according to an article in The Bombardier, the newspaper for Barksdale Air Force Base, Stratcom will put Global Guardian on pause at 9:11 a.m. (see 9:11 a.m. September 11, 2001), but only terminate the exercise at 10:44 a.m. (see (10:44 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [Bombardier, 9/8/2006 ] ) After seeing the second crash, Keck will leave the command center from where he has been monitoring the exercise and go to the 8th Air Force battle staff, to be briefed on reports coming from Air Force headquarters about the ongoing terrorist attacks. He will later on accompany President Bush while he is at Barksdale, after landing there on Air Force One at about 11:45 a.m. (see 11:45 a.m. September 11, 2001). [American History, 10/2006 ]
9:00 a.m.-9:15 a.m. September 11, 2001: Boston Airport Director Requests Flight Manifests
As he learns of the two plane crashes in New York, a director at Boston’s Logan Airport—from where the two crashed aircraft took off—contacts the airlines to request the passenger manifests for these flights. At around 9:00 a.m., Ed Freni, who is Logan’s director of aviation operations, has just been informed that a plane—believed to be from his airport—has hit the World Trade Center, and another plane from the airport is missing (see (8:50 a.m.-9:00 a.m.) September 11, 2001). He calls the American Airlines station in Logan’s Terminal B. A friend of his there tells him they are concerned about American Airlines Flight 11. The friend says Amy Sweeney, one of its flight attendants, called from the air (see 8:22 a.m.-8:24 a.m. September 11, 2001), said they were flying low over Manhattan, and then her line went dead (see (8:44 a.m.) September 11, 2001). Freni asks to be faxed a copy of the manifest for Flight 11. The manifest holds the names of passengers on an aircraft by seat number. If there is an accident, it allows officials to begin contacting next of kin. At 9:05, he arrives at the Massachusetts Port Authority (Massport) aviation office on the 18th floor of the FAA control tower at Logan, where he has arranged to meet John Duval, the airport’s deputy director of operations. Freni sees on television the footage of the South Tower being hit just two minutes earlier. He calls his contacts at various airlines at Logan and learns that United Airlines is concerned about its Flight 175. He asks United to fax him the manifest for this plane. According to author Tom Murphy, Freni will receive the manifests for Flight 11 and Flight 175 at 9:30 a.m. (see 9:30 a.m. September 11, 2001). Meanwhile, Duval is talking with FAA officials further up in the control tower. They tell him: “United 175 came from here. We lost contact at 8:43.” [Murphy, 2006, pp. 33-35]
9:00 a.m. September 11, 2001: Pentagon Command Center Learns of Flight 11 Hijacking, but FAA Says It Does Not Need Assistance
An officer in the National Military Command Center (NMCC) at the Pentagon learns, during a phone call to the FAA, of the hijacking of Flight 11, but the FAA tells him it does not need any help dealing with this, as everything seems to be under control. [9/11 Commission, 4/29/2004 ; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 35]
NMCC Officer Calls FAA for Information – After those in the NMCC learned from television that an aircraft had crashed into the World Trade Center (see (8:48 a.m.) September 11, 2001), Lieutenant Colonel Ryan Gonsalves, the senior operations officer there, began gathering up as much information as he could on the crisis. One of the phone calls he makes is to the FAA operations center at the agency’s Washington, DC, headquarters. The employee at the operations center who answers the call tells Gonsalves that the FAA has had a report of a hijacking on a plane that departed Boston. [9/11 Commission, 4/29/2004 ; 9/11 Commission, 5/5/2004]
FAA Says It Does Not Need Help – The FAA employee apparently does not connect the plane crashing into the WTC with the hijacked Flight 11, which they claim is still airborne and heading for New York’s JFK International Airport. The entry in the senior operations officer’s log about the call will state: “9:00 NMCC called FAA, briefed of explosion at WTC possibly from aircraft crash. Also, hijacking of American Flight 11 from Boston to LA, now en route to Kennedy.” [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 462] Furthermore, when Gonsalves asks if the FAA needs any assistance dealing with the hijacking, the operations center employee replies, “No,” and says the pilot “had called in and said everything was under control, and he was going to land at New York shortly.” [9/11 Commission, 4/29/2004 ; 9/11 Commission, 5/5/2004] The possibility of scrambling fighter jets is not discussed during the phone call. Even though military instructions state that the NMCC is to be “notified by the most expeditious means by the FAA” in response to aircraft hijackings in US airspace (see June 1, 2001), this call, according to the 9/11 Commission Report, appears to be the first time the FAA informs the NMCC of the hijacking of Flight 11. [US Department of Defense, 6/1/2001 ; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 35]
9:00 a.m. September 11, 2001: Flight 175 Passenger Peter Hanson Predicts Crash into Building
Flight 175 passenger Peter Hanson calls his parents a second time, and says to his father, “It’s getting bad, Dad—A stewardess was stabbed—They seem to have knives and Mace—They said they have a bomb—It’s getting very bad on the plane—Passengers are throwing up and getting sick—The plane is making jerky movements—I don’t think the pilot is flying the plane—I think we are going down—I think they intend to go to Chicago or someplace and fly into a building—don’t worry, Dad—If it happens, it’ll be very fast—My God, my God.” [San Francisco Chronicle, 7/23/2004]
9:00 a.m. September 11, 2001: Tanker Plane from Maine Flying South along East Coast for Training Mission
A KC-135 tanker plane from Bangor, Maine, is flying south for a training mission at the time the terrorist attacks begin. The aircraft, which has the call sign “Maine 92,” is one of the eight KC-135s that are attached to the 101st Air Refueling Wing, based at Bangor International Airport. It is “heading south and was off the coast of North Carolina on the morning of 9/11,” the Bangor Daily News will later report. Details of the training mission it is involved with are unknown. The KC-135 will have already turned toward home and be heading north back to Bangor when the FAA “began shutting down all of the country’s airports and ordering planes to land,” according to the Bangor Daily News. [North American Aerospace Defense Command, 9/11/2001; Portland Press Herald, 9/13/2001; Bangor Daily News, 9/9/2011] (This is presumably a reference to the FAA’s 9:45 a.m. order that all airborne aircraft must land at the nearest airport (see (9:45 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [US Congress. House. Committee On Transportation And Infrastructure, 9/21/2001; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 29] ) The KC-135’s crew members will contact NORAD’s Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS) and offer their assistance. The aircraft, which is carrying about 22,000 gallons of fuel, will then be sent to New Jersey to refuel a KC-10 tanker plane that is providing fuel to fighter jets patrolling the Eastern Seaboard. Another of the 101st Air Refueling Wing’s KC-135s, with the call sign “Maine 85,” is also airborne at the time of the terrorist attacks, on its way to a training mission off the coast of Long Island, New York (see 9:04 a.m.-9:06 a.m. September 11, 2001). [Bangor Daily News, 9/9/2011]
9:00 a.m. September 11, 2001: United Airlines Learns Flight 175 Is Missing from Radar
The FAA’s New York Center informs the air traffic control coordinator at United Airlines’ headquarters, outside Chicago, that Flight 175 is missing from radar. Although Flight 175’s transponder signal changed at around 8:47 (see 8:46 a.m.-8:47 a.m. September 11, 2001), according to the 9/11 Commission the air traffic controller handling the flight only noticed the change at 8:51 (see 8:51 a.m.-8:53 a.m. September 11, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 8/26/2004, pp. 21-22]
9:00 a.m.-9:20 a.m. September 11, 2001: Top Air Force Officials Learn of Plane Crashes and Realize US Is under Attack, yet Continue Routine Meeting
General John Jumper, the Air Force chief of staff, and many other senior Air Force officials learn about the attacks on the World Trade Center during a regular staff meeting, but, instead of responding to them, initially continue their meeting. [Goldberg et al., 2007, pp. 136; 9News, 8/30/2011] Jumper only became Air Force chief of staff five days ago, on September 6, and this is his first official duty day. [Air Force Magazine, 10/2001; Air Force Space Command News Service, 9/5/2002] The meeting, which he is chairing, is taking place in the Air Force Council conference room on the mezzanine level of the Pentagon basement. [Goldberg et al., 2007, pp. 136]
Dozens of Senior Officers Are Attending Meeting – Jumper’s meeting is attended by around 40 experienced Air Force officers. [9News, 8/30/2011] These include Lieutenant General Lance Lord, assistant vice chief of staff of the Air Force; Lee-Volker Cox, executive officer to the assistant vice chief of staff of the Air Force; Brigadier General Paul Kimmel, chief operating officer of the Air National Guard; Colonel Jack Egginton, executive officer to the Air Force chief of staff; Tim Green, assistant executive to the Air Force chief of staff; Lieutenant Colonel Pierre Powell, deputy chief of the secretary of the Air Force’s action group; and Lieutenant General Paul Carlton Jr., surgeon general of the Air Force. [Murphy, 2002, pp. 216; Midland Reporter-Telegram, 4/2/2002; Air Force Space Command News Service, 9/5/2002; Air Force Print News, 9/11/2003; Daytona Beach News-Journal, 9/7/2004 ; KSBY 6, 9/10/2011; Airman, 9/15/2011] It is “the meeting that had all the Air Force senior staff who are in the Pentagon,” Cox will later comment. [KEYT NewsChannel 3, 9/11/2012]
Briefing Is about Terrorism – The regular meeting, referred to as the “Ready Brief,” is where the highest levels of the military are updated on worldwide issues. [9News, 8/30/2011] Today’s meeting, as is always the case on the second Tuesday of the month, is about “black world activities”—subjects that are not normally in the news. “Ironically,” the Daytona Beach News-Journal will report, “this day’s briefing is on anti- and counterterrorism.” On the presentation screen, according to the News-Journal, “faces of terrorists from around the world are being shown and terrorist incidents described.” [Daytona Beach News-Journal, 9/7/2004 ]
Screen Shows TV Coverage of First Attack – About halfway through the meeting, at around 9:00 a.m., Powell suddenly stops the briefing and announces that an airplane has hit one of the WTC towers. He turns on the television news coverage of the incident and the large screen in the conference room shows the burning North Tower. [Goldberg et al., 2007, pp. 136; 9News, 8/30/2011; Airman, 9/15/2011] “I briefed the boss [i.e. Jumper] that something was up in New York and we piped the news feed into the conference room,” Egginton will recall. [Air Force Print News, 9/11/2003] “At first we thought it was part of the briefing,” Kimmel will comment, adding, “The briefers stopped talking and there was silence in the room.” [Daytona Beach News-Journal, 9/7/2004 ] According to Jumper, those in the meeting are immediately suspicious about the cause of the crash. “The news commentator was talking about how the airplane had hit the building and it looked like somebody had been off course going into La Guardia [Airport],” he will recall. “Of course, there was a conference table full of airmen who looked at that dark blue sky on CNN, then looked at each other, and we knew right away that it wasn’t a navigation mistake. It was something much more profound than that.” [Airman, 9/15/2011]
Meeting Attendees See Live Coverage of Second Crash – Soon after they start watching the TV news coverage, those in the meeting see the second hijacked plane, Flight 175, crashing into the South Tower at 9:03 a.m. (see 9:03 a.m. September 11, 2001). [Daytona Beach News-Journal, 9/7/2004 ] “[W]e started watching a live feed and probably within 30 seconds, the second tower got hit,” Green will recall. [Midland Reporter-Telegram, 4/2/2002] According to Cox, “[T]he room just became totally silent.” [KEYT NewsChannel 3, 9/11/2012] Everyone there is now “quite certain what was going on,” Jumper will say. [Airman, 9/15/2011] According to Green, they all quickly respond after seeing Flight 175 crashing. “Everyone in the room knew instantly that we were at war,” he will say. “It’s amazing to watch people in that situation; they immediately shift gears from whatever they were doing to do what needed to be done.” [Midland Reporter-Telegram, 4/2/2002] Lord will say that after seeing the second crash, those in the conference room “all sat there in stunned disbelief for a few seconds, then we quickly went back to our offices.” [Air Force Space Command News Service, 9/5/2002]
Attendees Watch Coverage for Eight Minutes Then Resume Meeting – But according to the Defense Department’s book about the Pentagon attack, those in the conference room watch the TV news coverage for about eight minutes and then Jumper resumes the meeting. He concludes it “quickly.” [Goldberg et al., 2007, pp. 136] He announces: “Well, ladies and gentlemen, I think the meeting is adjourned. We have some work to do.” According to the News-Journal, the meeting is adjourned at 9:20 a.m., 17 minutes after those attending it witnessed the second crash at the WTC. [Daytona Beach News-Journal, 9/7/2004 ]
Attendees Return to Their Offices – Those who are in the meeting will then head upstairs to their offices. [Airman, 9/15/2011] Lord will recall that on the way, they hear there is another suspicious plane heading toward Washington, DC. [Air Force Space Command News Service, 9/5/2002] Jumper, accompanied by Egginton, will head to the office of Secretary of the Air Force James Roche and subsequently go with Roche to the Air Force Operations Center in the basement of the Pentagon (see Shortly After 9:37 a.m. September 11, 2001). [Air Force Print News, 9/11/2003; Airman, 9/15/2011]
9:00 a.m. September 11, 2001: President Bush Informs School Principal of WTC Crash, Says Scheduled Event Will Go Ahead
President Bush informs the principal of the Florida school he is visiting about the plane crash at the World Trade Center, but says he is still going ahead with his planned event, listening to a children’s reading drill at the school. [Associated Press, 8/25/2002; Sarasota Herald-Tribune, 9/10/2002] Bush recently arrived at the Emma E. Booker Elementary School in Sarasota (see (8:55 a.m.) September 11, 2001) and has just talked over the phone with National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice about the crash, but he thinks it was an accident (see (Shortly Before 9:00 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [BBC Radio 4, 8/1/2002 ; Bush, 2010, pp. 126-127] The school’s principal, Gwendolyn Tosé-Rigell, is now summoned to the room where Bush received the call, to talk to the president. Tosé-Rigell will later recall that Bush “said a commercial plane has hit the World Trade Center, and we’re going to go ahead and go on, we’re going on to do the reading thing anyway.” She will comment, “At that point my summation was they wanted him to know about this because it was important, but it couldn’t be anything huge.” Bush then heads into the classroom of Sandra Kay Daniels, to listen to the reading drill (see 9:02 a.m. September 11, 2001). [Associated Press, 8/25/2002; Sarasota Herald-Tribune, 9/10/2002]
9:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m. September 11, 2001: United Airlines Receives False Reports of Threats
United Airlines receives numerous reports about threats and other emergencies, which turn out to be incorrect. Andrew Studdert, United Airlines’ chief operating officer, who spends much of the morning at the airline’s System Operations Control (SOC) center, near Chicago, will later describe some of these false threats. He will say that throughout the morning “there is a torrent of reported bomb threats” received by the airline. Additionally, he will say, there are “reports of other threats and other hijackings.” [9/11 Commission, 11/20/2003 ; 9/11 Commission, 1/27/2004]
Caller Claims His Wife’s Plane Has Been Hijacked – A specific incident he will describe involves a man who claims to be the husband of a flight attendant on a United Airlines aircraft calling the airline and saying his wife’s plane has been hijacked. The man says, “My wife just called me, she’s a flight attendant,” and provides the number of her flight. He says her plane is a Boeing 767 coming in from Europe and the crew has been killed. After making inquiries, the airline determines that the report is inaccurate. The caller “was a crank,” Studdert will comment. [9/11 Commission, 11/20/2003 ; Center for Values-Driven Leadership, 4/23/2012]
Explosions Are Reported at Two Airports – Rich Miles, the SOC manager, starts receiving reports over the phone of incidents that have not actually occurred after Flight 175 crashes into the World Trade Center, at 9:03 a.m. (see 9:03 a.m. September 11, 2001). These alleged incidents include explosions at Reagan National Airport in Washington, DC, and La Guardia Airport in New York, and a Boeing 757 supposedly crashing in Crystal City, Virginia. [9/11 Commission, 11/21/2003 ]
Flight Attendant Remains Quiet after Calling the Airline – Rono Dutta, the president of United Airlines, who is at the company’s headquarters this morning, will describe two particular incidents. One of them involves a flight attendant on the airline’s San Francisco to Paris flight phoning ground control but then remaining quiet when the call is answered. This causes Dutta and his colleagues to incorrectly assume her flight has been hijacked. The other incident involves a United Airlines flight landing in Kansas but then taking off again, even though all airborne aircraft have been ordered to land at the nearest airport (see (9:45 a.m.) September 11, 2001). “We thought the terrorists had control over it,” Dutta will comment. [Business Standard, 6/14/2013]
Some Incidents May Be ‘Intentional Hoaxes’ – United Airlines continues looking into the rumors of incidents it receives to determine if they are correct until all of its planes are on the ground. [9/11 Commission, 11/20/2003 ] Miles will recall that while much of the information that is reported to him turns out to be false, “he kept taking the calls, assuming the reports may have been true.” [9/11 Commission, 11/21/2003 ] Studdert will say he believes some of the false reports are “intentional hoaxes.” [9/11 Commission, 11/20/2003 ] All the same, he will say, “the presumed threats cannot be dismissed in the high uncertainty of the moment.” [9/11 Commission, 1/27/2004] Two of the flights hijacked in today’s terrorist attacks—Flight 175 and Flight 93—are United Airlines aircraft. [CNN, 9/12/2001] In addition to this and to receiving the numerous false reports, United Airlines temporarily loses communication with several of its planes this morning (see (10:00 a.m.) September 11, 2001); numerous other United Airlines aircraft are temporarily reported as missing (see 10:47 a.m.-11:40 a.m. September 11, 2001 and 10:55 a.m.-11:15 a.m. September 11, 2001); and one United Airlines plane reportedly transmits a distress signal while flying over the Atlantic Ocean (see 11:18 a.m.-12:27 p.m. September 11, 2001). [Federal Aviation Administration, 9/11/2001; Federal Aviation Administration, 9/11/2001; Federal Aviation Administration, 3/21/2002, pp. S-26; 9/11 Commission, 1/27/2004]
9:00 a.m. September 11, 2001: Transportation Department Crisis Management Center Coordinates Emergency Response
On the order of Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta, the Department of Transportation’s Crisis Management Center (CMC) was quickly activated after the first WTC tower was hit (see (8:48 a.m.-9:05 a.m.) September 11, 2001). It is thus fully operational by this time, with security procedures initiated, secure lines of communication, and key contacts on line. The CMC is located in the Office of Emergency Transportation, on the 8th floor of the DOT’s Washington headquarters. It serves as a focal point for the transportation response during emergencies, enabling senior department personnel to conduct operations in a coordinated manner. [US Department of Transportation, 12/30/1999 ; US Congress. Senate. Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, 9/20/2001; US Congress, 10/10/2001; 9/11 Commission, 5/23/2003] It includes representatives from all nine transportation modes (i.e., the different means of transport, such as road, rail, air), including Federal Aviation, as well as public affairs, and intelligence and security functions. It is capable of gathering information in real time via its own reporting system, and provides a flow of information to the DOT leadership, the White House, and Cabinet leaders on developments within the nation’s transportation infrastructure (including in the air). The CMC will remain fully operational, manned on a 24/7 basis, even in the weeks after the attacks have ended. [US Congress, 10/10/2001; Mineta Transportation Institute, 10/30/2001, pp. 12 ] Furthermore, according to Mineta, in an incident “involving a major crash of any type,” the Office of the Secretary of Transportation “goes into a major information-gathering response. It contacts the mode of administration overseeing whatever mode of transportation is involved in the incident. It monitors press reports, contacts additional personnel to accommodate the surge in operations, and centralizes the information for me through the chief of staff. In major incidents, it will follow a protocol of notification that includes the White House and other agencies involved in the incident.” He says that these activities, “albeit in the nascent stage of information-gathering,” took place in the initial minutes after Flight 11 hit the WTC. [9/11 Commission, 5/23/2003]
