Rear Admiral Jeffrey Hathaway of the US Coast Guard is presently temporarily assigned to the Navy Command Center at the Pentagon. For about the last two months, he has been in charge of Navy Anti-Terrorism Force Protection. He’d been at the Command Center earlier on for the morning briefings, but headed back to Coast Guard headquarters at about 8 a.m. He’d been aware of the first plane hitting the WTC, yet, despite his specific anti-terrorism role, apparently did not know immediately that the US was under terrorist attack. He later says it was only “apparent to me after I found out that the second plane had flown into the World Trade Center that the first one was not an accident, and that there was some sort of a coordinated attack.” Furthermore, he will claim, “No one knew where it was coming from. It could have been domestic terrorists for all we knew. No one knew why.” He claims there were no indicators that such an attack was imminent, saying, “There were general indicators in the air of general threats; nothing that was in my role that would have indicated hijacked airliners INCONUS [in the continental US].… There was very little attention being paid to anti-terrorism efforts INCONUS for the Navy. We were mostly focused on the fallout from the USS Cole bombing in Yemen.” [US Coast Guard, 6/20/2002 
; National Defense Magazine, 6/2003]
After 9:03 a.m. September 11, 2001: CIA Analysts Initially Think Hezbollah Is behind the Terrorist Attacks
Analysts at the Counterterrorist Center (CTC) at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, initially conclude that Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group, is behind the terrorist attacks on the United States. Immediately after the second hijacked plane crashed into the World Trade Center, at 9:03 a.m. (see 9:03 a.m. September 11, 2001), analysts at the CTC started reviewing a mass of intelligence, looking for any information that might help identify the perpetrators of the attacks.
Report Said Hezbollah Was Seeking Pilots – They find a report, which indicated that Hezbollah had been trying to recruit certified pilots. The information hadn’t been regarded as significant when it was received, but it now seems more sinister and casts suspicion on the Lebanese group. [Eichenwald, 2012, pp. 32-33] Additionally, “The attack was a sophisticated, complex operation that required planning and resources,” and “Hezbollah had thousands of fighters in southern Lebanon and a worldwide network strong enough to pull off such a feat,” journalist and author Steve Coll will later comment. A recent article written by analysts at the CTC actually claimed that Hezbollah is a greater threat to the US than al-Qaeda (see (Between Late August and Early September 2001)). [Coll, 2018, pp. 33-34] The analysts contact their counterparts at the FBI and they all agree that the possibility of Hezbollah being responsible for the attacks makes sense. One of the analysts goes up to Ben Bonk, deputy director of the CTC, and tells him their findings. Bonk thinks their theory is possible and Hezbollah must at least be included on the list of likely perpetrators. [Eichenwald, 2012, pp. 33]
Head of Bin Laden Unit Blames Al-Qaeda – An analyst also goes up to Richard Blee, head of Alec Station, the CIA’s bin Laden unit, and tells him, “This is Mughniyeh,” referring to Imad Mughniyeh, the notorious leader of Hezbollah’s Islamic Jihad Organization. However, Blee immediately blamed al-Qaeda after the first crash at the WTC occurred (see Shortly After 8:48 a.m. September 11, 2001). He therefore tells the analyst, “It’s not Mughniyeh.” “Intelligence about a spectacular al-Qaeda attack had been piling up all summer from multiple sources” and there has been “no comparable threat stream about Hezbollah,” Coll will point out. All the same, the analysts are unwavering. Blee eventually instructs them to go and prove their case. [Coll, 2018, pp. 30, 34] Sometime later, Blee will go into Bonk’s office with a copy that has been obtained of the passenger manifest for Flight 77, which will have the names of Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi—two men with known ties to al-Qaeda—on it. Bonk will then conclude that al-Qaeda, not Hezbollah, is to blame for the attacks. [Eichenwald, 2012, pp. 33]
After 9:03 a.m. September 11, 2001: Superintendent Doesn’t Send School Children Home, Despite Danger
At the Booker Elementary School in Sarasota, Florida, where President Bush is staging a photo-op, White House security staff reportedly urge school officials to send the students home. As the Arlington Heights Daily Herald later points out, “the well-publicized event at the school assured Bush’s location that day was no secret,” and therefore “Bush’s presence made even the planned reading event a perceived target.” Yet Wilma Hamilton, the superintendent of schools for Sarasota County, who is at the school for Bush’s visit, refuses their advice. In spite of the danger, she later says she is glad she made this decision: “I couldn’t see sending the children home. There’d be no one there. All they would have to look at were those images on television.” Whether the school officials are advised to send the children home before or after the president leaves the place is unspecified. [Sammon, 2002, pp. 43; Daily Herald (Arlington Heights), 9/11/2006]
Shortly After 9:03 a.m. September 11, 2001: CIA Counterterrorist Center Learns of at Least One More Plane Unaccounted for
According to CIA Director George Tenet, “Only minutes” after the South Tower is hit, the CIA’s Counterterrorist Center (CTC) receives a report that at least one other commercial passenger jet plane is unaccounted for. [Tenet, 2007, pp. 163] The CTC is based at the CIA headquarters in Langley, and is run by the agency’s operations division. It gathers intelligence and runs covert operations abroad. It employs hundreds of analysts, and includes experts assigned from Defense Department intelligence agencies, the Pentagon’s Central Command, the FBI, the National Security Agency, the Federal Aviation Administration, and other government agencies. According to the Los Angeles Times, “It serves as the nerve center for the CIA’s effort to disrupt and deter terrorist groups and their state sponsors.” [St. Petersburg Times, 10/2/2001; Los Angeles Times, 10/12/2001] Further details of the unaccounted-for plane, and where the CTC learns of it from, are unclear. The plane is presumably Flight 77, which veered off course at 8:54 (see (8:54 a.m.) September 11, 2001), and was evidently lost by 8:56 (see 8:56 a.m. September 11, 2001). [New York Times, 10/16/2001; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 9] The FAA will later claim it had established several phone bridges at around 8:50 a.m., which included various government agencies, on which it shared “real-time information… about the unfolding events, including information about loss of communication with aircraft, loss of transponder signals, unauthorized changes in course, and other actions being taken by all the flights of interest, including Flight 77” (see (8:50 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 5/23/2003] So the CTC may have learned of the errant plane by this means. Yet the 9/11 Commission will claim the FAA’s phone bridges were not established until about 9:20 (see (9:20 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 36] And NORAD is supposedly only alerted to Flight 77 at 9:24, according to some accounts (see (9:24 a.m.) September 11, 2001), or 9:34, according to others (see 9:34 a.m. September 11, 2001).
Shortly After 9:03 a.m. September 11, 2001: Despite Attacks in New York, Pentagon Defense Chief Does Not Raise Alert Level
Despite two attacks having occurred in New York, the threat level at the Pentagon is not raised. John Jester, the chief of the Defense Protective Service (DPS)—the law enforcement agency that guards the Pentagon—is in his office at the Pentagon. He had been unaware of the first WTC crash and only learned of it when his press officer, Glenn Flood, phoned about it at around 9:00 a.m. and asked him if he would be reacting. Jester switched on the TV in his office just in time to see the second tower hit, at 9:03 a.m. Even though he realizes that it is “obvious this was a terrible attack,” Jester later recalls that at this time, he is “thinking about what else we needed to do based on the attacks in New York, not having in my mind that it would happen here too.” [Murphy, 2002, pp. 243-244] Lieutenant Michael Nesbitt, who runs day-to-day operation in the DPS Communications Center on the first floor of the Pentagon, telephones Jester and asks if he knows about the crashes in New York. Jester instructs Nesbitt to send a message to the building’s Real Estate and Facilities Directorate, reassuring everyone that the Pentagon remains secure. Jester tells him that its Terrorist Force Protection Condition is staying at “Normal,” which means there is no present threat of terrorist activity. (The Terrorist Force Protection Condition—previously known as the Terrorist Threat Condition—ranges from Normal through four higher levels, from Alpha to Delta.) According to the Defense Department’s own book about the Pentagon attack, “No one in DPS received warning of a hijacked aircraft on its way to the Washington area.” Jester apparently will not order the threat level to be raised until shortly before 9:37, when the Pentagon is hit (see (Shortly Before 9:37 a.m.) September 11, 2001); at the time of the attack, the alert level will still be at Normal. [Goldberg et al., 2007, pp. 151-152]
Shortly After 9:03 a.m. September 11, 2001: Pentagon Command Center Director Does Not Return to Post, Even though Officials Conclude that US Is under Attack
Brigadier General Montague Winfield, the deputy director for operations (DDO) in the National Military Command Center (NMCC) at the Pentagon, apparently remains in a pre-scheduled meeting that is unrelated to the terrorist attacks and does not resume his key duties as DDO, even though others in the NMCC have concluded that the US is under attack. [9/11 Commission, 4/29/2004 ; American Forces Press Service, 9/7/2006] Since around 8:30 a.m., Winfield has been attending what the 9/11 Commission will describe as a “closed-door personnel meeting convened by the Air Force to discuss the rating of Air Force officers.” Captain Charles Leidig, who only qualified to stand in as the DDO about a month previously, has taken over Winfield’s position while he is in the meeting (see 8:30 a.m. September 11, 2001).
NMCC Officers Realize US Is under Attack – Leidig will later recall that after those in the NMCC see Flight 175 crashing into the World Trade Center live on television at 9:03 a.m., “[t]o him it was obvious it was a terrorist attack or a coordinated attack.” [9/11 Commission, 7/21/2003 ; 9/11 Commission, 4/29/2004 ] Other officers in the NMCC also realize this is a terrorist attack (see 9:03 a.m. September 11, 2001). [American Forces Press Service, 9/7/2006] Winfield himself will later describe, “When the second aircraft flew into the second tower, it was at that point that we realized that the seemingly unrelated hijackings that the FAA was dealing with were in fact a part of a coordinated terrorist attack on the United States.” [ABC News, 9/14/2002]
Winfield Stays in Pre-Scheduled Meeting – According to the 9/11 Commission Report, “The job of the NMCC in such an emergency is to gather the relevant parties and establish the chain of command between the National Command Authority—the president and the secretary of defense—and those who need to carry out their orders.” [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 37] However, Winfield does not return to his post, and apparently remains in the Air Force-convened meeting. The reason for this is unclear. According to one 9/11 Commission memorandum, “Such meetings” as Winfield is attending “are generally not disturbed unless the reason is significant.” Winfield will only resume his duties as DDO after Flight 93 crashes in Pennsylvania, apparently at around 10:30 a.m. (see (10:30 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 4/29/2004 ; 9/11 Commission, 6/17/2004] Whether Winfield and the other officers with him in the meeting learn that America is under attack immediately, or are only notified of this later on, is unstated.
9:04 a.m.-9:45 a.m. September 11, 2001: Presidential Military Aide Prepares for Air Force One to Leave Sarasota after Learning of Second Crash at WTC
Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Gould, a military aide who is accompanying President Bush on his visit to Florida, promptly arranges for Air Force One to leave Sarasota after he learns that a second plane has hit the World Trade Center. Gould, one of the president’s five military aides, is currently off duty for a few hours and at the resort on Longboat Key where Bush spent the previous night (see September 10, 2001), while another military aide, Major Paul Montanus, is with Bush at the Emma E. Booker Elementary School in Sarasota. Gould was alerted to the first crash at the WTC but thought it was an accident (see Shortly After 8:46 a.m. September 11, 2001). He is talking on the phone with his wife and watching the coverage of the crash on television when a second plane, Flight 175, hits the WTC at 9:03 a.m. (see 9:03 a.m. September 11, 2001). Realizing this must be a deliberate act, Gould abruptly ends the call with his wife. “At that point I know something has happened,” he will later recall. “It’s bigger than an accident. It’s an attack of some sort. I don’t think I thought through what kind of attack it was, but I knew it was something concerted.” Gould has tactical control of all the military assets that support the president, including presidential aircraft, and he has the ability to move assets on behalf of the president. He therefore calls Colonel Mark Tillman, the pilot of Air Force One, immediately and tells him to get the president’s plane and its crew ready to depart as soon as possible. He then heads to the Sarasota airport, getting there at around 9:30 a.m. After the president’s motorcade arrives at the airport at 9:43 a.m. (see (9:43 a.m.) September 11, 2001), Gould meets Montanus under the nose of Air Force One. Following strict protocol, Montanus gives Gould the “nuclear football”—a briefcase carried by the president’s military aide that holds the codes and plans necessary for the president to initiate a nuclear attack. Gould will be on Air Force One with the president when the plane takes off (see 9:54 a.m. September 11, 2001), but Montanus will stay behind in Sarasota, as is procedure. [Lompoc Record, 9/11/2011; Santa Barbara News-Press, 9/11/2011]
9:04 a.m. September 11, 2001: NEADS Requests Refueling Planes from McGuire Air Force Base
NORAD’s Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS) contacts McGuire Air Force Base in New Jersey and asks if it has any tanker planes available that would be able to support the fighter jets that took off in response to the hijacking of Flight 11 and McGuire says it has two tankers currently airborne that are carrying plenty of fuel. [North American Aerospace Defense Command, 9/11/2001; North American Aerospace Defense Command, 9/11/2001; 9/11 Commission, 6/17/2003] Two F-15 fighters took off from Otis Air National Guard Base in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, at 8:46 a.m. (see 8:46 a.m. September 11, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 20] They are currently south of Long Island (see 9:01 a.m. September 11, 2001 and (9:03 a.m.) September 11, 2001) and personnel at NEADS are trying to locate refueling tankers for them. [Vanity Fair, 8/1/2006; Jones, 2011, pp. 35]
NEADS Tells McGuire about the Hijacking – Technical Sergeant Ronald Belluscio, a senior weapons director technician at NEADS, contacts McGuire Air Force Base and his call is answered by a “Major Rice” there. He says, “We got a hijack, I don’t know if you guys are aware of that.” He says NEADS has scrambled a couple of fighters in response to it and asks if McGuire has any tanker planes out in “Whiskey 107.” [North American Aerospace Defense Command, 9/11/2001; North American Aerospace Defense Command, 9/11/2001] Whiskey 107 is an area over the Atlantic Ocean, about 70 miles east of Atlantic City, New Jersey, that is frequently used for military training. [CNN, 2/7/1997; New York Times, 2/7/1997; Global Security (.org), 5/7/2011]
McGuire Has Two Tankers Airborne – Rice replies that McGuire has “a crew airborne right now,” but adds, “I don’t know where they went, though.” He says the base actually has “two crews airborne right now,” which have the call signs “Team 23 and Team 24.” He says the FAA’s New York Center will be in control of these planes, which are currently flying “up northeast of New York.” He mentions that the tankers have “a lot of fuel.” He adds that they should have “enough fuel to be airborne almost all day.” Rice ends by telling Belluscio, “New York Center is who you need to get a hold of.” Belluscio confirms, “Okay sir, I’ll do that,” before terminating the call. He then tells a colleague at NEADS about the two tanker planes from McGuire and the colleague says they will pass this information along. [North American Aerospace Defense Command, 9/11/2001; North American Aerospace Defense Command, 9/11/2001]
Tankers Are Taking Off around This Time – The two tankers that Rice refers to in the call actually take off from McGuire Air Force Base around this time for routine training missions. The plane with the call sign Team 23, piloted by Major Carlos Vilella, takes off at 9:02 a.m. Team 24, piloted by Major William Sherrod, takes off at 9:05 a.m. These planes are KC-10s. [Air Force Print News, 9/9/2011; Kennedy et al., 2012, pp. 42, 66, 69] The KC-10 is the military version of the DC-10. [Albany Times Union, 4/29/2016] The two planes will initially be sent to Whiskey 107 (see 9:14 a.m. September 11, 2001). [North American Aerospace Defense Command, 9/11/2001; North American Aerospace Defense Command, 9/11/2001]
Tankers Will Refuel Planes over New York and Washington – Team 23 will subsequently provide fuel to aircraft over Washington, DC, including the fighters performing combat air patrols there. It will fly two sorties, lasting around 12 and a half hours in total, and refuel 10 aircraft today. Team 24, meanwhile, will apparently provide fuel to aircraft over New York City, including the fighters performing combat air patrols there. It will be airborne for five hours and refuel 13 aircraft. [Air Force Print News, 9/9/2011; Kennedy et al., 2012, pp. 66, 69] NEADS also talks with the crew of a KC-135 tanker plane from Bangor International Airport in Maine around this time about providing fuel to the fighters from Otis Air Base (see 9:04 a.m.-9:06 a.m. September 11, 2001). [North American Aerospace Defense Command, 9/11/2001]
Shortly After 9:03 a.m. September 11, 2001: FBI Calls FAA’s Cleveland Center, Warns It to Watch Delta 1989
Shortly after the second attack on the World Trade Center, FBI agents call the FAA’s Cleveland Center and warn air traffic controllers there to keep an eye on Delta Air Lines Flight 1989. According to USA Today, controllers at the Cleveland Center, which is tracking Delta 1989, have already been watching this flight, and, like the FBI, suspect “that terrorists plan to hijack [it] next.” Although Delta 1989 is not showing any signs of being hijacked, the reason for their suspicion is that it has many similarities to the two aircraft that hit the World Trade Center: it is also a Boeing 767, heavy with fuel, and had taken off from Boston’s Logan Airport around the same time as they did. [USA Today, 8/13/2002] At 9:27 a.m., the FAA’s Boston Center will—apparently mistakenly—report that Delta 1989 is missing (see 9:27 a.m. September 11, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 5/23/2003] And at around 9:30 a.m., Cleveland Center controllers will mistakenly conclude that it has been hijacked (see (9:28 a.m.-9:33 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [USA Today, 8/13/2002]
Between 9:04 a.m. and 9:25 a.m. September 11, 2001: Military Cell Activated at FAA Command Center
The Air Traffic Services Cell (ATSC)—a small office at the FAA’s Command Center in Herndon, Virginia, manned by military reservists—is activated.
Officers Learn of Attacks – Three officers are currently on duty in the ATSC: Colonel John Czabaranek, Lieutenant Colonel Michael-Anne Cherry, and Major Kevin Bridges. Colonel Brian Meenan, the director of the cell, is not in the ATSC at this time, and so Czabaranek, his deputy, is currently in charge. Czabaranek, Cherry, and Bridges learned of the first attack in New York at around 8:55 a.m. when another employee at the Command Center told them to turn on CNN, because an aircraft had crashed into the World Trade Center. The three officers initially thought the crash was an accident, but realized it was not when they saw the second aircraft hitting the WTC at 9:03 a.m. They then established contact with the Air Force Ops Center.
Cell Activated, Though Timing Unclear – The ATSC is activated, although the exact time this happens at is unclear. According to Aviation Week and Space Technology magazine, the cell “quickly became a key communications node during the military’s response to [the] terrorist attacks.” [US Air Force, 9/11/2001; Aviation Week and Space Technology, 6/10/2002] Jeff Griffith, the FAA’s deputy director of air traffic control, will tell the 9/11 Commission that “the military officers assigned to the Air Traffic Services Cell became immediately involved in coordinating FAA… Command Center actions with military elements.” [9/11 Commission, 6/9/2004 ] According to a chronology of the ATSC’s actions on this day, calls to activate the cell are apparently made at unspecified times following the second attack in New York and before the FAA’s ground stop (at 9:26 a.m.). These calls are made by a Lieutenant Colonel Mahoney and a Colonel Litzenberger from the Air Force Ops Center. Apparently shortly after the calls are made, Czabaranek contacts NORAD to let it know that the ATSC is “up and running.” [US Air Force, 9/11/2001]
Military Cell Aided by Recently-Installed Hardware – The ATSC’s response to the terrorist attacks benefits from the fact that, six weeks earlier, the cell had a secure terminal to access the SIPRNET—the military’s classified version of the Internet—installed, along with other hardware, which significantly enhances the movement of vital information. According to Meenan, because the cell has the SIPRNET terminal, “we could immediately look at NORAD and [Defense Department] plans as they evolved; filter, package, and format them, then walk out to the [FAA] national operations manager—who had control of the entire national airspace system—and give him current visibility into… fighter, tanker, and support aircraft activities. It cut down our response time tremendously.” [Aviation Week and Space Technology, 6/10/2002]
ATSC Is a Bridge between FAA and Military – The ATSC is a “part-time military outfit, staffed by part-time Air Force Reserve members” who “provide a bridge between the civilian and military worlds when air traffic issues arise,” according to the Air Force Times. For example, “During a crisis, the armed forces suddenly may need to inject a large number of military airplanes into a sky that typically handles only a few hundred.” [Air Force Times, 2000] However, Czabaranek will tell the 9/11 Commission that the ATSC is “not part of [the] FAA/NORAD hijack notification process.” [9/11 Commission, 4/14/2004]
Presence of ATSC Officers a ‘Fluke’ – According to Aviation Week and Space Technology, the presence of the three ATSC officers at the FAA Command Center this morning is a “fluke,” since the Pentagon staffs the military cell “only three days per month for refresher training, but September 11 happened to be one of those days.” [Aviation Week and Space Technology, 12/17/2001]
Cell Handles Aircraft after Airspace Shut Down – Later in the day, after the national airspace has been shut down (see (9:45 a.m.) September 11, 2001), the ATSC personnel will coordinate actions relating to military and other special flights that are permitted to fly. [9/11 Commission, 2003] They will be responsible for validating the requests they receive for the movement of aircraft, and issuing permissions in response to those requests. [Federal Aviation Administration, 3/21/2002]
