Having followed a seemingly normal course until now, after reaching the Cleveland area, Flight 93 suddenly makes a sharp turn to the south. It then makes another turn back eastward, cutting through West Virginia’s Northern Panhandle before re-entering Pennsylvania. [Washington Post, 9/12/2001; Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 9/13/2001; 9/11 Commission, 8/26/2004, pp. 41] Having thus turned 180 degrees, it now heads toward Washington, DC. [CNN, 9/13/2001]
Before 9:37 a.m. September 11, 2001: Army Base near Pentagon Holding Air Field Fire Fighting Training
At the Education Center at Fort Myer, an army base 1.5 miles northwest of the Pentagon, the base’s firefighters are undertaking training variously described as “an airport rescue firefighters class”; “an aircraft crash refresher class”; “a week-long class on Air Field Fire Fighting”; and a “training exercise in airport emergency operations.” Despite hearing of the first WTC crash during a break, with no access to a TV, the class simply continues with its training. According to Bruce Surette, who is attending the session: “We had heard some radio transmissions from some other units in Arlington about how they thought they had a plane down here or a plane down there. So you’re thinking, ‘Hey this could be real.’ But it really didn’t strike home as being real until our guy came on the radio and said where the plane crash was.” The Fort Myer firefighters then immediately head for the Pentagon, arriving there at 9:40 a.m., only three minutes after it is hit, and participate in the firefighting and rescue effort there. The fire station at the Pentagon heliport is actually operated by the Fort Myer Fire Department, and is manned on the morning of 9/11 by three Fort Myer firefighters who have already undertaken the airfield firefighting training. [MDW News Service, 10/4/2001; Pentagram, 11/2/2001; Journal of Emergency Medical Services, 4/2002 
; US Department of Health and Human Services, 7/2002 ; First Due News, 4/17/2003] The Fort Myer military community, which includes Fort Myer and Fort Lesley J. McNair—another army base, just two miles east of the Pentagon—was scheduled to hold a “force protection exercise” the week after 9/11. However this has been cancelled, so just prior to the attacks the morning of September 11, “some of its participants [are] breathing a sigh of relief.”
[Pentagram, 9/14/2001]
9:37 a.m. September 11, 2001: Pentagon Law Enforcement Deputy Finally Makes Call to Raise Alert Level
At the time the Pentagon is struck, a member of the Defense Protective Service (DPS), which guards the Pentagon, is in the process of ordering the threat level be raised. John Pugrud, the deputy chief of the DPS, has met with DPS Chief John Jester, and Jester directed him to instruct the DPS Communications Center to raise the Force Protection Condition up one level, from Normal to Alpha (see (Shortly Before 9:37 a.m.) September 11, 2001). The moment the Pentagon is hit, Pugrud has the phone in his hand to dial the center. When his call is answered, he can hear the center’s alarms activating and radio calls taking place. The dispatcher yells: “We’ve been hit! We’ve been hit! Wedge one. Wedge one.” According to the Defense Department’s book about the Pentagon attack, no one in DPS has received any warning of a hijacked aircraft heading toward Washington. [Goldberg et al., 2007, pp. 152] No steps have been taken to alert Pentagon employees or evacuate the building. [Vogel, 2007, pp. 429] Around 30 minutes after the attack occurs, the US military will increase its threat level to Defcon Delta, the highest possible level (see (Between 10:10 a.m. and 10:35 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [CNN, 9/4/2002] This will be reduced to “Charlie” before the end of the week. [US Department of Defense, 9/16/2001; USA Today, 9/16/2001]
9:37 a.m. September 11, 2001: Flight 77 Misses Key Pentagon Officials
When Flight 77 hits the Pentagon, it misses the parts of the building known to house the military’s most senior leaders. Journalist and author Steve Vogel later says, “The hijackers had not hit the River or Mall sides” of the building, “where the senior military leadership had been concentrated since 1942.” At the time of the attack, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld is “sitting in the same third-floor office above the River Entrance as every secretary of defense since Louis Johnson in 1949, a location that had been a matter of public record all that time. The joint chiefs and all the service secretaries were arrayed in various prime E-Ring offices on the River and Mall sides.” Furthermore, “All the command centers save the Navy’s were on the River or Mall sides; the National Military Command Center could have been decimated as the Navy Command Center was, a disaster that could have effectively shut down the Pentagon as the first American war of the twenty-first century began.” Instead, the area hit comprises Army accounting offices, the Navy Command Center, and the Defense Intelligence Agency’s comptroller’s office. [Vogel, 2007, pp. 431 and 449-450] Due to recent renovation work, many offices in that section of the Pentagon are currently empty. [Government Executive, 9/11/2001]
Shortly After 9:36 a.m. September 11, 2001: Deputy Chief of Staff Heads to the White House Bunker, Prompted by Call from Clinton Administration Official
Josh Bolten, the acting White House chief of staff, heads to the Presidential Emergency Operations Center (PEOC), a bunker below the White House, after seeing Vice President Dick Cheney taken there by his Secret Service agents. Although Bolten is the deputy White House chief of staff, because White House chief of staff Andrew Card is traveling with President Bush in Florida, he is the acting chief of staff at the White House this morning. He was with Cheney when Secret Service agents entered Cheney’s office and then hurried the vice president away to the PEOC (see (9:36 a.m.) September 11, 2001). However, no one evacuated Bolten from the office. “You know, deputy chief of staff, you don’t have a Secret Service detail… nobody was watching out for me,” he will later comment. Fortunately, Bolten learned where the PEOC is located and that he was supposed to go there in a crisis during a training exercise (see (Between February and August 2001)). Furthermore, he was reminded of the existence of the PEOC by Steve Ricchetti, who served as deputy White House chief of staff during the Clinton administration, when Ricchetti phoned him earlier this morning (see (Between 8:50 a.m. and 9:02 a.m.) September 11, 2001). Therefore, at some time after Cheney is evacuated from his office, Bolten makes his way down to the PEOC. [C-SPAN, 10/6/2013] The time at which he arrives there is unclear. According to notes taken by I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Cheney’s chief of staff, Bolten is in the PEOC at approximately 10:00 a.m. [9/11 Commission, 4/5/2004] He will spend much of the rest of the day there with Cheney and other government officials. [CNN, 9/11/2002; C-SPAN, 10/6/2013] The PEOC, according to the London Telegraph, will become “the nerve center for America’s response to the unprecedented attacks.” [Daily Telegraph, 9/10/2011]
9:37 a.m. September 11, 2001: Vice President Cheney Enters Tunnel Leading to PEOC, Learns about Pentagon Attack
Vice President Dick Cheney, after being evacuated from his office, stops in an underground tunnel leading to the Presidential Emergency Operations Center (PEOC) below the White House, where he learns about the attack on the Pentagon and talks over the phone with President Bush. Secret Service agents hurried Cheney out of his office in the West Wing of the White House at around 9:36 a.m., according to some accounts (see (9:36 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 39-40; Gellman, 2008, pp. 114-116] (However, other accounts will suggest he was evacuated from his office earlier on, at around 9:03 a.m. (see (Shortly After 9:03 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [New York Times, 9/13/2001; Daily Telegraph, 12/16/2001; ABC News, 9/14/2002] ) The Secret Service agents then rushed the vice president along the hallway, through some locked doors, and down some stairs into an underground tunnel. “It’s a small corridor,” Cheney will later describe. “There is a door at each end, a fairly heavy door. It’s obviously a place of refuge… a shelter for the president or, in this case, the vice president.” [White House, 11/19/2001]
Agents Take Up Positions on Staircase – Cheney arrives in the tunnel about a minute after leaving his office. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 40; Hayes, 2007, pp. 335] He will recall that when he reaches the bottom of the stairs, he “watched as Secret Service agents positioned themselves at the top, middle, and bottom of the staircase, creating layers of defense in case the White House itself should be invaded.” One of the agents, James Scott, gives out “additional firearms, flashlights, and gas masks” to his colleagues. Scott tells Cheney that he’d evacuated him from his office because he’d heard over his radio that “an inbound, unidentified aircraft” was flying toward the White House (see (9:35 a.m.) September 11, 2001).
Cheney Asks to Talk to the President – Moments later, Scott receives another report over his radio. He passes on what he is told to Cheney, saying, “Sir, the plane headed for us just hit the Pentagon.” Cheney will comment, “Now I knew for certain that Washington as well as New York was under attack, and that meant that President Bush, who had been at an elementary school in Florida, had to stay away.” [Cheney and Cheney, 2011, pp. 1-2] Cheney and the Secret Service agents with him therefore stop in an area of the tunnel where there is a bench to sit on and a secure phone, and Cheney says he wants to speak to the president. It takes some time for his call to get connected, however, and so he will speak to Bush at 9:45 a.m. (see (9:45 a.m.-9:56 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 40; Hayes, 2007, pp. 335] There is also a television in the tunnel, on which Cheney will see the coverage of the burning Pentagon after the building has been hit (see 9:39 a.m.-9:44 a.m. September 11, 2001). The vice president will be joined in the tunnel by his wife, Lynne Cheney, at around 9:55 a.m. (see (9:55 a.m.) September 11, 2001). The Cheneys will enter the PEOC shortly before 10:00 a.m., according to the 9/11 Commission Report (see (9:58 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [White House, 12/17/2001; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 40]
9:37 a.m. September 11, 2001: Passenger Mark Bingham Calls His Mother from Flight 93 and Tells Her about the Hijacking
Mark Bingham, a passenger on Flight 93, calls his mother from the plane and tells her his flight has been taken over by three men who say they have a bomb. [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 9/11/2001; 9/11 Commission, 8/26/2004, pp. 41, 99] Bingham’s mother, Alice Hoglan, is currently at the home of her brother, Vaughn Hoglan, and his wife, Kathy Hoglan, in Saratoga, California, where she has been staying to help the couple care for their young children. [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 9/11/2001; Federal Bureau of Investigation, 9/17/2001; San Francisco Chronicle, 9/10/2003] Bingham calls her using a GTE Airfone in row 25, near the back of the plane. [9/11 Commission, 5/13/2004 ; San Jose Mercury News, 9/10/2011; McMillan, 2014, pp. 122]
Family Friend Answers the Call – The call is answered on the phone in the kitchen by Carol Phipps, a family friend who is staying with the Hoglans. “Get Alice or Kathy quickly,” Bingham says. “Is this Lee?” Phipps asks, referring to one of Bingham’s uncles. “No, get Alice or Kathy quickly,” he replies. [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 9/11/2001; Federal Bureau of Investigation, 9/17/2001; Barrett, 2002, pp. 156] Phipps runs down the hallway and fetches Kathy Hoglan from her bedroom. Kathy Hoglan goes to the kitchen and takes over the call. [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 9/17/2001; Longman, 2002, pp. 129] As she is running to the phone, she looks at the clock and sees the time is 6:44 a.m. Pacific Time, which is 9:44 Eastern Time. [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 9/11/2001] However, according to information later derived from a study of GTE Airfone records of calls from Flight 93, the call is made seven minutes before this, at 9:37 a.m. [9/11 Commission, 5/13/2004 ]
Bingham Tells His Aunt His Plane Has Been Hijacked – Kathy Hoglan recognizes her nephew’s voice when Bingham starts talking. [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 9/11/2001] He says: “This is Mark. I just want to tell you I’m on a plane and it’s being hijacked.” Kathy Hoglan gets a piece of paper and asks him what flight he is on. “United Flight 93,” he says. [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 9/17/2001] Kathy Hoglan writes this down. [Longman, 2002, pp. 130] “I want to let you guys know that I love you, in case I don’t see you again,” Bingham continues. “We love you too,” Kathy Hoglan says. She tells her nephew to stay on the line and that she is going to get his mother. She heads down the hall and bumps into her sister-in-law, who heard the phone ringing and then came out of her bedroom. She lets Alice Hoglan know what is happening. “Alice, come talk to Mark; he’s been hijacked,” she says. She then gives Bingham’s mother the phone and the piece of paper, which has “United” and “Flight 93” written on it.
Bingham Says Three Men Have Taken Over His Plane – After Alice Hoglan takes the phone, she recognizes the voice of her son on the line. He begins by telling her, “Hello Mom, this is Mark Bingham.” [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 9/11/2001; Federal Bureau of Investigation, 9/17/2001; Federal Bureau of Investigation, 9/17/2001; Barrett, 2002, pp. 156] Alice Hoglan finds it strange that he has used his full name to introduce himself. [Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 10/28/2001] “He was so flustered, I guess, giving me his last name,” she will later comment. [ABC, 9/11/2001] “I remember being amused that he used his last name,” she will say. [San Francisco Chronicle, 9/10/2003] Bingham then says: “I want to let you know I love you. I love you all.” Alice Hoglan tells him she loves him too. [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 9/17/2001] “I’m flying from Newark to San Francisco,” Bingham continues and then says: “I’m calling from the Airfone. The plane has been taken over by three guys. They say they have a bomb.” [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 9/11/2001] (However, there are actually four hijackers, not three, on his plane. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 456] )
Bingham Apparently Speaks to Another Passenger – Alice Hoglan asks her son, “Who are these guys?” [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 9/11/2001] Bingham does not answer and his mother wonders if he didn’t hear her question. There is an interruption for about five seconds and then he says: “You’ve got to believe me. It’s true.” “I do believe you Mark,” Alice Hoglan says and then she asks again, “Who are they?” There is another pause lasting about five seconds. Alice Hoglan can hear activity and voices in the background. She gets the impression that her son is distracted because someone is talking to him. The line then goes dead. [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 9/17/2001]
Bingham’s Call Lasts Almost Three Minutes – The call lasts two minutes 46 seconds before breaking off. [9/11 Commission, 5/13/2004 ] Alice Hoglan will estimate that her son spends about 90 seconds of it with Phipps, including the time it takes Phipps to get Kathy Hoglan on the line; about 30 seconds with Kathy Hoglan; and about a minute with her. She will describe him as sounding “calm, controlled, matter-of-fact, and focused” during their conversation (see (9:37 a.m.-10:03 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 9/17/2001] Bingham will subsequently make two more attempts at calling his mother, but without success (see 9:41 a.m. September 11, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 5/13/2004 ] Alice Hoglan will call 9-1-1 to report what has happened and be put through to the FBI (see (Between 9:41 a.m. and 10:00 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 9/17/2001] She will also try calling her son on his cell phone and leave two messages for him on his voicemail. [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 9/11/2001; Barrett, 2002, pp. 157-158]
9:37 a.m. September 11, 2001: Fireman Dodges Flight 77; Immediately Notifies Superior about Crashed Jumbo Jet
Fireman Alan Wallace is busy with a safety crew at the Pentagon’s heliport pad. As Wallace is walking in front of the Pentagon, he looks up and sees Flight 77 coming straight at him. It is about 25 feet off the ground, with no landing wheels visible, a few hundred yards away, and closing fast. He runs about 30 feet and dives under a nearby van. [Washington Post, 9/21/2001] The plane is traveling at about 460 mph, and flying so low that it clips the tops of streetlights. [CBS News, 9/21/2001] Using the radio in the van, he calls his fire chief at nearby Fort Myer and says, “We have had a commercial carrier crash into the west side of the Pentagon at the heliport, Washington Boulevard side. The crew is OK. The airplane was a 757 Boeing or a 320 Airbus.” [Scripps Howard News Service, 8/1/2002]
9:37 a.m. September 11, 2001: Security Cameras Capture the Attack on the Pentagon
Two recently installed security cameras outside the Pentagon capture the building being hit, but the images they take will turn out to be of poor quality. [Associated Press, 5/17/2006; Goldberg et al., 2007, pp. 161] The cameras are located at a checkpoint north of the crash site that visitors to the Pentagon go through and usually focus on the drivers of the vehicles that come in and out. They are reportedly the only security cameras at the Pentagon that capture the building being hit (see 9:37 a.m. September 11, 2001 and Shortly After 9:37 a.m. September 11, 2001). [CNN, 5/20/2006; Historical Office, Office of the Secretary of Defense, 11/9/2006 ; Goldberg et al., 2007, pp. 161]
Video System Was Switched on Early for Testing – It is fortunate that the cameras film the crash. The Pentagon has an elaborate new, centralized, digital video recording system that was only installed a few weeks ago and is not yet government property. It should not be on now, but workers started running it early to capture data for testing purposes. Steve Pennington, a private consultant responsible for the Pentagon’s security cameras, will later recall that, along with Brian Austin, the maintenance team chief responsible for the cameras, a colleague called Greg Goff, and a couple of other people, he “decided to turn it on a few days before [9/11], not knowing that something was going to occur.” “It was purely happenstance that the system happened to be running [on 9/11], because it wasn’t supposed to be running for another month,” Pennington will comment. However, since the system is only being tested, the cameras are running at a slower rate than they normally would and therefore capture less information. Whereas they usually record at a rate of either 3.75 or 7.5 images per second, they are currently recording just one image per second.
Government Will Initially Withhold the Captured Video – On September 12, the footage of the crash captured by the cameras will be put onto CDs and copies will be provided to the FBI, the secretary of defense’s office, and the Joint Operations Center at Fort Myer (see September 12, 2001). [Historical Office, Office of the Secretary of Defense, 11/9/2006 ] Subsequently, the US government will initially refuse to make public the footage because it is going to be used as evidence in the trial of al-Qaeda conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui. It will finally be released in May 2006 (see May 16, 2006). However, five frames from one of the tapes will be released unofficially in March 2002 (see March 7, 2002). [Washington Post, 5/17/2006; CNN, 5/20/2006] The images of the crash captured by the cameras will turn out to be of poor quality, though. The Associated Press will describe the plane shown hitting the building as “a thin white blur.” [Associated Press, 5/17/2006] John Jester, chief of the Defense Protective Service, will similarly describe it as “just a blur.” “You can see a bit of tail, a plane sliding across the ground, and a huge explosion,” he will say. [Historical Office, Office of the Secretary of Defense, 1/31/2006 ]
9:37 a.m. September 11, 2001: Flight 77 Crashes into Reinforced Section of the Pentagon, Killing 189
Flight 77 crashes into the Pentagon. All 64 people on the plane are killed. A hundred-and-twenty-four people working in the building are killed, and a further victim will die in hospital several days later. Hijackers Hani Hanjour, Khalid Almihdhar, Majed Moqed, Nawaf Alhazmi, and Salem Alhazmi presumably are killed instantly. (Typically, they are not included in the death counts.) [CNN, 9/17/2001; North American Aerospace Defense Command, 9/18/2001; Guardian, 10/17/2001; Washington Post, 11/21/2001; USA Today, 8/12/2002; Associated Press, 8/21/2002; MSNBC, 9/3/2002; ABC News, 9/11/2002; CBS, 9/11/2002] Flight 77 hits the first floor of the Pentagon’s west wall. The impact and the resulting explosion heavily damage the building’s three outer rings. The path of destruction cuts through Army accounting offices on the outer E Ring, the Navy Command Center on the D Ring, and the Defense Intelligence Agency’s comptroller’s office on the C Ring. [Vogel, 2007, pp. 431 and 449] Flight 77 strikes the only side of the Pentagon that had recently been renovated—it was “within days of being totally [renovated].” [US Department of Defense, 9/15/2001] “It was the only area of the Pentagon with a sprinkler system, and it had been reconstructed with a web of steel columns and bars to withstand bomb blasts. The area struck by the plane also had blast-resistant windows—two inches thick and 2,500 pounds each—that stayed intact during the crash and fire. While perhaps, 4,500 people normally would have been working in the hardest-hit areas, because of the renovation work only about 800 were there.” More than 25,000 people work at the Pentagon. [Los Angeles Times, 9/16/2001] Furthermore, the plane hits an area that has no basement. As journalist Steve Vogel later points out, “If there had been one under the first floor, its occupants could easily have been trapped by fire and killed when the upper floors collapsed.” [Vogel, 2007, pp. 450]
