"[On 911] The Secretary of Defense did not enter the chain of command until the morning's key events were over."
THE 9/11 COMMISSION REPORT, JULY 2004,
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

"Vice President Cheney was the highest ranking official who was in Washington, who had his fingers on the mechanisms of the United States government [on 9/11]."
Thomas Kean, Chairman 9/11 Commission
9/11 Commission Press Conference, 17 June 2004

Abbreviations

Abbreviated Hijacking Timeline Summary
From Chapter One Of Offical 9/11 Report

Flight 11
"Boston Center did not follow the protocol in seeking military assistance through the prescribed chain of command. In addition to notifications within the FAA,Boston Center took the initiative, at 8:34, to contact the military through the FAA’s Cape Cod facility. The center also tried to contact a former alert site in Atlantic City, unaware it had been phased out. At 8:37:52, Boston Center reached NEADS.This was the first notification received by the military—at any level—that American 11 had been hijacked."
THE 9/11 COMMISSION REPORT, JULY 2004 (p20)

Flight 175
"The first indication that the NORAD air defenders had of the second hijacked aircraft, United 175, came in a phone call from New York Center to NEADS at 9:03. The notice came at about the time the plane was hitting the South Tower."
THE 9/11 COMMISSION REPORT, JULY 2004 (p23)

Flight 77
"At the suggestion of the Boston Center’s military liaison, NEADS contacted the FAA’s Washington Center to ask about American 11. In the course of the conversation, a Washington Center manager informed NEADS: 'We’re looking — we also lost American 77.' The time was 9:34. This was the first notice to the military that American 77 was missing, and it had come by chance. If NEADS had not placed that call, the NEADS air defenders would have received no information whatsoever that the flight was even missing, although the FAA had been searching for it. No one at FAA headquarters ever asked for military assistance with American 77."
THE 9/11 COMMISSION REPORT, JULY 2004 (p27)

Flight 93
"NEADS first received a call about United 93 from the military liaison at Cleveland Center at 10:07. Unaware that the aircraft had already crashed, Cleveland passed to NEADS the aircraft’s last known latitude and longitude.NEADS was never able to locate United 93 on radar because it was already in the ground.... The time of notification of the crash of United 93 was 10:15. The NEADS air defenders never located the flight or followed it on their radar scopes. The flight had already crashed by the time they learned it was hijacked."
THE 9/11 COMMISSION REPORT, JULY 2004 (p27)

"The defense of U.S. airspace on 9/11 was not conducted in accord with preexisting training and protocols.... As it turned out, the NEADS air defenders had nine minutes’ notice [from a source outside protocol] on the first hijacked plane, no advance notice on the second, no advance notice on the third, and no advance notice on the fourth."
THE 9/11 COMMISSION REPORT, JULY 2004 (p31)

More Questions
What's Problematical With The Official Story About Flight 93? - Daily Mail, 19 August 2006 - Click Here

Text

"On 9/11, the defense of U.S. airspace depended on close interaction between two federal agencies: the FAA and the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD)."

(p15 is a diagram)

On 9/11, the terrorists turned off the transponders on three of the four hijacked aircraft.With its transponder off, it is possible, though more difficult, to track an aircraft by its primary radar returns. But unlike transponder data, primary radar returns do not show the aircraft’s identity and altitude. Controllers at centers rely so heavily on transponder signals that they usually do not display primary radar returns on their radar scopes. But they can change the configuration of their scopes so they can see primary radar returns. They did this on 9/11 when the transponder signals for three of the aircraft disappeared.

Before 9/11, it was not unheard of for a commercial aircraft to deviate slightly from its course, or for an FAA controller to lose radio contact with a pilot for a short period of time. A controller could also briefly lose a commercial aircraft’s transponder signal, although this happened much less frequently. However, the simultaneous loss of radio and transponder signal would be a rare and alarming occurrence, and would normally indicate a catastrophic system failure or an aircraft crash. In all of these instances, the job of the controller was to reach out to the aircraft, the parent company of the aircraft, and other planes in the vicinity in an attempt to reestablish communications and set the aircraft back on course. Alarm bells would not start ringing until these efforts—which could take five minutes or more—were tried and had failed."

The threat of Soviet bombers diminished significantly as the Cold War ended, and the number of NORAD alert sites was reduced from its Cold War high of 26. Some within the Pentagon argued in the 1990s that the alert sites should be eliminated entirely. In an effort to preserve their mission, members of the air defense community advocated the importance of air sovereignty against emerging 'asymmetric threats' to the United States: drug smuggling, 'non-state and state-sponsored terrorists,' and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile technology.

NORAD perceived the dominant threat to be from cruise missiles. Other threats were identified during the late 1990s, including terrorists’ use of aircraft as weapons. Exercises were conducted to counter this threat, but they were not based on actual intelligence. In most instances, the main concern was the use of such aircraft to deliver weapons of mass destruction."

NEADS reported to the Continental U.S. NORAD Region (CONR) headquarters, in Panama City, Florida, which in turn reported to NORAD headquarters, in Colorado Springs, Colorado."

FAA guidance to controllers on hijack procedures assumed that the aircraft pilot would notify the controller via radio or by 'squawking' a transponder code of '7500'—the universal code for a hijack in progress. Controllers would notify their supervisors, who in turn would inform management all the way up to FAA headquarters in Washington. Headquarters had a hijack coordinator,who was the director of the FAA Office of Civil Aviation Security or his or her designate. If a hijack was confirmed, procedures called for the hijack coordinator on duty to contact the Pentagon’s National Military Command Center (NMCC) and to ask for a military escort aircraft to follow the flight, report anything unusual, and aid search and rescue in the event of an emergency. The NMCC would then seek approval from the Office of the Secretary of Defense to provide military assistance. If approval was given, the orders would be transmitted down NORAD’s chain of command."

By this time, American 11 had taken a dramatic turn to the south. At 8:32, the Command Center passed word of a possible hijacking to the Operations Center at FAA headquarters. The duty officer replied that security personnel at headquarters had just begun discussing the apparent hijack on a conference call with the New England regional office. FAA headquarters began to follow the hijack protocol but did not contact the NMCC to request a fighter escort.The Herndon Command Center immediately established a teleconference between Boston, New York, and Cleveland Centers so that Boston Center could help the others understand what was happening."

The center also tried to contact a former alert site in Atlantic City, unaware it had been phased out. At 8:37:52, Boston Center reached NEADS. This was the first notification received by the military—at any level—that American 11 had been hijacked:..."

After ordering the Otis fighters to battle stations, Colonel Marr phoned Major General Larry Arnold, commanding general of the First Air Force and NORAD’s Continental Region. Marr sought authorization to scramble the Otis fighters. General Arnold later recalled instructing Marr to 'go ahead and scramble them, and we’ll get authorities later.' General Arnold then called NORAD headquarters to report...

In summary, NEADS received notice of the hijacking nine minutes before it struck the North Tower. That nine minutes’ notice before impact was the most the military would receive of any of the four hijackings."

By 9:20, Indianapolis Center learned that there were other hijacked aircraft, and began to doubt its initial assumption that American 77 had crashed. A discussion of this concern between the manager at Indianapolis and the Command Center in Herndon prompted it to notify some FAA field facilities that American 77 was lost. By 9:21, the Command Center, some FAA field facilities, and American Airlines had started to search for American 77. "

At 9:21, NEADS received a report from the FAA...

The mention of a 'third aircraft' was not a reference to American 77. There was confusion at that moment in the FAA.Two planes had struck the World Trade Center, and Boston Center had heard from FAA headquarters in Washington that American 11 was still airborne.We have been unable to identify the source of this mistaken FAA information.

The NEADS technician who took this call from the FAA immediately passed the word to the mission crew commander, who reported to the NEADS battle commander..."

Less than a minute later, the Cleveland controller and the pilots of aircraft in the vicinity heard 'a radio transmission of unintelligible sounds of possible screaming or a struggle from an unknown origin.'...

At 9:32, a third radio transmission came over the frequency: 'Keep remaining sitting. We have a bomb on board. 'The controller understood, but chose to respond: 'Calling Cleveland Center, you’re unreadable. Say again, slowly.' He notified his supervisor, who passed the notice up the chain of command. By 9:34, word of the hijacking had reached FAA headquarters.

FAA headquarters had by this time established an open line of communication with the Command Center at Herndon and instructed it to poll all its centers about suspect aircraft. The Command Center executed the request and, a minute later, Cleveland Center reported that 'United 93 may have a bomb on board.' At 9:34, the Command Center relayed the information concerning United 93 to FAA headquarters. At approximately 9:36, Cleveland advised the Command Center that it was still tracking United 93 and specifically inquired whether someone had requested the military to launch fighter aircraft to intercept the aircraft. Cleveland even told the Command Center it was prepared to contact a nearby military base to make the request. The Command Center told Cleveland that FAA personnel well above them in the chain of command had to make the decision to seek military assistance and were working on the issue."

United 93 crashed in Pennsylvania at 10:03:11, 125 miles from Washington, D.C."

The time of notification of the crash of United 93 was 10:15. The NEADS air defenders never located the flight or followed it on their radar scopes.The flight had already crashed by the time they learned it was hijacked."

As it turned out, the NEADS air defenders had nine minutes’notice on the first hijacked plane, no advance notice on the second, no advance notice on the third, and no advance notice on the fourth.

We do not believe that the true picture of that morning reflects discredit on the operational personnel at NEADS or FAA facilities. NEADS commanders and officers actively sought out information, and made the best judgments they could on the basis of what they knew. Individual FAA controllers, facility managers, and Command Center managers thought outside the box in recommending a nationwide alert, in ground-stopping local traffic, and, ultimately, in deciding to land all aircraft and executing that unprecedented order flawlessly."

United 93 was proceeding normally at that time. In this same public testimony, NORAD officials stated that at 9:24, NEADS received notification of the hijacking of American 77. This statement was also incorrect.The notice NEADS received at 9:24 was that American 11 had not hit the World Trade Center and was heading for Washington, D.C.

Nor did the military have 47 minutes to respond to United 93, as would be implied by the account that it received notice of the flight’s hijacking at 9:16. By the time the military learned about the flight, it had crashed."

Text

At about 9:20, security personnel at FAA headquarters set up a hijacking teleconference with several agencies, including the Defense Department.The NMCC officer who participated told us that the call was monitored only periodically because the information was sporadic,it was of little value,and there were other important tasks. The FAA manager of the teleconference also remembered that the military participated only briefly before the Pentagon was hit.

Both individuals agreed that the teleconference played no role in coordinating a response to the attacks of 9/11.Acting Deputy Administrator Belger was frustrated to learn later in the morning that the military had not been on the call.

At the White House, the video teleconference was conducted from the Situation Room by Richard Clarke, a special assistant to the president long involved in counterterrorism. Logs indicate that it began at 9:25 and included the CIA; the FBI; the departments of State, Justice, and Defense; the FAA; and the White House shelter. The FAA and CIA joined at 9:40. The first topic addressed in the White House video teleconference—at about 9:40—was the physical security of the President, the White House, and federal agencies. Immediately thereafter it was reported that a plane had hit the Pentagon.We found no evidence that video teleconference participants had any prior information that American 77 had been hijacked and was heading directly towardWashington. Indeed, it is not clear to us that the video teleconference was fully under way before 9:37, when the Pentagon was struck.Garvey, Belger, and other senior officials from FAA headquarters participated in this video teleconference at various times. We do not know who from Defense participated, but we know that in the first hour none of the personnel involved in managing the crisis did. And none of the information conveyed in the White House video teleconference, at least in the first hour, was being passed to the NMCC.As one witness recalled,“[It] was almost like there were parallel decisionmaking processes going on; one was a voice conference orchestrated by the NMCC . . . and then there was the [White House video teleconference]. . . . [I]n my mind they were competing venues for command and control and decisionmaking.”

Inside the NMCC, the deputy director for operations called for an allpurpose 'significant event' conference. It began at 9:29, with a brief recap: two aircraft had struck the World Trade Center, there was a confirmed hijacking of American 11, and Otis fighters had been scrambled. The FAA was asked to provide an update, but the line was silent because the FAA had not been added to the call....

Operators worked feverishly to include the FAA, but they had equipment problems and difficulty finding secure phone numbers. NORAD asked three times before 10:03 to confirm the presence of the FAA in the teleconference. The FAA representative who finally joined the call at 10:17 had no familiarity with or responsibility for hijackings, no access to decisionmakers, and none of the information available to senior FAA officials.

We found no evidence that, at this critical time, NORAD’s top commanders, in Florida or Cheyenne Mountain, coordinated with their counterparts at FAA headquarters to improve awareness and organize a common response. Lower-level officials improvised—for example, the FAA’s Boston Center bypassed the chain of command and directly contacted NEADS after the first hijacking. But the highest-level Defense Department officials relied on the NMCC’s air threat conference, in which the FAA did not participate for the first 48 minutes.

At 9:39, the NMCC’s deputy director for operations, a military officer, opened the call from the Pentagon, which had just been hit. He began:'An air attack against North America may be in progress. NORAD, what’s the situation?'. NORAD said it had conflicting reports. Its latest information was “of a possible hijacked aircraft taking off out of JFK en route to Washington D.C.”

The NMCC reported a crash into the mall side of the Pentagon and requested that the Secretary of Defense be added to the conference.

At 9:44, NORAD briefed the conference on the possible hijacking of Delta 1989. Two minutes later, staff reported that they were still trying to locate Secretary Rumsfeld and Vice Chairman Myers. The Vice Chairman joined the conference shortly before 10:00; the Secretary, shortly before 10:30. The Chairman was out of the country.

At 9:48, a representative from the White House shelter asked if there were any indications of another hijacked aircraft. The deputy director for operations mentioned the Delta flight and concluded that 'that would be the fourth possible hijack.'At 9:49, the commander of NORAD directed all air sovereignty aircraft to battle stations, fully armed.

By 10:03, when United 93 crashed in Pennsylvania, there had been no mention of its hijacking and the FAA had not yet been added to the teleconference.

The Vice President was logged calling the President at 10:18 for a two minute conversation that obtained the confirmation. On Air Force One, the President’s press secretary was taking notes; Ari Fleischer recorded that at 10:20, the President told him that he had authorized a shootdown of aircraft if necessary."

General David Wherley—the commander of the 113th Wing—reached out to the Secret Service after hearing secondhand reports that it wanted fighters airborne.A Secret Service agent had a phone in each ear, one connected to Wherley and the other to a fellow agent at the White House, relaying instructions that the White House agent said he was getting from the Vice President. The guidance for Wherley was to send up the aircraft, with orders to protect the White House and take out any aircraft that threatened the Capitol. General Wherley translated this in military terms to flying 'weapons free'—that is, the decision to shoot rests in the cockpit, or in this case in the cockpit of the lead pilot. He passed these instructions to the pilots that launched at 10:42 and afterward.

Thus, while the fighter pilots under NORAD direction who had scrambled out of Langley never received any type of engagement order, the Andrews pilots were operating weapons free—a permissive rule of engagement. The President and the Vice President indicated to us they had not been aware that fighters had been scrambled out of Andrews, at the request of the Secret Service and outside the military chain of command. There is no evidence that NORAD headquarters or military officials in the NMCC knew—during the morning of September 11—that the Andrews planes were airborne and operatingunder different rules of engagement."

KEY MILITARY FIGURES
NOT AVAILABLE TO PENTAGON'S NATIONAL MILITARY COMMAND CENTRE
DURING HEIGHT OF 9/11 EMERGENCY
'The Incommunicado Response Team'

Meanwhile
What Were These Military Operatives Doing At The FAA Command Center On 9/11?

"In [FAA] Headquarters, Air Traffic Services set up an additional situation room in the front office that was occupied by DOD [Department of Defense] liaison officers who worked on the Air Traffic Services Headquarters staff.... At the FAA Air Traffic Control System Command Center, the military officers assigned to the Air Traffic Services Cell became immediately involved in coordinating FAA Air Traffic Control System Command Center actions with military elements."
Jeff Griffith, FAA Deputy Director of Air Traffic on 911
9/11 Commission, Twelfth Public Hearing, Written Statement

"... at the Command Center of course is the military cell, which was our liaison with the military services. They were present at all of the events that occurred on 9/11....  They have their own communication web that I think defeated some of the notification processes, as I've been listening to today. But in my mind everyone who needed to be notified about the events transpiring was notified, including the military."
Ben Sliney, FAA Command Center’s National Operations Manager
9/11 Commission, Twelfth Public Hearing, Oral Evidence

"Prior to 9/11, the procedures for managing a traditional hijacked aircraft, as I said, were in place and pretty well tested.... The most frustrating after-the-fact scenario for me to understand is to explain is the communication link on that morning between the FAA operations center and the NMCC....  The hijacking net is an open communication net run by the FAA hijack coordinator, who is a senior person from the FAA security organization, for the purpose of getting the affected federal agencies together to hear information at the same time.... It was my assumption that morning, as it had been for my 30 years of experience with the FAA, that the NMCC was on that net and hearing everything real-time..... I can tell you I've lived through dozens of hijackings in my 30-year FAA career, as a very low entry-level inspector up through to the headquarters, and they were always there. They were always on the net, and were always listening in with everybody else.....  from my perspective there is no doubt in my mind that the FAA security organization knew what to do. There is no doubt in my mind that the air traffic organization knew what to do. They are the two key players in that type of scenario.... this is very, very important, in response to your question.... the NMCC was called. They were added to this open communication net. In my 30 years of history, there was always somebody listening to that net..... I truly do not mean this to be defensive, but it is a fact -- there were military people on duty at the FAA Command Center, as Mr. Sliney said. They were participating in what was going on. There were military people in the FAA's Air Traffic Organization in a situation room. They were participating in what was going on."
Monte Belger, FAA Acting Deputy Administrator on 911
9/11 Commission, Twelfth Public Hearing, Oral Evidence

Text

Text From 9/11 Commission Report And Hearings

"It is our information that FAA tracked Flight 93 from the moment it was hijacked. The problem was that it did not communicate the hijack information to NORAD....The issue which we have repeatedly come back to is the disconnect between the fact that this plane was hijacked, that FAA knew it but did not communicate that information to NORAD....."
Richard Ben-Veniste, 9/11 Commissioner
9/11 Commission, Twelfth Public Hearing

Protocol Requires FAA Inform NORAD Through NMCC
But Telecommunication Link With NMCC Broken

"After the second aircraft impacted the second tower, the [National Military] Command Center then became a focal point for coordinating information flow. And at that point I convened - by the procedures that existed on 9/11, I convened a conference called a Significant Event Conference.... FAA tried to be included in that conference and we had difficulty throughout the morning getting them in the conference.... Most of the time they were not in the conference.... I can say that it did hamper information flow because we were getting information in a more roundabout way from FAA... I understand on that day that there were some compatibility issues between their secure phone and ours in the Command Center that caused them to drop out of the conference. But I'm not aware of the technical aspects of it.... we were connected to the White House and I was satisfied with the communications to the White House..... We were hampered that day by communications.... ."
Testimony of Admiral Leidig
The officer in command of the NMCC during most of the attacks
9/11 Commission, Twelfth Public Hearing

Who Are These Military People At FAA HQ?
Why Did They Not Establish The Link?

"In [FAA] Headquarters, Air Traffic Services set up an additional situation room in the front office that was occupied by DOD [Department of Defense] liaison officers who worked on the Air Traffic Services Headquarters staff.... At the FAA Air Traffic Control System Command Center, the military officers assigned to the Air Traffic Services Cell became immediately involved in coordinating FAA Air Traffic Control System Command Center actions with military elements."
Jeff Griffith, FAA Deputy Director of Air Traffic on 911
9/11 Commission, Twelfth Public Hearing, Written Statement

"... at the Command Center of course is the military cell, which was our liaison with the military services. They were present at all of the events that occurred on 9/11....  They have their own communication web that I think defeated some of the notification processes, as I've been listening to today. But in my mind everyone who needed to be notified about the events transpiring was notified, including the military."
Ben Sliney, FAA Command Center’s National Operations Manager
9/11 Commission, Twelfth Public Hearing, Oral Evidence

"Prior to 9/11, the procedures for managing a traditional hijacked aircraft, as I said, were in place and pretty well tested.... The most frustrating after-the-fact scenario for me to understand is to explain is the communication link on that morning between the FAA operations center and the NMCC....  The hijacking net is an open communication net run by the FAA hijack coordinator, who is a senior person from the FAA security organization, for the purpose of getting the affected federal agencies together to hear information at the same time.... It was my assumption that morning, as it had been for my 30 years of experience with the FAA, that the NMCC was on that net and hearing everything real-time..... I can tell you I've lived through dozens of hijackings in my 30-year FAA career, as a very low entry-level inspector up through to the headquarters, and they were always there. They were always on the net, and were always listening in with everybody else.....  from my perspective there is no doubt in my mind that the FAA security organization knew what to do. There is no doubt in my mind that the air traffic organization knew what to do. They are the two key players in that type of scenario.... this is very, very important, in response to your question.... the NMCC was called. They were added to this open communication net. In my 30 years of history, there was always somebody listening to that net..... I truly do not mean this to be defensive, but it is a fact -- there were military people on duty at the FAA Command Center, as Mr. Sliney said. They were participating in what was going on. There were military people in the FAA's Air Traffic Organization in a situation room. They were participating in what was going on."
Monte Belger, FAA Acting Deputy Administrator on 911
9/11 Commission, Twelfth Public Hearing, Oral Evidence

"....As Mr. Belger stated, from my point of view I'm absolutely sure that our field managers know -- knew on 9/11 what to do in the event of a hijacking. The procedures are very cleared. The procedures are trained as a matter of refresher training in our operational facilities every year..... There are protocols, there are check lists, there are folders that are kept in operational positions where people have responsibility for reporting. And through the years -- not only for hijackings, but aircraft accidents and other incidents -- reporting is a very high priority. So it surprises me that people would think our managers didn't know how to report."
Jeff Griffith, FAA Deputy Director of Air Traffic on 911
9/11 Commission, Twelfth Public Hearing, Oral Evidence