DM B5 Monograph Team 9 Fdr- Entire Contents- Draft 120

8/14/2019 DM B5 Monograph Team 9 Fdr- Entire Contents- Draft 120

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HOMELAND ON SEPTEMBER 11, 2001

"This is a new kind of war." NORAD Mission Crew CommanderTechnician Bianchi, at

9: a.m., on 9/11/01

I. INTRODUCTION

Few aspects of the history of September 11 have been so misunderstood as the story of how theUnited States military responded to the terrorist attacks. The public record is a maze of inconsistenttimelines and conflicting recollections about what happened, when it happened, who informed themilitary, when the military was informed, how the chain of command functioned, and how and when themilitary responded once it was informed of the hijackings. To some extent this confusion is a result ofthe complexities of the day's events, refracted through the imperfect lens of memory; to a great extent,however, this monograph will demonstrate, the inconsistencies in the public record are traceable toincongruities in the federal government's presentation before congressional committees, various mediaoutlets, and this Commission of its version of what happened.

This monograph sets forth the definitive history of the United States' response to the 9/11attacks. It accomplishes this by establishing in detail the operational facts of the defense of thehomeland on the morning of 9/11. These facts have been reconstructed by Commission staff fromprimary sources and corroborated by interviewing the key participants. Because there has been suchpublic confusion over the precise timing of events that morning, the monograph sets forth at length theprecise sequence in which critical events occurred and the evidence supporting the Commission staffsreliance on specific times and sequences. It then contrasts the facts as we now know them to be with thefacts as presented publicly by the Department of Defense, the Federal Aviation Administration, andother administration officials.

A. MethodologyThe challenge to Commission staff in relating the history of one of the most chaotic days in our

nation's history is to avoid replicating that chaos in writing about it. In order to accomplish this, and atthe same time to avoid oversimplifying events in the interest of clarity, Commission staff has availeditself of three types of source material: primary sources, interviews, and public sources.

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First, staff has relied principally upon primary sources, jgbtained to a gt degree in response toCommission subpoenas issued to the FAA and DoD.^tlie primary sources consist of (1) radar data fromboth the Joint Surveillance System, shared by the Federal Aviation Administration and NORAD, andFA A radar data; (2) tapes made of conversations occurring on the operations floor at the Northeast AirDefense Sector and in various FAA Air Traffic Control Centers; and (3) logs that were maintained

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during the regular course of business at NO RA D. Transcripts of some of the recordings were-provided by both FAA and DoD. Commission staff has had to contract out the transcription of a great jmany of the tapes, however, particularly those provided in response to Comm ission subpoena^. Forpurposes of this draft of the monograph, staff has cited to page numbers from the existing transcripts;because the transcripts w ill not, in all likelihood, be authe nticated prior to the Com m ission's expiration,staff proposes to cite, in its final monograph, to specific data points on the individual tapes. Staff wouldappreciate guidance on this point.The second source relied upon by staff in reconstructing the events of 9/11 is interviewsconducted by staff with the principals involved in the events of that morning. Interviews have beenhelpful in most cases in corroborating the facts that are apparent from review ing the tapes, transcripts,and logs. Where individual recollections differ from wha t is apparent on the tapes, transcripts, and logs,this monograph notes the difference, but relies on the contemporaneous evidence as more likely to beaccurate.The least valuable source of information for Commission staff has been the public record. A snoted above, the public record is replete w ith contradictory accounts of the times the hijacked planestook off , the times at which they were hijacked, the times and nature of the notification to the military ofthe hijackings, and the times and nature of the military's response to the attacks. This monograph m akesno attempt to rebut exhaustively every speculative account of the events of 9/11 that has appeared in thepublic record; it does, however, attem pt to dispel any misun derstanding s that m ight exist as aconsequence of statements of government officials.A s of this writing (mid-February 2004), Commission staff has reviewed the bulk of documentsobtained prior to and as a result of the issuance of subpoenas (although responsive docum ents continueto filter in from both FAA and DoD). Staff has completed interviews at the Northeast A ir DefenseSector in Rome NY and the Continental North A merican Region of NORAD at Tindall A ir Force Basein Panama City, Florida; at Langley and Otis A ir Force Bases; and at FAA A ir Traffic Control facilitiesin Nash ua, New H am pshire, Roncocom a, NY , Queens, NY , Indianapolis, Indiana, Oberlin, Ohio,Leesburg, Virginia, and Chantilly, Virginia. A lthough much rem ains to done ~ staff must still complete

interviews at NORA D headquarters in Colorado Springs (scheduled for the first week of March), at theNational Military C omm and Center, at Andrews A ir Force Base, at the Herndon and W ashingtonOperations Centers of the FA A , and at the White House ~ staff is able to set forth in this draftmonograph the definitive sequence of operational facts of the morning of 9/11 as that sequence waslived by those fighting the air defense battle.B. Seeing Through The Fog, Part One: The Fog of WarA s noted above, the day of 9/11 was extraordinarily chaotic asitlvas experienced by theprincipals involved in defending the nation that m orning. Th e sequence of coordinated attacks on 9/11created operational confusion and a "fog of war" that hasrbcgmled^recise recollection. That chaos isreflected in the prim ary source docume nts of the day; its effect on the air defense mission w ill bedescribed in detail below.As it turns out, however, the touchstones for evaluating the effectiveness of the U nited States'm ilitary response to the 9/11 attacks are matters of objective fact and can be identified with relativeprecision: the points in time at which the military air defense operators received notice of eachhijacking, and the points in time at which each flight crashed. Identifying times of notification, andcomparing them to the times at which the flights were terminated, reveals how much time, for any givenflight, the military had to respond.

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With these points of reference as a guide, the fundamental operational reality for the military on9/11 can be stated sim ply: the military officers charged w ith leading the air defense m ission did notreceive notice of any of the four hijacked flights in t ime to enable them to respond to the threat be forethe planes crashed. ,The greatest amounTof notice the military received of any of the hijacked planes was the six[eight?] minutes' notice the Northeast A ir Defense Sector (NEA DS) received of the first hijacked plane,

American A irlines Flight 11 . The resulting scramble of fighters from Otis A ir Force Base occurred at8:46 a.m., almost sim ultaneously with the impact of AA 11 into the North Tower of the W orld TradeCenter in Lower M anhattan at 8:46.40.NEADS received notice of the second hijacked flight, United A irlines Flight 175, as it explodedinto the South Tower at 9:02.40.NEADS received notice that A m erican Flight 77 was missing five m inutes before Am ericanAirlines Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon at 9:37.45. Three minutes prior to impact at the Pentagon,NEADS received notice that an unidentified large plane was six m iles southwest of the W hite H ouse.Finally, NE A DS received notice that United A irlines Flight 93 w as hijacked more than fiveminutes after the flight had already crashed in Shenksville, Pennsylvania at 10:03.11.To put the m atter in the simplest term s, the Northeast A ir Defense Sector had six [eight?]minutes' notice on one flight, five minutes' notice on another, and was notifie d post-crash on the othertwo. The notice that was received on the two planes prior to crash, m oreover, did not specify the planes'locations.C. Seeing Through The Fog, Part Two: The Fog Of Public AccountsGiven the multitude of newspaper and other m edia accounts, congressional and Commissiontestimony, and books and periodicals devoted to the government's response to the 9/11 attacks, what is

most remarkable about the operational sequence outlined above is that it has never been told, [underdiscussion]II . THE AIR DEFENSE OF AMERICA ON 9/11

A. Air Traffic Control and Continental A ir Defense Pre-9/11The defense of the United States' air space and hom eland depended on 9/11, as today, on closeinteraction betwe en two federal agencies: the Federal A viation A dm inistration ("FAA"), which isresponsible principally for the safety of civilian commercial aviation; and NOR AD, an agency that was,in structure if not in mission, a relic of the Cold War, responsible for providing de fense of American airspace against aggressor nations and the protection of A m erica's air sovereignty against rogue intruderssuch as drug smugglers. In order to understand how the two agencies interacted on 9/11, it is essentialto understand how the agencies had evolved in the years leading to 9/11, the nature of their commandand control structures, and the nature of their wo rking relationship on the morning of 9/11.

1. The Federal A viation A dm inistrationa. Mission

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b. Structure and Organization

2. The Military: NORAD and the Declining Missiona. The historic missions: air defense and air sovereignty

The North Am erican Aerospace D efense Command (NORAD ), a joint Am erican-Canadiancomm and, was formed in 1958 in order to provide for the air defense of the No rth Am erican continent.[Kenneth Schaffel, The Em erging Shield: The A ir Force and the Evolution of Continental A ir D efense,1945-1960 (U.S A.F. A ir Combat Command, 1991), at 9; Leslie Filson, Air War Over America, at 6 (theoriginal nam e, North Am erican A ir Defense Comm and, was later changed to "Aerospace" commandafter the advent of Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles)] At the t ime NOR AD was formed, the air defensemission was a top priority of the Department of Defense because of the threat of Soviet bom bers and,later, ICBM s.Th e resources allocated to the NOR A D command reflected the priority of its mission. In 1958,at the peak of NO RA D's Cold War alert, the comm and controlled 2,200 active United States andCanadian fighter interceptor aircraft, stationed at 26 alert sites. [Filson, Air War Over America, at 11]In addition, the command had access to approximately 3,600 reserve aircraft. [Id.] By the mid-sixties,however, the fighter-interceptor mission had been devalued by the advent of the ICBM threat. Secretaryof Defense McNamara testified in a 1966 hearing before the House Subcomm ittee on Department ofDefense A ppropriations: "The elaborate defenses which we erected against the Soviet bom ber t h rea t . . .no longer retain their original importance. Today, with no defense against the major threat, SovietICBMs, ou r anti-bomber defenses alone w ould contribute very little to our damage-limited objective...." [Quoted in Filson, A ir War Over Am erica, at 13]By 1971, there were 12 regular Air Force fighter-interceptor squadrons operating in the airdefense mission, along with 3 from the Canadian forces and 15 in the A ir National Guard. [Air ForceSpace Com mand, NOR A D Dedicated Interceptor Squadrons, 1957-85] With Department of Defensepriorities focused on the ICBM and the war in Vietnam , "air defense really changed. When there weremultiple warheads on missiles, it made a little radar site sitting at the tip of Florida somewhere kind ofinsignificant, and we all accepted that as the mission drew dow n and went to the Guard." [Retired A irForce Col. Harry Birkner, quoted in Filson, at 14-15] A nother retired A ir Force Colonel, C onnie M acHostetler, recalls that "[m]any of the fighter-interceptor assets w ent to the Guard and a lot of the fighter-interceptor squadrons folded. The perimeter air defense idea came in and a lot of the internal air defensesquadrons closed down. The rationale was: 'Who is going to attack Kansas City; Lockbourne, Ohio; orBig Spring, Texas? So as the restructuring of air defen se began, ev eryone realized that the Guard coulddo the same job as the active duty units and the active duty units could be used for active duty needs."[Quoted in Filson, A ir War, at 14-15]

b. The missions' decline: from 26 alert stations to 7Prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989, the NO RA D air defense mission had beendeclining due to the predominance of the ICBM threat; after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the airsovereignty aspect of NO RA D's m ission became m ore prominent. "Bottom line," according to retired

Maj. Gen. Philip K illey, commander of the 1st A ir Force in the early nineties, "air sovereignty means weneed to know who's flying in our airspace. We can 't afford to have our skies, our borders of our



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airspace, wide open to whoever wants to fly in. We need to know what that traffic is. And we need tohave a system of identifying unkno wn aircraft." [Quoted in Filson, Sovereign Skies: A ir NationalGuard Takes Comm and of 1st Air Force (1st A ir Force, 1999), at 17]

Not everyone in the defense establishment shared G en. Killey's view of the im portance of the airsovereignty m ission. Retired General Nav in recalls that "It was clear to many pe ople in the military, atleast in their own minds, that the need for a robust air sovereignty fighter force structure was notnecessary. W e didn 't all necessarily share that opinion, but there were enough people in the Departm entof Defense - at thedecision-making level - whodidn't see it as necessary." [Quoted in Filson, Air WarOver America, at 15-16] Killey and others were faced with a major challenge, then, as the Cold Warended: "Am erican defense priorities w ere changing. A m anned bomber attack against the United Stateswas unlikely. But... America's skies did need protection against an y unknown airborne target thatcould penetrate sovereign airspace; A m erica needed an air sovereignty force." [Filson, A ir W ar OverAmerica, at 16-17]

1. invoking the threat of terrorism in order to preserve the mission3. A gency Interaction: F A A a n d N O R A D

a. "Free-standing silos"1. different languages2. absence of joint training3. differing radar capacities4. bureaucratic battle over phasing out radar

b. The Protocols for interception emergencies: how it should have worked1. comm and and control in hijack situations: the WOC and the NM CC2. the comm and structure of NO RA D and the Northeast A ir DefenseSector3. a precursor: Payne Stewart?

4. the m orning of 9/11: Vigilant Guardian

B. 9/11 Part One: The New York Attacks1. American Airlines 11: Notification at 8:38, Impact at 8:46

a. FAA Awareness[under discussion]b. Military Notification and Response

The United States' defense of its hom eland on 9/11 began with the decision of the Boston A ir



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Traffic Control Center to contact the Northeast A ir Defense Sector of NORA D. At 8:38 [8:40?]a.m., a tracking technician in the Weapons Section at NEADS answered a call from Boston Center:[under discussion]c. Analysis

T he interplay of the FA A and NEAD S regarding A me rican A irlines 11 prefigured, in manyrespects, their interactions throughout the critical m orning hours of 9/11.[under discussion]2. United A irlines Flight 175: Notification A t Impact At 9:02.40 a.m.

a. FAA Awareness[under discussion]

b. Military Notification and ResponseThe first indication that the NEADS air defenders had of the second hijacked aircraft, United175, came in a phone call from New York Center shortly after 9:00 a.m ., reporting that United 175 wasa "possible second hijack." [ID Op, Ch., 4, at 13]

[under discussion]c. Analysis

T he most noteworthy aspect of the time sequence recounted above is a time that is notm entioned: 8:43 a.m . In the days imm ediately following 9/11, both NORA D and FA A ide ntified 8:43as the t ime at which NORA D was notified of the hijacking of United 175; this time w as picked up byT he Washington Post and other prominent media outlets, and widely disseminated in the public record.T he tapes and transcripts, corroborated by witness interviews, show, howeve r, that 8:43 could not havebeen the tim e of notification. T he FA A controller did not notice the change in transponder signal fromUnited 175 until 8:51; there is no way that FA A could have notified NORAD of the hijacking at 8:43when it did not even realize the re was a problem with the flight until eight minutes later.

[under discussion]

C. 9/11 Part T wo: A Critical Mistaken Report1. FAA Awareness

[under discussion]2. Military Notification And Response

A t 9:20, the m ilitary officer at Boston Center, who had been listening in on an FAAteleconference, called the NEA DS ID Technician Unit:



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FAA: M ilitary, Boston Center. I just got a report that Am erican11 is still in the air, and it is on its way towards - heading towardWashington.[under discussion]

3. AnalysisThe sequence outlined above is again noteworthy for its omission of notification times that havebeen widely circulated.

[under discussion]D. 9/11 Part Three: The Washington, DC Attacks

1. American Airlines 77: Notification at 9:33, Impact at 9:37.45a. FAA Awareness

[under discussion]

b. M ilitary Notification and Response[under discussion]

c. Analysis[under discussion]

2. A nother Mistaken Report: De lta 1989, Reported 9:39 a.m.a. FAA Awareness

Having experienced the two hijackings from Logan A irport earlier in the morning,and hearing the reports of a third missing aircraft, Boston Center became proactive. After the secondplane crashed into the World T rade Center, Boston Center ground-stopped all pending departures andthen attempted to identify other potential flights that had already taken off and might be candidates forhijacking. [Biggio MFR at ] In particular, Boston Center began to look for transcontinental flightstaking off from Boston and to attempt to contact those flights to ensure that everything was normal. Oneflight in particular, Delta 1989, from Boston to Las Vegas, attracted Boston Center's attention,[reasons?] [Biggio MFR at ]

b. Military Notification and Response[under discussion]

c. Analysis



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Because its transponder was never turned off, the Delta 1989 flight was the first reportedhijacking from 9/11 that NEA DS controllers were able to follow as it headed west, and ultimately turnedaround and landed at Cleveland. When confronted with the evidence developed below that they hadnever tracked United 93 , many w itnesses - including General A rnold andCol. Marr -- admitted that theymust have conflated the two flights in their recollections.3. United 93: Notification at 10:07, 5 minutes after impact

At 10:03.11a. FA A Awareness

[under discussion]b. Military Notification and Response

[under discussion]The time of notification of the crash of United 93 was 10:15 [see also M CCT Log]; theactual time of the crash was 10:03.01. The NEADS air defenders never located the flight orfollowed it on their radar scopes. The flight had already crashed by the time they were notifiedthat it was hijacked.

c. Analysis[under discussion]

E. 9/11, Part Four: Washington Weighs In: The Shoot-Down O rder, The AndrewsScramble, and DEFCON 31. The Shoot-Down Order

[under discussion]2. The Andrews Scramble: 10:40[?]

[under discussion]3. DEFCON 3[under discussion]

III. NATIONAL LEADERSHIP ON 9/11

[To be added]



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