9/11 Omission Report:A Citizens Critique of the Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist

Acts Upon the United States

The Final Report

We are presented with a report authorized by the National Commission on Terrorist ActsUpon the United States (9/11 Commission), issued July 22, 2004 as the definitiveaccount of the events of September 11, 2001 and the recommendations that flow fromtheir conclusions and findings. The Final Report has been seen as authoritative, with littlecritical discussion, based on the “bipartisan consensus” of the Commission members. Ithas risen to the top of the New York Times’s bestseller lists. However, the assertions andanalytical conclusions are based on sets of questionable assumptions, contradictions offact, and on omissions of key areas of inquiry.

In our preliminary critique, 9/11 Citizen’s Watch discussed flaws and omissions in theCommission procedures and investigation. We had raised many of these issues with theCommission during its tenure as well, as did victim family members, and we had someeffect on their work. However, their exemption from federal requirements to form familyand citizen advisory panels and the Freedom of Information Act were barriers thatprevented both transparency and accountability in the process.

Following termination of the 9/11 Commission’s work, two “monographs” were released,and more staff reports may follow. These two covered “Terrorist Financing” and“Terrorist Travel.” They are summaries of findings by the various investigative panels ofthe Commission, and contain a few source documents or pieces of evidence. Some of thematerial prepared by each team was used in the seventeen staff statements released duringthe public hearings, and for the “draft sections” of the final report.

The Commission’s Executive Director encloses a disclaimer in each report, noting that:

“Some of the specialized staff work, while not appropriate for inclusion into thereport, nonetheless offered substantial information or analysis that was not wellrepresented in the Commission’s report. In a few cases this supplemental workcould be prepared to a publishable standard, either in unclassified or classifiedform, before the Commission expired…While the Commissioners have beenbriefed on the work and have had the opportunity to review earlier drafts of someof this work, they have not approved this text and it does not necessarily reflecttheir views.”

This may reflect a lack of consensus between the staff and the Commission membersabout some of the assumptions or conclusions reached by a consensus of the members.

The report initially lacked any index, though several usable online searchable versionsexist. The Commission also released a brief topic index to the press, but it does notreplace a fully detailed list of names and key issues. In the hardbound edition of thereport, an index is included, but it is not thorough.

The extensive section of supporting notes is much less readable and accessible,reproduced in tiny print and without clear visual breaks. The report is essentially self-referential, despite some citations to published works. Most of the footnoted notationsrefer to interviews and documents that are not yet public. Despite numerous calls fortransparency and release of all non-classified evidence and interviews, the report currentlystands alone in a single volume with few supporting documents, transcribed interviews oritems of forensic evidence.

The Warren Commission Report on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy was,by comparison, accompanied by 26 volumes of testimony, documents and evidence,which was still only a fraction of the collection. To date, over 6 million pages related tothat government investigation have been released.

The 9/11 Commission interviewed almost 2,000 individuals and generated correspondenceand internal records from a staff of over 80 people. Most of these interviews were held inprivate, not under oath, and we do not know whether they were recorded, transcribed ornotated. National Security Advisor Condaleeza Rice testified to the Commission inprivate, not under oath, and reportedly no record was kept besides “notes” of this criticalinterview. Until the unclassified portions of this vast body of evidence are released,public confidence in the conclusions of the report will be challenged.

Some of the public testimony, which was not all taken under oath, contradicted othertestimony, printed reports, and even itself, as well as the conclusions reached by theCommission.

9/11 CitizensWatch had urged the Commission to avoid the pattern of previousCongressional inquiries into key historical events, gathering a body of documentary andother evidence for their work and then blocking its public release for up to fifty years.Instead, the Chairman and Vice-Chairman were urged to call for a full and immediaterelease of all non-classified records, and for an expedited release of the remaining evidenceusing the standards established and recommended by the JFK Assassination RecordsReview Board, not those of the Freedom of Information Act and the National Archives.

In their final public statement, the Commission chairs revealed that both classified andunclassified investigative and administrative files of the Commission have been transferredto the National Archives and Records Administration. The release date of these files, atthe discretion of Chairman Kean, was set for a shorter period than usual, at January 2,2009, at the start of a new presidential term. Until that date, only the known classified

records can be challenged for an agency review and early release. The unclassifieddocuments are still exempted from the Freedom of Information Act, only a Congressionaldecision could force their release at this point.

Although the consistent, readable and accessible style of this report cannot have emergedfrom contributions by the nine separate investigative teams, the actual authorship of thereport is not acknowledged. Was a single author assigned to write a final version of thetext once the national security issues were resolved? If so, was it a staff member of theCommission or someone assigned from another federal agency?

9/11 Commission chairman, Governor Tom Kean, announced that his staff would be self-censoring the report in advance, to create a “non-classified” version. In addition, chapterswere sent in advance to the White House for vetting to meet the July deadline facing theCommission for release. The 9/11 Commission’s Final Report was essentially co-authored with the White House, and the lack of any redactions makes it impossible toknow what kind of information was withheld at White House insistence.

Other Congressional committee and commission reports in the past have been writtenindependently, submitted to the White House for national security vetting, and releasedto the public months later with portions clearly redacted and withheld. The Joint InquiryReport of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees was delayed for release foralmost a year, then printed with sections clearly missing, including a controversial 28-page omission relating to “other countries” involved in the 9/11 attacks. The process usedin creating the 9/11 Commission’s Final Report compromises and sanitizes theindependent nature of its conclusions.

Several Congressional representatives (including Senators Dodd and Lieberman and Rep.Chris Shays) joined 9/11 victims’ family members in calling for the report to specificallyaddress the long list of unanswered questions raised by the families during theinvestigation (www.9-11independentcommission.org), or to include those questions as anappendix. While the Final Report does address certain issues, it met neither request fully,and family members are compiling a final list of questions not addressed in the report’sconclusions.

The Final Report rests on a foundation of incorrect assumptions, incomplete testimonyand evidence, major omissions, and unsupported conclusions that lead to faultyrecommendations. Public hearings on those recommendations were completed long beforethe investigation of the events and causes of the 9/11 attacks. Without critical challengesto its conclusions, or release of additional evidence necessary to evaluate the report, themomentum will be to have recommendations to be adopted without serious review oftheir assumptions.

This Citizens’ Criticism addresses some key flawed assumptions, contradictions andomissions in their investigation, a compromised process and faulty conclusions, as well asthe recommendations that flow from them. Each of these areas relies on the other for itsfoundation. We draw from the work of a large number of family members and critics ofthe Commission and its report, as well as the public and sometimes conflicting testimony,staff statements, and the public record. Our goal is to show the inadequacies in theconclusions and recommendations, and to suggest other areas of inquiry, possibleadditional witnesses and alternatives to the unquestioned framework of policies that theReport supports.

Rush to Exoneration

Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of this Final Report is its “rush to exoneration” ofany and all government officials in their responsibility for the “failures” of intelligencecollection and sharing, preparation for or prevention of the attack, lack of fullinvestigations in response to complaints about the suspects or recommendations byactive agents, and the inexplicable response of FAA, NORAD and other defensivesystems to the air emergencies and attacks that morning.

Not only were there no visible reprimands, demotions or administrative actions takenagainst government employees, but there were no courts of inquiry or courts martial bythe Pentagon. In fact, many of those in the most critical national command positions orheading key agencies were promoted after the attacks, despite an apparent lack ofappropriate preparation or response to numerous warnings, opportunities, and the eventsof 9/11/01.

While no one is calling for a “witch hunt,” the Commission’s approach avoids naming anynames or holding any person or office accountable for the nearly complete breakdown instandard procedures that might have prevented the success of the terrorist plot at manydifferent points. This reluctance on their part made it impossible to learn from a moreprobative approach to witnesses called to task for their inactions or the obstacles that ledto an inability to defend and protect Americans and their most visible institutions.

Thus, we are in danger of heading into the future without yet fully knowing the past orwhat was behind the attacks on 9/11, their historical causes, Nor can we know withconfidence who can be held accountable for policies that could have prevented them andthat will make terrorism more likely in the future. The omissions of the 9/11 Commissionare potentially fatal not only to Americans but to the people of the world if these flawedpolicies continue and the recommendations that fail to challenge them are adopted as thesolution.

Congressional Oversight

Following the end of their Congressionally mandated and extended term, the members ofthe National Commission on Terrorist Acts Upon the United States were required to beavailable for a period of 60 days to testify before appropriate Congressional committees.This process began during a legislative break period this summer, with special committeehearings on their 41 recommendations called in Washington, DC, and they continue withthe return of Congress to the new session. However, no committee has done an oversightreview on their process or their conclusions, or called for release of their unclassifiedrecords to date.

The members of the 9/11 Commission have also now created a non-profit group called the9/11 Public Discourse Project, retaining a small staff to facilitate appearances around thecountry of pairs of Commission members to invite public discussion of the issues andrecommendations raised by their report and to hear public concerns about the policiesthat have been or have not been adopted in the wake of the attacks.

Their lack of transparency, their failure to fully explore key areas of investigation raisedby the public, and their decision to conceal forensic evidence and the basic sources fortheir conclusions have made any objective assessment of their work difficult and

The consensus of history must be more than bi-partisan at the upper levels of power, itmust be agreed to from the non-partisan lowest levels of the society as well. The factsabout 9/11 cannot be the sole purvey of any elite group, they must belong to theAmerican people as a whole. Because, until we really know the truth about 9/11, wecannot responsibly act.

The Task Ahead

There is a great deal more work necessary to cover all the areas in which the investigativerecord and the known evidence fail to support the conclusions of the 9/11 Commission.More areas of conflict come to light in each Congressional hearing with Commissionmembers, and the public record is not yet complete.

9/11 CitizensWatch began its work at the same time the Commission was formed, seekinga transparent and open process, integrity in the investigation, access to information, andanswers to hard questions that still remain for the victims’ families and the public. Thatwork continues in this critique of the final report, in our monitoring of the Legislative andExecutive branch responses to the recommendations, and in the ongoing need to satisfyboth knowledge and accountability in relation to the tragic events of September 11, 2001.

As we suspected during the investigation, this may require the formation of a legitimatePeople’s Truth Commission, including family members, based on principles of evidenceand fairness, that can hear the evidence not considered by this Commission and review itsfindings. Early critics of the flawed conclusions and evidence of presented by the Warren

Commission created public support for a tribunal led by philosopher Bertrand Russellinto the truth behind the assassination of President Kennedy. Our counter-report is a firststep in that process, a step that the mainstream press, the Congress and most of thecritical voices relating to 9/11 have yet to take.

The conclusions and findings of the 9/11 Commission have been accepted in themainstream media without comment or questions, based on the fact that the members arebi-partisan and reached consensus. Their recommendations have gotten some criticalreview, but their underlying assumptions about the plot, response to the attack, foreignpolicy, real security, civil liberties, militarism, ongoing war, and the role of intelligence andcovert operations have as yet met with silent assent in even the most critical quarters.

Only a thorough review of the Commission’s report, compared with the informationgathered by investigative journalists, international press sources, released governmentdocuments, whistleblower revelations and its own testimony and statements has thepotential to rouse public concern about its credibility or justify further inquiry. Thisremains our most pressing task, as well as continuing to collect additional records andinvestigative reports about the events and those responsible, as well as the response ofthose tasked with national security and protection.

The Investigation

The Commission formed nine initial investigative teams, eventually merged to a total ofeight. These teams collected and analyzed documents and evidence and interviewedthousands of witnesses, mostly in private. They generated a total of 19 staff reports, thelast two referred to as “monographs”. Most of them were read and presented at thepublic hearings of the Commission. These numbered statements covered the followinginvestigative topics that the teams worked on:

Al Qaeda and the Organization of the 9-11 Attack:15. Overview of the Enemy16. Outline of the 9/11 Plot

Intelligence Collection, Analysis, and Management (including oversight and resourceallocation):

2. Three 9/11 Hijackers: Identification, Watchlisting and Tracking7. Intelligence Policy10. Threats and Responses in 200111. The Performance of the Intelligence Community

International Counterterrorism Policy, including states that harbor or harbored terrorists,or offer or offered terrorists safe havens:

5. Diplomacy

Terrorist Financing:18. Terrorist Financing (monograph)

Border Security and Foreign Visitors:• Entry of the 9/11 Hijackers into the United States• Terrorist Travel (monograph)

Law Enforcement and Intelligence Collection inside the United States:9. Law Enforcement. Counterterrorism, and Intelligence Collection in the UnitedStates Prior to 9/1112. Reforming Law Enforcement, Counterterrorism, and Intelligence Collection inthe United States

Commercial Aviation and Transportation Security, including an Investigation into theCircumstances of the Four Hijackings:

3. The Aviation Security System and the 9/11 Attacks4. The Four Flights

The Immediate Response to the Attacks [in New York City and at the Pentagon;]13. Emergency Preparedness and Response

The Immediate Response to the Attacks [by] at the National [Leadership], State, andLocal levels, including issues of Continuity of Government.

6. The Military17. Improvising a Homeland Defense8. National Policy Coordination14. Crisis Management

In addition to this body of data and conclusions, the Commissioners issued periodicstatements, including:

Interim reports 1 & 2, press and public statements by Commissioners

And a series of twelve public hearings included written statements and testimony fromresponsible or knowledgeable officials and policy experts, some of it not taken underoath. We will draw on all of these sources in our criticism, as well as thousands of pressreports and a wide range of historical sources and current critiques presented in recentlyreleased books on 9/11 or aspects of the policies that led up to and followed to theattacks.

However, as noted above, the bulk of the investigative record, photographic, forensic,transcribed, recorded, and documentary is beyond our current reach.

Hostility and Frustration

The 9/11 Commission was finally signed into law and created well after the terroristincidents that it was designed to study. It was born in the clash of the frustration ofvictim family members and other citizens for an open and independent review of the factsbehind the attack, and the hostility of the Bush administration to having any review. Onlythe pressure brought on the White House by these family members, supported by somein Congress who wanted an investigation, forced the creation of the Commission.However, its membership did not include any family members, and was chosen insteadby the President and leaders of both parties in the House and Senate.

The Commission was finally established by law (PL 107-306) in 2003, with severalobstacles to its mandated task. Compared to investigations of other major events, it hadseverely limited funding and time for its massive task. Continued obstruction from theWhite House on the grounds that it would be a partisan attack or distract resources fromthe ongoing war on terror led to a long delay between the event and the investigation aswell. Once established, the Commission faced additional obstruction from variousexecutive agencies and the Bush administration in regard to release of or access toclassified materials

Even the classified version of the Joint Inquiry report and testimony was initiallywithheld, though two of the Commission members, Tim Roemer and Max Cleland, hadbeen part of the inquiry hearings. The rising obsession with secrecy and security thatmarked the post-9/11 federal administration included resistance to a federally appointedCommission seeking the facts. Max Cleland suggested that the long delay in the release ofthe vetted and redacted version of the Joint Inquiry report was to prevent disclosure ofits findings on the flawed intelligence concerning the war on Iraq in advance of the USinvasion there. Cleland later resigned from the Commission after appointment to head afederal agency, and had already started to warn of a flawed report due to White Houseobstruction.

Beyond these problems, the Commission was riddled with serious conflicts of interest ofits own regarding both members and staff. Many of the people working on theCommission had ties with intelligence agencies and operations, previous flawedinvestigations, corporate or investment ties to the airline industry, law firms involved insuits brought by family members, and to international operations that involved the binLaden family. Philip Zelikow, the Executive Director and Commissioner Jamie Gorelickso directly conflicted that they had to appear as witnesses before the Commission and to“recuse” themselves at points in the investigative work. Many victim family memberscalled for Zelikow to step down once they learned he was close to Condaleeza Rice andhad attended the briefings by Richard Clark and Sandy Berger to the White HouseNational Security team warning of immanent attacks by bin Laden. Commissioner Kean

responded to these requests by noting, “all of us on the Commission will have to recuseourselves at some point.”

The conflicts with the executive branch often led to compromises, rarely to subpoenas,though the Commission had and sometimes threatened to use that power. TheCommission did subpoena several agencies, the Department of Defense and the FAAincluded, but never an individual. Often the most conflicted members were chosen by theWhite House to have full access to records, and to make carefully edited reports back tothe full body.

One of the major compromises made by the Commission was to agree to call only onecurrent White House advisor, Condaleeza Rice for public testimony, and to meetprivately with President Bush and Vice President Cheney to hear their unsworn andunrecorded testimony, and a single set of notes was released to the Commission only afterreview. Similar agreements were made regarding access to other records and investigations,requiring that originals be seen by pre-selected staff or members in closed rooms with nocopies or notations allowed.

Other compromises and procedural problems included testimony without oaths,concessions to secrecy, lack of transparency, allowing the presence of agency mindersduring interviews, incomplete recording of testimony, and the voluntary joint vetting andediting of Final Report with the White House.

Neither the families nor the public had any formal advisory role, and ordinary citizens hadvery limited direct access to the Commission staff. At one point 9/11 Citizens Watch wastold that the names of the heads of the investigative teams was not public information.The public affairs director attempted to route all external communication through hisoffice.A special liaison and meetings were established on behalf of the victim family members,but their frustration with the progress, assumptions and lack of investigative interest inkey questions raised by the family members led to additional frustration.

The public hearings of the Commission brought forward many witnesses that could notanswer questions of accountability directly, failed to ask the more important witnessesprobing questions, and did not include a range of alternate witnesses in regard to the plotand the policy recommendations.

The Commission’s policy of refusing to name names or hold individual officialsresponsible for their lack of proper response led to a conclusion that only a systemicfailure was responsible for the tragedy, allowing a lack of accountability or consequenceto the command structure in charge of that system.

The Commission’s lack of transparency or a “sunshine” policy regarding non-classifiedand forensic data prevented a wider range of expertise available to evaluate the record andthe events, and created a situation where speculation and inference replaced known factsregarding the events. These unresolved forensic anomalies remain, and are the subject ofongoing government studies and court suits.

9/11 CitizensWatch sent a recommendation to the Commission requesting full release ofunclassified records and evidence and a call for accelerated declassification of otherrecords. We suggested they rely on the redaction standards of the JFK AssassinationRecords Review Board instead of the much broader categories used under FOIA, and thatthey consider that panel’s recommendations for future classification and release policies.The Commission recommendations do call for a decrease in the government-wide abuse ofclassification and secrecy, and they will release their records and correspondence in fourand a half years, a shorter period than is usually demanded for such collections.

This request was aimed both at increasing transparency of the Commission’s work, andits public credibility, and at countering the current administration’s obsession withsecrecy, a trend that began even before 9/11. Special White House Executive Orders givethe sitting president control over all the official papers of the last two office holders.Teams of people have been assigned to examine previously declassified records at theNational Archives and reclassify them. The Justice Department has offered the fullweight of its legal team to any agency challenged to produce records under the Freedom ofInformation Act. Numerous law suits have been brought to challenge decisions towithhold records of meetings and operations from the public. An unprecedented level ofclassification actions has taken place since the Bush administration came to office, totalingover 14 million decisions in the last year.

Not only has evidence been concealed from the public in this case, it has been destroyed.Large amounts of potentially forensically significant materials were removed from theattack sights in New York and DC in a short period of time, and some of the metal wassold for scrap. Recordings of conversations among air traffic controllers on duty on 9/11,including reminiscenses about their experiences, were inexplicably and wrongfullydestroyed by an FAA supervisor in New York. Claims were made by investigators thatsome of the “black box” recording devices from the planes involved in the attacks, thoughbuilt to withstand crashes and fires, were destroyed or damaged to the extent thatrecordings could not be restored. Photographic evidence from the Pentagon attack wasconfiscated by FBI investigators, but never made public. Footage from security camerasat the Dulles airport was not made public until the report was released, and the existenceof other such footage in Boston’s Logan airport has never been confirmed or released.

After the failures of the Warren Commission investigation, and the Watergate andContragate investigations to resolve public doubts about the scope and nature of illegalactivities and the role of government agencies in them, the 9/11 Commission cannot hope

to gain credibility over time without transparency and full disclosure. They have theopportunity to continue that process at the Congressional hearings and in the manypublic appearances they will make as part of the new 9/11 Public Discourse project, butonly if they are willing to be fully forthcoming with the victim families and the publicabout the questions that remain.

9/11 Omissions

What follows is a discussion of key areas of research that the Commission either omittedfrom the report or contradictions in their assumptions, statements and conclusions basedon the evidence and testimony presented. These are research areas that in our view havethe potential to bear the most fruit in any further investigation, and that have sufficientpublic sources of information or possible investigation to be within the reach of anyindependent inquiry. These areas of interest also incorporate some of the unansweredquestions that still remain.

“Intelligence Failures”

As stated in our earlier Citizen’s Critique of the Commission process, one of the primaryweaknesses of the investigation was that it followed directly in the footsteps of thecongressional Joint Inquiry into intelligence collection prior to 9/11, which framed theentire matter as a “failure”. Many of the recommendations of the Commission areadopted directly from those of the Joint Inquiry, including the consolidation of controlover intelligence agencies under a single director.

Following this premise, the Commission failed to pursue the historical framework thatconnects the growth and continuation of Islamic fundamentalism, militancy and terrorismwith a standing policy of US covert operations abroad that view such groups as bothpositive and negative assets at different junctures, and continue to support them forclandestine purposes, often hidden by one agency from another, or from congressional oreven executive scrutiny.

The international policies and economic goals that drove these covert operations over thelast five decades were not in keeping with the democratic ideals of the country, nor werethey open to public debate or consent. Actions taken in secret, and in our name, leddirectly to the overthrow of popular governments, the assassination of elected leadership,and the establishment and arming of despotic regimes. However, the global communitysaw the US hand behind the events while most Americans assumed that the clandestineagencies and military operations carried out abroad were in their best interest and that ofother people around the world. (Killing Hope, Bill Blum, Common Courage Press, 1995)

The Historical Framework: Deep Politics

A closer scrutiny of this “deep politics” reveals that the interests of small groups ofinvestors and ideologues drove the policies, more in relation to immediate profits from thesales of illegal drugs and weapons and access to key resources and the labor to producethem cheaply than to any stated ideals. A complex interrelationship of internationalcriminal cartels, paramilitary organizations, undemocratic forces, and US intelligenceagencies created an amoral pragmatism framed in winning the Cold War at any cost, andmaintaining and spreading the hegemony of global corporate expansion and access tomarkets, including the destruction of governments who stood in the way of that agenda,even if democratically chosen. (Oil, Drugs & War, Peter Dale Scott).

During the 1980s and 1990s, Europe and other parts of the world saw the rise of terroristactivities that were ultimately sponsored by elements of their national security state,specifically by police and military covert operations groups, willing to use the publicresponse to the violence as a reason to justify increased state repression against a widerange of dissident groups. Similar tactics were proposed in the US from the 1960s on,through military intelligence, CIA and FBI, including the infamous COINTELPROprogram that tried to manipulate progressive groups into violence among themselves, orto provoke illegal violence against the state in order to allow a repressive response againstthe organizations targeted. In Europe this was known as a “strategy of tension”.

The two largest and most costly covert operations in US history were conducted by bothCIA and DIA when William Casey was Director of Central Intelligence. Both involvedjoint funding from Saudi Arabia, the corrupt Bank for Credit and Commerce International,drug and weapons sales, and the support of viciously violent paramilitary forcesopposing popularly elected governments.

One involved a coup by reactionary Islamic fundamentalists, and the arming, training andsupport, through the cover of the ISI military intelligence agency of Pakistan, of themujehaddin guerillas in Afghanistan to fight the Soviet Union’s intervention on behalf ofthe targeted government. Long after the ouster of the socialist government of Afghanistanand the ultimate rise of the brutal Taliban regime, the US was still supporting thefundamentalists there. In 1998, the Taliban was offered a payment in exchange forallowing Union Oil of California (UNOCAL) to build a pipeline from the Caspian Seabasin to the Indian Ocean. In 2001, the US sent $43 million to the Taliban to curb opiumproduction, which has now returned to approximately 85% of the world’s supply underthe US-backed government in power. (Taliban, Ahmed Rashid and Scott, op.cit.)

The other major operation involved covert transshipments of US missiles through Israelinto Iran at a time when we were also arming and supporting Saddam Hussein in Iraq.Funds from this operation were also used to support the Contra operations against thegovernment in Nicaragua. Again, Saudi Arabia played an equal partner/broker role throughBCCI. The resultant scandal, since such funding for the Contras was illegal, was tagged“Contragate”.

The people who created, conducted and covered-up these operations from the Americanpeople range across five administrations, starting with President Jimmy Carter’s securityadvisor, Zbigniew Brezezinki, to William Casey, intelligence director under bothPresidents George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan, the operations and militaryinterventions of the Clinton years, and a host of “Contragators” who were appointed bythe current President Bush into high level cabinet positions. These include Colin Powell,John Poindexter, Otto Reich, Elliott Abrams, and Richard Armitage.

The intelligence agencies, the defense and weapons establishment and even the covertoperations outlast Presidential terms and successions, each new elected leader inheritingwillingly or not the continuing policies and interventions of their predecessors.Dependency on this “military-industrial-intelligence complex,” was warned about in thefirst draft of President Eisenhower’s final address, but never successfully opposed oravoided.

The hidden “black budget” of US intelligence operations helped to put Saddam Hussein inpower in Iraq, armed both sides of the regional war between Iran and Iraq, introducedweapons of mass destruction to unstable regions of the world, armed and supportedAfghani drug kingpin Hekmyatar and his protégé Osama bin Laden when they opposedthe USSR, facilitated and relied on the growth of illegal drug markets in Southeast Asia,Latin and Central America, and in Afghanistan as one source of funding for US-backedparamilitary groups like the Kosovo Liberation Army, the Nicaraguan Contras, and therising Islamic militants that would become known as “al Qaeda”. In many cases, theseforces were remnants of previously dictatorial regimes put in place and supported by theUS, and ousted by democratic changes in the social order. Evidence of support for suchgroups by different elements of the covert operation arms of US intelligence agencies andtheir international allies continued up to the attacks on 9/11 as well as beyond.

By posing 9/11 as an “intelligence failure” of the agencies that can be remedied byincreasing their funds, their powers, their lack of accountability and their capabilities formore covert operations, the Commission investigation failed to address the most glaring“failure” of that system of secrecy at home and manipulations abroad that has gained theUS many of its current critics and enemies in other countries.

The Commission criticizes a lack of effective Congressional oversight on these agencies,but recommends passing control of their budgets, the only leverage Congress has overthem, into the hands of a White House-appointed Director of National Intelligenceinstead. The two individuals most responsible for that oversight, Senator Porter Goss andRepresentative Bob Graham were the initiators of the Joint Inquiry that defined“intelligence failures” as the central problem in the 9/11 attacks and response. Goss isnow being promoted to the strengthened position of Director of Central Intelligence at theCIA by the Bush administration.

These massive “failures” have never led to any internal agency actions to hold key peopleresponsible or to take away their positions or powers. The DoD has reportedly finishedits internal investigation, yet no one has lost rank or been brought to an inquiry of anykind. The CIA is said to be continuing its own unfinished review, now three years afterthe attacks. The Inspector General at the Justice Department has recently completed areview as well. These studies are no doubt classified as well, but Congress could ask foran accounting.

The Roots of Al Qaeda

No thorough understanding of the events of 9/11 can emerge without a full study of thehistory of the development of militant Islam and the creation and nature of what isreferred to as al Qaeda. This generic term refers to “the base” or foundation upon whichthe aspirations of Islamic fundamentalists to create theocratic states or gain politicalcontrol is built. It is a term that covers many different and diverse terrorist groups acrossmany countries, not all of whom share the same leadership or agendas at any given time.A comparable term here would be “The Movement” in reference to a wide range oforganizations mobilizing for social change. The term al Qaeda does not refer to a single,monolithic organization or even to a single source of leadership or goals. This is counter toits common usage in mainstream media which depicts it as a top-down, structuredorganization led by Osama bin Laden and his circle of supporters.

It is also critical to realize much of the funding for weapons and the training of potentialterrorists came historically from United States intelligence agencies and from SaudiArabia. Also, in the case of bin Laden and Hekmyatar in Afghanistan, the sale of opiumfueled the operations of these groups and the governments that provide them shelter orsanction.

Osama bin Laden has been involved in many different struggles in a wide range ofcountries, and has reportedly carried out operations in France, Bosnia, Chechnya, Russia,Malaysia and other countries. His loyalties and his alliances are not fully known, but formany years they included US intelligence support. His family has also worked closelywith the CIA and the US military, taking contracts to fortify and equip the various cavesin Afghanistan that was the hiding and staging ground for bin Laden and the othermujehaddin.

There were reports in the international press post-9/11 indicating that both his family andAmerican officials continued to have contact with bin Laden. The director of the PakistaniISI, an intelligence agency that had served as the main conduit of CIA funds to themujehaddin, lost his position for being too closely related to bin Laden and the Talibanright after 9/11 suggests an ongoing relationship. In fact, he was responsible for directing a

transfer of $100,000 through an intermediary to Mohammed Atta, one of the suspectedterrorist pilots on 9/11.

Suspects and plot

The public was never presented with the promised State Department “White Paper” thatSecty. Colin Powell promised would make the case linking the murder suspects to binLaden. It is not yet clear to many researchers that the 10 hijackers of 9/11, most of whomwere Saudi Arabian, were directly related to or working under the direction of Osama binLaden.

George Tenet of the CIA and other top analysts said that the events indicated 9/11was asophisticated, state-level covert operation, requiring massive support and capabilities. Hisfirst suspicions were that it came from the Taliban. The Joint Inquiry report found that“foreign countries” had a role, its authors hinting at Saudi Arabia but refusing to directlyname any of them. Thus, to date, we may not know the real sponsors behind 9/11.

The idea that a group of 19 individuals, working independently with only sanction and asmall budget would or could form a successful mass suicide pact on 9/11 capable ofpiloting huge planes into buildings at high speeds still stretches credulity for manyreasons. One is the lack of any documented mass suicide pacts that were not forensicallydetermined to be murders instead. One is the varied piloting skills of those named aspilots in planes that banked at high speeds or spiraled almost 360% while diving to flyjust above the ground at over 500 knots into the Pentagon.

Another major problem in the official conclusions is that international press reported thatas many as eight of the suspects were using false identification because the people namedand pictured were still alive overseas. While this would not be surprising in a covert orillegal operation of this scale, we have never been given any independent verification ofthe names used by those who boarded the attack planes, nor what their real names are ifthey used false identities. Such false identity could be passed to many individuals, andyet the Commission builds it case on the movements and activities of the 19 officialsuspect names. In intelligence parlance, claiming an identity as cover for an operation canalso be used to create a “legend”, a false history that will later lead investigators to accepta false sponsorship for the events.

The airline manifests that were claimed in testimony to the Commission to be the sourceof the 19 names made public so quickly have never been officially released in any formthat contains any of those names. The first evidence linking the names to the events camefrom a story about a “road rage” argument in Logan airport’s parking area between a mantraveling to Seattle that day and “four Arab men”. A call later in the day to the FBI by theindividual accosted led them directly to an automobile that contained such clues as a copyof the Koran and a flight manual for a 757 in Arabic, and that had been rented that

morning north of Boston by individuals using some of the suspects identification cards.The second major piece of evidence was luggage left behind at the airport that wasidentified as belonging to Mohammed Atta, and which contained incriminating evidence. Itwas not clear why this luggage did not accompany the flight.

Another area ripe for detailed research is the repeated pattern of public attention and FBIsuspicion regarding these suspects, which did not lead to their questioning or detention.These range from FBI field agent requests for further inquiries that were turned down andignored, to activities in both Venice, Florida and Langley, Virginia that led to peoplecalling in complaints about them that were not pursued. Another example that theCommission sees as only a failure to share information among agencies was their ability topass through a number of INS, CIA, FBI and airline security scrutinizes that did notresult in them being put on the appropriate watch lists or put under surveillance. Thissort of “hands off” treatment is also consistent with a covert operation being given specialcover.

The question of a breakdown in FBI surveillance or interest towards these suspects hasbeen called to public attention and continued questions by whistleblowers like ColleenRowley, Robert Wright and Sybil Edmonds. The story of John O’Niell is also instructive,an FBI counter-terrorism expert focused on bin Laden since the 1993 bombing of theWorld Trade Center building who was pressured to leave the FBI and then took oversecurity at the Twin Towers, dying there on the day of the attack. There is more to belearned in each of these stories as well as press accounts of other whistleblowers orindividuals who tried to warn about the suspects and the attacks in advance.

These leads point less to a massive “intelligence failure” than to a breakdown in thestandard operating procedures that occurred across the board on 9/11 or in the monthsprior to it. The “wall” between intelligence and law enforcement was put there for goodreason, since combining these functions can lead to violations of civil liberties and dueprocess of law, but it was not the cause of missed opportunities and miscommunicationsthat had previously been handled routinely to initiate inquiries or place names on watchlists. Why did these procedures break down in relation to 9/11, and who was specificallyresponsible in each instance for this misfeasance?

Were We Unprepared?

The Commission and chairman Governor Thomas Kean have stated repeatedly theirconclusion that we were “unprepared” for such an attack and forced to improvise aresponse. Is this assumption verified by the evidence?

The Joint Inquiry report and the press revealed numerous warnings to Americanintelligence and officials from foreign leaders, governments or intelligence networks aboutimmanent attacks during the months preceding the 9/11 attack. Some had more detail than

others, but if combined they were warning of a serious incident abroad on in the US,involving foreign terrorist cells, perhaps involving planes, meant to cause a spectacularlevel of destruction. These were either not conveyed to other organizations as would bethe normal practice or they were ignored.

Another unexplored related area of inquiry should be the specific forewarnings abouttaking commercial flights on 9/11 (San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, Salman Rushdie,and unnamed “Pentagon brass,” according to Newsweek). The Commission attempted todismiss Ashcroft’s decision to stop taking commercial flights in the period before 9/11during his testimony, claiming it had to do with routine security considerations. It wasreported but not explored whether Cheney, who was also reported to have stopped usingcommercial aircraft in advance, was doing it in relation to warnings about a 9/11 styleevent.

At a press conference on the issuance of the Joint Inquiry report, 9/11 CitizenWatchasked Senator Richard Shelby about Condaleeza Rice’s claims that no one could haveimagined planes being hijacked and used as weapons prior to 9/11. Shelby revealed thattheir investigation had found numerous instances of planes being used as weapons insimilar ways, or plans for doing so, all related to Osama bin Laden or other militantIslamic groups. But in response to a follow up question about whether there was evidencefound of precautions being taken in response to these pre-911 findings, Shelby conferredwith another person present and said “on advice from counsel, my answer is no”.

Were preparations made in response to the revelations of the Bojinka Plot in thePhilippnes in the mid-90’s? Were they a classified matter?

9/11 CitizensWatch co-founder John Judge was told by the head of security at thePentagon, Colonel Robinson in 1999 that they were on Delta alert, their highest status,due to “bomb threats from Muslims every day”, and that they had installed “cameras andradar on the roof so they don’t try to run a plane into the building. A surface-to-airmissile port was installed on the White House lawn following an attack by a small privateplane that landed on the White House lawn during the Clinton administration. Specialprecautions were made to protect President Bush from a threat to use an airplane as aweapon against him during the economic summit in Genoa in 2000.

In addition to these preparations, there were numerous agency readiness andsecurity/response drills and exercises proposed and carried out up to 9/11 regardingairplanes crashing into the structures by the Pentagon, the National ReconnaissanceOrganization and NORAD, the North American Regional Air Defense system that guardsAmerica’s shores and skies from air attacks.

So, even if interagency memos failed to inform every level of the government to thepossibility of hijacked planes being used as weapons here and abroad, the agencies later

attacked as well as those tasked to defend them knew of the possibility and prepared forit. Forewarnings to individuals and inexplicably useless prior preparations for the attacksat the specific target sites involved indicate more than confusion about a possible methodof attack. In testimony to the Commission, Rice and other officials took the position thatwhile the system might have known or suspected such attacks, they personally did not -an answer that, if true, should raise the issue of competence to sit as a National Securityofficials.

Undefended Skies

Perhaps the most troubling area investigated by the Commission was the lack of airdefense in New York, and Washington, DC on 9/11 in response to multiple airemergencies involving large civilian airliners. The final version of events compiled by theCommission fails to explain violations of procedure by several government agencies andthree layers of defense structure that day.

During recent Congressional testimony, Senator Mark Dayton raised numerousinconsistencies between the timelines and accounts of events provided by NORAD andFAA officials at Commission hearings last year, and those given at the final hearings inJune by the same agencies and endorsed by the Final Report. Though last spring’stestimony was not given under oath, it is still improper for a government agency toprovide false or misleading information to any governmental inquiry. Significantly enough,NORAD officials on both occasions praised the Commission staff for helping them“prepare our testimony” and for “correcting our timeline”.

9/11 CitizensWatch has prepared an exhaustive timeline for each flight and the nationalcommand structure, drawing on a combination of all known sources, including press orpublished accounts, testimony before the Commission, staff and other writtenstatements, government documents and regulations, and a careful indexing of the FinalReport, and statements to Congressional hearings. This has revealed not only the falseassumptions used to create the Commission narrative, but also glaring discrepancies intestimony and even at different points in the report or staff statements.

These are the major areas that raise concern, highlight false assumptions, or warrantfurther investigation:

• When a transponder fails or is turned off, communication with air trafficcontrollers is cut off, planes veer off course for even a short period of time, orcommands from towers are ignored by pilots, these are all considered significantand urgent signs of an air emergency that must be addressed immediately. The firstresponse to these signs is to attempt to establish communication with the pilot tocorrect the situation, but failing that after a period of minutes, superiors above thelevel of the individual controllers are notified. Signs of air emergencies in all four

flights on 9/11 occurred as early as 8:13 am, and in each case at a time significantlydistant from their impact into buildings or the ground to allow for reporting andthe required intervention.

• These FAA officials in turn notify military liaisons at their centers and Pentagon

officials at the National Military Command Center, who in turn activate withinminutes a response by NORAD defense systems and either designated or taskedfighter jets that are scrambled to go airborne and intercept and engage in a varietyof ways the plane in question. Testimony and timing suggests that in all fourcases, there was sufficient time to notify officials and scramble an effectiveresponse before the planes did their damage, but that did not happen on 9/11.Conflicting testimony also suggests that officials along the chain of response wereall notified in a timely manner but failed to act. However, in a total of 67 incidentsin the months prior to 9/11, the air emergency defense system had workedefficiently.

• There is no requirement in FAA or DoD regulations that air emergencies have to

be officially or otherwise suspected to be hijacking in order to generate a scrambledefense response by NORAD and FAA. There is certainly no requirement onbehalf of controllers or others to wait until such a determination is made to notify,alert and scramble interceptor jets toward an emergency. In fact, such closecommunication and contact, as well as pilot observation is usually the best basisfor determining the nature of the air emergency. Once determined, a wide range ofoptions and rules of engagement apply. However, officials at the top levels ofcommand over NORAD and the NMCC have stated publicly or testified thatthey did not respond immediately because the FAA had not declared these planesto be hijackings. The Commission makes a similar case, tracking NORADresponses only from the point that certain flights are declared as hijackings.

• In each case, there were multiple clear indicators ranging from radar feedback,

controller communications, transmissions from cockpits, calls from airlineattendants to airline headquarters, or observed behavior to declare these flights asair emergencies well before they became air disasters. Although some turned offtransponders, which are usually relied on by controllers for quick identification ofradar signatures, and for altitude and speed readings, the planes were not invisibleto primary radar and could have been tagged by alert controllers or militarypersonnel. The Commission would have us believe that both the FAA andNORAD were unable to properly track or identify as hijack situations eitherFlight 77 or Flight 93 until they were down or too close to their targets torespond.

• Air defense interceptors are usually armed jet fighters, F-16 or F-18 craft with

pilots trained to fly at very high speeds, up to 1,800 mph, and to know intercept

procedures. In order to reach such speeds, they have to be airborne to a certainheight, and can usually do that within a few minutes along pre-designated routesthat will not interfere with commercial traffic. Once airborne and ready, they willbe given destinations or coordinates for the actual plane they are to intercept.They will be guided toward their target by FAA controllers, who will clear a paththrough commercial traffic. On 9/11 they worked to clear such paths for thehijacked planes until all flights were ordered to land nationwide. Contact can beestablished within 10-15 minutes, and then certain procedures are followed basedon the situation. However, interceptors do not have to be armed in all airemergency situations, and in most cases a combination of eye contact, signals, orflight maneuvers they can guide cooperative planes out of trouble or accompanyand track hijacked planes to their ultimate destinations. These rules of engagementare standard procedure, or can be altered by the chain of command in specialsituations.

• Although NORAD was engaged in readiness exercises on 9/11, and certain planes

were in the air on training missions, there was ample response time to send upfighters from the two designated NEADS bases at Otis and Langley Field, or totask other available planes from other bases. DoD regulations allow for any basecommander to respond to an air defense situation as well. Otis AFB inMassachusetts and Pomona Air Field in New Jersey were both alerted directly bycontrollers at FAA’s Boston Center to scramble planes before the Pentagon wasattacked, but neither did so at the time. The 177th ANG unit at Pomona had twounarmed fighters on the tarmac that could have been tasked but were called back toarm the planes instead. Canadian fighters are also under NORAD command, andthe Canadian officer at NORAD headquarters that day could have ordered planesfrom their base northeast of New York to scramble. Planes from Andrews AFB,which routinely guard DC airspace, were airborne on training duties, but closeenough that they could have been alerted and sent towards DC. The Otis AFBpilots were eventually scrambled, but arrived in New York after the second Towerwas hit. These pilots told others on their base they had wanted to turn tointercept Flight 77, but the Commission report states that they were ordered tostay in New York airspace. Fighters eventually scrambled from Otis and LangleyAFBs were not given target coordinates or destinations once they reached properaltitude until it was too late to engage them. Langley pilots told reporters theyassumed they were being sent to New York, flying first to a point more distantfrom DC than their base, and were then turned towards Baltimore according to theCommission because of a false report that Flight 11 was still southbound towardsDC, although there was no radar signature. These pilots were later asked toconfirm that the Pentagon had been hit, and were close enough to see a plume ofsmoke rising from it. All planes were scrambled long after controllers and officialsknew there were urgent air emergencies involving the four planes, for periods thatranged up to 35 minutes, and NORAD acknowledged that all four planes could

have been intercepted had normal notification and procedure been followedinstead. However, the testimony by NORAD and the Commission conclusionsabout when they had notice of each emergency are contradictory and change overtime and according to sources. If we accept the official account, no notice ofhijacking was given by FAA until too late to scramble the planes, but this is avery misleading interpretation of events, since the initial air emergency signsshould have been determinant.

• The Commission took a good deal of testimony regarding whether or not there

was a shoot down order given on 9-11 and when. Vice President Cheney confirmsthat such an order was given, but only after the Pentagon was hit, and planesscrambled belatedly by Andrews AFB were unarmed, but pilots consideredramming any threatening planes. No shoot down order seems to have been carriedout, though rumors persist regarding the cause of the crash of Flight 93. None ofthe pilots interviewed heard about a shoot down order, and a ranking officer overNORAD testified that he did not convey the order to the pilots concerned. Thisseems a clear break in the chain of command or dereliction of duty, but there wereno charges brought against him. In light of the testimony about the timing of theshoot down order, agreed to by both Bush and Cheney, there is a section oftestimony by Secretary of Transportation Minetta concerning a conversation heoverheard on arrival at the White House Situation Room. His statement to theCommission reveals that when he arrived the White House was being evacuated,and that a short time later, Flight 77 struck the Pentagon. The conversation wasbetween Cheney and an unidentified young lieutenant:

MR. HAMILTON: We thank you for that. I wanted tofocus just a moment on the Presidential Emergency OperatingCenter. You were there for a good part of the day. I think youwere there with the vice president. And when you had that ordergiven, I think it was by the president, that authorized theshooting down of commercial aircraft that were suspected to becontrolled by terrorists, were you there when that order wasgiven?MR. MINETA: No, I was not. I was made aware of itduring the time that the airplane coming into the Pentagon.There was a young man who had come in and said to the vicepresident, "The plane is 50 miles out. The plane is 30 milesout." And when it got down to, "The plane is 10 miles out," theyoung man also said to the vice president, "Do the orders stillstand?" And the vice president turned and whipped his neckaround and said, "Of course the orders still stand. Have youheard anything to the contrary?" Well, at the time I didn't knowwhat all that meant. And --

MR. HAMILTON: The flight you're referring to is the --MR. MINETA: The flight that came into the Pentagon.MR. HAMILTON: The Pentagon, yeah.MR. MINETA: And so I was not aware that thatdiscussion had already taken place. But in listening to theconversation between the young man and the vice president, thenat the time I didn't really recognize the significance of that.And then later I heard of the fact that the airplaneshad been scrambled from Langley to come up to DC, but thoseplanes were still about 10 minutes away. And so then, at thetime we heard about the airplane that went into Pennsylvania,then I thought, "Oh, my God, did we shoot it down?”

MR. HAMILTON: Let me see if I understand. The planethat was headed toward the Pentagon and was some miles away,there was an order to shoot that plane down.MR. MINETA: Well, I don't know that specifically, butI do know that the airplanes were scrambled from Langley or fromNorfolk, the Norfolk area. But I did not know about the ordersspecifically other than listening to that other conversation.

MR. HAMILTON: But there were military planes in theair in position to shoot down commercial aircraft.MR. MINETA: That's right. The planes had beenscrambled, I believe, from Otis at that point.

MR. ROEMER: Nice to see you, Mr. Secretary, and niceto see you feeling better and getting around as well, too.I want to follow up on what happened in thePresidential Emergency Operations Center and try to understandthat day a little bit better. You said, if I understood youcorrectly, that you were not in the room; you were obviouslycoming from the Department of Transportation, where you had beenbusy in a meeting in official business, but you had not been inthe room when the decision was made -- to what you inferred wasa decision made to attempt to shoot down Flight 77 before itcrashed into the Pentagon. Is that correct?MR. MINETA: I didn't know about the order to shootdown. I arrived at the PEOC at about 9:20 a.m. And thepresident was in Florida, and I believe he was on his way toLouisiana at that point when the conversation that went onbetween the vice president and the president and the staff thatthe president had with him.

MR. ROEMER: So when you arrived at 9:20, how muchlonger was it before you overheard the conversation between theyoung man and the vice president saying, "Does the order stillstand?"MR. MINETA: Probably about five or six minutes.MR. ROEMER: So about 9:25 or 9:26. And your inferencewas that the vice president snapped his head around and said,"Yes, the order still stands." Why did you infer that that wasa shoot-down?MR. MINETA: Just by the nature of all the events going onthat day, the scrambling of the aircraft and, I don't know; Iguess, just being in the military, you do start thinking aboutit, an intuitive reaction to certain statements being made.MR. ROEMER: Who was the young man with the vicepresident?MR. MINETA: Frankly, I don't recall.

The significance of this testimony cannot be overlooked. This clearly occurs in the periodbefore the Pentagon is struck and also clearly indicates that at least the White House, andby implication NORAD or other defense systems are aware of its approach. Thequestion raised begins at a point when the plane is “50 miles out,” which is the AirDefense Intercept Zone around P-56, the restricted air space circling the Capitol andWhite House that is protected locally by a separate command center, and by fighters fromAndrews AFB and the Anacostia ANG unit, both within a few miles of DC. No otherplane besides Flight 77 gets within 50 miles of DC. They are not mistakenly trackingFlight 11 because it had no recognizable radar signature south of New York City thatcould be tracked in terms of mileage from DC. Flight 93 crashed in Shanksville, PA, over160 miles from DC. Local officials knew a plane was headed for DC in advance, as inindicated here by the White House evacuation taking place at 9:20 am. Local NewsChannel 8 announced this evacuation as well as at the Capitol and the Pentagon, andwarned a plane was headed to DC before the Pentagon was struck. As the plane nears theyoung lieutenant returns at intervals to question an order given by Cheney, and is thenbrusquely told the “order stands.” Although Minetta assumes it is a shoot down order,what planes are available to carry it out? Arguably the Otis fighters could have beentasked, but they were not according to the Commission. No other interceptors were yetairborne at that time. And if it is not a shoot down order, what is it? In addition, theCommission does not include this incident in its Final Report, but does mention adiscussion between Cheney and another unidentified military member, timed at 10:15 am,concerning a plane that is “80 miles out”, where Cheney confirms that they should“engage”. This does not concern any of the four attack planes, since they were all down atthat point.

There are other issues worthy of investigation and more work to be done on the reportitself. Our earlier critique covered the issues strategy of tension incidents in whichintelligence agencies encourage or assist in creating domestic terrorist incidents in order toincrease domestic repression or destroy dissenting organizations. Operation Northwoods,proposed by the Joint Chiefs to blame Cuba for such incidents here, and the FBI’sCOINTELPRO and CIA’s Chaos programs used similar goals and tactics.

Another major area not investigated, though within its purview, were the as yet unsolvedanthrax attacks that followed the month after 9/11. Forensic evidence points to a strainand a very sophisticated weaponization that had to have originated here within thebiological warfare establishment, and investigations pointed to Fr. Dietrick, MD, theCIA’s Operation Clear Vision and the DIA’s Project Jefferson to create a more lethal anddistributable form of anthrax. To date, the investigations have halted at that juncture.

Qui bono?

There has been speculation along the lines of who might have benefited from creating the9/11 attacks or allowing them to happen. These range from the Project for New AmericanCentury neo-conoservatives now in the White House, who longed for a “new PearlHarbor” to justify a “Pax Americana, to unidentified stock options traders, to oilproducers and weapons manufacturers. The problem is that who might benefit from ortake advantage of a situation only identifies possible suspects, it does not prove theirguilt. There are many rationales that could be posited for the aftermath of a domesticterrorist attack, including a permanent war economy, establishment of a stronger securitystate, or erosion of civil liberties to give more power to the government. It seems moreimportant to address these responses and their shortcomings, and to criticize anyone whowould take advantage of such a tragedy for any purpose, than to try to assign blamebased solely on benefit. A thorough investigation of the actual sponsorship of 9/11 orwhat made it possible for so much normal procedure and prepared defense to fail that daymay eventually reveal a motive and the means.

Why an independent commission?

The tasks ahead for concerned citizens include expanding this criticism to include thepolicy recommendations being pushed through Congress, and further research andinvestigation into the failures and contradictions of the 9/11 Commission’s Final Report.There are many other areas and details not included here because time for analysis has notyet allowed a finished review of all the data available or the complete record still beingreleased.

One important step would be to push for a Congressional review of the study, not therecommendations, and perhaps for legislation to force the release of the records sorecently denied us. Senators Wyden and Lott have introduced a bill to change the

classification and secrecy proceedures, perhaps they can be approached along with othersto make the Commission’s work transparent and open to review by the public.

While recent polls have shown a certain level of public skepticism about governmentfailures or complicity in regard to 9/11, and there is also sentiment in support ofcontinued investigation, especially in New York, the national mood is arguable differentand would require education and exposure of the flaws of the Commission and its reportbefore there would be any rationale for an independent review panel. This work remainsto us, but could be accomplished by adding commentary to the 9/11 Public Discoursemeetings wherever they occur, and holding other public panels that will really informpeople using hard research and evidence to contest the official story.

APPENDICES

Comparative Timelines:Flight 11Flight 175Flight 77Flight 93

9/11 Source Bibliography

This report relied on the research and work of many people. John Judge and Kyle Henceof 9/11 CitizensWatch continue to compile it, Paul Thompson and Derrick Mitchell ofCooperative Research, Alan Duncan, Khalid Rosenberg, Gary Lapon, Penny Schoner,David Ratcliffe, Dan Alcorn, Peter Dale Scott, William Kelly, Len Bracken, many victimfamily members, and many more have added to public understanding of 9/11 and thisCommission’s process.

TIMELINE FOR FLIGHT AA11

(cr) = www.cooperativeresearch.org 9/11 timeline; (nt) = NORAD Timeline released9/17/01; (p. #) = 9/11 Commission Report

TIME SUSPECTS/WITNESSE

S

ATC FAA NMCC/OFFICIALS

NORAD SCRAMBLERS

0553 HijackersMohamed Attaand AbdulazizAlomari board aColgan Airflight fromPortland, Maine,to Boston. Theyare filmed goingthrough securityin Portland. Thisis the onlyfootage of thehijackers inairports on 9/11,and it's not evenone of thesuicide flights.(cr)

0600 Mohamed Attaand AbdulazizAlomari's flightfrom Portland,Maine to Bostontakes off. [ FBI,10/4/01 ] Twopassengers latersay Atta andAlomari boardseparately fromeach other, keepquiet, and don'tdraw attention tothemselves. (cr)

0630 A man has anargument withfive MiddleEastern men overa parking spacein the parkinglot of Boston'sLogan Airport.Later in the dayhe reports theevent, and thecar is discoveredto have beenrented byMohamed Atta.Inside, policefind a ramp pass,allowing accessto restrictedairport areas. (cr)

to have beenrented byMohamed Atta.Inside, policefind a ramp pass,allowing accessto restrictedairport areas. (cr)

0645

“Approximatelytwo hours priorto the firstattack”, at leasttwo workers atthe instantmessagingcompany Odigoreceive messageswarning of theWTC attack.This Israeliowned companyhas itsheadquarters twoblocks from theWTC.] (cr)

Between0645and0740

Atta and Omari,along withSatam alSuqami,Wail alShehri, andWaleed alShehri, checkedin and boardedAmericanAirlines Flight11, bound forLA.The flightwas scheduled todepart at 7:45.(p. 1)

0650 Mohamed Attaand AbdulazizAlomari’s flightfrom Portlandarrives on timeat Boston’sLogan Airport.(cr)

Between0731and0740

All five mencleared thecheckpoint andmade their wayto the gate forAmerican 11.Atta, Omari, andSuqami tooktheir seats inbusiness class(seats 8D, 8G,and 10B,respectively).The Shehribrothers hadadjacent seats inrow 2 (Wail in2A, Waleed in2B), in the

(seats 8D, 8G,and 10B,respectively).The Shehribrothers hadadjacent seats inrow 2 (Wail in2A, Waleed in2B), in thefirstclass cabin.They boardedAmerican 11between 7:31and 7:40. Theaircraft pushedback from thegate at 7:40. (p.2)

0745 Mohamed Attaand AbdulazizAlomari boardFlight 11. Atta'sbags containairline uniformsand many otherremarkablethings, but arechecked throughto his finaldestination,making themunusable for theattacks. The bagsare not loadedonto the plane intime and are laterfound byinvestigators.But at least twoother hijackerson Flight 11 areable to usestolen uniformsand IDs to boardthe plane. (cr)

Before0759

HijackerMohamed Attaon Flight 11calls hijackerMarwanAlshehhi inFlight 175 asboth planes siton the runway.They confirm theplot is on. (cr)

0759 Flight 11 takesoff from Boston'sLogan Airport, 14minutes afterscheduleddeparture. (cr) (p.4)

Logan Airport, 14minutes afterscheduleddeparture. (cr) (p.4)

Takeoff (p. 32)

0813-0830(varioustimesgiven oncr)

Shortly afterflight controllersask Flight 11 toclimb to 35,000feet, thetransponder stopstransmitting. Atransponder is anelectronic devicethat identifies ajet on acontroller'sscreen, whichgives its exactlocation andaltitude. Amongother vitalfunctions, it isalso used totransmit a four-digit emergencyhijack code. Airtraffic managerGlenn Michaellater says, “Weconsidered it atthat time to be apossiblehijacking.”“When givenpermission toclimb to 35,000feet,”, 8:13,shortly aftertrying emergencyfrequencies, 8:15,“Just moments”after radio contactis lost, Initialstories after 9/11suggest thetransponder isturned off around8:13, but one yearafter 9/11, PeteZalewski, theflight controllerhandling theflight, says thetransponder isturned off at 8:20.[The 9/11Commission laterplaces it at 8:21.Colonel RobertMarr, head ofNORAD'sNortheast AirDefense Sector,later claims the

[The 9/11Commission laterplaces it at 8:21.Colonel RobertMarr, head ofNORAD'sNortheast AirDefense Sector,later claims thetransponder isturned off sometime after 8:30.(cr)

0813 Flight 11 ishijacked aroundthis time.(cr)

The last routinecommunicationtakes placebetween groundcontrol and thepilots of Flight11. Flightcontroller PeteZalewski ishandling theflight. The pilotresponds whentold to turn right,but immediatelyafterwards fails torespond to acommand toclimb. Zalewskirepeatedly tries toreach the pilot,even using theemergencyfrequency, butstill gets noresponse.(cr)

In the case ofAmerican 11, thelast normalcommunicationfrom the planewas at 8:13 A.M.EDT. (p. 459)

0814 At that sametime, American11 had its lastroutinecommunicationwith the groundwhen itacknowledgednavigationalinstructions fromthe FAA’s airtraffic control(ATC) center inBoston. Sixteenseconds after thattransmission,ATC instructed theaircraft’s pilots toclimb to 35,000feet. Thatmessage and all

(ATC) center inBoston. Sixteenseconds after thattransmission,ATC instructed theaircraft’s pilots toclimb to 35,000feet. Thatmessage and allsubsequentattempts tocontact the flightwere notacknowledged.From this andother evidence,we believe thehijacking began at8:14 or shortlythereafter. (p. 4,32)

After0814

After thehijacking begins,the pilot of Flight11, JohnOgonowski,activates the talk-back button,enabling Bostonflight controllersto hear what isbeing said in thecockpit.Transmissioncontinues until0838. (cr)

0815 Two Bostonflight controllers,Pete Zalewski andLino Martins,discuss the factthat Flight 11can’t becontacted. (cr)

About0819

About fiveminutes after thehijacking began,Betty Ongcontacted theAmericanAirlinesSoutheasternReservationsOffice in Cary,North Carolina,via an AT&Tairphone toreport anemergencyaboard theflight.This wasthe first ofseveral occasionson 9/11 whenflight attendantstook actionoutside the scope

emergencyaboard theflight.This wasthe first ofseveral occasionson 9/11 whenflight attendantstook actionoutside the scopeof their training,whichemphasized thatin a hijacking,they were tocommunicatewith the cockpitcrew.Theemergency calllastedapproximately25 minutes, asOng calmly andprofessionallyrelayedinformationabout eventstaking placeaboard theairplane toauthorities onthe ground. (p.5, 32)

0820 Flight 11attendant Amy(Madeline)Sweeney uses anAirfone to callLogan Airport.She speaks toMichaelWoodward, anAmericanAirlines flightservice managerabout thehijacking. (cr)

Boston flightcontrol decidesthat Flight 11 hasprobably beenhijacked. (cr)

Flight 11 starts toveer dramaticallyoff course. (cr)

Flight 11 stopstransmitting itsIFF (identifyfriend or foe)beacon signal. (cr)

Before0821

Four hijackersget up from theirseats and stab orshoot passengerDaniel Lewin.(cr)

0821 Woodward relayshijacking info toNancy Wyatt, aLogansupervisor, whonotifies AA topmanagement,who then decideto keep thingsquiet. (cr)

Boston flightcontroller PeteZalewski,handling Flight11, sees that theflight is offcourse and hasboth transponderand radio off.Tom Roberts, hasanother nearbyAmerican Airlinesflight try tocontact Flight 11.

notifies AA topmanagement,who then decideto keep thingsquiet. (cr)

flight is offcourse and hasboth transponderand radio off.Tom Roberts, hasanother nearbyAmerican Airlinesflight try tocontact Flight 11.There is still noresponse. Theflight is now“drastically offcourse” butNORAD is stillnot notified. (cr)

Transponder isturned off (p. 32)

Flight attendantBetty Ong callsVanessa Minter,an AAreservations agentin NorthCarolina, usingan Airfone fromthe back of theplane. Officialson the grounddon’t believe it’sa hijacking. (cr)

0822 Amy Sweeneyattempted byairphone tocontact theAmericanAirlines flightservices office atLogan, whichmanaged thescheduling andoperation offlight attendants.Sweeney’s firstattempt failed, asdid a second at8:24 (p.453 #32)

0823 Nydia Gonzalez,an AA supervisorwith expertise onsecurity matters,is patched in to acall with Ong.Gonzalez contactsATC. (cr)

At 8:23, the AAdispatcher triedunsuccessfully tocontact the aircraft(AA 11) (p. 5,32)

0824 The pilot ofFlight 11, JohnOgonowski,activates the talk-back button,enabling Bostonflight controllersto hear a hijackertalking topassengers.Immediately afterhearing thisvoice, Flightcontroller JohnZalewski “knewright then that hewas working ahijack” and callsfor his supervisor.The frequency ofFlight 11 isplayed onspeakers soeveryone inBoston flightcontrol can hear.(cr)

Boston flightcontrol radar seesFlight 11 makingan unplanned100-degree turn tothe south. (cr)

At 8:24:38, thefollowingtransmissioncame fromAmerican 11: Wehave some planes.Just stay quiet,and you’ll beokay. (p. 19)

Before this [100deg.] turn, theFAA had taggedFlight 11's radardot for easyvisibility. (cr)

0825 The Guardianreports thatBoston flightcontrol “notifiesseveral air trafficcontrol centersthat a hijack istaking place.” (cr)

FAA BostonCenter aware ofhijacking (p. 32)

Between0825and0832

Between 8:25and 8:32, inaccordance withthe FAAprotocol, BostonCenter managersstarted notifyingtheir chain ofcommand thatAmerican 11 hadbeen hijacked.(p. 19)

0826-0830

Woodward ID’shijackers usingseating inforelayed bySweeney. Thisconflicts withwhere Ong saidthey weresitting. SweeneyindicatesAlomari, Atta,and Al Suqami.(cr)

At 8:26, Ongreported that theplane was“flyingerratically.”Aminute later,Flight 11 turnedsouth. Americanalso begangettingidentifications ofthe hijackers, asOng and thenSweeney passedon some of theseat numbers ofthose who hadgainedunauthorizedaccess to thecockpit. (p. 6)

0828 Boston flightcontrol centercalls the FAA'sCommandCenter inHerdon,Virginia, andtells them that itbelieves Flight11 has beenhijacked and isheading towardsNew Yorkairspace. (cr)

heading towardsNew Yorkairspace. (cr)

0829 The ATCspecialist inAmerican’soperations centercontacted theFAA’s BostonAir TrafficControl Centerabout AA 11.The center wasalready aware ofthe problem. (p.5)

0830 The FAA'sCommandCenter inHerndon,Virginia beginstheir usual dailysenior staffmeeting.NationalOperationsManager BenSliney interruptsthe meeting toreport a possiblehijacking inprogress, as theCenter has beentold about theFlight 11hijacking a fewminutes earlier.(cr)

Captain CharlesLeidig, theDeputy forCommandCenterOperations atthe NationalMilitaryCommandCenter (NMCC)takes overtemporarilyfrom BrigadierGeneralMontagueWinfield and iseffectively incharge ofNMCC duringthe 9/11 crisis.(cr)

0832 At 8:32, theCommandCenter passedword of apossiblehijacking of AA11 to theOperationsCenter at FAAheadquarters.Theduty officerreplied thatsecuritypersonnel atheadquarters hadjust begundiscussing theapparent hijackon a conferencecall with theNew Englandregional office.FAAheadquartersbegan to followthe hijackprotocol but didnot contact theNMCC to

New Englandregional office.FAAheadquartersbegan to followthe hijackprotocol but didnot contact theNMCC torequest a fighterescort. (p. 19)

0834 the Boston Centercontroller receiveda thirdtransmission fromAmerican 11:“Nobody moveplease.We aregoing back to theairport.” (p. 19)

Ben Sliney, theFAA's NationalOperationsManager, soongets word of themessage “Wehave someplanes” and latersays the phrasehaunts him allmorning. (cr)

Boston flightcontrollers attemptto contact themilitary through theFAA's Cape Codfacility…result ofcall is unclear. Lt.Col. Duffy recallsbeing warned: “Iwas just standing upby the ops desk andI was told I had aphone call. I askedwho it was and theysaid the [Boston]Tower calling andsomething about ahijacking. It wasFlight American 11,a 767, out ofBoston going toCalifornia. At thetime we ran in andgot suited up.” (cr)

Around this time,Boston flightcontrol attempts tocontact an AtlanticCity, New Jersey airbase, to sendfighters after Flight11, but don’t reachanyone. (cr)

0835 Sweeney TellsWoodward thatthe plane begins arapid descent. (cr)

0836 On Flight 11,flight attendantBetty Ong reportsthat the plane tiltsall the way onone side and thenbecomeshorizontal again.Flight attendantAmy Sweeneythen reports onher phone that theplane has begun arapid descent. (cr)

Amy Sweeneythen reports onher phone that theplane has begun arapid descent. (cr)

0837 Flight controllersask the UnitedAirlines Flight175 pilots to lookfor a lostAmerican Airlinesplane 10 miles tothe south— areference to Flight11. They respondthat they can seeit. They are toldto keep awayfrom it.Just prior to this,Flight 11 passesfrom Bostonflight controlairspace into NewYork flightcontrol airspace.John Hartling wasthe New Yorkflight controllerput in charge ofthe hijackedflight.(cr)

Boston flightcontrolcontactsNEADS(NORAD'sNortheast AirDefense Sector)at this timeabout AA 11.This isapparently thefirst successfulnotification ofthe militaryabout the crisisthat morning.Tech. Sgt.Jeremy Powell,a member ofthe AirNational Guardat NEADS,initially takesthe call fromBoston Center.(cr)

NORAD gives thecommand toscramble fightersafter Flight 11 afterbeing notified. Lt.Colonel DawneDeskins at NEADStells Colonel RobertMarr, head ofNEADS, “I haveFAA on the phone,the shout line,Boston Center.They said they havea hijacked aircraft.”Marr then callsMajor General LarryArnold at NORAD'scommand Center inTyndall Air ForceBase, Florida, andsays, “Boss, I needto scramble [fightersat] Otis [AirNational GuardBase].” Arnoldrecalls, “I said goahead and scramblethem….”(cr)

0838 Flight 11 pilotJohnOgonowski'speriodicactivation of thetalk-back button,begun around8:14, stopsaround this time.It is suggestedthat means this iswhen thehijackers replacehim as pilot. (cr)

UA 175 reportsspotting AA 11.(p. 454 #42)

Boston CenternotifiesNEADS ofhijacking (p.32)

In response toallegations thatNORADrespondedmore quicklyto the October25, 1999,plane crash thatkilled PayneStewart than itdid to thehijacking ofAmerican 11,we comparedNORAD’sresponse timefor eachincident.Thelast normaltransmissionfrom theStewart flightwas at 9:27:10A.M. EasternDaylight Time.The SoutheastAir Defense

last normaltransmissionfrom theStewart flightwas at 9:27:10A.M. EasternDaylight Time.The SoutheastAir DefenseSector wasnotified of theevent at 9:55,28 minuteslater. In thecase ofAmerican 11,the last normalcommunicationfrom the planewas at 8:13A.M. EDT.NEADS wasnotified at8:38, 25minutes later.We haveconcluded thereis nosignificantdifference inNORAD’sreaction to thetwo incidents.(p. 459)

0840 NEADS isnotified by theFAA of AA11. (nt)

Major Daniel Nashsays that at thistime, a colleague atthe Otis AirNational Guard Basetells him that aflight out of Bostonhas been hijacked,and to be on alert.(cr)

0841 Bottoglia has justbeen told by thepilot of Flight175 that he'sheard threateningcommunicationsfrom Flight 11(see 8:41 a.m. ).Seconds later, acontroller sittingnext to Bottogliagets up andpoints to a radarblip. He says,“You see thistarget here? Thisis American 11.Boston centerthinks it's ahijack.” Someonekeyed the mikeand said:‘Everyone stay in

“You see thistarget here? Thisis American 11.Boston centerthinks it's ahijack.” Someonekeyed the mikeand said:‘Everyone stay inyour seats.’ It cutout.” (cr)

At 8:41, inAmerican’soperations center,a colleague toldMarquis that theair trafficcontrollersdeclared Flight 11a hijacking and“think he’sheaded towardKennedy. They’removingeverybody out ofthe way. Theyseem to have himon a primaryradar. They seemto think that he isdescending.” (p.6)

The crew of UA175 reportedhaving “heard asuspicioustransmission”from anotheraircraft shortlyafter takeoff,“ likesomeone keyedthe mike and saideveryone stay inyour seats.” (p.454 #42)

0844 At 8:44,Gonzalezreported losingphone contactwith Ong. Aboutthis same timeSweeneyreported toWoodward,“Something iswrong. We are ina rapid descent .. . we are allover the place.”Woodward askedSweeney to lookout the windowto see if shecould determinewhere they were.

a rapid descent .. . we are allover the place.”Woodward askedSweeney to lookout the windowto see if shecould determinewhere they were.Sweeneyresponded: “Weare flying low.We are flyingvery, very low.We are flyingway too low.”Seconds later shesaid, “Oh myGod we are waytoo low.” Thephone callended. (p. 6)

0845 At AmericanAirline'sheadquarters inFort Worth, theircrisis commandcenter used inemergencies isactivated:“Confirmedhijacking Flight11.” However,pilots on otherAmerican flightsapparently arenot notified. Topmanagers gatherat the commandcenter and watchthe radar blip ofFlight 11 until itdisappears overNew YorkCity.(cr)

Amy Sweeney isasked on thephone if she canrecognize whereshe is. She says,“I see the water. Isee the buildings.I see buildings,”then after a pause,a quiet “Oh, myGod!” Mereseconds later theline goes dead.Meanwhile, flightattendant BettyOng ends her callrepeating thephrase “Pray forus” over and over.Apparently thereis quiet instead ofscreaming in thebackground. (cr)

0846 AA 11 hitsWTC (nt)

At 8:46:40,American 11crashed into theNorth Tower ofthe World TradeCenter in NewYork City. (p. 7)

8:46 – NorthTower (Exec.Summ. p. 1)

Rick Tepper, aflight controller atthe Newark, NewJersey tower,looks across theHudson River atNew York City intime to see theexplosion causedby Flight 11.Word begins tospread amongATCs about thehit. (cr)

Shortly after theNorth Tower ofthe WTC is hitat 08:46:26 byFlight 11, theFAA has anopen telephoneline with theSecret Service,keeping theminformed of allevents. (cr)

NEADSscrambles Otisfighter jets insearch of AA11(p. 32)

Two F-15 fightersare ordered toscramble from OtisAir National GuardBase inMassachusetts tofind Flight 11.Supposedly,NORAD makes thedecision to scrambleafter only one phonecall, as the decisionis made to act firstand get clearanceslater. (cr)

Summ. p. 1) hit. (cr) and get clearanceslater. (cr)

Fighter ScrambleOrder (Otis, two F-15s). The fightersare 153 miles awayfrom the WTC andnot airborne at timeof crash. (nt)

Officials activate theConplan—theInteragencyDomestic TerrorismConcept ofOperations Plan. (cr)

0848 While thecontroller wasstill trying tolocate American11, a New YorkCenter managerprovided thefollowing reporton a CommandCenterteleconferenceabout American11: Manager,New YorkCenter: Okay.This is NewYork Center.We’re watchingthe airplane. Ialso hadconversationwith AmericanAirlines, andthey’ve told usthat they believethat one of theirstewardesses wasstabbed and thatthere are peoplein the cockpitthat have controlof the aircraft,and that’s all theinformation theyhave right now.(p. 21)

Canadian AirForce MajorGeneral RickFindley, incharge of battlestations atNORAD'sColoradoheadquarters,sees news ofAA11’s hit onCNN. (cr)

0850 As soon asBoston flightcontrollers hearnews that a planemight have hitthe WTC, theyknow it wasFlight 11. Theyhave beentracking itcontinually sinceit began behavingerratically. Ittakes “several

NEADSpersonnel werestill trying tolocate AA 11.Word reachedthem that aplane had hitthe WorldTrade Center.(p. 20)

the WTC, theyknow it wasFlight 11. Theyhave beentracking itcontinually sinceit began behavingerratically. Ittakes “severalminutes” forBoston to reportto NORAD thatFlight 11 isresponsible. (cr)

them that aplane had hitthe WorldTrade Center.(p. 20)

0852 Two F-15s take offfrom Otis AirNational GuardBase, six minutesafter being orderedto go after Flight11. (cr)

Fighters airborne(nt)

0853 Otis fighter jetsairborne (p. 32)

0900 Inside theNationalMilitaryCommandCenter, thedeputy directorof oper ationsand hisassistant begannotifying seniorPentagonofficials of theincident. Atabout 9:00, thesenior NMCCoperationsofficer reachedout to the FAAoperationscenter forinformation.Although theNMCC wasadvised of thehijacking ofAmerican 11,the scramblingof jets was notdiscussed. (p.35)

0903 A manager atBoston flightcontrol reports tothe FAA's NewEngland regionalheadquarters the“we have someplanes”suggesting theremay be multiplehijackings. (cr)

control reports tothe FAA's NewEngland regionalheadquarters the“we have someplanes”suggesting theremay be multiplehijackings. (cr)

0905 Boston Centerconfirmed forboth the FAACommandCenter and theNew EnglandRegion that thehijackers aboardAmerican 11said “we haveplanes .” At thesame time, NewYork Centerdeclared “ATCzero”—meaningthat aircraft werenot permitted todepart from,arrive at, ortravel throughNew YorkCenter’s airspaceuntil furthernotice. (p. 23)

0906 All air trafficfacilitiesnationwide arenotified that theFlight 11 crashinto the WTCwas probably ahijacking. (cr)

0907 FAA controllersat BostonCenter, whichhad tracked thefirst twohijackings,requested at 9:07that HerndonCommandCenter “getmessages toairborne aircraftto increasesecurity for thecockpit.”There isno evidence thatHerndon tooksuch action.Boston Centerimmediatelybeganspeculatingabout otheraircraft thatmight be indanger, leading

such action.Boston Centerimmediatelybeganspeculatingabout otheraircraft thatmight be indanger, leadingthem to worryabout atranscontinentalflight—Delta1989—that infact was nothijacked. (p. 10)

0913 The FAA cleared theairspace. Radar datashow that at 9:13,when the Otisfighters were about115 miles awayfrom the city, thefighters exited theirholding pattern andset a course directfor Manhattan. (p.24)

NOTE: Overalldistance from OtisAFB, MA to NewYork City, NY isapproximately234.81 miles by car.Otis jets scrambleda longer route,going over theAtlantic to a point115 miles east ofNew York, thenholding, andarriving in NYC at9:25. The overallaverage speed duringthose 32 minuteswould have been440 mph. If they“flew like scaldedapes” it would havebeen to the holdingpoint only. Theaverage speed from9:13 to 9:25,covering 115 milesin 12 minutes was575 mph. Bothspeeds are wellbelow the capacityof the jets, whichcan top 1,500 mph.

below the capacityof the jets, whichcan top 1,500 mph.

0916 AA headquartersaware that Flight11 has crashedinto WTC (p. 32)

0919 FAA air trafficcontrol tapesindicate that at9:19 the FAA AirTraffic ControlSystemCommand Centerin Herndonorderedcontrollers tosend a cockpitwarning to Delta1989 because,like American 11and United 175,it was atranscontinentalflight departingBoston’s LoganAirport. (p. 455)

0921 FAA BostonCenter advisesNEADS thatAA11 is airborneheaded forWashington (p.32)

According tothe 9/11Commission,NORAD'sNEADS iscontacted byBoston flightcontrol. Acontroller says,“I just had areport that AA11 is still inthe air, and it'son its waytowards—heading towardsWashington.That wasanother—itwas evidentlyanother aircraftthat hit thetower. That'sthe latest reportwe have. I'mgoing to try toconfirm an IDfor you, but Iwould assumehe's somewhereover, uh, eitherNew Jersey orsomewherefurther south.”The NEADSofficial asks,“He—AA 11 isa hijack? Andhe's headinginto

New Jersey orsomewherefurther south.”The NEADSofficial asks,“He—AA 11 isa hijack? Andhe's headingintoWashington?”The Bostoncontrolleranswers yesboth times andadds, “Thiscould be athird aircraft.”SomehowBoston is toldby FAAheadquartersthat AA 11 isstill airborne,but theCommissionhasn't beenable to findwhere thismistakeninformationcame from. (cr)

FAA BostonCenter advisesNEADS thatAA11 isairborne headedfor Washington(p. 32)

At 9:21,NEADSreceived areport from theFAA: FAA:Military,Boston Center.I just had areport thatAmerican 11 isstill in the air,and it’s on itswaytowards—heading towardsWashington.(p. 26)

0924 NEADSscramblesLangley fighterjets in searchof AA11 (p.32)

NEADS scramblesLangley fighter jetsin search of AA11(p. 32)

scramblesLangley fighterjets in searchof AA11 (p.32)

The noticeNEADSreceived at9:24 was thatAmerican 11had not hit theWorld TradeCenter and washeading forWashington,D.C. (p. 34)

Langley fighter jetsin search of AA11(p. 32)

0925 By 9:25, FAA’sHerndonCommand Centerand FAAheadquarters knewtwo aircraft hadcrashed into theWorld TradeCenter. (p. 25)

Radar data showthat when the Otisfighters were about115 miles awayfrom the city, thefighters exited theirholding pattern andset a course directfor Manhattan. Theyarrived at 9:25 andestablished a combatair patrol (CAP)over the city. (p. 24)

0929 Inside theNMCC, thedeputy directorfor operationscalled for an allpurpose“significantevent”conference. Itbegan at 9:29,with a briefrecap: twoaircraft hadstruck theWorld TradeCenter, therewas a confirmedhijacking ofAmerican 11,and Otisfighters hadbeenscrambled.TheFAA was askedto provide anupdate, but theline was silentbecause theFAA had notbeen added tothe call. Aminute later,the deputydirector statedthat it had justbeen confirmedthat American

NORADconfirmed thatAmerican 11was airborneand headingtowardWashington,relaying theerroneous FAAinformationalreadymentioned. (p.37)

FAA had notbeen added tothe call. Aminute later,the deputydirector statedthat it had justbeen confirmedthat American11 was stillairborne andheading towardD.C. Hedirected thetransition to anair threatconference call.(p. 37)

0930 Radar data show theLangley fightersairborne at 9:30.NEADS decided tokeep the Otisfighters over NewYork. The headingof the Langleyfighters wasadjusted to sendthem to theBaltimore area. Themission crewcommanderexplained to us thatthe purpose was toposition the Langleyfighters between thereported southboundAmerican 11 and thenation’s capital. (p.26)

0934 The NMCC callthen ended, atabout 9:34. (p.37)

1028 The World TradeCenter's northtower collapses.It was hit byFlight 11 at8:46. (cr)

UNITED AIRLINES FLIGHT 175 TIMELINE(cr) = www.cooperativeresearch.org ; (nt) = NORAD Timelinereleased 9/17/01; (p. #) = 9/11 Commission Report

TIME PASSENGERS/WITNESSES

ATC FAA NMCC/OFFICIALS

NORAD SCRAMBLERS

Between0723and0728

Shehhi and histeam, none ofwhom had beenselected by CAPPS,boarded UA 175(Banihammad in2A, Shehri in 2B,Shehhi in 6C,Hamza al Ghamdiin 9C, and Ahmedal Ghamdi in 9D).(p. 2)

0758 –0833

UA 175 pushedback from itsgate at 7:58 anddeparted LoganAirport at 8:14.By 8:33, it hadreached itsassignedcruising altitudeof 31,000 feet.The flightattendantswould havebegun theircabin service.(p. 7)

Before0759

Hijacker MohamedAtta on Flight 11calls hijackerMarwan Alshehhi inFlight 175 as bothplanes sit on therunway. Theyconfirm the plot ison. (cr)

0814 Flight 175takes off fromBoston's LoganAirport, 16minutes afterthe scheduleddeparture time.(cr)

Takeoff (p. 32)

0837 Flightcontrollers askthe UnitedAirlines Flight175 pilots tolook for a lostAmericanAirlines plane10 miles to thesouth— areference to

the UnitedAirlines Flight175 pilots tolook for a lostAmericanAirlines plane10 miles to thesouth— areference toFlight 11. Theyrespond thatthey can see it.They are told tokeep away fromit. (cr)

0838 UA175 reportsspotting AA11. (p. 454#42)

0841 The pilots ofFlight 175 tellground controlabout Flight11, “We figuredwe'd wait to goto your center.We heard asuspicioustransmission onour departureout of Boston.Someone keyedthe mike andsaid: ‘Everyonestay in yourseats.’ It cutout.” The lasttransmissionfrom Flight175, stilldiscussing thismessage, comesa few secondsbefore 8:42. (cr)

Between0842and0846

The hijackersattacked sometimebetween 8:42 and8:46.They usedknives (as reportedby two passengersand a flightattendant), Mace(reported by onepassenger), and thethreat of a bomb(reported by thesame passenger).They stabbedmembers of theflight crew (reportedby a flight attendantand one passenger).Both pilots hadbeen killed (reportedby one flightattendant). (p. 7,32)

Last radiocommunication.(p. 32)

members of theflight crew (reportedby a flight attendantand one passenger).Both pilots hadbeen killed (reportedby one flightattendant). (p. 7,32)

0843 NORAD isnotified thatUA175 hasbeenhijacked.ApparentlyNORADdoesn't needto benotified,because bythis timeNEADStechnicianshave theirheadsetslinked to theFAA inBoston tohear aboutFlight 11,and soNORADlearnsinstantlyabout Flight175. (cr)

FAAnotificationto NEADS(nt)

0844 The pilot of USAirlines Flight583 tells aflightcontroller,regarding UA175, “I justpicked up anELT[emergencylocatortransmitter] on121.5 it wasbrief but it wentoff.” Oneminute later,another pilotsays, “Wepicked up thatELT, too, butits very faint.”(cr)

says, “Wepicked up thatELT, too, butits very faint.”(cr)

0846 Flight 175stopstransmitting itstranspondersignal. It is 50miles north ofNew York City,heading towardBaltimore.]However, thetransponder isturned off foronly about 30seconds, thenchanged to asignal that isnot designatedfor any plane onthat day. This“allow[s]controllers totrack theintruder easily,though theycouldn'tidentify it.” (cr)

Fighter scrambleorder from Otis (2F-15s, same as forAA 11) (nt)

0847 At 8:47,seconds afterthe impact ofAmerican 11,United 175’stranspondercode changed,and thenchanged again.These changeswere notnoticed forseveral minutes,however,because thesame New YorkCentercontroller wasassigned toboth American11 and United175.Thecontroller knewAmerican 11was hijacked;he was focusedon searching forit after theaircraftdisappeared at8:46. (p. 21,32)

it after theaircraftdisappeared at8:46. (p. 21,32)

0849 Businessman PeterHanson calls hisfather from UA175.Despite beingcut off twice, hemanages to reporthow men armedwith knives arestabbing flightattendants,apparently in anattempt to forcecrew to unlock thedoors to thecockpit. He callsagain and saysgood-bye just beforethe plane crashes.(cr)

Unitedheadquartersgets a callfrom theFAA sayingthe planethat crashedinto theWTC wasan AmericanAirlinespassengerplane. Amanagersays to JimGoodwin,United'schairmanand chiefexecutive,“Boss,we've lostcontact withone of ourairplanes[Flight175]. (cr)

0850 Rich “Doc” Miles,manager of United'sChicago systemoperations center,receives a call froma mechanic at anairline maintenancecenter in SanFrancisco that takesin-flight calls fromflight attendantsabout broken items.The mechanic says afemale flightattendant fromFlight 175 justcalled and said, “Ohmy God. The crewhas been killed, aflight attendant hasbeen stabbed. We'vebeen hijacked.”Then the line goesdead. (cr)

Flight 175,already offcourse, makes anear completeU-turn andstarts headingnorth towardsNew York City.(cr)

0851 At 8:51, thecontrollernoticed thetransponderchange fromUnited 175 andtried to contacttheaircraft.Therewas noresponse. (p.

noticed thetransponderchange fromUnited 175 andtried to contacttheaircraft.Therewas noresponse. (p.21)

0852 A male flightattendant on UA175 called a Unitedoffice in SanFrancisco, reachingMarc Policastro.Theflight attendantreported that theflight had beenhijacked, bothpilots had beenkilled, a flightattendant had beenstabbed, and thehijackers wereprobably flying theplane. The calllasted about twominutes, after whichPolicastro and acolleague triedunsuccessfully tocontact the flight.In Easton,Connecticut, a mannamed Lee Hansonreceived a phonecall from his sonPeter, a passengeron United 175. Hisson told him: “Ithink they’ve takenover thecockpit—Anattendant has beenstabbed— andsomeone else upfront may have beenkilled. The plane ismaking strangemoves. Call UnitedAirlines—Tell themit’s Flight 175,Boston to LA.” LeeHanson then calledthe Easton PoliceDepartment andrelayed what he hadheard. (p. 7, 32)

MikeMcCormick,head of NewYork flightcontrol center,sees the firstWTC attack onCNN. Heassumes thatFlight 175,which he isseeing on hisradar screen, isalso headed intothe WTC. (cr)

The controllermade repeatedattempts toreach the crewof United 175.Still noresponse. (p.21)

Two F-15s take offfrom Otis AirNational GuardBase, six minutesafter being orderedto go after Flight11. Theyinadvertently headtoward Flight 175instead.There are differingaccounts on howlong the F-15sscrambled from OtisAir National GuardBase take to reachNew York City.according to aNORAD timelinejust after 9/11, theseplanes take about 19minutes to reachNew York City(putting them thereat 9:11), travelingbelow supersonicspeeds at less than600 mph. The 9/11Commission laterconcludes that thefighters are neverdirected toward NewYork City at all,despite the accountsof the pilots andothers, and head outover the oceaninstead. They don'treach New YorkCity until 9:25. (cr)

Fighters airborne(nt)

heard. (p. 7, 32)

0853 The controllerchecked hisradio equipmentand contactedanothercontroller at8:53, sayingthat “we mayhave a hijack”and that hecould not findthe aircraft. (p.21)

0854 UA attempts tocontact thecockpit (p. 32)

0855 The head NewYork flightcontrollernotifies amanager at thefacility that shebelieves Flight175 has beenhijacked. Themanager tries tonotify regionalmanagers aboutthis, but is toldthe managersare discussingthe hijacking ofFlight 11 andrefuse to bedisturbed.However, eventhough thecontrollermanagingFlight 175 said“we may have ahijack” at 8:53,NORAD is stillnot notified.The head of theflight controlcenter, MikeMcCormick,has alreadydecided at 8:52that Flight 175has beenhijacked and ison a suicide runto New YorkCity (cr)

FAA NewYork Centersuspects ahiacking(p.32)

0858 Brian Sweeney onFlight 175 calls hiswife and leaves amessage: we've beenhijacked, and itdoesn't look toogood.” Then hecalls his mother andtells her what'shappening. She

At 8:58, theNew YorkCentercontrollersearching forUnited 175 toldanother NewYork controller“we might havea hijack over

Flight 175 calls hiswife and leaves amessage: we've beenhijacked, and itdoesn't look toogood.” Then hecalls his mother andtells her what'shappening. Sherecalls him saying,“We are going to tryto do somethingabout this.” Sherecalls himidentifying thehijackers as MiddleEastern. Then hetells his mother heloves her and hangsup. She turns on thetelevision and soonsees Flight 175crash into the WTC.The 9/11Commission laterconcludes that theFlight 175passengers plannedto storm the cockpitbut didn't have timebefore the planecrashed. (cr)

New YorkCentercontrollersearching forUnited 175 toldanother NewYork controller“we might havea hijack overhere, two ofthem.” (p. 22)

Between0901-0903

UA 175 is anunmarked blipto flightcontrollers inNew York City.One controllerstands up inhorror. “No,he's not goingto land. He'sgoing in!” “Oh,my God! He'sheaded for thecity,” anothercontrollershouts. “Oh,my God! He'sheaded forManhattan!”Managers atAmericanAirlines'headquarters inForth Worth,Texas closelywatch radarshowing UA175 head intoNew York City.Yet, accordingto the 9/11Commission,no one hasnotifiedNORAD. (cr)

Between9:01 and9:02, amanagerfrom NewYork Centertold theCom mandCenter inHerndon:Manager,New YorkCenter: Wehave severalsituationsgoing onhere. It’sescalatingbig, bigtime.Weneed to getthe militaryinvolvedwith us. . . .We’re, we’reinvolvedwithsomethingelse, wehave otheraircraft thatmay have asimilarsituationgoing on

showing UA175 head intoNew York City.Yet, accordingto the 9/11Commission,no one hasnotifiedNORAD. (cr)

withsomethingelse, wehave otheraircraft thatmay have asimilarsituationgoing onhere. (p.22)

0901 NY flightcontrol contactsNY terminalapproachcontrol and asksfor help inlocating UA175. Differentflightcontrollers scandifferentaltitudes, andterminalapproach onlydeals with lowflying planes.These lowaltitude flightcontrollersremainuninformedabout whathappened to AA11 until aboutnow: “By thetime anybodysaw anything, itwas over.” (cr)

A managerfrom NewYork flightcontrol tellsthe FAACommandCenter inHerndon,Virginia,“We haveseveralsituationsgoing onhere. Weneed to getthe militaryinvolved.We haveotheraircraft.”The 9/11Commission calls thisthe firstnotificationto FAAleadership ofthe secondhijack. (cr)

While theCommandCenter wastold aboutthis “otheraircraft” at9:01, NewYork CentercontactedNew Yorkterminalapproachcontrol andasked forhelp inlocatingUnited 175(p. 22)

0902 Airline Impact TimeWTC 2 (estimated)(nt)

Center (at9:02):Alright.Heads upman, itlooks likeanother onecom ing in.[About UA175approachingNYC] (p.22)

Fighters were 71miles (8 minutes at.9 Mach) at the timeof the crash. (nt)

0902:54 Flight 175 hits thesouth tower, 2World Trade Center.(cr)

F-15 fighter jetsfrom Otis AirNational Guard Baseare still 71 miles oreight minutes awaywhen the tower ishit. (cr)

0903:11 Flight 175 crashesinto 2 WTC (SouthTower) (p. 32)

0903-0908

Flight controlmanagers banaircraft fromflying near thecities used bythe hijackers.First, takeoffsand landings inNew York Cityare stoppedwithin a minuteof the UA175crash, withoutpermissionfrom DC.Boston andNewark followsuit in the nextfew minutes.Around 9:08,departuresnationwideheading to orthrough NewYork andBoston airspaceare canceled.The actual orderto stop allplanes fromtaking off atNew York's LaGuardia airportis given to theairplanes on theground at 9:07.MikeMcCormick,head of a LongIsland, NewYork air trafficcontrol center,makes thedecision

The firstindicationthat theNORAD airdefenders hadof the secondhijackedaircraft,United 175,came in aphone callfrom NewYork Centerto NEADS at9:03.Thenotice cameat about thetime theplane washitting theSouth Tower.(p. 23)

ground at 9:07.MikeMcCormick,head of a LongIsland, NewYork air trafficcontrol center,makes thedecisionwithoutconsulting anysuperiors. Also“a few minutes”after the Flight175 crash intothe WTC at9:03, alltakeoffs fromWashington arestopped. (cr)

0903 9:03 South Tower(Exec. Summ. p. 1)

Flightcontrollers inNewark, NewJersey are onthe phone withNY flightcontrollers andasked tovisually findUA 175. Theysee it and watchin horror as itdrops the lastfive thousandfeet and crashesinto the WTC.Rick Tepper(who also sawthe explosion ofthe first crash)recalls: “He wasin a hard rightbank, divingvery steeply andvery fast. Andhe—as he wascoming up theHudson River,he—he madeanother hard leftturn and—justheading fordowntownManhattan. Youcould see thathe was trying toline himself upon the tower.Just before hehit the tower,he almostleveled it outand just— justhit thebuilding.”Newarkimmediately

The 9/11Commissionlaterconcludesthat NewYork flightcontrol tellsNEADS thatFlight 175has beenhijacked atthis time.TheCommissioncalls this “thefirstindicationthat theNORAD airdefenders hadof the secondhijackedaircraft.”Robert Marr,head ofNEADS,claims that heonly learns aflight otherthan Flight11 has beenhijacked bywatchingFlight 175crash into theWTC ontelevision.However,after 9/11,NORADoriginallyconcludedthey werenotified aboutFlight 175 at8:43.Additionally,

The minute Flight175 hits the southtower, F-15 pilotNash says that clearvisibility allowshim to see smokepour out ofManhattan, eventhough NORADsays he is 71 milesaway. The otherpilot, Duffy, recalls,“We're 60 miles out,and I could see thesmoke from thetowers.” They callto NORAD rightthen for an update,and Duffy relates,“At that point, theysaid the secondaircraft just hit theWTC. That wasnews to me. Ithought we werestill chasing AA11,” Duffy againrelates, “It was rightabout then whenthey said the secondaircraft had just hitthe WTC, whichwas quite a shock toboth [Nash] and I,because we boththought there wasonly one aircraft outthere. We wereprobably 70 milesor so out when thesecond one hit. So,we were just amatter of minutesaway.” He asks forclarification of theirmission, but is metwith “considerable

Just before hehit the tower,he almostleveled it outand just— justhit thebuilding.”Newarkimmediatelycalls the AirTraffic ControlSystemCommandCenter inWashington andtells them theywill not landany moreairplanes inNewark, in aneffort to keepaircraft awayfrom NYC. It isthe first step inshutting downthe nationalairspace system.(cr)

after 9/11,NORADoriginallyconcludedthey werenotified aboutFlight 175 at8:43.Additionally,as Flight 175crashes intothe WTC,CanadianCaptain MikeJellinekoverseeingthe commandcenter inNORAD'sColoradoheadquartersis on thephone withNEADS. Hesees this liveon televisionand asksNEADS,“Was that thehijackedaircraft youwere dealingwith?” Thereply is yes.ThiscontradictstheCommission's conclusionthat NEADShas not yetbeen toldabout Flight175. Buteven if theCommission's account iscorrect,Flight 175lost radiocontact at8:42, changedtranspondersignals at8:46 a flightcontrollercalled itpossiblyhijacked at8:46 and/or8:53 and aflight controlmanagercalled ithijacked at8:55. TheCommissionhas not

probably 70 milesor so out when thesecond one hit. So,we were just amatter of minutesaway.” He asks forclarification of theirmission, but is metwith “considerableconfusion.” BobVarcadapane, aNewark, New Jerseyflight controller whosees the Flight 175crash, claims, “Iremember the twoF-15s. They werethere moments afterthe impact..” Butthe 9/11Commission laterconcludes that thepilots never get nearNew York City atall at this time.According to theCommission'saccount, from 8:46until 8:52, NORADpersonnel are unableto find Flight 11.Shortly after 8:50,and just before thefighters take off,NORAD is givenword that a planehas hit the WTC.So, lacking a cleartarget, the fighterstake off toward amilitary controlledairspace over theocean, off the coastof Long Island. (cr)

hijacked at8:46 and/or8:53 and aflight controlmanagercalled ithijacked at8:55. TheCommissionhas notexplainedwhy NewYork flightcontrol wouldwait at least10 and asmany as 17minutesbeforewarningNORAD thatFlight 175 ispossiblyhijacked. Itwould alsomean thatUnitedAirlinesheadquartersfails to notifyNORADdespiteknowing theplane hasbeen hijackedfor about adozenminutes. (cr)

0906-0916

Bush is in aclassroom inSarasota, Floridaand has just beentold of the attacks.CNN reported in1999, “Only thepresident has theauthority to order acivilian aircraft shotdown.” The pilot ofone of the planesflying to catchFlight 175 notesthat it wouldn't havemattered if hecaught up with it,because only Bushcould order ashootdown, andBush is at a publicevent at the time.(cr)

Bush is at a publicevent at the time.(cr)

0908 By 9:08, themission crewcommander atNEADS learned ofthe secondexplosion at theWorld Trade Centerand decided againstholding the fightersin military airspaceaway fromManhattan: MissionCrew Commander,NEADS: This iswhat I foresee thatwe probably need todo.We need to talkto FAA.We need totell ’em if this stuffis gonna keep ongoing, we need totake those fighters,put ’em overManhattan.That’sbest thing, that’s thebest play right now.So coordinate withthe FAA.Tell ’em ifthere’s more outthere, which wedon’t know, let’sget ’em overManhattan.At leastwe got some kind ofplay. (p. 23)

0909 Because the Otisfighters hadexpended a greatdeal of fuel in flyingfirst to militaryairspace and then toNew York, thebattle commanderswere concernedabout refueling.NEADS consideredscrambling alertfighters fromLangley Air ForceBase in Virginia toNew York, toprovide backup.TheLangley fighterswere placed onbattle stations at9:09.137 NORADhad no indicationthat any other planehad been hijacked.(p. 24)

9:09.137 NORADhad no indicationthat any other planehad been hijacked.(p. 24)

0909-0913

Radar data show theOtis fighters wereairborne at 8:53.Lacking a target,they were vectoredtoward military-controlled airspaceoff the Long Islandcoast.To avoid NewYork area air trafficand uncertain aboutwhat to do, thefighters werebrought down tomilitary airspace to“hold as needed.”From 9:09 to 9:13,the Otis fightersstayed in thisholding pattern. (p.20)

0912 At 9:12:54, the Otisfighters told theirBoston Centercontroller that theyneeded to establish acombat air patrolover New York, andthey immediatelyheaded for NewYork City. Thisseries ofcommunicationsexplains why theOtis fighters brieflyentered and thensoon departed theholding pattern, asthe radarreconstruction oftheir flight shows.(p.459)

0913 The FAA cleared theairspace. Radar datashow that at 9:13,when the Otisfighters were about115 miles awayfrom the city, thefighters exited theirholding pattern andset a course directfor Manhattan. (p.24)

24)

0915 FAA New YorkCenter advisesNEADS thatUA 175 was thesecond aircraftcrashed into(North Tower)WTC. (p. 32)

FAA NewYork CenteradvisesNEADS thatUA 175 wasthe secondaircraftcrashed into(NorthTower) WTC.(p. 32)

0919 United’s firstdecisive action tonotify its airborneaircraft to takedefensive action didnot come until9:19, when a Unitedflight dispatcher, EdBallinger, took theinitiative to begintransmittingwarnings to his 16transcontinentalflights: “Beware anycockpit intrusion—Two a/c [aircraft] hitWorld TradeCenter.” Ballingerwas still responsiblefor his other flightsas well as Flight175 (p. 11)

FAA air trafficcontrol tapesindicate that at 9:19the FAA Air TrafficControl SystemCommand Center inHerndon orderedcontrollers to send acockpit warning toDelta 1989 because,like American 11and United 175, itwas atranscontinentalflight departingBoston’s LoganAirport. (p. 455)

0920 United Airlinesheadquarters awarethat Flight 175 hadcrashed into WTC(p.32)

0925 By 9:25,FAA’s HerndonCommandCenter andFAAheadquartersknew twoaircraft hadcrashed into theWorld Trade

Radar data showthat when the Otisfighters were about115 miles awayfrom the city, thefighters exited theirholding pattern andset a course directfor Manhattan. Theyarrived at 9:25 and

FAA’s HerndonCommandCenter andFAAheadquartersknew twoaircraft hadcrashed into theWorld TradeCenter. (p. 25)

that when the Otisfighters were about115 miles awayfrom the city, thefighters exited theirholding pattern andset a course directfor Manhattan. Theyarrived at 9:25 andestablished a combatair patrol (CAP)over the city. (p. 24)

NOTE: This putsthe average speedfrom 9:13 to 9:25, adistance of 115miles in 12 minutesat 575 mph, wellbelow the capacityof the jets.

0958 Speaking to ChrisHenick, deputypolitical director toPresident Bush,Giuliani learns thePentagon has beenhit and asks aboutfighter cover overNew York City.Henick replies, “Thejets were dispatched12 minutes ago andthey should be therevery shortly, andthey should be ableto defend youagainst furtherattack.” If this istrue, it meansfighters scramblefrom the Otis basearound 9:46, not at8:52 as others haveclaimed. (cr)

0959 The south tower ofthe World TradeCenter collapses. Itwas hit by Flight175 at 9:02. (cr)

According to MajorDaniel Nash, pilotof one of the twofighters firstscrambled on 9/11the fighters overNew York City arenever given a shootdown order by themilitary that day.He recalls thataround the time ofthe collapse of theSouth Tower, “TheNY controller didcome over the radioand say if we haveanother hijackedaircraft we're goingto have to shoot itdown” However, hesays this is an off-

South Tower, “TheNY controller didcome over the radioand say if we haveanother hijackedaircraft we're goingto have to shoot itdown” However, hesays this is an off-the-cuff personalstatement, notconnected to thechain of command.(cr)

AMERICAN AIRLINES FLIGHT 77 TIMELINE(cr) = www.cooperativeresearch.org ; (nt) = NORAD Timeline released 9/17/01; (p. #) =9/11 Commission Report

TIME PASSENGERS/WITNESSES

ATC FAA NMCC/OFFICIALS

NORAD SCRAMBLERS

0718 Apparently,according to asecurity video seenby the 9/11Commission, AA77 hijackers MajedMoqed and KhalidAlmihdhar passthrough a securitycheckpoint at DullesInternational Airportin Washington.While their carry-onbags fail to set offany alarms, both setoff alarms whenpassing through themagnetometer. Theyare directed to asecondmagnetometer.Almihdhar passes,but Moqed failsagain. He issubjected to apersonal screeningwith a metaldetection handwand. This time heis cleared and he ispermitted to passthrough thecheckpoint. (cr)

0735 According to the9/11 Commission'sreview of airportsecurity footage, theremaining threeFlight 77 hijackerspass through asecurity checkpointat DullesInternational Airportin Washington.Hani Hanjour andhis two carry-onbags fail to set offany alarms. Oneminute later, NawafAlhazmi and SalemAlhazmi enter thesame checkpoint.Salem Alhazmisuccessfully clearsthe magnetometerand is permittedthrough thecheckpoint. Nawaf

minute later, NawafAlhazmi and SalemAlhazmi enter thesame checkpoint.Salem Alhazmisuccessfully clearsthe magnetometerand is permittedthrough thecheckpoint. NawafAlhazmi sets off thealarms for both thefirst and secondmagnetometers. Heis subsequentlysubjected to apersonal screeningwith a metaldetection handwand. He finallypasses. In addition,his shoulder strapcarry-on bag isswiped by anexplosive tracedetector andreturned withoutfurther inspection.The video footageof the hijackersgoing through thissecurity checkpointhas yet to bepublicly released.(cr)

0750 Majed Moqed andKhalid al Mihdharboarded the flightand were seated in12A and 12B incoach. HaniHanjour, assignedto seat 1B (firstclass), soonfollowed.The Hazmibrothers, sitting in5E and 5F, joinedHanjour in the first-class cabin. (p. 3)

0809 AA 77 pushedback from itsgate. (p. 8)

0820 Flight 77departs DullesInternationalAirport nearWashington, tenminutes afterthe scheduleddeparture time.(cr)

the scheduleddeparture time.(cr)

Takeoff (p. 33)

0825 The Guardianreports thatBoston flightcontrol “notifiesseveral air trafficcontrol centersthat a hijack istaking place.”But supposedlythey don'tnotify NORADfor another 6 to15 minutes,depending onthe account (seeHowever, theIndianapolisflight controllermonitoring AA77 claims to notknow about thisor UA 175'shijackingtwenty minuteslater. (cr)

0846 AA77 reachedits assignedcruising altitudeof 35,000 feet.(p. 8)

At the time of thefirst WTC crash,three F-16s assignedto Andrews AirForce Base, 10miles fromWashington, areflying an air-to-ground trainingmission on a rangein North Carolina,207 miles away.Eventually they arerecalled to Andrewsand land there atsome point afterFlight 77 crashesinto the Pentagon.(cr)

0850 The last radiocontact with AA77 is madewhen a pilotasks forclearance to flyhigher. Butthen, sixminutes later,the plane failsto respond to aroutineinstruction.Presumably it ishijacked duringthat time. Theplane is beinghandled by the

the plane failsto respond to aroutineinstruction.Presumably it ishijacked duringthat time. Theplane is beinghandled by theIndianapolisflight controlcenter at thistime. (cr)

0851 AA 77transmitted itslast routineradiocommunication.(p.8, 33)

Between0851and0854

The hijacking beganbetween 8:51 and8:54. As on AA 11and UA 175, thehijackers usedknives (reported byone passenger) andmoved all thepassengers (andpossibly crew) tothe rear of theaircraft (reported byone flight attendantand one passenger).Finally, a passengerreported that anannouncement hadbeen made by the“pilot” that theplane had beenhijacked. (p. 8, 33)

0854 Flight 77 fromWashingtonbegins to go offcourse oversouthern Ohio.It turns to thesouthwest. (cr)

Flight 77 makesunauthorizedturn to south (p.33)

0856 Flight 77'stranspondersignal is turnedoff. Accordingto the 9/11Commission,the Indianapolisflight controllerin charge of theflight had seenit go off courseand headsouthwestbefore the signaldisappeared. He

the Indianapolisflight controllerin charge of theflight had seenit go off courseand headsouthwestbefore the signaldisappeared. Helooks forprimary radarsignals along itsprojected flightpath as well asin the airspacewhere it hadstarted to turn.He can't find theplane. He triescontacting theairline but getsno answer. Thecontroller hasnot been toldabout any otherhijacked planes.He assumesFlight 77 hasexperiencedelectrical ormechanicalfailure. Eventhough Flight77 is off coursewith its radioand transpondernot working,NORAD issupposedly notnotified at thistime. (cr)

Transponder isturned off (p.33)

After0856

Radarreconstructionsperformed after9/11 reveal thatFAA radarequipmenttracked AA 77from themoment itstransponder wasturned off at8:56. But for 8minutes and 13seconds,between 8:56and 9:05, thisprimary radarinformation onAmerican 77was notdisplayed tocontrollers at

The New YorkTimes reports,“During the hour orso that AmericanAirlines Flight 77[is] under thecontrol of hijackers,up to the moment itstruck the west sideof the Pentagon,military officials in[the Pentagon'sNational MilitaryCommand Center[are] urgentlytalking to lawenforcement and airtraffic controlofficials about whatto do.” (cr)

seconds,between 8:56and 9:05, thisprimary radarinformation onAmerican 77was notdisplayed tocontrollers atIndianapolisCenter. Thereasons aretechnical,arising from theway thesoftwareprocessed radarinformation, aswell as frompoor primaryradar coveragewhere American77 was flying.(p. 25)

Command Center[are] urgentlytalking to lawenforcement and airtraffic controlofficials about whatto do.” (cr)

Before0900

AmericanAirlinesheadquarters inForth Worth,Texas, learnsthat Flight 77 isnot respondingto radio calls, isnot emitting atranspondersignal, andflight controlhas lost itslocation. Airlineexecutive GerardArpey gives anorder to stop allAmerican flighttake-offs in theNortheast.Within minutes,American getsword thatUnited also hasan airlinermissing and outof contact(presumably UA175). (cr)

0856-0905

According tothe 9/11Commission,“Radarreconstructionsperformed after9/11 reveal thatFAA radarequipmenttracked [Flight77] from themoment itstransponderwas turned off

performed after9/11 reveal thatFAA radarequipmenttracked [Flight77] from themoment itstransponderwas turned offat 8:56.” Foreight minutesand thirteenseconds, thisprimary radardata is notdisplayed toIndianapolisflightcontrollers.“The reasonsare technical,arising fromthe way thesoftwareprocessed radarinformation, aswell as frompoor primaryradar coveragewhereAmerican 77was flying.”Apparently, aradar tower inWest Virginiadoesn't haveprimary radar.(cr)

After0900

According tothe 9/11Commission,shortly after9:00,Indianapolisflight controlstarts notifyingothergovernmentagencies thatAmerican 77 ismissing and haspossiblycrashed. Forinstance, at9:08,Indianapoliscontacts AirForce Searchand Rescue atLangley AirForce Base,Virginia, andtells them tolook out for adowned aircraft.They alsocontact the West

and Rescue atLangley AirForce Base,Virginia, andtells them tolook out for adowned aircraft.They alsocontact the WestVirginia StatePolice, andasked whetherthey have anyreports of adowned aircraft.(cr)

0900 Renee May, a flightattendant on Flight77, calls her motherwho is living in LasVegas, using a cellphone. She tells hermother that theflight has beenhijacked, and thateveryone has beenasked to move tothe back of theplane. She asks hermother to callAmerican Airlinesand let them knowFlight 77 has beenhijacked. Themother calls theairline. (cr)

At 9:00,AmericanAirlinesExecutive VicePresident GerardArpey learnedthatcommunicationshad been lostwith American77.This wasnow the secondAmericanaircraft introuble. Heordered allAmericanAirlines flightsin the Northeastthat had nottaken off toremain on theground. (p. 9)

IndianapolisCenter startednotifying otheragencies thatAmerican 77was missingand hadpossiblycrashed. (p. 24)

The Pentagonmoves its alertstatus up one notchfrom normal toAlpha. It stays onAlpha until afterAA 77 hits, andthen goes up twomore notches toCharlie later on inthe day. (cr)

After0903

Controllers atthe New Yorktraffic center arebriefed by theirsupervisors towatch forairplanes whosespeed indicatedthat they arejets, but whicheither are notresponding tocommands orhave disabledtheirtransponders.“Controllers inWashington

A few minutes after9:03 a.m., asquadron pilot atAndrews Air ForceBase, located 10miles fromWashington, hearsthat two planes havecrashed into theWTC. He calls afriend in the SecretService to see what'sgoing on. TheSecret Service callsback, and askswhether Andrewscan scramblefighters. One

jets, but whicheither are notresponding tocommands orhave disabledtheirtransponders.“Controllers inWashington[get] a similarbriefing, which[help] them pickout hijackedplanes morequickly.” (cr)

WTC. He calls afriend in the SecretService to see what'sgoing on. TheSecret Service callsback, and askswhether Andrewscan scramblefighters. Onecommander hadalready anticipatedthe need, and startedpreparing weaponsfor the fighters. Butthe weapons arelocated in a bunkeron the other side ofthe base, and theprocess takes time.The fighters don'ttake off for aboutanother hour and ahalf (10:42 a.m.) .Meanwhile, there arealso three unarmedF-16 fightersassigned to theAndrews base on atraining mission207 miles to thesouth in NorthCarolina. These arenot recalled untilmuch later, anddon't reachWashington until10:45 (see (10:38a.m.) ). [ AviationWeek and SpaceTechnology, 9/9/02 ]NORADcommander MajorGeneral LarryArnold has said,“We [didn't] haveany aircraft on alertat Andrews.”[ MSNBC, 9/23/01(C) ] However, priorto 9/11, the Districtof Columbia AirNational Guardbased at Andrewshad a publicly statedmission “to providecombat units in thehighest possiblestate of readiness.”Shortly after 9/11this missionstatement on itswebsite is changed,so it merely has a“vision” to “providepeacetime commandand control andadministrative

Shortly after 9/11this missionstatement on itswebsite is changed,so it merely has a“vision” to “providepeacetime commandand control andadministrativemission oversight tosupport customers,DCANG [District ofColumbia AirNational Guard]units, and NGB inachieving thehighest levels ofreadiness.” (cr)

0905 West Virginiaflight controlnotices a neweastbound planeentering itsradar with noradio contactand notransponderidentification.They are notsure it is Flight77. Supposedlythey waitanother 19minutes beforenotifyingNORAD aboutit. (cr)

0905and after

According tothe 9/11Commission,AA 77's radarblip reappearson Indianapolisflight control'sprimary radarscopes afterbeing missingfor eightminutes. It iseast of its lastknown position.It remains in airspace managedby Indianapolisuntil 9:10, andthen passes intoWashington airspace. Twomanagers andone flightcontrollercontinue to lookwest andsouthwest forthe flight, butdon't look east.Managers don't

managers andone flightcontrollercontinue to lookwest andsouthwest forthe flight, butdon't look east.Managers don'tinstruct otherIndianapoliscontrollers tojoin the searchfor the flight.Neither they norFAAheadquartersissues an “allpoints bulletin”to surroundingcenters to searchfor Flight 77.Newsday claimsthat rumorscirculate theplane mighthave explodedin midair. Butthe idea theywouldn't lookeast iscontradicted byan account thatAmericanAirlinesheadquarterswas told Flight77 had turnedaround. (cr)

9:05 AAheadquarters inaware thatFlight 77 ishijacked. (p. 33)

0907 At 9:07, BostonAir TrafficControl Centerrecommended tothe FAACommandCenter that acockpit warningbe sent to thepilots of allcommercialaircraft to securetheir cockpits.While BostonCenter sent outsuch warningsto thecommercialflights in itssector, we couldfind no evidencethat a

While BostonCenter sent outsuch warningsto thecommercialflights in itssector, we couldfind no evidencethat anationwidewarning wasissued by theATC system.(p. 455)

FAA controllersat BostonCenter, whichhad tracked thefirst twohijackings,requested at9:07 thatHerndonCommandCenter “getmessages toairborne aircraftto increasesecurity for thecockpit.” Thereis no evidencethat Herndontook suchaction. BostonCenterimmediatelybeganspeculatingabout otheraircraft thatmight be indanger, leadingthem to worryabout atranscontinentalflight—Delta1989—that infact was nothijacked. (p. 10)

0908 At 9:08,Indianapolis Centerasked Air ForceSearch and Rescueat Langley Air ForceBase to look for adowned aircraft.Thecenter also contactedthe West VirginiaState Police andasked whether anyreports of a downedaircraft had beenreceived. (p. 24)

the West VirginiaState Police andasked whether anyreports of a downedaircraft had beenreceived. (p. 24)

0909 Shortly before9:10, suspectingthat American77 had beenhijacked,Americanheadquartersconcluded thatthe secondaircraft to hitthe World TradeCenter mighthave beenFlight 77. Afterlearning thatUnited Airlineswas missing aplane, AmericanAirlinesheadquartersextended theground stopnationwide. (p.9)

Around thistime, the FAAcommandcenter reports11 aircrafteither not incommunicationwith FAAfacilities, orflyingunexpectedroutes.Indianapolisfight controlreports the lossof contact withFlight 77 tothe FAAregional center.They describeit as a possiblecrash. Thiscenter waits 16minutes beforepassing theinformation toFAAheadquarters.(cr)

FAAIndianopoliscenter alsocontacted theWest VirginiaState Policeand askedwhether anyreports of adowned aircrafthad beenreceived. At9:09, itreported theloss of contactto the FAAregional center.(p. 24)

Supposedly,NORAD orders F-16s at Langley AirForce Base,Virginia, on battlestations alert. The9/11 Commissionlater concludes thatthe battle stationsalert happens at thistime. They claimthe alert is not toprotect Washington,but because there'sconcern that thefighters over NYCwill run low on fueland need to bereplaced. But onepilot account saysthe battle stationsalert doesn't happenuntil 9:21, andanother pilotaccount says 9:24.(cr)

0909 to0913

Radar data show theOtis fighters wereairborne at 8:53.Lacking a target,they were vectoredtoward military-controlled airspaceoff the Long Islandcoast. To avoid NewYork area air trafficand uncertain aboutwhat to do, thefighters were

they were vectoredtoward military-controlled airspaceoff the Long Islandcoast. To avoid NewYork area air trafficand uncertain aboutwhat to do, thefighters werebrought down tomilitary airspace to“hold as needed.”From 9:09 to 9:13,the Otis fightersstayed in thisholding pattern. (p.20)

0910 Washingtonflight controlnotices a neweastbound planeentering itsradar with noradio contactand notransponderidentification.They don'trealize it isFlight 77. Theyare aware of thehijackings andcrashes ofFlights 11 and175, Yetapparently theyfail to notifyanyone aboutthe unidentifiedplane. Anotherreport says theynever notice it,and it is onlynoticed when itenters radarcoverage ofWashington'sDullesInternationalAirport at 9:24.(cr)

0912 At 9:12, Renee Maycalled her mother,Nancy May, in LasVegas. She said herflight was beinghijacked by sixindividuals who hadmoved them to therear of the plane.She asked hermother to alertAmerican Airlines.Nancy May and herhusband promptlydid so. (p.9)

At 9:12:54, the Otisfighters told theirBoston Centercontroller that theyneeded to establish acombat air patrolover New York, andthey immediatelyheaded for NewYork City. Thisseries ofcommunicationsexplains why theOtis fighters brieflyentered and thensoon departed the

moved them to therear of the plane.She asked hermother to alertAmerican Airlines.Nancy May and herhusband promptlydid so. (p.9)

they immediatelyheaded for NewYork City. Thisseries ofcommunicationsexplains why theOtis fighters brieflyentered and thensoon departed theholding pattern, asthe radarreconstruction oftheir flight shows.(p. 459)

0913 The FAA cleared theairspace. Radar datashow that at 9:13,when the Otisfighters were about115 miles awayfrom the city, thefighters exited theirholding pattern andset a course directfor Manhattan. (p.24)

0915 to0930

The recordsavailable for thephone calls fromAmerican 77 do notallow for adetermination ofwhich of four“connected calls tounknown numbers”represent the twobetween Barbara andTed Olson,although the FBIand DOJ believethat all fourrepresentcommunicationsbetween BarbaraOlson and herhusband’s office (allfamily members ofthe Flight 77passengers and crewwere canvassed tosee if they hadreceived any phonecalls from thehijacked flight, andonly Renee May’sparents and TedOlson indicated thatthey had receivedsuch calls).The fourcalls were at9:15:34 for 1minute, 42 seconds.(p. 455)

such calls).The fourcalls were at9:15:34 for 1minute, 42 seconds.(p. 455)

0916 to0926

At some pointbetween 9:16 and9:26, Barbara Olsoncalled her husband,Ted Olson, thesolicitor general ofthe United States.She reported thatthe flight had beenhijacked, and thehijackers had knivesand box cutters. Shefurther indicatedthat the hijackerswere not aware ofher phone call, andthat they had put allthe passengers inthe back of theplane. About aminute into theconversation, thecall was cut off.Solicitor GeneralOlson triedunsuccessfully toreach AttorneyGeneral JohnAshcroft. (p. 9)

0918 The FAACommandCenter finallyissues anationwidealert to flightcontrollers towatch forplanesdisappearingfrom radar ormakingunauthorizedcourse changes.(cr)

0919 At 9:19, theFAA’s NewEnglandregional officecalled Herndonand asked thatClevelandCenter adviseDelta 1989 touse extracockpit security.(p. 10)

use extracockpit security.(p. 10)

0920 Barbara Olson callto Ted Olson9:20:15 for 4minutes, 34seconds. (p. 455)

According tothe 9/11Commission,Indianapolisflight controllearns that thereare otherhijacked aircraft.Those crasheshave beenbroadcast onCNN and allother mediabeganbroadcastingimages fromNY butIndianapolis issupposedlyunaware untilthis time. TheIndianapolisflightcontrollersbegin to doubttheirassumption thatAA 77 hascrashed andconsider that itmight behijacked. (cr)

By 9:20,IndianapolisCenter learnedthat there wereother hijackedaircraft, andbegan to doubtits initialassumption thatAmerican 77had crashed. Adiscussion ofthis concernbetween themanager atIndianapolis andthe CommandCenter inHerndonprompted it tonotify someFAA fieldfacilities thatAmerican 77was lost. (p. 24)

After adiscussionbetween theIndianapolismanager andthe FAACommandCenter, theCommandCenter notifiessome otherFAA facilitiesthat Flight 77is lost. (cr)

At about 9:20,securitypersonnel atFAAheadquartersset up ahijackingteleconferencewith severalagencies,including theDefenseDepartment.(p. 36)

At about 9:20,security personnelat FAAheadquarters set upa hijackingteleconference withseveral agencies,including theDefenseDepartment. TheNMCC officer whoparticipated told usthat the call wasmonitored onlyperiodically becausethe information wassporadic,it was oflittle value,andthere were otherimportant tasks.The FAA managerof the teleconferencealso rememberedthat the militaryparticipated onlybriefly before thePentagon was hit.Both individualsagreed that theteleconferenceplayed no role incoordinating aresponse to theattacks of9/11.Acting DeputyAdministratorBelger wasfrustrated to learnlater in the morningthat the militaryhad not been on thecall. (p. 36)

facilities thatAmerican 77was lost. (p. 24)

0921 A companywideorder for dispatchersto warn cockpitswas not issued until9:21. (p. 455)

By 9:21, theCommandCenter, someFAA fieldfacilities, andAmericanAirlines jointhe search forFlight 77. (cr)

According tothe 9/11Commission,the FAACommandCenter advisesthe DullesAirportterminalcontrol facilityin Washingtonto look forprimarytargets. By atleast oneaccount, Dullesnotices AA 77a few minuteslater. (cr)

The CommandCenter keptlooking forAmerican 77.At 9:21, itadvised theDulles terminalcontrol facility,and Dullesurged itscontrollers tolook forprimarytargets. (p. 25)

By 9:21, theCommandCenter, someFAA fieldfacilities, andAmericanAirlines hadstarted tosearch forAmerican77.They fearedit had beenhijacked. (p.24)

According tothe 9/11Commission,NORAD'sNEADS iscontacted byBoston flightcontrol. Acontrollersays, “I justhad a reportthat AA 11 isstill in theair, and it'son its waytowards—heading towardsWashington.That wasanother—itwas evidentlyanotheraircraft thathit the tower.That's thelatest reportwe have. I'mgoing to tryto confirm anID for you,but I wouldassume he'ssomewhereover, uh,either NewJersey orsomewherefurthersouth.” TheNEADSofficial asks,“He—AA 11is a hijack?And he'sheading intoWashington?”The Bostoncontrolleranswers yesboth timesand adds,“This couldbe a thirdaircraft.”SomehowBoston istold by FAAheadquartersthat AA 11 isstill airborne,but theCommissionhasn't beenable to find

Major DeanEckmann, an F-16fight pilot atLangley, Virginia,recalls, “Thescramble horn goesoff and we get theyellow light, whichis our battlestations. So at thatpoint I go runningout to theairplanes—to myassigned alertairplane—get suitedup and I get into thecockpit ready tostart.” A fewminutes before thebattle stations order,Eckmann is toldthat the WTC hasbeen hit by a plane.He assumes it'ssome kind ofaccident. However,another pilot,codenamed Honey(apparently CraigBorgstrom), claimsthe battle stationscommand happensat 9:24 while the9/11 Commissionclaims it happens at9:09. (cr)

77.They fearedit had beenhijacked. (p.24)

Boston istold by FAAheadquartersthat AA 11 isstill airborne,but theCommissionhasn't beenable to findwhere thismistakeninformationcame from.(cr)

0922:34 NEADSaudio file,Mission CrewCommander,Channel 2,9:22:34.Themissioncommanderthought toput theLangleyscramble overBaltimore andplace a“barrier cap”between thehijack andWashington,D.C. (p. 461)

0923 According tothe 9/11Commission,NEADS hasjust been toldthat thehijackedFlight 11 isstill in the airand headingtowardWashington.The NEADSBattleCommandersays, “Okay,uh, AmericanAirlines isstill airborne.Eleven, thefirst guy, he'sheadingtowardsWashington.Okay? I thinkwe need toscrambleLangley rightnow. And I'mgonna takethe fightersfrom Otis, tryto chase thisguy down if I

we need toscrambleLangley rightnow. And I'mgonna takethe fightersfrom Otis, tryto chase thisguy down if Ican findhim.” TheNEADSMission CrewCommanderissues theorder, “Okay… scrambleLangley.Head themtowards theWashingtonarea.” (cr)

Afterconsultingwith NEADScommand, thecrewcommanderissued theorder at9:23:“Okay .. . scrambleLangley.Head themtowards theWashingtonarea. . . . [I]fthey’re therethen we’ll runon them. . . .These guysare smart.” (p.26)

0924 FAAIndianapolisCenter alsocontacted theFAA regionalcenter to reportFlight 77missing, whichpassed thisinformation toFAAheadquarters at9:24. (p. 24)

CNN notes that“after the FAAwarned themilitary's airdefense commandthat a hijackedairliner appeared tobe headed towardWashington, thefederal governmentfailed to make anymove to evacuatethe White House,Capitol, StateDepartment or thePentagon.” APentagonspokesman says,“The Pentagon wassimply not awarethat this aircraft wascoming our way.”Even Defense

The Langley,Virginia basegets thescrambleorder at 9:24.NEADSkeeps theirfighters fromthe Otis baseover NewYork City.(cr)

That orderwas processedandtransmitted toLangley AirForce Base at9:24. (p. 26)

The BBC laterreports that at thistime, Robert Marr,head of NEADS,gives the scrambleorder to the F-16fighters based inLangley, Virginia.The 9/11Commissionconcurs that thescramble order isgiven now. NORADalso has agreed.However, manymedia reports haveplaced it later. Apilot codenamedHoney gives aslightly differentaccount. He claimsthat at this time abattle stations alert

Department or thePentagon.” APentagonspokesman says,“The Pentagon wassimply not awarethat this aircraft wascoming our way.”Even DefenseSecretary Rumsfeldand his top aides inthe Pentagonremain unaware ofany danger up tothe moment ofimpact 14 minuteslater. Most senatorsand congressmenare in the Capitolbuilding, which isnot evacuated until9:48. Only VicePresident Cheney,National SecurityAdvisor Rice andpossibly a fewothers, areevacuated to safetya few minutes after9:03. Yet, since atleast the Flight 11crash, “militaryofficials in [theNMCC] on the eastside of the[Pentagon] [are]urgently talking tolaw enforcementand air trafficcontrol officialsabout what to do.”(cr)

was processedandtransmitted toLangley AirForce Base at9:24. (p. 26)

Shortly after9/11,NORADreported thatthe FAAnotified themat this timethat Flight 77“may” havebeen hijackedand appears tobe headedtowardWashington.Apparentlyflightcontrollers atDullesInternationalAirportdiscover aplane headingat a highspeed towardWashington,and sound analert withinmoments thatthe planeappears to beheaded towardthe WhiteHouse. In2003, theFAAsupported thisaccount, butclaimed thatthey hadinformallynotifiedNORADearlier.“NORADlogs indicatethat the FAAmade formalnotificationaboutAmericanFlight 77 at9:24 a.m.,butinformationabout theflight wasconveyedcontinuouslyduring thephone bridgesbefore the

However, manymedia reports haveplaced it later. Apilot codenamedHoney gives aslightly differentaccount. He claimsthat at this time abattle stations alertsounds, and twoother pilots aregiven the order toclimb into their F-16s and awaitfurther instructions.Then, Honey, whois the supervisingpilot, talks to thetwo other pilots.Then, “five or tenminutes later,” aperson fromNORAD calls, andHoney speaks tohim at the nearbyadministrativeoffice. He is toldthat all three ofthem are ordered toscramble. Honeygoes to his livingquarters, grabs hisflight gear, puts iton, runs to hisplane, and takes off.Honey appears to bethe codename forCaptain CraigBorgstrom, becausein another account itis Borgstrom who isgiven an alert andthen talks to the twoother pilots. Adifferent pilotaccount has thebattle stationswarning threeminutes earlierwhile the 9/11Commission claimsthat it happensfifteen minutesearlier Pilot MajorDean Eckmannrecalls, “They go‘active air scramble,vector zero one zeroone, max speed'.And then I push usover to the towerfrequency and getour departureclearance and theylaunch us out rightaway. We can carryM9-Heat Seekers,Side Winders for the

9:24 a.m.,butinformationabout theflight wasconveyedcontinuouslyduring thephone bridgesbefore theformalnotification.”Yet in 2004the 9/11Commissionclaims thatboth NORADand the FAAare wrong,and NORADis nevernotified bythe FAA, butaccidentallylearns aboutFlight 77 at9:34. (cr)

FAAnotification toNEADS (nt)

In this samepublictestimony,NORADofficialsstated that at9:24, NEADSreceivednotification ofthe hijackingof American77.Thisstatement wasalso incorrect.The noticeNEADSreceived at9:24 was thatAmerican 11had not hitthe WorldTrade Centerand washeading forWashington,D.C. (p.34)

one, max speed'.And then I push usover to the towerfrequency and getour departureclearance and theylaunch us out rightaway. We can carryM9-Heat Seekers,Side Winders for theM7-Sparrow, pluswe have an internal20mm VulcanCannon, and wewere pretty mucharmed with all that.We had a prettyquick response time.I believe it was fourto five minutes wewere airborne fromthat point.’ ” TheBBC reports, “Evenwhile last minutepre-launch checksare being made, thecontrollers learn thata third plane—American Airlinesflight 77 out ofWashington—mayhave been hijacked.”Just before thefighters take off, theBBC says, “Thepilots get a signalover the plane'stransponder—a codethat indicates anemergency wartimesituation.” (cr)

Fighter scrambleorder (LangleyAFB, Hampton, Va.2 F-16s) (nt)

That[scramble] orderwas processed andtransmitted toLangley Air ForceBase at 9:24. (p. 26)

0925 A passenger onFlight 77, BarbaraOlson, calls herhusband, Theodore(Ted) Olson, who isSolicitor General atthe JusticeDepartment. TedOlson is in hisJustice Departmentoffice watchingWTC news ontelevision when hiswife calls. “She toldme that she hadbeen herded to theback of the plane.She mentioned thatthey had usedknives and boxcutters to hijack theplane. Shementioned that thepilot had announcedthat the plane hadbeen hijacked.” Hetells her that twoplanes have hit theWTC. She feelsnobody is takingcharge. He doesn'tknow if she wasnear the pilots, butat one point sheasks, “What shall Itell the pilot? Whatcan I tell the pilotto do?” Then shegets cut off withoutwarning. (cr)Barbara Olson callto Ted Olson9:25:48 for 2minutes, 34seconds. (p. 455)

American77.They fearedit had beenhijacked. At9:25, theCommandCenter advisedFAAheadquarters ofthe situation.(p. 24)

According tothe 9/11Commission,the FAACommandCenter advisesFAAheadquartersthat American77 is lost inIndianapolisflight control'sairspace, thatIndianapolishas no primaryradar track, andis looking forthe aircraft.The CommandCenter hadlearned this 16minutes earlier.AmericanAirlinesheadquartershas beennotified of thesameinformationbefore 9:00.(cr)

By 9:25,FAA’sHerndonCommandCenter andFAAheadquartersknew American77 was lost.(p. 25)

Concerns overthe safety ofother aircraftbegan tomount. Amanager at theHerndonCommandCenter askedFAAheadquarters ifthey wanted toorder a“nationwideground stop.”While this wasbeingdiscussed byexecutives atFAAheadquarters,the CommandCenter orderedone at 9:25. (p.25)

At the White House,the videoteleconference wasconducted from theSituation Room byRichard Clarke, aspecial assistant tothe president longinvolved incounterterrorism.Logs indicate that itbegan at 9:25 andincluded the CIA;the FBI; thedepartments ofState, Justice, andDefense; the FAA;and the WhiteHouse shelter…Wefound no evidencethat videoteleconferenceparticipants had anyprior informationthat American 77had been hijackedand was headingdirectly towardWashington. Indeed,it is not clear to usthat the videoteleconference wasfully under waybefore 9:37, whenthe Pentagon wasstruck. (p. 36)

While this wasbeingdiscussed byexecutives atFAAheadquarters,the CommandCenter orderedone at 9:25. (p.25)

HerndonCommandCenter ordersnationwideground stop.(p. 33)

After0925

Ted Olson calls theJusticeDepartment'scontrol center to tellabout his wife's callfrom AA77.Accounts varywhether the JusticeDepartment alreadyknows of the hijackor not. Olsonmerely says, “Theyjust absorbed theinformation. Andthey promised tosend someone downright away.” Heassumes they then“pass theinformation on tothe appropriatepeople.” (cr)

The recordsavailable for thephone calls fromAmerican 77 do notallow for adetermination ofwhich of four“connected calls tounknown numbers”represent the twobetween Barbaraand Ted Olson,although the FBIand DOJ believethat all fourrepresentcommunicationsbetween BarbaraOlson and herhusband’soffice…9:25:48 for2 minutes, 34seconds. (p. 455)

Olson and herhusband’soffice…9:25:48 for2 minutes, 34seconds. (p. 455)

0927 Cheney and Rice,in their bunkerbelow the WhiteHouse, are told byan aide that anairplane is 50 milesoutside Washingtonand headed towardit. The plane is AA77. FederalAviation DeputyChief Monty Belgersays, “Well we'rewatching this targeton the radar, but thetransponder's beenturned off. So we,have noidentification.”Theyare given furthernotices when theplane is 30 milesaway, then 10 milesaway, until itdisappears fromradar (timeunknown, but theplane is said to betraveling about 500mph and was 30miles away at 9:30,so 50 miles wouldbe about 3 minutesbefore that).TransportationSecretary NormanMineta givesvirtually the sameaccount before the9/11 Commission.However, the 9/11Commission laterclaims the planeheading towardWashington is onlydiscovered at 9:32.(cr)

0928 Richard Clarke viavideoconferencingasks Joint Chiefs ofStaff Vice ChairmanRichard Myers, “Iassume NORAD hasscrambled fightersand AWACS. Howmany? Where?”Myers replies, “Nota pretty picture. Weare in the middle ofVigilant Warrior, aNORAD exercise,but … Otis has

scrambled fightersand AWACS. Howmany? Where?”Myers replies, “Nota pretty picture. Weare in the middle ofVigilant Warrior, aNORAD exercise,but … Otis haslaunched two birdstoward New York.Langley is trying toget two up now[towardWashington]. TheAWACS are atTinker and not onalert.” This may bea mistaken referenceto the on-going wargame VigilantGuardian. The Otisbase is inMassachusetts, 188miles east of NewYork City. Langleyis in Virginia, 129miles south ofWashington. TinkerAir Force Base is inOklahoma. Clarkeasks, “Okay, howlong to CAP overDC?” CAP meanscombat air patrol.Myers replies, “Fastas we can. Fifteenminutes?”(cr)

0929 At 9:29, theautopilot onAmerican 77 wasdisengaged; theaircraft was at 7,000feet andapproximately 38miles west of thePentagon. (p. 9)

The FAA andWhite HouseTeleconferences.The FAA, theWhite House, andthe DefenseDepartment eachinitiated amultiagencyteleconferencebefore 9:30.Because none oftheseteleconferences—atleast before 10:00—included the rightofficials from boththe FAA andDefenseDepartment, nonesucceeded inmeaningfullycoordinating themilitary and FAAresponse to thehijackings. (p. 36)

succeeded inmeaningfullycoordinating themilitary and FAAresponse to thehijackings. (p. 36)

0930 The hijackers makean announcement tothe passengers onFlight 77, tellingthem to phone theirfamilies as they are“all going to die”.They also tell thepassengers that theyare going to hit theWhite House. (cr)

Barbara Olson callto Ted Olson9:30:56 for 4minutes, 20seconds. (p. 455)

Radar tracksFlight 77 as itcloses within 30miles ofWashington,but controllershave yet toidentify it assuch. (cr)

ChrisStephenson,the flightcontroller incharge of theWashingtonairport tower,says that he iscalled by theSecret Servicearound thistime. He istold anunidentifiedaircraft isspeedingtowardWashington.Stephensonlooks at theradarscope andsees Flight 77about fivemiles to thewest. He looksout the towerwindow andsees the planeturning to theright anddescending. Hefollows it untilit disappearsbehind abuilding innearby CrystalCity, Virginia.However,according toanotheraccount, justbefore 9:30a.m., acontroller inthe same towerhas anunidentifiedplane on radar,“headingtowardWashingtonand without atranspondersignal toidentify it. It'sflying fast, shesays: almost500 mph. Andit's headingstraight for theheart of the

The three F-16s atLangley, Virginiaget airborne. Thepilots' names areMajor Brad Derrig,Captain CraigBorgstrom, andMajor DeanEckmann, all fromthe North DakotaAir National Guard's119th Fighter Wingbut stationed atLangley. (cr)

Fighters airborne(nt)

Radar data show theLangley fightersairborne at 9:30.NEADS decided tokeep the Otisfighters over NewYork. The headingof the Langleyfighters wasadjusted to sendthem to theBaltimore area. Themission crewcommanderexplained to us thatthe purpose was toposition the Langleyfighters between thereported southboundAmerican 11 and thenation’s capital. (p.26)

transpondersignal toidentify it. It'sflying fast, shesays: almost500 mph. Andit's headingstraight for theheart of thecity. Could itbe AmericanFlight 77? TheFAA warns theSecretService.” (cr)

0932 According tothe 9/11Commission,the DullesAirport terminalcontrol facilityin Washingtonhas beenlooking forunidentifiedprimary radarblips and nowfinds one.Several Dullesflightcontrollers“observed aprimary radartarget trackingeastbound at ahigh rate ofspeed” andnotify ReaganAirport (cr)

At 9:32,controllers atthe DullesTerminal RadarApproachControl“observed aprimary radartarget trackingeastbound at ahigh rate ofspeed.” Thiswas laterdetermined tohave beenFlight 77. (p. 9)

Dulles towerobserves radarof fast-movingaircraft (lateridentified asAA77). (p. 33)

FAA personnelat both Reaganand Dullesairports notifythe SecretService. Theidentity oraircraft type isunknown. Butother accountsplace thediscovery ofthis plane byDulles earlier(see (9:24a.m.) and (9:30a.m.) ), andVice PresidentCheney is toldradar istracking Flight77 at 9:27. (cr)

observes radarof fast-movingaircraft (lateridentified asAA77). (p. 33)

The CommandCenter keptlooking forAmerican 77.Dulles terminalcontrolfacility… urgedits controllers tolook for primarytargets. At 9:32,they found one.Several of theDullescontrollers“observed aprimary radartarget trackingeastbound at ahigh rate ofspeed” andnotified ReaganNationalAirport. FAApersonnel atboth ReaganNational andDulles airportsnotified theSecret Service.The aircraft’sidentity or typewas unknown.(p. 12)

At 9:32,controllers atthe DullesTerminal RadarApproachControl“observed aprimary radartarget trackingeastbound at ahigh rate ofspeed.” Thiswas laterdetermined tohave beenFlight 77. (p.9)

0933 ChrisStephenson, theflight controllerin charge of theReagan NationalAirport tower,also inWashington,says that he iscalled by theSecret Service.

The BBC reportsthat at this time,pilot Major DeanEckmann gets amessage as he'sflying north fromLangley, Virginia.“They said— allairplanes, if youcome within (Ibelieve it was) 30

flight controllerin charge of theReagan NationalAirport tower,also inWashington,says that he iscalled by theSecret Service.He is told anunidentifiedaircraft isspeeding towardWashington.Stephensonlooks at theradarscope andsees Flight 77about five milesto the west. Helooks out thetower windowand sees theplane turning tothe right anddescending. Hefollows it untilit disappearsbehind abuilding innearby CrystalCity, Virginia.(cr)

pilot Major DeanEckmann gets amessage as he'sflying north fromLangley, Virginia.“They said— allairplanes, if youcome within (Ibelieve it was) 30miles ofWashington DC,you will be shotdown.” (cr)

0933-0938

Radar datashows Flight 77crossing theCapitol Beltwayand headedtoward thePentagon. Butthe plane, flyingmore than 400mph, is toohigh when itnears thePentagon at9:35, crossingthe Pentagon atabout 7,000 feetup. The planethen makes adifficult high-speeddescending turn.It makes a“downwardspiral, turningalmost acomplete circleand droppingthe last 7,000feet in two-and-a-half minutes.The steep turnis so smooth,the sources say,it's clear there

complete circleand droppingthe last 7,000feet in two-and-a-half minutes.The steep turnis so smooth,the sources say,it's clear there[is] no fight forcontrol goingon.”] It getsvery near theWhite Houseduring this turn.“Sources say thehijacked jet …[flies] severalmiles south ofthe restrictedairspace aroundthe WhiteHouse.” TheTelegraph laterwrites, “If theairliner hadapproachedmuch nearer tothe WhiteHouse it mighthave been shotdown by theSecret Service,who arebelieved to havea battery ofground-to-airStinger missilesready to defendthe president'shome. ThePentagon is notsimilarlydefended.” AriFleischersuggests theplane goes evencloser to theWhite House,saying, “That isnot the radardata that wehave seen. Theplane washeaded towardthe WhiteHouse.” (cr)

0934 FAA advisesNEADS thatAA 77 ismissing. (p. 33)

According tothe 9/11Commission,NEADScontacts theFAA'sWashingtonCenter to askabout Flight11. A

NEADS thatAA 77 ismissing. (p. 33)

the 9/11Commission,NEADScontacts theFAA'sWashingtonCenter to askabout Flight11. Amanager therehappens tomention,“We'relooking—wealso lostAmerican77.” TheCommissionclaims, “Noone at FAACommandCenter orheadquartersever asked formilitaryassistancewithAmerican77.” Yet, 38minutesearlier, flightcontrollersdeterminedFlight 77 wasoff course,out of radiocontact, andhad notranspondersignal. They'dwarnedAmericanAirlinesheadquarterswithinminutes. (cr)

0936 Reagan Airportflight controlinstructs amilitary C-130(Golfer 06) thathas just departedAndrews AirForce Base tointercept Flight77 and identify it.Remarkably, thisC-130 is the sameC-130 that is 17miles from Flight93 when it latercrashes into thePennsylvaniacountryside. Thepilot, Lt. Col.Steve O'Brien,

C-130 is the sameC-130 that is 17miles from Flight93 when it latercrashes into thePennsylvaniacountryside. Thepilot, Lt. Col.Steve O'Brien,claims he tookoff around 9:30,planning toreturn toMinnesota afterdropping suppliesoff in theCaribbean. Helater describes hisclose encounter:“When air trafficcontrol asked meif we had him[Flight 77] insight, I told himthat was anunderstatement—by then, he hadpretty much filledour windscreen.Then he made apretty aggressiveturn so he wasmoving right infront of us, a mileand a half, twomiles away. I saidwe had him insight, then thecontroller askedme what kind ofplane it was. Thatcaught us up,because normallythey have all thatinformation. Thecontroller didn'tseem to knowanything.”O'Brien reportsthat the plane iseither a 757 or767 and its silverfuselage means itis probably anAmericanAirlines plane.“They told us toturn and followthat aircraft—in20-plus years offlying, I've neverbeen asked to do

is probably anAmericanAirlines plane.“They told us toturn and followthat aircraft—in20-plus years offlying, I've neverbeen asked to dosomething likethat.”The 9/11Commissionreports that it is aC-130H and thepilot specificallyidentifies thehijacked plane asa 757. Secondsafter impact, hereports, “Lookslike that aircraftcrashed into thePentagon sir.”(cr)

0937

9:37:46

Airline impact time(Pentagon)estimated. (nt)

9:37 western face ofPentagon (Exec.Summ. p. 1)

AA 77 crashes intothe Pentagon (p. 33)

The bliprepresentingFlight 77 thatradar technicianshave beenwatching ontheir screensdisappears. Itslast knownposition is sixmiles from thePentagon andfour miles fromthe WhiteHouse.Supposedly,just before radarcontact is lost,FAAheadquarters istold, “Theaircraft iscircling. It'sturning awayfrom the WhiteHouse.” Theplane is said tobe traveling 500mph, or a mileevery sevenseconds. (cr)

In response to anemergency 911telephone call, theArlington CountyEmergencyCommunicationsCenter dispatchesseveral units to dealwith an apartmentfire in Rosslyn,Virginia—withinthe vicinity of thePentagon. Due tothis fire being in ahigh-rise building,nine different fireand medical serviceunits aredispatched.However, the firstengine to arriveradios to the othersthat the fire hasgone out.Consequently, by“sheer coincidence,”at the time whenthe Pentagon is hitthere are asignificant numberof available fire andmedical serviceunits already on theroad nearby.Additionally, SecretService personnelare concentratedaround the heliporta short distancefrom where Flight77 will hit:

Fighters are 105miles fromPentagon at timeof impact, 12minutes away (nt)

units already on theroad nearby.Additionally, SecretService personnelare concentratedaround the heliporta short distancefrom where Flight77 will hit:“President Bushwas scheduled tofly from Floridathat afternoon, andhis helicopter,Marine One, wouldcarry him to thePentagon. Thatmeant SecretService everywhereand their carsblocking thedriveway.” (cr)

0938 Flight 77 crashesinto the Pentagon.Approximately 125on the ground arelater determinedkilled or missing.Fireman AlanWallace is busywith a safety crew atthe Pentagon'sheliport pad. AsWallace is walkingin front of thePentagon, he looksup and sees Flight77 coming straightat him. It is about25 feet off theground, no landingwheels visible, afew hundred yardsaway, and closingfast. He runs about30 feet and divesunder a nearby van.The plane istraveling at about460 mph, andflying so low that itclips the tops ofstreet lights. Usingthe radio in the van,he calls his firechief at nearby FortMyer and says, “Wehave had acommercial carriercrash into the westside of the Pentagonat the heliport,WashingtonBoulevard side. Thecrew is OK. Theairplane was a 757Boeing or a 320

A C-130 transportplane that has beensent to followFlight 77 flies ashort distance fromFlight 77 as itcrashes. Thiscurious C-130 is thesame C-130 that is17 miles fromFlight 93 when itlater crashes into thePennsylvaniacountryside. Anumber of peoplesee this plane flyremarkably close toFlight 77. (cr)NORAD states thefighters scrambledafter Flight 77 tookoff from Langley at9:30, 129 milesaway, yet whenFlight 77 crashesthey are still 105miles away. The F-16 pilot codenamedHoney later offers adifferent explanationof where the F-16sareat 9:38. He saysthey are flyingtoward New York,when they see ablack column ofsmoke coming fromWashington, about30 or 40 miles tothe west. He is thenasked over the radioby the North EastAir Defense Sectorof NORAD if he can

commercial carriercrash into the westside of the Pentagonat the heliport,WashingtonBoulevard side. Thecrew is OK. Theairplane was a 757Boeing or a 320Airbus.” (cr)

black column ofsmoke coming fromWashington, about30 or 40 miles tothe west. He is thenasked over the radioby the North EastAir Defense Sectorof NORAD if he canconfirm thePentagon isburning. Heconfirms it. The F-16s are then orderedto set up a defensiveperimeter aboveWashington.[Among the Heroes,by Jere Longman,8/02, p. 76] One ofthe three pilots,Major Brad Derriglater claims theirtarget destination allalong is ReaganNational Airport, inWashington near thePentagon. Anotherpilot, Major DeanEckmann, also laterclaims theirdestination all alongwas Washington.NORAD officerMajor James Foxsays he dispatchesthe jets withouttargets. “That wouldcome later.” (cr)

After0938

Having learned thatthe Pentagon hadbeen hit, VicePresident CheneytelephonesPresident Bush onhis way to theairport and tellshim that the WhiteHouse had been“targeted.” Bushsays he wants toreturn toWashington, butCheney advises himnot to “until wecould find out whatthe hell was goingon.” According toNewsweek, this calltakes place in atunnel on the wayto the PEOC(PresidentialEmergencyOperations Center)undergroundbunker. Cheney is

Accounts differ as tohow far the F-16fighters scrambledfrom Langley arewhen Flight 77crashes. TheLangley, Virginiabase is 129 milesfrom Washington.NORAD originallyclaimed that at thetime of the crash thefighters are 105miles away, despitehaving taken offseven minutesearlier. The 9/11Commission claimsthat at 9:36,NEADS discoversthat Flight 77 isonly a few milesfrom the WhiteHouse and arediscovered to findthe fighters haveheaded east over theocean. They are

Newsweek, this calltakes place in atunnel on the wayto the PEOC(PresidentialEmergencyOperations Center)undergroundbunker. Cheney issaid to not reach thebunker until“shortly before 10a.m.” Yet otheraccounts, includingthose ofcounterterrorism“tsar” RichardClarke andTransportationSecretary NormanMineta, placeCheney in thebunker before theFlight 77 crash at9:38. (cr)

NEADS discoversthat Flight 77 isonly a few milesfrom the WhiteHouse and arediscovered to findthe fighters haveheaded east over theocean. They areordered toWashingtonimmediately, but arestill about 150miles away. This isfarther away than thebase where theytook off. The F-16pilot codenamedHoney (who isapparently CaptainCraig Borgstromoffers a differentexplanation. He saysthey are flyingtoward New York,when they see ablack column ofsmoke coming fromWashington, about30 or 40 miles tothe west. He is thenasked over the radioby NEADS if he canconfirm thePentagon isburning. Heconfirms it. The F-16s are then orderedto set up a defensiveperimeter aboveWashington. Themaximum speed ofan F-16 is 1500mph. [Had thefighters traveledstraight toWashington at 1300mph, they wouldhave reachedWashington at leastone minute beforeFlight 77. (cr)

0945 United Airlinesheadquartersreceives a reportthat an aircrafthas crashed intothe Pentagon.They learn it isFlight 77. (cr)

They learn it isFlight 77. (cr)

0955-1010

The three F-16sscrambled afterFlight 77 fromLangley, Virginiafinally reachWashington and theburning Pentagon.The 129 miledistance couldtheoretically becovered by thefighters in sixminutes, but they'vetaken a large,mistaken detourover the ocean. Theexact time theyarrive is veryunclear. NORADoriginally claimedthey arrive as soonas 9:49, but the9/11 Commissionimplies they don'tarrive until shortlyafter 10:00, thoughno exact time isspecified. (cr)

1015 The section of thePentagon reportedlyhit by the crash ofFlight 77 collapses.(cr)

1030 AA headquartersconfirms AA 77crashes intoPentagon (p. 33)

UNITED AIRLINES FLIGHT 93 TIMELINEcr = www.cooperativeresearch.org ; (nt) = NORAD Timeline released 9/17/01; (p. #) =9/11 Commission Report

TIME SUSPECTS/WITNESSE

S

ATC FAA NMCC/OFFICIALS

NORAD SCRAMBLERS

Between0703 and0739

Saeed alGhamdi, Ahmedal Nami, Ahmadal Haznawi, andZiad Jarrahchecked in at theUA ticketcounter for UA93. Twochecked bags;two did not. (p.4)

0739 –0748

The four menboard UA 93, allin first class:Jarrah in 1B,Nami in 3C,Ghamdi in 3D,and Haznawi in6B. (p. 4)

0801 On the morningof 9/11, therewere only 37passengers onUnited 93—33in addition tothe 4 hijackers.This was belowthe norm forTuesdaymornings duringthe summer of2001. But thereis no evidencethat the hijackersmanipulatedpassenger levelsor purchasedadditional seatsto facilitate theiroperation. (p.11)

UA93 has towait in a line ofabout a dozenplanes before itcan take off.(cr)

0842 UA93 takes offfrom NewarkInternationalAirport, boundfor SanFrancisco. (cr)

Scheduled todepart the gateat 8:00, theBoeing 757’stakeoff wasdelayed becauseof the airport’stypically heavymorning traffic.(p.10, 33)

0842 to0928

By all accounts,the first 46minutes ofFlight 93’scross-countrytrip pro ceededroutinely. Radiocommunicationsfrom the planewere normal.Heading, speed,and altitude ranaccording toplan. (p, 11)

0843 NORAD isnotified thatFlight 175 hasbeen hijacked.(cr)

0900 orshortlythereafter

Ed Ballinger,flightdispatcher forUnitedAirlines, sendsthe samewarning to allUnited flights:“Beware ofcockpitintrusion.”Flight 93replies, “Hi Ed.Confirmed.”(cr)

0907 At 9:07,Boston AirTraffic ControlCenterrecommendedto the FAACommandCenter that acockpit warningbe sent to thepilots of allcommercialaircraft tosecure theircockpits. WhileBoston Centersent out suchwarnings to thecommercialflights in itssector, wecould find no

secure theircockpits. WhileBoston Centersent out suchwarnings to thecommercialflights in itssector, wecould find noevidence that anationwidewarning wasissued by theATC system.(p. 455)FAAcontrollers atBoston Center,which hadtracked the firsttwo hijackings,requested at9:07 thatHerndonCommandCenter “getmessages toairborne aircraftto increasesecurity for thecockpit.”Thereis no evidencethat Herndontook suchaction. BostonCenterimmediatelybeganspeculatingabout otheraircraft thatmight be indanger, leadingthem to worryabout atranscontinentalflight—Delta1989—that infact was nothijacked. (p.10)

0912 At 9:12:54, the Otisfighters told theirBoston Centercontroller that theyneeded to establish acombat air patrolover New York, andthey immediatelyheaded for NewYork City. Thisseries ofcommunicationsexplains why theOtis fighters brieflyentered and thensoon departed the

they immediatelyheaded for NewYork City. Thisseries ofcommunicationsexplains why theOtis fighters brieflyentered and thensoon departed theholding pattern, asthe radarreconstruction oftheir flight shows.(p. 459)

0913 The FAA cleared theairspace. Radar datashow that at 9:13,when the Otisfighters were about115 miles awayfrom the city, thefighters exited theirholding pattern andset a course directfor Manhattan.(p.24)

0916 According to aNORADtimeline froma week after9/11, NORADclaims thatFlight 93 mayhave beenhijacked at thistime. (cr)

In publictestimonybefore thisCommissionin May 2003,NORAD officials statedthat at 9:16,NEADSreceived hijacknotification ofUnited 93from the FAA.This statementwasincorrect.Therewas no hijackto report at9:16. United93 wasproceedingnormally atthat time.(p.34)

normally atthat time.(p.34)Nor did themilitary have47 minutes torespond toUnited 93, aswould beimplied by theaccount that itreceived noticeof the flight’shijacking at9:16. By thetime themilitarylearned aboutthe flight, ithad crashed.(p. 34)

0919 United’s firstdecisive actionto notify itsairborne aircraftto take defensiveaction did notcome until 9:19,when a Unitedflight dispatcher,Ed Ballinger,took theinitiative tobegintransmittingwarnings to his16transcontinentalflights: “Bewareany cockpitintrusion— Twoa/c [aircraft] hitWorld TradeCenter.” One ofthe flights thatreceived thewarning wasUnited 93. (p.11)

At 9:19, theFAA’s NewEnglandregional officecalled Herndonand asked thatClevelandCenter adviseDelta 1989 touse extracockpitsecurity. (p. 10)

0920 At about 9:20,securitypersonnel atFAAheadquarters setup a hijackingteleconferencewith severalagencies,including theDefenseDepartment. (p.36)

At about 9:20,securitypersonnel atFAAheadquarters setup a hijackingteleconferencewith severalagencies,including theDefenseDepartment.The NMCCofficer whoparticipated toldus that the callwas monitoredonly

including theDefenseDepartment. (p.36)

including theDefenseDepartment.The NMCCofficer whoparticipated toldus that the callwas monitoredonlyperiodicallybecause theinformation wassporadic,it wasof littlevalue,and therewere otherimportant tasks.The FAAmanager of theteleconferencealsorememberedthat the militaryparticipatedonly brieflybefore thePentagon washit. Bothindividualsagreed that theteleconferenceplayed no rolein coordinatinga response tothe attacks of9/11.ActingDeputyAdministratorBelger wasfrustrated tolearn later in themorning thatthe military hadnot been on thecall. (p. 36)

0921 A companywideorder fordispatchers towarn cockpitswas not issueduntil 9:21. (p.455)

0922 At 9:22, afterlearning of theevents at theWorld TradeCenter, MelodyHomer, the wifeof co-pilot LeroyHomer, had anACARSmessage sent toher husband inthe cockpitasking if he wasokay. (p. 456)

of co-pilot LeroyHomer, had anACARSmessage sent toher husband inthe cockpitasking if he wasokay. (p. 456)

0923 BecauseBallinger wasstill responsiblefor his otherflights as well asFlight 175, hiswarning messagewas nottransmitted toFlight 93 until9:23. (p. 11)

0924 Text messagesfrom FAAwarning tosecure cockpitswere received byFlight 93 (p.11).

At 9:21, Uniteddispatchers aretold to advisetheir flights tosecure cockpitdoors. At 9:24,a Uniteddispatchersends anelectronicmessage toFlight 93reading:“Beware ofcockpitintrusion. Twoaircraft in NewYork hit TradeCenterbuildings.”Flight 93acknowledgesthe messagetwo minuteslater. This isthe last vocalcontact fromthe cockpit ofFlight 93. (cr)

Flight 93receiveswarning fromUA aboutpossiblecockpitintrusion (p.33)

Text messageswarning thecockpit ofFlight 93 weresent [andreceived in] (p.11) to theaircraft by EdBallinger at9:24. (p. 456)

warning thecockpit ofFlight 93 weresent [andreceived in] (p.11) to theaircraft by EdBallinger at9:24. (p. 456)

0925 By 9:25,FAA’s HerndonCommandCenter andFAAheadquartersknew twoaircraft hadcrashed into theWorld TradeCenter. Theyknew American77 was lost. Atleast someFAA officialsin BostonCenter and theNew EnglandRegion knewthat a hijackeron boardAmerican 11had said “wehave someplanes.”Concerns overthe safety ofother aircraftbegan tomount. (p. 25)

A manager atthe HerndonCommandCenter askedFAAheadquarters ifthey wanted toorder a“nationwideground stop.”While this wasbeing discussedby executives atFAAheadquarters,the CommandCenter orderedone at 9:25.(p.25)

(p.25)

0926 At 9:24,Ballinger’swarning toUnited 93 wasreceived in thecockpit. Withintwo minutes, at9:26, the pilot,Jason Dahl,responded witha note ofpuzzlement:“Ed, confirmlatest mssgplz—Jason.”(p. 11)

0927 Tom Burnettcalls his wifeDeena and says,“I'm on UnitedFlight 93 fromNewark to SanFrancisco. Theplane has beenhijacked. We arein the air.They've alreadyknifed a guy.There is a bombon board. Callthe FBI.” Deenaconnects toemergency 911.(cr)

Last routineradiotransmission(p.33)

United AirlinesFlight 93. At9:27, afterhaving been inthe air for 45minutes,United 93acknowledged atransmissionfrom theClevelandCentercontroller. Thiswas the lastnormal contactthe FAA hadwith the flight.(p. 28)

0928 Likely takeover(p. 33)

The hijackersattacked at 9:28.While traveling35,000 feetabove easternOhio, United 93suddenlydropped 700feet. Elevenseconds into thedescent, theFAA’s air trafficcontrol center inClevelandreceived the firstof two radiotransmissionsfrom the aircraft.During the firstbroadcast, thecaptain or firstofficer could beheard declaring“Mayday” amid

Flight 93acknowledges atransmissionfrom aClevelandflightcontroller. Thisis the lastnormal contactwith the plane.Less than aminute later,the controllerand pilots ofaircraft in thevicinity hear “aradiotransmission ofunintelligiblesounds ofpossiblescreaming or astruggle”Seconds later,the controllerasks:“Somebody call

of two radiotransmissionsfrom the aircraft.During the firstbroadcast, thecaptain or firstofficer could beheard declaring“Mayday” amidthe sounds of aphysical strugglein the cockpit.The second radiotransmission, 35seconds later,indicated that thefight wascontinuing. Thecaptain or firstofficer could beheard shouting:“Hey get out ofhere—get out ofhere—get out ofhere.” (p. 11)

unintelligiblesounds ofpossiblescreaming or astruggle”Seconds later,the controllerasks:“Somebody callCleveland?”There are moresounds ofscreaming andsomeoneyelling, “Getout of here, getout of here.”Clevelandflight controllerStacey Taylorhas beenwarned towatchtranscontinentalflights headingwest foranythingsuspicious. (cr)

Less than aminute later,the Clevelandcontroller andthe pilots ofaircraft in thevicinity heard“a radiotransmission ofunintelligiblesounds ofpossiblescreaming or astruggle froman unknownorigin.” Thecontrollerresponded,seconds later:“Somebody callCleveland?”This wasfollowed by asecond radiotransmission,with sounds ofscreaming. TheClevelandCentercontrollersbegan to try toidentify thepossible sourceof thetransmissions,and noticed thatUnited 93 haddescended some700 feet.The

9:28:17

9:28:54

controllersbegan to try toidentify thepossible sourceof thetransmissions,and noticed thatUnited 93 haddescended some700 feet.Thecontrollerattempted againto raise United93 severaltimes, with noresponse. (p.28)

“a radiotransmission ofunintelligiblesounds ofpossiblescreaming or astruggle froman unknownorigin washeard over theZOB[ClevelandCenter] radio.”(p. 461)

a “second radiotransmission,mostlyunintelligible,again withsounds ofpossiblescreaming or astruggle and astatement,‘getout of here, getout of here’from anunknown originwas heard overthe ZOB[ClevelandCenter] radio.”(p. 461)

0929 Shortly afterhearing strangenoises from thecockpit ofFlight 93,Clevelandflightcontrollersnotice the planehas descendedabout 700 feet.They try tocontact theplane severaltimes, but get

flightcontrollersnotice the planehas descendedabout 700 feet.They try tocontact theplane severaltimes, but getno answer. (cr)

At 9:30, thecontroller beganto poll theother flights onhis frequency todetermine ifthey had heardthe screaming;several saidthey had. (p.28)

0930 Flightcontrollersmistakenlysuspect thatDelta Flight1989, flyingwest overPennsylvania,has beenhijacked. Thecontrollersbriefly suspectthe sound ofhijackers'voices in Flight93 is comingfrom thisplane..(cr)

0931 At 9:31:48,ExecJet 56 alsocalled in,reporting that“we’re justanswering yourcall. We didhear that, uh,yelling too.”The FAAresponded at9:31:51,“Okay,thanks. We’rejust trying tofigure outwhat’s goingon.” (p. 461)

0931(after)

A few minutesafter 9:31, ahijacker onboard Flight 93can be heard onthe cockpitvoice recordingordering awoman to sitdown. A

(after) after 9:31, ahijacker onboard Flight 93can be heard onthe cockpitvoice recordingordering awoman to sitdown. Awoman,presumably aflight attendant,implores,“Don't, don't.”She pleads,“Please, I don'twant to die.”(cr)

0932 A hijacker saysover the radioto Flight 93'spassengers:“Ladies andgentlemen, hereit's the captain,please sitdown. Keepremainingsitting. Wehave a bombaboard.”ApparentlyClevelandflightcontrollers canunderstandabout a minuteof screams,then a voiceagain sayssomethingabout a “bombon board.” Ahijacker says inbroken Englishthat they arereturning to theairport. (cr)

At 9:32, a thirdradiotransmissioncame over thefrequency:“Keep remaining sitting. Wehave a bomb onboard.”Thecontrollerunderstood, butchose torespond:“CallingClevelandCenter, you’reunreadable. Sayagain, slowly.”

controllerunderstood, butchose torespond:“CallingClevelandCenter, you’reunreadable. Sayagain, slowly.”He notified hissupervisor, whopassed thenotice up thechain ofcommand. (p.28)

At 9:32, ahijacker,probably Jarrah,made orattempted tomake thefollow ingannouncementto thepassengers ofFlight93:“Ladies andGentlemen:Here thecaptain, pleasesit down keepremainingsitting. Wehave a bomb onboard. So, sit.”The flight datarecorder (alsorecovered)indicates thatJarrah theninstructed theplane’sautopilot toturn the aircraftaround andhead east. (p.12)

0932 Like Atta onFlight 11,Jarrahapparently didnot know howto operate thecommunicationradios; thus hisattempts tocommunicatewith thepassengers werebroadcast onthe ATCchannel. Also,by 9:32 FAAnotifiedUnited’s

We havereviewed allFAAdocuments,transcripts, andtape recordingsrelated toAmerican 77and have foundno evidencethat FAAheadquartersissued adirective tosurroundingcenters tosearch forprimary radar

communicatewith thepassengers werebroadcast onthe ATCchannel. Also,by 9:32 FAAnotifiedUnited’sheadquartersthat the flightwas notresponding toradiocalls.Accordingto United, theflight’snonresponseand its turn tothe east led theairline tobelieve by 9:36that the planewas hijacked.(p. 456)

no evidencethat FAAheadquartersissued adirective tosurroundingcenters tosearch forprimary radartargets. Reviewof the samematerials alsoindicates thatno one withinFAA locatedAmerican 77until the aircraftwas identifiedby Dullescontrollers at9:32. For muchof that time,American 77was travelingthroughWashingtonCenter’sairspace. TheWashingtonCenter’scontrollers werelooking for theflight, but theywere not told tolook forprimary radarreturns.(p. 460)

0934 Tom Burnettcalls his wifeDeena a secondtime. He says,“They're in thecockpit.” Shetells him aboutthe WTC. Heresponds, “Ohmy God, it's asuicidemission.” Asthey continue totalk, he tells herthe plane hasturned back. Bythis time, Deenais incommunicationwith the FBI andothers, and apoliceman is ather house. (cr)

According tothe 9/11Commission,word of Flight93's hijackingreaches FAA'sWashingtonheadquarters.By this time,the headquartershas establishedan open line ofcommunicationwith the FAACommandCenter atHerndon,Virginia. TheCommandCentercontinuallyupdates FAAheadquarters onFlight 93 untilit crashes. (cr)

policeman is ather house. (cr)

updates FAAheadquarters onFlight 93 untilit crashes. (cr)

By 9:34, wordof the hijackinghad reachedFAAheadquarters.(p.28)

HerndonCommandCenter advisesFAAheadquartersthat UA 93 ishijacked (p. 33)

0935 The SanFrancisco UnitedAirlinesmaintenancecenter receives acall from anunnamed flightattendant onFlight 93 sayingthat the flighthas beenhijacked. Withinten minutes,“everyone” in theUnited Airlinescrisis centerknows about thehijacking. (cr)

When Flight 93is overYoungstown,Ohio,Clevelandflightcontrollers seeit rapidly climbup 6,000 feetabove itsassignedaltitude at35,000 feet andthen descendrapidly.Controllerscontinue to tryto contact theplane but stillget noresponse. (cr)

0936 Flight attendantnotifies UA ofhijacking. UAattempts tocontact thecockpit (p. 33)

Flight 93 filesa new flightplan with afinaldestination ofWashington,reverses courseand headstowardWashington.The new flightplan schedulesthe plane toarrive inWashington at10:28. (cr)

Clevelandflight controlasks the FAACommandCenter whethersomeone hasrequested themilitary tolaunch fighterstoward Flight93. Clevelandoffers to contacta nearbymilitary base.The CommandCenter repliesthat FAApersonnel wellabove them inthe chain ofcommand haveto make thatdecision and areworking on theissue. (cr)

above them inthe chain ofcommand haveto make thatdecision and areworking on theissue. (cr)

0937 Jeremy Glickcalls his wifeLyz from Flight93. He describesthe hijackers asMiddle Eastern,Iranian looking.They claimed tohave a bomb.Family membersimmediately callemergency 911on another line.(cr)

After0938

A few minutes afterFlight 77 crashes,the Secret Servicecommands fightersfrom Andrews AirForce Base, 10miles fromWashington, to “Getin the air now!”Almostsimultaneously, acall from someoneelse in the WhiteHouse declares theWashington area “afree-fire zone.” Saysone pilot, “Thatmeant we weregiven authority touse force, if thesituation required it,in defense of thenation's capital, itsproperty andpeople.”After the Pentagonis hit, fighters atnearby Andrews AirForce Base are stillpreparing to launch.One officer atAndrews recalls,“After the Pentagon,we were told therewere more coming.Calls from theSecret Service andlocal FAA flightcontrol centers pourin to Andrews, asthe fighter responseis coordinated.However, theloading of missilesonto the fighters istime-consuming,

local FAA flightcontrol centers pourin to Andrews, asthe fighter responseis coordinated.However, theloading of missilesonto the fighters istime-consuming,and when theyfinally take offnearly an hour later,they launch withoutthe missilesinstalled. (cr)

0939 The hijackerstransmit overthe radio: “Hi,this is thecaptain. We'dlike you all toremain seated.There is abomb on board.And we aregoing to turnback to theairport. Andthey had ourdemands, soplease remainquiet.” Thecontrollerresponds,“United 93,understand youhave a bomb onboard. Goahead,” butthere is noresponse. (cr)

0940 The transpondersignal fromFlight 93ceases but theplane is trackedby Clevelandflightcontrollers andat Unitedheadquarters.Altitude can nolonger bedetermined,except byvisual sightingsfrom otheraircraft. Theplane's speedbegins to varywildly, movingbetween 600and 400 mphbeforeeventuallysettling around400 mph. (cr)

plane's speedbegins to varywildly, movingbetween 600and 400 mphbeforeeventuallysettling around400 mph. (cr)

0941 From Flight 93,Marion Birttoncalls a friend.She tells himtwo people havebeen killed andthe plane hasbeen turnedaround. (cr)

Newark, NewJersey flightcontroller GregCallahan callsan FBI agent totell them thatUA93 had beenhijacked andwas heading forWash, DC. (cr)

Transponder isturned off (p.33)

0942 From Flight 93Mark Binghamcalls his motherand says, “I'mon a flight fromNewark to SanFrancisco andthere are threeguys who havetaken over theplane and theysay they have abomb.” (cr)

0944 NORAD briefsNMCC on thepossiblehijacking ofDelta 1989.Four minuteslater, arepresentativefrom the WhiteHouse bunkercontainingVice PresidentCheney asks ifthere are anyindications ofother hijackedplanes.CaptainCharlesLeidig,temporarily incharge of theNMCC,mentions theDelta flightand comments,“that would bethe fourthpossiblehijack.” Flight1989 is in the

NMCC,mentions theDelta flightand comments,“that would bethe fourthpossiblehijack.” Flight1989 is in thesame generalOhio region asFlight 93, butNORADdoesn'tscramblefighters towardeither at thistime. (cr)

0945 Passenger ToddBeamer is ableto speak toVerizon phonerepresentativeLisa Jefferson,with the FBIlistening in. Hetalks for about15 minutes. Onepassenger andboth pilots aredead. (cr)

Tom Burnettcalls his wife athird time. Shetells him aboutthe Pentagon.Tom speaksabout the bombsaying, “I don'tthink they haveone. He says thehijackers aretalking aboutcrashing theplane into theground. “Wehave to dosomething.” Hesays that he andothers aremaking a plan.“A group of us.”The FBI waslistening in. (cr)

0946 According to theFlight 93 voicerecording,around this timeone hijacker inthe cockpit saysto another, “Letthe guys innow.” A vagueinstruction isgiven to bringthe pilot back in.

around this timeone hijacker inthe cockpit saysto another, “Letthe guys innow.” A vagueinstruction isgiven to bringthe pilot back in.It's not clear ifthis is a referenceto an originalpilot or ahijacker pilot.Investigatorsaren't sure if theoriginal pilotswere killed orallowed to live.(cr)

0947 On Flight 93,Jeremy Glick isstill on thephone with hiswife Lyz. Hetells her that thepassengers aretaking a vote ifthey should tryto take over theplane or not. Helater says that allthe men on theplane have votedto attack thehijackers, whohave knives butno guns. (cr)

0949 The FAAorders thePittsburghcontrol towerevacuated.Shortly before,ClevelandflightcontrollerscalledPittsburghflight controland said a planewas headingtowardPittsburgh andrefusing tocommunicate.(cr)

According tothe 9/11Commission,the FAACommandCenter has justtwice warnedFAAheadquartersthat United 93is now “29minutes out ofWashington,DC.” They'repulling Jeff[last nameunknown] awayto go talk aboutUnited 93.”CommandCenter replies,“Uh, do wewant to thinkabout, uh,scramblingaircraft?” FAAheadquartersreplies, “Uh,God, I don't

NORAD(General RalphEberhart)directs “all airsovereigntyaircraft tobattle stationsfully armed.”This means allfighters withair defensemissions are toget armed andbe ready toscramble.Richard Clarkeclaims thatafter thePentagon ishit, he orderedto an aide,“Find outwhere thefighter planesare. I wantCombat AirPatrol overevery majorcity in this

Center replies,“Uh, do wewant to thinkabout, uh,scramblingaircraft?” FAAheadquartersreplies, “Uh,God, I don'tknow.”CommandCenter says,“Uh, that's adecisionsomebody'sgonna have tomake probablyin the next tenminutes.” FAAheadquartersanswers, “Uh,ya knoweverybody justleft the room.”(cr)

to an aide,“Find outwhere thefighter planesare. I wantCombat AirPatrol overevery majorcity in thiscountry.Now”(cr)

0950 Sandra Bradshawcalls her husbandfrom Flight 93.She says, “Haveyou heard what'sgoing on? Myflight has beenhijacked. Myflight has beenhijacked withthree guys withknives.” Shetells him thatthey are in therear galley fillingpitchers with hotwater to useagainst thehijackers. (cr)

0953 The hijackers inthe cockpit ofFlight 93 growconcerned thatthe passengersmight retaliate.One urges thatthe plane's fireax be held up tothe door'speephole to scarethe passengers.(cr)

According tothe 9/11Commission,FAAheadquartersinforms theFAACommandCenter that theDeputy Directorfor Air TrafficServices istalking toDeputyAdministratorMonte Belgeraboutscramblingaircraft afterFlight 93.Headquarters isinformed thatthe flight is 20

The NationalSecurityAgency (NSA)reportedlyintercepts aphone call fromone of binLaden'soperatives inAfghanistan toa phone numberin the Republicof Georgia. Thecaller says hehas “heard goodnews” and thatanother target isstill to come(presumably,Flight 93)Rumsfeld hearsabout it justafter noon. (cr)

AdministratorMonte Belgeraboutscramblingaircraft afterFlight 93.Headquarters isinformed thatthe flight is 20miles northwestof Johnstown,Pennsylvania.(cr)

has “heard goodnews” and thatanother target isstill to come(presumably,Flight 93)Rumsfeld hearsabout it justafter noon. (cr)

0954 Tom Burnettcalls his wifeDeena for thefourth and lasttime. Hespecificallymentions theyplan to regaincontrol of theairplane over arural area. (cr)

After0955

The Langley F-16sover Washington aretold that all planesin the US have beenordered to land. Atsome point afterthis, someone fromthe Secret Servicegets on the radioand tells the pilots,“I want you toprotect the WhiteHouse at all costs.”Lou and Honey(pilots) state theyare never given clearand direct orders toshoot down anyplane that day. (cr)

After0956-1006

Inside hisWhite Housebunker, amilitary aideasks VicePresidentCheney, “Thereis a plane 80miles out.There is afighter in thearea. Should weengage?”Cheneyimmediatelyanswers “Yes.”as the fighter(or fighters)gets nearer toFlight 93,Cheney is askedtwice more toconfirm if thefighter should

Flight 93 is still inthe air, and fightersare given orders tointercept it andpossibly shoot itdown Yet MajorGen. Paul Weaver,director of the AirNational Guard, hadpreviously claimedthat no militaryplanes were sentafter Flight 93. Thepilots flying overWashington saythey weren’t toldabout Flight 93.

answers “Yes.”as the fighter(or fighters)gets nearer toFlight 93,Cheney is askedtwice more toconfirm if thefighter shouldengage, and heresponds yesboth times. (cr)MontagueWinfield, incharge of thePentagon'scommandcenter, latersays, “At somepoint, theclosure time[between thefighter andFlight 93] cameand went, andnothinghappened, soyou canimagineeverything wasvery tense at theNMCC.” (cr)

they weren’t toldabout Flight 93.An F-16 fighter nearWashington headsin pursuit of Flight93. A differentexplanation says,“The closest fightersare two F-16s on atraining missionfrom Selfridge AirNational Guard Basenear Detroit.” Theseare ordered afterUA93, even thoughbut they supposedlyaren't armed withany weapons. It isclaimed they aresupposed to crashinto Flight 93 ifthey cannot persuadeit to land.(cr)

0957 One of thehijackers in thecockpit asks ifanything isgoing on,apparentlymeaning outsidethe cockpit.“Fighting,” theother one says.Officials latertheorize that theFlight 93passengers didactually reach thecockpit using afood cart as abattering ramand a shield. (cr)

Passenger revoltbegins (p. 33)

0957 andafter

“In the cockpit!In the cockpit!”is heard.Hijackers arereportedly heardtelling each otherto hold the door.The sounds ofthe passengersget clearer, andin unaccentedEnglish “Give itto me!” is heard.

reportedly heardtelling each otherto hold the door.The sounds ofthe passengersget clearer, andin unaccentedEnglish “Give itto me!” is heard.“I'm injured,”someone says inEnglish. Thensomething like“roll it up” and“lift it up” isheard. (cr)

0958 CeeCee Lylessays to herhusband, “Aah,it feels like theplane's goingdown.” Herhusband Lornesays, “What'sthat?” Shereplies, “I thinkthey're going todo it. They'reforcing their wayinto the cockpit”Sandy Bradshawtells herhusband,“Everyone'srunning to firstclass. I've got togo. Bye.” ToddBeamer ends hislong phone callsaying that theyplan “to jump”the hijacker whohas the bomb. Inthe background,the phoneoperator couldhear an “awfulcommotion.”His famous lastwords are said tonearbypassengers: “Areyou ready guys?Let's roll” Aman calls 911from a bathroomon the plane,crying, “We'rebeing hijacked,we're beinghijacked!” thenreports that “heheard some sortof explosion andsaw white smokecoming from theplane and we

being hijacked,we're beinghijacked!” thenreports that “heheard some sortof explosion andsaw white smokecoming from theplane and welost contact withhim One minuteafter the callbegan, the linegoes dead.Investigatorsbelieve this wasEdward Felt. (cr)

0959(after)

Some time afterthe first WTCtower collapsed,Richard Clarkeorders alllandmarkbuildings andall federalbuildings in theUS to beevacuated. Healso orders allharbors andborders closed.While he isarranging this,and after at least10:06, an aidetells him,“United 93 isdown, crashedoutside ofPittsburgh. (cr)

1000 Elizabeth Wainiosays to herstepmother,“Mom, they'rerushing thecockpit. I've gotto go. Bye,”then hangs up.This may havebeen a delayedreaction toevents, since herstepmother saysthat in their ten-minute callElizabeth was ina trance-likestate. (cr)

The transponderfor Flight 93briefly turnsback on. Theplane is at 7000feet. Thetransponderstays on untilabout 10:03. Itis unclear whythe transpondersignal brieflyreturned. (cr)

Between1000 and1006

Richard Makely,listening to theGlick openphone line afterGlick went toattack thehijackers. “Thesilence last[s]two minutes,then there [is]screaming. Moresilence, followedby morescreams. Finally,there [is] amechanicalsound, followedby nothing.”Sources claimthe last thingheard on thecockpit voicerecorder is thesound ofwind—suggesting the plane hadbeen holed.” (cr)

1001 According tothe 9/11Commission,the FAACommandCenter tellsFAAheadquartersthat a nearbyplane had seenFlight 93“waving hiswings.” TheCommissionsays, “Theaircraft hadwitnessed theradicalgyrations inwhat we believewas thehijackers' effortto defeat thepassengerassault.” BillWright isapparentlypiloting thisnearby plane.(cr)

The FAA orders F-16 fighters toscramble fromToledo, Ohio.Although the basehas no fighters onstandby alert status,it manages to putfighters in the air 16minutes later, a“phenomenal”response time—butstill 10 minutesafter the lasthijacked plane hascrashed. The 9/11Commissionconcludes thesefighters, and fightersfrom Michigan arescrambled afterDelta Flight 1989.Meanwhile, nofighters arescrambled afterFlight 93 at all. (cr)

1002 The cockpitvoice recordingof UA 93 wasrecorded on a 30minute reel,which meansthat as new tapewas recorded theold tape wasbeing erased.

The WhiteHouse bunkercontaining VicePresidentCheney andother leadersbegins receivingreports from theSecret Serviceof a presumably

voice recordingof UA 93 wasrecorded on a 30minute reel,which meansthat as new tapewas recorded theold tape wasbeing erased.The governmentlater letsrelatives listen tothis tape, whichbegins at 9:31and runs for 31minutes. at thepeak of thEstruggle, the tapesuddenly stopsrecording voicesand all that isheard in the last60 seconds or sois engine noise.(cr)

House bunkercontaining VicePresidentCheney andother leadersbegins receivingreports from theSecret Serviceof a presumablyhijacked aircraftheading towardWashington.The SecretService isgetting thisinformationabout UA 93through links tothe FAA. Butthey are lookingat a projectedpath, not anactual radarreturn, so theydon't realizewhen the planecrashes. (cr)

1003

1003:11

Airline ImpactTime(Pennsylvania)estimated. (nt)

10:03 field insouthernPennsylvania(aimed atCapitol of WhiteHouse, forceddown bypassengers)(Exec. Summ. p.1)

Flight 93 crashesinto field inShanksville, PA(p. 33)

According tothe 9/11Commission,the NMCClearns about theFlight 93hijacking. Thenews comesfrom the WhiteHouse. TheWhite Houselearned about itfrom the SecretService, and theSecret Servicelearned about itfrom the FAA.NORADapparently isstill unaware.(cr)

Fighters (DC F-16CAP) were 100miles away fromUA 93 at time ofcrash, which isabout 11 minutesaway. (nt)

1003-1010

The FAA givesa crash time of10:07 a.m. AndThe New YorkTimes, drawingon flightcontrollers inmore than oneFAA facility,put the time at10:10. (cr)

A seismic studyauthorized bythe US Army toconcluded thatUA93 crashedat 10:06:05. (cr)

According toNORAD,Flight 93crashes at10:03. The9/11Commissiongives an exacttime of10:03:11. (cr)

10:10. (cr)

Before1006

Severalwitnesses reportseeing and/orhearing UA93crash. There arereports ofhearing a“missile,” seeingthe plane turnend over end,spiral, and turnupside down, asudden plunge,and loud “bangs”and “thumps.”(cr)

CBS televisionreports at somepoint before thecrash that two F-16fighters are tailingFlight 93. Shortlyafter 9/11, a flightcontroller in NewHampshire claims“that an F-16 fighterclosely pursuedFlight 93… the F-16 made 360-degreeturns to remainclose to thecommercial jet, theemployee said. ‘Hemust've seen thewhole thing,’ theemployee said of theF-16 pilot's view ofFlight 93's crash.”(cr)

After1006

At some pointafter Flight 93crashes,NORADdiverts“unarmedMichigan AirNational Guardfighter jets thathappened to beflying atrainingmission innorthernMichigan sincethe time of thefirst attack.”(cr)

Just after Flight 93crashes, “Up above,a fighter jet streak[s]by.” The 9/11Commissionconcludes thesefighters [fromMichigan], andfighters from Ohioare scrambled afterDelta 1989, a flightthat was neverhijacked or out ofcontact. (cr)

1007 FAA ClevelandCenter advisesNEADS of UA93 hijacking (p.33)

According tothe 9/11Commission,NEADSreceives a callfromClevelandflight controlabout Flight93. Clevelandpasses on theplane's lastknown latitudeand longitude.NEADS isunable tolocate it onradar because ithas alreadycrashed. (cr)

locate it onradar because ithas alreadycrashed. (cr)

1008 Clevelandflight controllerStacey Taylorhas asked anearby C-130to look atFlight 93's lastposition andsee if they cansee anything.The pilot whowitnesses thisis the same C-130 pilot thathad witnessedthe Flight 77crash. He tellsTaylor that hesaw smokefrom the crashshortly after thehijacked planewent down. (cr)

According tothe 9/11Commission,the FAACommandCenter reportsto FAAheadquarters atthis time thatFlight 93 hascrashed in thePennsylvaniacountryside. “Ithit the ground.That's whatthey'respeculating,that'sspeculationonly.” TheCommandCenter confirmsthat Flight 93crashed at10:17 (cr)

1010 According to the9/11 Commission,The NEADSMission CrewCommander issorting out theorders Langleyfighters have. Notknowing that Flight93 had been headingtoward Washingtonnor that it hadcrashed, heexplicitly instructsthe Langley fightersthat they cannotshoot downaircraft—they have“negative clearanceto shoot” aircraftover Washington.(cr)

1010-1015

The SecretService is beinggiven projectedpathinformationabout UA 93,so they don'trealize the flighthas crashed.Based on thiserroneousinformation, amilitary aidetells VicePresidentCheney and

realize the flighthas crashed.Based on thiserroneousinformation, amilitary aidetells VicePresidentCheney andothers in theWhite Housebunker that theplane is 80miles awayfromWashington.Cheney is askedfor authority toengage theplane. Hequickly givestheauthorization.The aide returnsa few minuteslater and saysthe plane is 60miles out.Cheney againgivesauthorization toengage.ApparentlyCheney callsBush andobtainsconfirmation.However, thereis controversyover whetherBush approveda shoot downbefore thisincident or ifCheney gavehimself theauthority tomake thedecision on thespot. (cr)

1014 According tothe 9/11Commission,beginning atthis time, theWhite Houserepeatedlyconveys to theNMCC thatVice PresidentCheneyconfirmedfighters werecleared toengage theinbound aircraftif they could

NMCC thatVice PresidentCheneyconfirmedfighters werecleared toengage theinbound aircraftif they couldverify that theaircraft washijacked. (cr)

1015 UA headquartersaware that Flight93 has crashed inPA (p. 33)

FAAWashingtonCenter advisesNEADS thatFlight 93 hascrashed in PA(p. 33)

According tothe 9/11Commission,NEADS callsWashingtonflight control.Asked aboutFlight 93,flight controlresponds,“He's down.”It is clarifiedthat the planecrashed“somewhere upnortheast ofCamp David.”(cr)

1020 United Airlinesheadquartersreceivesconfirmationfrom the airportmanager inJohnstown,Pennsylvaniathat Flight 93has crashed. (cr)

1031 According tothe 9/11Commission,NORADcommanderMajor GeneralLarry Arnoldinstructs hisstaff tobroadcast thefollowingmessage over aNORAD chatlog: “10:31[Cheney] hascleared to us tointercept tracksof interest andshoot themdown if theydo notrespond.”NEADS firstlearns of theshoot downorder from thismessage. (cr)

NEADS doesn'tpass the shoot downorder to the fighterpilots in New YorkCity andWashington.NEADS leaders latersay they don't passit on because theyare unsure how topilots shouldproceed with thisguidance. The pilotsflying over NewYork City claimthey are never givena formal shoot downorder that day. (cr)

shoot themdown if theydo notrespond.”NEADS firstlearns of theshoot downorder from thismessage. (cr)

Before1036

A Secret Serviceagent again contactsthe Andrews AirForce Base andcommands, “Get inthe air now!”According toSasseville, almostsimultaneously, acall from someoneelse in the WhiteHouse declares theWashington area “afree-fire zone.Apparently thissecond call is madeto General DavidWherley, flightcommander of theAir National Guardat Andrews. He hadcontacted the SecretService after hearingreports that itwanted fightersairborne. A SecretService agent relaysinstructions toWherley from aSecret Service agentin the White Housewho had been giveninstructions fromVice PresidentCheney. Wherley'sfighters are toprotect the WhiteHouse and shootdown any planesthat threatenWashington.Wherley interpretsthis to give thedecision to the leadpilot, Lt. Col. MarcSasseville. Bushand Cheney laterclaim they weren'taware that anyfighters hadscrambled fromAndrews at therequest of the SecretService. Sassevilleand Lucky take offabout six minutesafter reaching theirfighters. (cr)

fighters hadscrambled fromAndrews at therequest of the SecretService. Sassevilleand Lucky take offabout six minutesafter reaching theirfighters. (cr)

1042 Two F-16s take offfrom Andrews AirForce Base lightlyarmed with nothingmore than “hot”guns and non-explosive trainingrounds. Lead pilotLt. Col. MarcSasseville flies one;the other pilot isonly known by thecodename Lucky.(cr)

1400 F-15 fighter pilotMajor Daniel Nashreturns to basearound this time,after chasing Flight175 and patrollingthe skies over NewYork City. He saysthat when he got outof the plane, “hewas told that amilitary F-16 hadshot down a fourthairliner inPennsylvania, areport that turnedout to be incorrect.”(cr)

9/11 Source Bibliography

HISTORICAL CONTEXT

Aldrich, Richard J. The Hidden Hand – Britain, America and Cold War SecretIntelligence. (Overlook Press, Woodstock & NY, 2002)

Ali, Tariq. The Clash of Fundamentalisms – Crusades, Jihads and Modernity. (Verio,London, N.Y., 2002)

Arnold, Anthony. The Fateful Pebble – Afghanistan’s Role in the Fall of the SovietEmpire. (Presidio, Novato, CA, 1993)

Bearden, Milt and James Risen. The Main Enemy: The Inside Story of the CIA’s FinalShowdown with the KGB. (Presidio Press, New York, 2003)

Berman, Paul. Terror and Liberalism. (W.W. Norton & Co., 2003-2004)

Booth, Ken and Tim Dunne (Editors) Worlds In Collision – Terror and the Future ofGlobal Order. (Palgrave/MacMillan, 2002)

Brisard, Jean-Charles and Guillaume Dasquie. Forbidden Truth – U.S. Taliban Secret OilDiplomacy and the Failed Hunt for Bin Laden. (Thunder’s Mouth Press/Nation Books,NY, 2002)

Carr, Caleb. The Lessons of Terror – A History of Warfare Against Civilians – Whyit Has Always Failed, and Why it Will Fail Again. (Little, Brown/Random House, 2002)

Chomsky, Noam. Power and Terror – Post-9-11 Talks and Interviews. (Seven StoriesPress, NY, Little More, Tokyo, 2003)

Chossudovsky, Michel. War and Globalisation – The Truth Behind September 11.(Global Outlook – The Centre for Research on Globalisation-CRG, 2002).

Clarke, Richard, A. Against All Enemies – Inside America’s War on Terror. (FreePress, NY, London, Toronto, Sydney, 2004).

Coll, Steve. Ghost Wars – The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and BinLaden, From the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001. (Penguin Press, NY), 2004)

Cooley, John K. Unholy Wars - Afghanistan, America and International Terrorism.(Pluto Press, London, Sterling, Virginia, 2000)

Crile, George. Charlie Wilson’s War – The Extraordinary Story of How the WildestMan in Congress and a Rogue CIA Agent Changed the History of Our Times.(Grove Press, NY, 2003).

Eqbal, Ahmad. Terrorism: Theirs and Ours. Foreword & Interview by David Barsamian.(Seven Stories Press, New York, 2001)

Fromkin, David. A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and theCreation of the Modern Middle East. (Henry Holt & Company, New York, 1989)

Gold, Dore. Hatred’s Kingdom: How Saudi Arabia Supports the New GlobalTerrorism. (Regnery Publishing, Washington, DC, 2003)

Horowitz, Dan de Garcia, et al. The Roots of Terror. (Project South: Institute forElimination of Poverty & Genocide, Atlanta 2003)

Hughes-Wilson, Col. John. Military Intelligence and Cover-Ups. (Carroll & Graff Pub.,NY, 1999-2004)

Johnson, Chalmers. Blowback – The Costs and Consequences of American Empire.(Henry Hold & Co., NY, 2000)

Kepel, Giles. Bad Moon Rising – A Chronicle of the Middle East Today. (Saqi Books,2003)

Kinzer, Stephen. All The Shah’s Men: An American Coup and the Roots of MiddleEast Terror. (John Wiley & Sons Inc., New Jersey, 2003)

Kleveman, Lutz. The New Great Game – Blood and Oil in Central Asia. (AtlanticMonthly Press, NY, 2003)

Mamdani, Mahmood. Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, The Cold Wars, and theRoots of Terror. (Random House, New York, 2004)

Masud, Enver. The War on Islam. (Madrash Books/ The Wisdom Fund, 2000-2003)

Meyer, Karl E. The Dust of Empire – The Race for Mastery in the Asian Heartland –w/intro America After Iraq. (Century Foundation, BBS Public Affairs, NY, 2003)

Mitchell, Elizabeth. W. Revenge of the Bush Dynasty. (Berkeley Books, NY 2003)

Nojumi, Neamatollah. The Rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan – Mass Mobilization,Civil War, and the Future of the Region. (Palgrave/St. Martin’s Press, 2001)

Phillips, Kevin. American Dynasty: Aristocracy, Fortune, and the Politics of Deceitin the House of Bush. (Penguin, New York, 2004)

Powers, Thomas. Intelligence Wars – American Secret History from Hitler to Al-Qaeda. (New York Review Book, 2004).

Rashid, Ahmed. Taliban – Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia(NB Yale Nota Bene, Yale University Press, New Haven, London, 2001)

Riebling, Mark. Wedge – From Pearl Harbor to 9/11 – How the Secret War Betweenthe FBI and CIA has Endangered National Security. (Touchstone, NY, 1994-2002)

Ross, Amy. The Body of the Truth: Truth Commissions in Guatemala and South Africa.(PhD thesis, U.C. Berkeley 1999)

Scott, Peter Dale. Drugs, Oil and War – The United States in Afghanistan,Colombia, and Indochina. (Rowman & Littlefield Pub. Inc., London, Boulder, NY,Oxford, 2003)

Theobald, Robert, A. USN (Ret) The Final Secret of Pearl Harbor – The WashingtonContribution to the Japanese Attack. (Devin-Adair Co., NY, 1954)

Vidal, Gore. Dreaming War – Blood for Oil and the Cheney-Bush Junta. (Thunder’sMouth Press/Nation Books, NY, 2002)

PLOTS & SUSPECTS

Ahmed, Nafeez Mosaddeq. The War on Freedom – How and Why America WasAttacked September 11, 2001. (Tree of Life Pub., Joshua Tree, California, Institute forPolicy R & D, 2002)

Al-Zayyat, et al. The Road to Al-Qaeda. (Pluto Press, London & Sterling, VA, 2004)

Anonymous. Through Our Enemies’ Eyes – Osama Bin Laden, Radical Islam, andthe Future of America. (Brassy’s Inc., Dulles, Virginia, 2002, paperback 2003)

Anonymous. Imperial Hubris – Why the West Is Losing the War on Terror. (Brassy’sInc. Dulles, Va., 2004)

AbuKhalil, As ‘ad. Bin Laden, Islam and America’s New “War on Terrorism.” (SevenStories Press, New York, 2002)

Barker, Jonathan. The No-Nonsense Guide to Terrorism. (New Internationalist & Verso,London & New York, 2004)

Bracken, Len. The Shadow Government – 9-11 and State Terror, w/intro by KennThomas (Adventures Unlimited Press, September, 2002)

Burke, Jason. Al-Qaeda – Casting A Shadow of Terror (J.B. Tauris, London, NY,2003).

Clarke, Richard, A. Against All Enemies – Inside America’s War on Terror. (FreePress, NY, London, Toronto, Sydney, 2004).

Collins, Aukai. My Jihad – One American’s Journey Through the World of OsamaBin Laden – As a Covert Operative for the American Government. (Pocket StarBooks, NY, 2002)

Cuddy, Dennis Laurence, Ph.D. Cover-Up – Government Spin or Truth – Connectingthe dots. (Hearthstone Publishing, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, 2003)

Der Spiegel Magazine, Reporters, Writers and Editors. Inside 9-11 What ReallyHappened. (St. Martin’s Paperbacks 2001-2002).

Dobson, Christopher and Ronald Payne. The Never-Ending War – Terrorism in the 80’s– An incisive examination of terrorism today, from Beirut to Bolivia. Who are theterrorists? What are their tactics? How can they be defeated? (Facts on File, Inc. NY,1987)

Griffin, David Ray. The New Pearl Harbor: Disturbing Questions about the BushAdministration and 9/11. (Olive Branch Press, Northampton, Massachusetts, 2004)

Gunaratna, Rohan. Inside Al Qaeda – Global Network of Terror. (Berkley Books, NY,2002)

Hopsicker, Daniel. Welcome To Terrorland – Mohamed Atta & the 9-11 Cover-up inFlorida. (MadCow Press, Eugene, Oregon, 2004)

Humphrey, George. 9/11: The Great Illusion – End Game of the Illuminati, OurChoice: Fear or Love? (Booklet by Common Sense, Austin Tex.)

Levy, Bernard-Henri. Who Killed Daniel Pearl? (Melville House, Pub., Hoboken, NJ,2003)

Levitas, Daniel. The Terrorist Next Door – The Militia Movement and the RadicalRight. (Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin’s Press, NY, 2002)

Longman, Jere. Among the Heroes – United Flight 93 & the Passengers & Crew WhoFought Back. (Harper Collins, NY, 2002)

Marrs, Jim. Inside Job – Unmasking the 9/11 Conspiracies. (Origin Press, San Rafael,California, 2004)

Miller, John and Michael Stone with Miller, Chris; The Cell – Inside the 9/11 Plot, andWhy the FBI and CIA Failed to Stop It. (Hyperion, N.Y. 2002)

Napoleoni, Loretta; w/foreword by Cooley, John; into Magnus, George. Modern Jihad –Tracing the Dollars Behind the Terror Networks. (Pluto Press, London, Sterling, Va.,2003).

Possner, Gerald. Why America Slept: The Failure to Prevent 9/11. (Random, NewYork, 2003)

Weiss, Murray. The Man Who Warned America – The Life and Death of JohnO’Neill, the FBI’s Embattled Counter-terror Warrior. (Regan Books/Harper Collins,2003).

RESPONSE

Response: Official Reports

9-11 Commission. The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commissionon Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States – Authorized Edition. (W.W. Norton &Company, N.Y., London, July 22, 2004. Paperback edition)

Ibid. The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on TerroristAttacks Upon the United States – Authorized Edition (W.W. Norton & Company, N.Y.,London,. August 2004. Hardback edition with index)

Ibid. 9-11 Investigations – Staff Reports of 9/11 Commission, Excerpts from the House-Senate Joint Inquiry Report on 9/11, and Testimony from 14 key witnesses. Edited by StevenStrasser, w/an introduction by Craig R. Whitney (BBS Public Affairs, N.Y.2004)

American Enterprise Institute. Preserving Our Institutions – The First Report of theContinuity of Government Commission. (May 2003)

Arquilia, John and David Ronfeldt, editors. Networks and Netwars – The Future of Terror,Crime, and the Military. Prepared for DOD (National Defense Research Institute, RAND,2001)

Continuity of Government Commission. Preserving Our Institutions – The First Report ofthe Continuity of Government Commission. (American Enterprise Institute, May 2003)

Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Region II, NY and Federal Insurance andMitigation Administration, Washington, DC. World Trade Center Building PerformancesStudy: Data Collection, Preliminary Observations, and Recommendations. (GovernmentPrinting Office, Washington, DC, 2003)

National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, The. 9/11 and TerroristTravel: Staff Report of the NCTAUUS. Monograph. (Source: http://www.9-11commission.gov/staff_statements/index.htm - Published online 21 August , 2004).

Ibid. Monograph on Terrorist Financing: Staff report to the NCTAUUS. (Source:http://www.9-11commission.gov/staff_statements/index.htm - Published online 21 August ,2004).

Ibid. 9/11 Report: The Complete Investigation. New York Times edition, (St. Martin’sPress, NY, 2004)

Ibid. Hearings and Testimony 1 – 12. Presented to NCTAUUS from 31 March 2003 to 17June 2004. (Source: http://www.9-11commission.gov/hearings/index.htm - Published onlinefollowing each hearing)

Ibid. Staff Reports 1 – 17. Presented at NCTAUUS Hearings from 26 January to 17 June2004. (Source: http://www.9-11commission.gov/staff_statements/index.htm - Publishedonline beginning 26 January 2004 and ending 17 June 2004)

Senate Committee on Intelligence & House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities Before and After the Terrorist Attacks ofSeptember 11, 2001. (Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, December 20, 2002)

Transportation Security Administration (Dept. Homeland Security). Secured Skies -International Conference and Exhibition on Aviation Security – Confronting InternationalTerror. Conference Program. (Government Printing Office, Washington, DC, June 16-18,2002)

Response: Books

Ahmed, Nafeez Mosaddeq. The War on Freedom – How and Why America WasAttacked September 11, 2001. (Tree of Life Pub., Joshua Tree, California, Institute forPolicy R & D, 2002)

Anonymous. Imperial Hubris – Why the West Is Losing the War on Terror. (Brassy’sInc. Dulles, Va. 2004)

Bamford, James. A Pretext for War – 9/11, and the Abuse of America’s IntelligenceAgencies. (Doubleday, NY, 2004)

Bonifaz, John C.; Foreword by Rep. John Conyers, Jr. Warrior-King – The Case ForImpeaching George W. Bush. (Nation Books, NY 2003).

Bracken, Len. The Shadow Government – 9-11 and State Terror, w/intro by KennThomas (Adventures Unlimited Press, September, 2002)

Burke, Jason. Al-Qaeda – Casting A Shadow of Terror. (J.B. Tauris, London, NY,2003).

Dadge, David. Casualty of War – The Bush Administration’s Assault on a FreePress. (Prometheus Books, Amherst, NY, 2004)

Dean, John W. Worse Than Watergate – The Secret Presidency of George W. Bush.(Little, Brown & Co., 2004)

Gonzalez, Juan. Fallout – The Environmental Consequences of the World TradeCenter Collapse. (The New Press, W.W. Norton & Co., NY, 2002)

Graham, Senator Bob. Intelligence Matters: The CIA, the FBI, Saudi Arabia, and theFailure of America’s War on Terror. Random House, New York, 2004)

Griffin, David Ray. The New Pearl Harbor – Disturbing Questions about the BushAdministration and 9/11. (Olive Branch Press, Interlink Pub., Northampton, Mass.2004)

Gunaratna, Rohan. Inside Al Qaeda – Global Network of Terror. (Berkley Books, NY,2002)

Helms, Harry. Inside the Shadow Government: National Emergencies and the Cultof Secrecy. (Feral House, Los Angeles, 2003)

Hopsicker, Daniel. Welcome To Terrorland – Mohamed Atta & the 9-11 Cover-up inFlorida. (MadCow Press, Eugene, Oregon, 2004)

Levy, Bernard-Henri. Who Killed Daniel Pearl? (Melville House Publishing, Hoboken, NJ,2003)

Longman, Jere. Among the Heroes – United Flight 93 & the Passengers & Crew WhoFought Back. (HarperCollins, NY, 2002).

Mahoney, Richard D. Getting Away With Murder: The Real Story behind AmericanTaliban John Walker Lindh and What the U.S. Government Had to Hide. (ArcadePublishing, New York, 2004)

Patterson, Lt. Col. Robert “Buzz,” USAF (Ret.) Dereliction of Duty: The EyewitnessAccount of How Bill Clinton Compromised America’s National Security. (RegneryPublishing, Washington DC, 2003)

Pilger, John. The New Rulers of the World. (Verso, London & NY, 2003)

Potorti, David w/Peaceful Tomorrows. September 11th Families for PeacefulTomorrows – Turning Our Grief into Action for Peace. (RDV Books, NY, 2003)

Toms, Michael. A Time for Choices – Deep Dialogues for Deep Democracy. (NewDimensions/New Society, Gabriola Island, BC, Canada, 2002)

IRAQ

Ahmed, Nafeez Mosaddeq. Behind the War on Terror – Western Secret Strategy andthe Struggle for Iraq. (New Society Publishers, 2003)

Ali, Tariq. Bush In Babylon – The Recolonisation of Iraq. (Verso, NY, London, 2003)

Carroll, James. Crusade: Chronicles of an Unjust War. (Henry Holt & Company, NY,2004)

Cuddy, Dennis Laurence, Ph.D. Cover-Up – Government Spin or Truth – Connectingthe dots- September 11…Iraq….and our vanishing constitutional rights.(Hearthstone Publishing, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, 2003)

Everest, Larry. Oil, Power & Empire – Iraq and the U.S. Global Agenda. (CommonCourage Press, Monroe, Maine, 2004)

Kolko, Gabriel. Another Century of War? (The New Press, W.W. Norton, 2002)

Mahajan, Rahul. Full Spectrum Dominance – U.S. Power in Iraq and Beyond. (OpenMedia Book, Seven Stories Press, NY, 2003)

Rai, Milan; w/ Chomsky, Noam. War Plan – Ten Reasons Against War on Iraq. (Verso,London, NY, 2002)

Solomon, Norman; and Reese Erlich. Target Iraq: What the News Media Didn’t TellYou. (Context Books, NY, 2003)

Woodward, Bob. Bush At War – Update on the War with Iraq. (Simon & Schuster, NY,2002, 2003)

FOREIGN POLICY

Baer, Robert. Sleeping with the Devil – How Washington Sold Our Souls for SaudiCrude. (Three Rivers Press, NY, 2003)

Bennis, Phyllis; w/foreword by Chomsky, Noam. Before & After – US Foreign Policy andthe September 11th Crisis. (Olive Branch Press, Interlink Pub. Group, Northampton,Mass., 2003

Blum, William. Rogue State – A Guide to the World’s Only Superpower. (CommonCourage Press, Monroe, Main, 2000)

Briody, Dan. The Halliburton Agenda: The Politics of Oil and Money. ( John Wiley& Sons, Inc., New Jersey, 2004)

Byrd, Senator Robert C. Losing America: Confronting a Reckless and ArrogantPresidency. (W.W. Norton & Company Inc., New York, 2004)

Callinicos, Alex. The New Mandarins of American Power. (Polity Press, Cambridge, UK,2003)

Carter, Graydon. What We’ve Lost: How the Bush Administration has curtailed ourfreedoms, mortgaged our economy, ravaged our environment, and damaged ourstanding in the world. (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, 2004)

Chomsky, Noam. 9-11. (Seven Stories Press, New York, 2001)

Ibid. Hegemony or Survival: America’s Quest for Global Dominance. (Henry Holt& Company, New York, 2003)

Ibid. Middle East Illusions – Peace in the Middle East & Reflections on Justice andNationhood. (Rowman & Littlefield Pub., Oxford, UK, 2004.

Dean, John W. Worse Than Watergate – The Secret Presidency of George W. Bush.(Little, Brown & Co., 2004)

Eisendrath, Craig R.; and Goodman, Melvin A. Bush League Diplomacy – How theNeoconservatives are putting The World At Risk. (Prometheus Books, NY, 2004)

Greider, William. Fortress America – The American Military and the Consequencesof Peace. (Public Affairs, NY, 1998)

Halper, Stefan and Jonathan Clarke. America Alone: The Neo-Conservatives and theGlobal Order. (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge UK, 2004)

Harvey, Robert. Global Disorder – How to Avoid a Fourth World War. (Carroll & Graf,NY, 2003)

Johnson, Chalmers. The Sorrows of Empire – Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of theRepublic. (The American Empire Project – Metropolitan Books, Henry Holt & Co., 2004)

Judis, John B. The Folly of Empire: What George W. Bush Could Learn fromTheodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson. (Scribner, NY, 2004)

Klare, Michael T. Blood and Oil: The Dangers and Consequences of America’sGrowing Dependency on Imported Petroleum. (Metropolitan Books, New York, 2004)

Mann, James. Rise of the Vulcans: The History of Bush’s War Cabinet. (VikingPenguin, New York, 2004)

Nelson, Richard, Barry Lopez and Terry Tempest Williams. Patriotism and the AmericanLand. (Orion Society, Great Barrington, MA, 2002)

Prestowitz, Clyde. Rogue Nation – American Unilateralism and the Failure of GoodIntentions. (Basic Books, Perseus Books, NY, 2003)

Priest, Dana. The Mission – Waging War and Keeping Peace with America’sMilitary. (W.W. Norton & Co., NY, 2004)

Roy, Arundhati. An Ordinary Person’s Guide to Empire. (South End Press, Cambridge,MA, 2004)

Ibid. Power Politics – w/ the Algebra of Infinite Justice. (South End Press, Cambridge,MA, 2001)

Singer, Peter. The President of Good & Evil: Questioning the Ethics of George W.Bush. (Plume Penguin, New York, 2004)

Suskind, Ron. The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and theEducation of Paul O’Neill. (Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, New York, 2004)

Turner, William. Mission Not Accomplished: How George Bush Lost the War onTerror. (Penmarin Books, Roseville, CA, 2004)

Zinn, Howard. Terrorism and War. (Seven Stories Press, New York, 2002)

CIVIL LIBERTIES

Aronowitz, Stanley; and Heather Gautney, editors. Implicating Empire – Globalization &Resistance in the 21st Century World Order. (Basic Books, Perseus Books NY, 2003)

Berry, Wendell. Citizenship Papers. (Shoemaker & Hoard, Washington, DC, 2003)

Brzezinski, Matthew. Fortress America: On the Front Lines of Home Security – aninside look at the coming Surveillance State. (Bantam Books, New York, 2004)

Brown, Cynthia editor, anthology, et al. Lost Liberties – Ashcroft and the Assault onPersonal Freedom. (The Free Press, NY, London, 2003)

Cole, David. Enemy Aliens – Double Standards and Constitutional Freedoms in theWar on Terrorism. (The New Press, NY, London, 2003)

Congress of the United States of America. Uniting and Strengthening America byProviding Appropriate Tools required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism (USAPatriot Act) Act of 2001. (Government Printing Office, Washington DC, Public Law 107-56-Oct. 26, 2001)

Chang, Nancy; w/foreword by Howard Zinn. Silencing Political Dissent – How Post-September 11 Anti-Terrorism Measures Threaten Our Civil Liberties. (Center forConstitutional Rights/Seven Stories Press/Open Media, NY, 2002)

Dadge, David. Casualty of War – The Bush Administration’s Assault on a FreePress. (Prometheus Books, Amherst, NY, 2004)

Hartmann, Thom. What Would Jefferson Do? A Return to Democracy. (HarmonyBooks, New York, 2004)

Leone, Richard C. and Greg Anrig, Jr. The War on Our Freedoms – Civil Liberties in anAge of Terrorism. (Century Foundation, BBS Public Affairs, NY, 2003)

McGowan , David. Understanding the F-Word – American Fascism and the Politics ofIllusion. (Writers Club Press, San Jose, NY, Lincoln, Shanghai, 2001)

Michaels, William C. No Greater Threat – America After September 11 and the Riseof a National Security State – w/ Detailed Analysis of the Patriot Act. (Algora Pub.,NY, 2002)

Nelson, Richard, Barry Lopez, Terry Tempest Williams. Patriotism and the AmericanLand. (Orion Society, Great Barrington, MA, 2002)

Redden, Jim. Snitch Culture … how citizens are turned into the eyes and ears ofthe state. (Feral House, Los Angeles, 2000)

Saalakhan, Mauri. The State of the Union 2002 – Don’t Say You Didn’t Know. (Peaceand Justice Foundation, Silver Spring, Md., 2003)

Toms, Michael; w/foreword by Kevin Danaher. A Time For Choices: Deep Dialogues forDeep Democracy. (New Dimensions, New Society, Gabriola Island, BC, Canada, 2002)

ANTHRAX AND BIOLOGICAL WARFARE

Carroll, Michael Christopher. Lab 257: The Disturbing Story of the Government’sSecret Plum Island Germ Laboratory. (William Morrow, NY, 2004)

Endicot, Stephen and Edward Hagerman. The United States and Biological Warfare.(Indiana University Press, Bloomington and Indianapolis, 1998)

Thompson, Marilyn W. The Killer Strain: Anthrax and a Government Exposed.(Harper Collins, NY, 2003)