THE CHAIN OF COMMAND ON 9/11 {masterlist}

The National Defense Chain of Command in a wartime emergency at the time of the September 11 attacks was: 1) President, 2) Defense Secretary, 3) regional combatant commanders. This was established by the Goldwater-Nichols DOD reorganization Act of 1986, which also allowed that on the whim of the President and Defense Secretary, communications with and oversight of these commanders pass through the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (CJCS – the nation’s top military officer)

Tightly controlled actions, like issuing an order for fighter jets to shoot down a civilian aircraft, constituted an emergency and had to originate with the President and pass through every link in the chain to the responsible fighter pilots. As the 9/11 Commission explained, “prior to 9/11, it was understood that an order to shoot down a commercial aircraft would have to be issued by the National Command Authority (a phrase used to describe the president and secretary of defense).” [2]

This Chain of Command was not ordinarily needed to get escort fighters off the ground – this could all be done automatically and at intermediate levels, as indicated by the swift fighter response in the Payne Stewart case. These guidelines, in effect since 1986, oddly changed just three months before September 11, with Rumsfeld asserting the sole authority to allow fighters to take off at all. This is covered in more in detail in the post "Muzzling the Defense?"

The 9/11 Commission’s final report later stated in its blameless way: “As they existed on 9/11, the protocols for the FAA to obtain military assistance from NORAD required multiple levels of notification and approval at the highest levels of government […] The protocols did not contemplate an intercept […] On the morning of 9/11, the existing protocol was unsuited in every respect for what was about to happen.” It became even more unsuited in the days and hours and even minutes before the attacks, and on the morning of September 11th, strangely, the National Command Authority’s chain of command seemed to sprout new links, swap out old ones, and seemed to not be anchored down to anything. The following posts deal with the US leadership response and the flailings and failings of a Chain of broken links.

- President Bush: “There’s one Terrible Pilot:” The accidental President Stumbles into 9/11.

- Vice President Cheney, the Roadmap Swap, and the “Effort.” Clarifying the Record. Did Bush hand Cheney the joystick to control the attacks?

- Cheney and the Shoot-Down Order: Who issued the order and when? 9:45, 10:14, 10:18?

- Link #2 AWOL: Psychic Rumsfeld’s Wanderings

- Myers the stand-in: How he responds "when things are happening."

- First Day Jitters: Sliney, Leidig, Myers: Three Defense Links Swapped out at the last minute at Joint Chiefs of Staff (ACTING Chairman richard Myers, as of ?:00 am, 9/11) Benedict Sliney at FAA Operations Center (first day as of ?:00 am, 9/11) and Leidig at the NMCC (see chart below - standing in as of 8:30 am, 9/11, as per a request from the previous day). This is spooky.

In the end, what we got was a startlingly "unprepared" and disjointed command authority that ran something like this:

FAA II: THE PHANTOM FLIGHT 11

NORAD’s third “incorrect” story to the 9/11 Commission was their testimony that the Langley fighters, scrambled eight minutes before the Pentagon was hit, “were scrambled to respond to the notifications about American 77, United 93, or both.” This certainly makes sense: there were planes targetting Washington. The jets that should have been sent for them were sent. But they were not sent up for that reason. As late as 9:35 no one in the defense system was aware of any real designs on Washington – or so says the Commission. Instead, they decided, “the notice NEADs received at 9:24 was that American 11 had not hit the World Trade Center and was heading for Washington, DC.” [1]

It was to intercept this ghost target that the Langley fighters took off at 9:30. The commission cited a taped NEADS call, conversations within the FAA system, contemporaneous logs from NEADS, Continental Region headquarters, and NORAD, among others. “Yet this response to a phantom aircraft was was not recounted in a single public timeline or statement issued by the FAA or Department of Defense. The inaccurate accounts created the impression that the Langley scramble was a logical response to an actual hijacked aircraft.” [2]

Here is the transcript of this call, placed from FAA’s Boston Center to NEADS at 9:21:
“FAA: Military, Boston Center. I just had a report that American 11 is still
in the air, and it’s on its way towards—heading towards Washington.
NEADS: Okay. American 11 is still in the air?
FAA: Yes.
NEADS: On its way towards Washington?
FAA: That was another—it was evidently another aircraft that hit the tower. That’s the latest report we have.
NEADS: Okay.
FAA: I’m going to try to confirm an ID for you, but I would assume he’s somewhere over, uh, either New Jersey or somewhere further south.
NEADS: Okay. So American 11 isn’t the hijack at all then, right?
FAA: No, he is a hijack.
NEADS: He—American 11 is a hijack?
FAA: Yes.
NEADS: And he’s heading into Washington?
FAA: Yes. This could be a third aircraft.” [3]

The NEADS technician who took this call from the FAA immediately passed the word to the mission crew commander, who reported to the NEADS battle commander: ”Okay, uh, American Airlines is still airborne. Eleven, the first guy, he’s heading towards Washington. Okay? I think we need to scramble Langley right now. And I’m gonna take the fighters from Otis, try to chase this guy down if I can find him.” The Otis pilots were not dragged from their just-established patrol of Manhattan, but they also were nearly sent after this non-existent target.

The Commission ultimately found themselves “unable to identify the source of this mistaken FAA information.” So let’s trace it back, based on the information that they had. In their report they note that the call was placed from FAA’s Boston Center to NEADS at 9:21, and in turn ”Boston Center had heard from FAA headquarters in Washington that American 11 was still airorne .” [4] So at some point prior to 9:20, someone at the national HQ in DC called this in to Boston, responsible for tracking these flights and already in contact with NEADS.

There are numerous possible explanations for this false report, and it wouldn’t have been the only one of the day. FAA Administrator Jane Garvey told Richard Clarke, after the first two planes had crashed, “we have reports of eleven aircraft off course or out of communications, maybe hijacked.” [2] Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta said “we probably had maybe about ten unaccounted for planes.” [3] Florida State Congressman Adam Putnam, who was aboard Air Force One with President Bush, who told him at 11:30 that there were six aircraft still unaccounted for. [4] In his bunker beneath the White House, Cheney had at least two possible run-ins with ghost planes, which he aggressively ordered shot down.

One explanation for these phantom flights centers on the presence in the radar system of false returns inserted for the morning’s war game Northern Vigilance. It’s unclear where these blips were showing up and on whose screens, but they were allegedly purged at about 9;00 am, as it became clear the US was under air attack and a clean slate was needed. Not that it helped much.

There are other possibilities as well. I’m guessing if this particular report of the Ghost Flight 11 is ever is explained, it’ll be something innocuous sounding, like this:

A controller at Boston center got a printed report – not a radar return – that American 77 was unaccounted for, missing from radar, possibly crashed or possibly headed to DC. But in the chaos after having seen American 11 disappear, he turns the 7s into 1s (optically easy to do, especially if the 1s are printed with pronounced serifs). He sees American 11 is missing from radar and possibly headed to DC and reports it as such. No radar track, so he can only guess – it was in New York, headed to DC… looking to the south of there...

But it could well be something more concrete than that, though we have to venture into weird land for the next post to see this possibility. Next: Mistaken FAA Info: Some or The?
Back to FAA Masterlist

FAA I: THE COVER-UP ON PAGE 34

Adam Larson
Caustic Logic / They Let It Happen
2/27/07

The current official story of what precisely happened on 9/11 has changed repeatedly, from the first chaotic report to the stalled and limited investigations culminating with the 9/11 Commission. Some major changes ere set in stone with the publication of their final Report in mid-2004. One that caught my attention was the assymmetry of White House accounts and evidence over the shoot-down order passed from Bush to Cheney at some vague time after 10:00 am. While all their evidence points to a call at 10:18 officially the Commission maintained the White House story that the call was placed at about 10:10, neither Bush nor Cheney recalls exactly when, and no records exist. [1]

Another changed story I’d noticed also became a central focus of "Nick7261" at Above Top Secret, who posted what he felt was “the strongest evidence of some sort of government cover-up.” He found this compelling seam in the pages of the 9/11 Commission’s final report, where they pointed out that NORAD had given them “incorrect” information regarding their awareness of and reaction to the hijackings of Flight 93 and 77. This is pivotal, since even many skeptics can see why the NY attack planes could have slipped through our defenses by sheer earliness and the whole “it’s never happened before” thing. By 9:03 am it had happened twice, and was looking to happen again, reportedly as many as eleven planes were suspected hijacked, and still no defenses showed late enough in the game to shoot AA77 or UA93 out of the sky. This might seem embarrassing to some.

Regarding the May 2003 testimony of NORAD officials, the Commission found three main issues of contention:
1) at 9:16 am NEADS (North East Air Defense Sector) received notification from the FAA that Flight 93 was hijacked.
2) NORAD received notification at 9:24 am that Flight 77 was hijacked.
3) As the Commission put it: “In their testimony and in other public accounts, NORAD officials also stated that the Langley fighters were scrambled to respond to the notifications about American 77, United 93, or both.”

Chairmen Kean and Hamilton and their cohorts decided all these assertions were “incorrect,” and chose to publish another, stranger version. But rather than simply alter the record silently, they drew attention to the changes in the text of their actual report, on page 34. Regarding the first point, NEADS’ notice of 93’s hijacking, they explained “this statement was incorrect. There was no hijack to report at 9:16. United 93 was proceeding normally at that time.” Indeed, by my research, the hijacking seems to have occurred at just about the time the pentagon was stricken at 9:37.

The Commission give no explanation of how NEADS was able to submit a timeline that was clearly false on at least this point; not having been given one, they probably didn’t feel like guessing a reason. The closest they came was in hinting “those accounts had the effect of deflecting questions about the military’s capacity to obtain timely and accurate information from its own sources. In addition, they overstated the FAA’s ability to provide the military with timely and useful information that morning.” (p 34) They didn’t like to look weak, so they overstated their abilities, both internally and with regard to FAA.

But either way, their explanation for the other two less-than correct statements are more interesting and bring us to our first major anomaly. The Commission found that NORAD had been informed by an unnamed FAA employee that Flight 11 did not fly into the WTC and was heading south towards Washington. Nick found on study “out of the entire 567-page 9/11 Commission Report, only one page covers how Flight 77 was able to avoid U.S. Air Defense and hit the Pentagon,” and that’s page 34, where they clarified that the Capital’s air defense was gunning for a ghost while a third real weaponized airliner, and soon a fourth, was targeting DC unseen. This is explosive evidence, indicating to me something, at best, on the far side of negligence.

So after the report’s release, we have two stories, one covering the other. Nick wondered if the new version were true, who gave the false info on Flight 11, why, and why the anonymity? And if the original NORAD version delivered under oath were true, then why did the Commission replace it with the new FAA version instead without seeking clarification on that perjured testimony? Certainly budgetary restraints, time pressures, and limited subpoena powers would be cited if we asked, but either way, there’s a slew of questions left unanswered, and possibly a cover-up. Nick speculated as one possibility that “the 9/11 Commission fabricated the story that the fighters were chasing a plane that didn't exist to explain how two hijacked planes were flying unimpeded towards their targets.” I had to admit it sounded plausible, and started digging in a little bit.

Next: The Phantom Flight 11
Back to FAA Masterlsit

Sources:
[1] 9/11 Commission Final report, pages 40-41.
[2] Ibid. Page 34.

MISSION CLARIFICATION

One of the Otis pilots said of the confusing orders he was given as he finally entered New York airspace “neither the civilian controller or the military controller knew what they wanted us to do." [1] They were fighters, made to get there quickly, identify their target, and fight. On 9/11 they were unable to do any of these. Langley pilot “Lou” called it the “smoke of war.” He noted to Jere Longman “no one knew exactly what was going on.” [2]

For a stunning example of what they were not told, Otis lead pilot Duff claims he and Nasty were never told about the history-making crash of American 11 six-minutes before they took off – and in fact believed they were still going to intercept it until they saw the smoke coming off Manhattan island, by then coming from both towers. Nearly a year after the attack, Duff still couldn’t recall hearing that the first plane had hit, as Aviation Week reported:

“‘Huntress,’ the NEADS weapons control center, had told Duffy his hijacked target was over John F. Kennedy International Airport. He hadn't heard about the United aircraft yet. “The second time I asked for bogey dope [location of AA11], Huntress told me the second aircraft had just hit the WTC. I was shocked… and I looked up to see the towers burning,” He asked for clarification of their mission, but was met with “considerable confusion.” [3]

He told the BBC that news of UA175’s impact was “obviously a shock to both Nasty and I, because we thought there was only one aircraft out there.” [4] According to the Cape Cod Times, “by the time (the pilots) heard a word about a second hijacked plane, United Airlines Flight 175, it had already smashed into the second tower before the horrified eyes of millions on TV.” [5] In other words, people watching CNN had more information than the defending pilots. This is an absolutely stunning failure that has not gotten the coverage it deserves.

The Langley pilots faced similar hurdles. First, as we’ve seen, they were given no information on the location and distance to their target and flew the wrong direction based on confused orders. After they were finally ordered to change directions and rocket north towards New York at 600 mph, they just happened to pass the Pentagon and saw the smoke billowing from it. Lou said “holy smoke, that’s why we’re here.” As Jere Longman explains it:

”The lead pilot was asked on his radio to verify whether the Pentagon was burning…. “That’s affirmative,” Honey replied.” But not having been informed of a plane in the area, the pilots presumed it was a truck bomb or something of that nature.” [6]

After confirming the attack there was complete, they were then sent to investigate. The 9/11 Commission noted that Honey told them “you couldn’t see any planes, and no one told us anything.” The Commission concluded “the pilots knew their mission was to divert aircraft, but did not know that the threat came from hijacked airliners.” [7]

“I looked up to see the towers burning." “Holy smoke, that’s why we’re here.” “The smoke of war.” In both cases, despite the most advanced tracking and communications technology in the world, the pilots of the first wave were informed of their failure to prevent the attacks via primitive smoke signal. Especially in a situation like 9/11, the old adage “knowledge is power” applies. With a track record like this of sharing knowledge with the defending pilots, the question arises – were these men meant to do anything other than provide a veneer of defense?

According the Jere Longman, the Langley pilots, in addition to never being informed of Flight 77, “did not even learn about Flight 93, or a plane crashing in Pennsylvania, until they returned to Langley.” This was around 2 pm. [8] Two hijacked planes had targeted Washington – AA77 and UA93. The Langley pilots were somehow never told of either. So why were they even in the air? According to the 9/11 Commission, they were chasing American 11 an hour after it crashed.

Sources:
[1] Dennehy, Kevin. “'I Thought It Was the Start of World War III'” The Cape Cod Times. August 21, 2002. http://www.poconorecord.com/report/911-2002/000232.htm
[2] Longman, Jere. "Among the Heroes." Page 222.
[3] Scott, William B. “Exercise Jump-Starts Response to Attacks.” Aviation week’s Aviation Now. June 3, 2002. Accessed April 27, 2003 at: http://www.aviationnow.com/content/publication/awst/20020603/avi_stor.htm
[4] BBC video. Clear the Skies. 2002.
[5] See [1]. Dennehy.
[6] See [2]. Page 76.
[7] 9/11 Commission Final Report. Page 45
[8] See [2]. Page 222.

PHANTOM FLIGHTS

Two hijacked planes had targeted Washington – AA77 and UA93. The Langley pilots, those nearest to Washington during the attack were somehow never told of either. So why were they even in the air? According to the 9/11 Commission, they were chasing American 11 an hour after it crashed. According to the 9/11 Commission, they were going to intercept Flight 11. While the Otis pilots had been looking for it until at least 9:03 am, well after it had crashed, somehow it was misreported to NEADS at 9:21 that American 11 was still airborne and headed for Washington. Thus, the commission concludes, the Langley pilots were going to intercept the ghost flight nearly an hour after it crashed. The Commission reported: “we have not been able to identify the source of this mistaken FAA information.” [1]

Did someone make this up, or were they actually seeing it as a radar blip on their screens? During the course of the 9/11 Commission’s hearings, I recall an official testifying that a number of reported hijackings that morning turned out to be “phantoms.” These non-existent planes turning up as real on radar screens further confused response, notably by distracting the Langley pilots from a real plane – American 77 – that was official invisible on these same screens until right before it hit the Pentagon.

FAA Administrator Jane Garvey told Richard Clarke, after the first two planes had crashed, “we have reports of eleven aircraft off course or out of communications, maybe hijacked.” [2] Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta said “we probably had maybe about ten unaccounted for planes.” [3] Florida State Congressman Adam Putnam, who was aboard Air Force One with President Bush, was told at 11:30 there was a threat against them. Putnam explained “at the time… [the President] said that there were six aircraft that were not accounted for.” [4] In his bunker beneath the White House, Cheney had at least two possible run-ins with ghost planes, which he aggressively ordered shot down. Were all of these simply the result of confusion and uncertainty, with every communications problem getting a plane called in as a possible hijack? Or was there something stranger at work?

Among the air-based War Games being held that morning was Operation Northern Vigilance, set up in the arctic with Canadian assistance. They were there, NORAD explained, “to monitor a Russian air force exercise” that was happening just on the other side of the North Pole. [5] In addition to possibly drawing fighters and radar attention away from the East Coast, Northern Vigilance also, for whatever reason, involved radar “inserts,” blips that would look like planes to radar controllers but in reality corresponded to nothing. How many inserts were used, on whose screens, and inserted into which air traffic regions are all questions that remain unanswered. As it became clear an attack was underway, at 9:00 am, NORAD officially cancelled the exercise and erased the inserts. But until that time, they may have added to the confusion in the air. And this is only the reported possible source of such phantom flights. There are so many other ways in which false radar/transponder data could be seen as real and thus conceal the attack planes beneath a swarm of decoys. The confusion would only have to hold for about 30-45 minutes, just long enough to get all the targets – or at least all but one – through our normal air defenses. If this was the plan, it worked like a charm and the catalyzing event was realized.

Sources:
[1] 9/11 Commission Final Report. Page 26
[2] Clarke, Richard A. “Against All Enemies: Inside America’s War on Terror.” New York. Free Press. 2004. Page 4.
[3], [4] “Clear the Skies.” BBC Video. 2002.
[5] Ruppert, Michael C. “Crossing the Rubicon.” 2004. Page 342.
[6] Thompson and the CCR. The Terror Timeline. 2004. Page 386.

Wargame One: Vigilant Guardian

OPERATION VIGILANT GUARDIAN: The ironically dubbed “Vigilant Guardian” was the first to be widely acknowledged, notably in the BBC’s excellent 2002 documentary Clear the Skies. The exercise, as the official one-paragraph web page explains, was a regular, yearly exercise designed to simulate a “crisis to North American Air Defense outposts nationwide.” [1] As a result of Vigilant Guardian, according to NEADS Commander Colonel Robert Marr, “The fighters were cocked and loaded, and even had extra gas on board.” [2] Exact details remain classified, but it was a multi-day exercise, already going on for at least a day as the attacks began.

Three different accounts of first notification of a hijacking indicate that there were to be simulated hijackings in at least Vigilant Guardian: Major General Larry Arnold said “the first thing that went through my mind was, is this part of the exercise? Is this some kind of a screw-up?” [3] Sergeant Jeremy Powell at NEADS, where Vigilant Guardian was being carried out, was contacted by Boston Flight Control at 8:38 am. The Boston controller told him there was a hijacked plane headed to New York. Powell responded “is this real-world or exercise?” He received the answer “no this is not an exercise, not a test.” [4]

The most relevant account is that of Lt. Colonel Dawne Deskins. As NEADS regional overseer of Vigilant Guardian, she should have understood better than anyone what to expect from the drill. Newhouse News Service reported her response to the crisis: "At 8:40, Deskins noticed senior technician Jeremy Powell waving his hand. Boston Center was on the line, he said. It had a hijacked airplane. “It must be part of the exercise,” Deskins thought. At first, everybody did. [After clarifying with FAA] Deskins ran up a short flight of stairs to the Battle Cab and reported the hijacked plane real world, not a simulation.” [5]

Name Meaning: “Vigilant or Amalgam means it is a HQ NORAD sponsored exercise. Guardian means it is a multi-command CPX, or command post exercise (no live-fly). So on 9/11, NORAD was conducting a NORAD-wide, multi-command, command post exercise with no live-fly." - Major Don Arias, NORAD press spokesman who was on duty and involved in the response the morning of 9/11, to Mike Ruppert. As reprinted in Crossing the Rubicon, page 368.

Sources:
[1] http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/vigilant-guardian.htm
(the original page had this quote, but by 2006 the page makes no mention of a crisis but explains it is now "conducted in conjunction with USCINCSTRAT-sponsored GLOBAL GUARDIAN and USCINCSPACE-sponsored APOLLO GUARDIAN exercises. The exercise involves all HQ NORAD levels of command and is designed to exercise most aspects of the NORAD mission.")
[2] Scott, William B. “Exercise Jump-Starts Response to Attacks.” Aviation week’s Aviation Now. June 3, 2002. Accessed April 27, 2003 at: http://www.aviationnow.com/content/publication/awst/20020603/avi_stor.htm
[3] ABC News. “Terror Hits the Towers: How Government Officials Reacted
to Sept. 11 Attacks.” September 14, 2002. Accessed at: http://abcnews.go.com/onair/DailyNews/sept11_moments_1.html
[4] 9/11 Commission Final Report. Page 20
[5] Hart, Seely. “Amid Crisis Simulation, 'We Were Suddenly No-Kidding Under Attack.'” Newhouse News Service. January 25, 2002. Accessed May 7, 2003 at: http://www.unansweredquestions.org/timeline/2002/newhousenews012502.html

A Yawning Gap

On the evening of September 14 the first story of the Air Force response to the three-day old attack was aired on CBS News.- The two F-15 pilots were scrambled from Otis AFB on Cape Cod, Massachusetts at 8:52, just after the first plane's impact but well before the second. Despite what officials had thus far said, it seemed fighters did get airborne during the attack. This made us feel a little better.

After this news was reported, the official stance changed. On the 18th, NORAD published their final initial timeline, including the Otis scramble time as 8:52, and an additional scramble of fighters from Langley Air Force Base at 9:30, ceding two scrambles before the Pentagon was hit. This timeline changed yet again in 2004 as the 9/11 Commission released its findings. Most of the facts that follow are from this newer version of events (the scrambles just mentioned are agreed on in both versions).

At the time of the attacks, only fourteen fighters were routinely kept on ready and alert status across the US mainland. These were deployed and scrambled in pairs, so these fighters represented only seven actual deployments. Nearly all reported pre-9/11 threats of terrorist attacks, some involving hijackings, focused on New York or Washington D.C. Yet on that morning, only two of these seven deployments were in the Northeast sector, thick with air traffic (about 50% of the national total) and with threats against it (nearly all threats targeted New York or Washington). The BBC quoted Colonel Robert Marr, Commander of the North East Air Defense Sector (NEADS), as saying “I had determined, of course, that with only four aircraft we cannot defend the whole north eastern United States.” Worse, these deployments were on the northern and southern fringes of the area of vulnerability, in each case about 150 miles away from the nearest targeted site. One newspaper wondered why NORAD had left “what seems to be a yawning gap in the midsection of its air defenses on the East Coast – a gap with New York City at the center.”

> DEPLOYMENT KEY:
(Graphic by the Author, based on post-9/11 research - exact basing at the time of the attack is not clear, but clearly seems inadequate for what unfolded that day, revealing, at best, poor planning of the air defenses in a time of heightened alert)
1) Hancock Field Air National Guard Base (ANGB), Syracuse, NY. 174th Fighter Wing. Very close to Rome, NY HQ of NEADS.
2) Barnes ANGB, MA. 104th Fighter Wing
3) Bradley ANG base, CT. 103rd Fighter Wing.
4) Otis AFB, Falmouth, MA. Postings and status unclear. Scrambled two F-16s at 8:52.
5) Willow Grove, PA. 11th Fighter Wing.
6) Atlantic City ANGB, NJ. 177th Fighter Wing. Atlantic City had two F-16s In the air on 9/11 for a bombing exercise near the city. Boston flight controllers tried to contact the base at 8:34, but the phone just rang. They weren’t on “ready” status as they had been in previous years. This fighter pair was finally sent to Washington after 10:00.
7) Andrews AFB - it's actually closer than it looks here, only 10 miles from the Pentagon - home of the 113th wing DC Air National Guard and the Air National Guard Readiness Center. They did not get fighter off the ground on 9/11 until 10:42, and these were sent up without missiles. The pair sent had been in the air on a training mission in South Carolina as the attack began.
8) Langley AFB, VA. 10th Intelligence Squadron, Air Force Doctrine Center, Air Combat Command, 1st Fighter Wing. Scrambled two F-15s and an unidentified third plane at 9:30.