Category: 9-11

9-11: The Bobcats; a teachable moment

Several correspondents have alerted me to recent interest in the Bobcats by current day 9-11 researchers. My first instinct was to simply dismiss this interest as transient, one of many analytical cul-de-sacs concerning the events of 9-11.   However, as I reviewed the files and recalled my own work it occurred to me that the Bobcats are as good a subject as any to address the apparent dichotomy between the work of the Commission Staff and the notion held by some that the work of the Commission was somehow deficient.

The Commission Staff considered many things in its work. Anyone who has perused the substantial Commission files posted to the web by NARA, History Commons, and 9-11myths will recognize that the effort was massive, diverse, and often complicated. As a reminder, at most, NARA has released only 35% of Commission files, mostly desk files and MFRs. Still to come are the paper files (the originals received via document requests, both classified and unclassified) the electronic files on the classified and unclassified servers, and the audio files, both those received and those from our recorded interviews.

Snapshots of the Commission’s work are prone to misinterpretation. In the introduction to the Scott Trilogy I refer to this tendency as the imposition of post facto understanding and awareness on facto and pre-facto conditions. Discrete pieces of staff work are just that, pieces of a vastly larger puzzle; sometimes they fit, sometimes they don’t. Consideration of the Bobcats is one such piece of work, one that seemed to fit, yet didn’t.

The Bobcats, briefly an item of interest

The Bobcats became, briefly, an item of interest to the Commission Staff because of a single analytical question. Given that the military was a significant daily user of the nation’s airspace; and given that the formal air defense response was not effective; and given that FAA controllers vectored the Air National Guard C-130H, Gofer 06, to follow AA 77; what, if any, other military aircraft already in the air might have been used in some manner in response to the attack on the nation’s capital?

Primary source (radar and air traffic control transmissions) analysis revealed five military aircraft airborne in the area of the Pentagon, shown in this circa July 2003 staff workup.

bobcats

The  depiction is a screen print of 84th RADES radar data filtered to show  specific aircraft and all primary returns in the DC area for the 13 minute period beginning at 9:25.  “Sword 1” is actually “Word 31.”

The Bobcats

Radar files and air traffic control communications clearly show that a pair of aircraft in trail formation, Bobcat 14 and Bobcat 17, transited the DC area northeast to southwest in the same time frame that AA77 was approaching the area from the West.  Bobcat Flight PathThis image depicts their transit as recorded in 84th RADES files. Their path is consistent with the established flight plan as depicted on en route flight strips.

According to ZDC flight strips the Bobcats were a scheduled flight of T-2 aircraft from Dover Air Force Base to Knoxville, TN. The T-2 is a two-seat jet trainer used by the Navy.

The pair took off around 9:15 and headed westerly  to a navigational point near Baltimore at which time they turned south and checked in with DCA TRACON, Bobcat 14 at 9:31:30 and Bobcat 17 at 9:32:16.  They proceeded through DCA airspace and were handed off to ZDC on a heading of 245; Bobcat 14 at 9:35 and Bobcat 17 seven minutes later.  There is nothing unusual about their flight plan, their route which followed the flight plan, or their presence in DC airspace.

No Involvement

There is no primary or secondary source information that links the Bobcats in any way to events of the day. They were simply two more aircraft in the sky that just happened to be military aircraft. They did not dwell in the area, were at altitude, and were not an issue to pursue. DCA TRACON did not vector them when controllers learned at 9:33 of an unknown aircraft approaching. Gofer 06 was the better, in fact only, choice.  And that answered the analytical question.

Another example of a snapshot

In an MFR addendum after our visit to Reagan National I wrote the following: “[Note: flight strips and other information indicate that Bobcat 14 and Bobcat 17 originated out of Dover Air Force Base in Delaware. JSS radar data shows that they flew in trail at 21,000 feet and were overhead during the last few minutes of the flight of American Air 77. It is possible, but not confirmed, that they were Air Force corporate passenger jets.]”

That estimate was based on the fact the flight originated from an Air Force Base, that an Air Force squadron used the Bobcat call sign, and that FAA in the cover sheet of the DCA TRACON partial transcript labeled them as Air Force. Retrospectively, knowledgeable Air Force sources inform me that the fact that the flight was “TACAN” only is sufficient to rule out that they were Air Force passenger aircraft. Those sources also inform me that the flight strips clearly indicate these were not VIP aircraft.

A question begged, what about the other three hijacked aircraft?

For those who are wondering about the other hijacked flights, here is the answer.  I recall checking the radar concerning AA 11 and UA 175. The fact that I did not make screen prints is a strong indication that I found nothing remarkable.  I did, however, make a screen print for UA 93 but the analytical question was different.

Given the Rumsfeld statement and given the speculation that UA 93 was shot down, what planes were in the vicinity of UA 93 in its last moments?  A circa summer 2003 staff workup, UA 93 crash site based on 84th RADES radar files, shows the spatial and time relationship among UA 93, Gofer 06, and the Falcon jet vectored by air traffic control to use its GPS to obtain the crash site coordinates, which it did.  The slow moving aircraft, labeled 0572C and tracking northward, was the only other plane in the general area; it was not a factor.

In sum

With the crystal clarity of 20-20 hindsight we can establish that the Bobcats were military jets on a routine, pre-scheduled flight. They were not an issue concerning the events of that morning.

There will not be a test.

9-11: Air Defense Response; first things first, the Scott trilogy, (part 1)

In an introductory article we established three barriers to analyzing events of 9-11; time compression, event conflation, and the application of post facto awareness and understanding to facto and post-facto events.  William Scott’s work must be considered with due regard to the latter barrier. In his first article, “Exercise Jump-Starts Response to Attacks,” he reported what he was told  by participants and what he learned from the public record of the day.  The fact that his narrative compressed time and conflated events is not his doing.    It was his sources who compressed  and conflated, and Scott did not have the primary and secondary source information available for validation.

Two different Scotts

William B. Scott (not the same Scott who briefed the Commission on May 23, 2003) wrote a series of three articles in 2002 for Aviation Week & Space Technology. That trilogy was one of the early detailed accounts of the events of the day and it served as a starting point for Staff work concerning FAA and NORAD. The Staff began with a LexisNexis literature search, a portion of which is available at NARA. The Scott trilogy immediately came to light as did the NORAD September 18, 2001, time-line, replicated in Scott’s first article published June 3, 2002.

The Commission Staff knew what the public knew but had reason to believe that the account of the day was flawed.  That belief was confirmed when the other Scott, Lieutenant Colonel Alan Scott,–who had been researching events of the day for several months–briefed the Commission.

Documents of the day told a different story

One of the first primary source documents the Staff received was the set of radar files from the 84th RADES,followed in short order by the first document delivery from NEADS which included a partial transcript and a copy of the MCC/T log.  None of that information–one primary source file and two secondary source documents–supported the public story as related by William Scott.  Simply put, the actual tracks of the air defense fighters did not correspond to what Scott reported.  Further, the primary and secondary source records of the day supported neither the September 18, 2001, NORAD time-line nor Lieutenant Colonel Alan Scott’s revision as briefed to the Commission.

Some Things William Scott got right

Scott’s title for his first article is consistent with what the Commission Staff found.  Scott elaborated: “In retrospect, the exercise would prove to be a serendipitous enabler of a rapid military response….Senior officers involved in Vigilant Guardian were manning Norad [sic] command centers…and [were] available to make immediate decisions.”  The problem was there were few immediate decisions to be made.  As the Commission determined and reported there was no timely notification concerning any of the hijacked airplanes.

Scott’s account of General Arnold telling Marr to “scramble; we’ll get clearances later,” is also accurate.  As the Commission Staff briefed at the June 2004 hearing, the formal hijack notification procedures were unsuited in every respect for the events of 9-11.  Boston Center abandoned the procedures; NEADS/CONR followed suit.

His  account remains reasonable as the Otis pilots are introduced.  They heard the word even before NEADS because of their working relationship with Cape TRACON.  The pilots were in action before they were scrambled; they literally put themselves on battle stations.

The Account Starts to Drift

Then Scott’s account starts to deviate from what actually happened.  The Otis pilots did not do what they told Scott they did. “Consequently he [the lead pilot] jammed the F-15’s throttles into afterburner and the two-ship formation devoured the 153 mi.. to New York City at supersonic speeds.  It just seemed wrong.  I just wanted to get there.  I was in full-blower all the way.”

Except they didn’t go to New York City and they did not proceed supersonic.  The “NORAD RESPONSE TIMELINE,” which Scott discussed, states: “Flight times calculated at 9 mi./min. (Mach 0.9).”  It is reasonable to infer that the Otis pilots, by the time Scott interviewed them, had internalized the events of the day in a way differently than they occurred and that is the story they told Scott and others.

Concerning the Langley scramble, Scott did not address the fact that the actual path of the fighters after takeoff was orthogonal to their intended direction.  Scott stated, simply, that the “alert F-16s were scrambled and airborne in 6 min., headed for Washington.”  That remained the official story until the Commission staff learned the actual path from the 84th RADES radar files.  Lieutenant Colonel Alan Scott, was supposed to put that straight at the May 23, 2003, hearing; he did not.  Instead, he blurred the paths of both the Langley and the Otis fighters in his briefing charts.  I told that story in a separate article.

Conflation and Compression, two  examples

Scott reported that the alert was being passed simultaneously to NORAD/Cheyenne Mountain and to the DoD Air Traffic Services Cell (ATSC) at the FAA Herdon Command Center. Indeed, Colonel Marr was immediately able to talk to General Arnold. The Battle Cabs at all echelons in NORAD were fully manned because of the scheduled exercise.That was not the case for the ATSC. Scott’s reference is to a December 17, 2001, Aviation Week & Space Technology article: “Crisis at Herndon: 11 Airplanes Astray.” That article gives the erroneous impression that the ATSC was immediately represented on the Herndon operational floor.

In another example, at NORAD, according to Scott’s interviews, “A bunch of things started happening at once…We initiated an Air Threat Conference [call].”  It didn’t go quite as Scott told it, but the lead was particularly helpful; this was the Commission staff’s first awareness that there was such a call and a request for any tapes of that call was among our first document requests.  Because of its importance that call will be discussed in a separate article.

Scott’s narrative thereafter is a conflation of events on multiple levels; participants told him what they remembered or what they had internalized.

Some more examples

Delta 1989.  Scott discussed a fifth hijacked aircraft–although no airplane is mentioned the implication is that it is Delta 1989–before he talks about the discovery and immediate loss of AA 11 at 8:46.

Search for additional fighter support.  Scott introduced this activity before he mentions the Langley fighters on battle station at 9:09.

FAA reports 11 aircraft amiss. Scott interjected this fact while discussing  the Langley battle station/scramble sequence.  That was the time frame for the erroneous report that AA 11 was still in the air.

AA 77 impact 9:41. This is interesting since Colonel Scott, with great stress that all his times were log times, briefed the Commission that the time was 9:43.

Scatana/Mineta. Scott perpetuated Mineta’s contention that he gave the order to bring all the planes down and conflates it with a discussion that occurred later in the day about implementing Scatana.  General Eberhart was in his office at NORAD Headquarters and did not arrive at the Cheyenne Mountain Operations Center until later in the morning.

Prepared to shoot down UA 93.  Scott reported that, “F-16s…were prepared to shoot down United 93.”  They were in position but had no authority to shoot and were never vectored to intercept the airplane.

Escorting Air Force One. Scott quoted General Arnold as saying, “We scrambled available airplanes from Tyndall and then from Ellington…We maintained AWACS overhead the whole route.”  What we now know from the radar files is that only the Ellington fighters caught up with Air Force One and only briefly before it landed at Barksdale AFB.  In the Mystery Plane article I show that the mystery plane, Venus 77, was in position to monitor the flight of Air Force One.

The Staff picks up the pieces and moves on
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Prior to the May 23, 2003 hearing the Staff sensed that the official story of the day was at odds with primary source information.  We anticipated that NORAD’s testimony would help clarify matters; it turned out just the opposite.  Thereafter, we set aside existing time lines of the day and built our own.  We used that time line and the primary and secondary sources [e.g. transcripts, logs} as an aid during interviews.  We found that participant recall was like eye witness accounts, subject to event conflation and time compression.  There is no better example than Scott’s first article.

9-11: The Scott Trilogy; an introduction, cutting to the chase

After four attempts to address William B. Scott’s three 2002 articles written for Aviation Week & Space Technology let me cut to the chase and get some things off my mind. Scott wrote at a time when accurate information was not available, the emerging story was incomplete, and the voices of the day had internalized events in their own way. His was an honest effort and is particularly useful to address three barriers, pitfalls if you will, to accurately understanding the events of September 11, 2001.

The barriers are: time compression; event conflation; and the imposition of post-facto understanding and conditions on both facto and pre-facto events.  The Staff of both the 9-11 Commission and the Congressional Joint Inquiry that preceded it grappled constantly with these barriers to understanding.   Most people writing objectively about the events of the day, the work of the 9-11 Commission Staff, or the work of authors, such as Scott, will remember to ‘walk in their shoes.’ And that especially means not looking through a post-facto lens.  Setting aside the post-facto lens barrier lets look a bit further at the other two barriers.

Time Compression

A good example of time compression is the difficulty the well-researched author, Lynn Spencer, encountered. Hers was another honest effort. In Touching History she established a reader’s road map by time-stamping each section; a chronological approach. That worked well until she attempted to tell the Andrews fighter story.  Spencer struggled to get the Andrews fighters back from the skies over North Carolina to Washington D.C. in time and space to deal with UA 93. The compression of time problem was such that Spencer had to abandon her reader’s road map and did not time-stamp that section of her book

In another example, Richard Clarke’s compression of time in “Against All Enemies” is not helpful in understanding the sequence of events that morning.  Clarke’s is also an honest effort, one which highlights the fact that participant recall is much like an eye witness account, helpful but not definitive.  And Clarke’s problems with time compression lead to the second barrier, event conflation.

Event Conflation

Clarke established a time hack for his readers, “It was now 9:28.”  That time was in reference to establishing an air defense “CAP over D.C.”  That meant that by that time, according to Clarke,  General Myers was in the Pentagon, the Air Threat Conference Call was underway, and “eleven aircraft [were] off course or out of communications.” [attributed to Garvey] Actually, Clarke conflated events as he compressed them in time, leaping nimbly over both barriers at once.  He also established that Norman Mineta was not in the loop by 9:28, despite Mineta’s own account.

Mineta, then Secretary of Transportation established in multiple accounts, including testimony before the 9-11 Commission, that he was there before 9:28 and that an aircraft “50 miles out” was AA 77.  Mineta’s story is the definitive example of event conflation.  The plane in question was UA 93.  Mineta and Clarke cannot both be right at the same time in terms of Mineta’s location in space and time.

Even the events of the day were conflated in at least two instances as they occurred; Delta 1989 was conflated with UA 93, and AA 77 was conflated with AA 11.  NEADS perpetuated the first conflation in its own story of the day. The plane that ‘meandered’ that day was not UA 93, it was Delta 1989.  We may never know the details of the second conflation other than the fact that it occurred and that it did prompt the Langley scramble.

Looking ahead to the Scott Trilogy

Researchers, writers, analysts, and investigators have the capability to overcome time compression and event conflation by using primary and secondary source information as an aid to recall during interviews. Spencer and Scott, especially, did not have the primary source information they needed to deal with either barrier. And as we will discover in the first Scott article some conflated events were also time compressed by Scott’s sources.

Okay, with that off my mind we can move on to Scott’s trilogy. And as we do, let me mention that is was from Scott that the Commission Staff obtained the lead about the Air Threat Conference Call. The tape of that conference is the single most important primary source of the day. For now, Commission Report footnotes stand as the best available secondary source of the day concerning that conference call.


9-11: NORAD briefings prior to May 23, 2003 hearing, some comments

I mentioned two briefings in the article “9-11: NORAD’s Sudoku Puzzle; a briefing askew, an addendum” that NORAD knew about before the May 23, 2003 hearing.  Thanks to some out of cycle work at NARA by paxvector and History Commons those two briefings are now available on the web.  Here is Cheri Gott’s 2002 briefing to the Satellite Toolkit (STK) Conference.  Here is her briefing to CONR to help prepare them for the hearing.

It is clear from both briefings, based on 84th RADES radar data, that NORAD knew the true story of the Otis and Langley scrambles.  They failed to tell that story at the first air defense hearing on May 23, 2003.  We also learn from these briefings that a “scramble” does not mean aircraft were launched.

A scramble defined

NORAD (Gott), on one sllide,  provides researchers and historians the definition of a scramble:  “Scramble = an order to get aircraft airborne as soon as possible.”  The important point here is that a scramble does not mean that planes were necessarily ever launched.

In my own work for the DoD Inspector General we examined the history of SEADS-directed scrambles concerning air activity over the Florida Straits concerning flight activity by the Brothers To The Rescue and Cuban response to that activity.  We determined the universe of scrambles over a several-month period and then further refined the data to focus only on those cases in which air defense fighters actually launched.  The number was quite small in comparsion to the number of “scrambles.”  My recall is that many of the scramble orders were cancelled because the information was determined to be spurious before the air defense pilots could get airborne.

A scramble order was and is a precautionary step, one in a sequence that can be stopped.  In the case of the Mission Crew Commanders at SEADS their task was to issue the scramble order and then quickly seek authority to actually launch.  The sequence of events on the morning of 9-11 was much the same.  The Mission Crew Commander and Colonel Marr scrambled Otis and immediately sought approval to launch.  General Arnold granted approval.

9-11: Delta 1989; an intervening variable, not a hijack

Aug 31, 2009 Addendum. Here is a BTS link to the official record of Delta flights that departed Boston Logan on September 11, 2001.  There is no listing for a Delta flight 89 and no indication that any Delta flight was scheduled Boston to Las Vegas.

Delta 1989 became a plane of interest briefly on 9-11 concurrent with the information that United 93 was hijacked and was presumed to have a bomb on board.  Delta 1989 became confused and conflated with United 93 in real time. and again in NORAD’s attempt after the fact to piece together the facts of the day.  It is worth noting that Delta 1989 was the only plane that NORAD at all echelons knew much about that morning and the only one that they were able to track.   The problem was they were out of air defense fighters.  Their effort to find anyone who could respond is clearly told on the NEADS tapes.  The effort was intense.

There is just one plane

Notations in Commission files, in contemporary documents of the day, and in testimony before the Commission that refer to flight “89” are simply shorthand notations for Delta 1989.  Lynn Spencer in Touching History acknowledges this; her notation style is ‘[19]89.’  To speculate otherwise ignores a simple truth; there is one and only one plane  in the radar files, both FAA and RADES, and in the air traffic control communications.  The primary source documents are definitive and conclusive.

The 9-11 Commission Staff sorted this out in the primary source information–tapes, transcripts, logs and radar.  Concerning the latter, we tailored a radar video, isolating just the two tracks, Delta 1989 and United 93, so that we could demonstrate to NORAD officials at every echelon that their story that the observed United 93 ‘meandering’ in the skies was, in fact, their watching the flight path of Delta 1989.  No one at any NORAD echelon disagreed with our findings.

How did this all come about?

The story starts at Boston Center.  Given the uncertainly that morning and the stark reality broadcast by Mohammend Atta, “we have some planes,” Boston Center saw a pattern of transcontinental flights originating at Boston.  In reviewing what it knew it determined that Delta 1989 was one such flight.  By that time Colin Scoggins had established a constant information flow to the Identification Technicians at NEADS. and by 9:27 NEADS knew that there were three unaccounted for aircraft.  The MCC/T log shows an entry at that time: “Boston FAA says another a/c is missing.”  A subsequent entry at 9:41 shows: “Delta 89 possible hijack Bos/Vegas.”

The NEADS Identification Technicians, whose story is well told by Michael Bronner, made and received multiple calls to five different FAA Centers that morning.  Among them were one to Indianapolis Center and one to Cleveland Center informing them of the hijack status of Delta 1989.  Cleveland Center, in direct communication with the Delta 1989 pilot, confirmed that he was not a hijack and that information was fed back to NEADS.   NEADS, meanwhile, established a track, B-89, on the aircraft which it forward told to NORAD, the only such track forwarded that morning.

Delta 1989, the only plane the NMCC will hear about from NORAD

To “forward tell” is to link a known track to a specific radar in such a manner that the track can be seen by NORAD echelons above NEADS.  NEADS established only two tracks of interest that morning, B-32 for the unknown that was AA 77 and B-89 for the known that was Delta 1989.  Track B-32 faded before it could be forward told.

The Air Threat Conference Call is conclusive concerning what was forward told.  When asked for an update NORAD informed the Conference at 9:44 that the only other hijacked plane it knew about was Delta 1989.  There was no mention of United 93 or any other aircraft.

The Tracking Story

A technician was assigned to track Delta 1989 and her conversation with another technician was recorded; a transcript is available.  The supposition that she was concerned about an airplane squawking mode 3 7112 has no foundation in fact.  Code 7112 is not an emergency code and was used by at least one airplane that morning, according to the 84th RADES radar files.  Here is what happened as revealed by the radar, the transcript, and the tape, examined concurrently.

Spatial Relationship of D1989, UA93 and Code 7112

delta-1989-slide2

Delta 1989 and Code 7112 both took off at 8:30.  Code 7112 departed from eastern Pennsylvania near the New Jersey border and flew northeasterly, as depicted on the linked slide.  The plane had no correlation to events of the day other than it became, briefly, a plane of interest to NEADS tracking technicians.  This slide also depicts the “meandering” path of Delta 1989 as it is vectored away from United 93 by air traffic control.

The technician who tracked Delta 1989 was first assigned to work a target in the Boston area.    At 9:42 her supervisor assigned her a target off of radar site 53, azimuth 288 and range 92 miles.  She picked it up at azimuth 287 and range 97 miles.  The tape  is clear, the transcript standing alone is not. Here is the audio information in graphic form. 

M3 7112

The radar shows two VFR aircraft and a transponding aircraft, Mode 3 7112, in close proximity at the bearing and range assigned to the technician.  She clearly describes this confluence of potential targets in her comments.  Thereafter, there is a gap in the recorded conversations that is not apparent in the transcript.  During that gap the comment Bravo 089 is heard in the background at 9:43:25. It is clear from the tape and the radar that the technician worked a target in the Northeast—-not 7112 by the way—-before she was assigned to track Delta 1989.

Delta 1989, not a hijack

By 9:58 the Identification Technicians understood that Delta 1989 was not a hijack, although the Surveillance Technicians continued the track.  By 10:09, after NEADS found out about United 93, efforts to scramble fighters from the Midwest in response to Delta 1989 were changed to focus on United 93.  An FAA chronology confirms the 9:58 time.  According to the log of the Air Traffic situation room at FAA Headquarters (separate from the WOC): “9:58, DAL1989 not a hijack.”

Nevertheless, Cleveland Center was uncertain and that uncertainty led Cleveland Tower, Cleveland Airport, and the FBI to treat Delta 1989 with suspicion after it landed as documented in a timeline compiled by Cleveland Air Traffic Control Tower.  It is clear from this document that Cleveland, Tower and Center, attributed  the suspicious information concerning Delta 1989 to NEADS.

The story according to Cleveland

“The OM [Cleveland Center] told the ATM [Cleveland Tower] that they had confirmation that the DAL flight could be a hijack and might have a bomb on board.  The OM stated that the pilot and company [Delta] both said it was a precautionary landing and there was no hijack.  The OM then said that the “Hunters” said it was a hijack. The ATM asked who the hunters were.  There was a lot of confusion at the center and the impression the ATM got was the ‘Hunters’ were in receipt of some intelligence that indicated the aircraft was a hijack.”

After all is said and done

NEADS is “HUNTRESS.”  They had no intelligence.  They knew what they knew from the FAA Centers, in this case Boston and Cleveland.  Such is the cloth from which myths are made in real time; proactive thinking, conflated information, and, ultimately, circular reporting. Such is the cloth from which myths are perpetuated; incomplete analysis based on partial information misinterpreted.

9-11: NEADS tapes and trancripts; a tutorial

While working on a Delta 1989 article it became apparent that a tutorial is in order concerning the NEADS primary source information of the day.  Fragmented attempts to describe events using something other than what the intelligence community calls “all source analysis” are prone to error, if not outright failure.  The same can be said for FAA tapes and transcripts, by the way.

The complete set of information needed to attempt any analysis of events in real time includes the radar files and the software to run them, time-stamped tapes, and any transcripts that were made.  It is possible to overcome the lack of a transcript by making your own.  In this article we will focus on NEADS tapes and transcripts and the 84th RADES radar files.  A helpful start is to recount events from a Commission perspective.

The Commission Experience

Early DoD document requests surfaced the RADES files and software and a partial NEADS transcript, the only transcript prepared by NEADS after the events of 9-11.  We understood that on the first trip to NEADS the organization would make tapes available.  When we arrived NEADS was in the process of making digital files and they were fed to us piecemeal as we began the interview process.  It quickly become clear that the partial transcript and provision of piecemeal tapes was not sufficient; we terminated the visit and caused DoD to be subpoenaed for all relevant files.

DoD provided the audio files but none of them had been transcribed.  The Commission Staff determined that the best way to proceed was to farm the audio files out to professional transcribing organizations.  One organization, Alderson Reporting, found the audio to be so confusing as to who was speaking that they opted to identify speaking voices and try and provide continuity of conversation on that basis.  In practical terms than means that no Alderson transcript is time continuous, although Alderson did insert time benchmarks to assist the reader.  The transcripts are helpful, but it takes “all soure analysis” techniques to get at the underlying events.

The technique the Staff used was to listen to the recordings using Adobe Audition so that individual conversations and transmissions could be accurately time stamped.  Alderson was careful to provide a NEADS-recorded time stamp in each of its transcriptions.  Concurrently, the Staff used the RADES RS3 software to display the radar files relevant to each transcript and tape.  In sum, it took then, and it takes now, all three techniques–transcript, tape, and radar–to understand the events of the day as they occurred.

A Specific Example

Currently, for the Delta 1989 article, I am reading the Alderson transcript for NEADS position DRM 1, Channel 19 SD2 OP, the channel for Major Anderson, as depicted on a schematic of who was at what position.  This is where Adobe Audition comes in handy.  It is clear that the recording on the tape is not continuous, although the tape itself is.  Nor is the transcript continuous.  And the obvious question is why does that come about?

There are two reasons.  First, because of the  voice identification methodology,  Alderson grouped together conversational fragments as if they cohered in real time, time gaps were simply omitted.  The duration of the gaps, some in minutes not seconds, can be determined using a program such as Adobe Audtion.

Second, Major Anderson was free to move about and plug into any given console, as needed.  When he unplugged from his primarly console there was no recording on the corresponding channel.  For example, just before 9:31 (1:00:02 tape run time)  a voice asked, “Major Anderson, you got a second?”  And sure enough, Major Anderson unplugged and the recording stopped.

Moreover, certain members of the crew, Major Fox, for example, were free to plug in anywhere they needed.  So, there is no specific channel for Major Fox, but his voice is heard throughout most tapes in at least background.  Further, the MCC, Major Nasypany, was free to “camp” on any channel he wanted to, so his voice is also heard on many tapes.  Even more confusing is that the three DRM “bled over” to each other during the copying process.

The net result on most NEADS tapes is a confusing blend of voices, background and foreground across the four main centers of activity–Surveillance, Identification, Weapons/Senior Director, and MCC.  So, researchers must take the time to become familiar with the SOCC layout, the participant voices, the radar picture, and the tactical situation at any given time.  Concerning the latter, it is also important to not impose post-facto awareness and understanding on facto (and pre-facto) conditions.

A few specifics from the SD2 transcript and tape (times rounded)

9:14:  NEADS to Langley asking how many aircraft they can sortie

9:23: An American Airliner (3d aircraft headed toward Washington)

9:24:  Scramble order heard in background

9:28:  American 11 mentioned

9:42: Delta what?

9:55: Over Lake Erie

10:07: MCC we got an air track…over the White House [radar needed here]

10:09:  ID type and tail

10:14:  Washington [Center] was reporting our guys…no aircraft over Washington

To be continued

I will add to and refine this article as I relearn more of what I thought I knew 5 years ago.


9-11: NRO; not a factor, not an issue

Addendum, August 17, 2009. A document concerning the exercise received from NRO by the Commission Staff is now available.  Exercise inputs are included.  The stated purpose of the exercise is “NRO Emergency Response to a Small Aircraft Crash.”  The handwriting on the title sheet is mine.

There are two misconceptions about the NRO. One is that the NRO was actually able to track the hijacked planes on 9-11 by satellite and, by extension, should have been able to share that information immediately with others. Another is that the scheduled NRO exercise was somehow tied to other training and exercises that day. I am the single Commission staffer who worked the NRO exercise issue and I was on the Other Agency Team on the Congressional Joint Inquiry; the NRO was one of the other agencies. I know of no information which supports either misconception.

NRO, a Member of the Intelligence Community

In the words of an NRO contact several years ago; the NRO is nothing more than a long-haul trucking company which happens to build satellites and delivers and maintains them for its customers. According to its current website:

The NRO designs, builds and operates the nation’s reconnaissance satellites. NRO products, provided to an expanding list of customers like the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Department of Defense (DoD), can warn of potential trouble spots around the world, help plan military operations, and monitor the environment.

As part of the 16-member Intelligence Community, the NRO plays a primary role in achieving information superiority for the
U. S. Government and Armed Forces.

A DoD agency, the NRO is staffed by DoD and CIA personnel. It is funded through the National Reconnaissance Program, part of the National Foreign Intelligence Program.

Its DoD customers include the analytical agencies—DIA, NSA, and NGA (formerly NIMA). None of them or the CIA had the mission or the staff to track national air traffic; the responsibility of the FAA. The only relevant reporting from space on 9-11 was the SIR (Significant Infrared Activity Report) of the impact of each of the four aircraft. The Commission requested and received that data from DEFSMAC (Defense Special Missile and Astronautics Center) .   The SIR times for each crash were consistent with other data sources.

The NRO exercise

The NRO is just one of many large civilian and government offices which lives and works under one of the Dulles flight paths. The agency long knew that it had to schedule an emergency drill to address the possibility of a flight accident. It so happened that they scheduled such a drill on 9-11 unrelated in any way to subsequent events of the day. There was no correlation to any other training or exercises that day. It was the proactive planning of a single agency. The Commission asked for and received the scenario and exercise package. I don’t recall anything unusual about the contents; certainly nothing to pursue further. I will ask NARA if those files will be coming available. One way or another, interested people can file a FOIA request with the NRO if they wish to pursue the topic further.

9-11: The Andrews Fighters; an expeditionary force, not an air defense force

The Pentagon was struck at 9:38; Andrews Air Force Base is a short flight distance away yet its fighter assets were never a factor on 9-11. In the Mystery Plane article I discussed the sequence of planes that took off that morning from Andrews before and immediately after the Pentagon was struck; except the fighters which I said was a separate story. Here is that story.

The Andrews fighters were coming out of a previous day stand down because of a recent return from extended training in Nevada. Nevertheless, they had 5 planes and a like number of pilots scheduled for training. Three of those planes, the Bully flight of three, departed for training over eastern North Carolina skies at 8:36. The Andrews flight strip states, in part: “Bully 1…3/F16/R…ADW DCNG…1236.” The flight was led by, then, Major Billy Hutchison. Ultimately, four additional planes and pilots became available, but it was the Bully flight, specifically Hutchison, that would later be the first Andrews responder.

Before continuing further with the Andrews story we need to go back and revisit the Langley fighters for a moment. In the second Langley article I discussed the scramble procedures extant at the time. Those procedures specified that regardless of flight plan the Langley fighters would proceed on runway heading to an altitude of 4000 feet. That segment of the flight is clearly visible on the ground trace of the Langley fighters as determined from 84th RADES radar data.

And it is at that point, just short of the Delmarva Peninsula, that the Norfolk Tower controller and the Quit 25 pilot decided that the flight plan, 090 for 60 prevails over the scramble order and the Quit flight turned slightly right to its flight plan heading. But what does this mean in terms of the NORAD response to events of the day?

Had Quit 25 turned north at that point his flying time to the NCA was still on the order of 12 minutes or so at maximum subsonic, a rate of progress determined over time to be the most effective air defense solution to account for safety, to provide time on target, and to allow an approaching fighter a reasonable chance to spot his target. The Quit flight was not going to have a chance to intercept AA 77 even if the scramble had proceeded as NEADS intended. That meant that NORAD had no chance to effectively engage three of the four hijacked aircraft, AA11, UA 175 and AA 77. That leaves just UA 93 as the only hijacked airplane that either Langley or Andrews would be able to engage. It also mitigates the two askew segments of the Quit flight path to the NCA; they still arrived in time to guard against an approaching UA93; something the Andrews fighters did not do.

The misinformation that AA 11 was still airborne and headed south was the catalyst that got the Langley fighters airborne as soon as they were. It is only because of a proactive error by the Boston air traffic controller, Colin Scoggins, that the nation’s air defenders had any real chance to defend against UA 93; but the expeditionary force fighters at Andrews did not receive that same warning; their warning would come later as we are about to see.

Even though controllers at the scope level at Dulles TRACON had seen a “no tag” soon after 9:25 that observation did not become actionable until Danielle O’Brien saw the fast mover, checked her observation with her fiancé’ sitting at an adjacent screen, and sounded the alarm at 9:33 to National TRACON. Soon thereafter her supervisor notified the Secret Service and quickly the Service and National TRACON established an open line. The Service also picked up the phone and called the late General Wherley at Andrews.

General Wherley’s notes at the time, as reflected in Commission Records (Team 8 Box 8. History Commons is aware of newly released documents), show a time of 0930L (9:30 EDT). The time was actually closer to 9:35. By that time the Secret Service was also following the fast moving unknown, now tagged with an “S,” by National TRACON, visible to the Service. There is a misconception that because the Secret Service had a working relationship with National TRACON that the Service could see any FAA radar feeds from anywhere in the country. That is not true, the only thing the Service could see was what National TRACON was seeing, nothing more.

So, the Andrews alert came at 9:35. It would take them the better part of two hours to get armed fighters in the air with the authority to act. The Langley fighters, scrambled at 9:24 established a CAP over the nation’s capital 36 minutes later, albeit without authority, despite two askew flight segments. How can there be such a difference?

The difference is in the roles and missions of the day, a specific determination by the Department of Defense in order to most effectively use its resources. Just as the three services and the Marines have specific roles and missions, so do their major components and subcomponents. We can leave a more detailed discussion of that for another day, suffice it to say here that the air defense mission and the role of the Langley (and Otis) fighters is distinctly different from the expeditionary force mission and the role of its fighters, such as the Andrews contingent. Only the CONUS air defenders had the tactics, techniques and procedures in place to respond rapidly, and there were just 14 fighters with that mission at seven locations; just two of those locations and four of the fighters were immediately available to NEADS.

Andrews went to work immediately to upload its aircraft and respond, but that took time, time that they did not have. They also recalled the Bully flight, first Bully 2 and then Bully 1 and 3. Even though the Langley fighters had effectively CAPPed the nation’s capital by 10:00 that was not understood or even known within the NCA, including the White House. So when things turned serious with the approach of a now notional UA93, as seen on traffic situation displays at multiple locations, the pressure on Andrews intensified; they had to do something. None of this had anything to do with AA 77 despite accounts to the contrary.

The Andrews flight strips show that Bully 2, who came back alone and well ahead of Bully 1 and 3, landed at 10:14 out of fuel. Bully 1, a flight of two F-16s landed at 10:35, low on gas; however, Bully 1 had sufficient fuel to take off again in response to an unknown coming down the river. By then, the notional UA 93 had “landed” at National at 10:28. There was nothing to intercept. Here is a ground trace of the flight of Bully 1 based on data from 84th RADES.

Major Hutchison was airborne by 10:39 and flew three specific routes. First, he circled to the east back directly over Andrews climbing to an altitude of 3600 feet, shown in red. He then flew directly to the Pentagon, shown in green, and overflew the building at 600 feet shortly after 10:42, exactly as described by Creed and Newman in Firefight to Save the Pentagon. He then turned south, shown in yellow, and climbed back to 3600 feet before landing back at Andrews a short seven minutes after taking off. He was not given “weapons free” authority by General Wherley. The Andrews flight strips show him cleared for takeoff at 10:36 and back on the ground at 10:47, an eleven minute period. Flight strips are not definitive; the radar shows that, at best, Hutchison was in the air for just over seven minutes.

His presence was no longer needed. A pair of Andrews fighters, guns only, and with only verbal (text modified on July 19 based on Commission work files). “weapons free” authority had taken to the air. A handwritten flight strip shows “CAP 1, 2 F-16, airborne at 10:51. (Here I give the benefit of the doubt, the handwriting is not clear and it could be 10:57.)  Finally, at 11:12, Andrews was able to launch the Wild flight of two F-16, fully armed, and General Wherley did give them “weapons free” authority.  The Wild pilots were the other two scheduled for training that day.

Given that all hijacked aircraft had been accounted for, the only issue left by the time the Wild flight got airborne was command and control of the skies over the nation’s capital. That became a bit contentious between the Langley and Andrews fighters. Lynn Spencer in Touching History has a good account of the ‘battle’ for command and control. Spencer, by the way, is the only person who has told an unsung story in the skies that day, the efforts of civilian pilots to help air traffic control. It is a story well told.

Air defense forces and expeditionary forces compared. It took the expeditionary forces, Andrews, 97 minutes (9:35 to 11:12) to retool and reconfigure and get fully armed planes with shootdown authority into the air over the National Capital Region.  It took the air defenders, NEADS/Langley, 51 minutes (9:09 to 10:00; recall that the Langley fighters were placed on battle stations at 9:09) to get fully armed planes over the National Capital Region, but with the authority to only identify by ‘type’ and by ‘tail.’   In sum, given the attack and response as it unfolded that day, neither force could have done anything to prevent the WTC and Pentagon tragedies.  Only the air defense force was in position to do anything about United 93 had its passengers not taken matters into their own hands.

9-11: NORAD’s Sudoku Puzzle; a briefing askew, an addendum

This article provides information as it was briefed to the Commission on May 23, 2003. It complements the article “NORAD’s Sudoku Puzzle; a failure to tell the truth,” which should be read first. In that article you were introduced to Colonel Scott, USAF, retired. It is Colonel Scott who presented the briefing to the Commission. The video of that briefing is available on the Commission’s web site; it does not, however, clearly show the briefing charts used. The charts have recently been made available by NARA and the purpose of this addendum is to share them.

Colonel Scott made it very clear that times on his charts were derived solely from logs, primarily the NEADS MCC/T log; no other source. It is understandable, then, why he would brief a Pentagon impact time of 8:43, for example, as opposed to the actual time. On the other hand, it does not make clear why he would show UA93 impacting near Pittsburgh, as show on his introductory chart.

More important, however, is his treatment of the flight path of the Otis fighters and to some extent, the flight path of the Langley fighters as they neared the capital. Scott gave  the impression that the Otis fighters hugged the coast and proceeded directly to New York City, consistent with the account given by the pilots during interviews in 2002. When asked during an interview at CONR why he blurred the scramble path Scott claimed limitations of the Powerpoint program, a disingenuous answer, at best.

The rest of Scott’s charts were timelines, included here for the record. Better renditions will become available when paper copies in Team 8, Box 8 at NARA are uploaded.

NORAD Hearing First Time Chart

second-time-chart1third-time-chart1fourth-time-chart1

See the May 23, 2003 hearing article for a discussion of the discrepancies. In sum, NORAD read the MCC/T log wrong, twice; first when they prepared their Sep 18, 2001 press release and again when they prepared for the first air defense hearing. In my interviews with both Michael Bronner and Phil Shenon I attributed this to shoddy staff work, primarily at NEADS, which was not adequately vetted at either CONR (Generals Arnold and McKinley) or NORAD (General Eberhart).

The NORAD staff had clear and explicit information available; the radar files, the tapes, and the logs of the day.  On September 25, 2001, in a memo to the US Space Command Directorate of Analysis the 84th RADES included an analysis of radar data for 11 Sep 2001 which included radar text files and Powerpoint slides showing flight paths. On June 3, 2002, a NORAD analyst, Cheri Gott made a presentation to the annual Satellite Toolkit (STK) Conference which was based on 84th RADES data. Moreover, she followed that with a May 13, 2003, briefing to CONR just 10 days prior to the first Commission hearing on air defense. A purpose of Gott’s staff work was to produce a product for the CINC (Gen Eberhart) to use from a Headquarters perspective. Relevant Gott source material is in Team 8, Box 8 at NARA.

NORAD’s failure to provide an accurate accounting of the day is inexcusable for any staff and particularly for a staff that had been at the air defense business for decades.  NORAD failed to accurately read its own logs, tapes and radar files.  Together with FAA it failed to reach agreement on the basic facts of the day in the immediate aftermath when events were fresh.  The NORAD staff failed to adequately prepare its CINC for questions it knew were coming during General Eberhart’s annual testimony to Congress.  Ultimately, NORAD failed to tell the story of the valiant battle by Alpha and Delta flights at NEADS; a story that General Arnold conceded was better than the one they did tell.  Thanks to Michael Bronner that story has been told.

9-11: The Mystery Plane; not so mysterious

Last year, the researcher and writer, Mark Gaffney, wrote The 9-11 Mystery Plane. He speculated that a “white plane” seen in DC skies was somehow nefarious in ways that simply don’t track with primary source information of the day or with the body of information accumulated by the 9-11 Commission. In part, the author relied on eye witness accounts and post facto media reporting to try and make his case. He did use the radar files of the day and did refer to the NEADS tapes, but he did not put things together correctly. Following is what the primary source information tells us about the flights from Andrews Air Force Base on 9-11. A related Commission work file is at this link.

The Flights

Four aircraft of interest took off from Andrews that morning, excluding the fighters; a separate story. Flight strips generated by Andrews Tower provide this detail:

Word 31: B742 [E4B], a NAOC (National Airborne Operations Center) flight, according to the flight strip, that staged at 1136 hrs (subtract 4 hours from all times for EDT). Word 31 was airborne at 1327.

Venus 22: A Gulfstream 3, airborne at 1316 on a scheduled flight to West Virginia; it landed back at Andrews at 1354

Gofer 06: A Minnesota Air National Guard C130H, airborne at 1333, ultimately an observer to the aftermath of the impacts of AA 77 and UA 93.

Venus 77: B747, airborne under VFR rules at 1345; it became the “white plane.”

In sum, four aircraft departed Andrews Air Force Base between 9:16 (Venus 22) and 9:43 (Venus 77), three on scheduled flights and one, Venus 77, in reaction to events of the day.

Venus 22

There is little remarkable about VENUS 22. It declared for Lewisburg, West Virginia but returned to Andrews after a short 30 minute plus flight. At the moment Dulles TRACON sounded the alarm about the fast moving unknown (AA77), Venus 22 was approaching Waldorf, Maryland, headed for a holding pattern near the Chesapeake Bay, south of Annapolis, to burn fuel. Venus 22 was in that pattern when AA77 impacted the Pentagon. The plane landed at 9:54 and remarked to air traffic control on approach that it looked like something happened at National Airport. Here is a Google Earth trace of the flight path, created from 84th RADES text files.

Word 31

Word 31 took off routinely and proceeded on a route to the Midwest. It was routed around the National Capital Region to the south and, outbound, passed well south of AA77 like a ship in the night.  It is a bizarre fact of 9-11 that a National level airborne command post flew westerly over Virginia at the same time the hijacked AA77 flew generally the I66/Rte29 corridor on its eastern approach to its target. Neither was aware of the others existence.  The 11th slide in this Commission file, a screen print from 84th RADES data, shows the relationship of Word 31 (labeled Sword 31), AA77, Gofer 06 and, according to Andrews flight strips  two military T2 aircraft, Bobcat 14 and Bobcat 17, transiting the area north-to-south, at altitude.  At the time AA77 was approaching DC, Word 31 was being routed around DC to the south, a normal routing according to controllers at Dulles TRACON.  Air Traffic Control tapes confirm that Word 31 was routed around the National Capital Region before anyone knew that AA77 was approaching.  Reagan National tape (big file, 23 MB) is at this link.

1 DCA 105 TYSON 1324-1350 UTC.mp3

Gofer 06

Gofer 06 was in the takeoff queue behind Word 31 and it was delayed briefly because of B747 wake turbulence. Quick action by FAA controllers at National Tower/TRACON resulted in Gofer 06 being the only military aircraft that day to see one of the hijacked aircraft and the only one vectored to follow any of the four aircraft. En route home, it again came to air traffic control attention. Cleveland Center directed Gofer 06 to turn right to avoid oncoming traffic, UA 93. Gofer 06 reported smoke soon after the turn that turned out to be from the Shanksville site, the first such report to FAA.

Venus 77

Venus 77 took off at 9:45 in a hurry, VFR. The pilot declared for Offutt AFB and on its climb-out western leg Venus 77 passed just north of P56, the restricted flying area over the National Capital Region. It then declared for an orbit south of Washington and turned back east in order to proceed south for orbit. It is during that west leg and return east that Venus 77 was noticed by multiple observers on the ground; it became the ‘white plane’ captured on CNN raw footage taken near the White House. Venus 77 then declared for an orbit in the Richmond area where it set up a north-south racetrack holding pattern. It altered the orientation of the racetrack once to point toward Barksdale AFB. It exited the pattern by returning north and then turned west and proceeded out of the area. The flight of this ‘mystery’ plane is consistent with support for the possible return of Air Force One to Andrews and for its actual flight to Barksdale. This video clearly shows the relationship between Venus 77 and Air Force One.  It also shows that Air Force One had no fighter escort until shortly before it arrived at Barksdale when the Texas Air National Guard arrived on the scene.

There is no correlation between Venus 77 and the Langley fighters. There is no primary source information to support the contention that the Langley fighters were vectored to intercept Venus 77.