DH B2 Langley MFRs Fdr- 12-1-03 MFR- Brad Derrig

8/14/2019 DH B2 Langley MFRs Fdr- 12-1-03 MFR- Brad Derrig

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UNCLASSIF IEDCOMMISSION SENSITIVEMEMORANDUM FOR THE RECORD

Event: Langley A ir Force Base Site VisitType of event: Recorded InterviewDate: Monday, December 01, 2003Special Access Issues: None, some of the discussion was classified and the tape classifiedaccordingly. Those discussions were technical and are available on tape.Prepared by: Miles KaraTeam Number: 8Location: 11 9 th Fighter W ing, Detachment One, HeadquartersParticipant - Major Brad Derrig, Wingman fortheQuit scramble on 9-11Participants - Commission: Miles Kara, Kevin ShaefferObserver - Colonel PamJefferson, US AF , Base L egal OfficeNote: Please refer to the recorded interview for additional details.Background:

Major Derrig has been in the A ir National G uarad 19 years and has been flyingwith his unit since October 93, almost ten years.Scramble Experience:

First three years (94-96), alert once a month for a week, scramble maybe onceevery two months. A t Langley beginning four years ago, sa t alert maybe once a quarter.Pre 9/11 no real world scrambles, any he participated in were usually against non-squawking Navy aircraft, generally over water. [Note: Staff briefly reviewed the officiallog book at the Northeast A ir D efense Sector in mid-January, 2004. Specifically themonths Apr-Jun 2001 were reviewed. Five scrambles were recorded over a 90-dayperiod, Three of the five were against targets that were later determined to be Navyaircraft.] No scrambles over land. No hijacks having to do with a hijack. Procedureswhen scram bled were to basically vector to the aircraft and then watch where the targetwent.

Training-wise, probably zero concerning hijacks. Ne ver involved with interceptsdealing w ith live exercises with FAA .9/11

No thing he did in the cockpit that day was recorded, nor did he write a subsequentreport or make/retain any notes. No internal 119th hot wash was conducted. [Note:Derrig was formally interviewed as part of the history program by the 119 th PublicAffairs NC O. Staff has a copy of that interview.]It was a normal day with a local flight scheduled at 0900; he was on the secondday of a Mon-Thurs shift. Cpt Eckmann was scheduled for lead duty that day, even

COMMISSION SENSITIVEUNCLASSIF IED


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U N C L A S S I F I E DC O M M I S S IO N S E N S I T IV Ethough Derrig outranked him, an d Eckmann and Borgstrom were scheduled to conductth e local flight working with L angley fighters from th e First Fighter Wing.

He first learned of events from the crew who reported that one of the towers hadbeen hit. He was the last into the cockpit because he stopped to put in his contacts. Inthat process he learned that th e second tower was hit. He was the only pilot that knewthat information and he does not recall sharing it with his flight mates. He ha d no senseof where they might be headed whe n scrambled. He assumed that when scrambled theywould be headed to New York.

In the cockpit and during the approach to the CA P over D C he had no situationalawareness of developing events on the ground, the Pentagon, an unknown aircraftapproaching from the Northwest, a civilian airliner approaching DC from the North, orU A9 3 turning aroun d over C leveland and returning to the East.H e isn't sure that he knew what the scramble heading was. The delay from battlestations to scramble and the ultima te scramble heading are up to the Sector on what theydetermine the threat to be. He recalled the delay to be 20 minutes. To say it was unusual,no. It is not unusual to sit battle stations for an extended period. D uring th e civil aircraft

suicide in Tampa, fo r example, they sa t battle stations fo r almost an hour.In reference to his previous interview in 2001, he was asked to comment aboutsaying our radios suck and it was usual East Coast procedures, talking to 5 differententities, and that accounted for the delay in scrambling. He didn't answer directly butspeculated that they [Sector] was trying to determine the target, the threat.He was confused on the t imeline concerning the call to battle stations [0909] andth e sequence of impacts in N ew Y ork.In his experience the typical time to get airborne from a scramble was in the 5-15minute range, dep ending on circumstances. His personal standard w as they should beairborne id I S t a n d a r d on the books was specified in the ATO. f

Radio Communicat ionsC pt Ec kma nn Was on frequency w ith A ir Traffic Control: Derrig an d Borgstromwere on frequency wijh Ground Control Intercept at HUNTRfiSS, with Derrig prime.

His recall was that the; jpilots had to be pretty low not to he,ar HUNTRESS. He did not .recall that they were controlled b y G I A N T K I L L E R on 9/1 1. He then volunteers that"GIANT KILLER w .not very good." He never had very good luck with GIANTK I L L E R , whether it as a radio problem or an infrastructure problem, he didn' t know. . iSometimes when they!reached GIAN T KILL ER they didn' t know who the air defensef i g h t e r s were. 1 1Command and Control

O n scramble the fighters should "be getting amplification from HUN TRES S, thatis how it should work. He was shown the radar reduction of the track of the QUIT flightan d the scramble ord|r that was broadcast. O nly thin g he could think of wa s that in orderto have an IF R flightjjplan in the system they had to have a clearance l imi t . HUNTRESSmakes the hot line caf 1 . Norfblk/Langley puts them on the "legal" route to get them clear

I /C O M M I S S I O N S E N S I T IV E|/ U N C L A S S I F I E D9/11 Classified Information


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UNCLASSIFIEDC OM M I S S I ON SENSITIVE"guarding the house" direction that Eckmann got from Secret Service. He thought at onetime NEADS came up and said "we own the airspace."

Attorney General. NEADS directed the vector to escort the Attorney General'saircraft, De rrig was the pilot who executed the order. He was given a VH P frequency totalk to the AG's plane.He w as never given any order or authority to engage a comm ercial aircraft.Confusion arose because Borgstrom had no missiles when he took off and that wasnoticed when he landed. Derrig recalled that Borgstrom talked to General Arnold andthat all three pilots signed a letter to First Air Force certifying that they had not shotdown an aircraft. Borgy said, "I just go t of f the phone with him [Arnold] and that we allhave to write a letter."Authentication to shoot down. De rrig said that had any of the three received thatorder they would have asked for re-authentication several times. The authenticationprocess would not take long.Time-distance to DC. Given: take off to the East, two minutes for runway

heading, max subsonic, eighteen miles over water, climbing at 350 nm. How long wouldit take. He figured, total, no more than fifteen minutes from the start. [He used 9 nm perminute as a rule of thumb, Staff has been told by others to use 10 nm per minute.] He hasdone the mental math, there was not enough time, given a 0930 takeoff, to get to D C, letalone get an order. He w as walked through the effects of an earlier scramble, close to0910 vice 0925. During that conversation Staff learned that it takes time, also, to actuallyfind the target at low altitude an d mak e positive identification. Not only does he have tofind the target, but so does the GCI. The air defense fighters have to be vectored to atarget positively designated as hostile. The "hostile" has to come from somebody higherthan NEADS .Payne Stewart. A lot of the response was simply timing. They ha d aircraft

airborne, the plane was squawking and was f lying straight and level.

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DH B2 Langley MFRs Fdr- 12-1-03 MFR- Brad Derrig