DH B7 Public Hearing- Improvising Defense Fdr- Excerpts From Air War Over America- With Corrections

8/14/2019 DH B7 Public Hearing- Improvising Defense Fdr- Excerpts From Air War Over America- With Corrections

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Following please find excerpts regarding United Airlines Flight 93 from Air WarOver America; Sept. 11 alters face of air defense mission, by Leslie Filson, publishedwith Headquarters 1st Air Force, Public Affairs Office, Tyndall Air Force Base, FL,2003.


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sion. Many of the phon e calls coining in were ru-mors and there w as little way to confirm or denythem. The pilots above Manhattan, meanwhile,were won dering what wo uld come next as theywatched the devastation below.

"As soon as I saw the towers burning, I calledup Huntress (MEADS) and said 'Huntress, 4,5,say mission,' "Duffy says." 'What do youwantme to do next? W hat do you need from me rightthis second?'... Hedidn't know what to do."

Huntress would soon have more information: "Itonly took a couple minutes of us in the area beforethey came back on and said 'NORADjust tookcontrol of all the airspace in the country,'" Duffysays. " 'Proceed direct to Manhattan and set upCombat AirPatrol.' I said, 'OK, gotthat.' "The pilots requested and were immediately givenclearance f rom the FAA to fly at any altitude nec-essary. "Theyjust gave us the airspace," Duffy says.

FAA: "W e shut all traffic o ff at BostonCenter, no one departing, and we're rerout-ing all JFK arrivals and Newark Metroairport 's (N.J.)."NEADS: "Copy sir."FAA: "I do have a question for you: In case

we have any mo re aircraft that start deviating,we need to know, do you have anyone o n alertor is that som ething that you ca n do just in casethis happens to any m o r e aircraft?"

NEADS: "... I've got fighters in Whiskey 105r ight no w , and I've got a tanker there as well,I've got other aircraft on alert at Langley aswell, I'm getting ready to , I've go t tracker s overJFK, over Bo ston and that area, just look ingfor anything suspicious."

FAA: "Anything suspicious, OK, and we'IIlet you know about the internationals. W e 'r enot sure what we 'r e doin g about them yet. " 9

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ith little time to grasp w hat had hap-pened in New York, the FAA contin-ued toreport more shocking informa- o t vtion to theNortheast sector: American Airlines ..

Flight77andDelta Airlines Flight 1989, both 767s U*^bound fo r Los Angeles, were po ssibly hi j acked.Somewhere over Cleveland, United Airlines Flight93 bound for San Francisco was still off course.

"The FAA is starting to report more aircraft no tfollowing their flight plans," M arr says. "Now weare looking at a host of potential problems. Thenwe get another call from Boston Center that wehave aproblem near Washington and you'd bet- ?ter check on it.' "

The North Dakota alert pilots were still in theircockpits at Langley Air Force Base. At the squad-ron operations desk, youn g F-16pilot Capt. CraigBorgstrom took a terse phone call from NEADS. ^"The gu y from the sector asked me, 'How manycan you get airborne rightnow?' "Borgstrom re-calls. "I told him I had two on battle stations. Hethen said, 'That's not what I asked. How manytotal airplanes can you send up?'"I said, Til give you three.'

"And he said, "Then go!'"QQQJust as B orgstrom grabbed his gear to join theothers, the Klaxon alarm sounded andthe red lights turned green in the alert barn.

The active air scramble order had been given. Itwas 9:24 a.m. and the planes were give n highestpriority over all other air traffic at Langley Air ForceBase.10

"We crank and scramble ... we took o ff, thethree of us, and basically the formation we alwaysbrief on alert, we'll stay in a two- to three-mile trailfrom the guy in front," Borgstrom says. "They(NEADS) were giving us the heading and altitude

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Right: The Northeast Air Defense Sector called upon the Michigan Air National Guard127th Wing on Sept. 11, 2001. Two pilots from the Self ridge unit were flying a trainingmission and would have been asked to intercept United Airlines Flight 93 had it notturned toward Pennsylvania. In this photo taken a few months later, 2nd Lt. ChristopherMelka gives the "ready to roll" sign.Below: An F-15 "Eagle" fro m the 125th F ighter Wing, F lorida Air National Guard, refuelsfrom a KG-135 "Stratotanker" on a Combat Air Patrol mission over central F lorida onDec. 5, 2001. The Jacksonville-based wing is one of 10 assigned to 1st Air Force and theContinental United States NORAD Region.

U.S. AirForcephoto by Tech. SgtShaunWithers

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of north-northeastup to 20,000 feet. Then shortlyafter takeoff they changed our heading morenorth-westerly and gave us max-subsonic."That's as fast as you can go without breakingthe sound barrier. I'venever heard itbefore in myshort career, but Idon't think anyone's heard thatorder before."

The F-16s were being vectored to ward Wash-ington, D.C., instead of New York. As they werescrambling, Deskins waswatching a suspicioustrac on ea(iarscope. "Ihad thescope focusedin on the D.C. area and got blips of this aircraftthat appeared to be going in a turn aroundD.C.,"she says. "It was going fast fo r where it was lo-cated and Iremember looking at the guy next tome and saying, 'What is that?'


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We stillhave no 'intel'briefof what's going on... andanother building is on fire....We knew something ter-ribly wrong was going on.Something severe had hap-pened."

American AirlinesFlight77,with 64peopleaboard,had crashed into the Pen-tagon at 9:38 a.m.,but the pilots didn't know that.Borgstrom thought maybe a gas line hadburstor acarbomb had exploded. But their mission, he says,was clear: keep allairplanes awayfrom Washing-ton, D.C.

Thethree pilots, all on different frequenciesbutsharing a common intra-flight channel, were hear-ing a lot ofchatterbutnothing about airliners crash-ing into buildings,Borgstromsays.'There wassomeconfusion for us, thiswas very abnormal," he con-tinues. "We were all three ondifferent frequencies... and were getting orders from a lot of differentpeople."

Only a fewminutes after reachingtheWashing-ton area, flight lead Eckmann was vectored towardtwo low-flyingaircraft. It was around 9:45 a.m. *l"Aswe're coming in, I set up a Combat Air Patrolwith air traffic controllers and they come back tome and say there are a couple unknowns headingnorth on the Potomac River toward the WhiteHouse," Eckmann says. "We were up in the high20s and I basically roll inverted and go straightdown. It tookno time to get there and I get a radarcontact ononeof them andendup identifying them.One is a military helicopter and the other is a lawenforcement helicopter andthey're obviously head-ing towardthe Pentagon to aid."

Eckmann flew low over the Capitol and Mallarea. "I wanted to clear the area and make surenothing else wascoming in," he says. "I wasalsolookingon theground for something suspicious andthought if I saw abigfuel tanker truck heading to-ward the White House I could possibly take him

Arkansas Air National Guard photo by Tech. Sgt Randy L. Byrd

ou t withmy gun.You haveso many thoughts racingthrough your mind. ...WhileI'm doing this, Craig(Borgstrom)calls me andsays Huntress wants toknow the extent of thedamage at the Pentagon.

"I fly by theWashingtonMonument and turn back

down and fly over the Pentagon, just to the southof the Pentagon, and tell them the two outer ringshave been damaged," Eckmann says."They askedme if Iknew what it was andI told themI guessedit was abig fuel tanker truck because of the amountof smoke and flames coming up andnobody indi-cated anything about an airplane. And there wasno airplane wreckage off to the side."

Eckmann says the scene below was shockinglysurreal. "It was almost a feeling of disbelief," hesays. "Kind of likewatchingabad movie.Youcan'tbelieve what you're seeing, but you're still watch-ingit"

Eckmann would later hear that the presence ofa fully loaded F-16 darting overhead was a greatcomfort to people below. "A lot of people said itmade them feel safe," he says. "They looked upand saw an armed F-16 and I guess they startedcheering. I heard stories that people went back inafter seeing me fly over to help others out. Whatwould have happened had I stayed up high? Theywouldn'thave seen me.Nowtheyknew they weresafe. It was pure luck that I happened to be down

Right: A n F - 1 5 assigned to theMassachusetts A ir National G u a r d 1 0 2 n dFighter Wing flies a Combat Air Patrolmiss ion ove r New York City.A b o v e : A n A M R A A M missile is loaded ona n F - 1 6 assigned to the 188th Fighter Wing,Ar k a n s a s A i r National Guard.

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9.11.01 Photoby Lt. Col. Bll Ramsay,102ndRghterWing, MassachusettsAir NationalGuard67


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there and called on that initial intercept."Shortly, Eckmann would hear an extraordinary

request: "Protect the House." A Secret Serviceagent arrived at one of Washington's Air TrafficControl towers and wanted to talk to the flight lead.

"I took it to mean protect the White House,"Eckmann says.

C l e a r a n c e to killWith all available alert fighters in the air, Marr

and his crew were still faced with United Flight 93.Theplanewasheaded west, socontrollers beganlooking for any other fighter jets that might benearby. "W e don't have fighters that way and wethink he's headed toward Detroit or Chicago."Marr says. "I'mthinking Chicago is the target andknow that Selfridge Air National Guard Base(Mich.) has F-16s in the J U T . . W e contacted them

' sothey could head off 93 at the pass. The idea isto get in there, close in on himandconvince him toturn.... As United Airlines Flight 93 was going out,we received the clearance to kill if need be. In fact,Major General Arnold's words almost verbatimwere: 'W e will take lives in the air to save liveson theground.' "But the Selfridge pilots not part of theNORAD airsovereignty forcewere unarmed.Lt. Col. TomFroling and Maj. Douglas Cham-pagne of the 127th Wing hadjust fired the last oftheir 20mm cannon ammunition in routine training.They were oblivious to the events in New YorkandWashington but heard unusual conversationover their radio frequencies.

"Something strangewas occurring and I couldn'tput my finger on what was happening," Froling says.

A V e r m o n t A ir National G u a r d F-16 f ro mth e 158th Fighter W ing patrols the skiesabove N ew Yo rk City on Sept. 1 2, 2001.

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U.S. Air Force photo by Lt. Col. Terry Moultrup

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" F l y i n g o v e r Cent ra l P a,a n d 500 k n o t s .people , iv* V~>Vlv-J""1L***-,never fie d o ing this o

M a n h a t t a n , w a

i -iSS. ^ S%$> -p. ^ ^Massachusetts Air Natiq"I could hear (the FAA) Cleveland Center talkingto the airlines and I started putting things togetherand knew something was up. Then our commanderwanted to know if we' d expended our training ord-nance. The only thing that went through my mindwas maybe there was a problem with our airplane,maybe we missed something and shouldn't havebeen shooting the gun."

Froling didn't know he wasbeing considered toshoot down anairliner.Without weapons and be-cause United Flight 93 turned away from Chicago,henever faced that decision. The Michigan pilotswould safely return to their base. Champagne re-members a squadron buddy running toward his jetashe was taxiing in. "I'll never forget this, it is oneof thethings I'll remember, I think forever," he says."I was in the cockpit and I remember him mouth-ing the words to me, 'It's bad. It's really, reallybad.*'"

AboveManhattan;.Duffy -and-Nash were given.clearance to kill over their radio frequencies, butto-thjs day aren't sure who gave that order. Was itNEADS or acivilian airtraffic controller? Un-certain, they continued to fly over the city.

"Flying over Central Park at 1,000 feet and 500knots... trying to identify people, that's just wrong.You should never be doing this over downtownManhattan, watching the towers burning," Duffysays. "We're down over Newark getting people

U.S. Navy photo byPhotographer's Mate2ndClassJim Watson

A b o v e : A w e a r y New Y ork City f i ref ightersurveys the d estruct ion a s he departs thearea o n Sept. 13, 2001. Emergencypersonnel worked t irelessly for more than24 hours immediately fo l lowing th e Sept .1 1 terror is t a t tacks t h a t b ro u g h t d o w nthe W orld Trad e Center.R ight: D ays a f ter th e a t t ac k s , a volunteersteel worker cuts a large part o f debris tom a k e it easier to haul away f rom th ef o r m e r site of the W orld Trad e Center .

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U.S. Navy photo by Chief Photographer's Mate Eric J. Tilforcl

away from the airport, and of course we're tryingto get them downon the ground, or identify them.As you're comingback, the Statue of Liberty withthe towers burning behind it aswe're flying around,you're saying toyourself, 'This isnuts.'"

C l e a r i n g t he sk ies"America was under attack," Marr says, and

controllers were still grappling with two planesmissing and frightening rumorsof bombthreatsandairplane crashes that really never happened. "Inless than an hour here the whole world changed."

Amid the fog and madness, Arnold andhis staffwereon the phone with Marr; Col. John Cromwell,WesternAir Defense Sector commander; and Col.Larry Kemp, Southeast Air Defense Sector com-mander. They were making fast decisions as theFAAreported more information. At one point dur-ing the four-hour ordeal, 21 planes were unac-counted for, Arnold says. "We were concernedabout Flight 93and this Delta aircraft (Flight 1989)and were trying to find aircraft in the vicinity tohelp out," Arnold recalls.

"Wedidn't know where it was going to go. Wewere concerned about Detroit... and the fightersup there were out of gas with no armament. Thenwe called a Guard unit inToledo, Ohio, becausewe thought 93orDelta Flight 1989 mightbeheadedtoward Chicago. Then NEADS called anotherGuard unit in Syracuse, New York, and eventuallygot them moving in thedirectionofgettingairplanesairborne,filer?.


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Photo byStaff Sgt.Sandra Niedzwiecki,102nd FighterWing, Massachusetts Air NationalGuard

Massachusetts Air National Guardsm an Senior Airman Joel Milliken, 102nd MaintenanceWeapons section, repairs an F 15 during Op eration Noble Eagle.72 AIR WAR OVER AMERICA


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fBut as we discussed it in the conference call, wedecidednot tomove fighters toward93until it wascloser because there could have been other air-craft coming in. By now a number of aircraft arebeing called possibly hijacked... there was a lot ofconfusion, asyou can imagine."Missing planes seemed to be everywhere."There were a numberof false reports out there,"Marr says. "What was valid? What was a guess?We just didn't know.... Wewere in foreign terri-tory; we are used to protecting the shores, wayout overseas. Our processes and proceduresweren't designed for this."

An obscure military plan, "SCATANA"Se-curity Controlof Air Traffic and Air NavigationAidswould help the FAA in its efforts to clearthe skies.ThecommanderofNORAD, Gen. RalphE. Eberhart, ordered a limited version of the ColdWar-era strategy, and allowed essential aircraft likerescue helicopters to fly. The decision was madeduring the air threat conference call and wasbacked by Transportation Secretary NormanMineta.13TheSCATANAorder had been imple-mented only once before, and only for war gamesin 1961.

Through the fray, Marr remembers hearing thatthe FAA was evacuating its Cleveland Center. Hedidn't knowwhy at the time and focusedon United*^)Flight 93, headed straight toward Washington. TheNorthDakota F- 16s were loaded withmissilesandhot guns and Marr was thinking about what thesepilots might beexpected to do."United AirlinesFlight 93would nothavehitWashington, D.C.,"Marr says emphatically. "He wouldhavebeen en-gaged and shot down before he got there."

Arnold concurs: "Ihad every intention of shoot-ing down United 93 if it continued toprogress to-ward Washington, D.C., and any other aircraftcoming towardit that day, whetherwe hadauthor-ity or not."

But as the story goes, the pilots were spared theunthinkable.With the now legendary "Let's Roll"rallying cry, theheroic passengers aboard United

Department of Defense photo

R a y Gould, Military District ofW ashington Engineers, stands in f ront ofth e exit point of Am erican Airlines Flight77 w here i t stopped mo ving through thePentagon. The hijacked airliner had 64people aboard and crashed at 9:38 a.m.

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Airlines Flight 93 rushed the terrorists in the cock-pit, bringing the airliner to the ground nearShanksville, Pa., at approximately 10:03 a.m. TheBoeing 757, with 44people aboard, reportedlydropped 1,200 feet in 12 seconds. Lives weretaken in the air to save lives on the ground.

The Langley-based pilots were 96miles away,Marr says. In Cleveland, Delta Flight 1989 landedsafely, but the NEADS crew wouldn't learn thatuntillater.

What was going to happen next?Staff Sgt. MarkJennings, NEADS tracking technician, remembersasking himself: "Was the fourth one the last oneand would there be more? It made me sit backand say, 'Is theworld falling apart on us?' It wasscary and there was areal feeling of uncertainty."

Marr began thinking out loud: "I turned to thestaff and said, 'What more can we do? Let's geteveryone in the air and see what theycan provideus.'"

They needed help and literally went down thelist calling every regular Air Force and Air Na-tional Guard unit in the northeast. "We just startedopening our phone rosters and were trying to fig-ure out which different Air Force units there werein the interior of theUnited States," Deskins says."And we called these units individually to see ifthey could get planes up."

And it wasn't happening like it normally would,she says. Enlisted personnel were calling colonelsdirectly, asking for their help. Rank didn't matterand virtually everyone would commit to getting fight-ers airborne. "It wasunbelievable," says Tech. Sgt.Michael Cavalier, NEADS senior director techni-cian. "There were Guard units I'd never heard ofcalling us askinghow they could help.And we said,'Yes, take off.'"Canadian Forces Capt. Brian Nagel, who waschief ofNEADS live exercises, says "guys weregetting airbornefrom a news report and phone callfrom us."

"I called up one unit and the guy says, 'Who areyou andwhat do you want?' "Nagel recalls. "I

told him to g o watch CNN and that I'd phonehimback. So I phone him back and he says, 'Here'swhat we've got and here's what we can do foryou.'"

As Col. Robert Knauff, commander of the174th Fighter Wing in Syracuse, told Marr: "Giveus 10minutes, we can arm up guns; give us 30minutes, we can put heat-seekers on the wings;give us an hour, and we'll put radar missiles onboard." The first two Syracuse-based F-16s wereup by 10:44 a.m.15 Twomore fighters were up afew minutes later, but there was no time to loadmissiles on any of them. Thepilots' mission wasvague, but they believed an airliner was headingtoward Washington, D.C.

"Our pilots were told to get in the air and get

Photoby Master Sgt TomLouis, 177th Fighter Wing, New JerseyAirNationalGuard

Security Forces Senior Airman RaynaldoBaez of the New Jersey Air NationalGuard 177th Fighter Wing stands guardo n th e flight line Sept. 15 , 2001.

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Photo by Master Sgt. DonTaggart, 177th Fighter Wing, New Jersey Air National Guard

F r o m left, New Jersey A i r Nat ional Gu ardsm en Senior Ai rman Jam es Keefe, Ai rman 1stC l a s s Frank Do lcemasco lo and S ta ff Sgt. Richard Johnson, 177th Fighter Wing weaponsl o a d crew members, raise a n A I M - 1 2 0 A u s i n g a n M J 1 bomb lift "Jammer." Th e missilew as loaded onto an F - 1 6 for an Operat ion Noble Eagle mission.

their taskingfrom NEADS once airborne," saysCol. Tony Basile, 174th Fighter Wing vice com-mander. "The first two airborne were trying to in-tercept the flight that crashed in Pennsylvania butthat airplane had actually hit the ground.... Therewere several others NEADS wasn't sure of, soour mission was to intercept those airplanes."

TheOhioAirNational Guard ISOthFighterWingwas the first unit outside theEast Coast toanswerthe sector's plea. Controllers notified the wing at10:01 a.m.; several armed F-16s departed ToledoExpress Airport at 10:17 a.m., according towingrecords.

Jets from the 177th Fighter Wing, New JerseyAir National Guard, were airborne within anhourafter thePentagon attack, says Col. Mike Cosby,wing commander.And theF-16swere fully loaded.

"The mind-set a lot of old military guys have is

that the Guard is the standby force," Marr says."But these Guard guys got up very, very quickly."

QQQA s pilots and aircrews throughout the coun-try went to battle, historic events weretaking place at the highest levels."As this is all transpiring extraordinarily rapidly

... some five minutes after United Flight 93 crashedin Pennsylvania, President George W. Bush,through Vice President Dick Cheney, gave author-ity to shoot down civilian airplanes that looked likethey were going to be used as fuel-air bombs,"Arnold says. "I have the authority in case of anemergency to declare a target hostile and shoot itdown under anemergency condition...but it wascomforting to know we legally had the authority

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from thepresident of the United States."The order would go evenfurther inWashington,

D.C., where local airspace was declared a "weap-ons-free" zone.16 Fighter pilots were given unpar-alleled orders to fire upon anything around thenation's capital that refused torespond to Air TrafficControl or NORAD direction.

"Thepresident had declared Washington, D.C.,and national capital region to be a free-fire zone,"Arnold says. "That is very unprecedented. Itmeantif apilot saw an airplane withina 30-mile radius ofWashington, D.C., and couldn't determine if it wasa doctor flying back to his hometown, that pilotwas not only allowed to, but expected to shootthat airplane down."

Some F-16pilots from the 113thWing, Districtof ColumbiaAirNationalGuard, were prepared todo it.They weren't incommunicationwithNEADSthat morning bu t knewtheir home citywasintrouble.The whig, at Andrews Air Force Base, Md., is notpart of the NORAD air sovereignty force and didnot haveanalert mission. But that did not stop pilotsthere from takingoff to protect Washington, D.C.,just milesfrom theirown flight line.

W e a p o n s - f r e e z o n eAs the twin towers were burning liveonCNN,

weapons officer Maj. DanCainewas worried.Notonly was thecountry under terroristattack, but threeof the 113th Wing's F-16pilots had not returnedfrom a training mission. As the "SOF'Supervi-sor of Flyingthat morning, Caine was respon-sible for seeing thosejets return safely to base.

"I called the Andrews tower and asked themifany Air Traffic Control measures were starting togo into effect with an eye toward the recovery ofour airplanes," Caine says. "They indicated therewas not and I called ourcontact at the Secret Ser-vice. He told me he wasn't sure, but that thingswere happening andhe'd call me back. It was avery quick, confusing conversation."

Andrews is home to Air Force One, and 113thWing pilots are used to working with the SecretService, but "weren't thinking aboutdefending any-thing," says Lt. Col. Marc Sasseville, commanderof the wing's 121st Fighter Squadron. "Our pri-mary concern was what would happen with the air

PhotobyTech. Sgt Corensa Brooks, 113th Wing, District ofColumbia Air Natonal Guard

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DH B7 Public Hearing- Improvising Defense Fdr- Excerpts From Air War Over America- With Corrections