T8 B2 FAA NY Center Martin Rosenburg Fdr- Handwritten Notes and Alt MFR

8/14/2019 T8 B2 FAA NY Center Martin Rosenburg Fdr- Handwritten Notes and Alt MFR

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[Classification]MEMORANDUM FOR THE RECORD

Event: Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) New York Air Route CenterType of event: InterviewDate: Tuesday, September , 2003Special Access Issues: NonePrepared by: Geoffrey BrownTeam Number: 8Location: FAA New York Air Route Center, Rokonkomo, New YorkParticipants - Non-Commission: Alfred , FAA General ConsulParticipants - Commission: John Azzarello, Miles Kara, Geoffrey Brown

NOTE: Unless otherwise noted, the following paraphrases the response and opinion ofthe interviewee. P lease refer to the interview transcript for a complete account.MARTY ROSENBERG, STMCWith Wolfgang1969 hire. Was a controller in the air force. Started at LaG uardia tower. W ent to NewYork com mon air control arm at Kennedy airport. Got check ed out in all positions ofoperations in building. Went to regional office as a staff specialist. Cam e to ZNY as acontroller. G ot caught in strike and post the 81 strike came back to work due to legalissue. Became a supervisor at LaG uardia tower. Then in 85 came ou t here to be anoperational supervisor. Then became a traffic man agem ent supervisor. G et 75 points forbeing in the regional office towards career.Traffic manag ement unit supervisor - a buffer between the outside world and the ATCs inthe center. Regulate the amount of traffic going through a sector. Uses m iles and trailsrestrictions, reroutes airplanes. K nows m ore about what is going on in other centers.Communicates more with the command center. Operational supervisor vision isconcerned with one portion of whole. TMU concerned with whole.Has no oceanic operational experience.9/11: staffing up front OMIC, STMC deals with traffic management specifically.Rosenberg had beg an a break. A controller told Rosenberg there was a problem. ZB OSsaid he had an aircraft, AA11 that was hijacked or having a serious problem. PeteMulligan, Bruce Barrett, an d Marty all in area. Dials American dispatch for AA11.


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Don't know if one to dispatch is recorded. Don ' t know if every phone in buildingrecorded. Pulled a hotline phone and dialed the dispatch for informa tion. Tells onrecorded line that he believed the number one stewardess had been stabbed an d thathijackers had taken control of cabin. No mention from American dispatch of gun.Rosenberg calls center to see if aware of AA11. Put on hotline with ZBOS, ZN Y, ZD C,(Herndon), great lakes regional director - mana ger from Boston mentions trying to getmilitary involved (fighters up) but was u nsuc cessfu l. Not sure who else was o n the line,since he was put on that line by the center. Rosenberg questions command center if it isattempted to get military involved, ZDC says it thinks supervisor is involved.Rosenberg's conversation with Am erican dispatch was looking for emergency or hijackdistinguish. Long experience informed Rosenberg that hijack would probably entail tripto Cuba. Told one of the TM U staff to call towers and see if anyone was looking. Hadinformation re : fl 290. Thought Kennedy and Newark would be the only airports of usefor the airplanes if it was an emergency.They loose the prima ry target 15 west of Kennedy and they receive the ELT. A femalevoice came on the line and inform s that CN N is reporting a plane into W TC. E ven at thispoint it was unfathomable to think the plane had hit WTC. Thinks Newark tower hadcalled to say a plane had hit WTC . Thinks that it happened after the first since Rosenberghas a son who is a pilot and he had to walk away after AA11 first hit. Command center(Ricky Bell) said they should stay on the line and Rosenberg handed over the phone.Look ing for fix at 29k, then som e awareness based on various interpretations of prim aryit appears to be descending. Can you in fact tell that, were you aware of that? O nly wayto tell sped on a primary target it the distance between th e radar hits. Odds would be hemaintained the speed, usually planes speed up w hen they descend. No real w ay to tellaltitude. Equ ipmen t to tell that can tell what is happening w ithout the mode c.UA L 175. Can' t com me nt. W as out of room until it hit the second tower.When speaking on hotline with ZBOS TMU, then calls American dispatch and stays online with ZBOS , which becomes th e larger line. Hangs up with company.New communications and "can't trust the pilot." allegedly blew a tire on take off.No rmally w ould be on high en route. Pilot decided to stay at 18k. Rosenberg needed tocheck with company an d military to verify pilot.Rosenberg refers to the air traffic command center (Herndon) as opposed to the WOC.Command Center would coordinate with the operations center.Military - prior to 9/11: have telephone lines to northeast air defense (huntress) and giantkiller in vacates but do esn't know who is on the other end of those lines and whether ornot those entities could launch fighters. Prior to 9/11 had very little awareness. Wouldhave to call command center and go from there. Hotline to NEADS came in after 9/11.Probably all know O TIS, La ngley and Atlantic City have fighters but don' t know if theywould be ready.


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It wouldn't ' be m ilitary operations specialist who would be responsible for callingmilitary. With a hijack, don't know who ha s authority to launch m ilitary in a hijack. Butprior to 9/11 probably didn't launch fighters every time.Post 9/11 Rosenberg gives information to DENS and he knows they handle from there.Rosenberg doesn't have to make the decision. "They" in the military m ake th e decisionover what happens from there. Rosenb erg only has authority a nd responsibility to inform .Rosenberg hopes that th e entity on the other land has more awareness and intelligencethen the TMU at ZNY.No w ay to know how many planes were saved by grounding them all. Someone came onthe hotline and said to look for certain airplanes within the system . Doesn't rememberany of the specific call signs. They were looking for a total num ber of airplanes that w ereofconcern.ZBOS says they tried to notify military. Has an understanding now that there was sometype of problem getting th e fighters off from OTIS.Were told the AA 11 was the plane that hit W TC was AA 11 from Newark tower, fromthe best of Rose nberg 's recollection. Not sure of the time frame.

Not enough time elapsed for Rosenberg to assess information before heard it was AA 11.Recollection was that Pete mulligan was on one line, Bruce B arrett was listening to thesame hotline that Rosenberg was on. When instructed personnel to call towers over AA11expected plane to make an emergency landing at Newark or JFK.Chap _ Order ma rked SSI. Special military operations? Some orders were in effectafter 9/11. Can assume probably in place prior to 9/11. A hijack coordinator could be inheadqua rters anywhere, so responsibility is to advise the comm and center. Pre 9/11 aproblem that Rosenb erg didn't know how to handle he would imm ediately call thecommand center. Now he has the DEN line.Prior to 9/11 on ground put the flaps down. On the frequency use the term trip. In the airyou squeak 7500. Unusual circumstance provides a learning curve. Usually a hijackwould be because the hijackers wanted something. Never dealt with people who didn'thave demands.Nordo, transponder off, pre 9/11 would not say hijack. With a significant deviation fromcourse, pre 9/11 would be an em ergency condition. ZBOS said he wasn't sure ifemergency or a hijack. Didn't ask how he knew. Passed th e essential inform ation along.Today if someone takes over a cockpit, then it means som ething different than prior to9/11. Prev ious, the idea that the crew had lost control of the cockpit m ight m ean that theyhad taken control of the pilot and were dem anding a destination.


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Recommendations:1) Now don't keep things qu iet not to alarm people. Need to alert people of ongoingevents so people know how to handle the circumstance. When something is wrongwherever, alarm the appropriate people. ACA R is a silent communication system thatcomes up silently in cockpit from company. Don' t want too many people calling a certainline all at once. Causes more confusion instead of efficiency.2) Now know attack can happen from within, and communications with the people whoca n mak e decisions are essential to be fast. Now there is an immediate military response.Have n't become com placent again. DEN launched jus t this morning over an unknowntw o hundred mile an hour airplane. Essentially situational awareness is key.3) most of today's controllers came in after 81 strike. Supervisors don't always have theexperience.


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T8 B2 FAA NY Center Martin Rosenburg Fdr- Handwritten Notes and Alt MFR