The Reasons Behind the Air Defense Stand Down on 9/11
Why None of the Hijacked Planes were Intercepted by Jet Fighters
William Kelly
October, 2002.
There isn't any one answer to the still unanswered question as to
why none of the hijacked planes were intercepted by jet fighters
on 9/11. Each answer begs a new question.
I didn't even consider it a very important question until June 10,
2002, 9 months after the September 11th attack, when my associate
John Judge was asked to substitute for a member of a panel at a
National Press Club (NPC) press conference announcing the
launching of the web site [www.unansweredquestions.org].
The missing panelist, investigative journalist Jared Israel [See:
Emperors Clothes - www.tenc.net] was to talk about the "FAA / 9-11
Air Defenses," one of a dozen topics on the agenda.
It was a very informative and interesting press conference, as was
the rally at the Capitol the following day by the families of the
victims of 9/11 calling for an independent commission to
investigate and report on intelligence failures and airline
safety. Both the press conference and the rally were generally
ignored by the mainstream media as well as the noncommercial
C-Span and National Public Radio (NPR), but served as a catalyst
for this study.
Although not as well versed in the subject of air defenses on 9/11
as Jared Israel, John Judge is a Washington D.C. native who lives
near the Pentagon, where his parents worked as civilian employees.
Judge had been to the Pentagon on numerous occasions, both with
his parents and later to liaison with military security personal
during anti-war demonstrations, and is familiar with it's air
defense capabilities, including on-site radar and ground to air
missiles. Judge lives about a mile away and felt the shudder of
the [AA77] crash into the Pentagon on 9/11, and his comments at
the press conference [Judge - June 10] focus primarily from his
personal experiences.
Sparked by the unanswered questions posed at the press conference,
I've made an attempt to answer some of the principle questions,
especially why none of the hijacked planes of 9/11 were
intercepted by jet fighters.
Among the "Top 50 Unanswered Questions about 9/11" posed in a
special edition of the American Free Press [(former Spotlight) -
of May 27, 2002, p. B-2], questions #7, #8 & #9 focus on the areas
of interest.
7. "At least a dozen Air Force and National Guard bases were
within a few moments of flight time to the World Trade Center
and the Pentagon. Why weren't fighter planes scrambled as
soon as it became obvious that the airliners had been
hijacked?"
8. The air traffic control system keeps track of all commercial
flights and is in continuous radio contact with the pilots.
All of these communications are recorded. It would have been
immediately apparent to the controllers that something had
gone wrong when the planes deviated from their course and
radio contact ceased. Why were jet fighters not scrambled to
intercept the hijacked planes? Why are transcripts of the
pilots' communications with air traffic controllers not
released to the public?
9. American Airlines Flight 77, the jet which U.S. officials say
crashed into the Pentagon, was hijacked shortly before 9 a.m.
-- approximately 15 minutes after the first plane crashed
into the World Trade towers. Why were no jet fighters
scrambled to intercept the flight?"
These are all good questions that can, should and will be answered
in time. Others however, have asked these questions before me and
have tried to answer them, most notably Barry Zwicker, George
Szamuely (of the New York Press and London Observer) and Sandy
Goodman (NBC Nightly News).
Goodman was one of the first to question the tardy military
response when he wrote,
"The most amazing thing about the blame game now being
played over who was at fault for Sept. 11 is that no one
is pointing a finger at the U.S. Air Force. Amazing
because it's a lot easier to see why the FBI and CIA
were unable to connect a series of sometimes wildly
divergent dots that it is to understand why the Air
Force had no plan to protect the nation's capitol from
an attack by terrorists in planes at a time when
Washington D.C., was deluged with warnings of terrorist
threats...."
"Incredibly, on September 11 there was not a single
fighter plane on alert at Andrews (AFB) because the Air
Force's North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD)
did not consider an attack on the capital by terrorists
in planes probable...."
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force Gen. Richard B.
Myers [in an Oct. 17, 2001 interview / See: link to BBC],
confessed, "You hate to admit it, but we hadn't thought about
this..."
Others have addressed the possibility of "incompetency" and
determined that standard procedures do exist for such emergencies,
and since no one has been reprimanded for incompetency in regards
to 9/11 actions, then the "stand down" on that day was
intentional.
A statistic worth noting is that between September 11, 2000 and
June 2001, military jets were scrambled 67 times, while in the
"trigger happy," 24 hour air patrols between September 11, 2001
and June, 2002, jets were scrambled 462 times.
The Case of Payne Stewart's Plane
Often cited as a comparative example, when on October 26, 1999,
the Lear jet plane of professional golfer Payne Stewart broke a
seal at high altitude disabling the pilot and passengers, the
plane continued on automatic pilot until it ran out of gas and
crashed.
Within 21 minutes of Stewart's plane flying off course, a jet
fighter from Tyndall, Florida had intercepted it and was flying
alongside. That pilot followed the Lear jet until met by two
Oklahoma Air National Guard F-16s, which in turn passed the plane
on to jets from North Dakota, keeping it under close surveillance
until it crashed. [See:
http://www.ntsb.gov/events/aberdeen/default.htm - Aviation - Major
investigations - Aberdeen, S.D.]
Others have cited the Payne Stewart case as an example to address
the possibility of situation being one of total incompetence on
the part of the military, including Barry Zwicker [Vision TV
Insight - The MediaFile Edition - "The Great Deception - Part 2 -
January 28, 2002, http://www.visiontv.ca/Archive/Archive2.html -
alternative copy:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/ZWI201A.html].
"In almost two hours of total drama," notes Zwicker,
"not a single U.S. Air Force intercepter turns a wheel
until it's too late. Was it total incompetence on the
part of the aircrews trained and equipped to scramble in
minutes? Or were there certain stand down' orders given
to the U.S. pilots to allow the disaster to happen?"
Zwicker asks what does the Payne Stewart case prove?
"Well, it proves that standing routines exist for
dealing with all such emergencies, for instance loss of
radio contact. All personnel in the air and on the
ground are trained to follow such routines, which have
been fine-tuned over decades, as the Lear jet incident
illustrates.
"For large scheduled aircraft, tracked throughout on
radar, to depart extravagantly from their flight paths,
would trigger numerous calls to the military, especially
after two have hit the World Trade Center, and now one
is speeding toward Washington D.C. It flies over the
White House, turns sharply and heads towards the
Pentagon. Everyone -- and I mean everyone -- now knows
these planes are very bad news. It's been reported on
all TV networks for more than half an hour that this is
a terrorist attack."
September 11, 2001
Yet, on September 11th, none of the hijacked planes were
intercepted even though one of them [UA#93] had been hijacked for
at least an hour before it crashed, almost three times as long it
took for Stewart's plane to be intercepted.
The first, quick, apparently correct answer is that the jet that
caught up with Stewart's plane in only 21 minutes was not
scrambled, and was already in the air at the time on a nearby
training mission, while on September 11th there were no planes in
the air on patrol or practice.
The closest base with armed planes on alert (Otis AFB, Falmouth,
Mass. near Cape Cod) received the alarm too late for them to
scramble to get there in time.
Planes from the 177th New Jersey Air National Guard [See: 177th
NJANG], were on the tarmac at Atlantic City International Airport,
ready to take off on a practice bombing mission, then suddenly
recalled to be briefed on the attack and to arm the planes with
air-to-air missiles. They were armed and then sent up, too late to
play a role in the day's events.
The Atlantic City International Airport in Pomona, N.J. is also
where the Federal Aviation Administration maintains a facility
[See: William J. Hughes FAA Technical Center] and trains Air
Marshalls. The 177th New Jersey Air National Guard until has been
an integral part of the air defense of the continental United
States for decades [See: History of 177th].
These planes, F-16s, were not on alert, were unarmed, and were
prepared to take off on a training and practice mission, an
air-to-ground live bombing mission near Syracuse, New York.
As members of the New Jersey Air National Guard, this unit is not
with the regular U.S. Air Force, and the pilots are primarily,
part-time active reservists who also have regular jobs, many as
commercial airline pilots. They were recalled re-arm and then
scrambled, being the first "non-alert" planes to fly over both New
York and Washington, after the attacks.
Their situation in Atlantic City may not have been known to the
U.S. Air Force North American Aerospace Command (NORAD), whose
commander at the time did know about two Air National Guard F-15
planes on a training mission near Detroit, Michigan, hundreds of
miles away. Although unarmed, they were ordered to pursue the
hijacked plane [US99] that crashed in Pennsylvania. Two other
fighters from Ohio were also called in to respond to the events of
September 11th.
A time-line chronology [See: Time-line Chronology] of the day's
events gives a good indication as to what happened, and the
numbers that standout the most is the time between when the Air
Traffic Controllers of the Federal Aviation Administration
(ATC-FAA) realized there was a hijacking and then recognized a
series of hijackings were underway, and the time they sounded the
alarm, picked up the phone and called NORAD.
For example, the FAA Air Traffic Controllers (ATC) realized
something was wrong with AA11 when it's IFF transmitting beacon
was turned off at 8:20 a.m., but they didn't notify NORAD until 18
minutes later at 8:38 a.m.
The military's unstated answer or excuse [See: Excuseme] for our
question of why none of the hijacked planes were intercepted, is
that the deal by the FAA ATC in notifying them promptly prevented
them from intercepting the hijacked planes in time.
But that begs the question: doesn't the military have their own
air traffic controllers -- guys looking at radar screens?
Before reviewing the chronology of 9/11 events as it pertains to
questions regarding the air defense response, it would be prudent
to take the chronology backwards in time to when the change in
official strategy shifted responsibility for air defense of North
America from over 100 air bases on alert status to less than a
half-dozen bases, with a total of only 16 planes, armed and on
alert. Some of these were in the South or West Coast and not even
on the gameboard on 9/11.
Jet fighters are stationed at dozens of air bases all along the
Northeast continental United States, and until a few years ago --
the date given is 1997 -- there were always four jets of the 177th
unit of the N.J. Air National Guard armed and ready and positioned
to take off on a moment's notice on a special runway, separate
from the regular Atlantic City International airport.
The Atlantic City International, while not a principal hub of
international traffic like Philadelphia, Newark and New York, is
still important for a number of reasons, as a strategically
positioned backup airport, equidistant between New York and
Washington D.C., for all major fights, including Air Force One and
the Concord.
In response to an email query I made, regarding which base assumed
the "alert" status once the 177th was taken off alert, the public
information officer with the unit noted that they do not make
policy, just carry it out, and that it is not a classified matter
that the unit was not on alert status on September 11th. I was
then referred to another public relations officer at a base in
Florida, without a proper answer to my only question.
Then I was given some deep background information that sets the
stage for what happened on 9/11. As it was explained to me by a
member of the military, the air defense strategy of the United
States shifted with the demise of the threat from the Soviet Union
and the end of the Cold War. "Military cutbacks caused a drastic
reduction in the number of bases with planes on standby -- `strip
alert'...." [See: Excuseme], a change in basic strategy that
occurred sometime around 1997-98.
According to Contrail
[http://www.njatla.ang.af.mil/contrail/Oct01/page4.html], the
monthly newsletter of the 177th FW, "As a result of the 1998
Quadrennial Defense Review, the 177th Fighter Wing was converted
from an air sovereignty mission to a general-purpose fighter
mission,...focus[ing] primarily on the air-to-ground role (bomb
dropping)..."
As reported in the Atlantic City Press [Thursday, June 27, 2002,
Sec. C. pp. 1-2], "On the day of the attacks,...the 177th could
not scramble jets in time to intercept any of the hijacked
airliners -- and possibly shoot them down -- because it did not
have its planes on alert. A few years earlier, the military
changed the 177th's mission from air defense to general purpose, a
designation that took away its alert status."
Apparently, as a result of this "Quadrennial Defense Review,"
instead of 107 bases with armed jet fighters on alert status at
all times, over one hundred of the bases were taken off the alert
status, leaving the air defense of North America to some five to
seven bases, each one responsible for a particular sector.
Then Gen. Colon Powell is given credit for devising the four
quadrant defense where the continental United States was divided
into four major sectors, each with it's own headquarters,
commander and bases on alert.
On September 11th, the Northeast Sector of the continental United
States was under the Command of Col. Robert Marr [NEAD Sector,
Rome, New York, a branch of NORAD, HQ Peterson AFB, Colorado].
Colonel Marr was on duty in his "bunker" in Rome, New York on
September 11, 2001, when the day's events began to unfold.
07:59 a.m. (EDT) - American Airlines Flight 11 (AA11) departs
Boston's Logan I.A., MA
08:14 a.m. - United Airlines Flight 175 (UA175) departs Boston's
Logan I.A.
08:20 a.m. - American Airlines Flight 77 (AA77) departs Dulles
I.A., D.C.
08:38 a.m. - Boston Air Traffic Control (ATC) notifies NORAD UA175
hijacked.
For NORAD, 8:38 a.m. is when the alarm went off, for the first
time.
If there were any inclinations to believe this was going to be an
ordinary hijacking, it was dispelled two minutes later when at,
08:40 a.m. - FAA notifies NORAD AA11 hijacked.
08:43 a.m. - FAA notifies NORAD UA175 hijacked.
08:42 a.m. - United Airlines Flight 93 departs Newark I.A., N.J.
08:44 a.m. - Air National Guard at Otis Air Base, Falmouth, Mass.
ordered scrambled.
08:46 a.m. - AA11 hits World Trade Center north tower
(WTCN-Tower1)
08:47 a.m. - NORAD notified of WTCN hit.
08:50 a.m. - FAA ATC recognize UA175 off course.
08:52 a.m. - 2 F-15 Eagle jet fighter pilots with handles "Duff"
&"Nasty" depart Otis.
09:03 a.m. - UA175 hits World Trade Center South (WTCS-Tower2).
09:02 a.m. - F-15s piloted by "Duff" & "Nasty" 71 miles (eight
minutes away from NYC).
09:16 a.m. - FAA ATC informs NORAD UA93 hijacked.
09:25 a.m. - FAA notifies NORAD UA77 may be hijacked.
9:27 a.m. - NORAD orders jet fighters at Langley AFB to scramble.
9:35 a.m. - 3 F-16 Flying Falcon jet fighters depart Langley, Va.
(140 miles S. of D.C.)
9:37 a.m. - AA77 leaves radar.
9:38 a.m. - AA77 strikes Pentagon.
09:40 a.m. - Transponder of UA93 turned off.
09:49 a.m. - 3 F-16s arrive over Washington D.C.
10:02 a.m. - Radar picks up UA93 near Shanksville Pa.
10:03 a.m. - UA93 crashes in Pennsylvania.
Col. Marr was later quoted [By the BBC, Aug. 29, 2002] as saying
that there, "...was a sense of frustration. I didn't have the
forces available to do anything about this. We've got everything
up that we could get up, and still can't do anything."
As for the unarmed jet planes in the air, Marr said, "If you have
to stop an aircraft, sometimes the only way to stop an aircraft is
with your own aircraft, if you don't have any weapons."
And now, the policy is changed, planes on alert can be airborne
within minutes, and they have the ability, if ordered, to shoot
down commercial airliners as Marr said, "We will take lives in the
air in order to preserve lives on the ground."
At the time of the AA77 crash into the Pentagon (9:38 a.m.), the
three F-16s from Langley were reportedly 12 minutes away, and
according to "Honey," the senior officer of the three, were East,
not South of D.C., and on their way to New York, not D.C. or
Western Pennsylvania. "Honey" claimed he was lagging behind the
other two, one of whom was "Lou" the wing-man for the lead pilot,
who has, as far as I can tell, yet to be identified or quoted.
When they arrived at D.C. (9:49 a.m.) they were ordered to stay on
patrol over Washington.
For the jet fighter pilots it was especially frustrating. As
"Duff," flying out of Otis said [in an interview with the British
Broadcasting Company (BBC)], "For a long time I wondered what
would have happened if we had been scrambled on time. We've been
over the flight a thousand times in our minds, and I don't know
what we could have done to get there any quicker."
For the two pilots from the 177th N.J. Air National Guard, it was
equally frustrating. At 9 a.m., the pilot that goes by the radio
handle "Gilligan" said he was on the tarmac runway at the Atlantic
City International Airport, getting ready to take off with his
wingman, on a bombing practice mission to upstate New York, where
they were to land (near Syracuse), arm and make a practice live
bomb run before returning to their home base.
They were delayed in taking off because of review of check list
items as a standard precaution before embarking on a live
ammunition run, and were at the end of the runway when they were
issued an emergency order to return to the hanger.
Both pilots later confided in each other that they both thought
that the extremely rare, emergency recall order was because of a
private emergency, such as a wife or child injured in a car crash
or something of that nature.
Back at their base headquarters they saw the burning towers on
television and responded to the call for volunteers, were briefed
on the World Trade Center attacks, and were ordered armed and back
into the air immediately.
They could have been airborne within minutes except for the fact
that their planes had to be armed, with air-to-air missiles, which
are kept, for security reasons, across the base from the hangers,
and they took an excruciatingly long time to get to and bring to
the planes. Since each missile requires three men to carry and
lift into position, and there was a lack of maintenance personnel
on duty, the pilots themselves, and reportedly even some office
personnel assisted in arming the planes, which took approximately
an hour.
Once airborne, the F-16s from the 177th made passes over New York
City and Washington D.C., where they were the first "non-alert"
squadron on the scene over both cities.
Col. Robert Marr, sector NORAD commander, said that for a brief
moment he considered asking the unarmed F-16 pilots in the air at
the time to ram their planes into a hijacked airliner. "In the
heat of the moment, all suggestions were considered," he said
[Richard Sisk, Philadelphia Daily News, Washington Bureau, Sat.
Aug. 31, 2002, p. 6], "but no decision was made to employ unarmed
fighters" on such a suicide mission.
One pilot however, said that such an order would not necessarily
be considered a "suicide" mission, since they could slice a tail
wing and then bail out relatively safely.
All the pilots I talked with however, said that they would have
rammed a jetliner with their unarmed jet fighter, if ordered to do
so.
Less clear is what the situation was at Andrews Air Force Base,
the closest base to the capitol and home of Air Force One and a
jet fighter wing. Defense of the D.C. airspace would be a natural
mission for this fighter wing, though apparently, they were not on
alert on 9/11, and only had armed aircraft in the skies after the
Pentagon was hit.
After September 11th the official web site for the fighter wing
stationed at Andrews was taken down, while news reports had jet
fighters from Andrews flying in defense of the "no-fly zone" over
Iraq -- planes that were being shot at.
Censorship of official military web sites in the aftermath of 9/11
appears tardy, since any interested on-line terrorist would have
already downloaded the necessary information before 9/11, much
like the plans for a New Jersey nuke power station were said to
have been found in a cave in Afghanistan. It would be like closing
the barn door after the horses had escaped.
The 177th FW also removed two issues of their official monthly
newsletter Contrail from their web site [www.njatla.ang.af.mil,
http://www.njatla.ang.af.mil/contrail/index.htm], the June, 2001
[Volume XXXIV No.6, Egg Harbor Twp.,N.J.,
http://www.njatla.ang.af.mil/contrail/Jun01/index.html] and the
September, 2001 issue [Volume XXXIV No.9,
http://www.njatla.ang.af.mil/contrail/Sep01/index.html].
Both issues, of course, could have been read and downloaded by
terrorists before September 11th, so now, it is only the general
public who are being kept from reading their contents. I obtained
copies of both issues in order to see if there was any big scandal
being hidden, but rather, found only information concerning base
security and live air-to-air missile training.
The September issue concerns the Combat Arms Training Management
program, which was originally developed by General Curtis LeMay
(Air Force Chief of Staff 1961-65) because of an incident that
occurred during the Korean War when a numerically superior Chinese
communist force attacked and overran Kimpo Air Base. According to
Contrail, "One of the problems the investigation uncovered was
there was no formal weapon training program for non-Air Police
personnel."
The June issue concerned "The Art of Rocket Science," the Air
Force air-to-air weapons systems evaluation program, COMBAT
ARCHER, which evaluates the total air-to-air weapon system
including aircraft, weapons delivery system, weapon, aircrew,
support equipment, technical data and maintenance actions."
During the course of this training exercise, held at Tyndall Air
Force Base, Florida, pilots fired AIM-9 Sidewinder and IAM 120
AARAM missiles at unmanned flying drones over the Gulf of Mexico
range, ensuring the pilots proficiency in using the weapons.
Less efficient on September 11th was the ability to arm and launch
the jets when not on alert, a situation that has undoubtedly been
rectified.
In the end, the two major policy changes concerning reactions to
aircraft hijackings after September 11th are the reversal of the
strategy of cooperation with hijackers, and to actively resist
them, and giving the Air Force jet fighters the option of shooting
down hijacked commercial aircraft, "to take lives in the sky to
save lives on the ground."
- William Kelly - October, 2002.
Copyright © 2002 William Kelly
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