[muawiyah]

There are armed planes always ready to go ~ but they were heading out into the North Atlantic ~ which is where it was presumed the threat was coming from.

These two people were simply the nearest ones available to do the job.

[21twelve]

From her interview, it sounded like air defense of the continental U.S. was completely down since the threat of the Soviet Union was no longer there. We did not have a “scramble ready” strike force of any kind.

I listened to it a couple of nights ago so I may be wrong, but I think it took a couple of hours for NORAD to get armed planes out over the Atlantic as well.