Here is my totally unofficial two cents:
The F16s from DC are mud movers not air to air units. They were the ones you saw out of the AF One windows. The real air combat Falcons flying escort were not visible to the reporters on AFOne. They came out of Ellington Field in Houston and went supersonic over the Gulf to pick up the Pres. And go with them to Barksdale first and then on to Offutt. Later on to Andrews.
During the Cold War we had something like 28 bases with alert flights around CONUS. After the first Gulf War and then the Clinton regime they were down to seven. My remembrance of some is Otis Mass F15s/ Homestead Fla F16 s/ Ellington F16s/Alamogordo F16s/ I think Davis-Monthan F16s/ somewhere on the West Coast.
Logically one would think that the First Fighter Wing with F 15s at Langley AFB, Va. Would have some rolr for security of the DC area.
Exactly, escorts don't fly formation with the HVT.
IIRC the East Coast armed alert on 9-11 consisted of 2 F-15Cs at Otis AFB Cape Cod and two F-16s at Langley (det from the Happy Hooligans) There was probably two armed birds in FL as well. About 20 minutes after my Dulles Corridor employer told us to go home (right after the first tower fell) I witnessed (heard) the booms of two aircraft passing overhead supersonically in the vicinity of Burke Lake Road on Fairfax County Parkway in VA, believed they were birds out of Langley going North.
The issue is that NORAD was looking outward while Flight 93 approached from the interior. The East Coast was defended appropriately for the anticipated threat. Unfortunately the threat that showed up wasn’t anticipated.