Posted on 08/12/2002 12:50:43 PM PDT by Sub-Driver
FAA says it had 11 other suspect planes on Sept. 11
Monday August 12, 2002
By RICHARD PYLE Associated Press Writer
WESTBURY, N.Y. (AP) In the tense minutes after two hijacked jetliners smashed into New York's World Trade Center and another hit the Pentagon, air traffic controllers had as many as 11 other suspect aircraft on their screens, federal aviation officials said Monday.
The concern over possible additional hijackings did not end until 12:15 p.m. on Sept. 11 3{ hours after the first attack on the twin towers when the last of 4,546 commercial aircraft were safely on the ground nationwide.
``Somewhere in the first hour after the first plane hit, we were receiving reports of additional confirmed hijackings. The list at that point in time started to grow,'' said Frank Hatfield, Eastern Region division manager for FAA air traffic control operations.
``All reports were treated as unconfirmed hijackings until we eliminated that as a possibility. We were not satisfied that the last number was four until 12:15 p.m., and every airplane in the country was on the ground,'' he said.
``No one had ever envisioned a scenario where the United States would land every plane in the sky.''
Airports became jammed with the unexpected aircraft, yet there were no mishaps, he said.
Hatfield and other FAA officials briefed news media on Monday at the New York Terminal Approach Control Center, known as TRACON, on Long Island.
Mike McCormick, air traffic control manager at New York Center the main traffic control center for New York area airports made the unprecedented decision at 9:04 a.m. to declare ``ATC Zero,'' meaning that normal services were suspended and no aircraft could fly into, out of or through the region's airspace.
At that time there were still hundreds of aircraft in the skies around New York and the western Atlantic, for which the Long Island-based center had responsibility.
The decision came just after the second plane, United Airlines Flight 175, struck the south tower of the World Trade Center, confirming that the country was under terrorist attack.
Unlike the first hijacked plane, American Airlines Flight 11, the second Boeing 767's transponder was working and he knew where it was headed, McCormick said, even before the Newark Airport control tower picked it up visually as it flew south along the Hudson River, turned and headed back toward the twin towers.
``I wanted to make sure everyone understood that this (attack) was not a single aircraft, that this was not a single event. There was at least one other aircraft involved and there could be many more, and we needed to prepare for all eventualities,'' McCormick said.
The officials said many changes have been effected in emergency procedures since Sept. 11 but declined to go into detail for security reasons.
Hatfield said, however, that the time frame for the FAA to make contact with the military in an emergency ``has been shaved from minutes to seconds.''
On that day, the first two military interceptors, Air Force F-15 Eagles from Otis Air Force Base in Massachusetts, scrambled airborne at 8:52 a.m., six minutes after the first attack, but too late to do anything about the other jets heading for the Trade Center or Pentagon.
Those struck at 9:02 and 9:40 a.m., respectively. The fourth hijacked plane, United Airlines Flight 93, crashed near Somerset, Pa., at 10:07 a.m.
McCormick said that under the new procedures, ``We are in direct instantaneous communication with our military and those people responsible for defending our country.''
Hatfield said security now has a much higher priority than it did before Sept. 11.
``We have searched our souls and tried to figure out what we could have done differently on that day,'' he said. ``Probably the best thing we could have done was to improve our communications, and over the last year we have aggressively addressed that issue.''
This actually says alot about the efficency and skill of the air traffic controllers in this country.
Does anyone else know what happened with any of these stories?
I've always believed that we got off lucky on Sept. 11.
The terrorists signed their own death warrants as well as those of Saddam Hussein and militant Islam.
Ask any arab or muslim "if good defeats evil" and then tell them to wait a few years. They might want to reconsider their religious affiliations!!
I suspect you are thinking of a real episode, but your conclusion is wrong. There was a plane from Boston, I think, that was grounded in St Louis. There were arabs on board but they didn't disappear. They got off the plane and took a train to their destination which I believe was San Antonio, Texas. They were met by police and FBI at their destination (I don't recall how the FBI was alerted to them) and were arrested when a search of their luggage revealed cash and box cutters and hair dye. There were even rumors that they had shaved their body hair.
They were held without charge for many months and eventualy the FBI cleared them of suspicion. They might have been deported afterward, but I don't think there was any link established to any of the hijackers or any terrorists, despite extensive FBI probes of their finances and phone calls, etc.
See Sources: Texas train suspects not tied to attacks for details.
Same story with Moussaoui's OKC roommate that the FBI and Secret Service connected to the OKC bombing and WTC 1993, Menepta will walk in about 5 months after pleading guilty to a weapons charge.
Same with the Muslim terrorists connected to the murder of Katherine Smith(she was burned alive with gasoline in one of the Muslim's car) in the Memphis drivers license scam, they all plead and were released with time served, except the unlicensed plumber Hammad who had a work pass for the WTC days before 9-11.Hammad said he was there working on the sprinkler system for a non existent company called Denko Mechanical. Interestingly, the FEMA report explaining why the towers collapsed concluded a major factor was that the sprinkler systems were disabled. Go figure.
Hammad's sentencing hearing is this month in Memphis, he has been out on bail, I am sure he will show up so he can be released for time served on bail. He never did explain why he needed a TN license since he already had a drivers license.
Meanwhile I hear Martha Stewart maybe looking at some hard time.
You're not the only one. If I recall correctly, wasn't there (for lack of a better word) "intelligence" which had heard about terrorists planning to hi-jack commercial jets to be used as suicide bombs, but instead of 4 planes the original plan was for about a dozen planes to be the number that the terrorists were shooting for? It would be almost poetic if the one thing that saved the Sears Tower and TransAmerica building was the typical flight delays that everyone who flies frequently often complains about.
I do have to give the air traffic controllers their due for how they were able to get all of those thousands of planes out of the sky and onto the ground as fast as they did, and without any accidents in the process. I wonder how different things might have been if Reagan had not fired all of those air traffic controllers when they went on strike in the 80's.
FBI Probes 5th Flight for Hijackers, Plane Grounded on Day of Attack
12 more planes were ready to be hijacked !
U.S. Officials Probing Whether More Planes Hijacked
S an Antonio To San Diego Flight Targeted By Hijackers? (mine)
Hastert Reveals Three Other Planes Hit Distress
Al-Qaeda planned more hijacks
An airplane smashed into each tower.
Reagan was right in canning them. Some government jobs just shouldn't be strike-sensitive. Imagine if PATCO has triumphed and Sept. 11th was in the middle of an ATC system strike, with management personnel operating the ATC system. Disaster would have been an understatement.
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