Seems damning on so many different levels of FAA in Washington and the Herndon ATC. That they were the log jam or something much worse perhaps. Boston FAA goes around them (having called them up to eight minutes earlier), and that's supposedly how NORAD (NEADS) first finds out. Same thing from Cleveland and New York FAA--did an end run or NEADS would have heard nothing from the FAA. Apparently it's not until everything is well over that FAA Washington is in touch with NORAD.
Just love this bit:
FAA Headquarters: They’re pulling Jeff away to go talk about United 93.
Command Center: Uh, do we want to think about, uh, scrambling aircraft?
FAA Headquarters: Uh, God, I don’t know.
Command Center: Uh, that’s a decision somebody’s gonna have to make
probably in the next ten minutes.
FAA Headquarters: Uh, ya know everybody just left the room
(Who the heck is Jeff???)It's Herndon, not headquarters/Washington that should be running things. And there you have a number of interesting things going on too. First, the former NYC attorney Sliney is on first day running the show as Operations while his bosses are in a bunker. But most important, I think, was NORAD was THERE on 9/11--the "military cell." All this lack of communication to NORAD has to be complete BS. The people who were there were there to train for and coordinate just this sort of emergency. The report and media coverage softballs that whole issue--there were indeed plans.
Some damning inaction examples:
"Boston Center asked Herndon Command Center to issue a similar cockpit security alert to all aircraft nationwide. We have found no evidence to suggest that Command Center managers instructed any Centers to issue a cockpit security alert."
And:
"A manager at the Herndon Command Center asked FAA headquarters if they wanted to order a “nationwide ground stop.” While executives at FAA headquarters discussed it, the Command Center went ahead and ordered one anyway at 9:25."
Shortly later FAA Washington questions whether they overstepped their authority in doing this!
But FAA Washington is communicating to other FAA centers and giving them the wrong information, which gets relayed to NORAD from those centers:
"NORAD did not know about the search for American 77. Instead, they heard once again about a plane that no longer existed, American 11."
and:
"The mention of a “third aircraft” was not a reference to American 77. There was confusion at that moment in the FAA. Two planes had struck the World Trade Center, and Boston Center had heard from FAA headquarters in Washington that American 11 was still airborne. We have been unable to identify the source of this mistaken FAA information."
I'd also like to find out more about who at FAA proposed shutting off the radars two months before as a cost cutting move--just rely on transponders.