When it comes to defending U.S. airspace, the Defense Department always has looked outward, focused on stopping a flight — whether a drug-smuggling Cessna or a Russian Bear bomber — from getting too close to the border without being identified.
The Sept. 11 hijacking of four commercial airliners that never left the United States exposed a weak link in the nation’s homeland defense.
The North American Aerospace Defense Command — NORAD — a joint agency under the U.S. Space Command, has revealed little about the actions it took Sept. 11, when the four planes were hijacked and turned into manned projectiles.
The first warning to NORAD came around 8:38 a.m. when the Federal Aviation Administration, which monitors commercial air traffic within the United States, told NORAD headquarters at Peterson Air Force Base, Colo., that an American Airlines flight from Boston to Los Angeles had been hijacked and was flying to New York City, said NORAD spokesman Army Capt. Barry Venable.
NORAD won’t say how it reacted to that information.
The Christian Science Monitor reported that two F-15 Eagles from the 102nd Fighter Wing at Otis Air National Guard Base in eastern Massachusetts were sent aloft. Officials at Otis would not comment.
With less than 10 minutes’ warning and 200 miles away from New York City, there was little the F-15s could do before an American Airlines plane struck the World Trade Center’s north tower at 8:48 a.m.
NORAD won’t discuss how it reacted when the second hijacked plane hit the Center’s south tower at 9:03 a.m.
About that time, an American Airlines flight from Dulles International Airport, Va., to Los Angeles made a U-turn and eventually crashed into the Pentagon at 9:38 a.m.
NORAD won’t discuss how it reacted to that hijacking.
Shortly after the Pentagon was struck, F-16s from the District of Columbia Air National Guard’s 113th Wing were sent aloft. The unit’s fighters may not have been able to get airborne sooner because they typically aren’t on alert, said an official familiar with the wing.
At 10:10 a.m., the fourth hijacked airliner — United Airlines Flight 93 — crashed into a field near Shanksville, Pa.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and NORAD have since denied rampant rumors that the plane was shot down.
Had any fighters arrived in time to confront one of the hijacked airliners, Air Force pilots could have been instructed to shoot down the jets.
“Knowing what we know now, a fighter would have shot the planes used to crash into those buildings,” said retired Gen. Chuck Horner, who led NORAD as head of the U.S. Space Command from 1992 to 1994.
Who makes the call?
NORAD won’t discuss details of rules of engagement for dealing with a threatening plane, but a decision to shoot down a civilian plane would have to come from high up the chain of command, higher than a wing commander, Venable said.
Horner said a former general in charge of monitoring the Southeast coastline lost his job after an F-15 under his command came too close to a suspicious civilian plane in bad weather. The civilian pilot, a dentist heading home, lost control and crashed.
The closest the Air Force has come to shooting down a civilian plane over the United States was on Oct. 25, 1999, when a Learjet carrying golfer Payne Stewart began acting mysteriously after taking off from Central Florida.
The FAA notified NORAD, which diverted an F-16 out of Eglin Air Force Base, Fla. Two F-16s from the Oklahoma Air National Guard’s 138th Fighter Wing took up the chase north across the Midwest.
The pilots saw no signs of life in Stewart’s jet. When the FAA and NORAD concluded the jet would run out of fuel and crash without endangering anyone on the ground, they left it alone.
Had the Learjet changed course and endangered a city, shooting it down would have required approval from the president, defense officials said at the time.
