The Eleventh Day

21 bomb/“ground stop”: CR, 25, 28.

22 “Order everyone”: USA Today, 8/12/02. There has been controversy over the origin of this order. Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta, testifying later to a congressional committee, said he “immediately called the FAA, told them to bring all the planes down.… [It] was the right thing to do.” Bob Woodward and Dan Balz, writing in The Washington Post, attributed the decision to land all planes to Mineta. The book Out of the Blue, by The New York Times’s Richard Bernstein, states that the order was issued by FAA administrator Jane Garvey. Joshua Green, for Slate, reported that the decision was in fact taken by the FAA’s acting deputy administrator, Monte Belger. The 9/11 Commission credited Sliney, citing the Command Center traffic transcript. In an interview with the authors, FAA spokeswoman Laura Brown emphasized that the decision was collaborative—taken not only by Ben Sliney but also by facility manager Linda Schuessler and other senior staff at the Command Center. Schuessler said as much in a 2001 interview (testimony of Norman Mineta, 5/23/03, CO, WP, 1/27/02, Bernstein, 188, Slate, 4/1/02, CR, 29, 461n165, int. Laura Brown, Aviation Week & Space Technology, 12/17/01, see also Freni, 65, testimony of Monte Belger and Ben Sliney, 6/17/04, CO, MFR 04018154, 4/20/04, MFR 04017327, 7/22/03).

23 4,540: Freni, 59;

24 By 12:16: WSJ, 3/22/04.

25 Clarke’s videoconference: The Commission Report states that the White House teleconference began around 9:25. Information the authors have learned, however, suggests that it started with some—but not all—officials on line at about 9:37. At the Pentagon, a “significant event” conference call—already under way for some minutes—was upgraded to an “air threat” conference call at around the same time. The FAA, for its part, had begun its own teleconference at about 9:20. The White House teleconference, and Clarke’s desire to have the most senior representative of each agency participating, had the effect of “decapitating” the agencies at various points. Taking part in the White House conference call meant that individual agency heads were away from the very people from whom they could receive the most accurate incoming information, and to whom they needed to give moment-by-moment instructions (CR, 36–, corr. Miles Kara, 2011);

26 Defense: Farmer, 184–, Tenet, 163;

27 first matter: Tenet, 163;

28 contingency/Hastert: Bamford, Pretext, 70–, 80–, transcript, 9/11, ABC News, 9/11/02, WP, 3/2/02;

29 Byrd: corr. Jesse Jacobs, 2010;

30 people pouring: int. Eleanor Hill;

31 White House evacuation: testimony of Norman Mineta, 5/23/02, CO, Richard Clarke, 8, CNN, 9/11/01, Newsweek, 9/24/01;

32 “CNN says”/“Does it”: Richard Clarke, 9;

33 humor: Dwyer & Flynn, 175.

34 golf club/computers: Dwyer & Flynn, 175–;

35 “There’s another”: int. Edward Chacia, TF, 12/6/01;

36 “They hit”: int. James Canham, TF, 12/18/01;

37 “What happened?”: Dwyer & Flynn, 178.

38 locked doors: CR, 294. Any faint possibility of going up had vanished at 9:30, when security officers tried and failed to activate a lock release programmed to open all doors—including doors leading to the roof—as explained on p. 22;

39 Beyea: Dwyer & Flynn, 178, 243;

40 Lillo: int. Manuel Delgado, 10/21/01, TF, NY Post, 9/21/01;

41 “The Chief said”/Suhr: int. Paul Conlon, TF, 1/26/02, NY Daily News, 11/1/01.

42 “We didn’t have”: Staff Statement 13, CO. The World Trade Center did have such a radio repeater system, but most chiefs were unable to use it on the day—either because it was malfunctioning or because they failed to use it properly. To bridge the communications gap, chiefs attempted to use shorter range equipment available—sometimes even their own cell phones—with little success. This left the chiefs in the lobby or outside the towers largely in the dark about the progress of the units moving up and around the building (“FDNY Fire Operations Response on September 11,” www.nyc.gov, CR, 188).

43 “People watching”/men struggled: Staff Statement 13, CO.

44 towers’ casualties/survivors: “Federal Investigators Classify WTC Victims’ Locations,” 7/20/04, NIST, Staff Statement 13, CO, Dwyer & Flynn, 252, 312. Estimates vary as to the number of people in the Twin Towers at the time of the attacks. We have here drawn on numbers cited in 102 Minutes, by Jim Dwyer and Kevin Flynn—which take into account not only the 2005 Final Report of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, but also of figures supplied by the Port Authority of New York (Dwyer & Flynn, 280, “Final Report on the Collapse of the World Trade Center Towers,” Washington, D.C.: National Institute of Standards and Technology, Sept. 2005, 19, 34, 37–, 48).

45 Clark/Praimnath: Bernstein, 225–;

46 Rooney: Banford, Pretext, 32–58;

47 70th floor: Staff Statement 13, CO;

48 Palmer: Dwyer & Flynn, 206;

49 PEOPLE TRAPPED: NY Daily News, 9/30/01;

50 overwhelmed: Staff Statement 13, CO;

51 “Some of them”: int. Roberto Abril, TF, 1/17/02.

52 Turi wondered: int. Albert Turi, TF, 10/23/01, CR, 302, 549n134—the chief is not identified in line with the 9/11 Commission’s agreement with the city of New York, corr. Kristen Wilhelm, 2010.

53 He shared: int. Peter Hayden, TF, 10/23/01, & see Staff Statement 13, CO;

54 “The potential”/“I think”: int. Peter Hayden, TF, 10/23/01, Dennis Smith, Report from Ground Zero, NY: Viking, 2002, 33;

55 “Everything above”: New Yorker, 2/11/02;

56 “Tommy”: int. Richard Carletti, TF, 1/2/02;

57 “I believe”: Dwyer & Flynn, 149–, De Martini’s comments were made in an interview for the History Channel, NYT, 8/29/03;

58 707/“low on fuel”: Seattle Times, 2/27/93, MedServ, 9/11/01, “Painful Losses Mount in the Construction Family,” 10/1/01, www.construction.com, “WTC Building Performance Study,” FEMA, 5/02, Ch.1.17;

59 drooping/molten metal: “World Trade Center Investigation Status,” 12/03, & “Investigation of the Sept. 11 World Trade Center Disaster—FAQs,” 8/30/06, NIST, “World Trade Center Building Performance Study,” Ch. 2., Pt. 2.2.3, FEMA, May 2002;

60 “large pieces”: CR, 304, 321, 549n148;

61 9:37 call: NY Daily News, 9/30/01, “Increasing FDNY Preparedness,” FDNY report, 8/19/02, 46–.

CHAPTER 7

1

over Ohio/Flight 93:

“Flight Path Study—United Flight 93,” 2/19/02, NTSB, ed. James Boyd,

After September 11

, Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2003, 88;

2

managed to telephone:

MFR 04020029, 5/13/04—detailed study of phone records, used throughout chapter, Moschella to Marcus (& attachments), 4/26/04, “Flight 11 Calls—DOJ Response,” B13, T7, CF. In addition to the passengers named