9/11 Live: The NORAD Tapes
Vanity Fair’s website has published “United 93” producer Michael Bronner’s article, “9/11 Live: The NORAD Tapes," including audio excerpts. Bronner was given three CDs containing the Northeast Air Defense Sector audio files for September 11, which he summarizes in his very interesting article. It turns out that there was some inaccurate and misleading testimony to the 9/11 Commission: In the chronology presented to the 9/11 commission, Colonel Scott put the time NORAD was first notified about United 93 at 9:16 a.m., from which time, he said, commanders tracked the flight closely. (It crashed at 10:03 a.m.) If it had indeed been necessary to “take lives in the air” with United 93, or any incoming flight to Washington, the two armed fighters from Langley Air Force Base in Virginia would have been the ones called upon to carry out the shootdown. In Colonel Scott’s account, those jets were given the order to launch at 9:24, within seconds of NEADS’s receiving the F.A.A.’s report of the possible hijacking of American 77, the plane that would ultimately hit the Pentagon. This time line suggests the system was starting to work: the F.A.A. reports a hijacking, and the military reacts instantaneously. Launching after the report of American 77 would, in theory, have put the fighters in the air and in position over Washington in plenty of time to react to United 93. ...