The 9/11 Commission
Report
From Chapter
1, section 1.2
1.2 IMPROVISING A HOMELAND DEFENSE
The FAA and NORAD
On 9/11, the defense of U.S. airspace depended on close interaction
between two federal agencies: the FAA and the North American
Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD). The most recent hijacking
that involved U.S. air traffic controllers, FAA management,
and military coordination had occurred in 1993. In order to
understand how the two agencies interacted eight years later,
we will review their missions, command and control structures,
and working relationship on the morning of 9/11.
FAA Mission and Structure. As of September 11, 2001,
the FAA was mandated by law to regulate the safety and security
of civil aviation. From an air traffic controllers perspective,
that meant maintaining a safe distance between airborne aircraft.
Many controllers work at the FAAs 22 Air Route Traffic
Control Centers. They are grouped under regional offices and
coordinate closely with the national Air Traffic Control System
Command Center, located in Herndon, Virginia, which oversees
daily traffic flow within the entire airspace system. FAA
headquarters is ultimately responsible for the management
of the National Airspace System. The Operations Center located
at FAA headquarters receives notifications of incidents, including
accidents and hijackings.
FAA Control Centers often receive information and make operational
decisions independently of one another. On 9/11, the four
hijacked aircraft were monitored mainly by the centers in
Boston, New York, Cleveland, and Indianapolis. Each center
thus had part of the knowledge of what was going on across
the system. What Boston knew was not necessarily known by
centers in New York, Cleveland, or Indianapolis, or for that
matter by the Command Center in Herndon or by FAA headquarters
in Washington.
Controllers track airliners such as the four aircraft hijacked
on 9/11 primarily by watching the data from a signal emitted
by each aircrafts transponder equipment. Those four
planes, like all aircraft traveling above 10,000 feet, were
required to emit a unique transponder signal while in flight.
On 9/11, the terrorists turned off the transponders on three
of the four hijacked aircraft. With its transponder off, it
is possible, though more difficult, to track an aircraft by
its primary radar returns. But unlike transponder data, primary
radar returns do not show the aircrafts identity and
altitude. Controllers
at centers rely so heavily on transponder signals that they
usually do not display primary radar returns on their radar
scopes. But they can change the configuration of their scopes
so they can see primary radar returns. They did this on 9/11
when the transponder signals for three of the aircraft disappeared.
Before 9/11, it was not unheard of for a commercial aircraft
to deviate slightly from its course, or for an FAA controller
to lose radio contact with a pilot for a short period of time.
A controller could also briefly lose a commercial aircrafts
transponder signal, although this happened much less frequently.
However, the simultaneous loss of radio and transponder signal
would be a rare and alarming occurrence, and would normally
indicate a catastrophic system failure or an aircraft crash.
In all of these instances, the job of the controller was to
reach out to the aircraft, the parent company of the aircraft,
and other planes in the vicinity in an attempt to reestablish
communications and set the aircraft back on course. Alarm
bells would not start ringing until these effortswhich
could take five minutes or morewere tried and had failed.
NORAD Mission and Structure. NORAD is a binational
command established in 1958 between the United States and
Canada. Its mission was, and is, to defend the airspace of
North America and protect the continent. That mission does
not distinguish between internal and external threats; but
because NORAD was created to counter the Soviet threat, it
came to define its job as defending against external attacks.
The threat of Soviet bombers diminished significantly as the
Cold War ended, and the number of NORAD alert sites was reduced
from its Cold War high of 26. Some within the Pentagon argued
in the 1990s that the alert sites should be eliminated entirely.
In an effort to preserve their mission, members of the air
defense community advocated the importance of air sovereignty
against emerging asymmetric threats to the United
States: drug smuggling, non-state and state-sponsored
terrorists, and the proliferation of weapons of
mass destruction and ballistic missile technology.
NORAD perceived the dominant threat to be from cruise missiles.
Other threats were identified during the late 1990s, including
terrorists use of aircraft as weapons. Exercises were
conducted to counter this threat, but they were not based
on actual intelligence. In most instances, the main concern
was the use of such aircraft to deliver weapons of mass destruction.
Prior to 9/11, it was understood that an order to shoot down
a commercial aircraft would have to be issued by the National
Command Authority (a phrase used to describe the president
and secretary of defense). Exercise planners also assumed
that the aircraft would originate from outside the United
States, allowing time to identify the target and scramble
interceptors. The threat of terrorists hijacking commercial
airliners within the United Statesand using them as
guided missileswas not recognized by NORAD before 9/11.
Notwithstanding the identification of these emerging threats,
by 9/11 there were only seven alert sites left in the United
States, each with two fighter aircraft on alert. This led
some NORAD commanders to worry that NORAD was not postured
adequately to protect the United States.
In the United States, NORAD is divided into three sectors.
On 9/11, all the hijacked aircraft were in NORADs Northeast
Air Defense Sector (also known as NEADS), which is based in
Rome, New York. That morning NEADS could call on two alert
sites, each with one pair of ready fighters: Otis Air National
Guard Base in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and Langley Air Force
Base in Hampton,Virginia. Other facilities, not on alert,would
need time to arm the fighters and organize crews.
NEADS reported to the Continental U.S. NORAD Region (CONR)
headquarters, in Panama City, Florida, which in turn reported
to NORAD headquarters, in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
Interagency Collaboration. The FAA and NORAD had developed
protocols for working together in the event of a hijacking.
As they existed on 9/11, the protocols for the FAA to obtain
military assistance from NORAD required multiple levels of
notification and approval at the highest levels of government.
FAA guidance to controllers on hijack procedures assumed that
the aircraft pilot would notify the controller via radio or
by squawkinga transponder code of 7500the
universal code for a hijack in progress. Controllers would
notify their supervisors, who in turn would inform management
all the way up to FAA
headquarters in Washington.Headquarters had a hijack coordinator,who
was the director of the FAA Office of Civil Aviation Security
or his or her designate.
If a hijack was confirmed, procedures called for the hijack
coordinator on duty to contact the Pentagons National
Military Command Center (NMCC) and to ask for a military escort
aircraft to follow the flight, report anything unusual, and
aid search and rescue in the event of an emergency. The NMCC
would then seek approval from the Office of the Secretary
of Defense to provide military assistance. If approval was
given, the orders would be transmitted down NORADs chain
of command.
The NMCC would keep the FAA hijack coordinator up to date
and help the FAA centers coordinate directly with the military.
NORAD would receive tracking information for the hijacked
aircraft either from joint use radar or from the relevant
FAA air traffic control facility. Every attempt would be made
to have the hijacked aircraft squawk 7500 to help NORAD track
it.
The protocols did not contemplate an intercept. They assumed
the fighter escort would be discreet, vectored to a
position five miles directly behind the hijacked aircraft,
where it could perform its mission to monitor the aircrafts
flight path.
In sum, the protocols in place on 9/11 for the FAA and NORAD
to respond to a hijacking presumed that
the hijacked aircraft would be readily identifiable
and would not attempt to disappear;
there would be time to address the problem through
the appropriate FAA and NORAD chains of command; and
the hijacking would take the traditional form: that
is, it would not be a suicide hijacking designed to convert
the aircraft into a guided missile.
On the morning of 9/11, the existing protocol was unsuited
in every respect for what was about to happen.