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Colonel
Bob
Mart
NEADS Commander
June
25,
2002
Q
- But I
want
to get a run
down,
I
know
you
talk about
it a
million
times,
the
gist
of
events
that
day,
stuff
that went
on,
what
was
going through your mind
,
a
couple peoplehave
mentioned
the
incident
of
September
12
th
,
was
that
public?
Would that
be
You
talking
about
the one
where
the
yahoo came,
and
looked like
he was
going
to hit the
SAF(?) as far as I know
that's
not public.Q
- Ok,
well were
you
when this
all
went down?
I
understand
you
were
in
exercise
at
the
time.
And
what
was
that exercise called?Vigilant
??? . I'm not
positive.
It
was a
(non-?) exercise.
We
have
a
basically
use a 10
hour
shift,
8 to 8, so I was
coming
on the
SAM
shift.
We had our 8
o'clock,
I'm
prettysure
it was 8
o'clock,
AM
briefing. Felt pretty sharp because
this
was the
beginning
-
gone
through ??. So I think it probably took about twenty minutes to get out our missionbriefing. I had checked in with General Arnold
;
we made sure our lines were up and
ready
to go. We were ready to start our work. The night crew had
been
on for 12 hours
because
we had
started
12
hours
shifts
previously, rather than
the
initial
10 to 12
hours.
So we had the
battle staff(?)
fully
in
place.
Q
-
Which
is
where? Right here?Yes it is. But it's not there anymore but it was right at the top. And I remember standing
up
there at. let's see we call in
after
that briefing was over, and probably 8:35, probably
8:40ish
or closer, seeing there was a huddle of people around one of the scrips. Have you
ever
set
foot
on the ops
floor?
Q
-1
was
there
a few
years
ago and ???
That's good. The ?? scrips, that's where the weapons guys are. I remember looking at
the
CFNC
(sink?),
the
forward
left
one, there's
4 or
five
people huddling around,
I
used
to
run the
exercise staff around here,
and
I've seen
many
many
exercises
—
built them
myself,
and I saw
that huddle
and
said
there's
got to be
something wrong. Something's
happening
up
there...(something's?)
getting ready to kick off Usually see that wheneverthey've
found
a track on the scrip that
looks
unusual, that is nothing
that
really drives the
exercises
? ?. But
that's
usually the indicator that something's getting ready to kick off.
So I
looked down there
and
said
okay, we
need
to
find
out
what's
going
on. And I
said
to
Major
(Denson?)
at the
time, take
a
look
and
find
out
what's going
on
with that?
And
she
started talking with them.
And
then
she
came running back
and
looked
at the
scope
andsaid
it
looks like we've
got a
real-world hijack, possibility
of a
hijack. Girl that
works
at the FAA ??/ thought it was possible to have a hijack, kind of a
????
if I can use
the
term, and then they lost contact with them. They lost the transponder and then the
voice
communication
just
dropped
off
the scope.
NCT0068070
 
i
Q
- How did
Major
Denson(?)
find
this out?
x
Talking
to the
folks
that
were huddled
around..Q -
Didn't Somebody call?Jenny
(or Jeremy)?? had
been
called.
The FAA had
called
Jenny
Pow. Jeremy
Pow had
beencalled as(?)
the FCC
division.
????
This
is
what they found
out
later: That
theFAA, up at
Boston center,
has
been used
to
working with they guys
out of
Otis,
the F-
15s.
so the two
guys that were
on
alert received
a
call
at the ops
desk there
at
Otis,
from
the
FAA
that said,
we
think
we
have
a
path
of a
jet, would
you be
able
to put a
coupleairplanes
in the air for us?
Q -
Called them because they?
I
said listen
-
Yeah, better call
the
center because they're
the
ones
that actually controljets.
So we
grabbed
our
gear
and
went running
out to the
airplane.
And the guy
that
was
the eventually
the
lead,
Ken
Duffy,
talked
to the
other
guy who was
actually scheduled
to
be
theleadandsaid,heyhaveyouever done this before?
this
sounds
likeitmightbe a
real-world
hijack. The other guy
????
about ten minutes, said I
don't
have it (??). it justso happened that Ken
Duffy
had flown in the formation the
last
time we had a hijack.And
so he
took
the
lead.
The
last
time
we had a
hijacking
I
think
it was
fall
92,
early
93,
just so happened that I was in the battle club(?) on that particular day
also.
But was in the
2-ship
atOtis thatwesentout
after
that guy.
Q-??
????? if you're there long enough, you know most of the
guys,
and that one landed
safely
at
JFK(?) as a matter of
fact.
But anyway, we told them to call us, and then remembered
what
they had were
four
of the weapons crew because these were the guys that brief(?)
into
that
by
technician, which
is why the
phone? com? back into
the
weapons position
(of2(or6)313?).Q -
(odd tape speed
up)
I
thought that
it was
going towards
JFK
based gauging
from
the ? on
information,
????•
transcript,
I
think that transcript
is
pretty
much
intact.Q - That's great.
We
lost depth
in the
transcript(?),
but
that
the
best systems
do it to you
once
in a
while.
So she
came back
up
trying
to
find
on the
scope what
was
going
on. She
told
me
that;
Idirected(?) a
battlestation,
at
Otis,
and the
guys
at
Otis said that they were about
halfway
totheir
airplanes when
the
horn blew
to get
battlestation.
As
they were trying
to
trackdownwhere this aircraft is, I got on the phone., on the
secure phone
to general Arnold, I
 
said
'sir
I've
got a
potential hijack,
FAA
thinks it's going
to
JFK. this
is not an
exercise.'
In
fact, that
was the
first
question,
I
guess
I
should have
sensed
(?) the
question:
Is
this
real-world
exercise? No this is real world, so I told General Arnold we got a real-worldexercise. Said
myintentwas to
scramble
Otis
to
military
airspace
while
we
figured
out
what was going on. And he said, go ahead, do it. So while I was still getting him the
information
we
scrambled,
Otis.
Guys said they were
sittingin the
jets
ready
to go
whenthey
got the
scramble
order.
??
battle
stations
you
just
get in the
jets,
jets
start
up, and
wait.
And
then
the
scramble
order, take off.
The
guys, you'll
talk
to
Maurine
Julie,apparently
she had
gotten some
of the
word
-she'sin the
ID(?)
Section,
the
identificationsection. Said, while we're getting
the
floor(?)
while
you get the
jets launched
-
she'strying
to
track down
the last
known position,
possible
speed
of the airliner,
assuming
it's
going
towards
JFK(?),
sounds likeshethoughtshe had ablipon thescope
just
beforeitdisappeared
at
about
-
disappeared
at
8:46.
Q - Did she ID it?
You'll have
to
talk
to
her,
but my
impression
is
that
she
thought that
she saw a dot on the
scope
which could have been
it.
Because
it
looks
not
squad team
(?)
....
Have Differentsymbol,you get amuch more clean symbol.
Q -
Because
the
transponder would have been turned off.
Yeah,(discussionof
using acronyms,
as
words)
At
any
rate.
So
we're looking
for the
track.
We
were launching
at
Otis basically
scrambling
order wentat8:46 whichis thesame time that laterweheard reportedthe
world
trade center
was
hit.
Q
- So the scramble order went out at the same time?
Basically.
...
the FAA had called us at 8:40, so by the time that we got the words all
going forward, we
probably
left
the
battle stations
at
8:43 roughly,
and
then scramble
more
than
likely,
probably 8:46.
Q
- This is the same moment ???
What
really
happened
from
what
I
understand later, took
off..
???????????
really nicely
-
the
shape
of the
radar detections
and
???, sure
??? on the
internet
even???
Q
-
(strange speed
up of
tape)
so we got our
first
word about
6
minutes prior
to the
time that
it hit the
world trade
center.
Q - And I
know you've been asked this
a
lot:
in
your
mind,
this
is not an
accident
at
this
point.
of 00

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