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Lisa
Sullivan
From:
Miles Kara
Sent:
Wednesday,
May 19,
2004 12:10
PM
To:
Lisa Sullivan; Dana Hyde; Geoff Brown; John
Azzarello;
John Farmer; Kevin
Shaeffer
Cc:
Team
7
Subject:
Taaffe
and
Merkley Interviews
Here
are the
take aways from
the Taaffee and
Merkley Interviews. Team
7, any
insights?
Merkley
1.
He
stayed
on the
NOIWON
for its
duration.
On
initiation
he
passed
the
info that
Darryl
Smith
had
received
from
the
initial conference call with Eastern Region.
He and
Smithworked
intel
issues
in
tandem inside
the
SCIF.
ACI
had the
TACNET
on
open speakerphone
and he
Merkley stated that
he
passed onto
the
NOIWON information from
the
TACNET
that
he
thought important.
He
thought
he
specifically passed information about
the
report
of a
bomb
on
board UA93.
He
does
not
recall names
or
organizations
on theNOIWON,
but
thought that
the
usual suspects
(He was
familiar with NOIWON from
a
tourwith
J2 JCS and the
NMJIC)
State, WHSR, CIA, FBI, NSA,
NMJIC
and
NMCC were
on.
He
is not
aware
of
anyone taping
the
call. Dana,
we may
still want
to try and
interview
BG
Seip.
If
Merkley
is
accurate
about
the
TACNET
connection,
then that
is one
line
of
communication about
air
traffic information directly into
the DDO
shack.
2.
He
recalled being contacted within
a
month
or two of
9/11
about
the
issue
of DoD
beingconcerned they were
not
notified
in a
timely manner.
He
thought
he had
been contacted
by
someone
in ACI who had
been contacted
by DoT
and/or DoD.
He
recalls that person
as
not
being Mike Morse.
He
thought most likely candidate
was
John Harris whoseresponsibility
was
terrorism against civil aviation
and who put out an
annual reportsomething along
the
lines
of
'criminal
acts against civil
aviation.'
3.
He
thought
he
went
upstairs
to
unlock
and
setup
the
mini-SCIF.
He
recalled
it as a
verysmall one-
or at
most two-person office.
He
named Hahn
and
Kormann
as the
upstairs
crew.
Downstairs,
in
addition
to the
leadership—Durgin
and
Manno—he
placed Smith
and
Stubblefield
and
Volaro.
4.
He
recalled
one
specific intel report
of
interest
in
Spring/summer
2001,
a CIA TD
which
spoke
to
terrorists, possibly
Al
Qaeda
seeking planes
and
pilots
to
move items around
the
mid-East.
He
thought that
ACI
opened
an
ICF
on the
issue
and
that
he
called
the
FAA
rep at
CIA, Robert White
to
further inquire. They
finally
sent
a
letter
to FAA in
August
2001—no
response.
5.
He was
certain they
had no red
switch phone
, but had five
commercial lines
in ACI
that
were
all STU
Ill-capable.
Taaffe
1.
He is the
author
of the
"Crisis Management
and
Event Tracking System, Event
LogReport.
He
recognized many entries
as his
work.
2.
He
acknowledged that
the
event
log
combines information from
the
TACNET, Primary
Net,
and thePSI
position.
3. He
could
not
recall
who
manned
the
Primary
Net and was
reluctant
to
place Mike
Weikert
as
that person.
4. He
recalled
he was
wearing
a
headset
and
that
he
could listen
in to
either net.
6/3/2004
Page
2
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5.
He
confirmed that
the
activity sheets that Falcone provided were
the
mechanism
for
passing
info
to
recorders.
6.
He
thought others
in the
room included McGlothlin,
Bob
Clark,
and
Guffey,
in
addition
to
the
dais
and
first
row
folks.
7. He
confirmed after
a
review
of the log
report that there
are no
NMCC-related
entries
and few
entries that might
be
primary
net
associated.
8.
He was
specific
in
recall that there were three positions
on the
dais—Longmire,
Lozito,
and
an ATC
person. While
he
could
not
recall
the
name
(I
offered
up
Griffith
and
Davis)
he
was
clear
in his
recall that
the
person
was in
continuous contact with
an air
trafficfacility.
9.He
joined
FAA HQ in Feb
2001
and
recalled that Carrie Reilly with perhaps help from
Mike
Weikert ran
several familiarization exercises
of1-2
hours duration about
ACC
operations.
It was
through this training that
he
gravitated
to the
primary
net
recorderposition
and
assumed that position
on
9/11.
He
thought that those exercises
had
some
hijacking
content. John
A.,
we may
need
to
talk
to
Reilly about purpose
and
training
of
potential
ACC
augmentees.
Taaffe
broke down briefly
as he
struggled
to
recall
who was in the
room
and who was
seated
where.
Christine informed
me
that
on the way
back after
her
interview Fran Lozito also broke
down and was
crying.
Christine
provided
a
pile
of
documents, mostly repeats.
We
have another copy
of the
Canolescompendium, each
of the
formal hijack packages,
the
Tracy Paquin compilation
of
logs (somewith different handwriting, John will need
to
take
a
look)
and the
complete
incident
log
from
the
ACC.
She
also provided
a CD was has
much
of the
info that supported
the FAA
power point
brief
they gave
us at the
beginning. However,
it
also
has
spiffy
tracks
as
captured
by the
TRACONS—we've
had
paper copies,
but the
electronic version
is
much better. Interestingly,
the
CD
(dated
as of
9/02)
has
some
of
Cheri
Gott's
stuff
on
it!!
Miles
6/3/2004
I
SP
Sou
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