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FAA

Comments

on

Chapter

One -

9/11

Commission Final Report

We

appreciate the opportunity to comment on Chapter One of the 9/11

Commission's

Final

Report. The Commission has spent over

15

months investigating what happened

that

day and the FAA has

produced thousands

of

tapes*

transcripts

and

documents

and

provided thousands of

staff

hours in support of the Commission's work. The FAA

does

nothave benefit of all the

Commission's

evidence, but using the evidence that isavailable

to the

Agency,

we

offer

the

following comments:

The

Commission's

report

acknowledges

that what happened

to the

United

States

on9/11

was

unprecedented and that neither the FAA nor the Military had ever encountered ortrained

for

such

an

attack.

Unfortunately,

the

Commission then characterizes

the

actions

or lack

ofaction

taken

by the FAA as

failures

to

improvise

a

response

which might

have

led

to a

different

outcome. Where the Commission charges FAA personnel with inactionbased on our present excellent hindsight, it does a disservice both to them and to thepublic.Youwill appreciate that thisisfrustratingand

disappointing

formanyin the

FAA,

both current

and

former

employees,

who

have

felt

that

the

Agency responded wellconsidering

the

difficult

and

confusing

circumstances

of the

national emergency.

Chapter

One is adetailed accountingof the FAAresponseon9/11from thecompilation

of

facts

gleaned

from

many facilities,

but

what

is

lost

on the

reader

are

these

facts

essential

to an

understanding

of the

tragic events:

1.

Four planes were airborne and hijacked within approximately the same basic

timeframe

-

approximately

one

hour.2. Information critical to an understanding of the scope of the attack was not

available

instantly

to

either

FAAor

Military personnel

who

might have made

useof it had it

been available instantly.3. There were numerous

reports

of other errant aircraft that turned out to beerroneous, and

4.

Nearly 5,000 airplanes airborne in the airspace above the United States during theattacks had to be safely handled by air

traffic

controllers,

many of which werediverted to airports other than their intended destinations.There is no question that there were communication breakdowns and

other

problems on

9/11.

However,

it is

important

to

note that

FAA

employees understood immediately thatcommunication capabilities had to be improved, learned from the weaknesses in oursystem,

and

took immediate action

to

address them.Focusing

on the

draft

of

Chapter One,

we

provide

the

following

comments

and

invite

the

Commissiontoconsider them seriously.Welook

forward

toreviewingtheCommission'srecommendations.

Transmissions

from

Terrorists

The Commission's report gives the

false

impression that there was immediate awareness

by

controllers

and

others above them

in the

chain

of

command

of

exactly what

was

said

inthe

transmissions

from the

terrorists

early

on

that morning.

The

inference

is

thatawareness in FAAHeadquarters, particularly,wasmuch more clearandcomplete thanit

was.

The

fact

is that in most

cases,

the

controllers

were not sure what they were hearing

and

the

tapes

had to be

pulled immediately

and

replayed

and

analyzed

in

order

to

determinewhat was said. As you are aware, some of the transmissions requiredconferring with language experts at FBI

after

9/11

to determine what was

said.

All of thetransmissions were enhanced

after

the

fact

to eliminate background noise, etc. As theevents

unfoldedthat

morning, controllers had one chance to hear the transmission. Whenthe public

does

have

access

to the

actual unenhanced

transmissions,

we

believe

that

the

comparison

would

be stark.

Documentation

On

9/11,

the FAA's Headquarters did not have recording capability on Headquartersphone lines, therefore, many of the conversations that took place that day are lost toposterity. The Commission heard

from

many FAA Headquarters witnesses about criticalcallsmadeto theMilitaryandothersbutthose recollectionsare notincludedor notconsidered

in

this report

as

best

we can

determine.

It

would appear that

if the

Commission does not have in its position a tape, a log entry, or other document proving

that

a communication occurred, such communication is deemed not to have occurred.

Communication Problems

On

9/11,

thetelephone linesin theWashington,DCmetropolitan area were jammed

much

of the

morning. There

is no

question

that this

is a

contributing factor

to the

communication breakdowns among FAA, its field

offices

and other agencies, includingtheDepartmentofDefense.Thereport makesnomentionofthis fact.Nor isthereanymentionof the

fact

that

thePentagonwasevacuated

after

it wasstruckbyAmerican77,

which

made communication betweenDoD andother agencies, including FAA,all themore

difficult.

Page

specific commentsPage 4, third

full

paragraph"By8:00

am on the

morning

of

Tuesday, September

11,2001, they

had

defeated

all

of

the security layers that America's civil aviation security system then had in place

to

prevent a hijacking."

Noneof the layers of security in place on

9/11

were relevant to suicide hijackingsbecause such an attack was not anticipated. It

would

be more accurate to say that thelayers

of

defense

in

place

on

9/11

were

not

designed with

suicide

hijackings

in

mind,

and

so

were

not

effective

against them.

Page

10,

last paragraph

I

"As news

of the

hijacking

of

American

11

filtered through

the FAA and

American

/

Airlines systems

after

8:20,

it

does

not

seem

to

have occurred

to the

system's

leadership that they

needed

to

alert other aircraft

in the air

that they

too

might

be

hijacked."

At

orshortly

after

8:20am, there would have beennobasisforeitherthe FAA orAmericanAirlines to alert other aircraft that they might too be hijacked. At that

point,

there

was one

situation that

the FAA was

dealing with

and

knew about

-

American

11-

and

noindication that multiple hijackings were abouttooccur.

Page 11, second and fourth paragraphs"Around 9:00,

the

FAA, American

and

United

Airlines

were facing

the

staggeringrealization

of

apparent multiple hijackings."

The assertion that by sometime around 9:00am FAA, along with American and United,

failed

to act to

warn other aircraft

of

multiple hijacks grossly oversimplifies

the

situation

as

we allunderstooditthen. Therewasmuch confusionandvery littlein the way ofwellunderstood factual information

to

broadcast warning

messages

to

thousands

of

aircraft

at

9:00am

or

shortly thereafter. However,

FAA air

traffic

management

did

take actionlocally

in

Boston

and New

York

to

stop

all

traffic

based

on the

information

they

had by

that

time.

Page

15,

first

paragraph under

.*

tifofc-

FAA

Mission

and

Structure

/

"As

of September

11,2001,

the FAA was mandated by law to regulate safety and

security of civil

aviation.

From a

controller^

perspective,

that meant

maintaining a

safe

distance between airborne aircraft."

The

following

should

be

added

for

clarification

and

context:

Before

9/11

themissionof theFAA'sair

traffic

control systemwas toprovidethesafe,orderly and expeditious movement of

aircraft

in the national airspace system.

Safety

was

defined

as

separating

air

traffic

from

other

traffic,

terrain

and

weather.

Air

Defense

wasnot

consideredarolefor theFAA.FAA air

traffic

personnel supportedDoD

efforts

tocounter threats but this support contemplated an airborne threat coming

from

outside the

U.S.

Page

18,

third paragraph

"If ahijackwasconfirmed, procedures calledfor thehijack coordinatorondutyto

contact

the

Pentagon's

National Military Command Center (NMCC)

to ask for a

military

"escort

aircraft" to follow theflight,report anything unusual, and aidsearch

and

rescue

in the

event

of an

emergency."

As

FAAindicatedincommentsto

Staff

StatementNo.

17,

per theprocedures that wereinplace on

9/11,

the request for military escort was situation dependent. It was not alwaysthecase thatamilitary escort wouldberequested.TheCommission's depictionof thescenario, i.e., that every confirmed hijack called for military escort is not accurate.

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