TOUCHING HISTORY
By the time you read this column, presidential candidate Barack Obama will have chosen his vice-president. In the talk-circuit dialogue it has been mentioned that the Iraq war, and his platform of having been against it, is hardly an issue any longer as just this week Condi Rice has agreed, in theory, to work with the Iraqi government on a timeline for withdrawal of the bulk of U.S. forces. By "Condi Rice" I mean, the current administration, and for those like Obama it is now easy to bask in the glow of relatively easy decision making that remains there. For guys like McCain, it will soon be forgotten how he, and he alone, risked his political career calling for a surge in troop levels when it was considered political suicide to do so.
As for me, I just finished a book by Author Lynn Spencer called "Touching History" and I took the liberty of borrowing her book title for this column. Lynn is a commercial pilot whom I interviewed a while back, prior to having read her book. I may wish to speak to her again, to thank her, for spending so much time researching and more importantly, for taking the time to write such a book. Among other things, it reminded me how real the threat from terrorism remains, and that despite our success in Iraq, this is no time, indeed there may never again be a time, to become self-assured about our security. Her book also reminded my of the harrowing and tragic losses that took place on September 11th, 2001. As we approach another anniversary of that devastating day, I encourage you to read this book.
As a private pilot I have always been amazed and interested in the air traffic control system. It is a fascinating sub-culture that operates 24/7 and attracts, even demands, a particular type of personality. Not far from where I live, in Nashua, NH, there is an FAA facility known as "Boston Center". This is one of only 14 such facilities across the country and the one in Nashua handles all air traffic from the Canadian border, west to the Great Lakes, and south to, and including, New York City. I have visited there many times and have friends who work there. A dark, windowless room, below ground, with rows of screens and harried controllers. It was here that the flights that did so much damage on 9/11 were tracked, and it was here that a lone controller named Scoggins kept informed almost every command facility in the country as to what was going on that dreadful morning.
The events in the air on that morning were everything that the aviation system is not. Air traffic controllers save many lives and receive no notice. They are always available to aid you in your flight, available in an emergency to guide you to the nearest airport. But the entire system revolves around...well...control. There is phraseology that must be learned and adhered to, almost like learning another language. It all revolves around protocol. On the morning of September 11th, there was none of that, and there was also no word from the President, or the high command, on what to do. Controllers and pilots made it up as they went along, and they did a fantastic job. Lynn spent years interviewing pilots, controller, and military and FAA people and the book includes a lot of facts you never saw in the 9/11 Commission Report.
Among those is the fact that there were indeed hijackers on other flights. One flight in particular that landed at Newark International Airport after United 175 had struck the World Trade Center, had another crew of hijackers on it, but at that point they were evacuating the airport terminal and passengers were rushed off the plane and sent out onto the street. They vanished. This happened with other flights as well. Lynn also writes in detail about the F-16's that were scrambled out of Otis Air Force base, circling New York, waiting for instructions, and finally receiving orders to "intercept" any flight that came towards the city. The F-16's were unarmed and the pilots faced the real possibility of knowing that they may have to sacrifice their own life while taking out an airliner full or civilians. This was just about to happen when the last hijacked flight crashed in a field in Pennsylvania.
The book is a heartbreaker to read. It details that morning, and what was happening in control towers, cockpits and command centers all over the country as all of these exceptionally bright people struggled to get their heads around what was happening. Ben Sliney, who was having his first day on the job as commander at NORAD, and was told to expect a drill from the government that day centering on...you guessed it..hijackings. But remember, hijack training in the aviation community revolves around the "old-style" hijacking. A flight gets re-directed to an airport, lands, and demands are made. She details the conversations which took place on air-traffic frequencies, as all involved tried to grasp what was happening. For the longest time, many thought it was part of the drill, even later as CNN was running news footage of an airliner striking the Towers, many FAA folks figured it was part of the script. It was Scoggins in Nashua who finally realized that the planes were not landing at JFK, LaGuardia or Newark. They were traveling too fast as they approached the city. By then, it was too late.
Among other things, I was shocked to know that at that time, there were only a dozen armed fighter jets across this entire country which were "scramble-ready", that is, armed with live ammo and ready to fly. Twelve jets protecting the airspace of the country, and not even flying, just parked ona tarmac somewhere. I bet that has changed. I was shocked at the lack of preparedness between agencies. There were no communication lines, no protocol for dealing with this eventuality, each sector waiting for authorization from a higher link, but the higher link never called. It is truly heartbreaking to read, to see this great country, this fantastically complex system, brought to its knees by an alarmingly simple plan. The book provides inside information from flight deck conversations that are truly amazing. As pilots everywhere were receiving little or no information from an air traffic control system that was busy unwinding like a ball of yarn in a hurricane. It was Ben Sliney who, finally, took it upon himself to shut down all U.S. airspace for the first time in history. They struggled to identify the hundreds of flights in and around New York, not knowing how many planes were taken. A few? Twenty? Hundreds? After shutting down New York airspace there were still over four hundred flights inbound over the Atlantic, most of which had been out of radio contact for hours while crossing "the pond".
Flights coming out of Tokyo and long hauls began receiving "ACARS" messages from their dispatchers. These are like text messages that are read off a screen in the cockpit and come from the airlines home office. "Land in Honolulu immediately", or "Go back", or "U.S. airspace closed". One 747 pilot who was on his retirement flight thought his crew was pulling a prank for his last flight. his First Officer handed him the stack on ACARS messages that had come in while the Captain was on rest time and he began to weep. Pilots were shocked and receiving frantic instructions to divert or land at the nearest airport, all of the stunned to hear that American airspace was "closed". It couldn't be. A woman controller working Seattle told of a foreign commercial flight coming in off the Pacific and she was diverting all her traffic to Canada. The pilot, finally putting two and two together, took his instructions and then told her, simply, "our condolences". At that, she broke down into uncontrollable sobs and had to leave her post.
In just a matter of hours, this incredible army of folks took it upon themselves to make hefty decisions and closed the air over this country for the first time in history. There are many unsung heroes in this book and I recommend it highly. It isn't often that I take the time to write about something I read, but this book is a stand-out. It pays homage to all the fine people who worked behind the scenes that day to try and bring things under control. These are the same people whose job it is to keep us safe in the air. The failure that day of the system hit many of them very hard, and the 9/11 Commission Report, a political, more than a scientific, document, was pretty hard on some of them. As you read this book, full of transcripts, you can see how impossible it was to figure out what was happening in time to do anything, and even had they been able to, the only "solution" at that point was to begin shooting down airliners full of innocent people. More importantly, it sings the praises of so many people who went above and beyond on that tragic day in America, and it also serves as a refresher course on exactly who the enemy was, and to this very day, still is.
Karl From New Hampshire