The morning was clear along the eastern seaboard as passengers boarded their flights at Boston Logan International Airport, Newark Liberty International Airport, and Dulles International Airport. No delays were expected as people settled in their seats and aircrews readied for takeoff. American Airlines Flight 11 from Boston departed at 7:59am, 14 minutes late. The next, United Airlines Flight 93 from Newark, pushed back from the gate three minutes later. At Dulles, American Airlines Flight 77 was scheduled to leave at 8:10am. The fourth flight, United Airlines Flight 175, also out of Boston, took off at 8:14am.
The first sign of trouble came at 8:14am, when American Airlines Flight 11 did not respond when the air traffic controller instructed the aircraft to climb to 35,000ft.
Five minutes later, Betty Ong, a flight attendant on Flight 11, alerted American Airlines via an airphone: “The cockpit is not answering, somebody’s stabbed in business class – and I think there’s Mace – that we can’t breathe – I don’t know, I think we’re getting hijacked.” She then told of the stabbing of two flight attendants.1
Within a minute Federal Aviation Administration flight controllers in Boston concluded Flight 11 had probably been hijacked. The hesitation was understandable, since no US airliner had been hijacked since December 7, 1987.2 A decision that it was a hijacking was reached at 8:34am. Boston Center then alerted North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) of the event. Boston flight control called the Massachusetts Air National Guard Otis Air Base on Cape Cod directly at 8:34am. Major Daniel Nash (call sign “Nasty”) and Lieutenant Colonel Timothy Duffy (call sign “Duff”) were the two F-15 pilots scrambled to intercept Flight 11.3
Duff recalls: “I was just standing up by the ops desk and I was told I had a phone call. I asked who it was and they said the [Boston] tower calling and something about a hijacking. It was Flight American 11, a 767 [sic], out of Boston going to California. At the time we ran in and got suited up.” Two unarmed 102nd Fighter Wing F-15s scrambled to intercept the plane.
As soon as the pilots were strapped into their aircraft, the green light directing them to launch went on. Duff radioed his command post for guidance, asking, “Do you have words?” The response was, “Possible hijack, American Flight 11, 737, flight level 290 [29,000ft], over JFK.”
But it was already too late. At 8:46am American Airlines Flight 11 crashed into the World Trade Center’s North Tower, and 17 minutes later United Airlines Flight 175 impacted the South Tower.
When Flight 175 hit, the F-15s were 71 miles – about eight minutes’ flying time – from Manhattan. Both pilots were together, near John F. Kennedy Airport, about 15 miles from the World Trade Center, when the first tower collapsed. Visibility was extremely clear that morning, and Nasty could see the plume of black smoke pouring from the first tower. He was flying about 5,000ft above the second tower when it, too, folded into a torrent of dust and debris. Nasty recalls Duff saying over the radio, “It looks like the building collapsed.” He thought to himself, “There were just tens of thousands of people killed. I thought it was the start of World War III.”
Even if the F-15s had arrived in time, they did not have the necessary presidential authorization to shoot down civilian aircraft. “If we had shot down four airliners on September 11, we wouldn’t have been heroes,” Nasty said. “You don’t have the choice of outcomes. They’re all bad. We didn’t have the authority to [shoot it down]. We didn’t suspect they would use kamikaze tactics that morning. We weren’t ready for that type of an attack, to quickly shoot down one of our own airplanes. We did everything we could do to get there in time. I was the same as everyone else. I was shocked and disbelieving, and frustrated that we were so late.”
American Airlines Flight 77 smashed into the western side of the Pentagon at 9:37am. At 10:03am, the hijackers on United Airlines Flight 93 intentionally flew into the ground 80 miles southeast of Pittsburgh, Somerset County, Pennsylvania, to avoid being overpowered by the passengers.
“I remember sitting in my civilian office down in Lancaster [Pennsylvania] when things started happening,” recalls Colonel David A. Wood, G Company, 104th Aviation Regiment, Pennsylvania National Guard. “I grabbed my gear, grabbed my flight suit, and jumped into my car. Within an hour I was flying the governor and the commander of the State Police to the crash site in Shanksville. We were there about an hour after the plane hit and saw the devastation and how you can reduce an airplane to very small pieces.”4
General Tommy Franks, Commander in Chief (CINC), US Central Command (CENTCOM) was in Crete resting after a ten-hour flight from Andrews Air Force Base. A few minutes after 4:00pm local time, his aidede-camp, Navy captain Carl V. Mauney, informed General Franks of the World Trade Center attacks. “As I watched the flames and roiling black smoke, a colorful graphic appeared on the bottom of the screen: ‘America Under Attack.’ Osama bin Laden, I said Son of a bitch!”5
Master Sergeant Mike Elmore was with 5th Special Forces Group at the time of the attacks:
On September 10 we were on a training exercise with another team from 5th Group using Zodiacs on the Cumberland River. On the morning of the 11th we came back and put the Zodiacs on the trailer getting ready to go back to Fort Campbell.
We turned the radios on and heard the news of the second plane hitting the towers. After finagling for about two hours to get on post we put the Zodiacs back in the dive locker [and] we went straight to palletizing and packing. We weren’t given any formal instruction about leaving at that point, but we knew that sooner or later we would be leaving, so we started getting our stuff ready to go, waiting for the word telling us about leaving.
We received an e-mail from Colonel Mulholland, 5th Group command, to everyone in the Group saying “Make no mistake, we’re leaving. Don’t know when, but we will be the tip of the spear in this fight. Don’t doubt yourself because now is not the time to question yourself whether you know your job or not. Be cognizant at all times and be prepared to fight.”6
By the time the fourth plane crashed into the ground, General Franks was gathering information on what assets were available for an immediate counterstrike against al Qaeda targets in Afghanistan. The answer was that within 24 hours, 80 Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles (TLAMs) would be within strike range and another 120 a day later. But this time cruise missiles wouldn’t be enough. In 1998 the Clinton administration launched cruise missiles to attack known or suspected terrorist training camps in Afghanistan after al Qaeda-led attacks on several US embassies. The missiles had little effect. The attacks showed that only ground troops could effectively locate and kill terrorists.
The world quickly condemned the attacks against the US. On September 11, 2001, the General Assembly of the Organization of American States “condemned in the strongest terms, the terrorist acts visited upon the cities of New York and Washington” and expressed “full solidarity” with the US Government and people.
On September 12 the United Nations Security Council issued Resolution 1386 (2001), part of which unequivocally condemned the “horrifying terrorist attacks which took place on September 11, 2001 in New York, Washington, DC and Pennsylvania and regards such acts, like any act of international terrorism, as a threat to international peace and security.”7 It also called upon all States to work together to bring justice to those responsible for the attacks.
Also on September 12, for the first time in its history, NATO invoked Article 5 of the Washington Treaty, which states that an armed attack against one or more NATO countries is an attack against all NATO countries. However, despite invoking Article 5, NATO did not authorize any specific military action.
On September 18, 2001, the United States Congress passed a joint resolution, later signed into law as Public Law 107-40. The law, which is still on the books, states that:
The President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations, or persons.8
Discussions between President Bush and his advisors, the State Department, the Defense Department, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and the National Security Agency (NSA) led to a strategy of first ousting the Taliban from Afghanistan and dismantling al Qaeda, although some members considered actions in Iraq, including longstanding plans for toppling President Saddam Hussein. Plans for operations against Iraq were tabled until al Qaeda and the Taliban were defeated.
President George W. Bush addressed a joint session of Congress on September 20. His statement to the Afghan Taliban government was straightforward:
By aiding and abetting murder, the Taliban regime is committing murder. And tonight the United States of America makes the following demands on the Taliban.
Deliver to United States authorities all of the leaders of Al Quaeda [sic] who hide in your land.
Release all foreign nationals, including American citizens you have unjustly imprisoned.
Protect foreign journalists, diplomats and aid workers in your country. Close immediately and permanently every terrorist training camp in Afghanistan.
And hand over every terrorist and every person and their support structure to appropriate authorities.
Give the United States full access to terrorist training camps, so we can make sure they are no longer operating.
These demands are not open to negotiation or discussion.
The Taliban must act and act immediately.
They will hand over the terrorists or they will share in their fate.9
However, talking about striking back against al Qaeda was easy; planning how to do it was more complex. Fighting in Afghanistan presented a challenge different from any the US had ever faced.