Dick Cheney: They practice this—you move, whether you want to be moved or not, you’re going.
Mary Matalin: There was a call to evacuate—initially we were ordered to evacuate to the mess, which is the lowest floor accessible in the West Wing. We all sat around there for some minutes. Then out of nowhere came this call: “Run, run, run, they’re headed for the White House, run for your life!” I was in a purple pencil skirt and red patent leather Charles Jordan spiked heels. Not the best outfit to run for your life in.
Gary Walters: The Secret Service officers started yelling, “Get out, get out, everybody get out of the White House grounds.” I remember early on, the chaos. People running, screaming. Fear was in my mind.
Rafael Lemaitre, staff, Office of National Drug Control Policy, White House: I wasn’t sure where to go. All I knew is that I should run away from the White House, and I sure as hell wasn’t getting on Metro [the subway] either. I briskly walked northbound on 17th Street. An image I’ll never forget was of a blind homeless man, standing on his regular corner near the Farragut North Metro exit, begging for change. He seemed oblivious to the fact people were rushing the opposite way of the regular morning rush hour pedestrian traffic. He was still asking for change. It was an absurd image.
Christine Limerick, housekeeper, White House: The look on the faces of the Secret Service agents who were told that they had to stay—I will never forget that because we had at least the opportunity to flee.
Ian Rifield, special agent, U.S. Secret Service: We were fairly confident that plane was going to hit us. The supervisor in the [Secret Service’s] Joint Operations Center basically said, “Anybody who survives the impact, we’ll go to an alternate center, and we’ll continue.” It wasn’t a joke.
James Davis, supervisory special agent, FBI Headquarters, Washington, D.C.: There was this overwhelming feeling that we were on the run. They evacuated the building; it was so frustrating because agents want to do something. I stayed behind and realized suddenly I was all alone on the fifth floor. It’s just me. I wondered if our building was going to be hit next; I thought, I wonder if this is going to hurt?
At the White House, Secret Service agents hustled the vice president and other top aides into the bunker underneath the North Lawn, a facility known as the Presidential Emergency Operations Center (PEOC) that dates back to World War II and is meant to protect the president from an incoming attack.
Dick Cheney: A few moments later, I found myself in a fortified White House command post somewhere down below.
Commander Anthony Barnes, deputy director, Presidential Contingency Programs, White House: Vice President Cheney arrived in the bunker, along with his wife. The PEOC is not a single chamber; there are three or four rooms. The operations chamber is where my watch team was fielding phone calls. Then there’s the conference room area where Mr. Cheney and Condi Rice were—that’s the space that had the TV monitors, telephones, and whatever else.
Mary Matalin: It took a while for everybody to actually get to that area. It hadn’t been used for its intended purpose—which was to be a bomb shelter—since its inception.
Commander Anthony Barnes: Shortly thereafter, I looked around and there was Condi Rice, there was [White House Communications Director] Karen Hughes, there was Mary Matalin, there was [Transportation Secretary] Norm Mineta. Mr. Mineta put up on one of the TV monitors a feed of where every airplane across the entire nation was. We looked at that thing—there must have been thousands of little airplane symbols on it.
Mary Matalin: The vice president was squarely seated in the center. It was emotional, but it was really work, work, work. We were trying to locate first and foremost all the planes. Identify the planes. Ground all the planes.
Commander Anthony Barnes: Things really began to happen very fast.
Matthew Waxman: I was still in the Situation Room, and I got a message saying Condi Rice had requested I come down to work with her in the PEOC. I wasn’t really sure what it was like above ground in the White House. I wasn’t sure anybody had shut the national security adviser’s office. During the day, there are open safes and highly classified information sitting on her desk or my desk. Perhaps the scariest moment for me was when I went back up to check on the office, standing by myself in the national security adviser’s office, realizing the White House had been totally evacuated. For all I could tell, I might have been alone in the West Wing. That was the moment at which it most hit me that perhaps I was in some grave personal danger.
Commander Anthony Barnes: Every one of my guys in the watch room have at least two phones to their ears. I was talking to the Pentagon Operations Center on one line. I had a line to FEMA [Federal Emergency Management Agency], and people are asking us for directions on what to do and how to do it.
Matthew Waxman: The TV feeds would occasionally go down. The vice president was pretty ticked off about that. There were technical glitches that day. One of my jobs was to stand with a phone in my hand to make sure that there was an open line between the PEOC and some of the other national security officials. So that if the vice president or the national security adviser needed to speak to one of them, we had a direct line out with me at one end and a counterpart on the other.
Commander Anthony Barnes: That first hour was mass confusion because there was so much erroneous information. It was hard to tell what was fact and what wasn’t. We couldn’t confirm much of this stuff, so we had to take it on face value until proven otherwise.
Waxman, left, with Cheney in the bunker.
* * *
A few miles from the White House, across the Potomac River, the military’s leadership at the Pentagon—including the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the service branches’ Joint Chiefs of Staff—realized the nation was at war.
Donald Rumsfeld, secretary of defense: I was at a breakfast with congressmen and someone came in and said that a plane had hit a World Trade Tower. The breakfast ended, and I came back for my intelligence briefing. I was sitting there when someone said that a second plane had hit the other tower.
Col. Matthew Klimow, executive assistant to the vice chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Richard Myers, Pentagon: My first inclination was to turn around and draw the draperies shut in the office, thinking maybe there’d be a bomb blast. I was worried about flying glass. Every time I think about that I think of how futile it would have been if the plane had hit my part of the building.
Victoria “Torie” Clarke, assistant secretary of defense for public affairs: We went in to talk to the secretary, who was at his stand-up desk. We were saying, “Here’s what’s going on, and what we know. The command center is going to start getting spun up.” He said something like, “Well, let’s take a look at my schedule, maybe we will have to move something.” His special assistant said, “Everything is coming off your schedule—this is your schedule today.”
Joe Wassel, communications officer, Office of the Secretary of Defense: We all started thinking, What’s next? What are we doing? What can be done? We had a discussion and my coworker actually said, “We could be next,” meaning the Pentagon.
Staff Sgt. Christopher Braman, chef, U.S. Army: My wife called about 9:25, frantic on the telephone, and told me a plane had hit the Trade Center in New York. I remember reading that morning there was an Afghan Northern Alliance general that was assassinated over the weekend. I told my wife, “You know I bet you that had something to do with it.” Then I realized my wife didn’t want to hear that—she just wanted to know I was OK. I told her, “Not to worry. I love you.”
“Blip, blip, blip. Gone.”
* * *
American Airlines Flight 77
At 8:20 a.m. American Airlines Flight 77, a decade-old Boeing 757, had taken off from Dulles International Airport, outside Washington, D.C., en route to Los Angeles. It carried six crew and 58 passengers, just a third of its capacity. The last routine communication from the plane came at 8:51 a.m., and by 8:54 it had deviated from its intended course, turn
ed south, and then headed back toward Washington.
Ted Olson, solicitor general, U.S. Department of Justice: One of the secretaries rushed in and said, “Barbara’s on the phone.” I jumped for the phone, so glad to hear Barbara’s voice. Then she told me, “Our plane has been hijacked.” I had two conversations—my memory tends to mix the two of them up because of the emotion of the events. We spoke for a minute or two, then the phone was cut off. Then she got through again, and we spoke for another two or three or four minutes. She told me that she had been herded to the back of the plane. She mentioned that they had used knives and box cutters to hijack the plane. We then both reassured one another—this plane was still up in the air, this plane was still flying. This was going to come out OK. She said, “I love you.” She sounded very, very calm.
Dan Creedon, departure controller, TRACON, Reagan National Airport, Washington, D.C.: We were trying to juggle big decisions. There was some sketchiness and some miscommunication back and forth, and some slowness in realizing that we were dealing with an additional hijack, because by gosh, we already had two.
Ted Olson: I was in shock and horrified. I reassured her that I thought everything was going to be OK. I was pretty sure everything was not going to be OK. After the first conversation, I had called our command center at the Department of Justice to alert them there was another hijacked plane, that my wife was on it, and she was capable of communicating. I wanted to find out where the plane was. She reported to me that she could see houses. We segued back and forth between expressions of feeling for one another and this effort to exchange information. Then the phone went dead.
Ben Sliney, national operations manager, FAA Command Center, Herndon, Virginia: There had never been a situation where hijackers ever flew the plane, which created the biggest paradox for us on that day, trying to figure out what was going on—how could a hijacker force the pilot, either by holding a gun or a knife to his or her head, force them to fly into the building?
Maj. Gen. Larry Arnold, commander of the 1st Air Force, NORAD, Tyndall Air Force Base, Florida: Our fighter aircraft were getting close to Washington, D.C., when American 77 came back on radar scope. I think the tape showed that it was about three minutes before it hit the Pentagon.
Dan Creedon: I’ll never forget—it was a military transport out of Andrews Air Force Base. Gofer Zero-Six was the call sign. He was making a left turn out of Andrews, going right over Washington National Airport, southeast of the Pentagon, when American 77 was acquired by the Dulles approach controller. I said to the guy working the C-130 out of Andrews, “Hey, you’d better call traffic on that guy because these two guys are head to head.” He said, “Traffic, at 11 o’clock, four miles, do you see anybody out there?”
Lt. Col. Steven O’Brien, pilot, C-130 known as “Gofer Zero-Six,” Minnesota Air National Guard: I noticed an aircraft at about our 10 o’clock position, higher than us. I could see that he was descending. He made a fairly steep, banked turn in front of us.
Dan Creedon: The pilot came right back and said, “Yes, sir, an American seven-five-seven turning southeast bound.” I’ll never forget—I was like, “What?” Maybe I was the slowest guy on the planet that day, but I really didn’t understand that was a hijacked aircraft until it hit the Pentagon.
Lt. Col. Kevin Nasypany, mission crew commander, NEADS, Rome, New York: I got a report that Reagan Tower thought there was an aircraft coming in, about six miles outside. I was looking at the scope, and the D.C. airspace was very similar to New York or the Boston area—a lot of aircraft.
Ted Olson: I called some people, maybe because I had to share the dread that was living inside me. I called my mother and I called my son.
Danielle O’Brien, air traffic controller, Washington Dulles International Airport, Virginia: I noticed the aircraft. It was an unidentified plane to the southwest of Dulles, moving at a very high rate of speed. The speed, the maneuverability, the way that he turned, we all thought in the radar room—all of us experienced air traffic controllers—that it was a military plane. You don’t fly a 757 in that manner. It’s unsafe.
Lt. Col. Steven O’Brien: They requested that we follow this airplane. I don’t think they said “chase,” but “do you think you could turn and follow this airplane?” That was strange. I had never had a request like that in all my entire career of flying. It was very, very strange, but I still matter-of-factly said, “Sure, we can follow that airplane.” It became a losing proposition because this airplane was going faster. We could still see the glint off the wingtips.
Ted Olson: I dreaded the realization that what had happened to the airplanes in New York was going to happen to her plane.
Lt. Col. Dawne Deskins, mission crew commander, NEADS, Rome, New York: I had the scope focused in on the D.C. area and got blips of this aircraft that appeared to be going in a turn around D.C. I probably got six or seven radar returns on it before it faded and was gone. I got this feeling in the pit of my stomach.
Danielle O’Brien: We waited, and we waited. Your heart was beating out of your chest waiting to hear what’s happened.
Robert Hunor, contractor, Radian, Inc., Pentagon courtyard: National Airport is right next to the Pentagon, so there’s a huge amount of aircraft traffic going overhead. I remember when we walked outside it was dead silent. We were talking, and I was like, “They must have shut down the airport.” All of a sudden I heard a faint sound—like an engine spooling up. You could hear the plane flooring its throttles. I had begun to say, “I thought that they shut the airport,” and then the plane hit.
Mike Walter, senior correspondent, USA Today Live: I was stuck in traffic [near the Pentagon]. I rolled down the window. That’s when I heard the jet. I looked up and saw its underbelly, then it banked, and it began to dive. It was unbelievable.
Craig Bryan, engineering technician, Pentagon Navy Annex, Arlington, Virginia: I can still hear the jet engine. The throttle was wide open; it was screaming.
Lt. Col. Kevin Nasypany: I see one blip, two blips, radar only, blip, blip, blip. Gone.
Lt. Col. Steven O’Brien: We saw this huge fireball. I reported to air traffic control—I said something to the effect, “That airplane’s down. It’s crashed.”
Dennis Smith, maintenance inspector, Pentagon Building Manager’s Office: There was a big, giant ball of fire, red and black. The heat hit us like from a barn fire. Then parts started flying out of the sky.
Ted Olson: After the second phone call, we kept watching television. Not too long later, we could see over the television screen smoke coming from the Pentagon. I knew in my heart that it was her flight.
Gary Walters, chief usher, White House: I heard a loud muffled thud. I looked over the tree canopy to my right in the direction of the Pentagon, and I could see the big plume of black smoke with flames in the middle of it.
Rosemary Dillard, Washington, D.C., base manager, American Airlines, and wife of Flight 77 passenger Eddie Dillard: My administrative manager came up to me, grabbed me, and said, “Rosemary, one of those was our crew—it was Flight 77.” I turned and looked at her and said, “It couldn’t have been Flight 77—I just put Eddie on Flight 77. It cannot be Flight 77.” She had the name of the crew. I knew the kids, the flight attendants. I went in and contacted my regional manager and my VP, and I called my friend who works in scheduling to see what plane it was. It was Flight 77.
Lt. Col. Steven O’Brien: We proceeded on a little bit farther—that’s when the silhouette of the Pentagon became apparent. Then I realized that it had crashed into the Pentagon. And I know no pilot would ever do something like that. Things were really going haywire.
Danielle O’Brien: The Washington National Airport controllers came over our speakers and said, “Dulles, hold all of our inbound traffic. The Pentagon’s been hit.”
“Plane into Pentagon. We need all help.”
* * *
The Third Plane
Across the Potomac from Washington, D.C., the riverbank in Arlington, Virginia, is do
minated by the massive concrete Pentagon, the global headquarters of the U.S. military and the offices of the secretary of defense. It is also the largest low-rise office building in the world, and home to a daily population of workers and visitors of around 35,000, all protected by its own police force, which was known in 2001 as the Defense Protective Service.
In September 2001, the building was undergoing its first full-scale renovation since its construction during World War II. Each of its five wedges was being updated with new bomb-proof windows, better wiring, and better fire-suppression systems. Staff and personnel had just started to move back into the renovated parts of “Wedge 1.”
At 9:37 a.m., American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into Wedge 1, the western side of the Pentagon, at 530 miles per hour, skimming so low over the nearby highways that it knocked down five streetlights. The force of the impact sent the plane through the first three of the Pentagon’s five rings of corridors, penetrating the building the length of more than a full football field. Instantly, 400,000 square feet of the Pentagon erupted in flames.
Robert Hunor, contractor, Radian, Inc., Pentagon courtyard: The plane hit between the second or third floor, E-Ring. The innermost ring is A, and the outermost ring is E. There’s five—everything is five: five floors, five rings, five sides. The fireball—you could feel the heat on your face. It didn’t sound like an explosion in the movies. It sounded like a dumpster being dropped off a truck at 2:00 in the morning. It was really, really loud, and then the fireball was about five stories high—as tall as the building. We stared in disbelief.
Scott Kocher, contractor, SAIC, Pentagon: We were standing there watching the events at the Trade Center when all of a sudden there was a loud boom. It sounded like somebody had dropped a large safe on the floor above us. I’d say not more than 60 seconds to two minutes later, there was a report on the news saying that the Pentagon had been rocked by an explosion. Obviously we all turned and looked at each other, because we were in the Pentagon.
The Only Plane in the Sky Page 10