by Robert Smith
Planner forced himself to acknowledge Indigo and said grimly, “Ok. Coordinate the Flight 11 messages, Indigo.”
Colonel Purple announced, “We’re at Waypoint A.”
Bates said, “Are we ready to make switch?”
“Flight 11 is within the radar-free zone,” said Ochre.
“Drone ready,” said Magenta.
“Right. Make the switch. Radio Turq, switch off transponder, bring the airliner down. Start spoof transmissions. Alert ground teams: that we’re at Waypoint A,” said Planner.
“Spoof transmissions started,” said Ochre
“Ground team informed,” said Bates.
“Contact team, engage!” said Ochre and he waved at the contact team. Tangerine, Mint and Mahogany waved back and start talking into their headsets.
“Turquoise reporting that she’s already on the descent,” said Orange.
Magenta said, “Drone Flight 11 taken over. Moving into new Flight Plan.”
Planner took out his cell phone and tried to send Katherine another text from his phone: “Don’t go into work!”
* * * *
On a sunny New York Street close to the World Trade Center, a van with the sign “Urban Moving Systems” pulled up. The van had a logo of plane diving towards the Twin Towers.
Katherine saw the van as she crossed the street and found the logo vaguely unsettling. She continued towards the WTC Plaza, the North Tower Lobby and entered a lift.
Meanwhile, by a waterside conference center a few hundred yards away, a couple of dozen people who had emerged from the same subway train, wandered into a small lecture theatre. One of the hosts for the conference welcome them into the room and gave them a leaflet entitled “New York Office Of Emergency Management TRIPOD” and subtitled, “A training day to response to terrorist events”. Projected on a large screen above the podium was the following: “NY Office Of Emergency Management Welcomes FEMA to TRIPOD 11th-14th September 2001 at the World Trade Center.”136
Immediately under the World Trade Center Plaza, in the basement under WTC Building 4, men were loading gold bars into an armoured truck.
Within the 20th floor of the WTC North Tower, a young man looked at his watch next to a bank of twenty PC computers. When the second hand reached 12, he went past each machine pressing the ENTER key and then walked out the door, switching off the lights and locking the door. The computer glowed in the dark and alternatively displayed in text “Sell: ok” and “Transfer: ok”.137
In the street a few blocks north of the WTC, two men were videoing firemen performing work in the middle of the road. The cameraman checked his bearings. He looked south towards the twin towers and then looked north straining to see something in the skies. Yes, he was in the perfect position.
Meanwhile another photographer was finding his best spot. He lay on his back, looked straight up at the South Tower. He said to his colleague, “This is it,” and winked.
Across the river, on a rooftop with perfect view of the twin towers, five men set up a tripod with another camera.
* * * *
Colin Scoggins was hardly ever late for work. He was that day because his daughter’s school had been turned into a voting station for local elections and he had a longer than usual commute after dropping her off at the child minder. Scoggins was the supervising Air Traffic Controller at the FAA Center close to Logan Airport. His desk was at the head of a bank computer consoles each attended by an air traffic controller; each controller managed different sectors of air space and different flights. Before taking off his jacket Scoggins noticed a worried look from one of the junior controllers, Greg Allen. Scoggins went straight over to him to review the situation.
“AA Flight 11 is only at 15,000 feet but it is diverging from flight plan,” said Allen tensely. “There was some radio interference. I can’t get hold of the pilot.”
Scoggins peered hard at the screen.
Air Traffic Controller continued, “I can’t be certain… but it sounded like a hijacking.”
“No way. Surely it is still climbing,” said Scoggins in disbelief. It was unheard of for aircraft to be hijacked at such low altitudes and so soon after take-off.138 It would have still been climbing sharply.
“This guy said we have some planes but it was mixed with radio interference so I can’t be sure it was Flight 11,”139 said the ATC. “I know it sounds crazy.”
“Keep trying to contact them. I’ll escalate,” Scoggins knew instinctively that something was wrong. He pounced onto a telephone and started dialling.
* * * *
Planner looked down at his Blackberry cell phone. It said, “Message not sent. No signal”. Planner looked up with some realisation and said quietly to Bates, “Cell phones don’t work in planes.140”
“They don’t?” said Bates surprised.
“No. Look no signal!” said Planner showing the “no service” icon on the Blackberry handset.
Ochre overheard, “Right. Not above a certain height and speed. The base stations are designed for slow moving ground changes. That’s why we have a satellite link from the E4-B, though, remember. We’ve been through this… I can set up the KneeCap’s Base Station Transceiver…”
Bates’ eyes widen. He appreciated the problem immediately; much of the back story from flights 93 and 77 relied upon communication from air to ground from passengers using cell phones. Rather than replying to Ochre, Bates said to Planner, “Airphones! Need to change the back-story to airphones141. Indigo?”
Bates looked over to Indigo.
“Now?!” said Indigo incredulously. “But the airphones don’t work either, we asked the airlines to discontinue that service last year.”
“Just cut the cell phone references. We’ll manage the back story later,” said Planner.
Indigo bounced over to the Contact Team and interrupted them, “Cell phone calls are cut. Crew communications continue, right?” Indigo looked back at Planner.
Planner nodded uneasily.
Orange said, “Flight 175 reached rendezvous zone.”
Planner said, “Prepare to switch. Wait for my say-so. Bates, are basement explosives ready?”
Bates confirmed, “Yes, synchronised.”
Orange stuttered, “Sorry, I just let the Flight 11’s impact warning go off. I’ve suppressed it.142”
“Keep Calm and Carry On,” reassured Planner. “No-one will notice.”
* * * *
Katherine entered the conference room on the ninety second floor looking worried. There were ten people in the room but not the CEO.
A smart suited male colleague greeted her, “Katherine, so glad you can make it. We’re just hooking up the video link.”
“Video link?” said Katherine aghast.
“The CEO. He’s conferencing in,” he said with a fixed smiled.
“You said he’d be here,” stammered Katherine.
“Well, he will be. By video,” continued the colleague jovially.
Katherine looked dazed and spun a look around the room and then ran for the door, “Sorry. Excuse me. I need to go. You need to go. Get out!”
The colleague turned to the others and shrugged, “Well, she did say she was sick.” The others nodded.
Katherine ran to the lift lobby, where an elevator door was closing. She had just missed it.
* * * *
At FAA Air Traffic Control, Colin Scoggins slammed a phone down. Another experienced ATC, Joseph Cooper, had recently arrived and joined the Scoggins and the worried looking junior ATC responsible for the rouge aircraft.
“These new procedures143 don’t work,” fumed Scoggins. “We need authorisation further up the chain. We don’t have time for that.”
“Well we said they wouldn’t work,” stated Cooper sardonically.
“We need someone who can get some fighters up there. Cooper, don’t you have a direct contact in the Air Defence Sector?
“NEADS? Yes, I’ll get right on it,” said Cooper calmly.
Scoggings to
ssed a folder over to Cooper, “If you need them, here’s today’s code-words…”
The ATC said to Scoggins “One of the flight attendants has called Logan Airport. It’s definitely a hijacking. Flight 11 is now heading for New York!”
“Any details? Number of hijackers? Demands?” gasped Scoggins.
“Some of the flight crew have been killed. They may have a bomb,” said ATC as professionally as he could.
Cooper, on the phone, calls to Scoggins, “They’ve patched me in.”
“Keep it cool,” says Scoggins, connecting into the call via a headset.
“Hi, this is Joseph Cooper of the FAA,” said Cooper smoothly to the NEADS commander. “This is a high priority interrupt call.”
“Go on,” said the NEADS officer officiously on the end of phone.
“We have a hijacked aircraft headed towards New York, and… we need someone to scramble some F-16s or something up there, help us out,” said Cooper.
“Is this real-world or exercise?” said the officer, knowing that they were running five major aerial exercises that day.
“No, this is not an exercise, not a test,” said Cooper.
* * * *
The cameraman on the street filming the firemen’s activities looked at his watch. “Action!” he joked.
The firemen laughed back and continued their activities. The cameraman then pans north and appeared to pick out something in the sky and trace it all the way to his clear view of the WTC towers.
* * * *
In the basement of the north tower, WTC Supervising Janitor, William Rodriguez, was shocked by a massive explosion in an adjoining room.144 Several of his staff were killed instantly; some horrifically injured, skin ripped from their flesh.
Eigthy floors above, Katherine’s colleagues were focused on the face of Lewis Paul “Jerry” Bremer III145, their CEO, on a video link. That was the last thing they ever saw. A fireball exploded at that point, the northern face, and through several floors above and to the east side of the building.146
The explosion blew down elevator shafts: cables snapped and some elevators fall.
Jerry, a mid-forties office worker, had just entered an elevator, when the plane hit. He felt the elevator shake and start to give way. He dived out of the open doors as the elevator fell; the top of the elevator just missing his legs as he did so.
Safety devices halted most elevators with the consequence of trapping the occupants inside. Some elevators inexplicably did not stop but fell, crashing downwards into the sky lobby147. In one lift, flames blasted through the elevator door burning the occupant badly.148
Knowing the building well, when she left the meeting, Katherine knew she was not far from the sky lobby and had elected to use the stairs. She had descended several flights before the explosion. She was knocked down, bruised and cut. The stair case two floors immediately above her were wrecked. She was covered by a rocky debris and a thick layer of dust.
* * * *
“Impact,” Orange stated.
“Terminate Flight 11 transmissions,” said Planner sadly.
“175 Drone ready,” said Magenta.
Planner responded deadpan, “Black out the airliner. Tag as Old-175. Start spoof 175 transmissions. Inform ground team.”
Magenta gave a thumbs up.
“Spoof 11 terminated, 175 transmissions started,” said Orange.
Bates asked, “What’s happened to 93?”
Ochre reported, “Flight 93 has just taken off!”
Bates sighed. Bad news travels fast and Flight 93 could have been grounded.
“Old-175 to follow behind Flight 93,” commanded Planner.
“We’re getting visual confirmation from Flight 93’s chase plane,” said Magenta.
“Yes, Closet Point of Approach is one mile in 5 minutes,” said Orange.
“Ok, Make it so.” Said Planner.
“Vectors passed to Old-175, it is now following 93 to Cleveland,” said Orange.
“Very good. The only way anyone could spot that on radar would be if they had AWACS,” winked Purple.
* * * *
An elevator arrived at the North Tower 78th floor sky lobby with a ding, the door opened and a burnt occupant crawls out. A helpful man rushes to his aid. He could still walk and they started towards a stairway. They hear another person banging on another elevator door. After a few minutes trying, the helpful man calls out, “I can’t… I can’t get these doors open, Buddy. You’ll have to hang on for a bit longer, ok. I’ll bring help. I won’t forget you.”149
* * * *
Over in the South Tower on the 97th floor, a group of workers at the Fiduciary Trust Company looked in horror at the fire in the North Tower.
“What was that?” exclaimed one. “It must have been a bomb!”
A loudspeaker voice announced over the tannoy, “The office is secure. Please return to your offices.”
Another worker said, “Secure? No, I don’t like this. We ought to evacuate.”
Another one said, “They’ll be busy enough down there without us getting in the way.”
The insecure worker said, “I’m getting out of here. Suppose there’s another bomb?”
A loudspeaker voice repeated its message, “The office is secure. Please return to your offices.”
Continuing on, he said, “Aren’t you worried you’ll be trapped?”
“From here?” said the first. “I’d get out onto the observation deck! Get picked up by helicopter. Just like Ninety-Three!150”
* * * *
There was smoke swirling around the ceiling, the air was acrid; it was difficult to breath. At the stairway leading up to fire escape onto the roof, a queue of people, all covering their mouths with cloth, found the exit door was locked.
“It’s blocked! Somebody go get a fire axe,” said the man by the door.
“I thought you said you had a key,” said the man behind him.
“I do have a key. But there must be a second lock,” said the first man.
“Who the hell would lock a fire exit?” shouted someone further below.
The women behind the first two started to panic, “This smoke is going to kill us, we have to get some air!”
“Smash a window,” someone called.
A black man at the bottom of the stairs, “If you’re smashing a window then I’m getting myself a table-cloth and parachute out.”
“You’ll kill yourself,” said the man next to him.
“Break a leg, for sure. Still better than this,” he retorted.
“Someone get me an axe!” yelled the first man.
Another man said, “Or climb onto the roof? It’s been done before…”151
* * * *
Orange looked up from his radar screen, “Chase plane reports that Flight 77 has missed the rendezvous point.”
Planner shot a look over to Magenta, who looked embarrassed. “Slow down 77 and get the drone to circle around.”
Bates said “Er… what’s happening with the 175 drone? Look at the screen.”
The radar display showed Flight 175 closing towards Delta 2315. A collision detection warning was flashing on the display.
* * * *
Scoggins and Cooper were having an animated debate concerning the loss of radar contact with Flight 11 and other anomalies such as ghost tracks appearing on their screens. Within the bank of radar screens at the FAA Air Traffic Control Center, a controller was monitoring Flight 175. Mildly distracted by the commotion at the other end of the office, he noticed the potential for in-flight collision.
He waved his hand to attract his supervisor’s attention, saying “We’ve got another one”. He turned to bark into his headset microphone, “Delta 2315, Take evasive action. Aircraft heading for you on starboard side. Take evasive action.”
The pilot’s voice was calm but concerned, “Control, I can see nothing. What evasive action is recommended?”
The controller was frantic, “Aircraft descending from starboard to your alti
tude. On collision path! Go port”
The Pilot snapped back, “Understood! diving to port!”
* * * *
Orange looked grimly at his radar screen showing the two tracks touching and then move away. He checked the data returns from both aircraft, they were both still flying. Through gritted teeth, he said, “We just had a near miss.”
Planner said, “175? How near?”
“About as close as you can get152,” said Orange.
Planner winced, “Keep the number of fake hijackings and simulated tracks down until the drone hits.153 Let the FAA steer other craft away. What’s happened with Flight 93? 175 is supposed to be following that to Cleveland!”
Magenta called out, “77 drone swap complete.”
Ochre reported, “Completing Flight 77 swap. Indigo, how’s the contact group transmissions going?”
Indigo trembled, “Slight delay on that. Deleting references to cell phones in the scripts and losing some tapes. Doing the best I can. I may need to keep in some key conversations. With Cell phones. They are pre-recorded, we can’t mimic them.”
Planner and Bates looked towards Indigo grimly.
“Ok, do it! Do the best you can,” said Planner. “We’ll sort out the loose ends later.”
* * * *
Katherine, covered in fine concrete dust, clothes ripped, limped into the lift lobby via a stair well. The air was full of smoke. Jerry who was directing other survivors down another stairway, came up to her.
“Are you ok?” he said.
Katherine stared back at him blankly.
Jerry said, “I thought that stairway had collapsed.”
Katherine nods and coughs, “It has.”
“Come this way,” he said. “Stairway C seems to be clear. Can you make it? We’ve got everybody alive from this floor.”
* * * *
On several TV channels, news started to trickle through. One newsreader stated, “We have just heard that an aircraft has hit one of the towers at the World Trade Center. Witnesses state that a small single engine aircraft crashed into the north tower. We hope to bring you live pictures shortly.”
* * * *
At the FAA, Cooper dejectedly hands a phone to Scoggins. “It’s Washington.”
“What’s all this about calling up fighter aircraft outside of protocol?” shouted a managerial voice.