Who Is General Larry Arnold?

Who Is General Larry Arnold?

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May 19, 1997: Military Review Suggests Cutting Fighter Protection Over US; Several Bases Are Discontinued
Secretary of Defense William Cohen issues a comprehensive assessment of America’s defense requirements, called the Report of the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR). This is a six-month analysis of the “threats, risks and opportunities for US national security,” and reviews all aspects of the US defense strategy. [US Department of Defense, 5/19/1997] Amongst other things, the 1997 QDR outlines the conversion of six continental air defense squadrons to general purpose, training or other missions. It calls for there being just four “alert” air defense sites around the US: at Otis, Massachusetts; Homestead, Florida; Riverside, California; and Portland, Oregon. [US Department of Defense, 5/1997; Filson, 2004, pp. 348] Major General Larry Arnold, who is commanding general of NORAD’s Continental Region on 9/11, later says, “The QDR didn’t make any sense at all. [T]here was a fight just to maintain the number of alert sites that we had. We felt we could operate fairly reasonably with about 10 sites and thought eight was the absolute highest risk we could take.” NORAD Commander in Chief General Howell M. Estes III has written to the Joint Chiefs of Staff that a minimum of seven alert sites are needed to maintain America’s air sovereignty. In the end, three extra alert sites are added to the four suggested in the QDR. These are at Hampton, Virginia.; Panama City, Florida.; and Ellington, Texas. Larry Arnold later says: “I didn’t feel particularly comfortable with seven [alert sites] because there are great large distances between the alert sites.” [Filson, 2004, pp. 36] Other bases will lose their NORAD air defense functions over the next year, including those in Fresno, California; Fargo, North Dakota; Duluth, Minnesota; Burlington, Vermont; Atlantic City, New Jersey; Great Falls, Montana. [US Department of Defense, 5/1997] Of these closed bases, the most critical loss on 9/11 will be the Atlantic City, New Jersey, base, located about halfway between New York City and Washington. Boston air traffic control, apparently unaware the base has lost its air defense function will try and fail to contact the base shortly after learning about the first hijacking of the morning, Flight 11 (see (8:34 a.m.) September 11, 2001).

Late August-Early December 2001: Fighters from Langley Air Force Base Deployed to Iceland for Operation Northern Guardian
In late August 2001, two-thirds of the 27th Fighter Squadron are sent overseas. Six of the squadron’s fighters and 115 people go to Turkey to enforce the no-fly zone over northern Iraq as part of Operation Northern Watch. Another six fighters and 70 people are sent to Iceland to participate in “Operation Northern Guardian.” The fighter groups will not return to Langley until early December. [Flyer, 7/1/2003] (Note that the word “operation” specifies that Operation Northern Guardian and Northern Watch are not exercises, but actual military actions or missions. [Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 4/23/1998 pdf file; US Department of Defense, 11/30/2004] ) Operation Northern Guardian is based at Naval Air Station Keflavik, Iceland, the host command for the NATO base in that country. The US sometimes assists Iceland with extra military forces in reaction to Russian military maneuvers in the region. Approximately 1,800 US military personnel and 100 Defense Department civilians are involved. [GlobalSecurity (.org), 4/9/2002; Flyer, 6/4/2004; Iceland Defense Force, 6/30/2004] The 27th is one of three F-15 fighter squadrons that make up the 1st Fighter Wing, the “host unit” at Langley Air Force Base in Langley, Virginia. The other two are the 71st and 94th Fighter Squadrons. [Langley Air Force Base, 11/2003; GlobalSecurity (.org), 8/2/2004] Langley is one of two “alert” sites that can be called upon by NORAD for missions in the northeast region of the US. [9/11 Commission, 6/17/2004] Langley’s 71st Fighter Squadron also participates in Operation Northern Watch and Operation Northern Guardian at some (unstated) time during 2001. [Air Combat Command News Service, 6/13/2002] Whether this deployment of fighters diminishes Langley’s ability to respond on 9/11 is unknown. However, Air Force units are cycled through deployments like operations Northern and Southern Watch by the Aerospace Expeditionary Force (AEF) Center, which is at Langley Air Force Base. [Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 4/23/1998 pdf file; GlobalSecurity (.org), 4/26/2005] And according to NORAD Commander Larry Arnold, “Prior to Sept. 11, we’d been unsuccessful in getting the AEF Center to be responsible for relieving our air defense units when they went overseas.” [Filson, 2004, pp. 99]

(After 8:37 a.m.) September 11, 2001: NORAD Scramble Order Moves Through Official and Unofficial Channels
NORAD gives the command to scramble fighters after Flight 11 after receiving Boston’s call (see (8:37 a.m.) September 11, 2001). Lieutenant Colonel Dawne Deskins at NEADS tells Colonel Robert Marr, head of NEADS, “I have FAA on the phone, the shout line, Boston [flight control]. They said they have a hijacked aircraft.” Marr then calls Major General Larry Arnold at the Continental US NORAD Region (CONR) headquarters at Tyndall Air Force Base, Florida. Arnold is just coming out of a teleconference with the NORAD staff, and is handed a note informing him of the possible hijacking, and relaying Marr’s request that he call him immediately. He goes downstairs and picks up the phone, and Marr tells him, “Boss, I need to scramble [fighters at] Otis [Air National Guard Base].” Arnold recalls, “I said go ahead and scramble them, and we’ll get the authorities later.” Arnold then calls the operations deputy at NORAD’s Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado headquarters to report. The operations deputy tells him, “Yeah, we’ll work this with the National Military Command Center. Go ahead and scramble the aircraft.” [ABC News, 9/11/2002; 9/11 Commission, 5/23/2003; Filson, 2004, pp. 56; 9/11 Commission, 6/17/2004] Upon receiving this authorization from Larry Arnold, NEADS orders the scramble and then calls Canadian Captain Mike Jellinek at NORAD’s operations center in Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado, in order to get NORAD commander in chief approval for it (see (8.46 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [Aviation Week and Space Technology, 6/3/2002] Yet, according to the 1st Air Force’s own book about 9/11, the “sector commander [at NEADS] would have authority to scramble the airplanes.” Military controllers at NEADS are only a hot line call away from the pilots on immediate alert. [Filson, 2004, pp. 50-52] Why NEADS calls the CONR headquarters at Tyndall, then NORAD’s Colorado operations center, to get authorization to launch fighters after Flight 11, is unclear.

8:46 a.m. September 11, 2001: Fighters Are Training over North Carolina; Not Recalled to Washington Until Much Later
At the time of the first WTC crash, three F-16s assigned to Andrews Air Force Base, ten miles from Washington, are flying an air-to-ground training mission to drop some bombs and hit a refueling tanker, on a range in North Carolina, 207 miles away from their base. However, it is only when they are halfway back to Andrews that lead pilot Major Billy Hutchison is able to talk to the acting supervisor of flying at Andrews, Lt. Col. Phil Thompson, who tells him to return to the base “buster” (as fast as his aircraft will fly). After landing back at Andrews, Hutchison is told to take off immediately, and does so at 10:33 a.m. The other two pilots, Marc Sasseville and Heather Penney, take off from Andrews at 10:42 a.m., after having their planes loaded with 20mm training rounds. These three pilots will therefore not be patrolling the skies above Washington until after about 10:45 a.m. [Aviation Week and Space Technology, 9/9/2002; Filson, 2004, pp. 56] F-16s can travel at a maximum speed of 1,500 mph. [Associated Press, 6/16/2000] Traveling even at 1,100 mph (the speed NORAD Major General Larry Arnold says two fighters from Massachusetts travel toward Flight 175 [MSNBC, 9/23/2001; Slate, 1/16/2002] ), at least one of these F-16s could have returned from North Carolina to Washington within ten minutes and started patrolling the skies well before 9:00 a.m.

8:52 a.m. (and After) September 11, 2001: Otis Fighters Scramble to New York; Conflicting Accounts of Urgency and Destination
The F-15 fighters are scrambling to New York City. Later accounts concerning these fighters conflict significantly. According one account, pilot Lieutenant Colonel Timothy Duffy later recalls that they are in a hurry at this time: “we’ve been over the flight a thousand times in our minds and I don’t know what we could have done to get there any quicker.” However, though Duffy says he’s been warned Flight 11 had been hijacked and appears headed toward New York City, he does not yet realize that his flight is anything other than a routine exercise: “It’s just peacetime. We’re not thinking anything real bad is going to happen out there.” [Cape Cod Times, 8/21/2002; BBC, 9/1/2002] But, in another account, Duffy claims that fellow officer tells him before takeoff, “This looks like the real thing.” “It just seemed wrong. I just wanted to get there. I was in full-blower all the way.” [Aviation Week and Space Technology, 6/3/2002] Full-blower means the fighters are traveling at or near full speed. An F-15 can travel over 1,875 mph. [Air Force News, 7/30/1997] A considerable amount of fuel is required to maintain such high speeds for long, but a NORAD commander notes that, coincidentally, these fighters are stocked with extra fuel. [Aviation Week and Space Technology, 6/3/2002] Duffy later says, “As we’re climbing out, we go supersonic on the way, which is kind of nonstandard for us.” He says his target destination is over Kennedy airport in New York City. [ABC News, 9/11/2002] Similarly, another account states that, as the F-15s are taking off, “Duffy told his wingman they would fly supersonic.” According to Duffy, “When we took off I left it in full afterburner the whole time.” [Filson, 2004, pp. 57] He says, “When we [take] off we [start] climbing a 280-heading, basically towards New York City. I [am] supersonic.… We [are] to proceed to Manhattan directly and set up a combat air patrol.” [BBC, 9/1/2002] There are different accounts as to just how quickly they travel. According to Major General Paul Weaver, director of the Air National Guard, “The pilots [fly] ‘like a scalded ape,’ topping 500 mph but [are] unable to catch up to the airliner.” [Dallas Morning News, 9/16/2001 Sources: Paul Weaver] ABC News later says, “The fighters are hurtling toward New York at mach 1.2, nearly 900 miles per hour.” [ABC News, 9/11/2002] NORAD commander Major General Larry Arnold later states that the fighters head straight for New York City at about 1,100 to 1,200 mph. [MSNBC, 9/23/2001; Slate, 1/16/2002 Sources: Larry Arnold] “An F-15 departing from Otis can reach New York City in ten to twelve minutes, according to an Otis spokeswoman.” [Cape Cod Times, 9/16/2001] At an average speed of 1,125 mph, the fighters would reach the city in ten minutes—9:02 a.m. If NORAD commander Arnold’s recollection is correct, these fighters should reach Flight 175 just before it crashes. Yet according to a NORAD timeline developed just after 9/11, the fighters take about 19 minutes to reach New York City (arriving at about 9:11 a.m.), traveling below supersonic speeds at less than 600 mph. [North American Aerospace Defense Command, 9/18/2001] According to a later account though, these fighters weren’t even heading toward Manhattan. Contradicting his earlier recollection, pilot Timothy Duffy says, “we were supersonic going down to Long Island.… [W]e have no idea what we are going toward. We are taking off to go help somebody and we needed to get there quickly to assess the situation.” NEADS Commander Robert Marr says that after they received word of the first plane hitting the WTC, “Our jets are heading down south toward Whiskey 105 and we don’t really have a mission for them at this point, because we don’t have any other problems in the air.” Whiskey 105 is military training airspace southeast of Long Island. [Filson, 2004, pp. 57-59] Consistent with this account but also contradicting the earlier recollections of pilots and others involved that day, the 9/11 Commission later concludes, in direct contradiction of the recollections of the pilots and others involved that day, that the fighters are never directed toward New York City at all, but rather are ordered to head out over the Atlantic Ocean. According to the 9/11 Commission’s conclusions, the fighters do not reach New York City until 9:25 a.m. [9/11 Commission, 6/17/2004]

End Part I

After 9:03 a.m. September 11, 2001: NORAD Training Exercise Cancelled
NORAD Commander Larry Arnold later says that after Flight 175 hits the South Tower, “I thought it might be prudent to pull out of the exercise [presumably Vigilant Guardian (see (6:30 a.m.) September 11, 2001)], which we did.” He says: “As we pulled out of the exercise we were getting calls about United Flight 93 and we were worried about that.” Some early accounts say the military receives notification of the possible hijacking of Flight 93 at around 9:16 a.m. [CNN, 9/17/2001; 9/11 Commission, 5/23/2003] However, the 9/11 Commission later claims that the military first receives a call about Flight 93 at 10:07 a.m. [9/11 Commission, 6/17/2004] Larry Arnold adds, “Then we had another call from Boston Center about a possible hijacking, but that turned out to be the airplane that had already hit the South Tower but we didn’t know that at the time.” [Filson, 2004, pp. 59]

(After 9:03 a.m.) September 11, 2001: Secret Service Wants Fighters Scrambled from Andrews; None Are Ready to Fly
A few minutes after 9:03 a.m., a squadron pilot at Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland (just ten miles from Washington), hears that two planes have crashed into the WTC. He calls a friend in the Secret Service to see what’s going on. The Secret Service calls back, and asks whether Andrews can scramble fighters. According to weapons officer, Major Dan Caine, who takes this call, the Secret Service agent then tells them “to stand by and that somebody else [will] call.” Apparently anticipating the need, one commander has already started preparing weapons for the fighters. However, the weapons are located in a bunker on the other side of The Base, and the process takes time. The fighters don’t take off for about another hour and a half (see (10:42 a.m.) September 11, 2001). Apparently anticipating the need to launch fighters, one commander has already started preparing weapons for the fighters. However, the weapons are located in a bunker on the other side of the base, and the process takes time. Senior Master Sergeant David Bowman, 113th Wing munitions supervisor, says, “We were doing it as fast as we could, because for all we knew the terrorists were getting ready to hit us.” It normally takes three hours to get weapons from the storage sheds and load them onto the fighters. However, on this occasion, it is later claimed, it only takes 45 minutes. The fighters don’t take off though for about another hour and a half (10:42 a.m.). Whilst the crew at Andrews are unloading missiles onto a flatbed trailer, Dan Caine answers another phone call from someone in the White House, requesting armed fighters over Washington. Caine says: “I could hear plain as day the vice president talking in the background. That’s basically where we got the execute order. It was ‘VFR (Visual Flight Rules) direct.’” Meanwhile, there are also three unarmed F-16 fighters assigned to the Andrews base on a training mission 207 miles to the south in North Carolina. These are not recalled until much later, and don’t reach Washington until 10:45 a.m. [Aviation Week and Space Technology, 9/9/2002; Filson, 2004, pp. 78,84] NORAD commander Major General Larry Arnold has said, “We [didn’t] have any aircraft on alert at Andrews.” [MSNBC, 9/23/2001] However, prior to 9/11, the District of Columbia Air National Guard [DCANG] based at Andrews had a publicly stated mission “to provide combat units in the highest possible state of readiness.” Prior to 9/11, the mission statement was posted on the D.C. National Guard’s public website. Shortly after 9/11, this mission statement is removed and replaced by a DCANG “vision” to “provide peacetime command and control and administrative mission oversight to support customers, DCANG units, and NGB in achieving the highest levels of readiness.” [District of Columbia Air National Guard, n.d.]

(9:09 a.m. and After) September 11, 2001: Numerous False Reports of Hijacked Aircraft
According to the 9/11 Commission, “During the course of the morning, there were multiple erroneous reports of hijacked aircraft in the system.” [9/11 Commission, 6/17/2004] Around 9:09 a.m., the FAA Command Center reports that 11 aircraft are either not communicating with FAA facilities or flying unexpected routes. [Aviation Week and Space Technology, 6/3/2002] NORAD’s Major General Larry Arnold claims that during the “four-hour ordeal” of the attacks, a total of 21 planes are identified as possible hijackings. [Code One Magazine, 1/2002; Filson, 2004, pp. 71] Robert Marr, head of NEADS on 9/11, says, “At one time I was told that across the nation there were some 29 different reports of hijackings.” [Newhouse News Service, 3/31/2005] It is later claimed that these false reports cause considerable chaos. Larry Arnold says that particularly during the time between the Pentagon being hit at 9:37 and Flight 93 going down at around 10:06, “a number of aircraft are being called possibly hijacked… There was a lot of confusion, as you can imagine.” [Filson, 2004, pp. 71-73] He says, “We were receiving many reports of hijacked aircraft. When we received those calls, we might not know from where the aircraft had departed. We also didn’t know the location of the airplane.” [Code One Magazine, 1/2002] According to Robert Marr, “There were a number of false reports out there. What was valid? What was a guess? We just didn’t know.” [Filson, 2004, pp. 73]

(9:30 a.m.-9:37 a.m.) September 11, 2001: Langley Fighters Fly East to Ocean Instead of North to Washington; Explanations Differ
The three Langley fighters are airborne, but just where they go and how fast are in dispute. There are varying accounts that the fighters are ordered to Washington, New York, Baltimore, or no destination at all. The 9/11 Commission Reports that, in fact, the pilots don’t understand there is an emergency and head east. They give three reasons. “First, unlike a normal scramble order, this order did not include a distance to the target, or the target’s location. Second, a ‘generic’ flight plan incorrectly led the Langley fighters to believe they were ordered to fly due east (090) for 60 miles. The purpose of the generic flight plan was to quickly get the aircraft airborne and out of local airspace. Third, the lead pilot and local FAA controller incorrectly assumed the flight plan instruction to go ‘090 for 60’ was newer guidance that superseded the original scramble order.” [9/11 Commission, 6/17/2004] However, the Wall Street Journal gives a different explanation, surprisingly from 9/11 Commission testimony. “Once they got in the air, the Langley fighters observed peacetime noise restrictions requiring that they fly more slowly than supersonic speed and takeoff over water, pointed away from Washington, according to testimony before the [9/11 Commission].” The fighters that departed to New York City over 30 minutes earlier at 8:52 a.m. (see 8:52 a.m. September 11, 2001) traveled faster than supersonic because they realized they were in a national emergency. [Wall Street Journal, 3/22/2004 pdf file] In 2003 testimony, NORAD Commander Major General Larry Arnold explains that the fighters head over the ocean because NORAD is “looking outward” and has to have clearance to fly over land. [9/11 Commission, 5/23/2003] One of the Langley pilots, Craig Borgstrom, later says that after taking off, “They (NEADS) [are] giving us the heading and altitude of north-northeast up to 20,000 feet. Then shortly after takeoff they changed our heading more north-westerly and gave us max-subsonic. That’s as fast as you can go without breaking the sound barrier.” Reportedly, the Langley fighters are now being vectored toward Washington, instead of New York. [Filson, 2004, pp. 63-65] Yet, in contrast to these accounts, the BBC reports that just before takeoff at 9:24 a.m., the pilots are specifically told that Flight 77 may have been hijacked, and they get a cockpit signal indicating they are in an emergency wartime situation (see (9:24 a.m.) September 11, 2001). All the above accounts concur that, for whatever reason, the fighters go too far east. They don’t reach Washington until roughly around 10:00 a.m.

End Part II

Before 9:36 a.m. September 11, 2001: Officials Claim NORAD is Monitoring Flight 93
According to one account given by NEADS Commander Robert Marr, some time before around 9:36 when it changes direction, while it is still flying west, Flight 93 is being monitored by NEADS. Marr describes how, “We don’t have fighters that way and we think [Flight 93 is] headed toward Detroit or Chicago.” He says he contacts a base in the area “so they [can] head off 93 at the pass.” Not only does NORAD know about the flight, but also, according to NORAD Commander Larry Arnold, “We watched the 93 track as it meandered around the Ohio-Pennsylvania area and started to turn south toward DC.” (This change of direction occurs around 9:36 a.m.) [Filson, 2004] This account completely contradicts the 9/11 Commission’s later claim that NEADS is first notified about Flight 93 at 10:07 a.m. [9/11 Commission, 6/17/2004]

(9:36 a.m.-10:06 a.m.) September 11, 2001: Military Claims it is Tracking Flight 93 and Ready to Shoot it Down; 9/11 Commission Says Otherwise
Several senior officials claim that the US military is tracking Flight 93 as it heads east and is ready to shoot it down if necessary.

• Brigadier General Montague Winfield says that the Pentagon’s National Military Command Center (NMCC) has “received the report from the FAA that Flight 93 had turned off its transponder, had turned, and was now heading towards Washington, DC.” He adds, “The decision was made to try to go intercept Flight 93.” [ABC News, 9/11/2002]
• Major General Larry Arnold, the commander of the Continental United States NORAD Region, says, “I was personally anxious to see what 93 was going to do, and our intent was to intercept it.” Three fighters have taken off from Langley Air Force Base in Virginia (see 9:30 a.m. September 11, 2001). According to Arnold, “we launched the aircraft out of Langley to put them over top of Washington, DC, not in response to American Airline 77, but really to put them in position in case United 93 were to head that way.” [9/11 Commission, 5/23/2003] He says, “as we discussed it in the conference call, we decided not to move fighters toward 93 until it was closer because there could have been other aircraft coming in,” but adds, “I had every intention of shooting down United 93 if it continued to progress toward Washington, DC… whether we had authority or not.” [Filson, 2004, pp. 73]
• NEADS Commander Robert Marr is reportedly “focused on United Flight 93, headed straight toward Washington.” He concurs with Arnold, saying, “United Airlines Flight 93 would not have hit Washington, DC. He would have been engaged and shot down before he got there.” [Filson, 2004, pp. 73] Marr and Arnold both say they were tracking Flight 93 even earlier on, while it was still it was still heading west (see Before 9:36 a.m. September 11, 2001).

Yet, completely contradicting these claims, the 9/11 Commission will conclude that the military only learned about Flight 93 around the time it crashed. It says the NMCC learned of the hijacking at 10:03 a.m. (see 10:03 a.m. September 11, 2001). Based upon official records, including recordings of the NEADS operations floor, it says NEADS never followed Flight 93 on radar and was first alerted to it at 10:07 a.m. (see 10:07 a.m. September 11, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 30-31, 34 and 42; Washington Post, 4/30/2006; Vanity Fair, 8/1/2006]

Before 9:55 a.m. September 11, 2001: AWACS Planes on Training Missions in Florida and Near Washington, DC
While President Bush is still in Sarasota, an AWACS (Airborne Warning and Control System plane) is flying a training mission off the coast of Florida. Referring to the AWACS plane, NORAD Commander Larry Arnold later says: “I had set up an arrangement with their wing commander at Tinker [Air Force Base, Oklahoma] some months earlier for us to divert their AWACS off a normal training mission to go into an exercise scenario simulating an attack on the United States. The AWACS crew initially thought we were going into one of those simulations.” Another AWACS is also flying a training mission, near Washington, DC, the morning of 9/11. [Code One Magazine, 1/2002] When its pilot, Anthony Kuczynski, hears of the first WTC crash, he mistakenly believes he is involved in a planned military simulation. He says, “We sometimes do scenarios where we’re protecting the United States from bombers coming in from unknown areas.” [St. Thomas Aquin, 4/12/2002]

10:31 a.m. September 11, 2001: NEADS Does Not Pass Along NORAD Shootdown Order
According to the 9/11 Commission, NORAD Commander Major General Larry Arnold instructs his staff to broadcast the following message over a NORAD chat log: “10:31 Vice President [Cheney] has cleared us to intercept tracks of interest and shoot them down (see 10:14 a.m. September 11, 2001) if they do not respond, per CONR CC [General Arnold].” NEADS first learns of the shootdown order from this message. However, NEADS does not pass the order to the fighter pilots in New York City and Washington. NEADS leaders later say they do not pass it on because they are unsure how the pilots should proceed with this guidance. [9/11 Commission, 6/17/2004] The pilots flying over New York City claim they are never given a formal shootdown order that day.

(Between 10:55 a.m. and 11:41 a.m.) September 11, 2001: Fighter Escort Finally Reaches Air Force One? Reports Conflict
No fighters escort President Bush’s Air Force One until around this time, but accounts conflict. At 10:32 a.m., Vice President Cheney said it would take until about 11:10 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. to get a fighter escort to Air Force One. [Washington Post, 1/27/2002] However, according to one account, around 10:00 a.m., Air Force One “is joined by an escort of F-16 fighters from a base near Jacksonville, Florida.” [Daily Telegraph, 12/16/2001] Another report states, “At 10:41 [am.]… Air Force One headed toward Jacksonville to meet jets scrambled to give the presidential jet its own air cover.” [New York Times, 9/16/2001] But apparently, when Air Force One takes evasive action around 10:55 a.m., there is still no fighter escort. NORAD commander Major General Larry Arnold later says, “We scrambled available airplanes from Tyndall [near Tallahassee and not near Jacksonville, Florida] and then from Ellington in Houston, Texas,” but he does not say when this occurs. [Code One Magazine, 1/2002 Sources: Larry Arnold] In yet another account, two F16s eventually arrive, piloted by Shane Brotherton and Randy Roberts, from Ellington, not from any Florida base. [CBS News, 9/11/2002] The St. Petersburg Times, after interviewing people on Air Force One, estimate the first fighters, from Texas, arrive between 11:00 and 11:20. [St. Petersburg Times, 7/4/2004] By 11:30 a.m., there are six fighters protecting Air Force One. [Sarasota Magazine, 9/19/2001] The BBC, however, reports that the Ellington, Texas, fighters are scrambled at 11:30 a.m., and quotes ABC reporter Ann Compton, inside Air Force One, saying fighters appear out the windows at 11:41 a.m. [BBC, 9/1/2002] Given that two of the seven bases said to have fighters on alert on 9/11 are in Florida (Homestead Air Station, 185 miles from Sarasota; and Tyndall Air Station, 235 miles from Sarasota), why a fighter escort does not reach Air Force One earlier remains unclear. Philip Melanson, author of a book on the Secret Service, comments, “I can’t imagine by what glitch the protection was not provided to Air Force One as soon as it took off. I would have thought there’d be something in place whereby one phone call from the head of the security would get the fighters in the air immediately.” [St. Petersburg Times, 7/4/2004]

End