Colonel Bob Mart

NEADS Commander
June 25, 2002

Q - But I want to get a run down, I know you talk about it a million times, the gist of
events that day, stuff that went on, what was going through your mind , a couple people
have mentioned the incident of September 12th, was that public? Would that be

You talking about the one where the yahoo came, and looked like he was going to hit the
SAF(?) as far as I know that's not public.

Q - Ok, well were you when this all went down? I understand you were in exercise at
the time. And what was that exercise called?

Vigilant ??? . I'm not positive. It was a (non-?) exercise. We have a basically use a 10
hour shift, 8 to 8, so I was coming on the SAM shift. We had our 8 o'clock, I'm pretty
sure it was 8 o'clock, AM briefing. Felt pretty sharp because this was the beginning -
gone through ??. So I think it probably took about twenty minutes to get out our mission
briefing. I had checked in with General Arnold ; we made sure our lines were up and
ready to go. We were ready to start our work. The night crew had been on for 12 hours
because we had started 12 hours shifts previously, rather than the initial 10 to 12 hours.
So we had the battle staff(?) fully in place.

Q - Which is where? Right here?

Yes it is. But it's not there anymore but it was right at the top. And I remember standing
up there at. let's see we call in after that briefing was over, and probably 8:35, probably
8:40ish or closer, seeing there was a huddle of people around one of the scrips. Have you
ever set foot on the ops floor?

Q -1 was there a few years ago and ???

That's good. The ?? scrips, that's where the weapons guys are. I remember looking at
the CFNC (sink?), the forward left one, there's 4 or five people huddling around, I used to
run the exercise staff around here, and I've seen many many exercises — built them
myself, and I saw that huddle and said there's got to be something wrong. Something's
happening up there...(something's?) getting ready to kick off Usually see that whenever
they've found a track on the scrip that looks unusual, that is nothing that really drives the
exercises ? ?. But that's usually the indicator that something's getting ready to kick off.
So I looked down there and said okay, we need to find out what's going on. And I said to
Major (Denson?) at the time, take a look and find out what's going on with that? And
she started talking with them. And then she came running back and looked at the scope
and said it looks like we've got a real-world hijack, possibility of a hijack. Girl that
works at the FAA ??/ thought it was possible to have a hijack, kind of a ???? if I can use
the term, and then they lost contact with them. They lost the transponder and then the
voice communication just dropped off the scope.

NCT0068070
Q - How did Major Denson(?) find this out?
i
x

Talking to the folks that were huddled around..

Q - Didn't Somebody call?

Jenny (or Jeremy)?? had been called. The FAA had called Jenny Pow. Jeremy Pow had
been called as(?) the FCC division. ???? This is what they found out later: That the
FAA, up at Boston center, has been used to working with they guys out of Otis, the F-
15s. so the two guys that were on alert received a call at the ops desk there at Otis, from
the FAA that said, we think we have a path of a jet, would you be able to put a couple
airplanes in the air for us?

Q - Called them because they?

I said listen - Yeah, better call the center because they're the ones that actually control
jets. So we grabbed our gear and went running out to the airplane. And the guy that was
the eventually the lead, Ken Duffy, talked to the other guy who was actually scheduled to
be the lead and said, hey have you ever done this before? this sounds like it might be a
real-world hijack. The other guy ???? about ten minutes, said I don't have it (??). it just
so happened that Ken Duffy had flown in the formation the last time we had a hijack.
And so he took the lead. The last time we had a hijacking I think it was fall 92, early 93,
just so happened that I was in the battle club(?) on that particular day also. But was in the
2-ship at Otis that we sent out after that guy.

Q-??

????? if you're there long enough, you know most of the guys, and that one landed safely
at JFK(?) as a matter of fact. But anyway, we told them to call us, and then remembered
what they had were four of the weapons crew because these were the guys that brief(?)
into that by technician, which is why the phone? com? back into the weapons position (of
2(or6)313?).

Q - (odd tape speed up)

I thought that it was going towards JFK based gauging from the ? on information, ????•
transcript, I think that transcript is pretty much intact.

Q - That's great.

We lost depth in the transcript(?), but that the best systems do it to you once in a while.
So she came back up trying to find on the scope what was going on. She told me that; I
directed(?) a battle station, at Otis, and the guys at Otis said that they were about halfway
to their airplanes when the horn blew to get battlestation. As they were trying to track
down where this aircraft is, I got on the phone., on the secure phone to general Arnold, I
said 'sir I've got a potential hijack, FAA thinks it's going to JFK. this is not an exercise.'
In fact, that was the first question, I guess I should have sensed (?) the question: Is this
real-world exercise? No this is real world, so I told General Arnold we got a real-world
exercise. Said my intent was to scramble Otis to military airspace while we figured out
what was going on. And he said, go ahead, do it. So while I was still getting him the
information we scrambled, Otis. Guys said they were sitting in the jets ready to go when
they got the scramble order. ?? battle stations you just get in the jets, jets start up, and
wait. And then the scramble order, take off. The guys, you'll talk to Maurine Julie,
apparently she had gotten some of the word - she's in the ID(?) Section, the identification
section. Said, while we're getting the floor(?) while you get the jets launched - she's
trying to track down the last known position, possible speed of the airliner, assuming it's
going towards JFK(?), sounds like she thought she had a blip on the scope just before it
disappeared at about - disappeared at 8:46.

Q - Did she ID it?

You'll have to talk to her, but my impression is that she thought that she saw a dot on the
scope which could have been it. Because it looks not squad team (?) .... Have Different
symbol, you get a much more clean symbol.

Q - Because the transponder would have been turned off. Yeah,

(discussion of using acronyms, as words)

At any rate. So we're looking for the track. We were launching at Otis basically
scrambling order went at 8:46 which is the same time that later we heard reported the
world trade center was hit.

Q - So the scramble order went out at the same time?

Basically. ... the FAA had called us at 8:40, so by the time that we got the words all
going forward, we probably left the battle stations at 8:43 roughly, and then scramble
more than likely, probably 8:46.

Q - This is the same moment ???

What really happened from what I understand later, took off.. ??????????? really nicely -
the shape of the radar detections and ???, sure ??? on the internet even???

Q - (strange speed up of tape)

so we got our first word about 6 minutes prior to the time that it hit the world trade
center.

Q - And I know you've been asked this a lot: in your mind, this is not an accident at this
point.
 \, a
through. At this point we don't even know if there's been a problem. A few minutes
later, one of the groups going in from ground control, which has a TV going on CNN, the
first words that I know something's happened is they tell me the world trade center's
been hit by an airliner. At that point I'm thinking there's possibly an accident because
there's been a hijack, the guy's going into JFK, every hijacker's to this day has been an
individual that wants to fly an airplane somewhere other than where it's supposed to; so
the thought that perhaps this guy got too low, flying out of control and hit something on
the way into JFK. If you look from overhead at the world trade center site, I've flown a
number of CAPS over there, you can look up,

Q - (Strange tape speed up)

right straight down the Hudson river, the first thing you hit coming from north to south
would be LaGuardia on the left, so you pass that, and then you hit Newark on his right,
and he didn't go to Newark, so it appears he's going to JFK. He'd come down the
Hudson, turn around lower Manhattan, stay over water(?), and that's the standard pattern
into the Northwest runway for JFK.

Q - So it wouldn't be inconceivable that he could have just crashed.

That's - exactly. As you look at it, the world trade center, right on the roof of that - right ^
there on the peninsula of lower Manhattan, so if you have airplane problems or whatever,
it could be conceivable that he would have crashed , at least from back here, without
seeing what the weather is or anything, although it looked like a clear day, not obviously
a very clear day. So initial thought is an accident, a terrible accident, but an accident
nonetheless. Took the world trade center the pictures show that the top's burning, but
there's not much we can do about it. At that point then I called up Jennifer Berrian (?)
who is the chief of staff of the New York air national guard.

Clarification on wording and spelling: Berrian

Actually, he'd probably have a really good story to tell you: Bob Foley - because the
captain that I -1 called him, I don't have a whole lot of good information for you but you
need to get rolled back to your own job - your jet operations center because the world
trade center's been hit by an airplane, I'll give you whatever information I get, but mostly
because we're kind of a reporting center for New York state here - we have the largest
number of people here 24 hours a day. So we felt like we were reporting bunch(?) for the
whole state. So we went down and got his command center rolling very quickly and kept
the New York state response rolling. At this point there's not a whole lot more we can
do, the jets are in the air, and they're also taking off and heading down south towards
whisky 105 - we don't really have a mission for them, at this point, we don't have any
other problems.

Q - (weird tape speed up)

the whisky flying areas are military air space outside of the water. So whisky 105 is the
area that Otis works in quite regularly, that's their standard training air space. And it's
basically on the water south, just south of Long Island, south and then east of it. So we
sent them down to whisky 105, that should put them within just a few minutes from New
York city, to CAP?, burn down? gas and await further instructions. At this time we start
getting CNN showing in the battle CAP, we roll a TV in there and I think, I don't know if
we had any ops ? up there or not. The television's running in there and as we're
watching the television, we see another aircraft come into view and hit the second world
trade center.

And with the second one, didn't you know

Q - (weird tape speed up)

well then we'll talk about what we have to ask those pilots. But, scary thing because at
that point now, and later on as Flight 93 is going out, that's when we received clearance
to kill... in fact the words almost verbatim were 'we will take lives in the air to save lives
on the ground.'

Q - (Some question here)

comes down to me from general Arnold.

Q - That's crazy. I bet you didn't really expect to hear that that day when you got in. it's
not funny but just amazing...

We're all still well less than an hour here and the whole world has changed. Suffrage(?)
is already out.

Q - They're already flying.

If you look at the way this guy's going toward the West, he's well, about over Cleveland
heading west. So from there if he turned around and headed for Washington DC, there's
nothing between him and DC. so what we did. we put Langley out there - we had them
holding to go over New York City,

(tape cuts out)

The End