Interview with ??

and Leslie Filson, no date

Tape Side A (name written on tape says Sass and Fgor but voice said something like
Rusman, alert pilot from Andrews AFB)

Interview begins on Side B of tape and continues on Side A

Beginning of Tape Side B

R: So we knocked off the meeting and we are critical (inaudible) we went back to the
ops counter, at that point we had three airplanes that were going (inaudible) we were
trying to figure out what to do with them. We figured that might be some ATC
considerations like ?? might not be able to fly and so forth and so on. We started making
phone calls and then ?? was the SOF, I was the Ops Group and at some point in there we
ended up talking to the Secret Service and they indicated to us that something was really
bad. They were nervous.

F: How did you get in touch with them or How did they get in touch with you? Why, did
they know you?

R: We have a close working relationship with them, with Air Force One needs
(inaudible) when that happens we can't really (inaudible) there isn't a Secret Service in
power all of the time. That controls the recovery of the aircraft.

F: Okay

R: So, some of us had met, one of the Secret Service representatives in ?? I knew one of
them, they called over there and that was when we started getting the indication that
(inaudible) They asked us to get airplanes in the air and as soon as that phone call came
through now ??? us directly ??? in bad shape. We started -1 knew that getting the
missiles out of the bomb shelter was going to be a long process to get them from the other
side of the field ??? called over to weapons and said to pull the missiles out, started
bringing them over. We took four of us that were there at the time, we went into a
briefing room and it was a very short brief. ?? we are going to get in the air. We have no
idea what is going on but the frequencies - we will figure out once we get in the air. So
we come out of the brief, put on our flying gear. Finally when we got the flight gear on
we stopped by the ops desk to check the desk out and ??? Cpt Thompson, he was in
charge of that. When we came back out myself and Lucky ?? get in the air now, so we
ran all the way from the ops desk to the airplane. We didn't have missiles on our
airplane, (inaudible) Lt Col AGS commander ...

F: Yea, 1 talked to him already.

R: Got us ready, then he pointed, these jets are ready do you want to wait for the ones
with missiles on them? We said "no, we don't have time to wait." So we came to
another airplane, as soon as I

NCT0067696
F: You and ?

R: Lt ?? who's call sign is Lucky jumped into the good airplane ??? as soon as I turned
the airplane on, now I could hear the radio chatter. I hear dog (?) telling Billy
Hutchinson, the first guy to get airborne in the air. They were saying that "I've only got
2,400 Ibs of gas" which is low, like maybe a quarter of a tank in your car, it goes by
quickly. It is probably one tenth of the gas we carry, you are on E at that point. There is
enough that I can get airborne anyway. So he takes off and says "what are we looking
for?" Dog (?) says look for something coming down the river because by then ATC and
the FAA had ???

F: Who's dog?

R: Phil Thompson

F: (inaudible)

R: By then they had spotted the flight path mission - the guy that ?? down the river. He
goes up there and doesn't see anything, lands, we are not far behind them.

F: Let me make sure that I have this straight. So at that point, there is some concern of
looking for the fourth flight. So you guys are well aware of what is taking place.

R: Not all of us, because I don't know about my ??? we are getting fed information but
we don't have the full picture. We got word that something else is coming in. That's
coming from ATC.

F: Is that???

R: Yeah, well no, it's Washington National.

F: So many different people, okay.

R: Right

F: All right.

R: So somewhere in there, I talked to the White House jock in the operation center.

F: When you were talking to the White House flight operations center, what do they tell
you?

R: I don't know much about what they've got going on but they seem kind of like a
command post I understand for the White House. They have representatives from

NCT0067697
different fields in there, they have Secret Service, probably a DOD kind of person, I'm
not sure exactly.

F: Is this kind of interface pretty unusual?

R: This is unusual because Bob knew the Secret Service guy and the Secret Service guy I
think either pointed us in the direction of the White House jock.

F: Okay

R: But this is unusual because of one of the, nobody would have access to that.

F: Okay, so at this point, you guys are taking off and you just have guns.

R: Inaudible

F: Okay

R: It's hot guns, hot means that if you pull the trigger ??? but the kind of bullets that we
have, they are different kinds of bullets, you have training bullets not real bullets, combat
bullets. So we have hot guns but with training ordnance.

F: Technically, if you shot them could they?

R: Inaudible

F: At this point, you just really know that there has been, the world trade center, the
pentagon, you are taking off for intercepts basically or do you have any kind of direction
that if you see a flight - what's in your mind and what were your orders?

R: Well, later on, when Phil talks to the jock, word comes down that the Vice President
has declared Washington DC a weapons free zone essentially. Which means that we are
authorized to use force to defend the people in the buildings against against whatever we
think is our there.

F: Weapons ???

R: Weapons free zone.

F: That sounds like ?? offices. Weapons free...

R: We can let the weapons go.

F: Okay

R: Weapons tight means holding back

NCT0067698
F: Okay

R: That's ??? with somebody sitting inside of an airplane or with somebody sitting with
your finger on the button.

F: So your job is getting this information through this White House organization who
says "hey the Vice President says shoot if you have to." So you know what's going on,
what are you thinking?

R: I am thinking, wow, we are in a little bit of trouble here. So, we are talking to the
national ??? basically we are uncontrolled which has never happened before. We are up
there flying and going wherever we want, whenever we want, which is very very unusual
for this part of the country because there is so much airliner traffic. ?? I am working on
my radar and I see very little traffic at altitude, all the low altitude stuff which is
helicopters, small airplanes, by then I think everybody's gotten the word to put all the
airplanes on the ground. All the airliners were to land. So I go to the Northwest, Lucky
goes to the Northeast and I take North first to kind of use our radars to sanitize the air
space. Basically the airplanes that hit New York, thinking they have taken off out of
New York bases and they might be coming down here where they have kinda taken off
out of Dullas. So we looked in those two sectors first, then we got the Raven (?) and Igor
(?) were the next two airborne they take the South sectors.

F: Had Major Hudson landed yet?

R: Yea, he was only in the air for about five minutes before he had to land. I don't know
about five minutes, I don't know how long it was.

F: Hopefully I can talk to him too.

R: He is not here.

F: I'll just call him on the phone.

R: We get airborne and I don't know how long before the jet lands. So we're talking to
National folks, people that they see they are not talking to and so our job is to go find our
who that is and what they're doing. To get them to turn away from the capital because if
they are pointed at the capital they are going to be a threat.

F: Right

R: Most of what comes out in the beginning there, like I said, helicopters, light airplanes
that haven't gotten the word yet about what is going on. We spent that whole first sortie
vectoring out - anyway we are having problems communicating because the ATC
controllers don't speak our military language. Our military language is very well
developed, it is almost a science as to how we communicate as to where people are and

NCT0067699
what they are doing. We are having a little bit of trouble, we are getting our points across
but it is not very easy. About half way through the sortie, I'm told that there was three
other F-16s at at ?? altitude, which were the Fargo guys who just took off out of Langley
who had been airborne for a lot longer that we had. We were all airborne at the same
time and I just didn't know it. Nobody could talk to them.

F: Were they on different frequencies?

R: They were on different frequencies. Then soon after that two F-15's showed up from
Langley.

F: Were those active duty F-15's.

R: Yes, so the Fargo guys were the NORAD folks and the F-15's I think, I'm 90 percent
sure they were active duty because there aren't any guard F-15's at Langley.

F: I don't know what they could have done if??????

R: ??? First Fighter Wing

F: Then four of you guys.

R: Four of us.

F: Then I heard Richmond guys showed up.

R: Later

F: How long were the sorties?

R: The first sortie was about two hours.

F: Okay

R: So I'm getting to where people are showing up and eventually everybody gets on the
same frequency and I stack us low, F-15's in the middle I think, and then the Fargo F-
16's high. At this point, so much help is coming that I'm afraid that we are going to run
over each other. So, I deconflict the altitudes and basically take command of the CAP.
In our training scenarios we have a CAP commander or somebody that's in charge, so I
took command of the CAP since nobody was. We retained that since AW ACS had
enough continuity where they could direct traffic. What was happening is, Washington
approach would say "hey, we've got to track Northeast for 24 miles" well you don't want
all the airplanes flying on that track at the same time.

F: Right

NCT0067700
R: So there needs to be an orderly fashion, so it is the duty of the CAP commander to say
"F-15's you go check that one out."

F: Were you CAP commander for all these fighters?

R: Right

F: How many? About eight or so?

R: Three, five, nine.

F: Let me make sure that I understand, you have nine fighters up. For a while you didn't
know about each other. About halfway through you are just separating them at altitudes
so that you are not running into each other. You are all separated into squadrons chasing
down different tips from FAA.

R: Right

F: ?? I guess you were still up when 93 was several hundred miles away?

R: We were airborne, but I don't think that anybody knew that 93 had ran off for a while.

F: You did know you were looking for something coming down the Hudson River I
guess or what? When you say something coming down the river, what are you talking
about?

R: No not the Hudson, (explaining from looking at a map) this river right here, the
Potomac, that's the direction that we're looking for. You've got the, this goes up for
quite a while, so the track was way up here in Pennsylvania and it disappeared. But it
didn't disappear before the track turned around. So, to show you a picture, here's DC
here's Andrews, AEW ??, so they saw the airplane, the FAA sees it, they see this and
then it stops. So they think that it is continuing and they are figuring out that it went
away and that 50 miles at that airspeed, it would be here in 10 minutes. They're forecast
- extrapolating the tract the disappeared and that was, that didn't tell them a whole lot.
Apparently, it disappeared because it hit the ground, but they didn't know that.

F: I know there were rumors throughout the day, of various high jackings, I think there
were 21 reports or something, that the Northeast Air Defense Sector got. Were you
getting this kind of info?

R: No, we were just blindly reacting, National approach would say something, we'd go
look at it, when something popped up on our radar that they couldn't see because they
didn't have one with a sight to it. We asked them "hey, I've got a contact here, north for
50 miles" at that time we didn't know what the criteria for them to establish a track of
interest was.

NCT0067701
F: You're just trying to get close enough to??

R: Is this a threat? A lot of times they didn't know. They are looking for somebody who
is not responding to instructions I guess, I guess they will delete this, but there is a bunch
of issues that they look at to determine whether they need to go send somebody out there
to ID what it is. So we are just up there reacting. Finally, Lucky and I run out of gas, we
land. We were going to get more gas and turn around and go back up, while we were
down on the ground Col Borey (?) the ANG DO was over here. He said "do you guys
mind coming up and doing a CAP for the crises action team. We go up to the readiness
center where basically is the National Guard headquarters. We give a quick briefing as to
what happened and then we turn around come back here and get in the air again.

F: Now you know what's really happened.

R: Right, so we get in the air and by now basically we've got AWACS and a tanker
airborne which makes it a lot easier.

F: You hadn't refueled at all during that first mission, you were getting low so you had
to come back?

R: So we get airborne and we're doing the same thing we did on the first mission looking
at our sector on our radar, they wanted us investigating the tract of interest ??? I think we
refuled once and shortly after that AWACS said "we need you to vector left" for 140
miles I think it was. That was the first phone call, then we started going and then
something to the effect of "you need to escort Air Force One." At that time, they said
that in the clear, but we have radios that have crypto in them where we can talk secure to
each other and that means that if nobody else has that special code, they don't know what
is going on. But the codes weren't set, we didn't have the same codes, apparently there
are several codes floating around, we did'nt have the same code that the AWACS did so
we couldn't talk secret so we just had to say that in the clear which was probably not a
good thing, but there was no other choice. So Lucky and I vectored out and there are 2 F-
15s in a CAP, they said "do you want us to go with you?" At that point there was only
four of us airborne, us two and the F- 15s. So I'm thinking, do we leave the Capitol
undefended? Or do we go out there and pick up Air Force One? Which is more
important?

F: Fargo had landed, and so had? This was a few hours later so Fargo has landed and
Igor and ? have landed, so you guys and the two F-15s. Okay go ahead.

R: So we leave the CAP and we go get Air Force One.

F: Did the F-15s stay here?

R: No they came with us.

F: Okay

NCT0067702
R: I called back here and asked "are we were going to get other fighters airborne soon."
They said "yea, there should be some up there soon." So we vector out there and there is
a track Southwest of Air Force One that looks like it is on a collision course that I sent
the F-15s to go investigate.
F: You still didn't know who the F-15 guys were? Personally who they were? but you
didn't know their names or anything?

R: They go investigate, we continue towards Air Force One and find him. Think initially
I hope they give me a frequency because I'd like to talk to the pilot. Sure enough they
gave me a victor frequency, we talk. I want to know exactly what kind of support he
needs.

F: For the Air Force One pilot?

R: Yea, so I'm talking to the Air Force aircraft commander to figure out what he needs
and basically, I put Lucky out in front about 10 miles, I go on one wing, the left wing and
then the two F-15s on the right wing.

F: Okay, so you've got three planes on the wings.

R: Then there's some Texas ANG F-16s behind Air Force One.

F: Where geographically were you guys over? How close were you to DC?

R: We're still about 100 mile out. So Air Force One has airplanes on the left, on the
right, behind and in front, it was pretty well covered. I drive up just to look him over to
make sure that there's no nobody is shot, there's no battle image because I really don't
know what the situation is. They just said "go escort Air Force One", I don't know if it is
serious or a precautionary measure or if something just happened. So I get kind of close
and take a peek see on the left see, I didn't go to the right because you have the F-15's on
the other side. Everything looks fine and I move back out and we drive the next 100
miles with Lucky out in front sanitizing the area. We ?? with Air Force One, he lands,
we're right with him, we figured we'd drop the gear and the flaps, he lands uneventfully
and then after he is down on the ground, plane up watch the taxi back to the chocks.
Even though there is no air threat at that point, but there might still be a threat on the
ground. Again, I don't know what we are suppose to be defending against, so all options
are open. So as soon as they can get back to the chocks then we go back up into the CAP
and continue the CAP.

F: The F-15s who went to investigate that track coming toward Air Force One what was
that?

R: Just a Lear jet, we had no way of knowing.

F: The wrong place at the wrong time. Those F-15s got back to get on the wing then?

NCT0067703
R: Urn, Urn

F: This has been a pretty crazy day, how many hours at this point do you think you are
working and flying altogether? This is your second sortie that day?
R: Yes, second sortie, probably about, it hadn't actually been that long of a day, starting
at 7 and we were probably at 5 or 6 pm then. While we're airborne the other guys are
trying to get the other pilots in. Trying to set up a schedule that will support us keeping
airplanes in the air for the next - for as long as we can. We had the 201sl which is our
sister squadron across the way - they do VIP airlift. They sent out one of their airplanes
to go pick up our traditional pilots that were stuck at different bases. All of the pilots
were on trips, LA I think, Denver was one. So they basically did a little round robin and
picked all the guys up and came back. At that point, the only people that were flying
were military flights. They did a great job.

F: So you and Major Cane were the flight leads?

R: Right

F: What was he doing? I mean when he takes off a second time, you guys are both flight
leads - how does that work with you guys talking to each other and trying to - from what
I understand you guys kind of sit up a structure, the quadrants and like you mentioned the
altitudes and stuff.

R: I am leading my 2-ship and he is leading his 2-ship.

F: Okay

R: Initially, I am the CAP commander, when he gets airborne and I leave the first time,
he is still in the air, I transfer control of the CAP to him.

F: Okay

R: After he left, what I did with the controllers was he did a great job of, I told you we
had problems communicating, he set up the communications standards, just like I set up
the initial structure.

End of Tape Side B

Beginning of Tape Side A

F: This is a continuance of the interview with Cpt Rusman (?) So you are up there
flying, what was it the Southwest of Reagan?

NCT0067704
R: Yea, pretty much like what I was telling you we were just trying to find out who
people were that Washington didn't know or didn't have the status on. People that
weren't talking to them.

F: At that moment, your mission is intercept.

R: Exactly, identify anything that's in the air that's unaccounted for. Quite often
somewhere in the time it took to find the person on the radar to begin to run the intercept,
Washington would probably come back and say they found out who they were, we found
them in our system, we just made contact on the radio, it is a life flight helicopter. So we
broke off the engagement, quite often a doctor from some private airfield in the DC area
who just didn't know what was going on and just happened to be out on a beautiful day
enjoying the weather and didn't realize what was happening. I think quite a few people
got scared out of the air...

F: I'm sure

R: You know when you see an F-16 come screaming across your nose a couple of time
and realize hey he is taking a vested interest me, maybe I'm somewhere where I
shouldn't be.

F: Did you guys actually get close to a lot of civilian pilots like that? How close are we
talking?

R: We are talking within 500 to 1,000 feet as close as it took to get a tail number from
the aircraft, so we could pass that tail number to the FAA and they could pull up the
flight plan and find out the point of origin.

F: But if they are ??? only, than you don't - FAA would't have a flight plan anyway
right.

R: Exactly, but at least now we know who owns the airplane and where the airplane is
heading.

F: Okay, that's important so you get 500 to 1,000 feet, get a tail number, give FAA the
tail number...

R: Right

F: and then they can tell you and then they can determine.

R: A lot of times yes, they did have flight plans, but there was a couple of times where
we had to fly across their nose and say "hey don't go this way come follow me" and point
them to the nearest civil airfield and get them to land. There is quite a few guys in the
squadron as we were sitting alert 24/7s who would get scrambled for guys who would
violate the temporary flight restriction around DC and the same thing. We would go and

NCT0067705
get the tail number, if they are not radio equipped, which some aircraft aren't, we just
have to get it clear that as we go screaming across your nose that you're doing something
wrong. Follow us and we take them to the nearest airfield, they land and there is usually
someone there waiting to interview them. They find out exactly what your story is. For
the most part it is just people who get lost, young inexperienced pilots who loose track of
where they are. Some folks know where they are and they just weren't paying attention.

F: That day in particular what were some of the things that you came up with?

R: Some of the folks actually saw what was going on on TV and took off to go sight
seeing for themselves, they wanted to see, it is like a traffic accident, there are some
people listening to police scanners and go to the scene just for the - I don't know why
they do it. Historically speaking this is where we're doing, everybody is going to
remember where they are and what they're doing and allow these folks that have access
to an aircraft wanted to go see first hand from the air.

F: At this point were you seeing airliners at all?

R: Yea, there were still some airliners. Relatively quickly, like I said within the hour it
was relatively quiet and the only chatter that we heard after that point was ourselves
talking on the radio. There were helicopters that were airborne and the occasional rich
doctor that decided to go sight seeing with his airplane, but we escorted him out of their
pretty quick After that things really started to quiet down. I have seen pictures of the
Washington center radar scopes before and after the attack and all the green blimps, I
mean the place is just covered with air traffic and within an hour it's empty and just a
very few radar contacts, they were all military contacts.

F: You mentioned that you worked with the Washington Center. Do you know if all
squadrons worked with the Washington Center like that?

R: Based on the location at Andrews (shows her the map) you've got Regan National
and Washing Dulles right here and you see these circles, they identify the class B
airspace around this neck of the woods. So because of our location FAA controls our
airspace so we have to talk to them. Any other military installation like Atlantic City for
example you've got the Atlantic City actually flies out of the Atlantic City airport so you
are talking to the FAA controllers that control that control that airport.

F: You were up there, you consider yourself a tactical kind of guy I guess
R: Sure, on a good day.

F: So you're up there doing basically the Air Defense mission all of the sudden.

R: Right

F: What was that like?

NCT0067706
R: In all honesty, the training just kicked in. I mean it was like any other air training
sortie that I'd ever done only this time I had real missiles on the plane. The training
really did pay off, everybody just turned on the switch and said "hey, this is our job, this
is what we do, this is what we've trained to do." So it came very naturally and
miraculously it flowed quite well almost seamlessly once we drove the stake in the
ground and said that is how we are going to divide up the air space and this is what we're
going to do. After that, everybody did what they were told to do.

F: That was Major Kane (?), Col Sass that was kind of his, he got the lead on it.

R: Exactly, and he is a graduate of the fighter weapons school. One of the most recent
guys in this squadron to come back from training at weapons school. Col Sass is also a
graduate of it is called FWIC fighter weapons instructor course at Nellis AFB. Col Sass
is also a graduate of that course, but from a different era, from years before. So as far as
the tactical know how, there was quite a large body incorporated up there for tactics, but
the most recent person out of the school house had the newest latest and greatest
information was major changes. He took the hammer and...

F: Was he the ops officer at the time or the weapons officer?

R: He was the weapons officer. He did a great job in establishing control and getting the
game plan and all that which I thought was great.

F: Let me make sure that I still understand what was going on. You had Major
Hutchinson who had gone back up after he landed because he had a little bit of gas left.
He was up there solering (?) their weapons.

R: I believe he may have still had some bullets on board. But for all intents and purposes
he only had a few minutes worth of gas to work with.

F: Which brings me to a point where you mentioned the Fargo guys, you're at different
altitudes and not really communicating yet or you started communicating.

R: Yea, we are all on the same frequency so everybody was able to talk to each other.

F: But wasn't there a point when you guys didn't know that they were there?

R: Well, like I said there was a couple of guys from Richmond I believe it was a pair of
F-16s that came flying up and they on a different frequency coming from Virginia. They
were on a different center frequency as they were proceeding North so we weren't
talking to them on the same frequency. Yea, there are people there whom you are not
able to immediately communicate with. Once I rejoined on them and I saw the tail flash
and realized that they were out of Richmond, I gave them ??? one this was not a threat
like I gave everybody else, within a matter of minutes the Washington Center frequency
that they were previously on passed them over to a new frequency which is where we
were ??? and they said "here is a piece of sky for you to monitor."

NCT0067707
F: You were up there about 3 or 4 hours, are we talking about 8 fighters?

R: Yea, my recollection at that point is that there may have been more. I want to say that
there were some F-15 Eagles

F: ?? timeline stuff too.

R: You'll be able to find exactly who was where. If they are Eagles, they are 1AF assets
so I imagine

F: I know, I don't think Otis came down here, did they?

R: That would be a heck of a trip for them, I think ??? in New York.

F: ?? New York unless somehow Langley AFB

R: If they were they were probably out of Langley would be my guess.

F: Out of Langley?

R: yea, doing what everybody else does, if there is a fight up north with fighters - let's
go. It was eerie having flown here, I'd been here for probably three months about and
knowing how busy the air traffic situation is in the DC area. It was quite eerie hearing
almost silence on the radio and on the radarscope not see anybody but us up there. You
are use to seeing airlines all over the place not only on the radar but visually seeing them.
To have the airspace to ourselves to fly at whatever altitude and at whatever airspeed to
wherever we needed to go that was something we'd never seen before and probably never
see again.

F: It's not like you got to go up there and practice some fighting or anything.

R: Exactly, exactly

F: Unfortunately

R: To go up and visually identify somebody and fly right next to the Pentagon or right
over the Pentagon or over downtown DC over the mall area. In any other situation, you
would have been violated by the FAA for breaking the prohibited airspace around these
assets. So, that was something that was unique.

F: What altitude do you guys fly at?

R: Everything, I mean if you are chasing somebody down like a helicopter at 200 feet,
you are down there at 500 feet.

NCT0067708
F: What's the lowest you guys got?

R: About 500 feet, anything lower than that, you are gambling with your life. The lowest
I ever got was 500 feet. That is a routine altitude for typical flying in the low level
tactical navigation, A-10 pilots, there is an A-10 slot out at Baltimore, those guys are
trained down to as low as 100 feet I believe. They move slightly slower than we do so
you have a little bit more time to work with. But 500 feet at 550 knots, that's, that will
light your head on fire.

F: Yea, I guess

R: That is the only reason we would get down below 1,000 or 2,000 feet is if we were
trying to visual identify somebody.

F: The normal training mission is about 2,000 feet?

R: Depending on the mission, I mean if we're dropping bombs we can get down there
within a couple hundred feet of the ground. On a straffing (?) pass, our limitations are 75
feet above the ground, we can't get any lower than that.

F: Wow, your kidding

R: At the air speeds that we fly, it gets your attention. Yea on that day, we owned the
universe over DC, any altitude, any airspeed, any location as long it was in the interest of
defending the capital. Everybody acted responsibly, nobody was our there free willing
like roving motorcycle gangs, we weren't taking advantage of the situation, we were
there with a job to do.

F: Yea

R: But for fuel efficiency obviously, the higher altitude you can fly at the more fuel
efficiency you had. So if you didn't have a reason to be down in the weeds than you
weren't there. Then we just divided up the airspace and after that it would be "Okay the
Southwest quadrant you have got the block from 10,000 - 20,000 feet, so you can
maneuver freely in there and anybody who shows up we will assign them a block either
above or below." It was a beautiful day, so we didn't have to worry about it impacting
where we were at. Follow-on periods obviously, we spent a lot of time capping 24/7 over
DC after that fact and so when weather would impact us, we would have to move our
assigned blocks either up or down to at least try to maintain clear of the weather.

F: For most of that mission, I guess you are identifying planes and talking to the FAA.
At any point did you get "hey if you see a hostile airliner and we determine that it's
hostile shoot it down" did you ever get that word?

R: Not those exact words. I think the intent when we walked out the door was you are
carrying missiles for a reason. They wouldn't have loaded us up with missiles if

NCT0067709
somewhere in chain the decision was made that it would be acceptable to ?? those aircraft
and employ those weapons. However, the actual rules of engagement, I mean we are
reacting so we didn't have an ROE that specified you need to have XY&Z happen before
you can hit the tickle button and not let them fly which put great responsibility on the
fighters that were airborne at that time. Because we all understood the magnitude of what
we were about to engage in and we understood that these were American lives that by no
fault of their own we may have to shoot an airliner with our own citizens on board and .
may be loosing friends and family. So that is not a responsibility that anybody took
lightly. But it was also understood that based on what we had seen that it would be far
better to have the wreckage of an airliner fall short of the downtown area than so sit and
watch idoly by as it crashed into the Pentagon again or into the White House or into
another building, you name it.

F: So there was nobody who ever said

R: "If they do this do ahead and shoot them."

F: But you guys know what you doing, you know your training and ....

R: Exactly, and if we had the time, say their was another airliner, say the folks that
crashed in Pennsylvania actually made it into the DC area, hopefully we would have had
enough time to find them, to get close to the aircraft to assess the situation before that
aircraft actually became a threat to the downtown DC area. I can promise you that the
way things were going, they wouldn't have allowed that airplane to get into the DC area
and hit the Capital or the White House or where ever they were going. Again, that
authorization to shoot would have come down the chain to shoot. We would have gotten
that word and we would have passed that information back up the chain as quickly as
possible. Once we identified the aircraft and tried to get them to change their course to
the DC area and we would have been passing that information real time both to
Washington Center and I believe we actually had ground control the DCI folks call sign
?? in this neck of the woods we were often talking to them because they have radar
scopes they can also identify these guys.

F: Yea, I got to go up and talk to them about that and that was a crazy story too.

R: Exactly
F: The guy gets the first phone call from Boston Center "We think we have a high
jacking."

R: Yea

F: It was like can you get some F-16s up or something.

R: What do you do? It isn't something anyone anticipated. But we pass that information
up the chain and then everybody in the mix would put two and two together and realize

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that they were continuing to progress closer and closer to an area that had already been
targeted with an airliner. Somebody make the call on this and stop it.

F: I know there were something like 21 reports of high jackings that day.

R: Right

F: That all turned out to be wrong. What kind of information were you getting that there
could be other planes high jacked and did you know about the one that crashed into
Pennsylvania.

R: Me personally, I didn't know about that until after the fact. We did have aircraft
airborne at the time when they actually crashed. As far as I can recall, Both Col Sass and
Cpt Penney were in the Northern sector North of DC manning that piece of sky and they
were still hundreds and hundreds of miles away from the folks when they crashed in
Pennsylvania. They may have gotten a couple of calls to actually find out if they got a
vector North towards that and now there was guys out of ....

F: Selfridge

R: Yea, who were scrambled to go and find those guys.

F: From what I understand, they weren't even sure why they were scrambled.
Scrambling? You guys don't scramble, this is a new thing.

R: I don't know if they ever got vector North?

F: What is this I hear about Secret Service calling your unit saying "protect the house" or
something.

R: I don't....again, I'm standing on the other side of the desk just waiting for somebody
to give me a task. So I don't know, Col Sass will be able to tell you who exactly was
talking to the Secret Service, but obviously we being the only fighter unit in DC, the Air
Force 1 and 2 lives at this base as far as the jets go they obviously had concern to use us
to protect. Also, they have all of congress to protect, they've got the VP in the house. Sec
of Defense and Sec of State, the President yea he was out of town, but there were still a
lot of people that they care about that needed protection. That was just based on what I
saw and the reports that came out this year about September 11th they immediately took
everybody out of congress and the VP put them in their bunkers, had them safe and sound
but still with the monuments that we've got in downtown DC, we wouldn't want to stand
by, even if we new that the White House and the capital was vacant we still wouldn't
want an airplane to hit it.

F: At what point did you, I'm sure you were in kind of your adrenaline mode, you are up
there doing your job. Did you ever think about "okay what just happened here?"

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R: When did it actually sink in?

F: When did it sink in for you and when you got home what did you do when you got
home?

R: Well, actually it sunk in actually before I landed, once again we were up there for
about 4 hours, 3 l/2 - 4 hours. After that first hour, once everything landed and everything
started to calm down and quiet down now you have some time to put it in perspective. I
spent the next two hours or so holding right over the pentagon. That's when it hit me,
just to actually see it first hand, every time I turned left over the Pentagon I'd look down
and see the black smoke going out of the left side.

F: Did you see people running out of the building or anything like that?

R: No, I wasn't that low.

F: I don't really know how high 500 feet.... I mean I don't know what you can see from
500 feet.

R: Well from 500 feet you can definitely see ... but I was up 1,500 to 2,500 feet at the
time. I didn't have any reason to be any lower. So all I could see from that altitude of
the Pentagon was about the size of a quarter so you can't see much other than that on the
ground. It really hit home for me at that time and I think as fighter pilots we like to think
we are thick skinned and a tough bunch, but it brought me to the verge of tears.

F: I can't imagine seeing that. Horrible

R: Just thinking about all of the people that are in there. I've got neighbors in my very
neighborhood that work in the Pentagon, good friends of ours and I had no idea if they
were casualties or what their status was and thinking about their families. It was just
heart wrenching, it really was. Even for days after there is still smoke coming up from it,
just a constant reminder every time that you are up there that this is real. It doesn't get
anymore real than that. You go through the entire spectrum of emotions, obviously the
sorrow that you feel for the people who were killed and their families, outrage that we
had been attacked on our own soil and that they had used an American airplane with
American citizens on board to kill other Americans, it just makes you irate. It makes you
want to kill somebody. You feel everything, but what you didn't feel is you didn't feel
happy about it. At best you felt glad that at least you were there, being able to do
something even if it was of minimal impact. We were participating in trying to make the
situation better. So, you at least felt enabled, you didn't feel impotent like your hands are
tied you can't do anything about it. I'm sure that a lot of people felt a lot of frustration
because they couldn't participate and do something, take an active part so I count myself
very blessed to have been able to participate and been able to do something.

F: Yea, I think so too. I mean as sick as it is you guys are doing your job and ...

NCT0067712
R: This is what we were trained to do in essence. This is a war.

F: Had you been deployed to Saudi or anything?

R: No

F: You said you'd never fired live missiles, so this is kind of ...

R: This is new territory from start to finish. With the sick twist, like a Stephen King
novel if you will. I fully anticipated that sometime in my career, I'd be flying in a
combat zone with weapons and I anticipated that I'd be overseas somewhere but not in
my own back yard. You know every time you bank up and turn over the Pentagon you
are looking right down your wing you see the missile hanging out there, you know it is
real.

F: Obviously with the CAPs and every thing the air space kinda changed. You are
certainly allowed to be there now.

R: Exactly, as quickly as possible getting back to normal. Because obviously the airlines
need the skies and people need to be able to get from A to B. We couldn't shut down the
DC area indefinitely. Within a day or two they started figuring out that by the end of the
week we are going to open up National or we are going to open up Dulles. I think that
Reagan National stayed closed for quite a long time. Baltimore opened back up and we
started getting traffic in and out of there. So once normal air traffic control agreed to
resume, they gave us a certain altitude block of their space, certain number of miles from
the downtown DC area and this was the air space that we CAPed in. "Stay in here, if we
need you to go and look at somebody, we'll clear you out of there, but you need to be
able to vector the traffic above and below.

END OF INTERVIEW

End of Tape Side A

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