CHAPTER 6 - THE HIJACK NET
Summary
As we have seen, the 9/11 Commission Report rejected broad agreement amongst FAA/NORAD/White House/Secret Service/Pentagon sources about the FAA hijack net providing useful, timely information on Flights 77 and 93. This rejection was based on a staff interview of one low-level NMCC officer – Major Charles Chambers – who contradictorily said both that no useful information was shared over the FAA hijack net and that he only monitored it periodically (Com-pg. 36). Chambers further claimed that he and the up to two hundred other officers/civilians working in the NMCC (NYT) had more important things to do than pay attention (Com-pg. 36) to the only, formal, required channel by which the FAA could obtain assistance from the military for over three decades (Com-Belger Test).
The 9/11 Commission then lied and said FAA Crisis Management Supervisor Mike Weikert agreed with Chambers that the hijack net played no role in coordinating a response to the attacks (Com-pg. 36) when in fact Weikert plainly told the Commission staff precisely the opposite (Com-Weikert MFR).
The 9/11 Commission accepted Chambers’ implausible claim that no recording or transcript of the FAA hijack net existed (Com-Chambers MFR) even though attack-response communications at numerous FAA and NORAD facilities were recorded (Kean/Hamilton, Rutgers, NYT). In fact, the hijack net content could largely have been reconstructed from these other facilities’ recordings since so many of them participated in it (Com-Belger Test, Com-Garvey Test).
The FAA made the same implausible claim, but Transportation Department Inspector General Kenneth Mead told the 9/11 Commission staff a hijack net recording did exist and was taken into the custody of the Department of Justice (Com-FAA Site Visit MFR). This aligned with Monte Belger’s assertion that he received prepared chronologies of the hijack net, which the Justice Department then classified (Com-Belger MFR).
Sources:
New York Times, 3/25/2007, “First Chapter: ‘Rumsfeld’,” by Andrew Cockburn
New York Times, 9/7/2011, “Newly Published Audio Provides Real-Time View of 9/11 Attacks”
Rutgers University Law Review, 9/7/2011, “Full Audio Transcript”
Tom Kean and Lee Hamilton (9/11 Commission Chairmen), 2007, “Without Precedent: The Inside Story of the 9/11 Commission,” pgs. 85-88
9/11 Commission, 2/6/2003, “Memorandum for the Record: FAA OPS Center Visit”
9/11 Commission, 5/23/2003, Public Hearing (Transcript: Commissioner Ben-Veniste reading FAA document entitled, “FAA Communications with NORAD on September 11th, 2001,” prepared by FAA Administrator Jane Garvey, Mr. Asmus, Ms. Schuessler)
9/11 Commission, 4/20/2004, “Memorandum for the Record: Interview with [FAA Deputy Administrator] Monte Belger”
9/11 Commission, 4/23/2004, “Memorandum for the Record: Interview with Major Charles Chambers” (includes an appended 4/30/2004 memorandum signed by Chambers stating there is “no documentation of the length or content” of the FAA hijack net)
9/11 Commission, 5/7/2004, “Memorandum for the Record: Interview with [FAA Crisis Management Supervisor] Michael Weikert”
9/11 Commission, 6/17/2004, Public Hearing (Transcript: FAA Deputy Administrator Monte Belger Testimony)
9/11 Commission, July 2004, “9/11 Commission Report,” pgs. 36, 462 (Ch. 1 FN 188)
9/11 Commission Claims FAA Hijack Net Provided No Useful Information, Rejects Overwhelming Evidence to the Contrary; Cites Interview of One Low-Level Officer Who Contradicts Himself; Accepts Implausible Claim that No Recording Was Generated
We previously saw that numerous sources agreed that timely, useful information concerning Flights 77 and/or 93 was shared by the FAA with the military and White House/Secret Service over the hijack net.
Some stated this directly (Garvey, Belger (firsthand witness), Weikert (firsthand witness), Asmus, Schuessler). Others did not specify the channel through which they received the FAA’s information (FAA, NORAD, Eberhart, Scott, McKinley, Arnold (firsthand witness), Air Force, Marr (firsthand witness), Winfield (firsthand witness), Myers, Wolfowitz, Riggs, Cheney), but the hijack net was the formally required channel through which the FAA always shared such information for decades so it is by far the most likely and logical source. And still others merely received timely information from FAA parties known to have been generally involved with FAA hijack net (Powell, Mineta, Steenbergen, Garabito, Clarke), which strongly suggest such information would also have been shared on the hijack net.
Nevertheless, the 9/11 Commission Report rejected this broad agreement based on one staff interview with Major Charles Chambers, a surveillance officer on duty at the NMCC. The 9/11 Commission report stated on page 36:
“The NMCC officer who participated [in the FAA hijack net] told us that the call was monitored only periodically because the information was sporadic, it was of little value, and there were other important tasks.”
It bears repeating here that this hijack net was the only, formal, required channel by which the FAA could obtain assistance from the military for over three decades. The claim that it was monitored only periodically (after being joined half-an-hour late) by one low-level officer inside America’s military headquarters (which was “staffed twenty-four hours a day with as many as two hundred military officers and civilian staff and equipped with arrays of communications systems,” per the New York Times) in the middle of the 9/11 attacks is beyond shocking, if not completely implausible.
Plus, the 9/11 Commission report’s statement is self-contradicting. If Chambers only monitored the call periodically, how could he have known that all the information coming through it was of little value? Furthermore, since this was the only channel through which the FAA was required to communicate flight tracking information to the Pentagon, what tasks could possibly have been more important?
The 9/11 Commission report then closed the topic of the FAA hijack net with the statement:
“The NMCC officer [Charles Chambers] … [and the] FAA manager of the teleconference [Michael Weikert]… agree that the teleconference played no role in coordinating a response to the attacks of 9/11.”
This statement was false. It cited Michael Weikert’s 9/11 Commission staff interview (footnote 188 on pg. 462). As we have already seen, Weikert plainly told the staff that he opened the hijack net (both the tactical and primary nets) immediately after the first WTC impact, numerous agencies joined prior to the NMCC’s half-hour late join at 9:20, and the FAA sought fighter jet support from the NMCC for both Flight 77 and Flight 93, which it was tracking in real-time over the hijack net. Weikert’s interview memorandum stated:
“At 8:45 AM, he [Weikert] and his colleague… were paged simultaneously… He got an initial brief… He told [his colleague], ‘Let's open up the nets and fire up the command center.’”
“He [Weikert] relied on the [hijack net] personnel to use a checklist to alert relevant parties to the primary net. FBI, State Department, White House situation room, DOD… There was some effort to get the military on one of the nets. It was an open question: ‘Does anyone have contact with the military right now?’ It was Monte Belger that was framing the question at the time… Roughly 9:20 the [NMCC] line was activated.”
“NMCC is the conduit to the Special Operations [fighter jet support] groups. We were trying to raise them [fighter jet support] when we were tracking the plane [Flight 77] that crashed in the Pentagon. Belger was in the room at the time. He was monitoring both nets [tactical and primary]. ATC [Air Traffic Control – also on the net] was monitoring 93. It was heading toward Washington… They were monitoring the event through the net.”
Based on this memorandum, how on earth did the 9/11 Commission final report justify its claim that Weikert “agree[d] that the teleconference played no role in coordinating a response to the attacks of 9/11”? The claim is nonsensical.
It would have been easy for the 9/11 Commission to determine exactly what content was shared over the hijack net by simply listening to the NMCC audio recording or reading the transcript. However, the report cited no such recording or transcript. Instead, it cited an April 30, 2004 memorandum signed by Major Charles Chambers which said:
“To my knowledge, there is no documentation of the length or content of that phone call connecting the NMCC to the ‘FAA net’.”
This is an incredible claim. According to the book, “Without Precedent,” authored by 9/11 Commission Chairmen Tom Kean and Lee Hamilton, every single conversation that took place at each of NEADS’ over 20 perpetually active stations of weapons controllers and flight controllers was always recorded. And, it is implicit from the over one hundred recordings/transcripts released by the 9/11 Commission via Rutgers Law School/New York Times in 2011 that all pertinent FAA field centers, Command Center, and headquarters conversations were likewise recorded. How is it possible then that the nation’s military headquarters, the NMCC, did not record the only conversation by which the FAA was formally required to seek military assistance in the first place? The claim cannot be taken seriously.
But even if the claim was somehow true, the FAA was the initiator of the hijack net half an hour before the NMCC even joined. Therefore, the FAA, not the NMCC was the logical source for a full recording of the 9/11 hijack net content. When the 9/11 Commission staff conducted an official site visit to FAA headquarters in February of 2003, the FAA echoed the NMCC’s implausible claim that there was no recording of the hijack net.
However, Transportation Department Inspector General Kenneth Mead told the 9/11 Commission staff that he heard the exact opposite in a meeting with Transportation Secretary Mineta and his Chief of Staff John Flaherty. So where was this recording now, according to Mead? It was taken into the custody of the Department of Justice! The memorandum from the staff’s FAA headquarters visit stated:
“FAA reports that there was NO recording of the Phone Bridge. (NOTE: Ken Mead says he heard in a meeting with the Sec./CoS Flaherty/Staff that there was a recording and that it was sent to DoJ).”
Mead’s assertion aligned with FAA Administrator Monte Belger’s staff interview. As we saw earlier, Belger said he said he received hijack net chronologies, but the Department of Justice forbade their release to the public. The memorandum stated:
“Belger believes he received prepared chronologies regarding the primary net. Belger commented that there was guidance from the Justice Department not to publicly release any time-specific document post-9/11.”
The obvious question at this point becomes: Why didn’t the 9/11 Commission ask the Justice Department for the hijack net recordings? Furthermore, why didn’t they ask any of the other agencies on the call such as the Secret Service or FBI for their recordings of the hijack net? And why didn’t they ask any of the FAA regional centers for their recordings of the hijack net? We know for a fact that conversations from the following entities were recorded because they were included in the aforementioned 2011 recordings/transcripts release:
Boston Air Traffic Control Center
Cleveland Air Traffic Control Center
FAA Headquarters
FAA Command Center (Herndon, VA)
FAA Washington D.C. Center
FBI
Indianapolis Air Traffic Control Center
Langley Air Base
NEADS technicians/officers
New York Air Traffic Control Center
Washington Air Traffic Control Center (Leesburg, VA)
Since many of these entities are known to have participated in the FAA hijack net (per Monte Belger’s testimony and Jane Garvey’s document quoted by Commissioner Ben-Veniste), much or all of the hijack net content could certainly be reconstructed from their recordings.
Sources:
Department of Transportation, 2003-2004, “DOT Directory”
New York Times, 3/25/2007, “First Chapter: ‘Rumsfeld’,” by Andrew Cockburn
New York Times, 9/7/2011, “Newly Published Audio Provides Real-Time View of 9/11 Attacks”
Rutgers University Law Review, 9/7/2011, “Full Audio Transcript”
Tom Kean and Lee Hamilton, 2007, “Without Precedent: The Inside Story of the 9/11 Commission,” pgs. 85-88
9/11 Commission, 2/6/2003, “Memorandum for the Record: FAA OPS Center Visit”
9/11 Commission, 5/23/2003, Public Hearing (Transcript: Commissioner Ben-Veniste reading FAA document entitled, “FAA Communications with NORAD on September 11th, 2001,” prepared by FAA Administrator Jane Garvey, Mr. Asmus, Ms. Schuessler)
9/11 Commission, 4/20/2004, “Memorandum for the Record: Interview with [FAA Deputy Administrator] Monte Belger”
9/11 Commission, 4/23/2004, “Memorandum for the Record: Interview with Major Charles Chambers” (includes an appended 4/30/2004 memorandum signed by Chambers stating there is “no documentation of the length or content” of the FAA hijack net)
9/11 Commission, 5/7/2004, “Memorandum for the Record: Interview with [FAA Crisis Management Supervisor] Michael Weikert”
9/11 Commission, 6/17/2004, Public Hearing (Transcript: FAA Deputy Administrator Monte Belger Testimony)
9/11 Commission, July 2004, “9/11 Commission Report,” pgs. 36, 462 (Ch. 1 FN 188)