AIR DEFENSE RESPONSE 

September 11, 2001 

Gary Evans www.ringnebula.com 

Now that over five years have passed since September 11, 2001, a growing number of US citizens question the published, official story of that day1 finding the official evidence to be inconsistent and lacking credibility. 

Armed with evidence gathered by hundreds of grass roots citizen organizations and individuals, a growing number have come to the conclusion that members of the Bush Administration colluded with 9/11 planners and attackers, and that the resulting catastrophe was used to frighten us into a war we would otherwise have refused. 

The world has yet to untangle the complexities of that day. Many questions remain involving the unprecedented failures of the World Trade Buildings, failures of the intelligence community to head off the attacks in the first place, and finally the spectacular failure of the military to defend U.S. airspace, despite the investment of billions in detection equipment, aircraft, highly trained pilots, and the like. 

This paper focuses on this last question; specifically: What enabled four hijacked jumbo-aircraft to continue unimpeded flights without interception long after being identified as flights in major trouble, until three crashed into selected targets and one, into the ground? Was all of this the result of a terrible set of coincidences and incompetencies, or was 9/11 the result of purposeful actions taken by a few well placed jackals within this government? 

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The official story of 9/11 is an inconsistent fiction. The document that reports the story — the official, government sponsored 9/11 Commission Report — concludes that incompetence and errors were to blame. A careful review of the evidence now at hand leads to other conclusions: the 9/11 attacks were carried out with precision, and required support — whether known, or unknown to the actual attackers — from agents within the Bush government. The official report concludes that the catastrophic failure of airspace defense on 9/11 was, in so many words, the result of a series of personnel failures within the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the Department of Defense (DoD); all these people are officially exposed as a gaggle of incompetent dufusses. Is the official document an elaborate lie? Please read on and decide for yourself. 

AIRSPACE [SCRAMBLE] PROTOCOLS OF 9/11 

The Department of Defense (DoD) protocol defining appropriate actions to be taken in the event of airspace emergencies and hijacked airplanes was rewritten after many years of successful application just three months before 9/11/01 - on June 1, under the direction of former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. 

Painstaking reviews of that protocol document (CJCSI 3610.10A)2 and of its predecessor (CJCSI 3610.10)3 have revealed no meaningful changes other than its relocation under the Joint Chiefs of Staff organizational flow chart. There are sentence rewrites, altered paragraph contents, etc., but careful flow charting of each protocol leads to identical sets of expected behaviors. 

As will be explained below, despite the fact that the relocated protocol is functionally identical to the earlier version, the rewrite nonetheless played a significant role in the events of 9/11. As you digest this information, keep in mind that the FAA officially cataloged 67 North American Air Defense Command (NORAD) airspace scramble/intercepts between September 2000 and June 2001,4 yet between June 1, 2001, and September 10, 2001, there were none.5a Following 9/11, the number of scramble/intercept events again became quite common.4 

Each protocol – old (CJCSI 3610.103) and new (CJCSI 3610.10A2) – defined two action tracks: 1) EMERGENT – 

immediate action required, or 2) NON-EMERGENT – a slower process appropriate to a typical hijacking, where demands are issued and negotiations are expected to proceed.2,3 

The emergent track empowers air traffic controllers to communicate immediately and directly with the military to request assistance as needed, with no further authorization required. 

The slower (hijack) track was designed to allow sufficient time to notify and synchronize the highest reaches of government as processes would unfold. In those cases, a contact chain of command was clearly defined, beginning with the FAA, then continuing across to the DoD chain of command — headed by the Secretary of Defense — whose authorization was finally required for any military assistance given. 

If the relocated protocols are functionally identical, why were they rewritten three months before 9/11? And, how is it that the number of fighter-interceptor scramble orders dropped to zero for those three months5a, after having been so common during the months and years preceding the rewrite? Robin Hordon 5b, 5c, an experienced past FAA Air Traffic Controller, who in former years helped write airspace protocols for the government, offers a cogent explanation: when newly (re)written protocols are released, a series of briefings are given to those who will be responsible to act on them. Briefings are personal, given on a one-to-one or small “need-to-know” group basis and can contain subtle biases regarding how those in upper levels expect the protocols to be implemented. 

There is no log or paper trail of the biased briefings. All that remains is the numerical evidence: scramble orders between June 1, 2001 and September 10, 2001 dropped to zero. 

Summarizing: the newly rewritten — but functionally unchanged — protocol offered an opportunity to re-brief people thereby creating a functional stand-down mechanism with no paper trail remaining. 

ADMINISTRATIVE STAFFING: CHAIN OF COMMAND ON 9/11 

There were several key FAA and military personnel changes in place on 9/11 which, in concert with the slow-mode Airspace Defense Protocol, resulted in a finely tuned response timeline set to trail events as they occurred. It is that fine tuning that enabled the devastation of 9/11. 

The following discussion will focus on the slow (hijack) mode chain of command and personnel who filled each of the positions on 9/11. The command chain is summarized here: 

Read the conclusion of this report at http://www.ringnebula.com/Oil/911/air_defense_911.pdf

May 13, 2009  
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