A synchronized look at FAA recognition, military notification, and the changing public chronology of September 11.
On September 11, 2001, there was no single moment when “the government” learned that four aircraft had been hijacked.
Controllers, airline personnel, FAA facilities, military air defenders and national command authorities learned different things at different times. Information moved through separate channels, sometimes slowly and sometimes incorrectly.
The distinction matters.
For an air-defense response, the critical question is not simply when someone in the aviation system realized that something was wrong. It is when useful information reached the people who could identify, locate and respond to the aircraft.
The 9/11 Commission eventually reconstructed that sequence using FAA and military recordings, radar data, logs and interviews. Its resulting chronology differed materially from several earlier public accounts.
Formal Notification Is Not the Same as All Military Awareness
The recordings establish when NEADS received specific hijacking notifications. They do not establish the first moment that a military representative elsewhere in the FAA–Defense communications system received information about a flight.
In May 2003, Commissioner Richard Ben-Veniste read into the public record a statement prepared by two named FAA officials. It said Defense Department personnel participated in FAA phone bridges, an Air Force liaison communicated separately with NORAD, and information about all flights of interest—including American 77—was shared before formal notification. This documents a broader channel of military-linked communication. It does not establish precisely what aircraft-specific information reached NEADS operational personnel, when they received it, or whether it was actionable.
FAA statement, “FAA Communications with NORAD on September 11, 2001,” read into the 9/11 Commission record by Richard Ben-Veniste on May 23, 2003. Ben-Veniste identified the statement as authored by FAA officials Mr. Asmus and Ms. Schuessler.
Ben-Veniste Reads the FAA Communications Statement
9/11 Commission Public Hearing · May 23, 2003
Recordings and operational records overturned the earlier notification claims for American 77 and United 93 and establish when NEADS received specific reports. The FAA’s public statement documents separate military-linked communication channels operating earlier.
The Four Flights
- American 11 — NEADS received formal hijack notification at 8:37:52, before the North Tower impact.
- United 175 — NEADS learned of the second hijacked aircraft at about the time it struck the South Tower.
- American 77 — NEADS did not receive a formal hijack notification before the Pentagon was struck.
- United 93 — NEADS did not receive a hijack notification until after the aircraft had crashed.
The Public Timeline Changed
At a May 2003 9/11 Commission hearing, NORAD officials presented a chronology that appeared to give the military substantially more advance warning of American 77 and United 93.
The presentation placed a notification involving American 77 at 9:24 and a possible United 93 hijacking notification at 9:16.
A year later, after examining FAA and military recordings, radar data, logs and other records, Commission staff publicly rejected both claims.
- American 77: The 9:24 report concerned the mistaken belief that American 11 was still airborne and heading toward Washington. That phantom Flight 11 report—not a confirmed American 77 hijacking notification—triggered the Langley scramble.
- United 93: The aircraft had not yet been hijacked at 9:16. NEADS did not receive a hijacking notification until approximately 10:07, after the aircraft had crashed.
General Larry Arnold told the Commission in 2004 that when he testified the previous year, he did not have the relevant notification times and had been reconstructing events from memory.
That explanation belongs in the record.
So does the contradiction.
The Commission showed that an official account could be tested against contemporaneous recordings and publicly corrected when the records did not support it.
Why the Difference Matters
The earlier chronology made the military appear to have considerably more time to respond.
A 9:24 American 77 notification would imply roughly fourteen minutes of warning before the Pentagon was struck.
A 9:16 United 93 notification would imply nearly three-quarters of an hour before the aircraft crashed.
The recordings-based reconstruction says neither notification occurred as originally described.
That changes the central question.
Earlier chronology:
Why did the military fail despite substantial warning?
Recordings-based chronology:
Why did information moving through the civilian and military systems fail to produce a timely, usable picture before the attacks were completed?
Those are different failures.
What the Record Establishes
- American 11: Boston Center formally notified NEADS at 8:37:52, less than nine minutes before impact.
- United 175: NEADS learned of the second hijacked aircraft at about the time it struck the South Tower.
- American 77: NEADS received no formal hijacking notification before the Pentagon was struck. The Langley scramble was triggered by the phantom American 11 report.
- United 93: FAA elements knew the aircraft was hijacked before the crash, but NEADS did not receive a hijacking notification until afterward.
- The public chronology changed: important notification claims presented in 2003 were rejected in 2004 after Commission staff examined the underlying records.
What Remains Unresolved
The recordings establish particular NEADS notification times with unusual precision. They do not establish the complete information state of every FAA, military and interagency channel.
The public record still leaves several separate questions:
- What useful, aircraft-specific information circulated through FAA phone bridges, military liaison channels, the NMCC or other conferences before formal NEADS notification?
- Why were the inaccurate 2003 notification times presented, and why did they persist until the recordings-based reconstruction?
- Could information available elsewhere in the system realistically have reached operational air defenders in time to change the outcome?
The unresolved question is what useful, aircraft-specific information crossed the broader military and interagency channels, when it arrived, and whether it reached anyone able to change the response in time.
Primary Record
The most important source for this chronology is the 9/11 Commission’s reconstruction of the flights, FAA communications and military response.
The Commission’s June 17, 2004 hearing is especially important because staff played and summarized the underlying FAA and NEADS recordings and directly compared them with the earlier public testimony.
9/11 Commission — Twelfth Public Hearing, June 17, 2004 — recordings-based FAA/NORAD reconstruction.
9/11 Commission Report — Chapter 1, “We Have Some Planes” — final four-flight chronology.
9/11 Commission — Second Public Hearing, May 23, 2003 — Arnold/Scott earlier chronology.
9/11 Commission Report — Staff Statement No. 17, “Improvising a Homeland Defense” — principal recordings-based reconstruction.
National Archives — FAA and air-defense records — underlying archival material.
National Archives — 9/11 Commission Memoranda for the Record (MFRs) — staff interviews and supporting records.
From the Archive
911Truth.org has published extensive historical analysis of the NORAD tapes and the changing air-defense chronology.
These articles are preserved because they document how researchers understood and contested the record as additional evidence became public. Their interpretations should be distinguished from the narrower conclusions established directly by the recordings.
Kevin Ryan
“Never Forget: The 9/11 Air Defense Failures”
Ryan examines the changing air-defense chronology and the conflicting official accounts that preceded the recordings-based reconstruction.
David Ray Griffin
“Do the NORAD Tapes Verify The 9/11 Commission Report?” · September 14, 2006
Griffin preserves an important evidentiary challenge to a simplistic reading of the recordings: an FAA statement entered into the Commission record distinguished formal NORAD notification from earlier information-sharing through FAA–military communication channels. His broader conclusions go beyond what that communication record alone establishes.
NORAD Live and Uncut
Staff · August 31, 2007
This archive item documents the release of the larger body of NORAD audio and preserves contemporaneous reporting about what those recordings added to the public record.