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At 9:37:46, American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon, travel-
ing at approximately 530 miles per hour.
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All on board, as well as many civil-
ian and military personnel in the building, were killed.
The Battle for United 93
At 8:42, United Airlines Flight 93 took off from Newark (New Jersey) Liberty
International Airport bound for San Francisco.The aircraft was piloted by Cap-
tain Jason Dahl and First Officer Leroy Homer, and there were five flight atten-
dants. Thirty-seven passengers, including the hijackers, boarded the plane.
Scheduled to depart the gate at 8:00, the Boeing 757's takeoff was delayed
because of the airport's typically heavy morning traffic.
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The hijackers had planned to take flights scheduled to depart at 7:45 (Amer-
ican 11), 8:00 (United 175 and United 93), and 8:10 (American 77). Three of
the flights had actually taken off within 10 to 15 minutes of their planned
departure times. United 93 would ordinarily have taken off about 15 minutes
after pulling away from the gate.When it left the ground at 8:42, the flight was
running more than 25 minutes late.
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As United 93 left Newark, the flight's crew members were unaware of the
hijacking of American 11.Around 9:00, the FAA,American, and United were
facing the staggering realization of apparent multiple hijackings. At 9:03, they
would see another aircraft strike the World Trade Center. Crisis managers at
the FAA and the airlines did not yet act to warn other aircraft.
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At the same
time, Boston Center realized that a message transmitted just before 8:25 by the
hijacker pilot of American 11 included the phrase,"We have some planes."
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No one at the FAA or the airlines that day had ever dealt with multiple
hijackings. Such a plot had not been carried out anywhere in the world in more
than 30 years, and never in the United States.As news of the hijackings filtered
through the FAA and the airlines, it does not seem to have occurred to their
leadership that they needed to alert other aircraft in the air that they too might
be at risk.
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United 175 was hijacked between 8:42 and 8:46, and awareness of that
hijacking began to spread after 8:51. American 77 was hijacked between 8:51
and 8:54. By 9:00, FAA and airline officials began to comprehend that attack-
ers were going after multiple aircraft. American Airlines' nationwide ground
stop between 9:05 and 9:10 was followed by a United Airlines ground stop.
FAA controllers at Boston Center, which had tracked the first two hijackings,
requested at 9:07 that Herndon Command Center "get messages to airborne
aircraft to increase security for the cockpit."There is no evidence that Hern-
don took such action. Boston Center immediately began speculating about
other aircraft that might be in danger, leading them to worry about a transcon-
tinental flight--Delta 1989--that in fact was not hijacked. At 9:19, the FAA's
New England regional office called Herndon and asked that Cleveland Cen-
ter advise Delta 1989 to use extra cockpit security.
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THE 9/11 COMMISSION REPORT
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