A New Type of War - Rutgers Law Review
A New Type of War
The Story of the FAA and NORAD Response to the September 11, 2001 Attacks
Team 8 of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States has determined the operational facts of the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) and North American Aerospace Defense Command’s (NORAD) response to [the] September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, as reconstructed from primary sources such as logs, tape recordings, transcripts and radar data, and corroborated in interviews with key personnel involved. Set forth in this monograph is the definitive account concerning when and how the FAA gained situational awareness that each of the four commercial aircraft was hijacked by terrorists on the morning of 9/11, when and how the FAA notified the military about each of the hijacked aircraft, and when and how the military responded. — Rutgers Law Review
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As the team on the 9/11 Commission Staff responsible for reconstructing the facts of the day itself, Team 8 was scrupulous to heed the direction of Commission Chairman Kean and Vice-Chairman Hamilton that we present the facts as we found them as objectively as possible. In the closing days of our work, it became clear that the most objective way to present those facts – and to capture both the urgency with which decisions were being made that day and the level of command at which critical decision making was occurring – would be to allow, where possible, the various officials and others responsible for responding to the attacks to speak for themselves. Accordingly, the team prepared what we called an ‘audio monograph’ of critical communications from the morning of 9/11, linked by narrative and graphics placing each audio clip in context. We believed that such a rendering would be the best way to enable the public to understand what happened on 9/11 – how the day was lived by those responding to the attacks.
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COMMISSION STAFF RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS REPORT
John J. Farmer, Jr., Senior Counsel & Team Leader
John A. Azzarello, Counsel
Miles L. Kara, Sr., Professional Staff Member
Kevin Shaeffer, Professional Staff Member
Geoffrey Scott Brown, Research Assistant
Dana J. Hyde, Counsel
Lisa Marie Sullivan, Staff Assistant
Charles M. Pereira, Professional Staff Member
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PREFACE
Team 8 of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States has determined the operational facts of the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) and North American Aerospace Defense Command’s (NORAD) response to [the] September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, as reconstructed from primary sources such as logs, tape recordings, transcripts and radar data, and corroborated in interviews with key personnel involved. Set forth in this monograph is the definitive account concerning when and how the FAA gained situational awareness that each of the four commercial aircraft was hijacked by terrorists on the morning of 9/11, when and how the FAA notified the military about each of the hijacked aircraft, and when and how the military responded.
Unless otherwise noted, all times presented are rounded to the nearest minute. None of the audio excerpts in this document [was] derived from cockpit voice recorders. Where possible, individual names, phone numbers, excessive static noise, and excessive periods of ‘dead space’ have been removed from the audio excerpts. Absolutely no content within the audio excerpts has been altered.
From Air Boyd TV: Listen To 9/11 As It Unfolded - FAA NORAD Tapes
Unknown: This is a new type of war, that’s what it is.