The skies over America

Tom Brokaw • Profile

September 11^th seemed a perfect day to fly in the Northeast.  Daybreak was crisp and bright. There was unlimited visibility: no ceiling and conditions were just right. 

Greg Callahan, Newark air traffic controller: We were very busy, things were moving nicely.

As usual, the skies over America that day were crowded with airplanes.  Often 4,000-6,000 are airborne at any given time.  For air traffic controllers, keeping them moving safely and on time is an intricately choreographed ballet—each plane moving through the air at different speeds, altitudes, and headings.

Curt Applegate, New York air traffic controller: It is a thing of beauty. It is like clockwork.

Making it all happen is a complex mix of manpower and technology, procedure and judgment. The pressure is constant; the stress, unrelenting.

Despite the computers and training, the backup systems and safety equipment, in the end it is the air traffic controllers who must, at a moment’s notice, make sense of it all. But on this day, nothing would make sense.

Mike Blake, Boston air traffic controller:  We’re ingrained to know that you’re gonna be faced with adversity or possibly even death.

Rick Tepper:  You always wonder, you know, the law of averages.  That sooner or later something’s going to happen.  And you just hope that it’s not on your shift.

But for these 20 air traffic controllers, and hundreds of others across the U.S, it did happen on their shift.

Five years ago, the morning of September 11^th
Air traffic controllers watched in disbelief as four passenger planes were hijacked, back to back, in little more than an hour. They were as stunned as the rest of us—working in uncharted territory, but at the same time, forced to make critical decisions;  hundreds of thousand of lives were at risk. 

In a special NBC News report they all share their story:  what they saw, what they felt as they were witness to the most devastating tragedy in aviation history.    

Tom Brokaw, NBC News:  How much of that day has lingered with you?

Don Jeffroy: The whole day. 

Brokaw: Still think about it?

Jeffroy: Yeah, there’s not a day goes by where you don’t have to think about it.

It all began at Boston’s Logan airport. It’s morning rush hour. Planes are already stacked on the runway, waiting to get final clearance for takeoff. 

8:00 am. 
American Flight 11, bound for Los Angeles, pushes back from the gate and is cleared for takeoff. The Boeing-767 with 81 passengers, 11 crew and 24 thousand gallons of jet fuel, lifts off, headed west.

As the plane climbs out of Boston Logan, it’s handed off from one air traffic control center to the next.  By 8:10 a.m., American Flight 11 is in the hands of Boston’s regional “en route” center which is located 50 miles outside the city.

More than 75 controllers are on duty at the time.  Among them, Tom Roberts, Lino Martins, Don Jefroy, John Hartling, Pete Zalewski, and Mike Blake.

Within minutes, the 767 is climbing through 20,000 feet, and onto Pete Zalewski’s radar. 

Pete Zalewski: I initially climbed him to foot-level two-niner-zero, 29,000 feet.

8:14 am.: 14 minutes since take-off 
American 11 is headed up to its cruising altitude of 35,000 feet, but not before Zalewski radios the pilot a routine order to turn, to keep enough space between American 11 and another plane. 

Zalewski: I turn him to 20 degrees right, he took the turn. I then told American 11, “Climb and maintain flight level three-five-zero, 35,000 feet.”  There was no response. 

A moment of concern perhaps, but that was not uncommon.

Zalewski: At that point, I was just thinking that it was, you know, maybe the pilots weren’t paying attention, or there’s something wrong with the frequency. 

Zalewski followed procedures, continuing to try to raise American 11 on the frequency.

Zalewski: And at first, it was pretty much, you know, American 11, you know, “Are you paying attention?  Are you listening?”    And there was still no response.  I used the emergency frequency to try and get a hold of him through that. There was no response. 

By now Zalewski is running a mental checklist,  trying to account for the loss of communication — a technical problem or maybe a mistake on the pilot’s part?

Zalewski:  I went back the previous sector to see if the pilot had accidentally flipped the switch back over on the radio. At that point there was still nothing.  We weren’t hearing from him.

American 11 was  “NORDO”—“no radio contact.” Zalewski stepped up his efforts. 

Zalewski: I would go on to call that aircraft 12 times.

And as it went on, I begin to get more concerned. 

Brokaw: You’re watching American 11 at that point as well, Lino?

Lino Martins: Yes. He was in my air space at that time.

Colleague Lino Martins, working nearby, is now also tracking the American Airlines plane. 

Lino Martins: I saw him start the right turns, figuring Pete was gonna climb him and that’s when Pete called.  And said, “No, he’s staying at two-nine-zero, ‘cause he didn’t respond, he’s NORDO.”

Zalewski: I said, “We’re not talking to him. And he was last assigned at 29, but he may have heard the 35.  I’m not sure what he might do here, so just watch him.” 

Martins: At that point, again, I didn’t think anything was wrong.

But the second controller did have incoming flights directly in the path of American 11.

Martins: I had to plan ahead on this new heading he was on.  He was opposite direction with my Boston arrivals.  And I had to get them underneath him.

But then, 8:20 a.m., American 11 abruptly changes course, turning to the northwest.  

Zalewski: I then saw the transponder shut off.

Martins: And I’m thinking, “Well, maybe there’s really something wrong. First there’s no radio, now we lost this transponder.”

Every commercial airplane is equipped with a transponder that transmits a constant signal. The signal gives controllers on the ground a steady flow of information—displayed on radar screens in a “datablock” such as this one.  Think of it as the airplane’s vital signs containing the carrier, flight number, speed and altitude.  If the transponder’s not working, the plane is simply blip on radar.   Controllers can see only the location, and the speed of the plane.

Zalewski: And so, I very quietly turned to the supervisor and I said, “Would you please come over here?”  I said, “I think something is seriously wrong with this plane.” 

Brokaw: Did you suspect hijacking at that point?

Zalewski: Absolutely not.  No way.

American 11 has been NORDO for six minutes, and now other controllers are becoming concerned. Tom Roberts tries yet another method to contact the plane. 

Tom Roberts: I happened to be working on another American flight on my frequency.  One of our procedures or protocols is to go aircraft to aircraft on a company frequency, to see if the pilots from one flight could talk to the pilots of another flight.

But that too, fails. There is still no reply — the silence increasingly ominous as the jet, now drastically off course, flying in a northwesterly direction, toward Albany, New York.  Controllers are scrambling to keep create a safe zone around the runaway plane, moving every other flight in the area out of the way, from the ground, all the way up to 35,000 feet. 

Roberts: We had pretty much moved all the airplanes from Albany to New York to Syracuse, New York out of the way because that’s the track he was going on.

Martins:  And I didn’t know if he was gonna turn back on course...

Roberts: And we had no altitude information.  So, it’s not just clearing the altitudes of conflicting traffic...

Martins:  It was that whole altitude stratum from the ground, up to 35,000. 

8:24 am.: Ten minutes since losing contact. 
Controllers see the plane make another unauthorized turn, this time to the left, going south. 

Zalewski: And that’s when I heard the first transmission from the aircraft.  And I wasn’t quite sure what it was.  Because it was just a foreign voice.  It was something very different. To me, it sounded almost Middle Eastern.

And I asked, “American 11, is that you?  American 11, are you trying to call me?”  And then came the next transmission.  And in that transmission, I immediately knew something was very wrong.  And I knew it was a hijack.

Brokaw: And what did you hear?

Zalewski: I remember the part of them saying they were going back to the airport.  And by that, I deduced that they were going to go back to Boston.  That’s what I was thinking.  And I didn’t believe it was one of the American pilots on board.    I immediately stood up and yelled at the supervisor, “John, get over here immediately right now.”  And I can just remember everybody in that building, and they were all just looking at me, like, “What is wrong with you?” 

Zalewski cannot make out exactly what the hijackers are saying, but the tone of their voices alone, chills him.

Zalewski: I felt from those voices the terror.  For some reason, I knew something seemed worse than just a normal hijack.  It just seemed very different to me. 

Zalewski immediately asks for an assistant, to help listen to the transmissions coming from the plane and puts the frequency on a speaker so others can hear. And, he notifies the supervisor there is a hijacking—the first one on a U.S. carrier in more than a decade.

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