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Fighter Pilots Unofficially Told to Get Ready to Scramble After American Airlines Flight 11

Started by Archangel, August 03, 2017, 10:04:49 PM

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Archangel

August 03, 2017, 10:04:49 PM




Major Daniel Nash.
[Source: Cape Cod Times]
Major Daniel Nash (codenamed Nasty) and Lieutenant Colonel Timothy Duffy (codenamed Duff) are the two F-15 pilots who would scramble after Flight 11. Apparently, they get several informal calls warning to get ready. According to Nash, at this time, a colleague at the Otis Air National Guard Base tells him that a flight out of Boston has been hijacked, and that he should be on alert. [Cape Cod Times, 8/21/2002]

NEADS senior technician Jeremy Powell (informed about the hijacking at 8:37 a.m.), says that he telephones Otis Air National Guard Base soon thereafter to tell it to upgrade its "readiness posture." [Newhouse News Service, 1/25/2002]

Boston flight control had tried calling the Otis base directly at 8:34 a.m., although the result of that call remains unclear. Duffy recalls being warned: "I was just standing up by the ops desk and I was told I had a phone call. I asked who it was and they said the [Boston] tower calling and something about a hijacking. It was Flight American 11, a 767, out of Boston going to California. At the time we ran in and got suited up." [Aviation Week and Space Technology, 6/3/2002; Cape Cod Times, 8/21/2002; BBC, 9/1/2002]

At NEADS, the mission crew commander Major Kevin Nasypany orders his Weapons Team, which controls the fighters, to put the Otis planes on "battle stations." This means the two "alert" pilots are "jolted into action by a piercing 'battle horn.' They run to their jets, climb up, strap in, and do everything they need to do to get ready to fly short of starting the engines." [Vanity Fair, 8/1/2006]

NEADS Commander Robert Marr is also reported as having ordered the Otis pilots to battle stations. [Filson, 2003, pp. 55; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 20]

Duffy confirms, "Halfway to the jets, we got 'battle stations'... which means to get ready for action." [Aviation Week and Space Technology, 6/3/2002]

The actual scramble order does not come until the pilots are already waiting in the fighters: "We went out, we hopped in the jets and we were ready to go—standby for a scramble order if we were going to get one." [BBC, 9/1/2002]

Duffy continues, "I briefed Nasty on the information I had about the American Airlines Flight. About four-five minutes later, we got the scramble order and took off." [Aviation Week and Space Technology, 6/3/2002]

However, the official notification to scramble these fighters does not come until 8:46 a.m. The six-minute (or more) delay between unofficial and official notification has not been explained.
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