September 11, 2001 Research & Archives

Craig Marquis, the manager on duty at the American Airlines System Operations Control (SOC) center in Texas, tells Nydia Gonzalez, a supervisor at the American Airlines Southeastern Reservations Office in North Carolina, that FAA air traffic controllers are handling Flight 11 as a "confirmed hijacking." [American Airlines, 9/11/2001, pp. 7-19]

Gonzalez is one of several employees at the reservations office who are on the phone with Betty Ong, a flight attendant on Flight 11 who has been describing to them the trouble on her plane. Gonzalez has been relaying the information Ong provides to Marquis. [9/11 Commission, 11/19/2003 pdf file; 9/11 Commission, 8/26/2004, pp. 8-9]

She asks him, "What's going on on your end, Craig?" [American Airlines, 9/11/2001, pp. 7-19]

Marquis has just been told by a colleague at the SOC that FAA controllers are treating Flight 11 as a hijacking (see 8:40 a.m. September 11, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 11/19/2003 pdf file; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 6]

He therefore replies: "We contacted air traffic control. They are gonna handle this as a confirmed hijacking. So they're moving all the traffic out of this aircraft's way." He says that Flight 11 has its "transponder off, so we don't have a definitive altitude for him." Marquis adds that FAA controllers "seem to think that they have [Flight 11] on a primary radar. They seem to think that he is descending." [American Airlines, 9/11/2001, pp. 7-19]