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NEADS Calls Atlantic City Unit, but Phone Is Not Answered

Started by Archangel, August 03, 2017, 09:52:28 PM

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Archangel

August 03, 2017, 09:52:28 PM




The emblem of the 177th Fighter Wing. [Source: United States Air Force]
Colin Scoggins, the military liaison at the FAA's Boston Center, calls NORAD's Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS) and suggests that it contact a military unit at Atlantic City, New Jersey. However, when NEADS tries phoning the unit, the call is not answered.

Scoggins Notices Otis Jets Not Yet Launched - Scoggins had called NEADS at around 8:38 a.m., regarding the hijacked Flight 11 (see (8:38 a.m.) September 11, 2001). A few minutes after this, he notices that fighter jets have not yet launched from Otis Air National Guard Base, at Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and calls NEADS again. He suggests that it should try to get jets launched from Atlantic City. [Spencer, 2008, pp. 32-34]

Atlantic City International Airport is the home of the 177th Fighter Wing of the New Jersey Air National Guard. [GlobalSecurity (.org), 8/21/2005] As author Lynn Spencer will describe, Scoggins "knows that Atlantic City is no longer an alert facility, but he also knows that they launch F-16s for training flights every morning at nine. He figures that the pilots are probably already in their planes and ready to go. They're unarmed, but they're a lot closer to New York City than the Otis fighters on Cape Cod, and the military serves only a monitoring purpose in hijacking anyway." [Spencer, 2008, pp. 33-34]

Two F-16s from the 177th Fighter Wing are in fact already airborne and performing their training mission, and are just a few minutes flying time from New York City (see 8:46 a.m.-9:03 a.m. September 11, 2001). [Bergen Record, 12/5/2003]

Scoggins will later recount: "I requested that we take from Atlantic City very early in the morning, not launch from the ground but those already airborne in Warning Area 107 [a training area] if they were there, which I believe they were." He will add that the 177th Fighter Wing does not "have an intercept mission; it was taken away a long time ago. But NEADS could have called them and asked them to cancel their training mission and divert." [Griffin, 2007]

NEADS Tries Unsuccessfully to Contact Unit - The NEADS technician who takes Scoggins's call follows his advice, and tries to call the unit at Atlantic City. He calls the only number he has for it, which is the number NEADS had previously called when it wanted to scramble 177th Fighter Wing F-16s until 1998, back when they were part of NORAD's alert force. The number connects the technician directly to the highly secured command post. However, no one answers the phone. According to Spencer: "These days, the command post is more of a highly secured storage area, opened just once a month for drill weekends. The phone rings and rings." [Spencer, 2008, pp. 34]

The FAA's Boston Center also attempted to call the Atlantic City unit, apparently several minutes earlier (see (8:34 a.m.) September 11, 2001). The outcome of that call is unstated. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 20]
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