9/11, 2001 - Timeline for the Day of the Attacks

Day of the Attacks

Department of Defense (6/1/01) and FAA (7/12/01) procedure: In the event of a hijacking, the FAA hijack coordinator on duty at Washington headquarters requests the military to provide escort aircraft. Normally, NORAD escort aircraft take the required action. The FAA notifies the National Military Command Center by the most expeditious means.

If NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command) hears of any difficulties in the skies, they begin the work to scramble jet fighters [take off and intercept aircraft that are off course]. Between Sep 2000 and June 2001 fighters were scrambled 67 times.. When the Lear jet of golfer Payne Stewart didn’t respond in 1999, F-16 interceptors were quickly dispatched. According to an Air Force timeline, a series of military planes provided an emergency escort to Payne’s stricken Lear about 20 minutes after ground controllers lost contact with his plane.

8:20 AM (approx.): Air traffic controllers suspect Flight 11 has been hijacked..

8:40 AM: NORAD is notified of hijacking..

8:46 AM: Flight 11 crashes into the WTC (World Trade Center) north tower. [approximately 26 minutes after controllers lost contact].

8:46 AM: President Bush later states, "I was sitting outside the classroom and I saw an airplane hit the tower. The TV was on.”. “When we walked into the classroom, I had seen this plane fly into the first building.” . There was no live coverage of the first crash on TV and President Bush was in a classroom reading with children at the time of the second crash. How could he forget this?

8:52 AM: Two F-15s take off from Otis Air Force Base.. They go after Flight 175. Major General Paul Weaver, director of the Air National Guard, states "the pilots flew like a scalded ape, topping 500 mph but were unable to catch up to the airliner. We had a nine-minute window, and in excess of 100 miles to intercept 175,'' he said. ''There was just literally no way.'' . F-15's fly at up to 2.5 times the speed of sound [1875 mph or 30+ miles a minute or 270+ miles in nine minutes] and are designed for low-altitude, high-speed, precision attacks. .

8:56 AM: By this time, it is evident that Flight 77 is lost. The FAA, already in contact with the Pentagon about the two hijackings out of Boston, reportedly doesn’t notify NORAD of this until 9:24, 28 minutes later. [see 9:10 AM for comparison,.

9:03 AM: Flight 175 crashes into the south WTC tower. [23 minutes after NORAD notified, 43 minutes after air traffic control lost contact with pilots]

9:10 AM: Major General Paul Weaver states Flight 77 came back on the (radar) scope at 9:10 in West Virginia. Another report states the military was notified of Flight 77 several minutes after 9:03. 

9:24 AM [? – see above]: The FAA, who 28 minutes earlier had discovered Flight 77 off course and heading east over West Virginia, reportedly notifies NORAD. A Pentagon spokesman says, "The Pentagon was simply not aware that this aircraft was coming our way."  Yet since the first crash, military officials in a Pentagon command center were urgently talking to law enforcement and air traffic control officials about what to do.

9:28 AM: Air traffic control learns that Flight 93 has been hijacked.

9:38 AM: Flight 77 crashes into the Pentagon. [42 minutes or more after contact was lost, one hour after NORAD notification of first hijacking]

9:59 AM: The south tower of the World Trade Center collapses.

10:10 AM: Flight 93 crashes in Pennsylvania. [42 minutes after contact was lost, 90 minutes after NORAD notification of first hijacking. What happened to sophisticated military radar systems and jet fighter scramble procedures? ]

10:28 AM: The World Trade Center north tower collapses.

5:20 PM: Building 7 of the World Trade Center collapses. Though the media claims fires brought the building down, the building's owner Larry Silverstein later recounts the story of the collapse of this 47-story skyscraper in a PBS documentary America Rebuilds, "I remember getting a call from the fire department commander. ... I said ... maybe the smartest thing to do is to pull it. And they made that decision to pull, and then we watched the building collapse."

Sept 11, 2001: Did the Air Force send up planes after the hijacked aircraft? The Air Force won't say. It says they keep about 20 F-15 and F-16 fighters on duty with Air National Guards along the nation's coastline, ready to inspect unknown aircraft entering U.S. airspace. "We can scramble and be airborne in a matter of minutes," said an Air Force spokesperson. Some airline pilots are wondering whether the FAA did enough to try to prevent the crashes.

Sept 11, 2001: Six air traffic controllers who dealt with two of the hijacked airliners make a tape recording describing the events, but the tape is later destroyed by a supervisor without anyone making a transcript or even listening to it.

Sept 11, 2001: Hours after the attacks, a "shadow government" is formed. Key congressional leaders say they didn’t know President Bush had established this government-in-waiting. Some Congressmen state the administration should have conferred about its plans.

Sept 11, 2001: A National Public Radio correspondent states: "I spoke with Congressman Ike Skelton who said that just recently the director of the CIA warned that there could be an attack – an imminent attack – on the United States of this nature. So this is not entirely unexpected." 

Sept 12, 2001: Senator Orrin Hatch says the US was monitoring bin Laden supporters and overheard them discussing the attack. Why has the media not explored the fact that the US could monitor private communications of al-Qaeda on 9/11?

Sept 13-19, 2001: Members of bin Laden's family are driven or flown under FBI supervision to a secret assembly point in Texas and then to Washington, where they leave the country on a private plane when most flights were still grounded. Top White House officials personally approve these evacuations

Sept 14, 2001: The two black boxes for Flight 77 are found.  FBI Director Robert Mueller later says Flight 77's data recorder provides altitude, speed, headings and other information, but the voice recorder contains “nothing useful.” Yet they refuse to release the recordings.

Sept 15-16, 2001: U.S. military sources give the FBI information that several of the 9/11 hijackers, including leader Mohamed Atta, may have received training at U.S. military installations. Three hijackers listed their address on drivers licenses and car registrations as the Naval Air Station in Pensacola, Fla. Atta graduated from the US International Officers School at Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama. The media drops the story after the Air Force issues a statement saying that while the names are similar, "we are probably not talking about the same people."  Yet the military provides no detailed information to refute the claims in these articles.

 

Sept 19, 2001: The FBI claims that there may have been six hijacking teams on the morning of 9/11.  Authorities have identified teams that total as many as 50 infiltrators who supported or carried out the strikes. About 40 of the men have been accounted for.  Yet only one person, Moussaoui, is later charged.

Sept 20-23, 2001: "Five of the alleged hijackers have emerged, alive, innocent and astonished to see their names and photographs appearing on satellite television. ... The hijackers were using stolen identities, and investigators are studying the possibility that the entire suicide squad consisted of impostors."  Yet these same individuals are later officially established as the 9/11 hijackers in the 2004 9/11 Commission Report. 

Oct 2, 2001: The Patriot Act is introduced in Congress. The next day, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D) accuses the Bush administration of reneging on an agreement on this anti-terrorist bill. Anthrax letters are sent to Leahy and Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D) on October 9.

Oct 10-11, 2001: After consulting with the FBI and CDC, Iowa State University in Ames destroys anthrax spores collected over seven decades. On Oct 25, the White House homeland security director confirms publicly the anthrax letters sent to Leahy and others contained the Ames strain.

Nov 12, 2001—Mar 25, 2002: 13 renowned microbiologists mysteriously die over the span of less than five months. All but one are killed or murdered under unusual circumstances. Some are world leaders in developing weapons-grade biological plagues. Others are the best in figuring out how to stop millions from dying because of biological weapons. Still others are experts in the theory of bioterrorism. Nov 12: Benito Que, 52, an expert in infectious diseases—killed in carjacking, later deemed possible stroke.  Nov. 16: Don Wiley, 57, one of the world's leading researchers of deadly viruses—body found in Mississippi River.  Nov 21: Dr. Vladimir Pasechnik, 64, an expert in adapting germs and viruses for military use—stroke.  Dec 10: Dr. Robert Schwartz, 57, a leading researcher on DNA sequencing analysis—slain at home. Dec 14: Nguyen Van Set, 44, his research organization had just come to fame for discovering a virus which can be modified to affect smallpox—dies in an airlock in his lab. [Sydney Morning Herald, 12/12/01] Jan 2002: Ivan Glebov (bandit attack) and Alexi Brushlinski (killed in Moscow), both world-renowned members of the Russian Academy of Science. [Pravda, 2/9/02] Feb 9: Victor Korshunov, 56, head of the microbiology sub-faculty at the Russian State Medical University—killed by cranial injury. [Pravda, 2/9/02] Feb 11: Ian Langford, 40, one of Europe's leading experts on environmental risk—murdered in home. [London Times, 2/13/02] Feb 28 (2): Tanya Holzmayer, 46, helped create drugs that interfere with replication of the virus that causes AIDS, and Guyang Huang, 38, a brilliant scholar highly regarded in genetics—murder/suicide. [San Jose Mercury News, 2/28/02] Mar 24: David Wynn-Williams, 55, an astrobiologist with NASA Ames Research Center—killed while jogging. [London Times, 3/27/02] Mar 25: Steven Mostow, 63, an expert on the threat of bioterrorism—private plane crash. [KUSA TV/NBC, 3/26/02]

Dec 2001: The US engineers the rise to power of a former Unocal Oil employee, Hamid Karzai, as the interim president of Afghanistan. Looking at the map of the big US bases in Afghanistan, one is struck that they are identical to the route of the projected oil pipeline.

Dec 25, 2001: Leading structural engineers and fire-safety experts believe the investigation into the collapse of the WTC is "inadequate.” They note that the current team of 20 or so investigators has inadequate financial and staff support, has been prevented from interviewing witnesses and from examining the disaster site. They couldn’t even get detailed blueprints of the World Trade Center. The decision to rapidly recycle the steel beams from the WTC means definitive answers may never be known. [New York Times, 12/25/01] 

Jan 1, 2002: Zalamy Khalilzad is appointed by Bush as special envoy to Afghanistan. [BBC, 1/1/02, Chicago Tribune, 3/18/02] Khalilzad once lobbied for the Taliban and worked for an American oil company that sought concessions for pipelines in Afghanistan. [Independent, 1/10/02] 

Jan 4, 2002: An editorial in the respected trade magazine Fire Engineering states that there is good reason to believe that the "official investigation," blessed by FEMA, into the WTC collapse is a "half-baked farce" that may already have been commandeered by political forces whose primary interests are clearly not full disclosure. "Respected members of the fire protection engineering community are beginning to raise red flags, and a resonating theory has emerged: The structural damage from the planes and the explosive ignition of jet fuel in themselves were not enough to bring down the towers." [Fire Engineering, 1/02]

Jan 24, 2002: Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle claims that on this day Cheney calls him and urges that no 9/11 inquiry be made. He is repeatedly pressured thereafter. [Newsweek, 2/4/02,]

Feb 6, 2002: CIA Director Tenet tells a Senate hearing that there was no 9/11 intelligence failure. When asked about the CIA on 9/11, he states that the 9/11 plot was "in the heads of three or four people." He rejects any suggestion that the CIA failed to do its job. [USA Today, 2/7/02]

Feb 21, 2002: A ban on poppy growing by the Taliban in July 2000 along with severe droughts reduced Afghanistan's opium yield by 91% in 2001. Yet the UN expects its 2002 opium crop to be equivalent to the bumper one of three years ago. Afghanistan is the source of 75% of the world's heroin. [Guardian, 2/21/02] Why is the US unable to control opium production which had almost stopped?

Mar 2, 2002: The 9/11 collapse of the 47-story WTC building 7 was the first time a modern, steel-reinforced high-rise in the US has ever collapsed in a fire. [New York Times, 3/2/02] Building 7 was where the SEC was storing files related to numerous Wall Street investigations. The files for approximately 3,000 to 4,000 cases were destroyed. [National Law Journal, 9/17/01] Lost files include documents that could show the relationship between Citigroup and the WorldCom bankruptcy. [The Street, 8/9/02, ]

Mar 13, 2002: Bush says of bin Laden: "I truly am not that concerned about him." [White House, 3/13/02] Military chief Myers states: "the goal has never been to get bin Laden." [CNN/DOD, 4/6/02]

Apr 19, 2002: FBI Director Mueller: "We have not uncovered a single piece of paper that mentioned any aspect of the 9/11 plot. The hijackers had no computers, no laptops, no storage media of any kind." [FBI, 4/19/02, Los Angeles Times, 4/30/02] Yet investigators have amassed a ''substantial'' amount of e-mail traffic among the hijackers. [USA Today, 10/1/01] The laptop computer of Moussaoui, the alleged 20th hijacker, was confiscated weeks before 9/11, yet FBI headquarters systematically dismissed and undermined requests by Minneapolis FBI agents to search the computer. [Time, 5/21/02, CNN, 5/27/02]

May 15, 2002: For the first time, the White House admits that Bush was warned about bin Laden hijacking aircraft and wanting to attack the US in Aug 2001. It is unclear why they waited eight months to reveal this. The Press Secretary states that while Bush had been warned of possible hijackings, "the president did not receive information about the use of airplanes as missiles by suicide bombers." Yet the August presidential memo left little doubt that the hijacked airliners were intended for use as missiles and that US targets were intended. [New York Times, 5/16/02, Washington Post, 5/16/02, Guardian, 5/19/02]

May 17, 2002: Dan Rather says that he and other journalists haven't been properly investigating since 9/11. He graphically describes the pressures to conform after the attacks. [Guardian, 5/17/02,]

May 21, 2002: A memo is released in which Minnesota FBI agent Coleen Rowley writes to FBI Director Mueller, “I have deep concerns that a delicate and subtle shading/skewing of facts by you and others at the highest levels of FBI management has occurred and is occurring.” [Time, 5/21/02] CNN calls the memo a "colossal indictment of our chief law-enforcement agency." [CNN, 5/27/02] Time magazine later names Rowley one of three "Persons of the Year" for 2002. [Time, 12/22/02]

May 23, 2002: President Bush says he is opposed to establishing a special, independent commission to probe how the government dealt with terror warnings before 9/11. [CBS, 5/23/02] 

May 30, 2002: FBI Agent Robert Wright formally accuses the FBI of deliberately curtailing investigations that might have prevented 9/11. He is under threat of retribution if he talks to members of Congress about what he knows. [Fox News, 5/30/02, ] He also accuses the agency of shutting down his 1998 criminal probe into alleged terrorist-training camps in Chicago and Kansas City. Wright has written a book, but the agency won't let him publish it or even give it to anyone. [LA Weekly, 8/2/02]

July 23, 2002: The New York City government decides that many of the audio and written records of the Fire Department's actions on 9/11 should never be released. The New York Times had filed a lawsuit seeking numerous records concerning the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, including firsthand accounts by scores of firefighters and chiefs. [New York Times, 7/23/02]

Sept 11, 2002: On the first anniversary of 9/11, New York Times writes, "One year later, the public knows less about the circumstances of 2,801 deaths at the foot of Manhattan in broad daylight than people in 1912 knew within weeks about the Titanic." The former police commissioner of Philadelphia says: "You can hardly point to a cataclysmic event in our history when a blue-ribbon panel did not set out to establish the facts and suggest reforms. That has not happened here." [New York Times, 9/11/02]

Oct 5, 2002: Congressional investigators say the FBI's efforts to block their inquiry makes them skeptical of FBI assertions. They also say the Justice Department has joined the FBI in fighting congressional requests for information, while the CIA has been antagonistic. [New York Times, 10/5/02]

Oct 16, 2002: The CIA, FBI, and NSA all testify that no individual at their agencies has been punished or fired for any of the missteps surrounding the Sept. 11 attacks. [Washington Post, 10/18/02]

Oct 21, 2002: No more than six of the 19 hijackers were interviewed by US officials before being granted visas. This contradicts the State Department’s claim that 12 had been interviewed. Of 15 hijackers, none filled in the visa documents properly. All 15 of them should have been denied entry to the country. “The system was rigged in their favor from the get-go.” [Washington Post, 10/22/02, ABC News, 10/23/02] In December 2002, two top Republican senators report that if State Department personnel had merely followed the law in Saudi Arabia, 9/11 would not have happened. [AP, 12/18/02, ]

Oct 27, 2002: A report from Defense Secretary Rumsfeld's Defense Science Board recommends the creation of a super-intelligence body (P2OG) which would launch secret operations to “stimulate reactions” among terrorists and states owning weapons of mass destruction. It would prod terrorist cells into action, thus exposing them to quick-response attacks by US forces. [Los Angeles Times, 10/27/02, ] 

Oct 29, 2002: Of over 800 people rounded up since 9/11, only 10 have been linked to the hijackings and probably will turn out to be innocent. [Newsweek, 10/29/02] Though many were held for months, the vast majority were never charged with anything other than overstaying a visa. [New York Times, 7/11/02]

Nov 27, 2002: Bush names Henry Kissinger to lead an independent investigation into the 9/11 terrorist attacks. [New York Times, 11/28/02] He is a highly controversial figure. Documents released by the CIA strengthen suspicions that Kissinger was actively involved in a covert plan to assassinate thousands of political opponents in six Latin American countries. He is also famous for his obsession with secrecy. [BBC, 4/26/02] "Indeed, it is tempting to wonder if the choice of Mr. Kissinger is not a clever maneuver by the White House to contain an investigation it long opposed." [New York Times, 11/29/02]

Dec 13, 2002: Kissinger resigns as chairman of the new 9/11 investigation citing controversy over potential conflicts of interest with his business clients. [CNN, 12/13/02, BBC, 12/14/02]

Dec 16, 2002: Bush replaces Kissinger with Thomas Kean as chairman. Kean promises a thorough investigation. [AP, 12/17/02] He will devote one day a week to the commission. [Washington Post, 12/17/02] 

Jan 13, 2003: The worldwide turmoil caused by US government policies goes not exactly unreported, but entirely de-emphasized. Guardian writers are inundated by e-mails from Americans asking why their own papers never print what is in UK papers. If there is a Watergate scandal lurking in this administration, it is unlikely to be [Washington Post's Bob] Woodward or his colleagues who will tell us about it. If it emerges, it will probably come out on the web. "That is a devastating indictment of the state of American newspapers." [Guardian, 1/13/03]

March 26, 2003: Though the investigation into the space shuttle Columbia tragedy cost $50 million and the Ken Starr investigation of Whitewater and Monica Lewinsky ran $64 million, the White House balks at increasing funding beyond $3 million for the 9/11 Commission's investigation into the worst terror attack ever. The latest effort to curtail funding has angered victims of the attacks. "The White House decision was another in a long line of efforts to water down or shrink the panel's role." [Time, 3/26/03, MSNBC, 9/20/06] 

July 22, 2004: The 9/11 Commission Report is published. It fails to mention that a year before the 9/11 attacks, a secret Pentagon project named Able Danger had identified four 9/11 hijackers, including leader Mohamed Atta. The Commission spokesperson initially states members were not informed of this, but later acknowledges they were. [New York Times, 8/11/05,] The report also completely fails to investigate the collapse of WTC 7.

 

Nov 19, 2004: The fear that Afghanistan might degenerate into a narco-state is becoming a reality. Afghanistan has surpassed Colombia as the world's biggest gross producer of illicit narcotics, heroin being the "main engine of economic growth" and the "strongest bond" among tribes that previously fought constantly. What we have here now is a narco-economy where 40 to 50 percent of the GDP is from illicit drugs. [San Francisco Chronicle, 11/19/04] How does a country controlled by the US become the largest producer of illegal drugs? 

Nov 17, 2005: Former FBI Director Louis Freeh: "The Able Danger intelligence, if confirmed, is undoubtedly the most relevant fact of the entire post-9/11 inquiry. Yet the 9/11 Commission inexplicably concluded that it 'was not historically significant.' This astounding conclusion—in combination with the failure to investigate Able Danger ... raises serious challenges to the commission's credibility and, if the facts prove out, might just render the commission historically insignificant itself." [Wall Street Journal, 11/17/05,] 

2004 - 2005: A growing number of top government officials and public leaders express disbelief in the official story of 9/11. Some even believe 9/11 may have been an inside job. 100 prominent leaders and forty 9/11 family members sign a statement calling for an unbiased inquiry into evidence that suggests high-level government officials may have deliberately allowed the attacks to occur. [Various Publications] 

August 9, 2006: A shocking new book by the 9/11 Commission co-chairmen Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton says we still don't know the whole truth about 9/11. The book outlines repeated misstatements by the Pentagon and the FAA. Untrue—the military's original timeline of United Flight 93. Equally untrue, the government's timeline for American Flight 77 and details about fighter jets scrambled to intercept it. CNN News anchor Lou Dobbs: "The fact that the government would permit deception ... and perpetuate the lie suggests that we need a full investigation of what is going on." [CNN, 8/9/06 , MSNBC/AP, 8/4/06,] 

2006-2009: Over 50 senior government officials from the military, intelligence, Cabinet and Congress, and over 100 highly respected professors, including engineers, physicists, architects, philosophers and theologians publicly criticize The 9/11 Commission Report as flawed, and call for a new, independent investigation. Some even claim rogue elements of government were involved in the attacks.