Boston Controllers First To Realize American Airlines Flight 11 Was Hijacked

by Chris Hansen, Katie Couric and Matt Lauer
NBC News: Saturday Today
September 15, 2001

 

KATIE COURIC, co-host:

The news was shocking. One tower of the World Trade Center on fire as a plane slammed into its side. At first, (cough) excuse me, no one could imagine how it happened. But for a group of air traffic controllers monitoring the doomed plane's communications, the reason was all too clear. Here's "Dateline NBC"'s Chris Hansen.

CHRIS HANSEN reporting:

For the air traffic controllers working at what is called Boston Center, it was a routine morning, clear skies, no major delays. But at about 8:20 AM Tuesday, they noticed something unusual about a 767 flying through their airspace. space. American Airlines Flight 11 left Boston 20 minutes earlier and was heading to Los Angeles.

Mr. MARK CLAYTON: The flight was at 29,000 feet and there was traffic at that level. They gave the command by radio signal to the plane to climb to 31,000 feet. Nothing happened.

HANSEN: Mark Clayton, a reporter for the Christian Science Monitor, talked to controllers who not only watched Flight 11 on their radar screens, but were actually able to listen to what was going on in the cockpit. Clayton agreed not to reveal the controller's names. Clayton says the Boston Center controllers working in this cement bunker in Nashua, New Hampshire, tried to contact Flight 11 several times. When that didn't work, they switched to an emergency frequency.

Mr. CLAYTON: What was said was, 'American 11, do you read?' There was no response.

HANSEN: That, the controllers could have written off to a minor electrical problem. But just moments later something startling happened.

Mr. CLAYTON: When they weren't able to raise them on the emergency frequency, the transponder cut out.

HANSEN: The transponder, the electronic device on the plane that identifies the jet on the controller's screen, gives its exact location and altitude, and it has another important function.

Mr. CLAYTON: The transponder accepts a four-digit emergency hijack code, and once it's turned off, that code can't be sent.

HANSEN: Now all they could do was follow the plane's movement with radar. Suddenly, the plane took a sharp left turn. Now it was heading south in the direction of New York. Remember, Flight 11 was supposed to be heading to Los Angeles. What, the controllers wondered, could possibly be going on in the cockpit? They were about to find out and become the only people not on the flight to actually hear the terrorist plot unfold.

Mr. CLAYTON: The plane began its turn and almost immediately, I'm told, there was a sound in the headset of a clear radio signal. It was the sounds from the cockpit.

HANSEN: And in the background, a voice with a heavy Middle Eastern accent.

Mr. CLAYTON: They knew immediately, apparently, intuition, what the guy was saying. It was a threatening tone of voice. They knew it was a hijack.

HANSEN: With at least one of the hijackers in the cockpit, it appears that one of the pilots secretly pushed the talk button on the back side of the control wheel known as a yoke. The transmissions indicate that at least one of the pilots was at the controls much of the way to New York City.

Mr. CLAYTON: Well, it gets a lot more intense, obviously. The controller that was handling the situation, I'm told, called for backup.

HANSEN: Clayton says that for the next 10 minutes, the controllers listened as the pilot keyed his mic so the conversation between him and one of the hijackers could be heard. Transmissions were frequently interrupted, and air traffic controllers sometimes had trouble understanding exactly what was said. But they did hear the hijackers say what sounded like, 'Don't do anything foolish. You're not going to get hurt.' And shortly after that, an ominous statement no one understood at the time. 'We have more planes. We have other planes.'

Mr. CLAYTON: The controller essentially lives the experience. He's glued to the console. The sounds are piped right into his head--to the headset and audibly to others. It's not a video game. It's the--you know, it's the real thing.

HANSEN: Following usual procedure in hijacked situations, the controllers notified the military and quickly tried to shut down all air traffic in the area. According to Clayton, the controllers say the pilot gave no indication that he knew what the hijackers had planned for him, his passengers and the towering symbol of American ideals. At about 8:38 AM, some seven minutes before the crash, the radio went dead, probably because the hijackers were now flying the plane. Clayton says the controllers watched the radar screen in stunned silence as the jet approached the Manhattan skyline. Seconds later, it vanished.

Mr. CLAYTON: They didn't know what had happened.

HANSEN: There was a television on in the control center, and controllers saw the first news bulletin that there was smoke coming out of the north tower of the World Trade Center, a sickening feeling came over them.

Mr. CLAYTON: There is a personal connection there between the controller and the pilot, and even though the pilot apparently was not speaking much, if at all, for most of that time, he was communicating with them. The word traumatized was used with respect to the controller. He was, you know, in pretty bad shape.

HANSEN: American Airlines Flight 11, with 92 people on board, had slammed into the skyscraper. They wondered why the hijackers would do something like that. Seventeen minutes later, they and the whole world would have a pretty good idea.

COURIC: That was "Dateline NBC"'s Chris Hansen. The FBI is analyzing those recordings made by the air traffic controllers. They could prove to be crucial because the plane's black boxes or those plane's black boxes may never be found. Matt:

MATT LAUER, co-host:

What a chilling story, Katie!


Copyright 2001 National Broadcasting Co. Inc.

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