Commission Sensitive

MEMORANDUM FOR THE RECORD

Event: Federal Aviation Administration Headquarters, (FAA HQ)
Type of event: Interview with Louis Ramirez, FAA ATOE
Date: Tuesday, April 6, 2004
Special Access Issues: None
Prepared by: Geoffrey Brown
Team Number: 8
Location: 10th Floor, FAA HQ, Washington, D.C.
Participants - Non-Commission: Brook Avery, Chief Consul Office, FAA
Participants - Commission: John Azzarello, Miles Kara, Kevin Shaeffer, Geoffrey Brown
Note: Please refer to the recorded interview for further details.

Background:

Ramirez began with the FAA in 1980 as an air traffic controller (ATC) and was
assigned to Atlanta Center. He worked in various FAA facilities in the southern United
States, hi 1997 he went to New England Region as a branch manager. In 2000 he came to
Washington as Chief of Staff for Herndon Command Center. He became the Facility
Manager of Washington En Route Center (ZDC) in April of 2001. He returned as APT 2
in April of 2003. In February he became Director of Oceanic and En Route Safety and
Operations Support.

September 11, 2001 (9/11):

Ramirez remembers receiving a phone call from Mike McCormack, Facility

Manager of New York Center (ZNY), and was told that there was a missing airplane,
specifying an "American" in Ramirez's recollection, in the system. He went to the
operations floor, and was told that a small aircraft had hit the World Trade Center
(WTC). He went to a television, and then left to tell Mike McCormack what he saw on
the broadcast. He was then told that a second aircraft had hit the WTC. He realized that
the aircraft in the system should be stopped. He then was told that there might have been
another missing aircraft in the system, and asked his controllers to look for anything out
of the ordinary, and to turn on their screens to receive primary targets. He heard that ZNY
had gone to ATC Zero, and decided that ZDC would go to ATC Zero as well. He is not
certain if he gave the ZDC ATC Zero order before or after the Pentagon was struck by
American Airlines 77 (AA 77). He then recalls shortly thereafter he received notice that
Herndon Command Center wanted all aircraft in the national airspace to land.

After two flights had crashed in New York, he recalls that there was another lost
aircraft in the air traffic system headed towards Washington, DC, but does not remember
which direction this third aircraft was headed from.

Commission Sensitive
 Commission Sensitive

Commission staff informed Ramirez that there is a call from ZBW MOS at
roughly 0921 that informed NEADS ED section that ZDC had informed them AA 11 was
still airborne and headed to Washington, DC. Then, Commission staff informed Ramirez
of a call to ZDC from NEADS ID in which Phil Sweeney, ZDC MOS, informs NEADS
ID he has no knowledge of the flight, but that he only recently arrived at the Center.
Ramirez noted that he was back and forth between the MOS desk and his operators on
9/11.

Ramirez does not recall being in on a teleconference himself until after the hijack
event. He is not aware which of his any personnel was responsible for this.

Ramirez was not aware of the communications between Northeastern Airspace

Defense Sector (NEADS) Identification desk and ZDC, and he did not receive any
information on AA 77 before it struck the Pentagon.

Ramirez does recall a good amount of data from at the Quality Assurance (QA)
office of ZDC that was compiled after 9/11 for review. Ramirez was not familiar with the
84th RADES (Radar Evaluation Squadron); but he is confidant that his QA office
performed a complete look at the radar data in their possession that was requested by
Headquarters. By this process he received some awareness of the data collected, but it
was not tasked by him, and it was not for him. Ramirez also noted that everything that
was provided by his facility in response to the request for documentation by Herndon
would have been logged before leaving the Center. He also recalls the FBI came to the
facility to interview controllers immediately, but he was not involved with these
meetings. He also instructed his controllers and operations managers to gather together
per area and spoke with them about the traumatic experiences of the day. This was mostly
for emotional well-being, but its purpose was not for specific technical details.

Ken Wehr, his Deputy when he was at ZDC, would have done the scheduling for
the interviews conducted by the FBI. He referred Commission staff to David West and
Kerry Johnson for further details on ZDC's involvement with operations on 9/11.

Commission Sensitive