Commission Sensitive

MEMORANDUM FOR THE RECORD

Event: Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Boston Center Field Site Interview with
Joeseph Cooper, Traffic Management Unit Coordinator.
Type of event: Interview
Date: Monday, September 22, 2003
Special Access Issues: None
Prepared by: Geoffrey Brown
Team Number: 8
Location: FAA Boston Air Route Center, Nashua, New Hampshire
Participants - Non-Commission: John R. Donnelly, FAA Senior Attorney [(781) 238
7045]
Participants - Commission: John Azzarello, Miles Kara, Geoffrey Brown

NOTE: Unless otherwise noted, the following paraphrases the response and opinion of
the interviewee. Please refer to the interview transcript for a complete account.

Background

Joe Cooper has been with the FAA since 1991, primarily working in Area B. He
has been with the Traffic Management Unit (TMU) since 1999. At TMU Cooper
generally manages traffic flows and considers TMU to be the "hub" of traffic for Boston
Center. The Boston TMU communicates with Boston sectors and coordinates what is
ongoing in Boston airspace with the TMUs of other national centers. Cooper identified
TMU positions as departure spacing, en route spacing, arrival flow, military coordinator,
and severe weather management. The en route spacing coordinator is responsible for the
"metering" of air craft - at a rate of about 38 aircraft entering into a new air space per
hour.
The military coordinator is responsible for clearing airspace for military training
purposes. "Al Trav" is the term used when the military makes an "altitude reservation" -
they receive these reservations when they plan on using an air "track" for mid-flight
refueling. Reservations for this space can be done through Herndon Command Center.
Herndon also handles any national severe weather coordination. Cooper never deals with
the Region Operations Center or the Washington Operations Center.
Morning of 9-11
On 9-11, Cooper first heard from Pete Pasquali in Area B that AA11 had lost
communication capabilities and radar. The next step was for one of the TMU personnel
to contact company (American Airlines). Cooper remembers thinking it odd that an air
carrier would loose both radio and transponder at once.
TMU pulled the call sign for AA11 to monitor the flight. Controllers were alerted
to move air craft away from the possible route of AA11 since the altitude was unknown;
the last registered altitude was FL 290. At that point Area C told TMU that AA11 was a
possible hijack. Terry Biggio told Bob Jones [Quality Assurance] to "pull the tapes" (the
record of communication between the pilots and the ATC).
AA11 veered to the right. The primary target had been tagged, so the data block
of the last known information stayed with the primary. At first, with only three factors, no
radio, no transponder, and serious course deviation Cooper thought AA11 had
experienced serious electrical damage. But after the hard left turn and the confirmation of
a hijack through the cockpit communication, there was no doubt in Cooper's mind.
After Bob Jones confirmed the cockpit communications, Dan Bueno asked
Cooper to call for military assistance. He asked Huntress to send F16s out of Otis Air
Force Base. Cooper did not know the physical location of Huntress [Rome, New York].
Cooper asked Bradley {Hartford CN International Airport] to stop departures headed
towards New York when AA11 was roughly five miles south of Albany.
When speaking with the military, Cooper believes he spoke with Sergeant Powell.
Cooper was unaware of any specific military exercises that were taking place on 9/11.
Cooper believes there was a lack of understanding on the military's part of the FAA
definition of "primary target", but he was eventually able to give the military a rough
latitude and longitude location. Cooper thought they might vector an aircraft from the
Falcon Axe area [over Griffiss AFB, Rome NY] that is composed of airspace 7,000 ft to
49,000 ft.
Concerning the attempt to gain an altitude on AA11, Cooper believes that Colin
Scoggins asked the military to use its height finding capability on AA11. [Staff note: the
Joint Surveillance System radars feed both FAA and NORAD sites. The NORAD
portion of that feed can determine altitude on a primary-only target, the FAA feed
cannot.]
Cooper stated that Terry Biggio, the Boston Operations Manager in Charge, was
on a conference call that included New York Tracon and New York Center. He does not
believe those calls were recorded, but the hotline on the New York side may have been
recorded. They were still attempting to locate AA11 when Terry Biggio told the TMU
they lost radar contact with AA11, and shortly after that one of the facilities personnel
told the TMU a plane hit the WTC. Cooper went to the TV at the facilities and Cooper
immediately knew it was AA11.
Cooper was caught in "disbelief, but he then immediately thought of the strain
on his controllers who were attempting to slow down traffic. New York Center then
called and informed Boston Center of a possible second hijacking and that New York
airspace was being shut down. Cooper stopped all departures planned through New York
air space. He then heard of the second hit on the WTC.
He immediately realized that control in order to keep the planes still in the sky
was all he could do. He told Dan Bueno that maybe they should call ATC Zero. Bueno
said to do it, and they sent out the message for a Boston ATC Zero.
 They reviewed more of the audiotape and Biggio relayed the "we have some
planes" through the conference call. The Pentagon then got hit and Herndon called for a
National Ground Stop.

Cooper discovered that UAL175 was also a Boeing 767 headed to Los Angeles.
The TMU decided to check for planes in the air that were also flight planned from Logan
to Los Angeles. They found that Delta Flight 1989 was a similar flight and immediately
informed Cleveland Center.

NEADS was called and the TMU asked what to do with military aircraft in the air
but not part of the response to the attacks. NEADS announced that all military aircraft not
on mission would return to base.

The facility manager then ordered everyone evacuate Boston Center except for
one supervisor per area, one controller per area, and two TMU personnel.

Cooper is clear that any suspicion, today, of another airborne threat the DEN
(Defense Event Network) line is the absolute first place to report to. It is open at all
times. Cooper is not aware of how he would get the military involved except to use the
DEN line.

NOTE: Cooper provided Commission staff with a personnel account of the events of 9-
11 he made a few days after the event.
 [Classification]

MEMORANDUM FOR THE RECORD

Event: Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Boston Center Field Site Interview 1 with
Daniel D. Bueno, Traffic Management Supervisor, Boston Center.
Type of event: Interview
Date: Monday, September 22, 2003
Special Access Issues: None
Prepared by: Geoffrey Brown
Team Number: 8
Location: FAA Boston Center, Nashua, New Hampshire
Participants - Non-Commission: Chris , FAA General Consul
Participants - Commission: John Azzarello, Miles Kara, Geoffrey Brown

NOTE: Unless otherwise noted, the following paraphrases the response and opinion of
the interviewee. Please refer to the interview transcript for a complete account.

Daniel D. Bueno began with the FAA in March of 1982, and began his career at Boston
Center. He spent 6 to 7 years as an ATC (air traffic controller), then worked as a traffic
management specialist in the Traffic Management Unit (TMU), then as both an Area D
and Area C Supervisor, and finally in his current position, as Traffic Management
Supervisor. The TMU "umbrella" includes Eastern Region and Boston Center, Carmine
Gallo is its overall head.
Bueno first became aware of a possible hijacking from Area C Operation Supervisor
(OSIC), John Schippani. Area C covers airspace of Flight Level 240 (24,000 feet) to
FL600 at and to the west of Boston, Massachusetts. Bueno paged Terry Biggio, who has
Operations Manager in Charge (OMIC) at the time. The possible hijack was identified to
Bueno and Biggio as American Airlines 11 by Schippani, who was informed from the air
traffic controller (ATC) covering Sector 46 (R46), Peter A. Zalewski. Biggio brought
AA11 up on his display module (MDM), and Bueno called the FAA's Herndon, Virginia
air traffic control headquarters via the Boston Center ATCSCC (air traffic controller
) to inform them that AA11 was "no radio communication" (NORAC), more
commonly referred to as NORDO (no radio), and had turned off its transponder, which
transferred its radio signature to a primary target, which consisted of no altitude
information. Bueno stated that Terry Biggio asked Robert Jones to pull the "tape" from
the recorder. Bueno identified the speaker at Herndon as "Tony". AA11 took a sharp
right turn at 1227 UTC, and headed south. When AA11 started to slow down, Bueno
called New York TRACON to advise them of a the situation. Bueno's experience as an
ATC led him to believe that AA11 's slow down was indicative of a drop in altitude, and
thus NY Center would need to clear all air traffic at all altitudes along the possible path
of AA11. Based on Bueno's memory of the 19 hijack of , Bueno called Cape
TRACON for an immediate fighter escort out of OTIS Air Force Base. He knew that the
call should have gone to North East Air Defense (NEADS), but due to the urgency of the
circumstance called directly to the FAA contact point for Otis .
Bueno explained that he understood normal procedure for a NORAC airplane was to
check the NAV 80, try to raise the aircraft by various means (check previous transponder
frequency, use AIR Inc., notify the aircraft's company, ask other aircrafts to try and raise
the NORDO airplane), but noted that although prior to 9/11 it was usual for pilots to be
inattentive to ATCs at times, and that often there were 5 to 20 minute lapses in
communication, the combination of circumstance (NORAC, no transponder, serious
deviation off course) was infrequent. Despite this it was still unusual to call this to the
attention of the "aisle supervisor" (area supervisor).
Bueno stated that prior to 9/11, a hijack would be predicted as a flight to Cuba or a
ransom demand, but not as an act of terrorism. He also noted that with AA11, until the
threatening cockpit communication was confirmed, predominately the Boston Center
staff was concerned the place had experienced serious mechanical or electrical failure. He
noted that there was an occurrence of this sort involving a generator malfunction post-
9/11, and it was addressed immediately.
According to Bueno, the key that alarmed Boston Center over AA11 before the
threatening communication was the hard southern turn. The southbound course combined
with a dropping altitude had already been reason enough for Terry Biggio to call for an
immediate "ground stop" in the Sparta/Carmella traffic corridor. Once Bob Jones
communicated the tape's content to the TMU, Biggio informed ROC, WOC and New
York Center of the necessity of an immediate ground stop at Logan. Bueno believes New
York Center was working UAL 175 at this point.
When asked about a timetable for military involvement, Bunco stated he took an initial
role calling the hijacking to Collin Scoggins attention, who immediately called NEADS.
Bunco noted that Collin Scoggins was a military operations specialist (MOS) at Boston
Center, and is usually not on the ATC floor. The MOS is now part of the TMU. It became
Cape TRACON's responsibility to coordinate the fighter scramble, and Boston Center
took responsibility for clearing the skies, and that Huntress took did not take control of
high altitude along the coast until later in the day.

The procedure for active fighter scrambles was coordinated in the "Otis Cape TRACON
Letter Agreement", and Bueno had experience in the early 1980s with a scramble to
escort an airplane out of Kennedy Airport. Bueno has not participated in any tabletop
scramble exercises. Regarding Operation Vigilant Guardian, a command post exercise
that was scheduled to take place on September 11th, Bueno believes the military operation
specialists may have been briefed, but that Boston Center was not involved beyond a
NOPAR (no pass through air defense) order for the airspace involved in the exercise.

Bueno stated that the system "worked absolutely" on 9/11. Boston Center was able to
shut down the airspace on the east coast in a relatively timely manner, and were able to
reroute and land planes successfully. Bueno stated that the Dynamic Simulation Training
(DynSim) that ATCs are required to perform yearly serve their purpose, even though they
are only simulation. He noted that in the past one of his DynSims might have involved
vectoring an aircraft toward a hijack, but if so it is only a loose memory, but that he
definitely has not exercised a NORAC hijack with no transponder. Nor had their been a
hijack simulation or exercise that included FAA and NORAD co-participation.

North Atlantic inbound flights on 9/11 were passed through to Canada.

Prior to 9/11, Bueno remembers numerous localized ground stops, but never a national
one.

After Cape TRACON was contacted by FAA personnel, Cape TRACON called Otis .
Bueno mentioned the possibility of scrambling fighters from Atlantic City to Collin
Scoggins. Bueno never thought that the scrambled fighters would receive an order to
shout down a commercial airliner.

Bueno recommended to heighten airline security passengers should no longer be allowed

carry-on luggage, and all cargo should be thoroughly screened. Bueno commented that
Boston Center staff now have a security and national defense role that has been added to
their primary purpose of keeping aircraft separate from each other and from weather
threats. Bueno is concerned that just as hijacks in the past created a conceptual box from
which all planning and practice will be based on, the event of 9/11 was created another
conceptual box, and unless planning and practice is exercised beyond this box, the
country is still vulnerable.

Bueno stated that a benefit of the improved relationship between FAA and military
entities is that they now communicate daily over airspace caps and are linked through the
Defense Event Network (DEN).