‘Possible hijack in progress’: Air traffic controller remembers 9/11
It was a “beautiful late summer morning in New York”, remembers Mike McCormick, an air traffic manager at the New York air traffic control centre.
“I’d spent a long weekend with my young son,” he recalled, including his son’s first visit to the World Trade Center, and had celebrated his birthday with his wife in Manhattan.
“I was getting caught up on all my office work,” he told Sky News, when at 8.45am the call came in that “there was a possible hijack in progress 39,000 feet over Albany, New York, and heading southbound”.
Mike McCormick was on duty as an air traffic control manager on the morning of 9/11
“I immediately went out to the air traffic control room floor, and we were able to confirm with American Airlines that it was an actual hijacking,” as the airline had spoken to a staff member onboard the plane.
“One flight attendant had already died from stab wounds, and several passengers had been injured and hijackers had knives and bombs,” according to the information the flight attendant had shared with American Airlines, and the airline shared with Mike.
He then went to the air traffic control position and with his team tracked American Airlines Flight 11 southbound along the Hudson River which runs from the Adirondack Mountains upstate through Albany and almost directly south into the Atlantic Ocean on the border of New York and New Jersey.
“I quickly got on the phone with the New York approach control and the Newark air traffic control tower which overlooks the Hudson River in New York City.
“I asked the controller to look up the Hudson River to look for American [Airlines’] Boeing 767 that may attempt to land at Newark Airport, thinking that there was perhaps an emergency on board, and the aircraft may be partially disabled.
“Unfortunately [the controller] reported that the aircraft had struck the North Tower of the World Trade Center complex,” Mr McCormick said.
“Immediately after reporting that, a controller behind me hollered out: ‘I have another one’,” he remembered.
The second plane was United Airlines Flight 175 and the air traffic control team watched as it made a sharp turn and again flew towards the World Trade Center.
“During those 11 minutes when I was watching [Flight] 175 on the radar display, I attempted several times to notify authorities that another hijack was in fact in progress, the first aircraft was in fact an actual hijack, and our country was now under attack,” Mr McCormick said.
His attempts to notify the authorities were unsuccessful.
Just after 9am, United Airlines Flight 175 hit the South Tower of the World Trade Center complex.
Fighter jets had been scrambled, but weren’t able to intercept the hijacked planes
Fighter jets had been scrambled, but weren’t able to intercept the hijacked planes, Mr McCormick told Sky News.
“Myself and the manager at Boston centre had our military specialists contact Northeast Air Defence. Unfortunately, when the military specialists came out to tell me that the fighter jets were airborne – they requested the location, identification and transponder codes for the hijacked aircraft – the second aircraft had already hit the World Trade Center.”
A minute after the second plane had hit the second tower, Mr McCormick made the decision to shut down all New York airspace.
The impact was enormous. Many planes were force to turn around and go back to Europe while others were forced to land at alternate destinations in Canada due to the complete shutdown on aircraft entering New York airspace.
Mr McCormick made the decision to shut down all New York airspace. File pic: AP
Closing down the skies over New York effectively meant closing down air travel over the “northeastern United States, and the North Atlantic, western Atlantic, and Caribbean portions of Atlantic Ocean, where we butt right up against the air traffic control services provided by NATS UK [formerly National Air Traffic Services],” Mr McCormick told Sky News.
As the reality of what was happening became clear to Mr McCormick, he became angry: “I was very angry that someone would choose an industry that I love, and that’s aviation, to attack our country. I had never thought that aircraft would be used as weapons.”
But by the end of the day, he thought back to “how the men and women, the air traffic controllers across the entire United States rose to the occasion and cleared the skies of all the other aircraft, because that was in fact the only way that we could disarm the terrorists, was to remove their access to their weapons of choice”.
United Airlines Flight 77 hit the Pentagon. Pic: AP
Shortly after closing down the airspace, the team was made aware of another potentially in-progress hijacking, this time of United Airlines Flight 93, which had departed from Newark Airport in New Jersey and was heading eastbound over western Pennsylvania.
“I got on a national teleconference with FAA (Federal Aviation Authority) headquarters in Washington DC, and a controller joined our teleconference from Washington Dulles Airport and was counting down miles from the White House for a fast moving jet aircraft.
“Ten miles from White House, nine miles from White House, all the way down to one mile from White House when the aircraft made a sweeping right turn. I thought perhaps the target was changed to the Capitol, but the aircraft was too high and too fast. It continued its right turn around and came back and hit the Pentagon.”
“Fighter jets were also scrambled to perform an intercept at Washington DC. Unfortunately, they got over Washington DC, just as the aircraft hit the Pentagon,” he said.
United Airlines Flight 93 crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, when passengers fought the hijackers. Pic: PA
“Shortly thereafter is when United 93 crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, due to the heroic efforts of the passengers and crew onboard that aircraft.
“We were not aware of the struggles that actually occurring onboard,” Mr McCormick told Sky News, adding: “However, we were closely tracking the aircraft, so we could see that the aircraft was descending.
“And we knew there were not any likely targets in that area, so I made the assumption that there was a struggle in a cockpit and somehow they were able to force the aircraft into the ground, and it was at a high rate of speed too. The crater form by their heroic activities was over 30 feet deep.”
Nobody knows what the actual target selected by the terrorists onboard that flight was.
“The assumption, and the working assumption that we had that day, was that it was headed toward Washington. So more than likely, it would have been a visible target, a high-profile target similar to World Trade Center,” Mr McCormick told Sky News.
That most likely would have been the Capitol Building, according to Mr McCormick, as a very large and prominent building on top of a hill with “easy access to it from the air if you were to a plan attack vectors.
“The White House is very difficult to hit, because it is a much smaller building, and has high rise buildings around it [which makes] it difficult to actually fly an aircraft into the White House.”
Donald Trump has filed a lawsuit against Rupert Murdoch, two Wall Street Journal reporters and the publication’s owner, News Corp.
The US president has accused the named individuals of defamation, claiming they acted with malicious intent and caused him overwhelming financial and reputational harm.
The lawsuit, which was filed in Miami, seeks at least $10bn (£7.5bn) in damages.
In a post on Truth Social, Mr Trump called the lawsuit “historic legal action” which was filed on behalf of himself and all Americans who he said will “no longer tolerate the abusive wrongdoings of the Fake News Media”.
“I hope Rupert and his ‘friends’ are looking forward to the many hours of depositions and testimonies they will have to provide in this case,” he wrote.
It comes after Mr Trump claimed that a letter he allegedly wrote to paedophile Jeffrey Epstein was “fake” and said he would sue the “ass off” Rupert Murdoch, who owns the Wall Street Journal (WSJ), which first published the story.
The publication had said Mr Trump wrote the letter as part of a collection Epstein’s former girlfriend, Ghislaine Maxwell, planned to give him as a 50th birthday present in 2003.
It claimed the message, allegedly from Mr Trump, featured several lines of typewritten text, concluding with: “May every day be another wonderful secret.”
The text was framed by what appeared to be a hand-drawn outline of a naked woman, the WSJ claimed. The letter is also said to have featured the signature “Donald”.
Mr Trump immediately denied writing the letter when the WSJ report was published on Thursday night.
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Memes of Epstein undermine victims, says lawyer
“The Wall Street Journal printed a FAKE letter, supposedly to Epstein,” he wrote on Truth Social.
“These are not my words, not the way I talk. Also, I don’t draw pictures. I told Rupert Murdoch it was a Scam, that he shouldn’t print this Fake Story. But he did, and now I’m going to sue his ass off, and that of his third rate newspaper.”
Mr Trump ignored questions about Epstein as he signed a cryptocurrency bill at the White House earlier on Friday.
The president’s lawsuit comes as the US government filed a motion to unseal grand jury transcripts related to Epstein, who took his own life while awaiting trial in 2019.
In a Manhattan federal court filing, the Department of Justice said the criminal cases against Epstein and Maxwell are a matter of public interest, justifying the release of associated grand jury transcripts.
Earlier on Friday, Mr Trump said attorney general Pam Bondi had been asked to release the transcripts because of “the ridiculous amount of publicity given to Jeffrey Epstein”.
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The justice department previously said it had around 200 documents relating to Epstein and that the FBI had thousands more.
It is unknown how much of this is grand jury testimony, which is typically kept secret under US law.
Read more:
All we know about the ‘friendship’
Trump denies writing birthday letter to Epstein
The president has faced increased scrutiny over his alleged friendship with Epstein since his administration’s U-turn on the so-called ‘Epstein files’.
Mr Trump pledged to release files on Epstein during his presidential campaign, as his MAGA movement accused the Biden administration of suppressing the extent of Epstein’s paedophilia, predatory behaviour and his so-called “client list” – thought to contain names of the rich and famous who conspired with him in his child sex trafficking operation.
But after a review of the evidence the US government has, the Justice Department recently determined that no “further disclosure would be appropriate or warranted”.
Venezuela releases jailed Americans in prisoner swap
The Trump administration said on Friday that it had negotiated an exchange with Venezuela, resulting in the release of 10 jailed Americans.
US secretary of state Marco Rubio said the prisoners, who had been held in the South American country, were “on their way to freedom”.
Men in the CECOT jail in EL Salvador. Pic: Reuters
In return, 252 Venezuelan migrants being held in El Salvador have been freed, the Venezuelan government said.
They had been held in the notorious maximum security CECOT prison after being deported by the US.
US
Trump denies claim he wrote birthday letter to Jeffrey Epstein – and says he has ordered release of more case files
Donald Trump has called an alleged letter he wrote to paedophile Jeffrey Epstein “fake” and said he will sue the “ass off” Rupert Murdoch, who owns the paper that first published the claim.
In multiple posts on Truth Social, the US president accused The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) of fabricating the letter that it claimed was written by Mr Trump as part of a collection of letters addressed to Epstein that his former girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell planned to give him as a birthday present in 2003.
According to documents seen by the WSJ, Mr Trump’s letter featured several lines of typewritten text framed by what appeared to be a hand-drawn outline of a naked woman.
The paper said the letter concludes “Happy Birthday – and may every day be another wonderful secret”, and featured the signature “Donald”, allegedly drawn across the woman’s waist, meant to mimic the appearance of pubic hair.
Epstein took his own life in prison in 2019. Pic: AP
Responding to the WSJ’s claims, Mr Trump wrote: “The Wall Street Journal printed a FAKE letter, supposedly to Epstein. These are not my words, not the way I talk. Also, I don’t draw pictures.
“I told Rupert Murdoch it was a Scam, that he shouldn’t print this Fake Story. But he did, and now I’m going to sue his ass off, and that of his third rate newspaper. Thank you for your attention to this matter! DJT.”
He said earlier he would also sue the WSJ and News Corp, which Mr Murdoch owns. The WSJ is published by News Corp subsidiary company, Dow Jones & Co.
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From 16 July: Trump: Epstein case is ‘a boring story’
The Justice Department has not responded to the WSJ and the FBI declined to comment.
In a separate post, Mr Trump said he has asked the attorney general, Pam Bondi, to release “any and all pertinent grand jury testimony” in the case of the paedophile financier who was found dead in his Manhattan cell in August 2019, shortly after he was arrested on sex trafficking charges.
The release of any documents, Mr Trump said, would be subject to approval by a court.
The justice department has previously said it had around 200 documents relating to Epstein and that the FBI had thousands more. It is unknown how much of this is grand jury testimony – which is typically kept secret under US law.
Ms Bondi responded to the president on X, writing: “President Trump-we are ready to move the court tomorrow to unseal the grand jury transcripts.”
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Elon Musk, who claimed last month that Mr Trump appears in the Epstein files, was surprisingly among the first to come to the president’s defence over the WSJ claims.
“It really doesn’t sound like something Trump would say tbh,” the tech billionaire wrote on X, before going on to ask where the evidence against Epstein allegedly held by the FBI had gone.
The Trump administration has come under criticism after the president appeared to U-turn on his own promise to release more information about the Epstein case publicly.
In the run-up to the US election last year, Mr Trump drew on rumours and conspiracy theories that appeared to accuse the Biden administration of suppressing the extent of Epstein’s paedophilia, predatory behaviour and his so-called “client list” – thought to contain names of the rich and famous who conspired with him in a child sex trafficking operation.
Ms Bondi fuelled these rumours in February by telling Fox News that the alleged Epstein client list was “sitting on my desk right now to review”.
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The huge impact of Musk’s row with Trump
Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
In the same month, the justice department released some government documents regarding the case, but there were no new revelations.
After a months-long review of additional evidence, the department earlier this month released a video meant to prove that Epstein killed himself, but said no other files related to the case would be made public.
The decision was criticised by many in Mr Trump’s Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement, who Mr Trump later called “weaklings”.
Sky News has contacted the White House for further comment.
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