‘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 agreed to send “top of the line weapons” to NATO to support Ukraine – and threatened Russia with “severe” tariffs if it doesn’t agree to end the war.
Speaking with NATO secretary-general Mark Rutte during a meeting at the White House, the US president said: “We’ve made a deal today where we are going to be sending them weapons, and they’re going to be paying for them.
“This is billions of dollars worth of military equipment which is going to be purchased from the United States, going to NATO, and that’s going to be quickly distributed to the battlefield.”
Pic: Reuters
Weapons being sent include surface-to-air Patriot missile systems and batteries, which Ukraine has asked for to defend itself from Russian air strikes.
Mr Trump also said he was “very unhappy” with Russia, and threatened “severe tariffs” of “about 100%” if there isn’t a deal to end the war in Ukraine within 50 days.
The White House added that the US would put “secondary sanctions” on countries that buy oil from Russia if an agreement was not reached.
Later on Monday, Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy thanked Mr Trump and said he was “grateful” for the US president’s “readiness to help protect our people’s lives”.
After criticising Vladimir Putin’s “desire to drag it out”, he said he appreciated “preparing a new decision on Patriots for Ukraine” – and added Kyiv is “working on major defence agreements with America”.
It comes after weeks of frustration from Mr Trump over Mr Putin’s refusal to agree to an end to the conflict, with the Russian leader telling the US president he would “not back down” from Moscow’s goals in Ukraine at the start of the month.
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Trump threatens Russia with ‘severe’ tariffs’
During the briefing on Monday, Mr Trump said he had held calls with Mr Putin where he would think “that was a nice phone call”, but then “missiles are launched into Kyiv or some other city, and that happens three or four times”.
“I don’t want to say he’s an assassin, but he’s a tough guy,” he added.
Earlier this year, Mr Trump told Mr Zelenskyy “you’re gambling with World War Three” in a fiery White House meeting, and suggested Ukraine started the war against Russia as he sought to negotiate an end to the conflict.
After Mr Trump’s briefing, Russian senator Konstantin Kosachev said on Telegram: “If this is all that Trump had in mind to say about Ukraine today, then all the steam has gone out.”
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Meanwhile, Mr Zelenskyy met with US special envoy Keith Kellogg in Kyiv, where they “discussed the path to peace” by “strengthening Ukraine’s air defence, joint production, and procurement of defence weapons in collaboration with Europe”.
He thanked both the envoy for the visit and Mr Trump “for the important signals of support and the positive decisions for both our countries”.
US
Trump is clearly fed up with Putin – but will his shift in tone force Russia to the negotiating table?
As ever, there is confusion and key questions are left unanswered, but Donald Trump’s announcement on Ukraine and Russia today remains hugely significant.
His shift in tone and policy on Ukraine is stark. And his shift in tone (and perhaps policy) on Russia is huge.
Ever since Mr Trump returned to the White House he has flatly refused to side with Ukraine over the Russian invasion.
He has variously blamed Ukraine for the invasion and blamed Joe Biden for the invasion, but has never been willing to accept that Russia is the aggressor and that Ukraine has a legitimate right to defend itself.
Today, all that changed. In a clear signal that he is fed up with Vladimir Putin and now fully recognises the need to help Ukraine defend itself, he announced the US will dramatically increase weapons supplies to Kyiv.
Pic: Reuters
But, in keeping with his transactional nature and in a reflection of the need to keep his isolationist “America-First” base on side, he has framed this policy shift as a multi-billion dollar “deal” in which America gains financially.
American weapons are to be “sold” to NATO partners in Europe who will then either transfer them to Ukraine or use them to bolster their own stockpiles as they transfer their own existing stocks to Kyiv.
“We’ve made a deal today,” the president said in the Oval Office. “We are going to be sending them weapons, and they are paying for them. We are manufacturing, they are going to be paying for it. Our meeting last month was very successful… these are wealthy nations.”
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What will Trump’s weapons deal mean for Ukraine?
This appears to be a clever framing of the “deal”. Firstly, America has always benefited financially by supplying weapons to Ukraine because much of the investment has been in American factories, American jobs and American supply chains.
While the details are not entirely clear, the difference now appears to be that the weapons would be bought by the Europeans or by NATO as an alliance.
The Americans are the biggest contributor to NATO, and so if the alliance is buying the weapons, America too will be paying, in part, for the weapons it is selling.
However, if the weapons are being bought by individual NATO members to replenish their own stocks, then it may be the case that the US is not paying.
NATO officials referred all questions on this issue to the White House, which has not yet provided clarity to Sky News.
It is also not yet clear what type of weapons will be made available and whether it will include offensive, as well defensive, munitions.
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Will Trump’s deal make a difference?
A key element of the package will likely be Patriot missile batteries, 10 to 15 of which are believed to be currently in Europe.
Under this deal, it is understood that some of them will be added to the six or so batteries believed to be presently in Ukraine. New ones would then be purchased from US manufacturers to backfill European stocks. A similar arrangement may be used for other weapons.
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The president also issued the Russian leader with an ultimatum, saying that Putin had 50 days to make a peace deal or else face 100% “secondary tariffs”. It’s thought this refers to a plan to tariff, or sanction, third countries that supply Russia with weapons and buy Russian oil.
This, the Americans hope, will force those countries to apply pressure on Russia.
But the 50-day kicking of the can down the road also gives Russia space to prevaricate. So, a few words of caution: first, the Russians are masters of prevarication. Second, Trump tends to let deadlines slip. And third, we all know Trump can flip-flop on his position repeatedly.
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‘Trump sides with the Ukrainian cause’
Maybe the most revealing aspect of all this came when a reporter asked Mr Trump: “How far are you willing to go if Putin sends more bombs in the coming days?”
“Don’t ask me questions like that…”
Mr Trump doesn’t really know what to do if Mr Putin continues to take him for a ride.
Mr Biden, before him, supplied Ukraine with the weapons to continue fighting.
If Mr Trump wants to end this, he may need to provide Ukraine with enough weapons to win.
But that would prolong, or even escalate, a war he wants to end now.
There’s the predicament.
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