dh b2 langley mfrs fdr- 12-1-03 mfr- dean eckmann

8/14/2019 DH B2 Langley MFRs Fdr- 12-1-03 MFR- Dean Eckmann

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9/11 Classified InformationUNCLASSIFIEDC O M M I S S I O N S E N S I T I V E

A t about 0910 they gotbattle stations^ |So heheadedtothe aircraft and strapped in and was talkin g to nis crew chief, is it related to New Y ork?In back of his m ind he was thinking Russian threat, the Soviets are doing this exercise.He was not told why he was on battle stations. A ll he hears is Quit 25, Quit 25, BattleStations. Even the scramble order will just be a heading and an altitude. He wasstrapped in the aircraft in less than a minute, helmet off, engine cold. All he knew wasthan an aircraft had flown into the WTC. Was not aware of either AA77 or UA93 or thata second tower washit.

Question re the Borgstrom role. He came runn ing in and said looks likesomething big is going on . Eckm ann still thinks something is going on with theRussians a rogue crew. Then Borgstrom comes back and says they want all three of usto go. Then green light comes on andBorgstrom takes the spare.

The delay. Eckm ann confirm ed that the delay was on the order of 15 minutes.Eckmann asked his crew chief what kind of aircraft hita big airplane that went throughthe building. A t that time Eckm ann thoug ht cruise missile. They get the green light. H erecalled the scramble instructions as heading 010, m ax subsonic speed, w hich he said wasunusual. He had never heard a speed given in any of his previous scrambles. The "maxsubsonic" told him it was important and that it was time to go. They could have given ussupersonic, but that would have really decreased our range. Max subsonic is"milpower", everything except the afterburners. "Military Power" is not set down anywhere,it is a power setting on the aircraft, full power without afterburners. That provides aspeed of .9S-.97 Mach.

There is some additional coordination among the pilots going on because they area three-plane flight. They do that as they are taxiing out. Concurrently they are gettingclearance from th e tower. Just l ike a regular airplane they have to get a full up clearance.He was told they were cleared 090 for 60. That heading was based on a magneticheading from the Langley TAG AN . H e was asked at this point if he now had conflictinginstructions, 090 and 010. He responded "no I don't." 010 is the scram ble order,basically a vector. 090 to 60 is a clearance lev el. W hen they take off into the aviationsystem he can't just go blasting off and go his own way. He has to follow the FAA rules.They are a double edged sw ord, they fall under the FAA and under th e military for ourrules. The 090 w as basica lly to get him out away from the ATC traffic

Every airport has a runway heading an d that heading prevails briefly to a certainaltitude before the ATC heading kicks in to effect. He recalled that heading to be to analtitude of 2000 feet. He can reach that altitude in seconds. So, if the scramble order hadbeen the clearance he would have hit the end of the runw ay and turned to 010.Mission. He doesn't know what the scramble mission was. He thought they weregoing to New York and he actu ally made that comm ent to his crew chief. He was nevertold New York. His logic is that he had a 010 scramble order, the trade center has been

hit, so he just assumed they were going to New York.He recalled working with ATC on channell K brNorfolk, while the other tw o piWc wnrl^H /;th HUNTRESsI I They

talked among themselves onVHF,| |lnhis statement to the. Air Force heC O M M I S S I O N S E N S I T I V E ...-"""U N C L A S S I F I E D V9/11 Agency Internal Matters


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UNCLAS S IF IEDCOMMIS S ION S ENS IT IV Esaid that pushed the pilots to HUN TRE SS for "words." [orders, mission] He doesn'tknow what those words might have been. What he was working with ATC, was hey weneed to turn north, 010. We went out 45 miles before he got turned on northern heading.

When shown the Norfolk Tower transcript that has a controller asking him whatheading he would like, Eckmann responded that he doesn't recall hearing that and "hemissed an opportunity there." He distinguished between FAA rules and military rulesan d FA A rules prevailed that day.

Eckm ann was trying to get a clearance to head north. He thought they were ondeparture and he thought he said, hey we need to head north, now. N orfolk said stand bywere are working it. In response to a specific question he said he was frustrated, very.But he can't just go beaming north. He was aware they were headed the wrong d irection.Borgstrom told him NE A DS w anted him to squawk Quad 7777s. Eckm ann asked if hewas sure an d then made the change. AFIO is basically "world war III." It is now timefor FAA to move people out of his way. It is a big deal. After that he thought he wascleared for 010. Even in training, and not in real world had he ever experienced Quad7777 and AF IO. In back of his head he is thinking Russian threat.Giant Killer. What he remembered was they just blew through Giant Killer space.He thought he went supersonic for a few minutes but then realized that if he want to NewYork he would run out of gas. He wasn't sure if the other two pilots did so.Situational awareness. They had none concerning what was co ncurrentlyhappening on the ground. From time off the runway they had no update. Derrig hadslightly more (2d tower impact) because he delayed to put in his contacts prior to gettingin the cockpit. Eck ma nn was unaware of any update that his co-pilots m ight have gottenfrom H untress.Slides. Staff walked Eck mann through slides which merged the radar track w ithconcurrent conversations with Quit 25 [Eckmann] by air traffic controllers, copy

attached. East Feeder asked what heading would you like? Eckm ann is asked what arehis options here. He responded , "that is when I should have been saying w e want 010for . . . . He acknowledged that that was an opportunity for him to change the heading."It's sad to see I missed that opportunity, but I don't recall that at all."Eckm ann was asked if he recorded that day, he did not. He had two 8mm tapesone for radar and one for heads up displace.A t the point that AT C talks about Baltimore E ckmann does not understand whyBaltimore is in the equation. He does not ever recall hearing "Baltimore." Nor did herecall the change to the north, except to remember that he was headed to the north and[eventually] Borgstrom and Derrig came back and said they [NEADS] want us to CAP.

They w ere given lat/lon for the C A P not a location. He said "national security" at onepoint because he wasn't sure that FAA was getting the fact that they were getting ready totake over a chunk of airspace.He reverted back to the Russian threat and he w as thinking a cruise missile got inand we need to get here [DC]. No awareness on his part of the growing ground situationand no awareness of AA77 or UA93 or any threat to DC, north, south, east, or west.

C OMMI SSI ON SENSITIVEUNCLAS S IF IED


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9/11 Classified InformationU N C L A S S I F I E DC O M M I S S I O N ! S E N S I T I V E

The wrong coordinates story. The fact that he went south an d then north to gowest. His bearing pointer [a navigation item in his guidance system] was stuck an dwould not point to the proper area. You don't know something is wrong until you areactually into a turn. He could get a distance, but not a bearing. On top of that we get thewrong lat/lon.He organized the CA P because he was thinking cruise missle attack from the sea.Then he thought, on seeing the Pentagon, that's not a missle they hit it with a tankertruck. His whole mind set was that the Quit flight was setting up a defense. He could se tit east or west of the city, that was his discretion.As an aside he was asked how long it took to fly from Langley to t)C. A t .95-.9SMach, about 12 m inutes, was his answer.He established his CA P over Washington D C based on a cruise missile threat andhis situational awareness was that a missile had hit the WTC. Ec km ann explained that a

JJ Therefore, he wanted a track, a "hot track" that always had one pilot lookingeast an d down and that is what he established. That track also allowed the other pilot tolook to the west, but that w as what he called the "cold track." The NE AD S gu idance was"set up the CAP." The rest was up to h im, in conju nction with FAA to establish a blockof altitude.

Targets of interest on CA P. Before HUN TRESS go t involved .they were gettingtargets from Washington Center. He recalled checking ou t helicopters, police and .medical. At one tim e they had him "running" on his own wingman, Brad Derrig. Theyfinally got that sorted o ut. Center did not direct him they simply in form ed him ofsituations in the air. His comment was "the radios were so busy" all of them together,plus Guard. It got to be overwhelm ing. He heard W ashington Center and A pproach onGuard [W e separately kn ow that C enter, an d others, were broadcasting messages onguard warning planes to stay out the DC area.]Eckmann recalled a conversation with the Secret Service at the request of Centerto change to a discrete frequen cy. He was told that the Service had entered the buildingan d wan ted to talk to him . "W e need to protect the house," is what he recalled hearing.His personal tKought was if we get called in we are going to shoot something down, buthe knew he had no authority to do so. Eckm ann understood his ROE to be that he couldshoot down a cruise missile at any time. He could not engage any other target duringpeace time. He could engage dur ing transition RO E, but only with authority. U nder warRO E anything was free game. O n 9-11 he was not sure authority rested with N O R A D .The Secret Service conv ersation led him to believe the RO E were in transition. -He alsosaid that he had a legal right and obligatio n to defend against the external threat and if hesaw a "Bear" [Russian bom ber] it was going down.Co ncerning later events in the CA P, the A ndrews pilots didn' t k now the Lang leypilots were up, and vice versa. There was no C om m and and Control in the CAP ; no CA Pcommander. There was no set CA P plan fo r defending Washington D.C.

C O M M I S S I O N S E N S I T I V EU N C L A S S I F I E D


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UNCLASSIFIEDCOMMISSION SENSITIVE

Quit 25: Langley Scramble, Peninsula Sector, Norfolk TRACON0930-0932 EO T

75W

Quit 25 : Copy 230, Understandclearance 090 for 60 milesPeninsula: That 's what we showQuit 25: With you on a 75heading for 290Peninsula: Maintain FL 230

Runway 080

v\fPeninsula Sector Quit25 we have you on radar

Quit 25: Langley Scramble, Washington Center70933? EOT, Continuation

Giant Killer: / don't know what's going on hereeither, that's what they ust passed to us so we 'resupposed to turn him over to BaltimoreCape Charles: OK, What 's he going to do overBaltimore, What's his plan over BaltimoreGiant Killer: That's beyond me a t this time, al lI'm supposed to do is coordinate a flight plan withyou to Baltimore on these guysCape Charles: Okay, so the guy's no t landingBaltimore, he just wants to over fly BaltimoreGiant Killer: Exactly, i t 's a scramble, they aresetting up an air perimeterCapeCharles: OK, that's him headingeastbound r ight now, put h im on a 360 headingan d I' l l take control of him i f you want, Quit 25rightCape Charles: Quit 25, yes sir

COMMISSION SENSITIVEUNCLASSIFIED

dh b2 langley mfrs fdr- 12-1-03 mfr- dean eckmann

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