Reply #47: Heavily defended [View All]

[Kevin Fenton]

I think heavily defended here means that there were several fighters stationed nearby that could be launched at short notice (whether they were officially on strip alert or not). That seems to be the case. I really don't see what the large number of commercial and private aircraft over Washington have to do with this.

Surely, the military response was obviously poor. I think the main question is whether the military was honestly caught with its pants down or whether somebody was hampering the response.