NY ARTCC Manager Mile McCormick talks about Flights 175 & 11.

[stickdog]

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/08/14/attack/main518632.shtml

Mike McCormick, air traffic control manager at the New York Center — the main control center for the area — made the unprecedented decision at 9:04 a.m. to declare "ATC Zero," meaning that no aircraft could fly into, out of or through the airspace over New York and the western Atlantic.

He made the decision after the second plane, United Flight 175, crashed into the World Trade Center. McCormick said the Boeing 757's transponder was working and he knew where it was headed, even before the Newark Airport Control Tower picked it up visually as it turned and headed back toward the twin towers.


http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0208/12/lt.12.html

MICHAEL MCCORMICK, FAA AIR TRAFFIC MANAGER: I knew at that time this was, in fact, an attack. We knew the World Trade Center was a target of a previous attack. And this was, in fact, another attack. At the same time, as we were coordinating from this attack, is when United 175 was hijacked. We lost communication with that aircraft. We tracked that aircraft as it turned southbound and then back northeast bound, back toward Manhattan. I assumed at that point that that target of that aircraft was in fact the World Trade Center.

Probably one of the most difficult moments of my life was the 11 minutes from the point I watched that aircraft, when we first lost communications until the point that aircraft hit the World Trade Center. For those 11 minutes, I knew, we knew, what was going to happen, and that was difficult.


http://www.cnn.com/2002/US/08/12/911.controllers/

Shortly after American Airlines Flight 11 slammed into the World Trade Center's North Tower at approximately 8:46 a.m., air traffic controllers knew another plane was minutes away from the same deadly objective.

"Probably one of the most difficult moments of my life was the 11 minutes from the point I watched that aircraft when we first lost communications to the point that aircraft hit the World Trade Center," recalled Michael McCormick, air traffic manager at the Federal Aviation Administration's New York Center in Westbury.

American Flight 11 was now losing altitude and heading south. Controllers did what they could to track it, asking if other pilots saw the plane. At one point they asked United 175, which answered with the plane's altitude. But United 175 was soon hijacked and flying fast and low toward Manhattan.

McCormick looked at CNN and saw the flames and smoke pouring from the World Trade Center after Flight 11 crashed into the North Tower. He knew United Flight 175 was headed the same way. "I knew at that time this was in fact an attack. We knew that the World Trade Center was the target of a previous attack. And this was in fact another attack," said McCormick. "For those 11 minutes, I knew, we knew what was going to happen," he said.

http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0209/08/sm.09.html

MCCORMICK: I don't think it could ever be proven. However, I feel very comfortable in the knowledge that the air traffic controllers were the heroes that first rose to the defense of our country on September 11. And the decision to remove weapons of destruction from terrorism that day, in fact, saved many lives, and there were other opportunities, and there were other plans that we intervened in.

http://www.public-action.com/911/faa-many-planes/

Unlike the first hijacked plane, American Airlines Flight 11, the second Boeing 767's transponder was working and he knew where it was headed, McCormick said, even before the Newark Airport control tower picked it up visually as it flew south along the Hudson River, turned and headed back toward the twin towers.

"I wanted to make sure everyone understood that this (attack) was not a single aircraft, that this was not a single event. There was at least one other aircraft involved and there could be many more, and we needed to prepare for all eventualities," McCormick said.


http://billstclair.com/911timeline/2002/newsday091002.html

Mike McCormick, the air traffic supervisor, and other supervisors moved quickly to relieve the controllers. Counselors were called. A nurse from the FAA's aviation medicine division came. An Episcopal priest. Tucker remembers smoking five cigarettes in a row. "No one in the building, if they weren't in that room that morning for those 20-25 minutes - no one knows ... ," said Bohleber, who took a week off work.

Tucker took two weeks off. When he came back to the radar scopes, it was hard not to see the United jet turning into the path of other planes. After the planes hit, Bohleber continued working Kennedy arrivals for a few minutes. The pilots had perfect views of Manhattan. "They were asking over and over, what's burning in Manhattan. What's that fire," Bohleber said. "It was such a clear day."

Then one of them asked Bohleber, "Was that a small plane that hit the World Trade Center?"

"I said, 'That's negative,' " Bohleber said. "There was silence. No one said a word."


http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A6892-2004May6?language=printer

Controllers' 9/11 Tape Destroyed, Report Says

By Sara Kehaulani Goo
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, May 7, 2004; Page A02

Six air traffic controllers provided accounts of their communications with hijacked planes on Sept. 11, 2001, on a tape recording that was later destroyed by a Federal Aviation Administration manager, according to a government investigative report issued yesterday. It is unclear what was on the tape, but its destruction did little to dispel the appearance that government officials withheld evidence, the report by the Department of Transportation inspector general said.

The report found that an FAA manager tape-recorded an hour-long interview with the controllers just hours after the hijacked aircraft crashed into the World Trade Center towers, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania. His intention was to provide the information quickly to the FBI. But months after the recording, the tape was never turned over to the FBI and another FAA manager decided on his own to destroy the tape, crushing it with his hand, cutting it into small pieces and depositing the pieces into several trash cans, the report said.

The existence of the tape and its destruction were revealed in a report that initially was to find whether the FAA had fully cooperated with an independent panel investigating the terrorist attacks after the panel complained last fall that it needed more information from the agency. Inspector General Kenneth M. Mead found that the FAA never intentionally withheld information, but he condemned the managers' actions and said they were required to keep such evidence for five years.

The report said investigators were told that the tape was never listened to, copied or transcribed. The employee who recorded the tape, Mike McCormick, was not subject to a disciplinary procedure and is in Iraq for the FAA, helping to set up an air traffic control system, the source added.

http://www.911injured.org/Media/911commission/news/newsday050604.htm

The FAA is looking into disciplining center manager Mike McCormick, who withheld the tape from superiors after agreeing to the controllers' union condition that the tape be destroyed once written statements were recorded. McCormick is now working for the FAA in Iraq helping establish an air-traffic-control center.

McCormick made the tape starting at 11:40 a.m. on Sept. 11 by having controllers gather in a windowless room and speak into a microphone for five to 10 minutes each. McCormick told investigators he feared controllers would take sick leave, and he wanted a record of their accounts "to be immediately available for law enforcement."

McCormick withheld the tape from the "formal accident package" the center gave the FAA in November 2001.

Delaney, who was the center's acting quality-assurance manager, told investigators he destroyed the tape between December 2001 and February 2002, because "he felt strongly that the tape never should have been made." He is now a center operations manager.

[BeFree]

1. All's well that ends well

Hope they got a nice pay rise also. The gummint shouldn't ask these guys to do so much with so little without rewarding them handsomely.

Ain't it good to know the gummint moves so rapidly to see that things get worked out so swell?

Yessiree, Bob, I feel better already, don't you?

[stickdog]

2. Check this out!

http://www.uniraq.org/newsroom/story.asp?ID=540

The windows on one side of the air traffic control tower -- a place where a 360-degree view is of paramount importance -- had been painted black, obscuring the vision of one of Saddam Hussein's presidential palaces, as well as that of some arriving aircraft. "He had the windows on that side of the tower painted over to prevent controllers from looking down upon him," said Frank Hatfield, the senior aviation adviser to Iraq.

By June, when Hatfield arrived at Baghdad International Airport, coalition forces had scraped the paint off the windows. But it serves as a vivid illustration of the challenge Hatfield and a small team of Federal Aviation Administration officials have faced as they attempt to restart commercial aviation in a war-ravaged country.

Hatfield, a former Long Beach resident who until last year was the FAA official in charge of the skies over New York, will celebrate a milestone of sorts Tuesday. For the first time since the war, a team of civilian Iraqi air traffic controllers will walk into the Baghdad tower and begin work. Helping the transition will be Mike McCormick of Miller Place, who is assigned to run the FAA's air traffic control center in Ronkonkoma but has spent the past three months in Iraq.

Hatfield, a former air traffic controller for the U.S. Navy, believes his own military service has been valuable, giving him a working knowledge of military chain-of-command and procurement processes. His FAA team members have similar backgrounds. McCormick, who was a Marine, is the FAA official who made the unprecedented decision to shut down New York airspace at 9:04 a.m. on Sept. 11 from his office at the FAA facility in Ronkonkoma.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/07/national/07TAPE.html?ex=1097640000&en=d15f54689b42d846&ei=5070&oref=login

Tape of Air Traffic Controllers Made on 9/11 Was Destroyed

Published: May 7, 2004

WASHINGTON, May 6 — At least six air traffic controllers who dealt with two of the hijacked airliners on Sept. 11, 2001, made a tape recording a few hours later describing the events, but the tape was destroyed by a supervisor without anyone making a transcript or even listening to it, the Transportation Department said Thursday.

The quality-assurance manager destroyed the tape sometime in December 2001, January 2002 or February 2002. By that time he and the center manager had received an e-mail message from the F.A.A. instructing officials to safeguard all records and adding, "If a question arises whether or not you should retain data, RETAIN IT."

The inspector general ascribed the destruction to "poor judgment."