The September 11th attack
Military steps up patrol of air space
Advertiser Staff and News Services
The combat air patrols flying over 30 major American cities since Tuesday are the beginning of what is expected to be the largest mobilization of the military to protect domestic air space in U.S. history.
Since about five hours after the attacks, F-15 and F-16 fighter jets under control of the North American Aerospace Defense Command, or NORAD, have been flying over Washington, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego and other cities, senior military officials said. President Bush mobilized thousands more Air Force reservists yesterday.
Hawai'i Air National Guard spokesman Maj. Chuck Anthony said he could not discuss whether Guard pilots are flying similar patrols over Hawai'i.
"We had F-15s in the air (yesterday), I can confirm that," Anthony said.
Earlier, Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta asked the military to train special forces to serve as marshals on commercial flights.
Even as the mobilization gets under way, air defense officials yesterday disclosed that they sent fighter jets to try to reach two of the highjacked airplanes but were too late to play any role.
After Flight 11 struck the World Trade Center at 8:46 a.m., authorities scrambled two F-15 fighter jets from Otis Air Force Base on Cape Cod, Mass. But the second hijacked plane to strike the World Trade Center hit the tower at 9:02 a.m., far too soon for the fighters to have gotten close.
The Air Guard also scrambled two F-16s from Langley Air Force Base, Va., at 9:35 a.m. to respond to FAA alarms about American Airlines Flight 77, which plunged into the Pentagon. But the aircraft struck the building two minutes after the fighters took off.
In an interview on the PBS program "Newshour," Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said authorities were also tracking the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania.
"I think it was the heroism of the passengers on board that brought it down, but the Air Force was in a position to do so if we had to," Wolfowitz said.
Four of the fighter jets from the 154th Wing at Hickam Air Force Base were scrambled Tuesday to escort inbound commercial airline flights following the attacks.
The armed fighters' job was to "identify the aircraft and make sure they safely touched down at the airport," Anthony said previously.
Maj. Gen. Paul A. Weaver Jr., director of the Air National Guard, said that only the president could give the order for a U.S. fighter to shoot down a commercial airliner carrying American travelers.
The air defense mobilization efforts, meanwhile, reveal gaping holes in the nation's system for protecting its skies.
The military has never played a role in monitoring the movements of airplanes over the nation, unless they originate from abroad. At the height of the Cold War, Air Force fighter jets stood on active alert around the country to intercept hostile aircraft. Today, however, the Air Force is practically out of the interception business.
Today, only 60 aircraft manned by active duty crews are on alert to intercept suspicious craft. There are about 200 more jets piloted by the Air National Guard, but they are not on 24-hour alert.
In 1976, there were 374 such aircraft. In 1966, there were more than 600.
Although NORAD has been responsible for preventing aircraft from abroad from invading U.S. air space since its inception in 1958, it does not monitor domestic flights.
