The Only Plane in the Sky

by Garrett M Graff

  Lt. Michael Nesbitt, Defense Protective Service, Pentagon: All of a sudden the wall shook. It was pretty loud. I’ve been in this building at all hours and heard crashes and bangs. I’ve heard it all. I looked at the burning towers on TV and said, “Oh no, oh no.” We had been hit, although I had no idea it was a plane.

  Steven Carter, assistant building manager, Pentagon: The fire alarm system for the building was sounding in a massive area of Wedge 1—there was smoke and fire and water flow from the sprinkler system. I thought possibly it had been a truck bomb or briefcase bomb. The number of fire alarms coming in showed 355 alarms and climbing, so I was leaning more toward a truck bomb.

  * * *

  The plane hit an area of the Pentagon that primarily housed the army’s personnel offices and the Navy Operation Center. Inside the affected offices—transformed instantly into fiery, smoke-filled infernos—personnel struggled to escape.

  Sheila Denise Moody, accountant, Resource Services Office: September 11th, 2001, was my first day here at the Pentagon. There was also another lady who started work with me that same day, Louise. She and I were both laying out our personal items and getting acquainted with the job.

  Louise Rogers, accountant, Resource Services Office, Pentagon: Our office was in the section that had been completed with renovations. Everything was brand new, nice, and neat.

  Sheila Denise Moody: Louise came to my desk and told me about the World Trade Center. She left my cubicle and went around to the front of the office, toward the portion of the offices that faced the window, and went to fax some paperwork.

  Louise Rogers: I started the fax machine—put the papers in the fax, dialed the number—and at the exact moment that I hit the start key, the plane hit.

  Sheila Denise Moody: A burst of hot air hit my face. The burst was so strong—it had so much force—that it forced me to close my eyes. When I opened my eyes there was a ball of fire shooting right to the right of me. I was in shock. The building was shaking—there was debris and things falling from the ceiling. The ceiling opened up, and I was covered in some liquid. To this day I still really don’t know what it was.

  Louise Rogers: At first, I thought I’d blown up the fax machine. It’s like the initial stage of shock—I thought, My God, what did I do? Then I realized it wasn’t me. I smelled the jet fuel. Being around the air force for 30-some years in one way or another, I recognized jet fuel when I smelled it.

  Lt. Col. Rob Grunewald, information management officer, U.S. Army, Pentagon: We had no idea about New York. We were in an enclosed conference room. We hadn’t seen or heard anything about the events unfolding. At 9:38 I felt a low rumble, the floor began to shake, and then there was an explosion. A big fireball came through the ceiling, and the wall in front of me fractured. The ceiling—one of those Styrofoam-type ceilings—exploded into a million pieces, and the room instantaneously went dark.

  Lt. Col. Ted Anderson, legislative liaison officer, U.S. Army, Pentagon: It was a loud roar—the building literally shook—and there was a sucking sound, which I believe was the oxygen escaping as the jet fuel poured into the corridors right down the hall from us and ignited, taking all of the oxygen out of the air. Our ceiling caved in. The lights went out, but the phone was still working. I was on the phone with my wife. I was a little stunned, just for an initial second, and then I said, “Listen, we have been bombed. I have to go.” I hung up the phone. I screamed for everybody in the office to get out. I got up and moved, and that was the last time I was ever in that cubicle.

  John Yates, security manager, U.S. Army, Pentagon: I didn’t hear a thing. Suddenly there was this tremendous explosion, and I remember a ball of fire coming from my left. I was blown through the air, and when I landed the room was black. Totally black. There was furniture strewn everywhere. It was hot—the smoke came down to within a foot of the floor. I don’t know how long that took—maybe a minute? Two minutes? I didn’t have a concept of time.

  Philip Smith, branch chief, U.S. Army, Pentagon: I was standing in front of a copy machine making some photocopies to prepare for a meeting. That copy machine is probably what saved my life, because it was between me and the incoming flight of the plane. Within a few feet of where I was there, two teammates were killed. They were in cubicles that were just eight or ten feet from me.

  John Yates: It was pure black. You were in a black room, you didn’t know where you are. What’s the first thing you do? You put your hands out to try to find where you are. Everything I touched burned me.

  Lt. Col. Rob Grunewald: Now we had a problem. There were a dozen or so of us in this room, and the room was instantly dark, no lights, no windows. Nobody knew what happened.

  * * *

  Similar to the experience at the World Trade Center, the massive scale of the Pentagon and its unique shape meant that while many occupants felt the explosion, most didn’t immediately realize either what happened or the gravity of the situation. For staff in the other parts of the building, including Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, the impact was felt—though few guessed what had caused it.

  Joe Wassel, communications officer, Office of the Secretary of Defense: Something had struck the building. The first words out of my mouth were “That wasn’t good.” I got up and started walking pretty briskly—but walking—to the secretary of defense’s office.

  Donald Rumsfeld, secretary of defense: We were sitting in my office when the plane hit the building. The building shook and the tables jumped. I assumed it was a bomb.

  Victoria “Torie” Clarke, assistant secretary of defense for public affairs: I thought there must have been a car bomb. What’s extraordinary to me is that we knew that two commercial airliners had hit the Trade Center, a terrorist attack, and smart people were guessing it was al-Qaeda. Yet when something bad happened here, it didn’t occur to us that it was another airliner. That’s how unfathomable it was. It never occurred to us that it was another plane.

  Col. Matthew Klimow, executive assistant to the vice chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Richard Myers, Pentagon: There was pandemonium in the corridors. People were running down the halls yelling. Then, on the conference call, we were notified by Pentagon security that a plane had hit. I immediately told General [Hugh] Shelton [chairman of the Joint Chiefs], who was on his way to Europe, and was on the other phone, “Sir, we’ve been hit here by an airplane. Turn your airplane around and get back to the United States.”

  William Haynes, general counsel, Department of Defense: All of a sudden things really sped up.

  Adm. Edmund Giambastiani, senior military assistant, Office of the Secretary of Defense: The secretary opened his door and asked me what the hell was happening. I said it sounded like an explosion, and it sounded like it was in the building, and he needed to get out of there.

  Aubrey Davis, officer, Protective Service Unit, Defense Protective Service, Pentagon: The secretary came out the door and asked what was going on. I told him we were getting a report that an aircraft had hit the Mall side of the building. He looked at me and immediately went toward the Mall. I said, “Sir, do you understand, that’s the area of impact, the Mall.” He kept going, so I told Officer [Gilbert] Oldach to come on. I saw Mr. Kisling, Joe Wassel, and Kevin Brown sitting in the personnel security office, and I waved for them to come with us.

  Donald Rumsfeld: I went out to see what was amiss.

  * * *

  On the other side of the Pentagon, away from the secretary of defense’s suite, officials, including the Defense Protective Service, the Arlington County Police Department, and the Arlington County Fire Department—which had responsibility for emergencies at the Pentagon—launched a massive rescue effort, evacuated the building, tended to the injured, and secured a sensitive military installation, even as FBI agents rushed to examine the largest crime scene in the history of the capital region.

  Jennifer Meyers, dispatcher, Arlington County Emergency Communications Center: I recall the message on my work pager said, “Plane into Pentago
n. We need all help.”

  John Jester, chief, Defense Protective Service, Pentagon: I immediately ran down to the Operations Center to assess what was going on. The alarms went off, the phones were ringing.

  Lt. Michael Nesbitt, Defense Protective Service, Pentagon: Chief Jester came in and told me to get on the “Big Voice” [P.A. system] and tell people to evacuate. I said, “All personnel in the Pentagon need to evacuate. You need to evacuate now.”

  Lt. Col. Ted Anderson, legislative liaison officer, U.S. Army, Pentagon: I started barking orders to get out of the building. Here I am, dressed for legislative business with Congress—I’ve got on a nice suit with a striped shirt, tie, and suspenders—and I’m screaming at full-bird colonels and general officers to move out of the building, barking orders, screaming. They listened. They tried to get out of the Mall entrance, but the guards mistakenly thought that they were under attack from outside, so they secured that entrance. They had taken out most of their small arms, machine guns, etc. It looked like they were preparing to defend the doors there. So I started moving people toward the center of the Pentagon. This all took place within two minutes.

  Capt. Randall Harper, Defense Protective Service, Pentagon: People were hollering, “Get out, get out. Run for your life.” I was told by people in the Center Court that they saw people run out there on fire.

  John F. Irby, director, Federal Facilities Division, Real Estate and Facilities Directorate, Washington Headquarters Services, Pentagon: You could see the terror on people’s faces as they left.

  Lt. Robert Medairos, Arlington County Police Department: Pretty much everything in that first half hour was chaos. Everybody was coming from everywhere to help.

  Mike Walter, senior correspondent, USA Today Live: I remember the soundtrack of that day, it was this siren. It was as if it was looped—it was sirens, sirens, sirens.

  “There began the chaos”

  * * *

  On Capitol Hill

  Across Capitol Hill, morning meetings were interrupted by the news alerts that an emergency situation was also unfolding at the Pentagon. Staff, representatives, and senators quickly realized that what appeared as a tragic accident in New York had spread into their own backyard—and that they themselves, under the dome of the U.S. Capitol, might be a target.

  John Feehery, press secretary to Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Illinois): Amid all the tumult, we were called down to the Speaker’s office. The sergeant at arms gave us a briefing. It was a very strange, surreal experience because the sergeant at arms was telling us that everything was going to be fine, and then we turned on the TV and saw another plane hit the World Trade Towers. It was one of those mornings when everything was jumbled up.

  Brian Gunderson, chief of staff for House Majority Leader Richard Armey (R-Texas): All of a sudden, one of the plainclothes policemen—he was part of the Speaker’s security detail—stood up and said, “Look!” He pointed out the window. He apparently saw, if not the fireball, at least the column of smoke rising in the distance from the Pentagon.

  Brian Gaston, policy director for House Majority Leader Richard Armey (R-Texas): The meeting broke up right then and there.

  Tish Schwartz, chief clerk, House Judiciary Committee: I froze. You could literally see the smoke billowing up. Everybody was numb: Oh my God, what’s going on? There were no bells going off, there was no panic, screaming, anything like that. Everybody was very calm, but stunned, and in disbelief. The word “surreal” is used a lot, but that’s what it was.

  Sen. Tom Daschle (D-South Dakota), Senate Majority Leader: And there began the chaos.

  Rep. Dennis Hastert (R-Illinois), House Speaker: I had two phones on my desk—a secure phone to the White House and this regular old red phone that I took all my calls on. All of a sudden, I see the red phone flashing, and I said, “Well, they probably put the call through on the red phone.” I picked it up, figuring it was the vice president. There was a guy on the other end of the line, “What are you guys doing up there on Capitol Hill . . . taxes are too high . . . pollution all over the country,” on and on, ranting and raving. I said, “Whoa, wait a minute. Who is this?” He said, “Never mind, who is this?” I said, “This is the Speaker of the House—I think you have the wrong number.”

  Rep. Porter Goss (R-Florida), chair, House Intelligence Committee: I raced down the stairs to brief the Speaker. I found him in his office staring down the Mall at the smoke from the Pentagon. I said we had to evacuate immediately. He agreed, saying, “On the way out, I want to open the House for a quick session and a prayer.”

  Rep. Dennis Hastert: I decided to cancel Congress.

  Rep. Porter Goss: We walked onto the House Floor about 10 minutes before 10, and the parliamentarian said we couldn’t open the House yet because the call was for 10:00 a.m. I turned around to say something to the Speaker, but he wasn’t there. He was being removed by security to a secure location.

  Rep. Dennis Hastert: All of a sudden, two of my security guys—one on each side of me—picked me up and whisked me away. I said, “What’s going on?” They said, “We think there’s a fourth plane and we think it’s headed for the Capitol.”

  Rep. Porter Goss: I told the parliamentarian, “We’re doing this now, because we’re going to evacuate.” There was no question we had to get out of there.

  Father Gerry Creedon, guest chaplain, House of Representatives: The House chaplain, Reverend Dan Coughlin, advised me that I would do the opening invocation, and then Congress would be dismissed. I got a piece of paper and wrote—using his shoulder as a desk—a new prayer. Porter Goss said to me, “I don’t care what your prayer is, as long as it’s brief.” I read the prayer, the gavel was hit, and the House was dismissed.

  Rep. Dennis Hastert: People were told to get out—run. There were 5,000 people that work in or around the Capitol.

  Sen. Tom Daschle: There was a mad scramble, literally running out of the Capitol building. I saw young staff, I even saw Sen. Robert C. Byrd, carrying a couple of books, and having some difficulty walking quickly, but nonetheless evacuating.

  Julia Rogers, page, U.S. House: I was really scared. You could sense the tension in the police officers. They weren’t their normal selves. You could see the fear on their faces and in their eyes, and that further frightened me.

  Rep. Porter Goss: There we were, standing at the bottom of the steps of the Capitol wondering if the building would be there the next time we came back.

  Brian Gunderson: I remember seeing a network news crew, and the producer was frantically telling his crew to get that camera pointed at the Capitol Dome. He had assumed—as we all did at that time—that there might be another jetliner heading for the Capitol, and he thought it was important that his camera was in a position to get the shot of that jet smashing into the Capitol Dome.

  Tyler Rogers, page, U.S. House: One of the page responsibilities is delivering flags—when you fly them over the Capitol, the pages pick them up and deliver them to the members’ offices. We have these big mail carts full of flags. One of our colleagues was on flag duty that morning, and she had her cart full of flags. She was told to evacuate and she didn’t have anywhere to put the flags. She’s rolling down the street with this gigantic thing. She was one of the smallest pages, but she has this gigantic cart full of flags. She was like, “I can’t leave these. I couldn’t ditch them.”

  Rep. Dennis Hastert: I was whisked down the elevator. The next thing I know, I’m in the back of a Suburban, headed to Andrews Air Force Base. It was bizarre. I remember this car was just going a hundred miles an hour, very fast.

  Brian Gunderson: There were very elaborate plans, of course, for the Speaker, because the Speaker’s in the line of presidential succession. The majority leader is not. His security detail very quickly hustled him out of the Capitol, then they got into his official vehicle and left. But he didn’t have any particular place to go. There was no assigned relocation position.

  Rep. Porter Goss: There wasn’t any plan. You’ve now t
aken 535 of the most important people in the country and put them out on the lawn.

  Rep. Martin Frost (D-Texas), chair, House Democratic Caucus: No one told us to either stay or to leave. That was the interesting thing. Each of us acted on our own. My instant reaction was to get away from the Capitol. We were as much in the dark as anyone else.

  “I’m on an airplane that’s been hijacked”

  * * *

  Flight 93 in Peril

  The day’s chaos then jumped to the skies over Ohio. The fourth—and, as it turned out, final—attack of September 11th unfolded aboard United Airlines Flight 93, a Boeing 757 aircraft scheduled to fly from Newark International Airport to San Francisco. The flight had pushed back from the gate at 8:01 a.m.—its final passenger, Mark Bingham, had only barely made the flight, boarding at 7:55. Due to airport congestion, Flight 93 sat on the runway in Newark for 41 minutes and took off at 8:42 a.m., much later than scheduled. It carried 40 people—seven crew and 33 passengers.

  Unlike the other three hijacked planes, there were only four terrorists aboard Flight 93; the person believed by U.S. officials to be the fifth intended hijacker, Mohammed al-Qahtani, was turned away by immigration authorities in early August when he tried to enter the U.S. in Orlando.

  United Airlines dispatcher Ed Ballinger messaged the planes he was overseeing at 9:19 a.m. to warn of possible cockpit intrusions: “Beware any cockpit intrusion—two a/c [aircraft] hit World Trade Center.” Flight 93’s pilot, Capt. Jason Dahl, sent a message back at 9:26 a.m.: “Ed, confirm latest mssg plz.” Two minutes later, First Officer LeRoy Homer transmitted a brief radio call, where he can be heard shouting, “Mayday! Mayday! Get out!”