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American Morning
Cockpit Transcripts from Hijacked Planes Tell Haunting Story
Aired October 16, 2001 - 09:13 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
PAULA ZAHN, CNN ANCHOR: There is some new information this morning detailing the terrifying final moments during the airline hijackings on September 11. The "New York Times" has transcripts of conversations in the cockpit of those doomed airliners.
Our own Miles O'Brien is at the CNN Center in Atlanta with more on these chilling words -- Miles.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Paula.
We've all seen the chilling radar tracks which indicated exactly what happen as those aircraft went deliberately off course and ultimately into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and into the Pennsylvania countryside.
But now we're getting a little more information about what happened in those radar control rooms. It begins with a little bit of confusion, moves toward disbelief and then toward action. Unfortunately, all of it too late to save the day.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
(voice-over): The tapes recorded on the ground in air traffic control radar rooms capture radio transmissions between pilots and controllers. They offer fleeting glimpses to an enduring horror.
This overhead from the cockpit of the first plane seized out of Boston, American Airlines 11. "Nobody move please: we're going back to the airport. Don't try to make any stupid moves."
Air traffic controllers radioed a general call for help to all pilots in locating the missing flight. Ironically, it was the pilot of the second plane to be hijacked who answered that call. Before the terrorists took control, the unsuspecting flight crew of United 175 told controllers he heard a suspicious radio call from American 11. "Sounds like someone keyed the mike and said everybody stay in your seats," he said. But it was already too late, 8:41 a.m. Five minutes later, American 11 flew into the World Trade Center.
"The Times" reports air traffic control heard this message from another unidentified pilot. "Anybody know what that smoke is in lower Manhattan?" he asked. Within minutes, a pair of National Guard F-15 fighters scrambled out of a base in Massachusetts. By then, United 175 was screaming south toward New York. The FAA tapes capture a ground controller saying, "We may have a hijack. We have some problems over here right now." At 9:02 a.m., the second jetliner hit the south tower. The F-15s were still eight minutes away.
Meanwhile at an FAA en route center in Indianapolis, a controller was trying to raise a third transcontinental flight. "American 77, Indy, radio check. How do you read?" There was no answer. At 9:27 a.m. a trio of National Guard F-16 fighters left their base in Virginia. At first they headed for New York City. Six minutes later, at 9:33, controllers spotted American 77 speeding toward Washington. It hit the Pentagon five minutes later. By then, according to "The Times," the fighters had veered toward Washington but all they could do was look down and confirm the Pentagon was on fire.
By then the fourth hijacked plane, United 93, was homing in on Washington and the fighters. It crashed in a Pennsylvania field before the pilots had to execute orders to shoot down the 757.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
O'BRIEN: These transcripts, we should underscore, are transcripts of the radio transmissions between the controllers and the pilots. The black boxes with the cockpit voice recorders would tell us more but finding those black boxes in the World Trade Center remains seems like it would be very difficult, to say the least. And the cockpit voice recorder on American Airlines 77, which crashed into the Pentagon, was heavily damaged. We don't know what information might be on that United 93 cockpit voice recorder. It's part of a criminal investigation, after all -- Paula.
ZAHN: Boy, I'll tell you, I mean I know you even had very much the same reaction I did when I saw those transcripts. It's just -- it's awful to read.
O'BRIEN: Well, yes, you know what's going to happen, of course, and yet when you hear it and each level of detail that you get as more information comes out just makes it all the more haunting I think.
ZAHN: All right, Miles, thanks.
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