Air Emergency (2003–…): Season 16, Episode 2 - American Airlines - Flight 77 - The Pentagon - full transcript
FATHER MCGRAW: There
was a sense of something
coming over the
tops of our cars.
NARRATOR: A commercial jet
screams low over the DC area.
FATHER MCGRAW:
And the fireballs just
billowed out of the Pentagon.
GEN. SHELTON: We
have watched the tragedy
of an outrageous act
of barbaric terrorism.
JOHN PERREN: I want
passenger manifests,
surveillance video, the works.
NARRATOR: The attack
on the Pentagon mobilizes
hundreds of FBI agents
and NTSB investigators.
MALE: Left.
JOHN PERREN: You had
the largest investigation
in American history going on.
NARRATOR: They uncover
a mountain of evidence.
AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER:
What are you guys doing?
NARRATOR: Shocking details
about the terrorist hijacking
of American Airlines flight 77.
HIJACKER: Stay
where you are now or die!
BRIAN JENKINS: Their
strategy was audacious
but not complicated.
And it worked.
[* Intro Theme ]
MAN: Mayday, mayday.
[* Intro Theme ]
[* Intro Theme ]
*
NARRATOR:
It's nearly 8 am at Dulles
Airport near Washington, D.C.
American Airlines flight 77 will
soon be heading to Los Angeles.
Thirty-nine-year-old David
Charlebois is the First Officer.
FIRST OFFICER CHARLEBOIS:
Any plans for the big day?
CAPTAIN BURLINGAME:
Gonna take in the ballgame
at Angels Stadium.
FIRST OFFICER CHARLEBOIS:
Oh yeah? That'll be great.
NARRATOR: The Captain, Charles
Burlingame, turns 52 tomorrow.
JEFF PRICE: Captain Burlingame
was a former Navy pilot.
He was a graduate of
the Fighter Weapons School,
otherwise and more
commonly known as Top Gun.
A very
experienced airline pilot,
a lot of years in
service, very professional.
FLIGHT ATTENDANT:
Can I help you with that?
NARRATOR: The Boeing 757 is less
than half full this morning.
There are only 58
passengers on board.
BARBARA OLSON: No. I'm
booked all day that day.
What about next week?
NARRATOR: Barbara
Olson is on her way to LA
to appear on a TV talk show.
BARBARA OLSON: Bye.
JEFF PRICE:
Barbara Olson was a high profile
lawyer in Washington, D.C.
Very active in the
political circles out there.
She was also the wife of
the U.S. Solicitor
General at the time, Ted Olson.
AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER:
Departure frequency
will be 125.05.
Runway 3-0. Cleared for takeoff.
FIRST OFFICER CHARLEBOIS:
Cleared for takeoff off
3-0, American 77.
CAPTAIN BURLINGAME:
On the roll.
NARRATOR:
At 8:20 am, American Airlines
flight 77 gets underway.
FIRST OFFICER CHARLEBOIS:
V-1. Rotate.
JEFF PRICE: It was
just a beautiful day.
The skies were clear throughout
most of the country in fact
and it was just a really,
really gorgeous day for flying.
NARRATOR:
It takes roughly five hours
to make the two thousand,
three hundred mile trip
from Washington to Los Angeles.
At 8:46, flight 77
reaches cruising altitude,
thirty-five thousand feet.
FIRST OFFICER CHARLEBOIS:
Looks like we're gonna have
clear skies all the way.
CAPTAIN BURLINGAME:
That's what we like to hear.
AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER:
American 77, turn
right ten degrees.
Vectors for traffic.
NARRATOR:
On the ground, air traffic
controllers guide the 757.
AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER:
Turn right American 77.
STEVE BAIRD: I've
always equated it
to like a three-dimensional
chess game, if you will.
NARRATOR: Steve Baird was
an air traffic controller
for more than 20 years.
STEVE BAIRD:
We work a lot of airplanes,
twelve to seventeen
airplanes at a time
and they're
moving along pretty fast
and so things are
happening pretty quickly.
AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER:
American Airlines 77,
clear direct Falmouth.
FIRST OFFICER CHARLEBOIS:
Clear direct Falmouth,
American 77. Thanks.
NARRATOR: Falmouth, Kentucky,
is the next waypoint
on flight 77's route
west to Los Angeles.
FIRST OFFICER CHARLEBOIS:
All right. Time for a
bit more coffee.
JEFF PRICE: There's not a lot of
passengers onboard for the crew.
They don't have as many
people to take care of.
There's not as much
food service to worry about.
BARBARA OLSON:
I'll have some water please.
JEFF PRICE: So it's
typically a more relaxed flight
when the plane's not full.
*
NARRATOR: Thirty-four
minutes into the flight,
controllers
notice something odd.
AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER:
What are you guys doing?
NARRATOR: Flight 77
is veering off course.
AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER:
American 77, Center.
STEVE BAIRD: At the point
where the controller noticed
the aircraft take a turn that
he did not instruct him to do,
that's when he
would become concerned.
AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER:
American 7-7, radio check.
NARRATOR: Two minutes later,
their concern turns to alarm.
AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER:
American 7-7, radio check.
NARRATOR: Flight 77 has
vanished from their radar.
AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER:
Center calling American 7-7.
American 7-7.
STEVE BAIRD: Well
that's extremely rare
that a plane would
ever go missing, right?
They just don't disappear.
NARRATOR: Controllers
usually track flights
using a signal
from a transponder
onboard the aircraft.
The transponder gives
them the flight number,
the speed and altitude.
The controller
switches his screen
to search for a more
basic signal, primary radar.
AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER:
Supervisor.
NARRATOR: But there's
still no sign of the plane.
AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER:
American 77, radio check.
How do you read?
NARRATOR: Their concern grows
with each second of silence.
STEVE BAIRD: If I can't
see him on the secondary
or the primary radar
and I can't speak with him,
I would assume that he has gone
down somewhere and crashed.
[phone rings]
AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER: Center.
NARRATOR:
Then, just after 9 am,
a call comes in
from American Airlines
that's almost impossible
for controllers to digest.
It is Tuesday,
September the 11th, 2001.
Thousands of
people are feared dead.
Lower Manhattan is in chaos.
JEFF PRICE: Almost everybody
that saw what happened,
saw it on TV, saw it live,
said this is not an accident.
There's no way two planes,
two commercial aircraft
accidentally hit both towers
of the World Trade Center.
TOM HAUETER: No one
knew what was going on
except for the
country was under attack
and so I think it
was very difficult.
Where are these airplanes?
Are there any other
airplanes out there
that have gone missing?
NARRATOR:
The fate of the missing
757 is now much more worrying.
What if it hasn't crashed
somewhere in the Midwest?
AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER:
We need to find that plane.
JEFF PRICE:
With two aircraft already in
the World Trade Center towers,
another aircraft missing,
air traffic controllers were
most likely just going nuts
trying to figure
out what's happening.
AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER:
Supervisor.
I've got a target
tracking eastbound
at a high rate of speed.
NARRATOR: At 9:32,
more than half an hour
after losing
contact with the plane,
controllers spot a
mysterious radar return.
TOM HAUETER: Primary radar,
that doesn't give you altitude
or any real information.
NARRATOR: If it is flight 77,
it means the plane has turned
around back towards Washington.
AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER:
We gotta warn D.C.
NARRATOR: America's capital
could be the next target.
STEVE BAIRD: At this point,
since he was aware of
the attacks on the country,
I'm sure he already thought
that was one of
the hijacked aircraft.
AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER:
Gopher 0-6,
do you have a
commercial aircraft in sight?
NARRATOR:
Controllers recruit another
pilot to try to learn more.
They radio the only other plane
in the immediate air space,
a C-130 cargo plane from
nearby Andrews Air Force Base.
C-130 Pilot: It looks
like an American Airlines 757.
AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER:
It's gotta be our plane.
Center calling
American 7-7. American 7-7.
NARRATOR: But the 757 is
ignoring all radio calls.
And it's heading
straight for Washington.
It's 9:35 am, and traffic into
Washington is getting congested.
FATHER MCGRAW: I was
on my way from my parish
to the Arlington
National Cemetery
for a graveside service.
NARRATOR: Father Stephen
McGraw is stuck on a freeway
right beside the Pentagon.
FATHER MCGRAW: I took
that exit actually because
I knew that the Pentagon was
near Arlington National Cemetery
and I couldn't remember how
to get to Arlington National
so I thought it can't be that
far off. I'll take this exit.
But in front of the building
there ended up
being standstill traffic.
And then without
warning there was a rush,
feeling the
vibrations or the sound
and just in other words
there was an
overwhelming sense of something
coming over the
tops of our cars.
The plane clipped a light pole
as it went over the highway
and I turned
instinctively to my right
and to see just in
time the plane coming in
and just crashing
into the building
right in front of my eyes.
[explosion]
[helicopter whirring]
There were these two
huge billows of fire
that came out of the two
top windows of the Pentagon
and the fireballs just
kind of billowed out.
NARRATOR: The symbol of U.S.
military might is now in flames.
Smoke pours from a
gaping 90-foot wide hole
in the Pentagon's west wall.
One entire section of
the building has collapsed.
FATHER MCGRAW: I had not
heard anything about
the World Trade
Center crashes.
I didn't have my radio
on, hadn't heard anything
and so I just assumed
that this was an accident.
[explosion]
NARRATOR:
There's no chance that
any of the 64 people aboard the
plane have survived the impact.
And there are sure to be many
more dead among Pentagon staff.
JEFF PRICE:
On average any given day,
23,000 some odd
people work in the building.
It's five rings, five floors and
five levels of military space.
NARRATOR: With news of
a third airliner attack,
the FAA issues an
unprecedented order.
AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER:
Attention all pilots.
We have a national emergency.
We need to get
everyone on the ground.
NARRATOR:
Every commercial flight
in the country must land.
AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER: Vector
10 degrees right. Begin descent.
TOM HAUETER: This is the
first time in U.S. history
they grounded the whole fleet.
AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER:
Be advised we are
clearing the airspace.
JEFF PRICE: Controllers are
trying to figure out a situation
they've never prepared for
and trying to figure
out how to get all the
airplanes on the ground
and accounted for
before more loss of life.
AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER:
Attention all pilots.
NARRATOR:
Attorney Richard Nummi was on
one of those diverted flights.
RICHARD NUMMI:
The captain comes over the
intercom system and said,
we've just been notified
that all air traffic
in the United States
has been required to land.
It was a little bit startling.
It was a little bit
looking out the window going:
What's going on?
NARRATOR: Nummi's flight
lands in Wichita, Kansas.
He'll soon learn how
lucky he is to be alive.
RICHARD NUMMI: I was scheduled
to speak at a conference.
They booked me a ticket on
American Airlines flight 77
out of Dulles to the west coast.
NARRATOR: At the last moment,
he switched his ticket
to a more convenient flight.
RICHARD NUMMI:
I had left the original flight
itinerary on the refrigerator,
drove to the
airport, changed the ticket,
got on the airplane --
was very, very concerned
that my wife was thinking
that I was still on that plane.
It was one of those
things where, you know,
God was smiling on me that day.
NARRATOR:
At the Pentagon, Father McGraw
rushes towards the devastation.
He wants to help
anyone he can.
FATHER MCGRAW: I remember coming
to one man in particular.
He said, what is your name?
FATHER MCGRAW: I'm Father
McGraw. I'll stay with you.
FATHER MCGRAW (voiceover):
And he said, I'm Catholic.
And so I actually gave him in
those moments, the sacraments,
and anointed him on his
forehead with the blessed oil,
the oil of the sick.
And when I did that I
remember saying to him...
FATHER MCGRAW:
Jesus is with you.
...I tell you Jesus
is with you now.
OFFICER 1: You
can't go back in there!
OFFICER 2: You
gotta maintain 500 yards.
NARRATOR:
Thousands of military staff
evacuate the burning Pentagon.
The United
States is under siege.
Just across the Potomac River,
the hunt for those responsible
is already underway.
JOHN PERREN: I want
passenger manifests,
witnesses,
surveillance video, the works.
JOHN PERREN:
We were setting up
and actually getting
our crew ready
to respond to
New York at the time
and then obviously we
were hit then at the Pentagon
so we changed our plans.
NARRATOR: FBI supervisor
John Perren sets up
the agency's
Washington command post.
JOHN PERREN:
You realize that we're
under attack is what we are.
Then you realize that this is,
this is something
that's never happened before.
This is war.
NARRATOR: But before anyone
can grasp the full magnitude
of what has happened,
another threat appears.
The FAA has reports
of a fourth hijacking.
JOHN PERREN: We were told
that there was another aircraft
heading towards
Washington, D.C.,
and the last
timeline we were given
was it was about
eight minutes out.
So what we did was
we sent snipers up on
the roof with binoculars
to look out for this aircraft.
NARRATOR:
Across the US, thousands
of flights are now grounded.
RICHARD NUMMI:
There's just airliner
after airliner after airliner
parked on the tarmac.
NARRATOR:
Then, at 10:15 am,
a blackened crater
in rural Pennsylvania
reveals what's left of
the fourth hijacked plane.
JEFF PRICE: What was
unique about that flight
is the passengers
tried to retake the flight.
They were
unsuccessful to the extent
that the plane still crashed.
But they were successful
that it did not crash
into whatever its
intended target was gonna be.
NARRATOR: Four passenger
jets have been hijacked
and turned into flying bombs.
Nearly three thousand
people have been killed.
GEN. SHELTON: We
have watched the tragedy
of an outrageous act
of barbaric terrorism
carried out by fanatics
against both
civilians and military people.
JOHN PERREN: You never in
your wildest dreams would think
that they would take
aircrafts full of people
and turn it into
literally a missile.
RICHARD NUMMI: Americans aren't
used to being sucker punched.
We're pretty much convinced
that there's a Pacific Ocean
and there's an Atlantic Ocean
and this doesn't happen here.
And I think on
that day the reality
that this is a
new world happened.
NARRATOR: The Pentagon is
now a federal crime scene.
The FBI is in charge
of the investigation.
JOHN PERREN: I'd seen
my share of deceased,
but to see that much
in that certain
amount of time in that area,
I don't care how adjusted
you are to it, you feel it.
NARRATOR: The FBI faces
intense pressure to figure out
who committed this
terrible crime and how.
Because the crime scene is
also an aviation crash site,
experts from the
National Transportation Safety
Board join the investigation.
TOM HAUETER:
The FBI's experts on crimes
and criminal investigations
and that covers many areas.
They aren't
necessarily airplane experts,
and that's where
the NTSB can come in.
NARRATOR:
Tom Haueter was one of the first
NTSB investigators at the scene.
TOM HAUETER: This airplane was
hitting a very heavy structure,
so most of the aircraft was
reduced down to small pieces.
NARRATOR: Investigators
need to find the black boxes
and any other evidence that
could identify the hijackers.
It won't be easy.
The massive impact has left
a confusing mixture of debris.
TOM HAUETER: We provided five,
six people at different times
who assisted on going
through the wreckage,
going through the
building trying to find,
identify
aircraft parts for them.
JOHN PERREN: Anything
that we took out of the site
we had them look at it,
and they would identify it to us
as either being an
aircraft or a file cabinet.
It was very apparent
that we needed that type
of expertise on the scene.
NARRATOR: Hundreds of
searchers and investigators
work around the clock.
Deep inside the
badly damaged structure,
the risk of building
collapse is a constant danger.
JOHN PERREN: The engineers,
they had a technique to see
if the building
was starting to shift
and if they noticed shifting
or heard creaking
everybody would rush out.
[heavy debris falling]
ENGINEER:
Everybody out!
JOHN PERREN: That happened
at least a half a dozen times.
NARRATOR: The
number of people killed
inside this legendary
building reaches 125.
It would have been even higher,
but some offices on the west
side of the Pentagon were empty.
JEFF PRICE: The area
where American Airlines 77 hit
had been undergoing some
reconstruction, some remodeling.
So there were not
as many people at work
as there normally would be.
It probably saved
hundreds of lives.
NARRATOR:
As the nation tries to cope
with the enormity
of the devastation,
FBI agents are already
gaining valuable information
about how the flights were
turned into weapons of terror.
Some passengers
managed to make phone calls
from the air
describing their ordeal.
HIJACKER: Everyone to
the back of the plane! Now!
NARRATOR: One of those
calls was from Barbara Olson.
JEFF PRICE: Barbara Olson
called her husband, Ted Olson,
the U.S. Solicitor
General at the time,
tells him that the
plane has been hijacked,
that the hijackers
have box cutters and knives
and they've moved people
to the back of the plane.
NARRATOR: She
reveals that the hijackers
then forced the
pilots to leave the cockpit.
BARBARA OLSON:
You need to do something.
JEFF PRICE: Barbara
Olson was incredibly brave.
If she's caught she
calls attention to herself,
which may draw
immediate violence to her.
BARBARA OLSON: We'll make it out
of here. It's fine. I love you.
JEFF PRICE:
Not much more information
is shared at that point
before the phone is cut off.
INVESTIGATOR:
The pilots probably thought
that by cooperating
everyone would get home safe.
TOM HAUETER: Prior to
the 9/11 terrorist attacks,
all flight crews were told to
cooperate with the hijackers,
do what they want
and bide for time.
FIRST OFFICER CHARLEBOIS:
Please stay calm.
Everybody move to the back.
JEFF PRICE: Traditionally it had
been the aircraft was hijacked.
The plane landed. The
FBI would come on scene.
There'd be hours of negotiation
and eventually the
hijacking somehow ends.
It really just
wasn't in the imagination
that they were gonna
crash these into buildings.
NARRATOR:
It's now clear how the hijackers
took control of Flight 77.
But who were they?
And how were they able to
carry out their lethal attack?
At Dulles Airport,
the search for evidence
takes a major step forward.
Airport security
flags a suspicious car
abandoned in one
of the parking lots.
What investigators find
in the car is astounding.
JOHN PERREN: That was a treasure
trove of investigative leads.
NARRATOR: The items
include a box cutter,
diagrams of cockpit instruments
and documents bearing
Middle Eastern names.
They scan flight
77's passenger manifest,
checking to see if any of the
suspicious names are listed.
JEFF PRICE: It didn't
take too long to figure out
who the hijackers were.
NARRATOR: The trail
leads to five attackers.
Three were in First Class.
Two more were seated in Economy.
The Pentagon attackers are
quickly linked to 14 suspects
on the three
other hijacked planes.
JEFF PRICE: They found
some commonalities right away.
One, that 15 of the hijackers
were from Saudi Arabia.
And the other
notable is that most of them
had been in the United
States for quite some time.
NARRATOR: Identifying
the hijackers is key.
But important questions remain.
How did terrorists
get weapons past security
at a modern airport?
And how were they able to fly
a sophisticated
commercial airliner
straight into the Pentagon?
The FBI needs to
uncover all it can
about the Pentagon attackers,
including their movements in
the days and weeks before 9/11.
They scour government records,
credit card transactions,
travel itineraries and more.
JOHN PERREN: All
those pieces of paper
and all those documentation,
they were generating leads
because you probably had
the largest investigation
in American history going on.
NARRATOR:
At the Pentagon,
the exhaustive search
effort is paying off.
Agents recover the
plane's two black boxes --
the flight data recorder
and the cockpit voice recorder.
TOM HAUETER: When
the boxes were found,
the FBI investigators brought
them to the NTSB laboratory.
AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER:
American 77 radio check.
NARRATOR:
The recorders could help
fill in key gaps in the timeline
if their data can be
successfully downloaded.
AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER:
Center calling American 7-7.
American 7-7.
NARRATOR: The most
critical question --
what was
happening in the cockpit
when controllers lost
contact with the doomed plane?
While they wait for
word on the recorders,
investigators scrutinize
Pentagon security video.
They soon discover
that the deadly impact
was caught on tape --
a direct, high-speed hit on the
southwest wall of the Pentagon.
It's now clear why the
plane virtually disappeared.
JEFF PRICE: When
you have an airplane hitting
pretty much solid brick,
it just vaporizes.
There's not a lot left.
NARRATOR:
But the question remains:
How did the hijackers evade
security and board the plane?
Potentially dangerous passengers
are supposed to be identified
before they even
get to the airport.
The airlines rely on a
computerized screening system
known as CAPPS.
JEFF PRICE: One of the
things that CAPPS does is --
the Computer-Assisted Passenger
Pre-Screening System --
is it flags you if you have
certain suspicious indicators.
NARRATOR:
Investigators wonder:
Did that pre-screening
system somehow fail?
When they study the
records for flight 77,
they make a startling discovery.
CAPPS did not fail.
It actually flagged
three of the five hijackers.
A special code was printed
on their boarding passes
selecting them for
extra security screening.
Yet they still got through.
How could this happen?
BRIAN JENKINS:
There's no question that
security was inadequate.
NARRATOR: Brian Jenkins is
an aviation security expert.
BRIAN JENKINS: The
CAPPS selectee process
really didn't
mean that much anymore
and that was critical
on the morning of 9/11.
NARRATOR:
Investigators learn that
the extra security
screening is minimal.
Passengers flagged by
CAPPS are not searched.
The airline merely keeps their
checked bags off the plane
until after they've boarded.
JEFF PRICE: Once they were
certain you boarded the flight,
your bags were
loaded onto the plane.
BRIAN JENKINS: Presumption
was that the major threat
was from a bomb in
the hold of the aircraft
and a presumption that the
terrorist would not be suicidal.
NARRATOR: After years
without a major incident,
it seems the airlines
may have become complacent.
JEFF PRICE: The focus
on customer service,
passenger efficiency,
moving people
through the airport
was the top
priority, not security.
NARRATOR: But Washington Dulles,
like all major airports,
has more than one
layer of security.
How did armed hijackers
get past metal detectors?
Did they have some elaborate
scheme to conceal their weapons?
Investigators hope
airport security video
from the morning
of September the 11th
can shed light on the mystery.
TOM HAUETER: There was a
level of security in play,
certainly looking
for bombs on the person,
bombs in the
luggage, you know, guns,
you know, the
typical type of thing.
NARRATOR:
The first two hijackers
reached the security checkpoint
at around 7:20 am.
One calmly proceeds
through the metal detector
without raising an alarm.
But the second
suspect does set it off.
He's carrying
something made of metal.
INVESTIGATOR: The metal
detector caught the weapon.
NARRATOR: Then the
security process breaks down.
An officer scans the suspect
with a handheld detector.
The wand turns up nothing.
BRIAN JENKINS: They've
done this thousands of times.
Okay the alarm went off.
Okay now I'm
supposed to wand the guy.
Okay, good enough.
NARRATOR: Instead of
searching the suspect further,
security lets him through.
BRIAN JENKINS: Well they've got
a line of passengers back there.
Move on.
JEFF PRICE: At the time
the bar was set very low
for individuals coming
through the checkpoint
and resolution of alarms.
NARRATOR: None of the hijackers
gets a rigorous inspection,
even though one of
them is clearly carrying
what looks like
a tool or a knife.
JEFF PRICE: There was something
clipped to his back pocket,
which in the video
shows that the screener
never really resolved what
that was and that's a failure.
But the FAA
policy at the time was
knives of no greater than
four inches in blade length.
So even if they had found
box cutters and knives on them,
those items were allowed onboard
at the time under FAA policy.
NARRATOR: Investigators come
to a shattering conclusion.
The 9/11 attackers
didn't have an elaborate plan
to foil airport security
because they didn't need one.
JEFF PRICE:
The scary part of their hijack
is that it is so simple.
It's like having a
security alarm system
for your entire house
and forgetting to
secure the dog door
and "Oh, that's
how they came in."
BRIAN JENKINS: Their
strategy was audacious
but not complicated,
and it worked.
The five of them
got through security
and got onboard an airplane.
NARRATOR:
But getting onboard with
weapons was only the first step.
HIJACKER: Everyone to
the back of the plane! Now!
NARRATOR: The big
mystery to solve now
is how the hijackers
were able to carry out
the rest of their
murderous mission.
FBI agents dig
through financial documents
connected to the
Pentagon attackers.
They uncover a crucial lead --
a check made out to a
flight school in Arizona.
Records show that
Saudi national Hani Hanjour
spent several years
trying to become a
commercial airline pilot.
JEFF PRICE: He'd applied to
schools in Saudi Arabia to fly
and was rejected,
eventually ended up doing
flight training in Arizona
and was kind of
unusual in his flight training
because he flunked a lot
of checks along the way.
NARRATOR: Two
months before the attacks,
Hanjour rented
several private planes,
including one he flew to a small
airport near Washington, D.C.
JEFF PRICE: For
the pilot perspective,
it's one thing to
fly a flight simulator.
It's a completely different
thing to be up in the air
to see what the real
world looks like from the air.
NARRATOR: Airport flight records
reveal more chilling details
about Hanjour's
preparations for 9/11.
Just weeks before the attacks,
he and one of
his co-conspirators
booked a commercial flight out
of Washington's Dulles airport.
They bought seats in first
class aboard a Boeing 757.
TOM HAUETER: I think they
used the surveillance flights
to try to understand how they
could take over the aircraft
and get into the cockpit.
JEFF PRICE: To
learn things like wow,
about thirty
minutes after takeoff
once we were at cruise,
they opened the door to
give the pilots coffee.
So all of that is
valuable intelligence
and insight for the hijackers.
FIRST OFFICER CHARLEBOIS:
Turn right American 77.
NARRATOR: But flying a
sophisticated airliner
is very different from
piloting a small private plane.
How did the
hijackers steer a 757
towards a target
35,000 feet below?
Investigators hope
the plane's flight data
will provide some answers.
TOM HAUETER:
Unfortunately, the cockpit voice
recorder was too damaged
and no information
could be recovered from it.
But we were able to read
out the flight data recorder.
NARRATOR:
They study the flight data
to reproduce the exact movements
of the plane
throughout the flight.
NTSB INVESTIGATOR:
Power is increasing.
Vertical speed is good.
NARRATOR: Takeoff and
climb look completely normal.
TOM HAUETER: And obviously you
look at the data. You speculate.
When did the hijackers
take over the airplane?
When did the terrorists, you
know, start doing what they did?
That we don't know
with any precision.
Clearly it's some time before
the airplane turned back.
NTSB INVESTIGATOR:
Banking left nice and smooth.
It must be the autopilot.
NARRATOR: The data
reveals how the hijackers
managed to turn the 757 around.
HIJACKER: This I think
should take us back to D.C.
NARRATOR: They relied
on the plane's automation.
TOM HAUETER:
You don't need to be a pilot
at all when the autopilot's on.
He can put a
heading into the autopilot.
He can put
airspeeds into the autopilot.
Everything can be done
for him very smoothly.
And he doesn't have to
do a lot of control inputs.
FIRST OFFICER CHARLEBOIS:
Why are we turning?
HIJACKER: Keep quiet!
NARRATOR: But as the
plane nears the Pentagon,
the autopilot disengages and
the flying begins to change.
NTSB INVESTIGATOR: Left. Right.
This guy is really struggling.
HIJACKER: Whoa!
TOM HAUETER: The altitude is,
is jumpy. It moves up and down.
It's a little bit erratic.
It's quite clear
looking at the data
this is somebody who has never
handled a big airplane before.
HIJACKER: We should stay on
autopilot until we're closer.
NARRATOR: The hijacker quickly
re-engages the autopilot
to help take the 757
to a lower altitude.
HIJACKER: Descending now.
TOM HAUETER: He's probably never
flown an airplane this high.
Having to come
down from, you know,
30,000 feet down to ground level
that's a whole
different maneuver
than he's used to
in a small airplane.
NARRATOR: But the
autopilot isn't preprogrammed
to fly to the precise
location of the Pentagon.
HIJACKER: It's just
ahead. Autopilot off.
NARRATOR:
Eight minutes from impact,
the hijacker must once
again fly the aircraft by hand.
[screaming]
HIJACKER: Keep it steady.
NARRATOR: Only four
miles from the Pentagon
they're still flying
higher than 6,000 feet.
HIJACKER: We're way too high!
We're never gonna hit it!
NARRATOR: To shed altitude,
they make a sharp
diving turn to the right.
TOM HAUETER: He misjudged
his speed and altitude
and had to do a three-hundred
and sixty degree turn.
JEFF PRICE: The aircraft
can only come out of the sky
so fast without breaking up.
So he makes a circle
to get the aircraft lower
and get it into
position to hit the Pentagon.
[screaming]
TOM HAUETER: He had a
lot of luck going for him.
He had a very clear day.
So getting back, he
probably could see the Pentagon
from quite a distance out.
NARRATOR: In the final seconds,
they accelerate to top speed,
almost to the point of breakup.
Automation: Terrain. Terrain.
TOM HAUETER: The airplane's
overspeed warnings
are probably going
off, he doesn't care.
[screaming]
[explosion]
TOM HAUETER: The terrorist
probably could not have
successfully
landed that airplane.
Crashing is a lot
easier than landing it,
and they proved that.
NARRATOR:
Investigators now understand
the deadly flight
path of American 77.
The flight data solves
one more mystery as well --
why controllers
lost radar contact
with the 757 when
the crisis began.
AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER:
Center calling American 7-7.
American 7-7.
NTSB INVESTIGATOR:
It looks like somebody
deliberately switched
off the transponder here.
NARRATOR:
The hijackers turned off the
signal used to track the plane.
TOM HAUETER:
The transponder controls
are on the central
console between the two pilots.
So you can turn
it off right there.
It's very easy to do.
AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER:
American 77, radio check.
How do you read?
NARRATOR:
With the transponder off --
AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER:
Supervisor.
NARRATOR: -- controllers could
no longer see the flight
on their secondary radar.
AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER:
American 77.
TOM HAUETER: So
turning off the transponder
if you're a criminal makes sense
because you don't
want people to track you.
NARRATOR:
At the moment controllers
switched to primary radar
to search for the missing plane,
flight 77 just
happened to be passing through
an area of poor
primary coverage.
JEFF PRICE: For American
Airlines 77 to drop off radar
in an area of
limited radar coverage --
one, that's incredibly
lucky for the hijackers
but also not totally unexpected
because not every square
mile in the United States
is covered by radar.
NARRATOR: Luck may have helped
the hijackers hit their target,
but the FBI now has
no doubt the attack
was planned down
to the last detail.
INVESTIGATOR: They
chose their seats carefully.
BRIAN JENKINS: They wanted
to be closer to the cockpit
so they could observe when
would be the appropriate moment
to make their
rush at the cockpit.
NARRATOR: The crew has no
reason to suspect a thing.
The attack is underway
before passengers
have any hint of danger.
The fate of flight 77
is now sealed.
JEFF PRICE:
Hani Hanjour, he's the pilot.
In all likelihood he's not
going to get involved at all
in the initial
stages of the hijacking.
FLIGHT ATTENDANT:
Please don't hurt me.
JEFF PRICE: Because
if he's hurt or killed
then the mission's
unsuccessful at that point.
HIJACKER: Open the door
or we'll cut your throat.
FLIGHT ATTENDANT:
[crying] Okay. Okay.
JEFF PRICE:
The flight attendants carry
keys to the cockpit door.
So an option is to
overtake a flight attendant,
take their key and
then just unlock the door.
*
HIJACKER: Out of
the cockpit! Now!
NARRATOR: The
pilots have no warning
and no time to
alert authorities.
TOM HAUETER: There
is a hijacking short code
that the pilots can
put into the transponder,
but apparently
that didn't happen.
CAPTAIN BURLINGAME: Stay calm.
Stay calm. Don't hurt anybody.
JEFF PRICE: That's
the flight attendant
they've been flying
with probably for years.
One of your best friends is
on the other side of that door
with a knife to their throat
that's a different scenario
than somebody
you don't even know.
HIJACKER: Everyone to
the back of the plane. Now!
NARRATOR: The
hijackers begin their descent.
AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER: American
77 radio check. How do you read?
BARBARA OLSON: I love
you. I'll see you soon.
BRIAN JENKINS: It is unlikely
that crew or passengers
would have
thought that the plane
is going to be
turned into a missile.
HIJACKER: Whoa.
NARRATOR: The erratic
flying almost certainly
gets the
attention of the captain.
But there's nothing he can do.
CAPTAIN BURLINGAME: You have
to let me back in the cockpit.
HIJACKER: Stay where
you are now or die!
AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER: I've
got a target tracking eastbound
at a high rate of speed.
NARRATOR: By the time
controllers spot flight 77's
primary radar return,
the plane is only
five minutes from D.C.
TOM HAUETER: There was nothing
the controllers could have done.
NARRATOR: The 112 ton
jet screams lower and lower.
Steel light
poles snap like twigs.
Automation:
Terrain. Terrain. Pull up.
HIJACKER: Allahu Akbar!
JEFF PRICE: 9/11
shook us to our core.
Anybody that was of
age during that time
it's like the
Kennedy assassination.
Where were you on 9/11?
And everybody has their story.
It has marked our generation.
JOHN PERREN: It was a
win for the bad guys.
And we can't let
that happen again.
Narartor: The 9/11 attacks bring
immediate and profound change
to commercial aviation both in
the U.S. and around the world.
TOM HAUETER: The
situation for airport security,
airplane security
was a lot different
prior to 9/11 than it is today.
NARRATOR: Just two
months after the attacks,
the U.S. government creates
the Transportation
Security Administration or TSA.
BRIAN JENKINS:
The federal government
took direct responsibility
for aviation security,
and the screeners are
now federal employees.
The training
certainly has improved.
NARRATOR: The TSA
brings in strict new rules
on what travelers
can carry on planes.
Airports start
screening passengers
with full body
scanning machines.
There are also major
changes to onboard security.
TOM HAUETER: The cockpit doors.
I mean it's not just the door.
The whole
bulkhead on the aircraft
has been made
darn near impregnable.
It's bullet proof. You
can't get through the locks.
NARRATOR: But perhaps the most
important change to security
has come not from new
rules or better technology,
but from the
permanently altered attitudes
of airline
passengers everywhere.
BRIAN JENKINS: Today the
assumption by passengers
if they feel
threatened with a hijacking
is not one of compliance.
RICHARD NUMMI:
If you saw somebody
in the back of the plane
get up and say, you
know, start screaming things,
running to the
front of the plane,
you have a choice of
sitting in your seat
and minding your own business,
or you have the option of
standing up, saying, uh-uh.
I guarantee you
you're gonna stand up.
The paradigm has changed.
BRIAN JENKINS: Until we
invent the silver bullet
or the x-ray for a man's soul,
there are going to be
performance problems.
But it is much
better than it was.
was a sense of something
coming over the
tops of our cars.
NARRATOR: A commercial jet
screams low over the DC area.
FATHER MCGRAW:
And the fireballs just
billowed out of the Pentagon.
GEN. SHELTON: We
have watched the tragedy
of an outrageous act
of barbaric terrorism.
JOHN PERREN: I want
passenger manifests,
surveillance video, the works.
NARRATOR: The attack
on the Pentagon mobilizes
hundreds of FBI agents
and NTSB investigators.
MALE: Left.
JOHN PERREN: You had
the largest investigation
in American history going on.
NARRATOR: They uncover
a mountain of evidence.
AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER:
What are you guys doing?
NARRATOR: Shocking details
about the terrorist hijacking
of American Airlines flight 77.
HIJACKER: Stay
where you are now or die!
BRIAN JENKINS: Their
strategy was audacious
but not complicated.
And it worked.
[* Intro Theme ]
MAN: Mayday, mayday.
[* Intro Theme ]
[* Intro Theme ]
*
NARRATOR:
It's nearly 8 am at Dulles
Airport near Washington, D.C.
American Airlines flight 77 will
soon be heading to Los Angeles.
Thirty-nine-year-old David
Charlebois is the First Officer.
FIRST OFFICER CHARLEBOIS:
Any plans for the big day?
CAPTAIN BURLINGAME:
Gonna take in the ballgame
at Angels Stadium.
FIRST OFFICER CHARLEBOIS:
Oh yeah? That'll be great.
NARRATOR: The Captain, Charles
Burlingame, turns 52 tomorrow.
JEFF PRICE: Captain Burlingame
was a former Navy pilot.
He was a graduate of
the Fighter Weapons School,
otherwise and more
commonly known as Top Gun.
A very
experienced airline pilot,
a lot of years in
service, very professional.
FLIGHT ATTENDANT:
Can I help you with that?
NARRATOR: The Boeing 757 is less
than half full this morning.
There are only 58
passengers on board.
BARBARA OLSON: No. I'm
booked all day that day.
What about next week?
NARRATOR: Barbara
Olson is on her way to LA
to appear on a TV talk show.
BARBARA OLSON: Bye.
JEFF PRICE:
Barbara Olson was a high profile
lawyer in Washington, D.C.
Very active in the
political circles out there.
She was also the wife of
the U.S. Solicitor
General at the time, Ted Olson.
AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER:
Departure frequency
will be 125.05.
Runway 3-0. Cleared for takeoff.
FIRST OFFICER CHARLEBOIS:
Cleared for takeoff off
3-0, American 77.
CAPTAIN BURLINGAME:
On the roll.
NARRATOR:
At 8:20 am, American Airlines
flight 77 gets underway.
FIRST OFFICER CHARLEBOIS:
V-1. Rotate.
JEFF PRICE: It was
just a beautiful day.
The skies were clear throughout
most of the country in fact
and it was just a really,
really gorgeous day for flying.
NARRATOR:
It takes roughly five hours
to make the two thousand,
three hundred mile trip
from Washington to Los Angeles.
At 8:46, flight 77
reaches cruising altitude,
thirty-five thousand feet.
FIRST OFFICER CHARLEBOIS:
Looks like we're gonna have
clear skies all the way.
CAPTAIN BURLINGAME:
That's what we like to hear.
AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER:
American 77, turn
right ten degrees.
Vectors for traffic.
NARRATOR:
On the ground, air traffic
controllers guide the 757.
AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER:
Turn right American 77.
STEVE BAIRD: I've
always equated it
to like a three-dimensional
chess game, if you will.
NARRATOR: Steve Baird was
an air traffic controller
for more than 20 years.
STEVE BAIRD:
We work a lot of airplanes,
twelve to seventeen
airplanes at a time
and they're
moving along pretty fast
and so things are
happening pretty quickly.
AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER:
American Airlines 77,
clear direct Falmouth.
FIRST OFFICER CHARLEBOIS:
Clear direct Falmouth,
American 77. Thanks.
NARRATOR: Falmouth, Kentucky,
is the next waypoint
on flight 77's route
west to Los Angeles.
FIRST OFFICER CHARLEBOIS:
All right. Time for a
bit more coffee.
JEFF PRICE: There's not a lot of
passengers onboard for the crew.
They don't have as many
people to take care of.
There's not as much
food service to worry about.
BARBARA OLSON:
I'll have some water please.
JEFF PRICE: So it's
typically a more relaxed flight
when the plane's not full.
*
NARRATOR: Thirty-four
minutes into the flight,
controllers
notice something odd.
AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER:
What are you guys doing?
NARRATOR: Flight 77
is veering off course.
AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER:
American 77, Center.
STEVE BAIRD: At the point
where the controller noticed
the aircraft take a turn that
he did not instruct him to do,
that's when he
would become concerned.
AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER:
American 7-7, radio check.
NARRATOR: Two minutes later,
their concern turns to alarm.
AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER:
American 7-7, radio check.
NARRATOR: Flight 77 has
vanished from their radar.
AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER:
Center calling American 7-7.
American 7-7.
STEVE BAIRD: Well
that's extremely rare
that a plane would
ever go missing, right?
They just don't disappear.
NARRATOR: Controllers
usually track flights
using a signal
from a transponder
onboard the aircraft.
The transponder gives
them the flight number,
the speed and altitude.
The controller
switches his screen
to search for a more
basic signal, primary radar.
AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER:
Supervisor.
NARRATOR: But there's
still no sign of the plane.
AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER:
American 77, radio check.
How do you read?
NARRATOR: Their concern grows
with each second of silence.
STEVE BAIRD: If I can't
see him on the secondary
or the primary radar
and I can't speak with him,
I would assume that he has gone
down somewhere and crashed.
[phone rings]
AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER: Center.
NARRATOR:
Then, just after 9 am,
a call comes in
from American Airlines
that's almost impossible
for controllers to digest.
It is Tuesday,
September the 11th, 2001.
Thousands of
people are feared dead.
Lower Manhattan is in chaos.
JEFF PRICE: Almost everybody
that saw what happened,
saw it on TV, saw it live,
said this is not an accident.
There's no way two planes,
two commercial aircraft
accidentally hit both towers
of the World Trade Center.
TOM HAUETER: No one
knew what was going on
except for the
country was under attack
and so I think it
was very difficult.
Where are these airplanes?
Are there any other
airplanes out there
that have gone missing?
NARRATOR:
The fate of the missing
757 is now much more worrying.
What if it hasn't crashed
somewhere in the Midwest?
AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER:
We need to find that plane.
JEFF PRICE:
With two aircraft already in
the World Trade Center towers,
another aircraft missing,
air traffic controllers were
most likely just going nuts
trying to figure
out what's happening.
AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER:
Supervisor.
I've got a target
tracking eastbound
at a high rate of speed.
NARRATOR: At 9:32,
more than half an hour
after losing
contact with the plane,
controllers spot a
mysterious radar return.
TOM HAUETER: Primary radar,
that doesn't give you altitude
or any real information.
NARRATOR: If it is flight 77,
it means the plane has turned
around back towards Washington.
AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER:
We gotta warn D.C.
NARRATOR: America's capital
could be the next target.
STEVE BAIRD: At this point,
since he was aware of
the attacks on the country,
I'm sure he already thought
that was one of
the hijacked aircraft.
AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER:
Gopher 0-6,
do you have a
commercial aircraft in sight?
NARRATOR:
Controllers recruit another
pilot to try to learn more.
They radio the only other plane
in the immediate air space,
a C-130 cargo plane from
nearby Andrews Air Force Base.
C-130 Pilot: It looks
like an American Airlines 757.
AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER:
It's gotta be our plane.
Center calling
American 7-7. American 7-7.
NARRATOR: But the 757 is
ignoring all radio calls.
And it's heading
straight for Washington.
It's 9:35 am, and traffic into
Washington is getting congested.
FATHER MCGRAW: I was
on my way from my parish
to the Arlington
National Cemetery
for a graveside service.
NARRATOR: Father Stephen
McGraw is stuck on a freeway
right beside the Pentagon.
FATHER MCGRAW: I took
that exit actually because
I knew that the Pentagon was
near Arlington National Cemetery
and I couldn't remember how
to get to Arlington National
so I thought it can't be that
far off. I'll take this exit.
But in front of the building
there ended up
being standstill traffic.
And then without
warning there was a rush,
feeling the
vibrations or the sound
and just in other words
there was an
overwhelming sense of something
coming over the
tops of our cars.
The plane clipped a light pole
as it went over the highway
and I turned
instinctively to my right
and to see just in
time the plane coming in
and just crashing
into the building
right in front of my eyes.
[explosion]
[helicopter whirring]
There were these two
huge billows of fire
that came out of the two
top windows of the Pentagon
and the fireballs just
kind of billowed out.
NARRATOR: The symbol of U.S.
military might is now in flames.
Smoke pours from a
gaping 90-foot wide hole
in the Pentagon's west wall.
One entire section of
the building has collapsed.
FATHER MCGRAW: I had not
heard anything about
the World Trade
Center crashes.
I didn't have my radio
on, hadn't heard anything
and so I just assumed
that this was an accident.
[explosion]
NARRATOR:
There's no chance that
any of the 64 people aboard the
plane have survived the impact.
And there are sure to be many
more dead among Pentagon staff.
JEFF PRICE:
On average any given day,
23,000 some odd
people work in the building.
It's five rings, five floors and
five levels of military space.
NARRATOR: With news of
a third airliner attack,
the FAA issues an
unprecedented order.
AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER:
Attention all pilots.
We have a national emergency.
We need to get
everyone on the ground.
NARRATOR:
Every commercial flight
in the country must land.
AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER: Vector
10 degrees right. Begin descent.
TOM HAUETER: This is the
first time in U.S. history
they grounded the whole fleet.
AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER:
Be advised we are
clearing the airspace.
JEFF PRICE: Controllers are
trying to figure out a situation
they've never prepared for
and trying to figure
out how to get all the
airplanes on the ground
and accounted for
before more loss of life.
AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER:
Attention all pilots.
NARRATOR:
Attorney Richard Nummi was on
one of those diverted flights.
RICHARD NUMMI:
The captain comes over the
intercom system and said,
we've just been notified
that all air traffic
in the United States
has been required to land.
It was a little bit startling.
It was a little bit
looking out the window going:
What's going on?
NARRATOR: Nummi's flight
lands in Wichita, Kansas.
He'll soon learn how
lucky he is to be alive.
RICHARD NUMMI: I was scheduled
to speak at a conference.
They booked me a ticket on
American Airlines flight 77
out of Dulles to the west coast.
NARRATOR: At the last moment,
he switched his ticket
to a more convenient flight.
RICHARD NUMMI:
I had left the original flight
itinerary on the refrigerator,
drove to the
airport, changed the ticket,
got on the airplane --
was very, very concerned
that my wife was thinking
that I was still on that plane.
It was one of those
things where, you know,
God was smiling on me that day.
NARRATOR:
At the Pentagon, Father McGraw
rushes towards the devastation.
He wants to help
anyone he can.
FATHER MCGRAW: I remember coming
to one man in particular.
He said, what is your name?
FATHER MCGRAW: I'm Father
McGraw. I'll stay with you.
FATHER MCGRAW (voiceover):
And he said, I'm Catholic.
And so I actually gave him in
those moments, the sacraments,
and anointed him on his
forehead with the blessed oil,
the oil of the sick.
And when I did that I
remember saying to him...
FATHER MCGRAW:
Jesus is with you.
...I tell you Jesus
is with you now.
OFFICER 1: You
can't go back in there!
OFFICER 2: You
gotta maintain 500 yards.
NARRATOR:
Thousands of military staff
evacuate the burning Pentagon.
The United
States is under siege.
Just across the Potomac River,
the hunt for those responsible
is already underway.
JOHN PERREN: I want
passenger manifests,
witnesses,
surveillance video, the works.
JOHN PERREN:
We were setting up
and actually getting
our crew ready
to respond to
New York at the time
and then obviously we
were hit then at the Pentagon
so we changed our plans.
NARRATOR: FBI supervisor
John Perren sets up
the agency's
Washington command post.
JOHN PERREN:
You realize that we're
under attack is what we are.
Then you realize that this is,
this is something
that's never happened before.
This is war.
NARRATOR: But before anyone
can grasp the full magnitude
of what has happened,
another threat appears.
The FAA has reports
of a fourth hijacking.
JOHN PERREN: We were told
that there was another aircraft
heading towards
Washington, D.C.,
and the last
timeline we were given
was it was about
eight minutes out.
So what we did was
we sent snipers up on
the roof with binoculars
to look out for this aircraft.
NARRATOR:
Across the US, thousands
of flights are now grounded.
RICHARD NUMMI:
There's just airliner
after airliner after airliner
parked on the tarmac.
NARRATOR:
Then, at 10:15 am,
a blackened crater
in rural Pennsylvania
reveals what's left of
the fourth hijacked plane.
JEFF PRICE: What was
unique about that flight
is the passengers
tried to retake the flight.
They were
unsuccessful to the extent
that the plane still crashed.
But they were successful
that it did not crash
into whatever its
intended target was gonna be.
NARRATOR: Four passenger
jets have been hijacked
and turned into flying bombs.
Nearly three thousand
people have been killed.
GEN. SHELTON: We
have watched the tragedy
of an outrageous act
of barbaric terrorism
carried out by fanatics
against both
civilians and military people.
JOHN PERREN: You never in
your wildest dreams would think
that they would take
aircrafts full of people
and turn it into
literally a missile.
RICHARD NUMMI: Americans aren't
used to being sucker punched.
We're pretty much convinced
that there's a Pacific Ocean
and there's an Atlantic Ocean
and this doesn't happen here.
And I think on
that day the reality
that this is a
new world happened.
NARRATOR: The Pentagon is
now a federal crime scene.
The FBI is in charge
of the investigation.
JOHN PERREN: I'd seen
my share of deceased,
but to see that much
in that certain
amount of time in that area,
I don't care how adjusted
you are to it, you feel it.
NARRATOR: The FBI faces
intense pressure to figure out
who committed this
terrible crime and how.
Because the crime scene is
also an aviation crash site,
experts from the
National Transportation Safety
Board join the investigation.
TOM HAUETER:
The FBI's experts on crimes
and criminal investigations
and that covers many areas.
They aren't
necessarily airplane experts,
and that's where
the NTSB can come in.
NARRATOR:
Tom Haueter was one of the first
NTSB investigators at the scene.
TOM HAUETER: This airplane was
hitting a very heavy structure,
so most of the aircraft was
reduced down to small pieces.
NARRATOR: Investigators
need to find the black boxes
and any other evidence that
could identify the hijackers.
It won't be easy.
The massive impact has left
a confusing mixture of debris.
TOM HAUETER: We provided five,
six people at different times
who assisted on going
through the wreckage,
going through the
building trying to find,
identify
aircraft parts for them.
JOHN PERREN: Anything
that we took out of the site
we had them look at it,
and they would identify it to us
as either being an
aircraft or a file cabinet.
It was very apparent
that we needed that type
of expertise on the scene.
NARRATOR: Hundreds of
searchers and investigators
work around the clock.
Deep inside the
badly damaged structure,
the risk of building
collapse is a constant danger.
JOHN PERREN: The engineers,
they had a technique to see
if the building
was starting to shift
and if they noticed shifting
or heard creaking
everybody would rush out.
[heavy debris falling]
ENGINEER:
Everybody out!
JOHN PERREN: That happened
at least a half a dozen times.
NARRATOR: The
number of people killed
inside this legendary
building reaches 125.
It would have been even higher,
but some offices on the west
side of the Pentagon were empty.
JEFF PRICE: The area
where American Airlines 77 hit
had been undergoing some
reconstruction, some remodeling.
So there were not
as many people at work
as there normally would be.
It probably saved
hundreds of lives.
NARRATOR:
As the nation tries to cope
with the enormity
of the devastation,
FBI agents are already
gaining valuable information
about how the flights were
turned into weapons of terror.
Some passengers
managed to make phone calls
from the air
describing their ordeal.
HIJACKER: Everyone to
the back of the plane! Now!
NARRATOR: One of those
calls was from Barbara Olson.
JEFF PRICE: Barbara Olson
called her husband, Ted Olson,
the U.S. Solicitor
General at the time,
tells him that the
plane has been hijacked,
that the hijackers
have box cutters and knives
and they've moved people
to the back of the plane.
NARRATOR: She
reveals that the hijackers
then forced the
pilots to leave the cockpit.
BARBARA OLSON:
You need to do something.
JEFF PRICE: Barbara
Olson was incredibly brave.
If she's caught she
calls attention to herself,
which may draw
immediate violence to her.
BARBARA OLSON: We'll make it out
of here. It's fine. I love you.
JEFF PRICE:
Not much more information
is shared at that point
before the phone is cut off.
INVESTIGATOR:
The pilots probably thought
that by cooperating
everyone would get home safe.
TOM HAUETER: Prior to
the 9/11 terrorist attacks,
all flight crews were told to
cooperate with the hijackers,
do what they want
and bide for time.
FIRST OFFICER CHARLEBOIS:
Please stay calm.
Everybody move to the back.
JEFF PRICE: Traditionally it had
been the aircraft was hijacked.
The plane landed. The
FBI would come on scene.
There'd be hours of negotiation
and eventually the
hijacking somehow ends.
It really just
wasn't in the imagination
that they were gonna
crash these into buildings.
NARRATOR:
It's now clear how the hijackers
took control of Flight 77.
But who were they?
And how were they able to
carry out their lethal attack?
At Dulles Airport,
the search for evidence
takes a major step forward.
Airport security
flags a suspicious car
abandoned in one
of the parking lots.
What investigators find
in the car is astounding.
JOHN PERREN: That was a treasure
trove of investigative leads.
NARRATOR: The items
include a box cutter,
diagrams of cockpit instruments
and documents bearing
Middle Eastern names.
They scan flight
77's passenger manifest,
checking to see if any of the
suspicious names are listed.
JEFF PRICE: It didn't
take too long to figure out
who the hijackers were.
NARRATOR: The trail
leads to five attackers.
Three were in First Class.
Two more were seated in Economy.
The Pentagon attackers are
quickly linked to 14 suspects
on the three
other hijacked planes.
JEFF PRICE: They found
some commonalities right away.
One, that 15 of the hijackers
were from Saudi Arabia.
And the other
notable is that most of them
had been in the United
States for quite some time.
NARRATOR: Identifying
the hijackers is key.
But important questions remain.
How did terrorists
get weapons past security
at a modern airport?
And how were they able to fly
a sophisticated
commercial airliner
straight into the Pentagon?
The FBI needs to
uncover all it can
about the Pentagon attackers,
including their movements in
the days and weeks before 9/11.
They scour government records,
credit card transactions,
travel itineraries and more.
JOHN PERREN: All
those pieces of paper
and all those documentation,
they were generating leads
because you probably had
the largest investigation
in American history going on.
NARRATOR:
At the Pentagon,
the exhaustive search
effort is paying off.
Agents recover the
plane's two black boxes --
the flight data recorder
and the cockpit voice recorder.
TOM HAUETER: When
the boxes were found,
the FBI investigators brought
them to the NTSB laboratory.
AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER:
American 77 radio check.
NARRATOR:
The recorders could help
fill in key gaps in the timeline
if their data can be
successfully downloaded.
AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER:
Center calling American 7-7.
American 7-7.
NARRATOR: The most
critical question --
what was
happening in the cockpit
when controllers lost
contact with the doomed plane?
While they wait for
word on the recorders,
investigators scrutinize
Pentagon security video.
They soon discover
that the deadly impact
was caught on tape --
a direct, high-speed hit on the
southwest wall of the Pentagon.
It's now clear why the
plane virtually disappeared.
JEFF PRICE: When
you have an airplane hitting
pretty much solid brick,
it just vaporizes.
There's not a lot left.
NARRATOR:
But the question remains:
How did the hijackers evade
security and board the plane?
Potentially dangerous passengers
are supposed to be identified
before they even
get to the airport.
The airlines rely on a
computerized screening system
known as CAPPS.
JEFF PRICE: One of the
things that CAPPS does is --
the Computer-Assisted Passenger
Pre-Screening System --
is it flags you if you have
certain suspicious indicators.
NARRATOR:
Investigators wonder:
Did that pre-screening
system somehow fail?
When they study the
records for flight 77,
they make a startling discovery.
CAPPS did not fail.
It actually flagged
three of the five hijackers.
A special code was printed
on their boarding passes
selecting them for
extra security screening.
Yet they still got through.
How could this happen?
BRIAN JENKINS:
There's no question that
security was inadequate.
NARRATOR: Brian Jenkins is
an aviation security expert.
BRIAN JENKINS: The
CAPPS selectee process
really didn't
mean that much anymore
and that was critical
on the morning of 9/11.
NARRATOR:
Investigators learn that
the extra security
screening is minimal.
Passengers flagged by
CAPPS are not searched.
The airline merely keeps their
checked bags off the plane
until after they've boarded.
JEFF PRICE: Once they were
certain you boarded the flight,
your bags were
loaded onto the plane.
BRIAN JENKINS: Presumption
was that the major threat
was from a bomb in
the hold of the aircraft
and a presumption that the
terrorist would not be suicidal.
NARRATOR: After years
without a major incident,
it seems the airlines
may have become complacent.
JEFF PRICE: The focus
on customer service,
passenger efficiency,
moving people
through the airport
was the top
priority, not security.
NARRATOR: But Washington Dulles,
like all major airports,
has more than one
layer of security.
How did armed hijackers
get past metal detectors?
Did they have some elaborate
scheme to conceal their weapons?
Investigators hope
airport security video
from the morning
of September the 11th
can shed light on the mystery.
TOM HAUETER: There was a
level of security in play,
certainly looking
for bombs on the person,
bombs in the
luggage, you know, guns,
you know, the
typical type of thing.
NARRATOR:
The first two hijackers
reached the security checkpoint
at around 7:20 am.
One calmly proceeds
through the metal detector
without raising an alarm.
But the second
suspect does set it off.
He's carrying
something made of metal.
INVESTIGATOR: The metal
detector caught the weapon.
NARRATOR: Then the
security process breaks down.
An officer scans the suspect
with a handheld detector.
The wand turns up nothing.
BRIAN JENKINS: They've
done this thousands of times.
Okay the alarm went off.
Okay now I'm
supposed to wand the guy.
Okay, good enough.
NARRATOR: Instead of
searching the suspect further,
security lets him through.
BRIAN JENKINS: Well they've got
a line of passengers back there.
Move on.
JEFF PRICE: At the time
the bar was set very low
for individuals coming
through the checkpoint
and resolution of alarms.
NARRATOR: None of the hijackers
gets a rigorous inspection,
even though one of
them is clearly carrying
what looks like
a tool or a knife.
JEFF PRICE: There was something
clipped to his back pocket,
which in the video
shows that the screener
never really resolved what
that was and that's a failure.
But the FAA
policy at the time was
knives of no greater than
four inches in blade length.
So even if they had found
box cutters and knives on them,
those items were allowed onboard
at the time under FAA policy.
NARRATOR: Investigators come
to a shattering conclusion.
The 9/11 attackers
didn't have an elaborate plan
to foil airport security
because they didn't need one.
JEFF PRICE:
The scary part of their hijack
is that it is so simple.
It's like having a
security alarm system
for your entire house
and forgetting to
secure the dog door
and "Oh, that's
how they came in."
BRIAN JENKINS: Their
strategy was audacious
but not complicated,
and it worked.
The five of them
got through security
and got onboard an airplane.
NARRATOR:
But getting onboard with
weapons was only the first step.
HIJACKER: Everyone to
the back of the plane! Now!
NARRATOR: The big
mystery to solve now
is how the hijackers
were able to carry out
the rest of their
murderous mission.
FBI agents dig
through financial documents
connected to the
Pentagon attackers.
They uncover a crucial lead --
a check made out to a
flight school in Arizona.
Records show that
Saudi national Hani Hanjour
spent several years
trying to become a
commercial airline pilot.
JEFF PRICE: He'd applied to
schools in Saudi Arabia to fly
and was rejected,
eventually ended up doing
flight training in Arizona
and was kind of
unusual in his flight training
because he flunked a lot
of checks along the way.
NARRATOR: Two
months before the attacks,
Hanjour rented
several private planes,
including one he flew to a small
airport near Washington, D.C.
JEFF PRICE: For
the pilot perspective,
it's one thing to
fly a flight simulator.
It's a completely different
thing to be up in the air
to see what the real
world looks like from the air.
NARRATOR: Airport flight records
reveal more chilling details
about Hanjour's
preparations for 9/11.
Just weeks before the attacks,
he and one of
his co-conspirators
booked a commercial flight out
of Washington's Dulles airport.
They bought seats in first
class aboard a Boeing 757.
TOM HAUETER: I think they
used the surveillance flights
to try to understand how they
could take over the aircraft
and get into the cockpit.
JEFF PRICE: To
learn things like wow,
about thirty
minutes after takeoff
once we were at cruise,
they opened the door to
give the pilots coffee.
So all of that is
valuable intelligence
and insight for the hijackers.
FIRST OFFICER CHARLEBOIS:
Turn right American 77.
NARRATOR: But flying a
sophisticated airliner
is very different from
piloting a small private plane.
How did the
hijackers steer a 757
towards a target
35,000 feet below?
Investigators hope
the plane's flight data
will provide some answers.
TOM HAUETER:
Unfortunately, the cockpit voice
recorder was too damaged
and no information
could be recovered from it.
But we were able to read
out the flight data recorder.
NARRATOR:
They study the flight data
to reproduce the exact movements
of the plane
throughout the flight.
NTSB INVESTIGATOR:
Power is increasing.
Vertical speed is good.
NARRATOR: Takeoff and
climb look completely normal.
TOM HAUETER: And obviously you
look at the data. You speculate.
When did the hijackers
take over the airplane?
When did the terrorists, you
know, start doing what they did?
That we don't know
with any precision.
Clearly it's some time before
the airplane turned back.
NTSB INVESTIGATOR:
Banking left nice and smooth.
It must be the autopilot.
NARRATOR: The data
reveals how the hijackers
managed to turn the 757 around.
HIJACKER: This I think
should take us back to D.C.
NARRATOR: They relied
on the plane's automation.
TOM HAUETER:
You don't need to be a pilot
at all when the autopilot's on.
He can put a
heading into the autopilot.
He can put
airspeeds into the autopilot.
Everything can be done
for him very smoothly.
And he doesn't have to
do a lot of control inputs.
FIRST OFFICER CHARLEBOIS:
Why are we turning?
HIJACKER: Keep quiet!
NARRATOR: But as the
plane nears the Pentagon,
the autopilot disengages and
the flying begins to change.
NTSB INVESTIGATOR: Left. Right.
This guy is really struggling.
HIJACKER: Whoa!
TOM HAUETER: The altitude is,
is jumpy. It moves up and down.
It's a little bit erratic.
It's quite clear
looking at the data
this is somebody who has never
handled a big airplane before.
HIJACKER: We should stay on
autopilot until we're closer.
NARRATOR: The hijacker quickly
re-engages the autopilot
to help take the 757
to a lower altitude.
HIJACKER: Descending now.
TOM HAUETER: He's probably never
flown an airplane this high.
Having to come
down from, you know,
30,000 feet down to ground level
that's a whole
different maneuver
than he's used to
in a small airplane.
NARRATOR: But the
autopilot isn't preprogrammed
to fly to the precise
location of the Pentagon.
HIJACKER: It's just
ahead. Autopilot off.
NARRATOR:
Eight minutes from impact,
the hijacker must once
again fly the aircraft by hand.
[screaming]
HIJACKER: Keep it steady.
NARRATOR: Only four
miles from the Pentagon
they're still flying
higher than 6,000 feet.
HIJACKER: We're way too high!
We're never gonna hit it!
NARRATOR: To shed altitude,
they make a sharp
diving turn to the right.
TOM HAUETER: He misjudged
his speed and altitude
and had to do a three-hundred
and sixty degree turn.
JEFF PRICE: The aircraft
can only come out of the sky
so fast without breaking up.
So he makes a circle
to get the aircraft lower
and get it into
position to hit the Pentagon.
[screaming]
TOM HAUETER: He had a
lot of luck going for him.
He had a very clear day.
So getting back, he
probably could see the Pentagon
from quite a distance out.
NARRATOR: In the final seconds,
they accelerate to top speed,
almost to the point of breakup.
Automation: Terrain. Terrain.
TOM HAUETER: The airplane's
overspeed warnings
are probably going
off, he doesn't care.
[screaming]
[explosion]
TOM HAUETER: The terrorist
probably could not have
successfully
landed that airplane.
Crashing is a lot
easier than landing it,
and they proved that.
NARRATOR:
Investigators now understand
the deadly flight
path of American 77.
The flight data solves
one more mystery as well --
why controllers
lost radar contact
with the 757 when
the crisis began.
AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER:
Center calling American 7-7.
American 7-7.
NTSB INVESTIGATOR:
It looks like somebody
deliberately switched
off the transponder here.
NARRATOR:
The hijackers turned off the
signal used to track the plane.
TOM HAUETER:
The transponder controls
are on the central
console between the two pilots.
So you can turn
it off right there.
It's very easy to do.
AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER:
American 77, radio check.
How do you read?
NARRATOR:
With the transponder off --
AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER:
Supervisor.
NARRATOR: -- controllers could
no longer see the flight
on their secondary radar.
AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER:
American 77.
TOM HAUETER: So
turning off the transponder
if you're a criminal makes sense
because you don't
want people to track you.
NARRATOR:
At the moment controllers
switched to primary radar
to search for the missing plane,
flight 77 just
happened to be passing through
an area of poor
primary coverage.
JEFF PRICE: For American
Airlines 77 to drop off radar
in an area of
limited radar coverage --
one, that's incredibly
lucky for the hijackers
but also not totally unexpected
because not every square
mile in the United States
is covered by radar.
NARRATOR: Luck may have helped
the hijackers hit their target,
but the FBI now has
no doubt the attack
was planned down
to the last detail.
INVESTIGATOR: They
chose their seats carefully.
BRIAN JENKINS: They wanted
to be closer to the cockpit
so they could observe when
would be the appropriate moment
to make their
rush at the cockpit.
NARRATOR: The crew has no
reason to suspect a thing.
The attack is underway
before passengers
have any hint of danger.
The fate of flight 77
is now sealed.
JEFF PRICE:
Hani Hanjour, he's the pilot.
In all likelihood he's not
going to get involved at all
in the initial
stages of the hijacking.
FLIGHT ATTENDANT:
Please don't hurt me.
JEFF PRICE: Because
if he's hurt or killed
then the mission's
unsuccessful at that point.
HIJACKER: Open the door
or we'll cut your throat.
FLIGHT ATTENDANT:
[crying] Okay. Okay.
JEFF PRICE:
The flight attendants carry
keys to the cockpit door.
So an option is to
overtake a flight attendant,
take their key and
then just unlock the door.
*
HIJACKER: Out of
the cockpit! Now!
NARRATOR: The
pilots have no warning
and no time to
alert authorities.
TOM HAUETER: There
is a hijacking short code
that the pilots can
put into the transponder,
but apparently
that didn't happen.
CAPTAIN BURLINGAME: Stay calm.
Stay calm. Don't hurt anybody.
JEFF PRICE: That's
the flight attendant
they've been flying
with probably for years.
One of your best friends is
on the other side of that door
with a knife to their throat
that's a different scenario
than somebody
you don't even know.
HIJACKER: Everyone to
the back of the plane. Now!
NARRATOR: The
hijackers begin their descent.
AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER: American
77 radio check. How do you read?
BARBARA OLSON: I love
you. I'll see you soon.
BRIAN JENKINS: It is unlikely
that crew or passengers
would have
thought that the plane
is going to be
turned into a missile.
HIJACKER: Whoa.
NARRATOR: The erratic
flying almost certainly
gets the
attention of the captain.
But there's nothing he can do.
CAPTAIN BURLINGAME: You have
to let me back in the cockpit.
HIJACKER: Stay where
you are now or die!
AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER: I've
got a target tracking eastbound
at a high rate of speed.
NARRATOR: By the time
controllers spot flight 77's
primary radar return,
the plane is only
five minutes from D.C.
TOM HAUETER: There was nothing
the controllers could have done.
NARRATOR: The 112 ton
jet screams lower and lower.
Steel light
poles snap like twigs.
Automation:
Terrain. Terrain. Pull up.
HIJACKER: Allahu Akbar!
JEFF PRICE: 9/11
shook us to our core.
Anybody that was of
age during that time
it's like the
Kennedy assassination.
Where were you on 9/11?
And everybody has their story.
It has marked our generation.
JOHN PERREN: It was a
win for the bad guys.
And we can't let
that happen again.
Narartor: The 9/11 attacks bring
immediate and profound change
to commercial aviation both in
the U.S. and around the world.
TOM HAUETER: The
situation for airport security,
airplane security
was a lot different
prior to 9/11 than it is today.
NARRATOR: Just two
months after the attacks,
the U.S. government creates
the Transportation
Security Administration or TSA.
BRIAN JENKINS:
The federal government
took direct responsibility
for aviation security,
and the screeners are
now federal employees.
The training
certainly has improved.
NARRATOR: The TSA
brings in strict new rules
on what travelers
can carry on planes.
Airports start
screening passengers
with full body
scanning machines.
There are also major
changes to onboard security.
TOM HAUETER: The cockpit doors.
I mean it's not just the door.
The whole
bulkhead on the aircraft
has been made
darn near impregnable.
It's bullet proof. You
can't get through the locks.
NARRATOR: But perhaps the most
important change to security
has come not from new
rules or better technology,
but from the
permanently altered attitudes
of airline
passengers everywhere.
BRIAN JENKINS: Today the
assumption by passengers
if they feel
threatened with a hijacking
is not one of compliance.
RICHARD NUMMI:
If you saw somebody
in the back of the plane
get up and say, you
know, start screaming things,
running to the
front of the plane,
you have a choice of
sitting in your seat
and minding your own business,
or you have the option of
standing up, saying, uh-uh.
I guarantee you
you're gonna stand up.
The paradigm has changed.
BRIAN JENKINS: Until we
invent the silver bullet
or the x-ray for a man's soul,
there are going to be
performance problems.
But it is much
better than it was.