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(Before 10:06 a.m.) September 11, 2001: Fighters Trailing Flight 93?

2001-09-11

Shortly after 9/11, NORAD claims that there is a fighter 100 miles away from Flight 93 when it crashes. However, no details, such as who the pilot is, or which base or direction the fighter is coming from, are ever given by NORAD. [North American Aerospace Defense Command, 9/18/2001] Other accounts vary as to whether or not there are any fighters near Flight 93 when it goes down:
bullet Two days after the attacks, it is reported that an unnamed New England flight controller ignored a ban on controllers speaking to the media, reportedly claiming “that an F-16 fighter closely pursued Flight 93… the F-16 made 360-degree turns to remain close to the commercial jet.” He adds that the fighter pilot “must’ve seen the whole thing.” He reportedly learned this from speaking to controllers who were closer to the crash. [Associated Press, 9/13/2001; Telegraph (Nashua), 9/13/2001]
bullet Five days after the attacks, on September 16, CBS television reports that two F-16 fighters were tailing the flight and within 60 miles of the plane when it went down. [CBS News, 9/16/2001; Independent, 8/13/2002]
bullet Also on this date, Major General Paul Weaver, director of the Air National Guard, says that no military planes were sent after Flight 93. [Seattle Times, 9/16/2001]
bullet About seven months later, Anthony Kuczynski tells the University of St. Thomas’s weekly newspaper that he had flown toward Pittsburgh alongside two F-16s. He said he was piloting an E-3 Sentry AWACS plane, with advanced radar and surveillance equipment that could be used to direct fighters to their targets. He was just about to intercept Flight 93 when it crashed. He says, “I was given direct orders to shoot down an airliner.” (E-3s are unarmed, so, if this account is accurate, the order presumably applied to the fighters Kuczynski was accompanying.) [St. Thomas Aquin, 4/12/2002; US Air Force, 5/2006]
bullet Almost a year after the attacks, ABC News reports that “the closest fighters are two F-16 pilots on a training mission from Selfridge Air National Guard Base” near Detroit, Michigan. These were reportedly ordered after Flight 93, even though they weren’t armed with any weapons. The two pilots, Lt. Col. Tom Froling and Major Douglas Champagne, had just fired the last of their 20mm cannon ammunition during their training mission. They were oblivious to what happened in New York and Washington, but said they heard unusual conversation over their radio frequencies. They claim they were supposed to crash into Flight 93 if they could not persuade it to land. [ABC News, 8/30/2002; ABC News, 9/11/2002; Filson, 2003, pp. 68] However, these fighters were apparently not diverted from Michigan until after Flight 93 crashed at 10:06 a.m.
bullet Another Cleveland flight controller named Stacey Taylor claims around this time not to have seen any fighters on radar around the crash. [MSNBC, 9/11/2002]
bullet Five years after the attacks, Bill Keaton, a Cleveland flight controller who tracked Flight 93 as it flew eastward (see (9:41 a.m.-10:06 a.m.) September 11, 2001), is asked whether there were fighters in the vicinity when it crashed. He replies, “[T]hat goes beyond the scope of what I can comment on.” (Flight controllers reportedly can lose their security clearances if they discuss the movements of military aircraft.) [Cleveland Free Times, 9/6/2006]