(Shortly Before 10:10 a.m.) September 11, 2001: Navy Commander Answers a Call from the Pentagon, Requesting Shootdown Authorization

Anthony Barnes. [Source: US Navy]Navy Captain Anthony Barnes, deputy director of presidential contingency programs for the White House Military Office, receives a call from a senior official at the Pentagon who wants permission for fighter jets to shoot down aircraft that are under the control of terrorists. Barnes is in the Presidential Emergency Operations Center (PEOC) below the White House, and has been “running liaison between the ops guys who had Pentagon officials on the phone and the [PEOC] conference room where the principals were,” he will later recall. [Summers and Swan, 2011, pp. 141; Graff, 2019, pp. 164-165] Communicators in the PEOC have been receiving reports from the Secret Service about a suspicious aircraft that is presumably hijacked and is heading toward Washington, DC (see 10:02 a.m. September 11, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 41] Barnes now receives a call from a general at the Pentagon who is concerned about this aircraft and wants permission for the military to engage it. “The Pentagon thought there was another hijacked airplane and they were asking for permission to shoot down an identified hijacked commercial aircraft,” Barnes will recall. [Summers and Swan, 2011, pp. 141; Graff, 2019, pp. 164-165] In response to the call, Barnes will go from the operations and communications room in the PEOC to the conference room, tell Vice President Dick Cheney about the suspicious aircraft, and request his permission for the military to engage it (see (Between 10:10 a.m. and 10:18 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [Newsweek, 12/30/2001; 9/11 Commission, 4/16/2004; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 41]