9:25 a.m. September 11, 2001: United Airlines Plane Still at Airport Mistakenly Reported as Hijacked

Marcus Arroyo. [Source: Airport Press]An FAA regional manager mistakenly reports that a United Airlines plane has been hijacked, and it is soon discovered that the plane is still on the ground at Boston’s Logan Airport. [9/11 Commission, 10/8/2003 ] Marcus Arroyo, the security division manager for the FAA’s eastern region, is in the command center on the fifth floor of the FAA building at New York’s JFK International Airport, responding to the attacks on the World Trade Center. [9/11 Commission, 10/24/2003 ] He calls Mark Randol, the manager of the FAA’s Washington, DC, Civil Aviation Security Field Office, who is based at Washington Dulles International Airport. As Randol will later recall, Arroyo makes it clear to him that this is a terrorist attack and reports several hijackings. These hijackings include Flight 175 (the second plane to hit the WTC) and Flight 77 (which will hit the Pentagon at 9:37 a.m.). Arroyo also reports, erroneously, that another plane, United Airlines Flight 177, has been hijacked. Randol immediately instructs his staff members to find out all they can about these flights. By 9:45 a.m., they will have identified that Flight 77 had taken off from Dulles Airport, but are unable to confirm whether it has been hijacked. They also discover that United Airlines Flight 177 is in fact still on the ground at Logan Airport, being held at the gate there. [9/11 Commission, 10/8/2003 ] The reason for Arroyo’s incorrect report of this plane being hijacked is unknown.