9:30 a.m. September 11, 2001: Langley Fighters Take Off Toward Washington; They Could Reach City in Six Minutes but Take Half an Hour

Major Brad Derrig. [Source: ABC]The three F-16s at Langley, Virginia, get airborne. [Washington Post, 9/12/2001; North American Aerospace Defense Command, 9/18/2001; ABC News, 9/11/2002; 9/11 Commission, 6/17/2004] The pilots are Major Brad Derrig, Captain Craig Borgstrom, and Major Dean Eckmann, all from the North Dakota Air National Guard’s 119th Fighter Wing stationed at Langley. [Associated Press, 8/19/2002; ABC News, 9/11/2002] If the assumed NORAD departure time is correct, the F-16s would have to travel slightly over 700 mph to reach Washington before Flight 77 does. The maximum speed of an F-16 is 1,500 mph. [Associated Press, 6/16/2000] Even traveling at 1,300 mph, these planes could have reached Washington in six minutes—well before any claim of when Flight 77 crashed. Yet it is claimed they are accidentally directed over the Atlantic Ocean instead, and they will only reach Washington about 30 minutes later. NORAD commander Major General Larry Arnold admits in 2003 testimony that had the fighters been going at full speed, “it is physically possible that they could have gotten over Washington” before Flight 77. But asked if the fighters would have had shootdown authorization had they reached the hijacked plane, Arnold says no, claiming that even by this time in the morning it is only “through hindsight that we are certain that this was a coordinated attack on the United States.” [9/11 Commission, 5/23/2003 Sources: Larry Arnold]