(9:00 a.m.) September 11, 2001: Air Force Crisis Action Team Activated

Matt Swanson. [Source: Iowa State University]The Air Force’s Crisis Action Team (CAT) at the Pentagon is activated. The CAT is under the command of the US Air Force chief of staff, and reportedly it “coordinates Air Force reaction to anything that might be a threat to the United States.” After hearing the CAT has been activated, Major Donna Nicholas heads down to the Air Force Operations Center in the basement of the Pentagon’s C Ring, where the CAT is carrying out its activities. She arrives there after 9:03, when the second WTC tower is hit, and someone tells her, “Just so you know, we’re considering that we’re under attack.” The Operations Center is “a flurry of activity as Air Force officials worked to gather information, both from the media and from their own intelligence sources.” [Dover Post, 9/19/2001; Syracuse University Magazine, 12/2001] The Defense Department’s own book about the Pentagon attack will describe that, prior to the Pentagon being hit, “Members of the Air Force Crisis Action Team [have] already begun to assemble [in the Operations Center] for a 10:00 a.m. briefing; one of their responsibilities [is] to work with the Army to provide assistance to civil authorities in New York.” [Goldberg et al., 2007, pp. 136] The CAT’s usual first in charge is away. So Lieutenant Colonel Matt Swanson, its second in command, has to take their place supervising emergency operations for the Air Force. But he is only called from his Pentagon office to the Air Force Operations Center to join the CAT after the time of the second attack. [Prospectus, 9/2006, pp. 3-6 ] Similarly, James Roche and John Jumper, the Air Force secretary and chief of staff respectively, will not arrive at the center until after the Pentagon is hit at 9:37 (see (Shortly After 9:37 a.m.) September 11, 2001).