2.45pm
NEW YORK - For 11 agonising minutes on September 11, New York air traffic controllers knew a second hijacked civilian plane was going to hit the World Trade Centre but were helpless to do anything about it.
"Probably the most difficult moment in my life was the 11 minutes from the point I watched that aircraft when we first lost communication to the point that aircraft hit the World Trade Centre," Michael McCormick, the Federal Aviation Administration's New York air traffic manager, told a media briefing today in which controllers made their first extensive public comments almost a year after the hijacked plane attacks on America.
McCormick said that after American Airlines flight 11 struck the north tower at 8.46am (12.46am the next day NZT) they lost contact with United Air Lines flight 175 speeding on a similar path headed at low altitude toward Manhattan.
"For those 11 minutes, I knew, we knew, what was going to happen and that was difficult," McCormick said.
The air control manager, against his instincts to provide service to thousands of planes in his region, gave the order called ATC Zero to clear the skies a minute after the United Boeing 767 crashed in flames into the south tower at 9.03am (NY time).
"Essentially, we are shutting down and getting out of business. That's contrary to our instincts," McCormick said.
McCormick and Frank Hatfield, FAA Eastern Region Air Traffic Division manager, described the desperate search to find the hijacked planes like "looking for a needle in a haystack" and said pilots "were looking out their cockpits" as they received descriptions of an American Airlines 767 going low and fast.
Hatfield told reporters that for more than three hours until 12.15pm, controllers safely tracked and diverted to the ground 4,546 aircraft flying around the time of four hijacked plane attacks on New York, Washington and Pennsylvania that killed about 3,000 people.
"Obviously, there was somewhat a feeling of relief, but then again we were still dealing with all of the other emotions with the horrific events of that morning," said FAA operations manager Bruce Barrett, describing the mood at 12.15pm at the New York Air Route Traffic Control Centre on Long Island.
Hatfield said that in the 11 months since the attacks, the centre had developed and put in place improved communications between the FAA and other key government agencies such as the Department of Defence, North American Aerospace Defence Command and the Office of Homeland Security.
"We have shaved that communications process from a period of minutes to a period of seconds," Hatfield said. "As to whether that would expedite any kind of interception in future, that falls into the purview of the Defence Department."
The New York control centre is responsible for the airspace over New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and 7.8 million sq km of airspace over the Atlantic Ocean.
- REUTERS
Story archives:
Links: Terror in America - the Sept 11 attacks
Timeline: Major events since the Sept 11 attacks
Air traffic controllers reveal September 11 agony
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