T8 B19 Miles Kara Trips FDR - Interview Guide - NEADS Rome NY

Interview Guide
Northeast Air Defense Sector

Rome, New York
Dates: TBD
Note: With possible exception of the Commanding Officer and the Operations Officer all
interviewees will first be asked to, in narrative form without interruption, provide their
recollection of events as they unfolded on 9/11. The detailed interview guide can then be
used to make sure all relevant points are covered.
Commission Sensitive
Commanding Officer
Personal Data
Name: Rank:
Years in Position on 9/11:
Current Position: Phone:
E-mail:
Start with short career history with emphasis on air defense experience.
Morning of 9/11
1. Where were you on the morning of 9/11 and how did you become aware
of the developing situation?
2. What were your immediate orders and actions when you became aware?
3. What communication means were immediately available to you and to

whom?
4. Explain how you deconflicted the on-going exercise and how you
organized your forces to meet the challenge?
5. What processes and procedures were in place for you to gain situational
awareness and how quickly were you able to do so?
6. What initial guidance did you receive from CONR, if any. At what point
did you receive guidance and what was it?
7. Did you personally have any contact with FAA at any level or with
NORAD at any level? How about the NMCC or other Washington area
entity?
8. Did you personally have any contact with the Wings at Otis and Langley?
If so what were the details of that contact?
9. How did you manage events of the morning—what was your relationship
with the Mission Control Commander and the Director of Operations?
10. What input did you have to the decisions to scramble—from Otis? From
Langley?
11. What input did you have to the decisions to continue routine scheduled
training at Otis? Elsewhere? Was that training exercise-related?
12. In the hunt for American Air 11 what do you recall about the effort to
establish its altitude? What capability does the Sector have to do so?
Manning the Watch
13. What standards did you establish for your SAOC to identify special
tracks or other unknown tracks of interest?
14. How did you decide when an officer is sufficiently trained and capable
to perform duty as a Mission Control Commander?
15. Where did Major Nasypany rank among the Mission Control
Commanders and alternates who performed that duty?
16. How often and in what manner did you test or exercise your watch
teams to deal with unknown targets?
17. How often and when did you conduct such tests or exercises to deal
with a hijacking?
The Scrambles, Interception and Shootdown Authority
18. What orders did you understand the scrambled pilots to have as they got
in the air that morning? What were they supposed to do? What were their
orders concerning expenditure of ordnance?
19. At what time did you become aware of guidance to take positive action
against hijacked commercial airliners and how and from whom did you
receive that guidance?
20. At what time and how did you become aware that Andrews fighters had
been alerted and then scrambled?
21. At one time CONR cautioned NEADS that it did not have control of
Andrews and Atlantic City fighters. How was that caution communicated to
you and what steps did you take to gain control?
22. What conversations did you have with senior officers of the DCANG
concerning the Andrews fighters?
The Tough Questions
23. The families and the American public do not understand why scrambled
fighters did not simply kick in the afterburner and head straight for either
New York City in the case of Otis or Washington DC in the case of Langley.
How would you have us answer that concern?
24. The families and the American public are also confused as to the time
that NEADS was notified by the FAA. How did the 0840 time become the
agreed upon time between NORAD and the FAA and what input did you
have to that agreement?
25. What did you document here at NEADS as the time of the notification?
26. How did the NORAD Public Affairs Office acquire the notion that
notification came either as early as 0835 or shortly after 0830?
Lessons Learned
27. Shifting gears now, in the aftermath of 9/11 what immediate changes
did you make in the way you did business, apart from the 24-hr CAP
requirement?
28. How much of that changed survived and became institutionalized?
29. What are the two or three domestic air defense lessons learned from
events of 9/11?
30. Could, today, your SAOC pick up and identify an unknown or special
track such as AA11? How about AA77 where height-finding was not
available?
Conclusion
31. What have we not asked you that we should have asked?
32. What did you come prepared to talk about or inform us that we have not
asked you?
33. Who, particularly at CONR, NORAD, the Wings and FAA must we
interview in order to understand events of 9/11 and their impact today?
34. What after action review, "hot wash", or other critique did you conduct?
If done, where would we find a copy of the results?
Z-O.A
X'YV
Ô/YSISL-
Operations Officer
DOC (or SAOC supervisor)
Battle Commander
Note: This guide applies to all three potential interviewees
Personal Data ~
Name: Ô/W/SU&x>^ Rank:
Position on 9/1 1 : pO
Current Position: _ «UJ£J CL_^._ Phone:
E-mail:
Start with career history, with emphasis on air defense training
Morning of 9/11
1. Where were you on the morning of 9/11 and how did you become aware
\ of the developing situation?
\ 2. What were your immediate orders and actions when you became aware?
3. What communication means were immediately available to you and to

whom?
4. Explain how you deconflicted the on-going exercise and how you
organized your forces to meet the challenge?
5. What processes and procedures were in place for you to gain situational
awareness and how quickly were you able to do so?
6. What initial guidance did you receive from CONR, if any. At what point
did you receive guidance and what was it?
7. Did you personally have any contact with FAA at any level or with
NORAD at any level? How about the NMCC or other Washington area
entity?
8. Did you personally have any contact with the Wings at Otis and Langley?
If so what were the details of that contact?
9. How did you manage events of the morning—what was your relationship
with the Mission Control Commander and the Exercise Commander?
10. What input did you have to the decisions to scramble—from Otis? From
Langley?
11. What input did you have to the decisions to continue routine scheduled
training at Otis? Elsewhere? Was that training exercise-related?
12. In the hunt for American Air 11 what do you recall about the effort to
establish its altitude? What capability does the Sector have to do so?
Running the Watch
13. What standards did you establish for your SAOC to identify special
tracks or other unknown tracks of interest?
14. How did you decide when an officer is sufficiently trained and capable
to perform duty as a Mission Control Commander?
15. Where did Major Nasypany rank among the Mission Control
Commanders and alternates who performed that duty?
16. How often and in what manner did you test or exercise your watch
teams to deal with unknown targets?
17. How often and when did you conduct such tests or exercises to deal
with a hijacking?
18. Walk us through the standards that existed at the time, time-wise, from
first notification or awareness of a special situation to fighters in the sky.
How much time does the ID Tech have, the Weapons Section, MCC, the
Wing, Other? Any changes to those standards.
The Scrambles, Interception and Shootdown Authority
19. What orders did you understand the scrambled pilots to have as they got
in the air that morning? What were they supposed to do? What were their
orders concerning expenditure of ordnance?
20. At what time did you become aware of guidance to take positive action
against hijacked commercial airliners and how and from whom did you
receive that guidance?
21. At what time and how did you become aware that Andrews fighters had
been alerted and then scrambled?
22. At one time CONR cautioned NEADS that it did not have control of
Andrews and Atlantic City fighters. How was that caution communicated to
you and what steps did you take to gain control?
23. What conversations did you have with senior officers of the DCANG
concerning the Andrews fighters?
The Tough Questions
24. The families and the American public do not understand why scrambled
fighters did not simply kick in the afterburner and head straight for either
New York City in the case of Otis or Washington DC in the case of Langley.
How would you have us answer that concern?
25. The families and the American public are also confused as to the time
that NEADS was notified by the FAA. How did the 0840 time become the
agreed upon time between NORAD and the FAA and what input did you
have to that agreement?
26. What did you document here at NEADS as the time of the notification?
27. How did the NORAD Public Affairs Office acquire the notion that
notification came either as early as 0835 or shortly after 0830?
Lessons Learned
28. Shifting gears now, in the aftermath of 9/11 what immediate changes
did you make in the way you did business, apart from the 24-hr CAP
requirement?
29. How much of that changed survived and became institutionalized?
30. What are the two or three domestic air defense lessons learned from
events of 9/11?
31. Could, today, your SAOC pick up and identify an unknown or special
track such as AA11? How about AA77 where height-finding was not
available?
Conclusion
32. What have we not asked you that we should have asked?
33. What did you come prepared to talk about or inform us that we have not
asked you?
34. Who, particularly at CONR, NORAD, the Wings and FAA must we
interview in order to understand events of 9/11 and their impact today?
Added for the Battle Commander
1. What was the array of communications in the Battle Cab, to whom was it
connected and how effective was the arrangement?
2. What was the relationship between the Mission Control Commander and
the Battle Cab? What could the MCC do on his own and what did he have
to check with the Battle Cab?
3. Who actually issued the scramble orders, MCC or Battle Cab?
Added for the Operations Officer(s)
1. At one time the position of MCC did not exist and the senior watch
officer was the SD (Senior Director). Why was the role of the SD retained
in addition to that of the MCC? Didn't that add a level of management
perhaps not needed? Tell us about the maturation of this new role for the SD
and how that role in conjunction with the role of the MCC and the Weapons
Officer played out on 9/11.
Mission Control Commander
Personal Data
Name: Rank:
Position on 9/11:
E-mail:
Preliminary
1. Tell us about your background. What training did you receive to become
a Mission Control Commander, what qualifications did you have to meet,
and when did you first perform this duty on your own?
2. How well prepared were you for events as they unfolded on 9/11? How
much did your training help, or hinder, and what did you have to make up on
your own?
3. How often and to what extent did you train or exercise for a hijacking
scenario?
4. Were you ever made aware that commercial airplanes might be used as
weapons?
5. How integral was the crew you had on duty on 9/11—usual crew who
habitually worked together or did you have substitutes as part of your team
that day?
6. How was the relationship established between your operation and the
ongoing exercise? How were the two separated? Were they on the SAOC
floor with you?
7. What "pre-game" discussion did you and Major Deskins hold on shift
change the morning of 9/11? Did you talk about the habitual tendency of
exercise events to bleed into real world events or vice versa, and what to do
about that?
8. How often and to what extent were you briefed on the threat you
confronted each time you assumed duty? Did those briefings ever speak to a
domestic air defense threat of any nature, but specifically a hijacking, or
worse, a suicide hijacking?
Morning of 9/11
9. Okay, now take us to the morning of 9/11 and walk us through what
happened, in order, as best you can recall.
[Note: Following points must be addressed either during his narrative or

afterwards}
• Which notification came first—Boston or Otis?

• How were the two deconflicted?
• How did Major Deskins get in the act as an MCC? ^»
• What prompted the ID Tech to began work so quickly?
• What was the separate role of the Surveillance Tech?
• Were you aware that N Truro radar was down for PMI?
• Did it make a difference?
• Can the ARSR-4 radar primary return feed be used by NEADS to
establish altitude?
• If so, how and by whom is that done?
• What is a special track*?^-
• What is a Z point and who establishes it?"
• Once established, then what happens?-^
• What situational awareness did you have about AA11?
• Were you aware that FAA managers at Boston and Herndon had
observed that AA11 was descending and slowing?
• How hard is it to work up a track on an unknown over land as
opposed to over water?
• Shouldn't it be easier—less clutter?
• Was the AA11 track as a transponding aircraft on your scope or any
Sector scope?
• If not, the reason for that is?
• When you gave orders affecting Otis or Langley who carried them
out?
• Explain the different roles of the MCC/T, SD, and Weapons Officer
as you organized for battle on 9/11.
What situational awareness did you have at the moment the first plane
impacted the North tower. About AA11, about what hit the tower,
about UA175.
Transcipts show that at about the moment of impact an ID tech
exclaimed "there it is right where she said it was." Explain that as it
was relayed to you.
Did the ID Tech have the capability at that point to determine
altitude?
If not, isn't that a capability of the ARSR-4 radar that NEADS uses?
Once Otis was airborne what happened—why the path they took?
Who determines the mach after launch, you or the wing?
How were your instructions relayed to the pilots?
From your position who could you talk to? Pilots? Wing? Otis? Battle
Cab? CONR? NORAD? NMCC/Washington DC?
What was the thought process that led to the early battle stations for
Langley?
Why the delay, then, in scrambling Langley?
What other USAF fighter assets, if any, could you draw upon?
What was the thought process that led to a Langley scramble first East
and then to the North?
At what point did you gain situational awareness, if at all, that AA11
had impacted the first tower? UA175 the second?
How did Delta89 become a possible hijack?
Was that the third Boston-departure plane that was at issue?
At what point, if at all, did you gain awareness that AA77 was a
hijack?
That AA77, not AA11 was the fast mover approaching the DC area
from the west?
Tell us about the Andrews scramble—were you aware they had been
alerted and then scrambled outside of your purview?
The first Andrews fighter up did one circle and landed immediately—
what was that all about?
At one point CONR cautioned NEADS to get control of fighters from
Andrews and Atlantic City. How did you accomplish that?
When did you become aware that fighters could engage commercial
airliners? Who informed you and in what manner?
The Transcript and the Scrambles
11. Over and above the previous discussion, walk through his transcript with
the MCC to clarify any remaining points to:
- Understand who was talking, when
- Determine who was relaying his orders to the pilots
- Establish what his thought processes were that led to the scramble
decisions
- Learn what information caused him to "fight" the Otis and Langley
fighters the way he did
- Determine how much he was guided or informed by the Battle Cab,
CONR, and NORAD
- Establish his situational awareness of each of the four hijacked
aircraft as the morning proceeded
Conclusion
11. What have we not asked you that we should have?
12. What did you come prepared to talk about that we have not asked you?
13. Who, at any level, in either NORAD or FAA, or elsewhere must we talk
to in order to understand and be informed about events as they unfolded on
the morning of 9/11.
Lieutenant Colonel Deskins
Personal Data ~ -
Name: d^gur^ âjL^Twy^ Rank: Q"
Position on 9/1 1 : "A^-VJ O
Current Position: r Q)_ Phone:
E-mail:
Preliminary
1 . Tell us about your background. What training did you receive to become
a Mission Control Commander, what qualifications did you have to meet, X^
and when did you first perform this duty on your own?
2. How well prepared were you for events as they unfolded on 9/1 1? How
your own?
scenario?
4. Were you ever made aware that commercial airplanes might be used
weapons?
5. Why did you happen to be present on the SAOC floor that day? Were^
you the exercise MCC and is that why you were called to the phone to take
the call from Joe Cooper?
6. How was the relationship established between your exercise and normal
operations? How were the two separated? Were your exercise staff on the
S AOC floor with you? How robust was that staff compared to the watch X,
staff?
\. Was the watch staff performing both exe
simultaneously? If so, why?
7. What "pre-game" discussion did you and Major Nasypany hold on shift
change the morning of 9/11? Did you talk about the habitual tendency of
exercise events to bleed into real world events or vice versa, and what to do-
about that?
8. How often and to what extent were you briefed on the threat facing the
Sector? Did those briefings ever speak to a domestic air defense threat^f
any nature, but specifically a hijacking, or worse, a suicide hijacking?
Morning of 9/11
happened, in order, as best you can recall. ^v
[Note: Following points must be addressed either during her narrative or

afterwards}
N
• Why was she called to the phone and not Major Nasypany?
• Was their some uncertainty, despite Sgt Powell's early awareness that
the call might be for the exerciser^
• Once Major Nasypany's team went to work in earnest what did she
do, where did she goV\
• Given that she is a public persona, how did that come about and what
information did she actually impart and what time of notification did\
she provide?
Conclusion
MCC/T
Personal Data
Name: Rank:
Position on 9/11:
E-mail:
Background
a MCC/T, what qualifications did you have to meet, and when did you first
perform this duty on your own?
your own?
scenario?
weapons?
5. How integral was the crew you had on duty on 9/11—usual crew who
habitually worked together or did you have substitutes as part of your team
that day?
6. How was the relationship established between your operation and the
ongoing exercise? How were the two separated? Were they on the SAOC
floor with you?
7. What "pre-game" discussion did you and the exercise senior NCO hold
on shift change the morning of 9/11? Did you talk about the habitual
tendency of exercise events to bleed into real world events or vice versa, and
what to do about that?
Morning of 9/11
[Note: Following points must be addressed either during his narrative or

afterwards}
• Which notification came first—Boston or Otis?

• What was your specific role in sorting out the first few chaotic
moments?
• Did you, if fact, run the floor for the MCC?
• Was the division of labor among the watch sections—ID,
Surveillance, Weapons—clearly understood and followed that day?
• Did you have to order exercise participants out of the road or did you
integrate them in some manner?
• Did you have the "A" team on duty or were there substitutes on watch
for what ever the reason?
• Who does the MCC/T talk to—Battle Cab, outside agencies, CONR—
what is the division of labor between you and the MCC in
communicating information to others?
• What was your personal situational awareness in the hunt for AA11?
Conclusion
Weapons, Surveillance and Identification Sections
Note: This format will be used, with slight variation, for the supervisors of the three
sections, and the four or 5 watch standers—Senior Director, Weapons Officer, Weapons
NCO, Surveillance Tech, ID Tech.
The ID Tech will be asked about the hunt for AAl 1, the SD and Weapons folks about
the scrambles and the Surveillance Tech about situational awareness.
The three supervisors will be asked about training, threat awareness, standards, and
qualifications to stand watch. They will be asked to rate the persons on duty that day and
how substitutes are integrated into the mix. They will be asked how new individuals are
integrated into the watch. They will be asked for check lists as they existed that day and
for a summary of changes made since 9/11 based on the experience of that day.
Personal Data
Name: Rank:
Position on 9/11:
E-mail:
Background
a , what qualifications did you have to meet, and when did you
first perform this duty on your own?
your own?
scenario?
weapons?
5. How was the relationship established between your desk and the ongoing
exercise counterpart desk? How were the two separated? Were they on the
SAOC floor with you? Did you perform both real world and exercise roles?
7. What "pre-game" discussion did you and your exercise counterpart hold
on shift change the morning of 9/11? Did you talk about the habitual
tendency of exercise events to bleed into real world events or vice versa, and
what to do about that?
Morning of 9/11
Among points we want clarified are:
• What is the scope display at each desk and how is information shared
among desks?
• Who had FAA communication responsibility? Who did they talk to,
how did they effect immediate contact, and how often did they
activate/exercise the communications link?
• Who establishes Z points? Special tracks? Unknown tracks of
interest?
• How were domestic commercial airliners treated? For example, did
any one even know that AA11 took off and then lost communications
and then its transponder?
• What is the altitude determination capability on the floor? Which
desk does that and what is the standard that applies?
• Who talks to the wing? To the pilots?
• Who gives the pilots their mission—course, altitude, speed?
• Need to know second by second the hunt for AA11—probably the ID
Tech, but others may have assisted.
" Who was watching CNN, if anyone? Anyone have that
responsibility?

T8 B19 Miles Kara Trips FDR - Interview Guide - NEADS Rome NY

Caricato da

Informazioni sul documento

Descrizione originale:

Titolo originale

Copyright

Formati disponibili

Condividi questo documento

Condividi o incorpora il documento

Opzioni di condivisione

Hai trovato utile questo documento?

Questo contenuto è inappropriato?

Copyright:

Formati disponibili

T8 B19 Miles Kara Trips FDR - Interview Guide - NEADS Rome NY

Caricato da

Copyright:

Formati disponibili

Interview Guide

Northeast Air Defense Sector

3. What communication means were immediately available to you and to

Manning the Watch

The Scrambles, Interception and Shootdown Authority

The Tough Questions

28. How much of that changed survived and became institutionalized?

Start with career history, with emphasis on air defense training

3. What communication means were immediately available to you and to

Running the Watch

The Tough Questions

29. How much of that changed survived and became institutionalized?

Added for the Battle Commander

3. Who actually issued the scramble orders, MCC or Battle Cab?

Added for the Operations Officer(s)

[Note: Following points must be addressed either during his narrative or

• Which notification came first—Boston or Otis?

11. What have we not asked you that we should have?

simultaneously? If so, why?

[Note: Following points must be addressed either during her narrative or

10. What have we not asked you that we should have?

[Note: Following points must be addressed either during his narrative or

• Which notification came first—Boston or Otis?

10. What have we not asked you that we should have?

Among points we want clarified are:

Potrebbero piacerti anche