Military Response Failed at Every Turn

• Failures to Report
  According to NORAD's timeline the FAA reported errant airliners after inexplicable delays.
  • FAA took 18 minutes to report Flight 11's loss of communication and deviation.
  • FAA took 39 minutes to report Flight 77's deviation.
• Failures to Scramble
  Interceptors were only scrambled from distant bases after long delays.
  • With Flights 11 and 175 headed to NYC, no interceptors scrambled from nearby Fort Dix or Laguardia, or from Langley, Virginia.
• Failures to Intercept
  Once in the air, interceptors flew at only small fractions of their top speeds.
  • Two F-15s scrambled from Otis to chase Flight 11 flew at 447 mph, about 23.8 % of top speed of 1875 mph.
  • Two F-16s scrambled from Langley to protect the capital flew at 410.5 mph, about 27.4% of top speed of 1500 mph.
• Failures to Redeploy
  Nearby fighters on routine patrol duty were not redeployed to intercept the airliners.
  Fighters that belatedly reached Manhattan not sent to defend the capital.
  • Two F-15s flying off the coast of Long Island were not redeployed to Manhattan until after the second tower was hit.
  • Two F-15s scrambled from Otis AFB to Manhattan could have reached the capital in 9.6 minutes once they arrived over New York City. That was still 34 minutes before the Pentagon was hit.