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Why was the government's automatic standard order of procedure in the event of a hijacking not followed?
These procedures determine that fighter planes should automatically be sent aloft as soon as a plane has deviated from its flight plan. Presidential authority is not required until a plane is to be shot down. But, on 11 September, no decision to start launching planes was taken until 9:40am, eighty minutes after air controllers first knew that Flight 11 had been hijacked and fifty minutes after the first plane had struck the North Tower.
By law, the fighters should have been up at around 8:15. If they had, all the hijacked planes might have been diverted and shot down.
(Stolen from Gore Vidal, and The Guardian.)
These procedures determine that fighter planes should automatically be sent aloft as soon as a plane has deviated from its flight plan. Presidential authority is not required until a plane is to be shot down. But, on 11 September, no decision to start launching planes was taken until 9:40am, eighty minutes after air controllers first knew that Flight 11 had been hijacked and fifty minutes after the first plane had struck the North Tower.
By law, the fighters should have been up at around 8:15. If they had, all the hijacked planes might have been diverted and shot down.
(Stolen from Gore Vidal, and The Guardian.)
