1
00:00:05,280 --> 00:00:07,160
Speaker 1: On the morning of nine eleven, there were more than

2
00:00:07,200 --> 00:00:10,680
Speaker 1: four thousand aircraft in our nation's airspace, with hundreds more

3
00:00:10,760 --> 00:00:14,840
Speaker 1: inbound from other countries. After initial hijack attacks, the Federal

4
00:00:14,880 --> 00:00:19,440
Speaker 1: Aviation Administration's National Operations Manager in Virginia began to systematically

5
00:00:19,440 --> 00:00:23,280
Speaker 1: close the country's airspace, beginning with a Tier one ground stop,

6
00:00:23,280 --> 00:00:26,560
Speaker 1: which covered New York, Boston, Cleveland, and Washington, d C.

7
00:00:27,320 --> 00:00:29,600
Speaker 1: In the airplanes. Now, we're not letting anyone go right now.

8
00:00:30,280 --> 00:00:35,000
Speaker 1: Can't a good move. Uh, we're waiting to any When

9
00:00:35,040 --> 00:00:38,120
Speaker 1: I brought up on everything, Uh, there's the second planet

10
00:00:38,159 --> 00:00:41,080
Speaker 1: that hit the world paid center stop all the parts

11
00:00:41,080 --> 00:00:47,519
Speaker 1: that were a m Eastern time. All commercial aircraft were grounded,

12
00:00:47,560 --> 00:00:51,120
Speaker 1: and those flights already airborne were ordered to land. Military

13
00:00:51,200 --> 00:00:54,200
Speaker 1: jets were given permission to shoot down any aircraft whose

14
00:00:54,240 --> 00:00:57,840
Speaker 1: pilot did not acknowledge contact. It was the first time

15
00:00:57,880 --> 00:01:01,320
Speaker 1: in history a complete airspace closure had been ordered. I

16
00:01:01,400 --> 00:01:03,040
Speaker 1: foresee that we probably need to do. We need to

17
00:01:03,040 --> 00:01:04,680
Speaker 1: talk to f a A A. We need to tell them

18
00:01:04,720 --> 00:01:06,440
Speaker 1: if this stuff is gonna keep on going, we need

19
00:01:06,480 --> 00:01:11,360
Speaker 1: to take those fighters. Put him over Manhattan. Okay, that's

20
00:01:11,360 --> 00:01:14,520
Speaker 1: the best thing, that's best play, right, here, so corner

21
00:01:14,600 --> 00:01:16,720
Speaker 1: with the f A. Tell him. If there's more out

22
00:01:16,760 --> 00:01:20,199
Speaker 1: there but which we don't know, tell Boxy Scramble, Langley

23
00:01:20,200 --> 00:01:23,320
Speaker 1: sent him in the same location. Battles battle stations are

24
00:01:23,319 --> 00:01:30,199
Speaker 1: Scramble battle stations only. Langley. Okay, this is who's up there. Langley. Okay,

25
00:01:30,200 --> 00:01:32,480
Speaker 1: you're listening. Well. I told the FD so far we

26
00:01:32,480 --> 00:01:36,360
Speaker 1: need to get those fighters lang because we don't know

27
00:01:36,440 --> 00:01:38,960
Speaker 1: how many guys are out of black couldstity too, could

28
00:01:39,000 --> 00:01:42,280
Speaker 1: be more. This is nine eleven, two decades later. I'm

29
00:01:42,319 --> 00:01:46,200
Speaker 1: Steve Gregory in Los Angeles. On the morning of nine eleven,

30
00:01:46,240 --> 00:01:49,440
Speaker 1: air traffic controller part Avery was headed into work. It's

31
00:01:49,440 --> 00:01:52,240
Speaker 1: in Palmville, California. UM. It's about a ten minute drive

32
00:01:52,280 --> 00:01:56,000
Speaker 1: from my house that particular morning. UM. For whatever reason,

33
00:01:56,040 --> 00:01:58,520
Speaker 1: I didn't listen to the news in the morning. I

34
00:01:58,520 --> 00:02:01,560
Speaker 1: didn't listen to the radio on the on the way in. UM.

35
00:02:01,720 --> 00:02:04,480
Speaker 1: So the first thing I noticed that was a little

36
00:02:04,600 --> 00:02:07,400
Speaker 1: unusual was the security guard who I had known for

37
00:02:07,520 --> 00:02:10,799
Speaker 1: fifteen years, made me stop my car and actually look

38
00:02:10,840 --> 00:02:13,680
Speaker 1: at my ID badge, which normally she she would have

39
00:02:13,720 --> 00:02:15,680
Speaker 1: just waved me in. I didn't think a whole lot

40
00:02:15,720 --> 00:02:18,799
Speaker 1: of it until I walked in the building, and uh,

41
00:02:18,880 --> 00:02:22,320
Speaker 1: I just saw the shock of people running around screaming.

42
00:02:22,600 --> 00:02:24,480
Speaker 1: The only thing I could think of was that it

43
00:02:24,560 --> 00:02:27,160
Speaker 1: must have we must have had a horrific accident somewhere

44
00:02:27,160 --> 00:02:30,000
Speaker 1: in our space. When did you know the scope of

45
00:02:30,040 --> 00:02:32,160
Speaker 1: what was going on? So I walked up to my

46
00:02:32,200 --> 00:02:36,080
Speaker 1: friend Dave and asked him what was going on, and

47
00:02:36,160 --> 00:02:38,679
Speaker 1: he just gave me this crazy look, like you don't

48
00:02:38,680 --> 00:02:40,960
Speaker 1: know what happened? And I said, well, no, I just

49
00:02:41,000 --> 00:02:42,680
Speaker 1: got in here a few minutes ago. This was just

50
00:02:42,800 --> 00:02:45,720
Speaker 1: before six o'clock, so the first plane had already hit

51
00:02:46,160 --> 00:02:49,200
Speaker 1: at that point. We just started speculating it had to

52
00:02:49,240 --> 00:02:52,040
Speaker 1: have been a small aircraft. There's no way an airliner

53
00:02:52,080 --> 00:02:54,079
Speaker 1: would have crashed into the World Trade Center. There's you know,

54
00:02:54,120 --> 00:02:57,160
Speaker 1: a pilot is not going to do that, and hijacker

55
00:02:57,240 --> 00:02:59,400
Speaker 1: is not going to do that. So we just assumed

56
00:02:59,440 --> 00:03:02,920
Speaker 1: that it was one plane. But apparently back East, what

57
00:03:03,040 --> 00:03:05,440
Speaker 1: I've gathered over the last twenty four hours kind of

58
00:03:05,480 --> 00:03:07,880
Speaker 1: re listening to some of the tapes was that they

59
00:03:07,960 --> 00:03:11,040
Speaker 1: did know that American eleven was hijacked, and they did

60
00:03:11,080 --> 00:03:13,440
Speaker 1: know that American eleven was the aircraft that hit the

61
00:03:13,440 --> 00:03:15,400
Speaker 1: World Trade Center, but nobody else knew it out on

62
00:03:15,440 --> 00:03:18,000
Speaker 1: the West coast for sure. So once you were made

63
00:03:18,040 --> 00:03:21,080
Speaker 1: aware of the sort of the gravity of the situation,

64
00:03:21,280 --> 00:03:25,280
Speaker 1: what were next steps. Well, shortly after six is when

65
00:03:25,280 --> 00:03:27,240
Speaker 1: the second plane hit. And then once we saw that

66
00:03:27,480 --> 00:03:29,080
Speaker 1: or heard about that, we knew that it was a

67
00:03:29,160 --> 00:03:31,679
Speaker 1: terrorist attack. It just was too much of a coincidence

68
00:03:31,680 --> 00:03:34,680
Speaker 1: that two airplanes would do that, and uh, we started

69
00:03:34,680 --> 00:03:39,400
Speaker 1: to um on our own talk about stop ground stopping

70
00:03:39,440 --> 00:03:42,400
Speaker 1: all the aircraft in l A Center's airspace, and the

71
00:03:42,400 --> 00:03:45,040
Speaker 1: big airports would be l A X of course, Las Vegas,

72
00:03:45,080 --> 00:03:49,680
Speaker 1: San Diego, Burbank, and Ontario. Within about thirty minutes, we

73
00:03:49,680 --> 00:03:51,840
Speaker 1: got a call from the what's called the command center

74
00:03:52,000 --> 00:03:56,680
Speaker 1: back in Herndon, Virginia, and they basically said, every airplane

75
00:03:56,720 --> 00:03:59,640
Speaker 1: has to land, every airplane is going to stop. And

76
00:03:59,720 --> 00:04:02,920
Speaker 1: that's when I would say all hell broke loose because

77
00:04:03,240 --> 00:04:08,360
Speaker 1: it was just something we had never anticipated. It was craziness,

78
00:04:08,680 --> 00:04:11,280
Speaker 1: and the pilots were a lot of them did not

79
00:04:11,320 --> 00:04:14,400
Speaker 1: know what was going on, and there were some very

80
00:04:14,400 --> 00:04:17,400
Speaker 1: interesting conversations with these pilots, like, for example, an airplane

81
00:04:17,400 --> 00:04:19,760
Speaker 1: that had taken off from l a X twenty minutes

82
00:04:20,320 --> 00:04:24,200
Speaker 1: prior to this shut down. Probably halfway to Las Vegas

83
00:04:24,200 --> 00:04:26,200
Speaker 1: was now being let's say, going to London was now

84
00:04:26,240 --> 00:04:29,120
Speaker 1: being told to land in Las Vegas, and the pilots

85
00:04:29,240 --> 00:04:32,400
Speaker 1: that didn't know what was going on were arguing basically

86
00:04:32,480 --> 00:04:35,960
Speaker 1: like why why am I landing in Las Vegas. But

87
00:04:36,040 --> 00:04:39,000
Speaker 1: then probably five or ten minutes, everybody got the word

88
00:04:39,080 --> 00:04:42,920
Speaker 1: through their their company that can communicate to the flight deck,

89
00:04:43,200 --> 00:04:46,640
Speaker 1: and uh, everybody was cooperative. Everybody was just going along

90
00:04:46,680 --> 00:04:49,040
Speaker 1: with the plan. What kind of complicates things that a

91
00:04:49,080 --> 00:04:51,159
Speaker 1: lot of people don't realize is that if you're on

92
00:04:51,200 --> 00:04:53,040
Speaker 1: a flight of more than four or five hours, you've

93
00:04:53,040 --> 00:04:54,839
Speaker 1: got a dump fuel before you can just go land

94
00:04:54,839 --> 00:04:57,800
Speaker 1: and aircraft, so we had hundreds of aircraft that had

95
00:04:57,800 --> 00:05:01,360
Speaker 1: to dump fuel and u The coordination on that was

96
00:05:01,760 --> 00:05:05,040
Speaker 1: very complex because we had to vector airplanes away from

97
00:05:05,080 --> 00:05:08,160
Speaker 1: populated areas to make that happen. How many planes are

98
00:05:08,200 --> 00:05:11,279
Speaker 1: we talking about, bart So there were four thousand aircraft

99
00:05:11,640 --> 00:05:15,640
Speaker 1: roughly in the United States, and yeah, we had we

100
00:05:15,680 --> 00:05:18,000
Speaker 1: had a lot of aircraft that were either that had

101
00:05:18,040 --> 00:05:20,480
Speaker 1: just taken off or that we're coming from let's say,

102
00:05:20,520 --> 00:05:24,520
Speaker 1: across the Pacific Ocean from Europe up through Mexico, what

103
00:05:24,600 --> 00:05:26,080
Speaker 1: we had to do with all the airplanes in the

104
00:05:26,120 --> 00:05:29,520
Speaker 1: air that were coming towards US is not allow any

105
00:05:29,560 --> 00:05:33,320
Speaker 1: aircraft coming from Canada or from Mexico. We we just

106
00:05:33,320 --> 00:05:36,919
Speaker 1: stopped all those aircraft from coming into US airspace. The

107
00:05:36,920 --> 00:05:39,320
Speaker 1: only airport planes that we couldn't divert were the ones

108
00:05:39,360 --> 00:05:41,880
Speaker 1: coming from say, Hawaii, because there's no place for them

109
00:05:41,920 --> 00:05:44,400
Speaker 1: to land other than you know, the West coast somewhere.

110
00:05:44,440 --> 00:05:46,480
Speaker 1: Although some of those airplanes I know were diverted up

111
00:05:46,520 --> 00:05:49,800
Speaker 1: into Alaska, which we thought at the time made more

112
00:05:49,839 --> 00:05:53,200
Speaker 1: sense than trying to not knowing you know, which airplane

113
00:05:53,279 --> 00:05:56,840
Speaker 1: could have a terrorist and which one doesn't. But within

114
00:05:56,880 --> 00:05:59,320
Speaker 1: an hour, um, we have a we have a in

115
00:05:59,360 --> 00:06:02,080
Speaker 1: traffic manage when we have a huge television screen that

116
00:06:02,120 --> 00:06:05,160
Speaker 1: shows every airplane in the United States, and like I said,

117
00:06:05,160 --> 00:06:07,839
Speaker 1: I believe they are about four thousand, within an hour

118
00:06:07,960 --> 00:06:10,200
Speaker 1: or so, almost every single one of those planes had

119
00:06:10,240 --> 00:06:12,240
Speaker 1: just disappeared. It was they were all on the ground.

120
00:06:13,200 --> 00:06:15,680
Speaker 1: Just shocking to see that the only airplanes that were

121
00:06:15,760 --> 00:06:20,520
Speaker 1: left was air Force one, and all over the country

122
00:06:20,520 --> 00:06:23,080
Speaker 1: there were f sixteens that were orbiting around the big

123
00:06:23,279 --> 00:06:29,000
Speaker 1: major cities. The other thing that was very spooky was.

124
00:06:29,360 --> 00:06:32,520
Speaker 1: We have these things called ghost targets, and a ghost

125
00:06:32,600 --> 00:06:37,320
Speaker 1: target is when an aircraft loses its transponder, the computer

126
00:06:37,440 --> 00:06:40,440
Speaker 1: projects based on its you know, it's route, that it has,

127
00:06:40,480 --> 00:06:42,880
Speaker 1: its aut tune, and it's and its last known ground

128
00:06:42,880 --> 00:06:45,599
Speaker 1: speed and and it and it keeps this data block

129
00:06:45,680 --> 00:06:48,160
Speaker 1: kind of floating. And so I believe it was the

130
00:06:48,200 --> 00:06:50,240
Speaker 1: aircraft that hit the Pentagon. They I don't think they

131
00:06:50,360 --> 00:06:53,200
Speaker 1: realized for a while that that aircraft had been lost.

132
00:06:54,279 --> 00:06:56,960
Speaker 1: And so here in the out in the Midwest, we

133
00:06:57,000 --> 00:07:00,680
Speaker 1: see this ghost target just ominously coming towards the West coast,

134
00:07:01,440 --> 00:07:04,320
Speaker 1: and uh that that gave us a big chill for

135
00:07:04,480 --> 00:07:07,000
Speaker 1: quite a while, until later on they figured out that

136
00:07:07,000 --> 00:07:09,880
Speaker 1: that was just a ghost target. Obviously we know now

137
00:07:10,040 --> 00:07:12,760
Speaker 1: twin towers were hit, Pentagon was hit, and then the

138
00:07:12,800 --> 00:07:15,360
Speaker 1: plane that went down in Pennsylvania. It had its target.

139
00:07:15,800 --> 00:07:18,320
Speaker 1: I've always known here on the West coast that Los

140
00:07:18,400 --> 00:07:21,440
Speaker 1: Angeles is always a very vulnerable target. That had to

141
00:07:21,480 --> 00:07:23,800
Speaker 1: be going through your mind too, because you had l A,

142
00:07:24,000 --> 00:07:27,520
Speaker 1: You've got San Francisco along the western seaboard, You've got

143
00:07:27,560 --> 00:07:30,680
Speaker 1: a lot of potential there. Absolutely. The other thing too,

144
00:07:30,760 --> 00:07:32,920
Speaker 1: is that twenty years later we looked back. We know

145
00:07:33,200 --> 00:07:35,400
Speaker 1: all the facts pretty much of what happened, but you know,

146
00:07:35,440 --> 00:07:38,240
Speaker 1: within thirty minutes to an hour after that that those

147
00:07:38,240 --> 00:07:41,320
Speaker 1: first planes hit, nobody knew what was going on. For

148
00:07:41,360 --> 00:07:43,120
Speaker 1: all we knew there was a hundred planes that had

149
00:07:43,200 --> 00:07:46,320
Speaker 1: terrorists on them and and they may have been coming

150
00:07:46,400 --> 00:07:49,520
Speaker 1: from you know, Japan, coming into l A. And we

151
00:07:49,560 --> 00:07:52,720
Speaker 1: had to take those airplanes. And it was scary until

152
00:07:52,800 --> 00:07:55,520
Speaker 1: every airplane was on the ground and we had resolved

153
00:07:55,560 --> 00:07:58,720
Speaker 1: that ghost target issue, it was it was very scary

154
00:07:58,800 --> 00:08:01,360
Speaker 1: to look at that. You were talking about all of

155
00:08:01,400 --> 00:08:03,840
Speaker 1: the planes that had to dump fuel and you had to,

156
00:08:04,000 --> 00:08:07,280
Speaker 1: as you say, vector them away from populated areas. How

157
00:08:07,320 --> 00:08:09,760
Speaker 1: does one go about dumping that much fuel from the sky?

158
00:08:09,800 --> 00:08:12,120
Speaker 1: Where do they dump it at? They actually dump it

159
00:08:12,200 --> 00:08:15,160
Speaker 1: over land. My understanding is that if you're up high enough,

160
00:08:15,160 --> 00:08:18,000
Speaker 1: it just dissipates before it actually hits the ground. But

161
00:08:18,240 --> 00:08:21,080
Speaker 1: some of those aircraft were down, you know, relatively low,

162
00:08:21,920 --> 00:08:24,000
Speaker 1: and so we had to take them out kind of

163
00:08:24,000 --> 00:08:25,280
Speaker 1: out in the middle, maybe out in the middle of

164
00:08:25,320 --> 00:08:31,240
Speaker 1: nowhere so speak, and throughout just away from populated areas. Obviously,

165
00:08:31,280 --> 00:08:34,200
Speaker 1: that's not a good thing to have fuel dumping down

166
00:08:34,240 --> 00:08:37,360
Speaker 1: on over downtown l A, etcetera. Sure, so they knew

167
00:08:37,360 --> 00:08:39,320
Speaker 1: they were having to dump it for the purpose of landing.

168
00:08:39,920 --> 00:08:42,960
Speaker 1: So it would have been a very last minute thing,

169
00:08:43,080 --> 00:08:45,360
Speaker 1: you know, in their part too. But it's also a

170
00:08:45,480 --> 00:08:48,240
Speaker 1: very standard thing. When when an airplane declares an emergency,

171
00:08:48,280 --> 00:08:50,120
Speaker 1: which happens all the time, you know, they lose an

172
00:08:50,120 --> 00:08:53,360
Speaker 1: engine or whatnot. The first thing that pilot tells the

173
00:08:53,360 --> 00:08:55,240
Speaker 1: air traffic controllers says, hey, we have to dump fuel

174
00:08:55,360 --> 00:08:58,160
Speaker 1: right now. And you know, if they're out over the ocean,

175
00:08:58,200 --> 00:08:59,959
Speaker 1: that's just taking off from l A X, No big deal.

176
00:09:00,000 --> 00:09:02,520
Speaker 1: I just dumped out over the ocean. And it doesn't

177
00:09:02,520 --> 00:09:05,080
Speaker 1: take that long, maybe fifteen or twenty minutes too, and

178
00:09:05,120 --> 00:09:08,840
Speaker 1: they know how much fuel the dump where they're okay

179
00:09:08,840 --> 00:09:10,400
Speaker 1: to land the aircraft. The reason they do it is

180
00:09:10,400 --> 00:09:12,560
Speaker 1: because of the weight of the aircraft. They can't safely

181
00:09:12,640 --> 00:09:15,400
Speaker 1: land an aircraft that's got you know, half a million

182
00:09:15,400 --> 00:09:17,760
Speaker 1: pounds of fuel on board or I'm not sure how much.

183
00:09:17,760 --> 00:09:21,000
Speaker 1: That's probably an exaggeration, but a lot of weight is

184
00:09:21,040 --> 00:09:25,120
Speaker 1: in that fuel. How many airports were in your jurisdiction,

185
00:09:25,640 --> 00:09:29,000
Speaker 1: Las Vegas, all the all the so Cal airports um

186
00:09:29,760 --> 00:09:32,199
Speaker 1: Bakersfield to the to the kind of the Northwest. I

187
00:09:32,200 --> 00:09:35,000
Speaker 1: mean that includes like the major airports in the smaller

188
00:09:35,040 --> 00:09:37,800
Speaker 1: the municipal reports as well CORECT. Every every airport was

189
00:09:37,920 --> 00:09:40,680
Speaker 1: how many runways do you think you were overseeing over

190
00:09:40,720 --> 00:09:43,600
Speaker 1: a hundred? And then did you have situations where you

191
00:09:43,640 --> 00:09:47,120
Speaker 1: had like some fifty sevens and other large commercial carriers

192
00:09:47,280 --> 00:09:50,160
Speaker 1: having to land in on runways they were not accustomed

193
00:09:50,160 --> 00:09:54,319
Speaker 1: to know. We are well aware of which airports can

194
00:09:54,440 --> 00:09:57,679
Speaker 1: you know, because we are trained in emergency procedures where

195
00:09:57,720 --> 00:09:59,720
Speaker 1: an aircraft is in distress and has to land at

196
00:09:59,720 --> 00:10:03,000
Speaker 1: the new orst airport and we're obviously not gonna let

197
00:10:03,000 --> 00:10:05,640
Speaker 1: at seven try to land at Whiteman Airport. I think

198
00:10:05,720 --> 00:10:09,520
Speaker 1: Las Vegas actually bore most of the brunt because a

199
00:10:09,600 --> 00:10:13,640
Speaker 1: lot of our traffic flow goes up towards Las Vegas area.

200
00:10:13,679 --> 00:10:16,840
Speaker 1: Any flight that's going to Europe to the most of

201
00:10:16,840 --> 00:10:19,040
Speaker 1: the East Coast airports are going to go right over

202
00:10:19,120 --> 00:10:22,640
Speaker 1: Las Vegas. And looking back on it, the guys and

203
00:10:23,040 --> 00:10:25,400
Speaker 1: gals on the ground in Las Vegas must have just

204
00:10:25,480 --> 00:10:27,840
Speaker 1: had a nightmare on their hands because not only could

205
00:10:28,360 --> 00:10:33,360
Speaker 1: no airplanes depart Las Vegas, all these airplanes were landing

206
00:10:33,360 --> 00:10:35,800
Speaker 1: in Las Vegas, and God knows where they were parking

207
00:10:35,800 --> 00:10:38,080
Speaker 1: all those airplanes, but we my guess is we put

208
00:10:38,280 --> 00:10:40,800
Speaker 1: fifty a hundred airplanes down in Las Vegas and you

209
00:10:40,880 --> 00:10:43,319
Speaker 1: did all that in an hour. In an hour, so

210
00:10:43,400 --> 00:10:48,360
Speaker 1: then what we, like probably every American, were in just shock.

211
00:10:49,559 --> 00:10:52,959
Speaker 1: We were just speechless. We I remember looking at my

212
00:10:53,080 --> 00:10:56,120
Speaker 1: radar scope and thinking, I am never seen a blank

213
00:10:56,200 --> 00:10:58,240
Speaker 1: radar scope in my life. I mean, I'm talking about

214
00:10:58,400 --> 00:11:02,040
Speaker 1: hundreds of thousands square miles that control just a fighter

215
00:11:02,120 --> 00:11:06,560
Speaker 1: jet or two and just no airplanes. And I think

216
00:11:06,600 --> 00:11:09,240
Speaker 1: we just tried to talk it out and make try

217
00:11:09,280 --> 00:11:11,960
Speaker 1: to make sense of it. At that point, probably every

218
00:11:11,960 --> 00:11:15,439
Speaker 1: controller in our facility, and there's about on shift that morning,

219
00:11:15,440 --> 00:11:19,040
Speaker 1: they were well over a hundred controllers and we were

220
00:11:19,120 --> 00:11:20,880
Speaker 1: popping in and out of the TV room just try

221
00:11:20,920 --> 00:11:23,240
Speaker 1: to try to pick up snippets of what was going on,

222
00:11:23,960 --> 00:11:26,400
Speaker 1: and um, you just couldn't make sense of it. It

223
00:11:26,480 --> 00:11:28,760
Speaker 1: was just something that just did not compute in our minds.

224
00:11:28,800 --> 00:11:32,400
Speaker 1: As is there traffic controllers, You're never trained for something

225
00:11:32,440 --> 00:11:36,280
Speaker 1: like that. It's just it's absolute craziness what we saw

226
00:11:36,320 --> 00:11:39,720
Speaker 1: that morning. Interesting though, you are trained to handle the

227
00:11:39,760 --> 00:11:42,720
Speaker 1: worst case scenarios though, because you're dealing with people's lives

228
00:11:42,880 --> 00:11:46,360
Speaker 1: all the time, but on something on this kind of scale,

229
00:11:46,440 --> 00:11:49,520
Speaker 1: I'm sure it's like many others in the role, get

230
00:11:49,520 --> 00:11:52,800
Speaker 1: the job done first, process it later, correct. It's it's

231
00:11:52,840 --> 00:11:54,840
Speaker 1: something that's ingrained in us. You know, we're you know,

232
00:11:54,880 --> 00:11:58,640
Speaker 1: we all act like we're macho, and you know, we

233
00:11:58,640 --> 00:12:04,800
Speaker 1: we we see people unfortunately dying aircraft accidents. UM. For example,

234
00:12:04,840 --> 00:12:06,520
Speaker 1: about a year and a half before nine eleven, I

235
00:12:06,880 --> 00:12:09,160
Speaker 1: was working the day that Alaska to sixty one crash

236
00:12:09,200 --> 00:12:11,920
Speaker 1: in the Pacific Ocean. I wasn't controlling the plane, but

237
00:12:12,360 --> 00:12:14,840
Speaker 1: I was at a scope nearby, and I was watching

238
00:12:15,000 --> 00:12:17,240
Speaker 1: the data black and I watched how fast that aircraft

239
00:12:17,240 --> 00:12:19,880
Speaker 1: is senator at the end, and I just I was

240
00:12:19,880 --> 00:12:21,920
Speaker 1: shaking when I got off the sector. You know. But

241
00:12:21,920 --> 00:12:23,760
Speaker 1: but you're cool and you're calm if you listen to

242
00:12:23,800 --> 00:12:27,160
Speaker 1: the controllers voices that we're dealing with nine eleven. UM,

243
00:12:27,160 --> 00:12:29,199
Speaker 1: so proud of those folks, you know, just the way

244
00:12:29,240 --> 00:12:31,800
Speaker 1: they did their job. But I guarantee they were shaking

245
00:12:31,840 --> 00:12:35,320
Speaker 1: and probably sobbing, you know, within an hour of what

246
00:12:35,679 --> 00:12:38,680
Speaker 1: and and a lot of us were just trying to

247
00:12:38,720 --> 00:12:41,360
Speaker 1: deal with it. And you know, there's no grief counselors

248
00:12:41,360 --> 00:12:43,000
Speaker 1: to come around, and you're just you're just on your

249
00:12:43,000 --> 00:12:47,120
Speaker 1: own looking back on it. Um, boy, it was just

250
00:12:47,200 --> 00:12:49,840
Speaker 1: terrific what we saw. How do you balance with what

251
00:12:49,920 --> 00:12:51,920
Speaker 1: you were looking at on the scope, what you were

252
00:12:51,920 --> 00:12:53,960
Speaker 1: seeing on the television, and kind of what you were

253
00:12:53,960 --> 00:12:58,920
Speaker 1: discussing amongst yourselves. Well, air traffic controllers always want to

254
00:12:58,960 --> 00:13:01,760
Speaker 1: try to know everything that's going on, and so we

255
00:13:01,760 --> 00:13:05,360
Speaker 1: were just you know, digging out pieces of information we

256
00:13:05,400 --> 00:13:08,880
Speaker 1: could find on on the news or hearing, hearing what

257
00:13:08,920 --> 00:13:14,760
Speaker 1: other controllers, you know, theories were, and um, I don't know,

258
00:13:14,840 --> 00:13:17,440
Speaker 1: I don't I don't even know how to answer that question.

259
00:13:17,559 --> 00:13:20,760
Speaker 1: It was just it was tough. It's hard for me

260
00:13:20,800 --> 00:13:23,880
Speaker 1: to even talk about this. It's just all coming back

261
00:13:23,920 --> 00:13:27,760
Speaker 1: into just a horrible situation. Well even twenty years later,

262
00:13:28,040 --> 00:13:30,760
Speaker 1: but you're doing it was a very visual job and

263
00:13:30,760 --> 00:13:34,240
Speaker 1: a very visceral job. So even twenty years later, does

264
00:13:34,280 --> 00:13:37,440
Speaker 1: it feel like it was yesterday? It does? It does,

265
00:13:37,559 --> 00:13:39,959
Speaker 1: especially you know, going back and listening to some of

266
00:13:40,000 --> 00:13:44,160
Speaker 1: the tapes, it just brought back bad memories and it

267
00:13:44,160 --> 00:13:46,120
Speaker 1: seemed like it was not twenty years ago. It seemed

268
00:13:46,120 --> 00:13:48,320
Speaker 1: like it was very recent. So you were talking about

269
00:13:48,360 --> 00:13:51,000
Speaker 1: when the scopes were clear, you said other than military

270
00:13:51,480 --> 00:13:54,120
Speaker 1: you were listening. Did you get to hear the orders

271
00:13:54,880 --> 00:13:59,320
Speaker 1: coming from your headquarters about the permission to shoot down

272
00:14:00,000 --> 00:14:04,679
Speaker 1: martial aircraft? They didn't acknowledge. No, I don't recall ever

273
00:14:04,840 --> 00:14:08,719
Speaker 1: hearing that, And I think it's because we were scrambling

274
00:14:08,760 --> 00:14:11,079
Speaker 1: so hard to get all these aircraft on the ground

275
00:14:11,640 --> 00:14:15,040
Speaker 1: and in our particular airspace l A Center, we had

276
00:14:15,080 --> 00:14:17,400
Speaker 1: no aircraft in the air, so there was that was

277
00:14:17,480 --> 00:14:19,760
Speaker 1: kind of a mood point for as far as we're concerned.

278
00:14:20,560 --> 00:14:22,920
Speaker 1: I know that, I know that happened, but and they

279
00:14:22,920 --> 00:14:25,600
Speaker 1: never got down to our level. That must have been

280
00:14:25,640 --> 00:14:28,720
Speaker 1: pretty disturbing to see the only dots on your scope

281
00:14:28,760 --> 00:14:32,680
Speaker 1: were military. Do you remember about how many um? I

282
00:14:32,760 --> 00:14:36,040
Speaker 1: remember that they were all F sixteen's um. They were

283
00:14:36,040 --> 00:14:39,960
Speaker 1: all scrambled from some of the so cal military bases,

284
00:14:40,680 --> 00:14:43,160
Speaker 1: and at any given time they were they were always

285
00:14:43,160 --> 00:14:46,960
Speaker 1: in the air. They were in the aven probably four

286
00:14:47,040 --> 00:14:50,200
Speaker 1: or five in the Southern California area. That's got to

287
00:14:50,240 --> 00:14:53,720
Speaker 1: be pretty spooky, very spooky. It's I mean, it felt

288
00:14:53,720 --> 00:14:55,160
Speaker 1: like the end of the world. To be honest with you,

289
00:14:56,160 --> 00:14:57,760
Speaker 1: we didn't know. I didn't know if I was gonna

290
00:14:57,760 --> 00:14:59,440
Speaker 1: have a job. I didn't know. It just seemed like

291
00:14:59,480 --> 00:15:01,480
Speaker 1: the world was coming to an end. It was that horrific.

292
00:15:02,040 --> 00:15:04,320
Speaker 1: Were there any specific challenges on getting a plane to

293
00:15:04,360 --> 00:15:06,440
Speaker 1: the ground where there was just not enough room or

294
00:15:06,480 --> 00:15:09,760
Speaker 1: a pilot didn't know what they were doing, or yes, um,

295
00:15:09,840 --> 00:15:13,160
Speaker 1: all the planes got to the ground safely. Um. Some

296
00:15:13,240 --> 00:15:16,160
Speaker 1: of the foreign air carriers, for example, English is not

297
00:15:16,200 --> 00:15:20,120
Speaker 1: their first language, and even in a normal situation sometimes

298
00:15:20,200 --> 00:15:23,800
Speaker 1: there's a communication problem there. So those would have been

299
00:15:23,800 --> 00:15:26,440
Speaker 1: the flights that probably would have been the most difficult

300
00:15:26,480 --> 00:15:29,760
Speaker 1: to handle. I can't think of any specific things that

301
00:15:29,840 --> 00:15:33,040
Speaker 1: I saw, but it just seemed like once everybody was

302
00:15:33,080 --> 00:15:35,680
Speaker 1: on board with what was going on, it was handled

303
00:15:35,760 --> 00:15:39,640
Speaker 1: very well, and there weren't really any difficult situations that

304
00:15:39,640 --> 00:15:41,000
Speaker 1: I'm aware of. That there had to be a lot

305
00:15:41,040 --> 00:15:43,840
Speaker 1: of disbelief, And then I remember hearing some chatter saying

306
00:15:44,040 --> 00:15:46,720
Speaker 1: is this a drill? And then or is this real? Right?

307
00:15:47,000 --> 00:15:49,840
Speaker 1: That that did happen too, and getting pilots to sign

308
00:15:49,880 --> 00:15:52,400
Speaker 1: on that's true, that's I didn't thought of that, but

309
00:15:53,200 --> 00:15:56,000
Speaker 1: I'm sure some of those pilots were wondering if somebody

310
00:15:56,200 --> 00:16:00,120
Speaker 1: came into our place and stole the mics. But I

311
00:16:00,120 --> 00:16:03,360
Speaker 1: think pilots know when they're talking to an a real

312
00:16:03,400 --> 00:16:07,320
Speaker 1: air traffic controller. Um, there's just a way we speak,

313
00:16:07,480 --> 00:16:10,160
Speaker 1: a way we communicate, And I think they would have

314
00:16:10,200 --> 00:16:13,960
Speaker 1: been suspicious if if something weird like that had happened.

315
00:16:14,000 --> 00:16:17,560
Speaker 1: So I I really don't think for very long they

316
00:16:17,640 --> 00:16:20,960
Speaker 1: believe that this was any sort of a hoax or drill.

317
00:16:21,640 --> 00:16:23,720
Speaker 1: You don't. You don't tell a guy going to London

318
00:16:23,760 --> 00:16:25,680
Speaker 1: that you're going to land in Las Vegas right now,

319
00:16:25,880 --> 00:16:28,200
Speaker 1: because just trust me, you have to land in Las Vegas.

320
00:16:28,400 --> 00:16:30,720
Speaker 1: You're just gonna do it. And the other thing, too,

321
00:16:30,760 --> 00:16:33,560
Speaker 1: is pilots are just trained to listen to us. I mean,

322
00:16:33,640 --> 00:16:35,440
Speaker 1: it's it's it's a little bit of an ego trip

323
00:16:35,480 --> 00:16:37,800
Speaker 1: being in air traffic control because you're telling these guys

324
00:16:38,680 --> 00:16:41,640
Speaker 1: what exactly what to do. So now the planes are

325
00:16:41,640 --> 00:16:44,040
Speaker 1: on the ground, you're kind of making sense of all

326
00:16:44,080 --> 00:16:46,640
Speaker 1: of this, what happens next? I mean, how long was

327
00:16:46,680 --> 00:16:51,080
Speaker 1: it like this so that that whole first day we

328
00:16:51,080 --> 00:16:53,360
Speaker 1: were just all in the days we're sitting there. I

329
00:16:53,360 --> 00:16:55,800
Speaker 1: don't know why we were sitting at our sectors, but

330
00:16:55,880 --> 00:16:58,080
Speaker 1: I just remember to describe what a sector is. Sure,

331
00:16:58,120 --> 00:17:02,280
Speaker 1: a sector is um a specific speed piece of airspace

332
00:17:02,320 --> 00:17:05,760
Speaker 1: that a particular controller controls. And at ELI Center, I

333
00:17:05,760 --> 00:17:09,119
Speaker 1: believe there were about your air cubicle. It's like an

334
00:17:09,160 --> 00:17:12,399
Speaker 1: air cubicle and it's literally like this geographic area. And

335
00:17:12,440 --> 00:17:15,280
Speaker 1: once once that airplane crosses this line, he's now in

336
00:17:15,280 --> 00:17:18,440
Speaker 1: the next sector, and we do what's called shipping the aircraft.

337
00:17:18,480 --> 00:17:20,359
Speaker 1: We change the frequency and tell him, Okay, now you're

338
00:17:20,359 --> 00:17:23,240
Speaker 1: gonna talk to Sector three over here. I'm Sector four,

339
00:17:23,320 --> 00:17:28,119
Speaker 1: see you later. So just silence, staring at scopes, wondering

340
00:17:28,640 --> 00:17:31,920
Speaker 1: what's what's what's going to happen next. The next day

341
00:17:31,960 --> 00:17:34,199
Speaker 1: when we all came in for some odd reason, they

342
00:17:34,200 --> 00:17:37,119
Speaker 1: didn't really cut the staffing down. They just everybody just

343
00:17:37,160 --> 00:17:39,640
Speaker 1: came back into work the next day and once again

344
00:17:39,680 --> 00:17:41,639
Speaker 1: we just sat in front of blank raid our scopes

345
00:17:42,520 --> 00:17:46,919
Speaker 1: and um So. One of the things that happened to

346
00:17:46,960 --> 00:17:50,200
Speaker 1: me that really to this day twenty years later, um

347
00:17:51,040 --> 00:17:54,840
Speaker 1: um just really affected me bad. Um So. I was

348
00:17:54,880 --> 00:17:57,720
Speaker 1: in traffic management. I think it was day three and

349
00:17:57,760 --> 00:18:00,520
Speaker 1: the ground stop was still in effect. It's just the

350
00:18:00,560 --> 00:18:03,560
Speaker 1: f sixteens in the year, and I get a call

351
00:18:03,720 --> 00:18:08,080
Speaker 1: from a pilot on the ground in Lake Havasu and

352
00:18:08,160 --> 00:18:11,960
Speaker 1: he's a lifeguard flight and UM. He told me that, UM,

353
00:18:12,080 --> 00:18:14,320
Speaker 1: look he's got a very sick passenger on board. He

354
00:18:14,359 --> 00:18:18,399
Speaker 1: needs to get this passenger to Las Vegas immediately, and um,

355
00:18:18,720 --> 00:18:22,640
Speaker 1: lifeguard flights are top priority. The only one above him

356
00:18:22,680 --> 00:18:26,160
Speaker 1: really is an emergency or air force one. It's it's

357
00:18:26,160 --> 00:18:28,080
Speaker 1: just like an ambulance going down the street and everybody

358
00:18:28,080 --> 00:18:30,400
Speaker 1: moves out of the way. So this guy probably could

359
00:18:30,400 --> 00:18:32,960
Speaker 1: have been in Las Vegas within twenty minutes. I believe

360
00:18:33,000 --> 00:18:35,960
Speaker 1: it was a lear jet. And UM, I told him.

361
00:18:35,960 --> 00:18:39,720
Speaker 1: I said, look, I'm gonna call Virginia and ask, but

362
00:18:39,880 --> 00:18:43,000
Speaker 1: I'm almost positive that the answers for you. Unfortunately it's

363
00:18:43,000 --> 00:18:45,840
Speaker 1: gonna be no, but I'll call you back. So I

364
00:18:45,840 --> 00:18:51,040
Speaker 1: called Virginia. UM, and the guy said, you know, I

365
00:18:51,119 --> 00:18:53,399
Speaker 1: don't think so, but let me let me see what

366
00:18:53,800 --> 00:18:57,760
Speaker 1: we're doing with these lifeguard flights. And I waited. I

367
00:18:57,800 --> 00:18:59,560
Speaker 1: called the guy back and have us to the pilot.

368
00:18:59,560 --> 00:19:02,080
Speaker 1: I told him, like, I'm still waiting. I'm so sorry,

369
00:19:02,240 --> 00:19:05,560
Speaker 1: UM hanging hanging there for me. And about a half

370
00:19:05,600 --> 00:19:07,680
Speaker 1: hour went by, and I remember, this guy calls me back,

371
00:19:07,680 --> 00:19:10,320
Speaker 1: and it's chilling what he said to me. He just says, um, hey,

372
00:19:10,480 --> 00:19:14,280
Speaker 1: um art just disregard that we lost our passenger, and

373
00:19:14,400 --> 00:19:18,639
Speaker 1: looking back on it, there's nothing we could have done. UM. Also,

374
00:19:19,480 --> 00:19:21,359
Speaker 1: at any given time in l A Center air space,

375
00:19:21,400 --> 00:19:25,280
Speaker 1: for example, there's probably one or two lifeguard flights an

376
00:19:25,280 --> 00:19:27,960
Speaker 1: hour there there, you know, going from place to place,

377
00:19:28,560 --> 00:19:31,800
Speaker 1: most in most cases, I believe, taking critically injured people

378
00:19:31,840 --> 00:19:35,159
Speaker 1: to hospitals. And so for those few days that the

379
00:19:35,200 --> 00:19:38,240
Speaker 1: airspace was shut down, god knows how many people probably

380
00:19:38,440 --> 00:19:41,600
Speaker 1: lost their lives. It's just another casualty of nine eleven.

381
00:19:41,880 --> 00:19:44,200
Speaker 1: I didn't even think about that, so that the ground

382
00:19:44,240 --> 00:19:48,800
Speaker 1: stop impacted medical transport. Absolutely nobody was in the air

383
00:19:48,920 --> 00:19:51,520
Speaker 1: except for those six When did it finally start to

384
00:19:51,520 --> 00:19:54,040
Speaker 1: open up? You know it? As I recall, it was

385
00:19:54,080 --> 00:19:57,760
Speaker 1: about four day four or five that they slowly started

386
00:19:57,800 --> 00:20:01,399
Speaker 1: to kind of open it up. And one of the

387
00:20:01,440 --> 00:20:03,840
Speaker 1: things that struck me as kind of odd was that

388
00:20:03,920 --> 00:20:08,479
Speaker 1: one of the early restrictions that was lifted UM was

389
00:20:08,560 --> 00:20:13,080
Speaker 1: on UM crop dusters, and I thought, okay, crop dusters,

390
00:20:13,359 --> 00:20:15,960
Speaker 1: how about lifeguard flights too. I believe lifeguard flights were

391
00:20:15,960 --> 00:20:19,959
Speaker 1: also released pretty early on. But apparently crop crop dusters

392
00:20:20,000 --> 00:20:23,480
Speaker 1: are pretty vital to our countries crops, and they weren't

393
00:20:23,480 --> 00:20:26,000
Speaker 1: allowed to fly for three or four days, and I

394
00:20:26,000 --> 00:20:28,480
Speaker 1: found that interesting. But I think I think probably on

395
00:20:28,560 --> 00:20:31,240
Speaker 1: day five we were kind of back to normal. But

396
00:20:31,359 --> 00:20:33,760
Speaker 1: of course there were not a lot of airplanes in

397
00:20:33,760 --> 00:20:35,800
Speaker 1: the air for a long time after nine eleven. It's

398
00:20:35,840 --> 00:20:39,200
Speaker 1: just took a long time to kind of get back

399
00:20:39,240 --> 00:20:41,960
Speaker 1: to normal. How many years after that did you continue

400
00:20:42,000 --> 00:20:44,240
Speaker 1: to work. I retired in two thousand seven, so about

401
00:20:44,280 --> 00:20:47,080
Speaker 1: six say so, looking back on it now, and as

402
00:20:47,400 --> 00:20:50,600
Speaker 1: someone who travels still travels today, when you go through

403
00:20:50,640 --> 00:20:52,440
Speaker 1: t S A and you go through all of the

404
00:20:52,760 --> 00:20:55,159
Speaker 1: new security measures as a result of nine eleven, do

405
00:20:55,200 --> 00:20:59,439
Speaker 1: you feel safer traveling? Um? Yes, I I do. I

406
00:20:59,520 --> 00:21:02,280
Speaker 1: always thank those t S agents. I I look him

407
00:21:02,320 --> 00:21:03,960
Speaker 1: in the eye and I say thank you for your service,

408
00:21:04,200 --> 00:21:07,000
Speaker 1: because I think they have a really tough job. And

409
00:21:07,200 --> 00:21:09,199
Speaker 1: but I think that's kind of the only way to

410
00:21:09,240 --> 00:21:11,560
Speaker 1: do this anymore. I mean, we have to really kind

411
00:21:11,560 --> 00:21:13,919
Speaker 1: of check every single person that's getting on an aircraft

412
00:21:14,520 --> 00:21:18,160
Speaker 1: so it never happens again. So I think definitely think

413
00:21:18,240 --> 00:21:20,880
Speaker 1: things are a lot safer since nine eleven. How about

414
00:21:20,960 --> 00:21:22,399
Speaker 1: is a country? Do you think the country is a

415
00:21:22,440 --> 00:21:30,080
Speaker 1: lot safer. Well, Um, that's a whole discussion. Um, I

416
00:21:30,080 --> 00:21:32,720
Speaker 1: I'm starting I'm starting to wonder if we're safer or

417
00:21:32,720 --> 00:21:34,879
Speaker 1: not now some of the things that are going on.

418
00:21:35,720 --> 00:21:38,879
Speaker 1: It doesn't make sense that people seem to just be

419
00:21:38,920 --> 00:21:42,439
Speaker 1: able to willy nearly come into the country. Um, unchecked.

420
00:21:43,160 --> 00:21:44,960
Speaker 1: I don't know how safe that is. I don't think

421
00:21:44,960 --> 00:21:48,360
Speaker 1: that's safe. But um, that's the way about my pay

422
00:21:48,440 --> 00:21:54,879
Speaker 1: grade coming up in episode three. Our goal was to

423
00:21:54,880 --> 00:21:57,560
Speaker 1: be unpredictable. We didn't want the bad guys to be

424
00:21:57,600 --> 00:21:59,919
Speaker 1: able to gain the system. The t s A is

425
00:22:00,080 --> 00:22:06,080
Speaker 1: born nine eleven, two decades later, is produced by Steve

426
00:22:06,160 --> 00:22:09,280
Speaker 1: Gregory and Jacob Gonzalez, and is a production of the

427
00:22:09,359 --> 00:22:13,120
Speaker 1: CAFI News department for iHeartMedia Los Angeles and the iHeart

428
00:22:13,160 --> 00:22:16,520
Speaker 1: Podcast Network. The views expressed are strictly those of the

429
00:22:16,600 --> 00:22:20,480
Speaker 1: guests and not necessarily the hosts or employees of iHeartMedia.