mfr nara- t7t8- aal-ual- personnel interviews- 11-17-03- 01098

8/14/2019 MFR NARA- T7T8- AAL-UAL- Personnel Interviews- 11-17-03- 01098

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MEMORANDUM FOR THE RECORDEvent: Interviews of United Airlines and American Airlines personnel in key roles onSeptember 11, 2001

Type: Site visitDate: November 17-21, 2003Special Access Issues: NoneTeam: 7 and 8Prepared by: Miles KaraParticipants (non-Commission): representatives of American Airlines and UnitedAirlinesParticipants (Commission): Miles Kara, John Raidt, Sam Brinkley, Bill Johnstone, andLisa SullivanLocation(s): UAL Headquarters in Chicago, IL and AAL Headquarters in Dallas FortWorth, TXBackgroundDuring period November 17-21,2003, Miles Kara, Team 8 traveled with Team 7 to visitAmerican Airlines (18-19 Nov) and United Airlines (20-21 Nov) to receive briefings,tour airframes (B757 and B767), and interview selected individuals. See Team 7interview and trip reports for specific details on interviews and briefings. The purpose ofthis MFR is to list certain details from Mr. Kara's perspective.Specific Items of Interest

An Air Traffic Control supervisor at New York Center opined that the transponder onUnited 175 was a newer model peculiar to the United-operated B767 fleet that could notbe turned off. That was the supervisor's possible explanation of why the transponder onUnited 175 changed code as opposed to being turned off. A senior pilot from bothUnited and American Airlines, familiar with cockpit details, each separatelydemonstrated how transponders were manipulated in the cockpit and conclusivelydemonstrated that the transponder in United 175 could have easily been turned off. Itwas also made clear that it was a simple procedure to change the code on a transponderand that the code change would likely start with the left-most digit.The transponders on United B757 and B767 airframes are identical. The transponders onAmerican B757 and B767 are also identical and differ from the United version in a singledetail. There are four knobs on the American version that change the transponder code.



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There are only two on theUnited Version. In both versions the knobs are stacked ingroups of tw o. Therefore, there are tw o stacks of tw o knobs each onthe A mericanversion and one stack of tw o knobs on the United version. In all cases the upper knob issm aller than and easily distinguished from the low er knob.

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T he senior U nited pilot also explained that there is a com pelling reason for transpondersto be turned off. Sheer congestion on the ground at large airports dictates thattransponders be off. H e explained that it w as one of the last item s accom plished prior totakeoff to set the transponder code.

B oth senior pilots stated that it w as unlikely that the terrorist pilot on U nited 175 sawAm erican A ir 11 fly into the north tower, but it was near certain that he would haveimmediately seen the fire/plum e. B oth m ade their observations w hile M r. K ara and thepilot were in the cockpit of a B767. Both were provided the same geometrics-UA 175was abeam starboard A A 11 at a distance of 40nm and from an altitude of 31 K feet.The w indow structure in the B 767 cockpit allow s vision over the left shoulder to thepilot's eight o 'clock position. The U nited pilot stated that the N ew Y ork C ity skylinew ould have been visi ble and although the terrorist pilot m ay not have picked up AA I 1flying into the north tow er he w ould have immediately picked up the afterm ath, know ingw hat he w as looking for. The pilot also said that binoculars w ould have been useless.B ased on both his m ilitary and civilian flying career he stated that w ithout stabilizationthe binoculars w ould have hindered not helped the pilot's distance vision. H e also statedthat binoculars are not carried on the Boeing fleet.

T he cockpits of the B 757 and B 767 are virtually interchangeable in their essentialelem ents. B oth are "easy" to fly and both respond to slight touches and corrections.E ntering changes to the auto pilot is som ething that terrorist pilots probably w ould nothave been trained or able to do. Even the United senior pilot, who instructs on how to dothat, said that he always has to pause before he m akes such corrections to m ake sure torem em bered how to enter the change. Any au to pilo t chan ges m ad e b y th e terro rist p ilo tsto assist them in navigating to predeterm ined coordinates w ould sim ply have been toenter a specific location such as N ew ark or R eagan N ational. [H ere the Team 7 concernw as the there w as a record that the hijackers had purchased G PS devices and thespeculation w as that they did that so they could determ ine the latitude and longitude oft he ir in te nd ed ta rg ets .]

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B ecause of scheduling com plexities, M r. K ara took the A CA RS briefing on behalf of therest of the traveling C omm ission S taff. F or the record , C omm ission Staff had p revio usaccess to responsive A CA RS traffic concerning U A93 prior to the visit but did not seeth e 175 resp on siv e ACARS traffic u ntil th e b riefin g.D avid K nerr, M anag er, F ligh t D ata A utom ation, provided the b riefing. K nerr stated th athe accom plished an "AC AR S audit" on 911 on both VA 17 5 and UA93 "by noon." Heverbally certified that he presented to M r. K ara in com piled form all of the A CA RSin fo rm atio n relev an t to b oth flig hts th at d ay .H e also certified during a review of critical tim e fram es that there w as no A CA RStech nical o r tex tu al in fo rm atio n th at eith er cap tu red o r d ep icted th e sev eral flig htd ev ia tio ns, b oth co ntro ller-d irected an d p ilo t-in itiated , th at o cc urred d urin g th e flig ht o fe ac h Un ite d flig ht. He also certified that there w as no A CA RS record that the flight crewo f U n ite d 175 communicated its p rio r k nowled ge o f th e u nu su al co ck pit commun icatio nsit heard on takeoff from Logan A irport or that it w as both deviated aw ay from Americanflight 11 an d co ntro ller-d irected to g ain a v isu al lo catio n o f th at aircraft.K nerr provided a cursory explanation of how A CA RS w orks. A ll such communicationsare routed through a contracted service provided by A IR IN C. T hat service is simply atransm ission serv ice con sisted on som e 300 gro und stations th ro ugho ut the U nited States.D isp atch ers typ e in a free text m essag e at their term inals an d th e A IR IN C transm issionserv ice co nverts that m essage in to a stand ard ized air-g ro und form at that is then sent tothe p lane. The m essage is received on a sm all term inal screen in the aircraft and can beprinted out. T here are tw o form s of ackno wledg em ent; an autom atic avionicsacknow ledgem ent that the m essage reached the plane and a crew acknow ledgem ent thatthe crew has actually seen the m essage. N ot all m essages require t he l att erack now ledgem ent. S om e m essag es from the plane are autom atically trig gered,sp ecifically g ate p ush b ack time and lift off tim e, and engine perform ance data isro utin ely d ow n-lin ked so th at dispatchers can recalcu late fu el-lo ad an d rela ted tim e-distan ce factors. A IR IN C guaran tees d elivery of all A CARS m essages at flig ht levelsabove feet. Knerr stated that in the New-York area it is likely that m essages at allaltitudes dow n to ground level are reliably delivered A CA RS m essages are recorded andsto red fo r 90 d ays, u nless there is d irection to hold them longer.United Flight t75 Messages of Interest1158:00Z1214:00Z

P ush back (ro un de d to n earest 3 0 seco nd s)L ift o ff (n ose w heel stru t ex ten sio n)

1231:49Z A crew acknow ledged m essage that indicates crew w as in charge]259: 19Z A dispatcher-initiated m essage that reached the plane but n ot crew -acknow ledged fro~1 ~tating "I heard of a reported incident."1259:29 .Add it io n al d is pa tc he r- in it ia te d me ss ag e1259:30 Addi tio n al d is pa tc he r- in it ia te d me ss ag e1303,~17 Rogers-initiated m essage not received by the aircraft

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United Flight 93 Messages of Interest1201Z1242Z1321:20Z

PushbackLift off (nose wheel strut extension)Crew-acknowledged message

1322:26Z Personal interest message to crew1324:24Z Ballenger alerting message about cockpit intrusions1326:10Z Crew asked, Jason, to confirm the previous message (last crewacknowledgement)1351:58Z Last downlink from aircraft

Dispatchers and other persons who sit positions in the System Operations Centers (SOC)at both American and United Airlines have access to an aircraft situation display that canbe tailored to meet specific needs. For example, any individual with access to the systemcan focus strictly on company planes, a specific plane, or all planes in the system.Military planes are not displayed. The ASD at each of the two SOCs is tailored to theneeds of each airline and is a subset of the TSD (Time Sensitive Display) commonly usedby FAA, in that the ASD is based on FAA radar feed.The ASD is not time sensitive and refreshes each minute or more. Nevertheless itssensitivity allowed United to maintain continuity on UA93 and to have post-factoawareness that UA175 impacted the second tower. Its sensitivity and data input,however, was not sufficient to allow American to gain any situational awareness ofAA77, but did allow some situational awareness of AA 11.Two distinct issues emerged that impacted the two airlines ability to gain situationalawareness, separately or jointly, on 9-11. Each airline had a procedure in place to isolatean incident flight and take its management away from the SOC and move thatmanagement to a crisis center. [Note: This is different than procedures in FAA en routecenters. Handling of incident aircraft is left with the controller and area of record and anattempt is made to move handling of other aircraft in his/her airspace to othercontrollers. ]First, United learned that it could not handle two such incidents simultaneously. Theisolation ofUA175 precluded initial isolation ofUA93 until United could figure out,software and procedure-wise, how to do that. Essentially, United defaulted to the UA93incident since it was ongoing.Second, American had no situational awareness of AA77 and had formed the erroneousunderstanding that AA77 impacted the second WTC tower. [Note: This is different fromthe FAA awareness that AA77 crashed on the OhioiKentucky border.] According toUnited people interviewed they were not able in the immediate aftermath of the 2d WTCimpact and the Pentagon impact to convey to American that it was UA175 that was thesecond impact into the WTC.


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United never lost situational awareness on UA93 and followed its final path in its crisiscenter. A document in a delivery made available to Commission Staff on Nov 21indicates that United had radar continuity from the FAA portion of the Joint SurveillanceSystem, supplemented by data from the ASAR-9 radar at Pittsburgh TRACON.Other Items

75 . SOC personnel at United that we talked to had no idea of the extent ofinteraction of the UA175 crew with the saga of AA 11. We walked down a list ofindicators-suspicious transmission heard on takeoff, course change to avoid AA 11,sighting of AA 11 at altitude and reporting same to ZNY controller. Until we mentionedthem no one we talked to was aware of those occurrences.

Team 7 will cover this in more detail, but for the record we heard no evidenceof any weapons used except for knives (or stabbing) and the threat of a bomb. There wasone inference that mace or other control measure was used. No one reported use of agun.

The hijacker seating arrangement of 1-2-2,with pilot to the front on the B757s was clearly pre-meditated and different from the 2-1-2 seating arrangement aboard the B767s with the pilot in the middle. On the B757 thereis only one cabin crew (one of four or five), the purser, sitting forward immediately aftthe cockpit. On the B767, as many as three (of nine) sit forward immediately aft thecockpit.

mfr nara- t7t8- aal-ual- personnel interviews- 11-17-03- 01098

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