t8 b2 faa ny center peter mccloskey fdr- handwritten notes- alt mfr- personnel statement

8/14/2019 T8 B2 FAA NY Center Peter McCloskey Fdr- Handwritten Notes- Alt MFR- Personnel Statement

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[Classification]M E M O R A N D U M F O R THE RECORD

Event: Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) New York Air Route CenterType of event: InterviewDate: Tuesday, September , 2003Special Access Issues: NonePrepared by: Geoffrey BrownTeam Number: 8Location: FAA New York A ir Route Center, Rokonkomo, New YorkParticipants - Non-Commission: Alfred , FAA General ConsulParticipants - Commission: John Azzarello, Miles Kara, Geoffrey Brown

NOTE: Unless otherwise noted, the following paraphrases the response and opinion ofth e interviewee. Please refer to the interview transcript for a complete account.PETERMCCLOSKEY1147EDTWith mark DePalma and sandy lane, FAA attorneyNove mber 2,1982, reported to ZNY in 1983 area b.Airspace and procedures office, three and a half years traffic management coordinator(o n 9/11), now area d ATC.Shift coordinator an d arrival director. Dealing with restrictions, reroutes at watch desk.W as at shift coordinator, arrivals inclusive at m orning 9/11.First notification of unusual air traffic. Phone call from Boston at 829edt, con ference callwith Cleveland, Herndon command center, ZNY ZBW - not actual air traffic areas, i t wasal l traffic management units, it 's a hotline but it patches all facilities together through thecommand center: shut off transponder, hard left turn near Albany, weren't tracking them.Appeared that there was also criminal activity an d possible hijacking. No information onwhat was overheard. G ot off Telcon. Imme diately told Pete mu lligan (supervisor) -everyone thought kidd ing, but got serious quick. Pete mu lligan called Herndon for moreinformation. Wasn't listening to Pete's conversation.When pulled up on scope didn't se e him. Too many p rimary targets. So had to spread itout and hone in on the pos ition north and listen for area b to give m ore precision from


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airplanes in air. Called area b and c to inform of hijack. Based on what B oston said. Hardleft and due south, 180 heading, would have hit sector 56 area b, or could have enteredsector 34 area c. CIC area b confirmed U A L 175 said AA 11 passed below. C ould thentrack him as prim ary target. Didn' t have ca ll sign on screen, but knew AA1 1 fromBoston. Probably 30 miles north of Kennedy.Chaos started. Pete called ZBW back- spoke to shift coordinator position of trafficmanagement . Everything done through com m and center. Alw ays a m iddle m an socommand center has view of what's going on in system, told him hijack confirmed.ZBW said they heard something, an d confirmed hijack. Got off immediately.In m eantim e trying to track him on screen, notify area b airplane headed their wa y. ToldZDC and informed. Called Tracon New York. Told jim m y Kurz.Determine speed on a primary by the way they track and the actual spacing between thelines on the trail. Can leave up to 5 histories. Can adjust it to none, or anything that's 1-5.Spacing between these histories gives an idea of where going. Radar updates every 12seconds. 5 histories is a minutes worth of information.Then got phone call from someone at watch desk on ELT in vicinity of lower Manhattan(N Y Tracon). W hen report came in target was gone. Waited for confirm ation. Word camein that someone hit WTC, but small airplane, was hoping that w as true. Taught to rely onfacts. Didn't really have a chance to think, "downshift", area B CIC (Ivonna) cam earound corner and told ab out UA L 175 lost.Immediately brought it up on the radar screen. Could find the solid beacon code andpicked him up. Based on what Ivonna said knew it was 3321 beacon. Saw since in factAA1 1 m ight have been plane that hit W TC, and that 3321 beacon was headed towardslower Manhattan, there was a major problem . Called NY Tracon, looked for 3321, theypicked him u p. They kept looking for information. Said I think it 's U AL 175, "heads up,here comes another one", now that process is in m ind thought it was heade d to hit newYork city. Called Tracon on the outside hard line. Arrival director on outside hard line.Frustration, NY Tracon knew something was going on and helpless feeling. Nextcom m ent was "I think he just crashed", had no idea where. Imm ediately hung up sincethere wasn' t anything else to say.CNN showing live learned from people in cafeteria that another tower had been hit. Hadno doubt in m ind of which aircraft had hit which tower. Shared opinion with PeteMulligan, "everybody up front assumed it was AA1 1 . W e had no confirmation. But w henunited hit, we d idn't need confirmation." Bruce Barrett was up front during process.Don' t know if m ike McCorm ack w as there or not when second plane hit.Military assistance: ZBW did not mention military assistance on way for AA11 .Understanding of procedures fo r military assistance fo r hijack not aware of. Air trafficprocedures would be to render any assistance asked for and notify supervisor. Noknowledge of what supervisors do in hijack situations. Knowledge based specifically onrole as ATC. No separate training from position at TMU. Everyone in TMU is an ATC.


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Pre-9/11 had CB I, classroom, ATP air traffic procedures and such in manual.8:29 phone call from Boston. Certain. NY Tracon is very small precise area soassumption would be in vicinity of New York City if they had received ELT.Command center Herndon recorded. ZBW recorded. Outside hard line to NY Traconrecorded.Shown Chapter 7: 76.4 - never received training regarding military.Not aware of any military with A A11 or UAL 175.Post 9/11: hijack procedures received no real changed instructions. Would still dowhatever is necessary to accommodate aircraft, and notify supervisor.Prior 9/11 - as ATC would detect a hijack by 75 00, by verbal or by the code w ord.Now detect a hijack without pilot telling you? No, virtually impossible since so manyother things are taking place. Personally, if they are going off course, "going to ask him"- "do you realize you are off course?" not received any training to be more aware in aformal sense. FAA has thrown MBI mandatory briefing item to be read and initialed.Have gotten a document. B ut as an ATC there really isn't anything to be done to makeyou more aware. N71 10.332 - never seen notice. Doesn' t recall i t . And considering thesubject, would be looked at. Paragraph b - indicates 11 items of suspicious activity. Inthat docum ent states w hen not establish comm unication, many things that could causethat. Prior to 9/11, model was based on signal from pilot, now is there an understandingas an ATC to detect things differently? Now w hen not talking to aircraft when supposedto , notify supervisor.Not really familiar with NEADS and what role they play. Had sm all dealings as an A TCas a controller. Area b alongside warning areas, and some restricted areas. Prior to 9/11never participated in any joint FA A/military exercise. Not post either. N o idea of militaryro e on hijacks. Unaw are of escort and engage order officially, but assumes they have thatauthority know. FAA could have a role in vectoring military aircraft to target. After 9/11military and FAA had a lot of "knee jerk" reactions. A lot of general aviation pilotsstrayed into prohibited areas post 9/11, and this involved military scrambles. Wentsmoothly. After 9/11 there was a NEA DS hotline in TMU. NEAD S w ould ask "do youdeem it necessary to scramble?"If had target w ith only primary, had no altitude. Doesn' t know if military has radar thatcan do that. If t ransponder off no information.No thought that 9/11 scenario w ould occur.NY at ATC zero: mad e phone call. U A L 175 hit second towe r, stunned for a second,


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spoke with Pete m ulligan urging him to stop traffic. Pete mulligan gave instruction.Norm al line 46 busy that would have gone to information hub, used 90 line for severeweather to get through to c omm and center, spoke to Wanda, advised her ZNY going toATC zero. Immediately, one minute or two m inutes after, instruction is given. 46 linebusy did not interfere at all. They took it from there. Single point of notification and theyare in charge of "going system wide".Not familiar with DEN hotline. But been out of traffic managem ent for over a year.U A L 175: AA1 1 out of equation, changes code, no radio, serious course deviation. Lotsneed to know ahead of time. Could think of various problems, but because of the hard lefttime would think something very serious going on. In position he made that hard turnwould think he has a problem and is running to land in Philadelphia. Pre9/l 1 would nothave though hijack. Would have said some kind of mechanical electrical error since therewas no notification, covert or overt from pilot. Once AA1 1 in mix, as well as WTC crash,changes the result.D idn't give any verbal statements. No knowledge of the morning's m eeting. Turf w ar, nocontrollers like traffic manage ment since they perceived the position of being useless.

DEPALMA:That meeting was area b only. It involved factual recollection. Management taped itperson by person o n what they experienced factual and emotional in that meeting. FromDepa lma's p erspective that meeting was to get facts.

Did not participate in any watch desk timelines on what happened that morning.Statement made for UA L 175 package. Never m ade statement on A A 1 1 .Rebirth of AA11 : Heard of that. No one knew for sure. So were continuing to try andtrack where they w ere. No confirmation that they w ere the ones that defiantly had hit.Effort made at watch desk. NY tower had view of towers. S o had conversation with them.Kept looking for a fast moving primary in that vicinity. Only way to get confirmation wasa reliable visual report. ELT went off in lower Manhattan. Don't know in hindsight ifanyone saw AA1 1 was first impact. Can look at primary data to see when the planeactually stopped. From Herndon or FAA headquarters all calls going to Bruce Barrett andPete mulligan. Didn't hear any rumors of AA1 1 hitting pentagon. When heard ofpentagon thought the lost plane over Indy was the one that hit pentagon. Got informationof loss over Indy from speaking with Herndon. AA 11 w ould have kept pic king him up onradar and since he wasn't there an ymore never thought he had gone that m u c h furthersouth.No rec ollection of delta 1989.RECOMMENDATIONS:


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Would disassemble Herndon. They're useless. ATCs cannot control hijacks. 9/11 is anightmare for an A TC. ATC can only w atch it . M ilitary options are limited. Hijackerheaded towards a nuclear plant, perhaps better to shoot down? W ay outside ATC. FA Ahas to coordinate with that fighter aircraft, should Herndon be involved? No.Decision making should be made facility to facility. It worked muc h better beforecommand center.


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(call sign) . .PERSONNEL STATEMENT '. "

FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATIONNEW YORK AIRROUTE TRAFFIC CONTROL CENTERACTION: Complete inaccordance with FAA Order 8020.1IB, Aircraft Accident and Incident Notification, Investigation,and.Reporting,paragraph75, Personnel Statements.BACKGROUND: Much of the information concerning the circumstances surrounding hisaccident/incident can be retrieved viasome type of recorded data source. However, some of the facts concerningwhatyou saw and what you did may not have beencompletely captured. The purpose of thisstatement is to provide any facts within yourpersonal knowledge that youbeUevewillprovide a more complete understandingof the circumstances surroundingthisaccident/incident Therefore, speculations, hearsayopinions, conclusions,and/or other extraneous dataare not to be included m thh statcrnent Additionallythisstatement maybereleased to the public triroughFOLAor litigation activM^INSTRUCTIONS: This statement is to be PRINTED and signed byyou. Statement times and dates shall correspond withSISO.Your signature below certifies the accuracyof misstatement Itwill neither be edited nor typed, and, once signed,will constituteyour original statement .This statement concerns theaccident/incident involving /,&- /7A.'t A/tQ Vf^'fC. f fiJ "/".....O/.i Vf /


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t8 b2 faa ny center peter mccloskey fdr- handwritten notes- alt mfr- personnel statement

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