Return to Article: Panel highlights FAA failures before terrorist attacks

By Chris Strohm cstrohm@govexec.com January 27, 2004
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    Why does the FAA deny that they expected an attack of this nature but yet there is an internal FAA document stating that they thought this was a possibility? Why didn't the FAA have any contingency plan in place to respond quickly to the events of that day? From my sources, it took nearly 20-30 minutes for the FAA to notify NORAD of the first hijacking, at which point NORAD is supposed to scramble a fighter jet to intercept the flight and determine the pilot's intentions. This notification of NORAD is supposed to occur immediately whenever it is suspected that a plane may be hijacked. If this first plane had been thwarted, it is conceivable that all the planes could have been intercepted that day as the FAA could have sounded the alarm early on since they knew of 3 hijackings at the time of the first WTC crash. Who has ever been held accountable for this egregious error by the FAA? Did the agency not take the threats seriously?

    GovExec.com reader Posted February 25, 2004 12:14 PM

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Panel highlights FAA failures before terrorist attacks
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