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MR.
KEAN: Commissioner Ben-Veniste, then Commissioner Gorelick,
and finally Commissioner Fielding.
MR. BEN-VENISTE:
Good afternoon, General, and thank you so much for your candor
and your help. Just following up on Secretary Lehman's last
question, was the information correct with respect to the
identities of the passengers in connection with that incident?
MR. CANAVAN: I
do not have that information. I don't know.
MR. BEN-VENISTE:
So in checking it through there wasn't any indication of whether
there were circumstances that were corroborated other than
the issue of the gun and the firing of the gun?
MR. CANAVAN: Yes.
They couldn't corroborate anything. I mean, they later went
back to American Airlines and said, as far as my understanding
of this now, I didn't find this out, you know, the three weeks
following September 11th, but I've asked since then and the
answer was they couldn't substantiate any of this, that this
took place.
MR. BEN-VENISTE:
And to your knowledge were there tape recordings of these
conversations that were maintained?
MR. CANAVAN: To
my knowledge there were cockpit recorder tapings. I don't
know if people on the ground receiving cell phone calls were
taping them. I don't know about that.
MR. BEN-VENISTE:
This would have been a conversation between a flight attendant
and an airline representative?
MR. CANAVAN: Yes,
that's to the best of my knowledge. Someone picked up a phone
from the airplane and called down to the ground.
MR. BEN-VENISTE:
So the question of whether a tape exists of that call somewhere
is a question mark in your mind?
MR. CANAVAN: Yes.
MR. BEN-VENISTE:
We'll follow up on that. Let me briefly follow up on a couple
of things that Ms. Garvey was questioned about yesterday.
First of all, was there an after-action report produced by
the FAA?
MR. CANAVAN: Again,
I am going to assume there was. I never saw one, because by
the time I left there obviously wasn't. If it was ongoing,
it wasn't complete. But they should -- most organizations
I've been involved in, this is what you do: you sit down and
figure out what happened and what went wrong and what do you
need to fix. I would be surprised if they didn't have one
somewhere.
MR. BEN-VENISTE:
We have focused very heavily on Flight 77 which ultimately
crashed into the Pentagon, because on the basis of everything
we've heard, that was the one flight which hit its target
which could have possibly been intercepted. What is your understanding
of the first time FAA notified NORAD of the fact that this
was a possible hijack or that it had deviated from course,
or that there was some anomaly about Flight 77 in the context
of everything else that was going on that day?
MR. CANAVAN: Here's
my answer -- and it's not to duck the question. Number one,
I was visiting the airport in San Juan that day when this
happened. That was a CADEX airport, and I was down there also
to remove someone down there that was in a key position. So
when 9/11 happened, that's where I was. I was able to get
back to Washington that evening on a special flight from the
Army back from San Juan, back to Washington. So everything
that transpired that day in terms of times, I have to -- and
I have no information on that now, because when I got back
we weren't -- that wasn't the issue at the time. We were --
when I got back it was, What are we going to do over the next
48 hours to strengthen what just happened?
MR. BEN-VENISTE:
What would be, putting aside the issue, and I think we've
covered it extensively, about the preparedness for the potentiality
of a terrorist attack using a plane as a weapon, and I think
we heard very candidly from General McKinley that basically
the system in place was a vestige of the Cold War as opposed
to looking inward at the United States to anticipate this
kind of a problem, basically looking the wrong way on September
11th. What is the normal procedure? What was the normal procedure
on September 11th in the event of a hijacking in terms of
the point in time at which FAA would notify NORAD?
MR. CANAVAN: Well,
my experience as soon as you know you had a hijacked aircraft,
you notify everyone.
MR. BEN-VENISTE:
There seems to be a gap of 15 or 20 minutes between the time
where there was a substantial indication which was, I suppose,
supported by the other events that already occurred, which
would put into question whether Flight 77 had been compromised.
Can you explain to us what would have accounted for such a
delay between the time FAA received the information of deviation
from flight pattern and notification of NORAD?
MR. CANAVAN: Again,
well, based on my experience, when something happens a lot
of times the first reports are wrong. So people will wait
a little while to find out, Is this really going on? And I'm
basing this on experience in the field, and not so much the
FAA model. So I think just the fog of, number one, do we have
a hijacked aircraft? Because on several occasions over the
years, the pilots have hit the panic button, and all of a
sudden he's beeping, he's squawking hijacked, and you find
out that that's really not the case. So when these aircraft
-- I just as soon when the aircraft either beeped or went
off the airs there's minutes that go by where the air traffic
controller, he's not thinking hijack. He's trying to call
the airplane, and he's talking around to his other controllers,
Do you see so-and-so? And he's talking to pilots in the air,
Do you see -- say, the plane behind the other -- Do you see
Flight X?
So I think if you
look at it like that that eats up your time. And then when
you finally find out, yes, we do have a problem, then obviously
then the standard notification is it kind of gets broadcast
out to all the regions, it gets broadcast to the interagency,
it gets broadcast right up to DOT. I mean, those things happen.
MR. BEN-VENISTE:
Well, we asked that question yesterday, and Ms. Garvey was
not at that time prepared to respond. Last evening she did
communicate with the staff at my request, and we were provided
a statement which comes from FAA, which I'd like to read into
the record, Mr. Chairman. And it is, I am told, authored by
two individuals, high level individuals at FAA, Mr. Asmus
and Ms. Schuessler. And it's entitled FAA Communications with
NORAD on September 11th, 2001. "Within minutes after
the first aircraft hit the World Trade Center, the FAA immediately
established several phone bridges that included FAA field
facilities, the FAA command center, FAA headquarters, DOD,
the Secret Service and other government agencies. The U.S.
Air Force liaison to the FAA immediately joined the FAA headquarters
phone bridge and established contact with NORAD on a separate
line. The FAA shared real-time information on the phone bridges
about the unfolding events, including information about loss
of communication with aircraft, loss of transponder signals,
unauthorized changes in course, and other actions being taken
by all the flights of interest, including Flight 77. Other
parties on the phone bridges in turn shared information about
actions they were taken. NORAD logs indicate that the FAA
made formal notification about American Flight 77 at 9:24
a.m. But information about the flight was conveyed continuously
during the phone bridges before the formal notification."
So now we have in question whether there was an informal real-time
communication of the situation, including Flight 77's situation,
to personnel at NORAD. Can you give us from your experience
-- obviously you were not there on the 11th -- but on your
experience what this phone bridge communication is all about,
and whether it is likely in view of this communication we
have just received, that there was some informal communication
of the distress of Flight 77?
MR. CANAVAN: Well,
this sounds to me when they went into the command center they
started calling up these different organizations. That's the
phone bridge. And they were probably doing the right thing,
because they didn't have all the information to bring in --
it sounds like they brought in the LNO. He opened up his bridge
to NORAD. So then you get these organizations talking to one
another while above you people are trying to figure out, What
do we really have here? That's what it sounds like to me.
MR. BEN-VENISTE:
So would there be an expectation that the military personnel
on this phone bridge, which is that another name for a conference
call? MR. CANAVAN: Yes, or it could be a VTC, it could be
anything that -- anything that --
MR. BEN-VENISTE:
But in the nature of a conference call?
MR. CANAVAN: Yes.
MR. BEN-VENISTE:
-- in which parties dial into a central.
MR. CANAVAN: Yes,
and in our JOC there you call up, you get a phone bridge,
and that's an open line to that organization.
MR. BEN-VENISTE:
So if the military were apprised, as FAA is now telling us,
in real time of what FAA is seeing on its radars, and now
focusing specifically on Flight 77, that would mean that someone
at NORAD was advised of the deviation from course, which is
substantially earlier than the formal notification of hijacking.
Would it have been expected that receiving that information
the military personnel or NORAD personnel on that phone bridge,
would communicate with other NORAD facilities, apprising them
of the information he or she was learning in real time?
MR. CANAVAN: I
think, to answer your question, I would think that they would
pass it to someone within the NORAD command center, because
that person on that phone is a radio operator, and he takes
the log, and he turns around and he gives it to someone and
says, We have a problem. He may not know what the problem
is. All they know is an airplane is deviating from course,
and they are not too sure why, and, Okay, more to follow.
MR. BEN-VENISTE:
Would it be expected that the people participating in this
phone bridge that day would themselves have maintained a log
of what they were hearing?
MR. CANAVAN: I
would think so.
MR. BEN-VENISTE:
Would it also be expected that there would be a tape recording
of that phone bridge?
MR. CANAVAN: I
don't know about that. I don't know about a tape recording.
MR. BEN-VENISTE:
I think these are some profitable areas for us to explore
as we request additional information. Thank you very much.
MR. CANAVAN: You're
welcome.
MR. BEN-VENISTE:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
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