T8 B5 Faa Wash Center Dennis Ohara Fdr- Typed And Handwritten Notes- Not In Protocal To Contact Military 205
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ZDC INTERVIEW 12/4/03 DENNIS O'HARA (ZDC Controller Supervisor for Area 4, outbound + inbound AA77) •
No objection to recording.
•
FAA employee since 1982. 13yrs at NY Center (controller, TMU, QA, Command Center), selected for ZDC Operations Supervisor July 1998 (Area 8, 4,1) Currently in Area 1.
•
Role of Supervisor pre-9/11 for a HJ: Would receive verbal codeword or transponder, notify the "watch desk." Would also notify the next facility that I would have handed the hj ac off to. Main focus would be on where is the hj ac going - coordinate with other centers.
•
HJ training: Can't recall any specific training other than the pubs that guide hj response. We monitor the hj, no role in the scramble of military ac. Not in our protocol to contact the military - none whatsoever (supervisor role or controller role).
•
9/11: Traffic was not crazy - a good steady day. Area 4 has sector 4, 3, and 6 (low), 15 (arrival to DC metro area), 1 (normally combined with 15 when traffic was light). Very mild morning. Was conducting training in Sector 3.
•
Dave West came through (Area manager) low key that an ac had hit a WTC tower, began re-routing ac. Told our sectors that abut NY sectors, to be aware and they (NY) may need some support. 2nd WTC strike. Not sure about the allland order was given, but obviously began that action. Heard of the second hit from someone coming back from the cafeteria.
•
Someone told the supervisors to "pull up the primaries" - can't recall exactly who that was. FLT
•
77 hit notification probably came from the front desk. Everyone was in the aisles that day, all walking up and down. At that point we had everyone "bellyup" on the Areas.
•
Did communicate with Secret Service later in the day - to coordinate Attorney General's arrive to DC, this was after UA93 had crashed. Believe that they contacted us.
•
UA93: We were told that Pittsburg was evacuating their tower. We got a short automated handoff "flash", I believe it was on Primary... never got an official handoff, and it quickly disappeared. We had a data block for a short period of time - well less than a minute, on a Primary target. Assume that someone at Cleveland Center had assigned it a flight ID that would have stayed with the
Primary target - "put a track on it, probably would have to be updated manually b/c it wouldn't have a flight plan." Probably would have come into Sector 4, Area 4 (below 33K would have been Sector 6). UA93 never made it to ZDC's airspace. Did not speak to any supervisors in Cleveland about UA93. If they had officially handed off UA93, the next step would have been to initiate contact btw controllers - Clev Center would have passed along information about it that it was a hj ac. Don't believe that was ever done, other than my controller may have had a brief discussion with Clev Center's controller about it. Ultimately, his Area would have been involved with giving info to fighters on where UA93 was. And we only would have been able to vector them into the general position, b/c we didn't have a transponded location. •
Langley scramble, any information on it? No. Would have been Area 8 (the DC Metro area). If Langley fighters would have been vectored to UA93, it would have required a handoff btw the Area 8's sector to Area 4's sector.
•
How did communication between the supervisors work? Mainly working within their Areas and with their controllers. No interactions with other Area supervisors.
•
Sector 6, Area 4 also has Camp David. He heard no reports of any ac crashing there, nor were they asked to confirm any report of a crash there
•
Played tape of Mr. Kerry Johnson making an announcement to the floor supervisors. Response to the tape: That was a conference call on VSCS with all of the supervisors- main comms system on the floor. Person asking questions was Hal Albert, probably Area 7. I don't remember that call at all. My direction to look at primaries probably well before that call, "look out for limited data tag" - means all you'll get is the "slash and the code" - once it enters your sector you'd get the Mode C Intruder "I".
•
I instructed the controllers in my area to turn on their primaries.
•
Have seen the radar data about 1-2 weeks later. Secret Service or FBI came in to interview all of us on what happened - asking about procedures for losing secondary contacts. They showed us the flight path out, and the primaries on it's inbound - tracked roughly alone the boundry Area 3 and 4 (Sectors ??).
•
Did your controllers see anything? Well, it was just crazy in terms of trying to get all of the ac to land. Focus was on the Clev areas and on flights we were all trying to land in Pittsburgh. If not there, then to coordinate the flights in this are to land in DC or Baltimore - involves putting flight plans in etc. All of our stations were manned - all had been called back in.
•
No one called out any unidentified primary targets of interest.
•
Area 4's : Sector 3 (Sloan) and Sector 4 (Majtyka - Rside). Would have been where AA77 entered.
•
Controllers should have seen primary on AA77? The mosaic doesn't get raw data, Secondary tracks often drop off, and get lost, for a moment or two. Don't think the Primary on 77 was going to get picked up. Our focus was on Cleveland and NY dealing with landing ac. I don't recall our focus was on finding FLT 77. No real knowledge of it until after it crashed. Had someone been totally focused on finding it, without any other roles in controlling and landing other ac, they probably would have seen it.
•
AA77 came inbound "between" two different traffic routes, and no information was passed along from other flights in those routes on AA77.
•
Around this point in time, when AA77 hit, there were outside reports made that we here at ZDC were hit.
•
Recommendations: Heightened awareness is good. We report everything now, any radio comms now are an immediate priority. East Coast Plan for controllers pre-9/11 was rigid in terms of controllers' focus only on their areas and sectors, has since been changed to a more flexible set of guidelines and letters of agreement with the military (CAPs and scrambles).
•
No notes or records from that day.
•
Dave West, Rameriez, and Kerry Johnson were waling the aisles morning of 9/11.
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No objection to recording.
•
FAA employee since 1982. 13yrs at NY Center (controller, TMU, QA, Command Center), selected for ZDC Operations Supervisor July 1998 (Area 8, 4,1) Currently in Area 1.
•
Role of Supervisor pre-9/11 for a HJ: Would receive verbal codeword or transponder, notify the "watch desk." Would also notify the next facility that I would have handed the hj ac off to. Main focus would be on where is the hj ac going - coordinate with other centers.
•
HJ training: Can't recall any specific training other than the pubs that guide hj response. We monitor the hj, no role in the scramble of military ac. Not in our protocol to contact the military - none whatsoever (supervisor role or controller role).
•
9/11: Traffic was not crazy - a good steady day. Area 4 has sector 4, 3, and 6 (low), 15 (arrival to DC metro area), 1 (normally combined with 15 when traffic was light). Very mild morning. Was conducting training in Sector 3.
•
Dave West came through (Area manager) low key that an ac had hit a WTC tower, began re-routing ac. Told our sectors that abut NY sectors, to be aware and they (NY) may need some support. 2nd WTC strike. Not sure about the allland order was given, but obviously began that action. Heard of the second hit from someone coming back from the cafeteria.
•
Someone told the supervisors to "pull up the primaries" - can't recall exactly who that was. FLT
•
77 hit notification probably came from the front desk. Everyone was in the aisles that day, all walking up and down. At that point we had everyone "bellyup" on the Areas.
•
Did communicate with Secret Service later in the day - to coordinate Attorney General's arrive to DC, this was after UA93 had crashed. Believe that they contacted us.
•
UA93: We were told that Pittsburg was evacuating their tower. We got a short automated handoff "flash", I believe it was on Primary... never got an official handoff, and it quickly disappeared. We had a data block for a short period of time - well less than a minute, on a Primary target. Assume that someone at Cleveland Center had assigned it a flight ID that would have stayed with the
Primary target - "put a track on it, probably would have to be updated manually b/c it wouldn't have a flight plan." Probably would have come into Sector 4, Area 4 (below 33K would have been Sector 6). UA93 never made it to ZDC's airspace. Did not speak to any supervisors in Cleveland about UA93. If they had officially handed off UA93, the next step would have been to initiate contact btw controllers - Clev Center would have passed along information about it that it was a hj ac. Don't believe that was ever done, other than my controller may have had a brief discussion with Clev Center's controller about it. Ultimately, his Area would have been involved with giving info to fighters on where UA93 was. And we only would have been able to vector them into the general position, b/c we didn't have a transponded location. •
Langley scramble, any information on it? No. Would have been Area 8 (the DC Metro area). If Langley fighters would have been vectored to UA93, it would have required a handoff btw the Area 8's sector to Area 4's sector.
•
How did communication between the supervisors work? Mainly working within their Areas and with their controllers. No interactions with other Area supervisors.
•
Sector 6, Area 4 also has Camp David. He heard no reports of any ac crashing there, nor were they asked to confirm any report of a crash there
•
Played tape of Mr. Kerry Johnson making an announcement to the floor supervisors. Response to the tape: That was a conference call on VSCS with all of the supervisors- main comms system on the floor. Person asking questions was Hal Albert, probably Area 7. I don't remember that call at all. My direction to look at primaries probably well before that call, "look out for limited data tag" - means all you'll get is the "slash and the code" - once it enters your sector you'd get the Mode C Intruder "I".
•
I instructed the controllers in my area to turn on their primaries.
•
Have seen the radar data about 1-2 weeks later. Secret Service or FBI came in to interview all of us on what happened - asking about procedures for losing secondary contacts. They showed us the flight path out, and the primaries on it's inbound - tracked roughly alone the boundry Area 3 and 4 (Sectors ??).
•
Did your controllers see anything? Well, it was just crazy in terms of trying to get all of the ac to land. Focus was on the Clev areas and on flights we were all trying to land in Pittsburgh. If not there, then to coordinate the flights in this are to land in DC or Baltimore - involves putting flight plans in etc. All of our stations were manned - all had been called back in.
•
No one called out any unidentified primary targets of interest.
•
Area 4's : Sector 3 (Sloan) and Sector 4 (Majtyka - Rside). Would have been where AA77 entered.
•
Controllers should have seen primary on AA77? The mosaic doesn't get raw data, Secondary tracks often drop off, and get lost, for a moment or two. Don't think the Primary on 77 was going to get picked up. Our focus was on Cleveland and NY dealing with landing ac. I don't recall our focus was on finding FLT 77. No real knowledge of it until after it crashed. Had someone been totally focused on finding it, without any other roles in controlling and landing other ac, they probably would have seen it.
•
AA77 came inbound "between" two different traffic routes, and no information was passed along from other flights in those routes on AA77.
•
Around this point in time, when AA77 hit, there were outside reports made that we here at ZDC were hit.
•
Recommendations: Heightened awareness is good. We report everything now, any radio comms now are an immediate priority. East Coast Plan for controllers pre-9/11 was rigid in terms of controllers' focus only on their areas and sectors, has since been changed to a more flexible set of guidelines and letters of agreement with the military (CAPs and scrambles).
•
No notes or records from that day.
•
Dave West, Rameriez, and Kerry Johnson were waling the aisles morning of 9/11.
L
it]
JL /rrni/m/ I
/ 1 /y>?wi/"*yinti V
-si
i y rt/iilji/
1 i — . ..
-,j.
/
~
/>/ v
h
^
?A - Cw/b/j^
tJo Ijtljj//
/A? A A
y/^f/// ("tiuJ //
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