Template:(Between 8:30 a.m. and 8:40 a.m.) September 11, 2001: FAA Boston Center Supervisor Alerts Otis Air Base Tower to Flight 11, Requests Fighters

(Between 8:30 a.m. and 8:40 a.m.) September 11, 2001: FAA Boston Center Supervisor Alerts Otis Air Base Tower to Flight 11, Requests Fighters
Daniel Bueno, a supervisor at Boston Center, calls the air traffic control tower at Otis Air National Guard Base to alert it to the problems with Flight 11 and request military assistance. Otis Air Base is one of NORAD’s seven alert sites in the continental United States, which keeps two armed fighter jets ready for immediate takeoff.

Bueno calls the control tower at Otis even though, according to Lynn Spencer, he “knows it’s not standard operating procedure to call the military directly—that’s supposed to be done by FAA headquarters.” But he has “checked the FAA regulation manual, and in the back under section FAAO 7610.4J, Appendix 16, it states that fighters can be launched directly at FAA request, so he is going to make that happen. He may not be FAA headquarters, but he is FAA!”

Bueno tells the controller at the Otis tower that Flight 11 has lost its identification signal and appears to be headed toward Manhattan; it looks like a possible hijacking, and fighter jets are needed, fast. [FILSON, 2003, PP. 47] But the controller tells Bueno that he must follow the protocol, which is to contact NEADS. The controller says: “You’ve got to go through the proper channels. They’re the only ones with the authority to initiate a scramble order.” Bueno asks the controller for the telephone number for NEADS. Following this call, the tower controller will contact the Otis Air Base operations desk, to let it know that it might be receiving a call from NEADS.

The two alert pilots at Otis Air Base will later criticize Bueno for calling the base directly. One of them, Major Daniel Nash, will complain: “It sounds like the FAA didn’t have their [act] together at all when they were calling the [Otis] tower.… To me, it sounded like there was someone who didn’t know what they were doing.” Lieutenant Colonel Timothy Duffy, the other alert pilot, will comment: “It didn’t happen the way it was supposed to.… We were the ones who were contacted right away and knew about it before the air defense sector.” [FILSON, 2003, PP. 50]

Bueno also calls the FAA’s Cape Terminal Radar Approach Control (TRACON), which is located on Otis Air Base, at 8:34 a.m. and requests that fighters be launched from Otis. Whether he makes that call before or after he calls the Otis tower is unstated. According to the 9/11 Commission Report, “the first notification received by the military—at any level—that American 11 had been hijacked” is when Boston Center calls NEADS just before 8:38 a.m.. If that is correct, it would indicate that Bueno calls the Otis tower after he calls the Cape TRACON.