Template:(Between 9:25 a.m. and 9:30 a.m.) September 11, 2001: Dulles Airport Controllers

(Between 9:25 a.m. and 9:30 a.m.) September 11, 2001: Dulles Airport Controllers Reportedly Notice Flight 77, Earlier than 9/11 Commission Claims
According to an FAA report, between 9:25 a.m. and 9:30 a.m., air traffic controllers at the Terminal Radar Approach Control (TRACON) at Washington Dulles International Airport notice an unidentified blip, later identified to be Flight 77, on their radar screens. This is several minutes earlier than the 9/11 Commission will claim they notice it. [FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION, 9/17/2001

The TRACON at Dulles Airport learned several minutes earlier that the FAA had lost contact with Flight 77. It then advised its controllers to look out for “primary targets”. [USA TODAY, 9/13/2001; NAVY TIMES, 9/22/2001; These are radar tracks that can still be viewed when a plane’s transponder has been turned off. [SALON, 9/10/2004] Several of the facility’s controllers now observe a primary radar target heading eastbound toward Washington at high speed, almost 500 miles per hour. Although the aircraft has no transponder signal to identify it, it is later determined to be Flight 77. [FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION, 9/17/2001 ; USA TODAY, 8/13/2002]

According to the 9/11 Commission Report, the Dulles TRACON controllers only notice this aircraft at 9:32 a.m. . The FAA report, which is published less than a week after 9/11, will state that its time of between 9:25 and 9:30 is “approximate, based on personnel statements from Dulles Terminal Radar Approach Control.” [FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION, 9/17/2001 ] But this earlier time will receive some corroboration from a report in USA Today, which states that the FAA’s Command Center is notified by a Dulles controller of the unidentified aircraft at “just before 9:30 a.m.” [USA TODAY, 8/13/2002] Furthermore, Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta, who is currently at the White House, will tell the 9/11 Commission that at “about 9:25 or 9:26” he overhears someone warning Vice President Dick Cheney of an aircraft approaching Washington. [9/11 COMMISSION, 5/23/2003]

Radar evidence obtained by CBS News will show that “at 9:30 a.m.… radar tracked the plane as it closed to within 30 miles of Washington.” [CBS NEWS, 9/21/2001]