Template:(8:38 a.m.) September 11, 2001: NEADS Sergeant

(8:38 a.m.) September 11, 2001: NEADS Sergeant Passes on News of Hijacking to Colleagues
At NEADS, Jeremy Powell, the technical sergeant who has been notified of the suspected hijacking of Flight 11 passes on this news to colleagues of his on the NEADS operations floor.

Boston Center has just called NEADS to report “a hijacked aircraft headed towards New York,” and has requested that fighter jets be launched in response. Tech. Sgt. Jeremy Powell, who answers this call, reportedly “bolts up and turns toward the ID section behind him on the ops floor.” He says, “We’ve got a hijack going on!”

Master Sergeant Maureen Dooley, the leader of the ID section, mistakenly thinks this is part of the day’s training exercise and tells the other members of her team: “We have a hijack going on. Get your checklists. The exercise is on.” But Powell then clarifies: “No, you don’t understand. We have a no-shit hijack!” Sitting next to Dooley is Master Sergeant Joe McCain, the NEADS mission crew commander technician, who gets on the paging system and calls for the mission crew commander (MCC), Major Kevin Nasypany, to come to the operations floor immediately. Nasypany is in charge of the operations floor and needs to know if anything important is happening. He arrives moments later and learns of the hijacking. [VANITY FAIR, 8/1/2006;