Lessons Learned From Dealing With Terrorism

Air Safety Week, April 29, 2002

The emerging threat - biological attacks in airliners

After an exhausting day of crisis management at United Airlines' [UAL] flight operations control center on Sept. 11, 2001, the most chilling memory imprinted on Capt. Hank Krakowski's mind was the display shown on the big screens. In the morning, thousands of airplanes were shown on the electronic maps portraying the typical volume of North American air traffic. By day's end, Krakowski recalled, "The most chilling thing was seeing nothing but the pairs of tracks over our major cities."

Those tracks represented flights of interceptors flying combat air patrols, prepared to shoot down any airplanes determined to be a threat.

Now, some six months later, the "lessons learned" from that day's traumatic events are being incorporated into United's contingency plans, policies and training drills to better cope with future crises. Krakowski was the director on duty at United's worldwide operations center in Chicago on the day the twin towers of the World Trade Center were destroyed, the Pentagon was hit, and a fourth airplane, bound for Washington, DC, crashed into a Pennsylvania field. When it comes to "dealing with terror," Krakowski spoke from his personal experience at a recent safety workshop in Orlando, Fla. (see ASW, April 15). Since that day as the top watchstander, Krakowski has been promoted to vice president of corporate safety, security and quality assurance. He replaced Capt. Ed Soliday, since retired, who was one of the top officials in the operations center that day.

CNN television monitors had recently been installed in the operations center, and the first report of an airplane striking one of the towers of the World Trade Center came from CNN.

"We thought it might have been a business jet," Krakowski recalled. Then a telephone call came in from American Airlines' [AMR] main operations center in Dallas/Ft. Worth. "They said it was one of their airplanes," Krakowski said. That was American Flight 11, which struck the North Tower of the World Trade Center at 8:45 a.m. The airplane had been hijacked by five terrorists and most likely was flown into the building by the now-infamous Mohammed Atta.

Witnessing tragedy

"About this time, one of our dispatchers reported losing track of our Flight 175," Krakowski said. Various means were attempted to contact the airplane, without success. What Krakowski and his colleagues saw on the animated map displays was chilling enough - the track of the airplane, provided via ASDL (aeronautical satellite data link). The plane clearly had deviated from its planned flight to the West Coast and was headed toward New York City.

They watched helplessly as the B767 struck the South Tower at 9:05 a.m. "As soon as we saw this second hit, we started to halt all takeoffs," Krakowski recounted.

In addition, an ACARS (aircraft communications addressing and reporting system) message was sent to all planes. "Cockpit intrusions, other flights. Guard your cockpit," the alert warned.

In very short order, a second decision was made - to bring all United's planes down, to land them. Krakowski said this decision was made unilaterally, about 15 minutes before the order to land all planes came from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). The order from the FAA came as a direct result of the extreme concern in the White House situation room, when Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta overrode the FAA's first order for planes to land "at pilot's discretion."

"[Expletive] pilot discretion," Mineta shouted, "Get those goddam planes down!" (See ASW, March 18).

"This was getting bad real fast," Krakowski recalled. He remembers seeing Capt. Soliday sitting very still and intently weighing what might be happening (the number of hijacked airliners was unknown at this point and could have been a dozen or more, for all anyone knew).

The tension in the operations center was palpable.

Then they received word that United's Flight 93 had been hijacked. A flight attendant had dialed a special code into the airplane's seatback mounted airphone, which enabled her to talk to United's maintenance base in San Francisco. She related the dangerous situation aboard Flight 93, which was quickly passed from San Francisco to the operations center in Chicago.

Another ACARS message was sent to all aircraft: "Land now. Anywhere." The command was too late for the crew of Flight 93. Both pilots and one flight attendant had already been killed by the four terrorists aboard. As passengers attempted to regain control of the cockpit ("Let's roll!") the airplane crashed into a field in Stony Creek Township, Penn., at 10:10 a.m. The same dispatcher for Flight 175 also was handling Flight 93.

Dozens of international flights were inbound over the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. One of the biggest challenges was the situation at Fairbanks, Alaska. It was a joint-use airport shared by the U.S. military. The local commander, now aware that hijacked airliners had been used to attack targets in New York City and the Pentagon, denied permission to land on runways at Fairbanks that might be needed for military sorties.