Ten minutes after American Airlines Flight 11 crashed into the north tower of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) controllers in New York saw United Airlines Flight 175 heading "right towards the city," [p.13] but thought it was aiming for an emergency landing at a New York airport, according to FAA documents released this week under the Freedom of Information Act and posted on the web by the National Security Archive. Minutes later, Flight 175 hit the south tower of the World Trade Center.
The FAA documents, which are referenced extensively in Chapter 1 of The 9/11 Commission Report, provide further detail on the report's chronology of the hijackings and its overall observation that the FAA was woefully unprepared and disorderly in its response to the attack. Distracted by Flight 11, the FAA notified the military at about 9:03 am that Flight 175 had been hijacked, almost the exact time the plane crashed into the second World Trade Center tower. Records show Flight 175 first exhibited signs of distress at 8:46 am.
Previously undisclosed, these documents contain minute-by-minute accounts of unfolding events as experienced by FAA officials, including radar reports and extensive chronologies tracking the larger U.S. government response to the attacks from September into late October 2001.
Unsettling quotes from hijackers on radio transmissions are also included in the documents. Passengers on flight 11 were told at 8:24 am, "we have some planes just stay quiet and you'll be ok we are returning to the airport." [see p. 4] The Cleveland Air Route Traffic Control Center heard a "radio transmission, mostly unintelligible… with sounds of possible screaming or a struggle and a statement, "get out of here, get out of here,"" [p. 20] from United Airlines Flight 93 at 9:28 am, before hearing "another mostly unintelligible, stated words that may sound like, "captain…bomb on board…our demands, …remain quiet."" [p. 21]
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