8:30 A.M.Vice President Cheney and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice are at their offices in the White House. Defense Secretary Rumsfeld is at his office in the Pentagon, meeting with a delegation from Capitol Hill. Secretary of State Powell is in Lima, Peru. CIA Director George Tenet is at breakfast three blocks from the White House. Gen. Henry H. Shelton, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is flying across the Atlantic on the way to Europe. Attorney General John Ashcroft is flying to Milwaukee. FBI Director Mueller is in his office at FBI headquarters on Pennsylvania Avenue. [Washington Post, 1/27/02]

8:44 A.M. Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, is talking about terrorism in the Pentagon. "Let me tell ya," he says, "I've been around the block a few times. There will be another event." He then repeats it for emphasis, "There will be another event." [AP, 9/16/01, Rep. Cox Statement, 9/11/01]

8:46 A.M. Flight 11 hits the north tower, 1 World Trade Center.

9:03 A.M. Flight 175 hits the south tower, 2 World Trade Center.

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9:27 A.M. Just prior to his first public comments at about 9:29, President Bush speaks with Vice President Cheney. [Telegraph, 12/16/01] [Back]

(9:32 A.M.) Secret Service agents burst into Vice President Cheney's White House office. They carry him under his arms - nearly lifting him off the ground - and propel him down the steps into the White House basement and through a long tunnel towards an underground bunker. [9:32, Washington Post, 1/27/02, shortly after Bush's speech at 9:30, CBS, 9/11/02]

(9:41 A.M.) Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld is sitting in the Pentagon, but supposedly completely oblivious of the approaching Flight 77. As he watches TV coverage of WTC, he says, "Believe me, this isn't over yet. There's going to be another attack, and it could be us." Supposedly, "moments later, the plane hit." [Telegraph, 12/16/01] Rumsfeld is apparently psychic, because two minutes before the first WTC crash and supposedly completely ignorant of the hijackings, he predicted a terrorist attack upon the US (see 8:44 A.M.).

9:41 A.M. Flight 77 crashes into the Pentagon.

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9:55 A.M. After Bush takes off in Air Force One from Sarasota, Florida, Cheney talks to Bush on the phone. Cheney recommends that Bush authorize the military to shoot down any plane under control of the hijackers. "I said, 'You bet,'" Bush later recalls. "We had a little discussion, but not much." ["after Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon", Newsday, 9/23/01, time unknown, USA Today, 9/16/01, "Once airborne, Bush spoke again to Cheney", Washington Post, 1/27/02, after Bush is airborne, CBS, 9/11/02]

(After 9:55 A.M.) Inside his White House bunker, a military aide asks Cheney, "There is a plane 80 miles out. There is a fighter in the area. Should we engage?" Cheney immediately answers "Yes." As the fighter gets nearer to Flight 93, he is asked the same thing twice more, and responds yes both times. [Washington Post, 1/27/02] Maj. Gen. Paul Weaver, director of the Air National Guard, had previously claimed that no military planes were sent after Flight 93. [Seattle Times, 9/16/01] However, two of the three pilots flying over Washington specifically deny ever being ordered to shoot down a plane (the third hasn't spoken). They say that all of them didn't even learn about Flight 93 or any plane crashing in Pennsylvania until they returned to base in the afternoon. [The book Among the Heroes, 8/02, p. 222]

(After 9:55 A.M.) At some point after the F-16's are in the air, someone from the Secret Service gets on the radio and tells the pilots, "I want you to protect the White House at all costs." [New York Times, 10/16/01]

(Before 10:00 A.M.) Three F-16 fighter jets near Washington head in pursuit towards Flight 93. ["Sometime shortly before 10," Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 10/28/01] Yet the pilots themselves deny this. They say they maintained a defensive position over Washington for four hours. [The book Among the Heroes, 8/02, p. 222].

(Before 10:06 A.M.) CBS television reports at some point before the crash that two F-16 fighters are tailing Flight 93. [Independent, 8/13/02] Shortly after 9/11, an flight controller in New Hampshire ignores a ban on controllers speaking to the media, and it is reported he claims "that an F-16 fighter closely pursued Flight 93... the F-16 made 360-degree turns to remain close to the commercial jet, the employee said. 'He must've seen the whole thing,' the employee said of the F-16 pilot's view of Flight 93's crash." [AP, 9/13/01, Nashua Telegraph, 9/13/01]

10:06 A.M. Flight 93 crashes just north of the Somerset County Airport, about 80 miles southeast of Pittsburgh, 124 miles or 15 minutes from Washington DC. Little information has been made public. It is now believed its target was the White House. The plane was generally obliterated upon landing, except for one half ton piece of engine found over a mile away. [Independent, 8/13/02] One story calls what happened to this engine "intriguing," because "the heat-seeking, air-to-air Sidewinder missiles aboard an F-16 would likely target one of the Boeing 757's two large engines." [Philadelphia Daily News, 11/15/01] Smaller debris fields were also found two, three and eight miles away from the main crash site. [CBS, 5/23/02] [10:06:05, US Army authorized seismic study] For an in depth look at the crash of Flight 93, visit the excellent How Did United Flight 93 Crash? web site.

(2:00 P.M.) F-15 fighter pilot Maj. Daniel Nash returns to base around this time, after chasing Flight 175 and patrolling the skies over New York City. He says that when he got out of the plane, "he was told that a military F-16 had shot down a fourth airliner in Pennsylvania, a report that turned out to be incorrect." [about 1:30, Cape Cod Times, 8/21/02, about 2:30, Aviation Week and Space Technology, 6/3/02] Was it incorrect? [Back]