The NORAD tapes... 9/11

Michael Bronner, writing in Vanity Fair, has compiled the critical moments from 30 hours of tape recorded operations from the NORAD Northeast headquarters on the day of the attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

The story is one of confusion and an immediate unwillingness to believe that an attack was actually taking place. Understandably, it took time to gather in the enormity of what was happenning.

Atrios provides some excellent commentary.

There was no command given to shoot down United Flight 93, despite implications to the contrary made by Vice President Cheney. Cheney was not notified about the possibility that United 93 had been hijacked until 10:02 a.m.—only one minute before the airliner impacted the ground. And United 93 had crashed before anyone in the military chain of command even knew it had been hijacked. President Bush did not grant commanders the authority to give a shoot-down order until 10:18 a.m., which—though no one knew it at the time—was 15 minutes after the attack was over.

And, as for the general theory that Flight 93 was shot down...

When Bronner asks Lieutenant Colonel Kevin Nasypany, NEADS mission control commander, about the conspiracy theories—the people who believe that he, or someone like him, secretly ordered the shootdown of United 93 and covered it up—the corners of his mouth begin to quiver and he puts his head in his hands and cries. “Flight 93 was not shot down,” he says. “The individuals on that aircraft, the passengers, they actually took the aircraft down. Because of what those people did, I didn’t have to do anything.”

Bronner's article is captivating and each transcript is provided with the real voice recording of the action.

(H/T reader Cat)