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10/24/01 07:18 PM: 9/11: From the ATC
“Then I noticed the aircraft. It was an unidentified plane to the southwest of Dulles, moving at a very high rate of speed—I had literally a blip and nothing more.”
“I said, ‘Oh my God, it looks like he’s headed to the White House,’” recalls Howell. “I was yelling “We’ve got a target headed right for the White House!’”
At a speed of about 500 miles an hour, the plane was headed straight for what is known as P-56, protected air space 56, which covers the White House and the Capitol.
“The speed, the maneuverability, the way that he turned, we all thought in the radar room, all of us experienced air traffic controllers, that that was a military plane,” says O’Brien. “You don’t fly a 757 in that manner. It’s unsafe.”
The plane was between 12 and 14 miles away, says O’Brien, “and it was just a countdown. Ten miles west. Nine miles west. Our supervisor picked up our line to the White House and started relaying to them the information, [that] we have an unidentified very fast-moving aircraft inbound toward your vicinity, 8 miles west.”
Vice President Cheney was rushed to a special basement bunker. White House staff members were told to run away from the building.
