Z D C INTERVIEW 12/4/03 DENNIS O'HARA (ZDC Controller Supervisor fo r Area 4 , outbound + inbound AA77) • No objection to recording. • FAA employee since 1982. 13yrs at NY Center (controller, TMU, QA, Command Center), selected for ZDC Operations Supervisor July 1998 (Area 8, 4,1) Currently in Area 1. • Role o f Supervisor pre-9/11 for a HJ: Would receive verbal codeword o r transponder, notify th e "watch desk." Would also notify th e next facility that I would have handed the hj ac off to. Main focus would be on where is the hj ac going - coordinate with other centers. • HJ training: Can't recall any training other than the pubs that guide hj response. W e monitor th e h j, n o role in the scramble o f military ac. Not in our protocol to contact the military - none whatsoever (supervisor role or controller role). • 9/11: Traffic wasnot crazy - a good steady day. Area 4 has sector 4, 3, and 6 (low), 15 (arrival to DC metro area), 1 (normally combined with 15 when traffic w as light). Very mild morning. W as conducting training in Sector 3. • Dave West came through (Area manager) low key that an ac had hit a WTC tower, began re-routing ac. Told our sectors that abut NY sectors, to be aware they (NY) may need some support. 2 nd WTC strike. Not sure about the all- land order w as given, bu t obviously began that action. Heard of the second hi t from someone coming back from th e cafeteria. • Someone told the supervisors to "pull up the primaries" - can't recall exactly w h o that was. FLT • 77 hit notification probably came from th e front desk. Everyone was in the aisles that day, all walking up and down. At that point we had everyone "belly- up" on the Areas. • Did communicate with Secret Service later in the day - to coordinate Attorney General's arrive to DC, this was after UA93 had crashed. Believe that they contacted us. • UA93: We were told that Pittsburg w as evacuating their tower. We got a short automated handoff "flash", I believe it was on Primary... never got an official handoff, and it quickly disappeared. We had a data block for a short period of time - well less than a minute, on a Primary target. Assume that someone at Cleveland Center ha d assigned it a flight ID that would have stayed with th e
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8/14/2019 T8 B5 FAA Wash Center Dennis OHara Fdr- Typed and Handwritten Notes- Not in Protocal to Contact Military 205
DENNIS O'HARA (ZDC Controller Supervisor fo r Area 4, outbound + inbound AA77)
• Noobjection to recording.
• FAA employee since 1982. 13yrs at NY Center (controller, TMU, QA,
Command Center), selected for ZDC Operations Supervisor July 1998 (Area 8,
4,1) Currently in Area 1.
• Role of Supervisor pre-9/11 for a HJ: Would receive verbal codeword ortransponder, notify the "watch desk." Would also notify the next facility that Iwould have handed the hj ac off to. Main focus would be on where is the hj acgoing - coordinate with other centers.
• HJ training: Ca n't recall any specific training other than the pubs that guide hj
response. W e monitor the hj, no role in the scramble of military ac. Not in ourprotocol to contact the military - none whatsoever (supervisor role or controllerrole).
• 9/11: Traffic was not crazy - a good steady day. Area 4 has sector 4, 3, and 6
(low), 15 (arrival to DC metro area), 1 (normally combined with 15 when traffic
was light). Very mild morning. W as conducting training in Sector 3.
• Dave W est came through (Area manager) low key that an ac had hit a WTCtower, began re-routing ac. Told our sectors that abut NY sectors, to be awareand they (NY) m ay need some support. 2nd W TC strike. Not sure about the all-
land order was given, bu t obviou sly began that action. Heard of the second hitfrom someone coming back from the cafeteria.
• Someone told the supervisors to "pull up theprimaries" - can't recall exactlywho that was. FLT
• 77 hit notification probably came from the front desk. Everyone was in theaisles that day, all walking up and down. At that point w e had everyone "belly-
up" on the Areas.
• Didcommunicate with Secret Service later in the day - to coordinate Attorney
General's arrive to DC , this was after UA 93 had crashed. Believe that theycontacted us.
• UA93: W e were told that Pittsburg was evacuating their tower. We got a shortautomated handoff "flash", I believe it was on Prim ary... never got an official
handoff, and it quickly disappeared. W e had a data block for a short period oftime - well less than a minute, on a Primary target. Assume that someone at
Cleveland Center ha d assigned it a flight ID that would hav e stayed w ith the
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Primary target - "put a track on it, probably w ould have to be updated manuallyb/c it wouldn't have a flight plan." Probably would have come into Sector 4,Area 4 (below 33K would have been Sector 6). UA 93 never made it to ZDC's
airspace. Did not speak to any supervisors in Cleveland about UA93. If they
had officially handed off UA 93, the next step would hav e been to initiate contactbtw controllers - Clev Center would have passed along information about it that
it was a hj ac. Do n't believe that was ever done, other than my controller mayhave had a brief discussion with Clev Center's controller about it. Ultimately,
his Area would have been involved w ith giving info to fighters on where UA93was. And we only would have been able to vector them into the general position,b/c we didn't have a transponded location.
• Langley scramble, any information on it? No. Would have been A rea 8 (the DCMetro area). If Langley fighters wou ld have been vectored to UA93, it wou ldhave required a handoff btw the Area 8's sector to Area 4's sector.
• How didcommunication between
thesupervisors work? Mainly working withintheir Areas and with their controllers. No interactions with other Area
supervisors.
• Sector 6, Area 4 also has Camp David. He heard no reports of any ac crashing
there, nor were they asked to confirm any report of a crash there
• Played tape of Mr. Kerry Johnson making an announcement to the floor
supervisors. Response to the tape: That was a conference call on VSC S with allof the supervisors- main com ms system on the floor. Person asking questionswas Hal Albert, probably Area 7. I don't remember that call at all. My direction
to look at primaries probably well before that call, "look out for limited datatag" - means allyou'll get is the"slash and thecode" - once it enters yoursector you'd get the Mode C Intruder "I".
• I instructed th e controllers in my area to turn on their primaries.
• Have seen the radar data about 1-2 weeks later. Secret Service or FBI came into interview all of us on what happened - asking about procedures for losingsecondary contacts. The y showed us the flight path out, and the primaries on it's
inbound - tracked roughly alone the boundry Area 3 and 4 (Sectors ??).
• Did your controllers se e anything? Well, it was just crazy in terms of trying toget all of the ac to land. Focus w as on the Clev areas and on flights we were alltrying to land in Pittsbu rgh. If not there, then to coordinate the flights in this are
to land in DC or Baltimore - involves putting flight plans in etc. All of our
stations were m anned - all hadbeen called back in.
• No one called out any unidentified primary targets of interest.
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• Area 4's : Sector 3 (Sloan) andSector 4 (Majtyka - Rside). W ould have beenwhere AA77 entered.
• Controllers should have seen primary on AA77? The mosaic doesn't get raw
data, Secondary tracks often drop off , and get lost, for a moment or two. Don't
think the Primary on 77 was going to get picked up. Our focus was onCleveland and NY dealing with landing ac. I don't recall our focus was onfinding FLT 77. No real knowledge of it until after it crashed. Had someone
been totally focused on finding it, without any other roles in controlling andlanding other ac, they probab ly would have seen it.
• AA77 came inbound "between" two different traffic routes, and no informationwas passed along from other flights in those routes on AA 77.
• Around this point in time, when AA 77 hit, there w ere outside reports made thatwe here at ZDC were hit.
• Recommendations: Heightened awareness is good. We report everything now ,any radio com ms now are an imm ediate priority. East Coast Plan for controllerspre-9/11 was rigid in terms of controllers' focus only on their areas an d sectors,
has since been changed to a more flexible set of guidelines and letters ofagreement with the military (CAPs and scrambles).
• No notes or records from that day.
• Dave West, Rameriez, andKerry Johnson were waling the aisles m orning of
9/11.
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