“A lot of the things [on September 11], I did go outside of the protocol”: Major new article examines the suspicious behavior of key air traffic control personnel on 9/11.

Submission statement: The article scrutinizes the actions on September 11, 2001, of several members of staff at the FAA’s Boston Air Route Traffic Control Center who significantly influenced how the apparent hijacking of American Airlines Flight 11 was responded to, and yet acted in ways that were unusual and counterproductive.

These men include the air traffic controller who was handling Flight 11 when it was apparently hijacked, who became so agitated that his colleagues “looked at him as if he was crazy.” They were “looking at me, like, ‘What is wrong with you?'” he recalled.

Then there was a supervisor who repeatedly violated protocol, such as by trying to contact an air base directly to report the suspected hijacking. His actions prompted one fighter pilot to complain: ”It sounds like the FAA didn’t have their [act] together at all when they were calling the [Otis Air Base] tower. … To me, it sounded like there was someone who didn’t know what they were doing.”

And there was the military operations specialist who provided the military with inaccurate information about the location of Flight 11 and implied that the plane was still airborne after it crashed into the World Trade Center.

This is the third installment of a major four-part article about the air traffic control response to the hijacking of Flight 11.

Part 1 of the article can be read here: https://shoestring911.blogspot.com/2025/05/circumventing-protocol-inside.html

And Part 2 can be read here: https://shoestring911.blogspot.com/2025/05/circumventing-protocol-inside_26.html