Please note that the following is a digitized version of a selected article from White House History Quarterly, Issue 62, originally released in print form in 2021. Single print copies of the full issue can be purchased online at Shop.WhiteHouseHistory.org No part of this book may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. All photographs contained in this journal unless otherwise noted are copyrighted by the White House Historical Association and may not be reproduced without permission. Requests for reprint permissions should be directed to rights@whha.org. Contact books@whha.org for more information. © 2021 White House Historical Association. All rights reserved under international copyright conventions.
Covering the President From the Last Plane in Flight SEPTEMBER 11, 2001 Ann Compton Recounts Her Experience Witnessing History Unfold Aboard Air Force One
LEFT: ABC NEWS / ABOVE: GETTY IMAGES
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d o o msday p la n ni ng f o r t h e u. s. g o v er nm ent—the protection of the president, the civilian chain of command, the use of force by the military—leaves nothing to chance. Real crises can play havoc with those plans. One did on September 11, 2001. I was there. By that date I had covered six presidents over an arc of twenty-five years for ABC News, and by chance that sunny Tuesday was my turn as press pool correspondent to cover the president’s flight back to Washington, D.C.
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Ann Compton covered the White House for ABC News from 1974 to 2014. Regularly reporting from the White House lawn, she also witnessed history on assignments that took her around the world. Compton is seen on the previous spread in the 1980s and (clockwise from top) covering the Democratic National Convention in July 1976; reporting from the network television camera positions on the North Lawn of the White House, January 20, 2013; and at work at ABC in New York in 1973.
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Reporting from Air Force One was routine for veteran journalist Ann Compton. Seen here in the early 1990s aboard the aircraft interviewing Vice President Dan Quayle (top) and President George H. W. Bush (bottom), Compton had no expectation that her assignment to travel from Sarasota back to Washington, D.C., with President George W. Bush on September 11, 2001, would be anything out of the ordinary.
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The last stop on the itinerary before returning home to Washington, D.C., on September 11, 2001, was a place of such innocence. At the Emma E. Booker Elementary School in Sarasota, Florida, President George W. Bush was promoting his education agenda, perched on a plastic classroom chair listening to second graders run through their vocabulary drills. Outside the classroom, chaos. The senior staff waiting in the next room had alerted the president of a possible small plane crash in New York City. Then came the shock.
9:07 A.M. ET AMERICA IS UNDER ATTACK America was watching in horror as live television coverage showed both World Trade Center towers in flames. White
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House Chief of Staff Andrew Card slipped into the classroom, leaned down, and whispered in the president’s right ear. I watched, stunned, at the back of the classroom. I wrote down in my reporter’s notebook: “9:07 a.m. Andy whispers.” No one interrupts a president, not even in front of second graders. The look on the president’s face was striking, grave. It was months later that Andy Card revealed he chose a chilling economy of words that could be delivered in one breath: “A second plane has hit the second tower. America is under attack.” That horrifying second strike was being replayed over and over again on the screen of a TV wheeled into the staff holding room where the president grabbed a secure White House phone to reach Washington. That would not prove easy. At the other end, in the West
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President George W. Bush participates in a reading program at Emma E. Booker Elementary School in Sarasota, Florida, September 11, 2001 (above). Moments after the photograph was taken, the president’s expression turns grave as Chief of Staff Andrew Card interrupts the program to whisper “America is under attack” in the president’s ear (opposite top). With the intention of returning directly to Washington, D.C., President Bush quickly concludes his visit to Sarasota with a oneminute address from the school cafeteria (opposite bottom).
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8:50 A.M. ET A PLACE OF INNOCENCE
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Wing, Vice President Richard Cheney and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice were being rushed into the subterranean Presidential Emergency Operations Center (PEOC) that had existed for more than a half century but had never, ever been used in an emergency. Information was fragmentary and confounding. How a president reacts to a crisis is critically important. In the predigital age, presidents had secure military communications but only one way to reach the mass American public—through us, the mainstream media. Our press travel pool of a dozen reporters and photographers flooded out of that classroom door into the school parking lot, turning on our old-style cellphones to reach our home offices. What I heard from the ABC News desk editors in New York was frantic disbelief. White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer hurried over to tell me to keep the network camera right there. The president is going to make a statement. “No he’s not,” I blurted out. “This portable camera is not plugged in to anything. He has to speak as planned in the school cafeteria where our live cameras are already up.” The staff was reluctant, not wanting to frighten children gathered to hear an education speech, but speed was crucial. The Secret Service was already scrambling to get the president out of there to safety. He headed into the crowded room. He spoke for a little more than one minute.
9:31 A.M. ET A MOMENT OF SILENCE “This is a difficult moment for America. Unfortunately, we’ll be going back to Washington after my remarks. . . . Terrorism against our nation will not stand. And now if you would join me for a moment of silence.” But returning to Washington would take nine and one-half dramatic hours more.
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As events unfolded on the morning of September 11, 2001, Air Force One was quickly readied and boarded for the return trip from Sarasota to Washington, D.C. The president was rushed onboard at the front of the plane (above), while Ann Compton and her colleagues in the press pool were hurried up the rear stairs as their bags and equipment were thoroughly searched (opposite).
9:54 A.M. ET MOVE IT, MOVE IT!
Air Force One and its military crew had been primed and ready on the tarmac, engines already roaring by the time the presidential motorcade traveling at high speed completed the 3.5 mile trip from the school. With the news of the terrorist attack, security was tighter than ever. The president was whisked onboard at the front of the plane. The rest of us were herded toward the rear stairs with agents shouting “Move it, move it!” which is clearly a Secret Service code meaning “Move it!” even as bomb squad personnel searched all our bags and equipment lest any danger had been planted in our gear. Even the CIA officer’s classified briefcase was inspected. When there is a threat anywhere, the Secret Service considers it might be diversionary action and the president might be the real target. Once onboard, the takeoff was unusually fast. What we did not know was that the pilot Col. Mark Tillman had just been warned there might be white house history quarterly
some kind of missile lurking at the end of the runway. He abruptly turned the aircraft around and took off in the opposite direction. “The pilot stood that thing on its tail—nose up, tail down,” as presidential adviser Karl Rove remembered. The missile turned out to be one of many false alarms that day. We flew for hours, far longer than the quick flight it ought to be to Washington. In his forward cabin the president argued forcefully for a quick return, but he faced a solid wall of opposition from his chief of staff, the pilot, his security detail, and his own officials in Washington. In the air we learned why: the carnage on the ground had now reached home. As we left Florida, a jetliner in Washington with a fuel tank full for a cross-country flight to California, took off, turned, and slammed deliberately into the outer wall of the Pentagon. This was no longer a terrorist attack on the financial heart of New York. It was aimed squarely at the U.S. government. There was no way the president was going to be flown in a huge military jet into a capital city under attack. Even more frightening, the skies were still filled with civilian aircraft. Could other planes be hijacked threats as well? Those first hours were a nightmare that sharpened the frustration for the president. Air Force One is a flying White House. It has awesome features: secure phone lines, a hospital cabin, wiring shielded against attack, televisions embedded into the bulkhead walls throughout the aircraft. This was, however, before the age of digital communications and satellite TV. The president was flying blind. He was only able to watch hazy images on the TV screens because the signal was so faint from local TV stations below. Adding to his frustration were the high-altitude weakness of his secure phone lines and the jammed circuits on the ground. Poor communication might even have threatened to keep the president out of the decision-making loop.
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10:00 A.M. ET A FORMIDABLE DECISION
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Nor did Morell know that at that very hour, the agency had the hijacked planes’ manifests. He later wrote, “I had no way of knowing analysts at the CIA Headquarters had already tied AlQaida to the attacks. . . . Three passengers [on American 77] had known, and definite, links to Al-Qaida.”
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The president at work on Air Force One, September 11, 2001. Outfitted with an office, conference room, meeting space, secure phone lines, and televisions embedded into the bulkhead walls, Air Force One served its intended purpose, functioning as a flying White House as the crisis unfolded. Nevertheless, President Bush was frustrated when faint signals from TV stations below limited his ability to monitor breaking news while the highaltitude flight and jammed circuits on the ground weakened his secure phone lines.
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In the underground White House PEOC, a formidable decision was needed: permission for military fighter jets to shoot down any of the suspicious civilian aircraft still considered potential threats. The record is not clear. Did Vice President Cheney get President Bush’s concurrence before or after giving that order? At 10:20 a.m. on Air Force One the president informed his press secretary that he had authorized the unthinkable: the shoot-down of a commercial jet full of innocent civilians—if necessary. The orders reached military pilots about 10:31 a.m. It didn’t matter. The immediate target of their concern was hijacked Flight 93, with Todd Beamer and other passengers yelling “Let’s roll!” as they stormed the cockpit. The jetliner had already nose-dived into the soil of Pennsylvania at 10:03 a.m. The plane would have reached skies over Washington in as little as ten more minutes. It was not clear what the terrorists’ target was to be. The Capitol? The White House? We may never know. The president’s second frustration was agonizing. WHO could have done this? It was the question he put twice that day on Air Force One to Michael Morell, the senior CIA official who briefed the president, in person, six days a week, on what was called the PDB. One month earlier in that classified “Presidential Daily Brief ” was a red flag, one of many that Osama bin Laden was constantly looking to attack on U.S. soil. His shadowy network Al-Qaida may not have been a household word before 2001, but U.S. intelligence had been tracking him intensively for years. On the plane, Mike Morell at first told President Bush that, without seeing new intelligence from headquarters, this was only his personal opinion: “I told him I had no doubt that the trail would lead to the doorstep of bin Laden and Al-Qaida.”
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10:55 A.M. ET JET FIGHTERS ARRIVE
For its own safety, Air Force One had been circling somewhere along the Gulf Coast. Watching the weak TV reception, we were all stunned at the sight of the towers collapsing, horrified at the innocent loss of life in New York and Washington. In the skies, I never felt we and the president were in danger, but Col. Tillman at the controls took nothing for granted. We learned later there might have been a threatening call to the White House switchboard warning, “Angel is next.” Angel is the code name for Air Force One. As we flew, F-16 fighter jets appeared off each wing. At first Col. Tillman feared those jet fighters might actually be that “Angel” attack. He later told author Garrett Graff, who published the sweeping oral history The Only Plane in the Sky, that he heard on his radio, “Air Force One, this is Cowry 4-5.” It was the Texas Air National Guard. The Cavalry! Tillman recounted, “You could hear the Texas twang in their voice. They explain to us they’re a flight of two F-16s, and they are our cover. And that was the coolest thing ever in my life.”
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Surrounded by his aides as he looks out the windows of Air Force One (below), President Bush watches as F-16 fighters arrive to escort his flight (opposite).
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Not as cool as it was for those two young pilots. I interviewed one a year later. His code name was Romeo, and he was scrambled from the same Air National Guard unit that George W. Bush had been assigned to in his youth. Romeo was simply told to fly to a certain point and rendezvous with the plane he was to protect. It was not until his F-16 got close enough that Romeo saw that he was riding shotgun for Air Force One. I scribbled into my reporter’s notebook at 10:55 a.m. ET that the pilot was taking Air Force One up to a much higher altitude, 45,000 feet; normal flying altitude is about 30,000 to 38,000 feet. At 11:31 a.m. ET Press Secretary Ari Fleischer came to the press cabin. His grave statement to the travel pool made my heart stop: “The president is being evacuated.” He said that is off-therecord, meaning it could not be shared with the public. I protested that such a profound decision is much too important to keep secret. For history! But then I looked out the windows, where jet fighters held their positions just off each wingtip. I realized I had no way to share that dramatic development with the world, even if I wanted to.
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In the rear galley of the plane, one of the familiar Air Force stewards told me that the aircraft, which is usually so well stocked, had only one chicken sandwich on board for each passenger and enough fuel to get back to Washington. Midair refueling is considered too dangerous when the president is onboard. Air Force One needed a place to land. Press secretary Ari Fleischer informed us we would be allowed to
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file our first pool report on the ground but must turn off our own cellphones and not identify the location as Barksdale Air Force Base so the president’s precise location would remain secret. That would not go as planned. It’s hard to hide a jumbo jet as distinctive as Air Force One. Base officers on the ground told us all of Shreveport, Louisiana, saw the plane fly in, and local camera crews were already swarming the base gates. President Bush was driven from the aircraft over to a headquarters building in a very unpresidential-looking dark blue
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As she continues to document the day’s events in her traditional style “Reporter’s Note Book” (opposite), Ann Compton (above, standing at center) joins the reporters in the travel pool as President Bush delivers a statement from Barksdale Air Force Base. After several hours out of view, the president speaks to reassure the public, saying “Freedom itself was attacked this morning by a faceless coward. And freedom will be defended. . . . The resolve of our great nation is being tested, but make no mistake. We will show the world that we will pass this test.”
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11:55 A.M ET “FREEDOM WILL BE DEFENDED”
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Dodge Caravan. It was followed by an armored Humvee with a gun turret. The president of the United States had now been out of public view for hours. He decided to make a statement assuring the nation, and the world, that the U.S. government had not been crippled by the attacks. The military conference room where our travel pool was waiting was so dark we asked the base personnel to bring in some desk lamps from nearby offices. The White House staff found a podium to make the scene look more official. At 12:36 p.m. President Bush spoke for several minutes, calm, but tense: “Freedom itself was attacked this morning by a faceless coward and freedom will be defended.” He might have thought the nation heard him but, once again, the television travel crew was not hooked up to any outside lines. The videotape had to be hand carried out to the local media, where it would in turn try to be uplinked to the networks in New York. It was broadcast at 1:00 p.m. When a president is under threat the Secret Service tries to keep the “secure package” of staff and vehicles as small as possible. I feared the 12-person press pool would be kicked off the plane since it was clear that returning to Washington was not an option. I urged the White House staff to remember how important it is for Americans to be confident they know their president is all right and in charge. Many staff, guest passengers including two congressmen, and most of the reporters were told they would be remaining on the ground at Barksdale. Andy Card did allow me as the senior broadcaster and the senior print reporter Sonya Ross of the Associated Press to reboard Air Force One, along with the CBS camera team George Christian and Erick Washington, and New York Times veteran photographer Doug Mills. It was up to the five of us to document the important hours to come. white house history quarterly
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1:36 P.M. ET EVACUATED WEST The interior of the plane seemed cold and empty as we fastened our seatbelts. Beneath each television monitor embedded in the bulkhead wall there are three digital clocks. In green LED displays the first is labeled WASHINGTON. The second is LOCAL. The third time says DESTINATION. As Air Force One began to roll, the first two clocks read 1:36 p.m. The DESTINATION numerals changed in a snap to 12:36
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p.m. Central time. It was our only official confirmation that the president was being flown west, away from Washington. The president was being evacuated.
2:51 P.M. ET “I’M COMING HOME” Leadership in the heat of a crisis is a defining moment for a president. George W. Bush had been in office less than eight months, but he knew it was crucial to be visible and direct with the American people. “I knew I needed to give an address to the nation that night,” he told the History Channel years later, “and I damn sure wasn’t gonna give it from a bunker in Omaha, Nebraska.” But that’s exactly where the president was taken roughly six hours after the first attacks. I was allowed to phone in a pool report, on the record, that he would convene a National Security Council meeting but not reveal the location. Once again, local TV channels were white house history quarterly
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President Bush exits Air Force One at Offutt Air Force Base near Bellevue, Nebraska (above), the headquarters of the Strategic Command, where he will spend an hour in video conference with the Presidential Emergency Operations Center at the White House (opposite).
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I was allowed one more phone call to let the national media back home know that Air Force One was going to take to the skies again. The fastest way to share that in a pool report was to call in to ABC’s live coverage, where anchor Peter Jennings asked the obvious: “Where are you going, Annie?” My response was honest, but not reassuring. “Peter, I have no idea.”
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already there. As we touched down, we watched ourselves landing live on the plane’s TV screens tuned to an Omaha station. Offutt Air Force Base is headquarters of the Strategic Command, and its underground bunker is bombproof. More important, it is equipped with live secure video conferencing communications whereby the president could at last see and hear directly from the White House PEOC and the military. I called in again on my Motorola clamshell flip phone to ABC’s anchor Peter Jennings in New York. Live on the air I surprised even myself when describing the president being led not toward but away from the big buildings. He ducked into a tiny cinderblock shack followed by many others. “He’s going down the rabbit hole.” It was the backstairs fire escape and the fastest way down to the bunker. Our small press pool remained outside.
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This was finally the moment President Bush could hear and see those back in Washington wrestling with the chaos. CIA Director George Tenet answered the burning question: his analysts had searched the passenger manifests of the hijacked airliners. Three of the passengers on the first plane “had known, and definite, links to Al-Qaida.” Indeed, just as CIA briefer Mike Morell feared, blame could be placed at the doorstep of Osama bin Laden. By now it now appeared that the skies over America had been cleared and the attacks were over. The president recalls he declared during the hour-long video conference: “‘I’m coming home.’ And they said, ‘We recommend you not do so.’ And I said, ‘Fine, I’m coming.’” As we scrambled back on board Air Force One for the last leg of the journey, I phoned in the pool report news of his return, on the record. The landing location was off the record.
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5:07 P.M. ET THE LAST LEG During the flight we spotted President Bush coming into the Secret Service cabin in the rear of the plane, speaking quietly to the agents, and then he stopped at the door of our press cabin. He waved away our reporters’ notebooks. He would save his public words for the Oval Office address to the nation coming up in three hours, but he did have a note of resolve in his voice when he warned the United States would “get those thugs.” We crossed the Blue Ridge Mountains as the sunlight faded on a day that had been so mild and clear all across the United States. The aircraft made a slow, full circle— probably not too far south of the spot where the fourth plane crashed in Pennsylvania—before we descended to the land at Andrews Air Force Base. Marine One was on the tarmac as usual, ready to whisk the president fast to the White House South Lawn. For the only time in memory, there was a second helicopter to take our small press travel pool down along the same river route to land in a golden sunset at 7:00 p.m. on the lawn of the Washington Monument, just outside the White House gates. We saw the same scene President Bush saw as he flew across the deserted capital. It was his first real glimpse of the shock and reality of that day—the thick black smoke rising from the ruins of the Pentagon’s gaping wound. America under attack. One month later, the United States bombed terrorists’ training camps in Afghanistan. One year later, Air Force One had been equipped with secure video satellite communications. One decade later, Osama bin Laden was killed when U.S. Special Operations stormed his secret location in Abbottabad, Pakistan.
Blanton, Thomas S. “The President’s Daily Brief,” updated April 12, 2004, including PDB for August 6, 2001, “Bid Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.” National Security Archive, nsarchive2.gwu/edu. Graff, Garrett M. The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of 9/11 (New York: First Avid Reader Press), 2019. Morell, Michael J. “The Turn to War: 11 September 2001, With the President,” Studies in Intelligence 50, no. 3 (September 2006): 23–34, document C01407035, approved for release September 10, 2014. Onion, Amanda. “September 11: Six Ways Uncertainty Reigned Aboard Air Force One,” posted September 10, 2019, updated September 12, 2019, History.com.
Air Force One arrives at Andrews Air Force Base, finally bringing President Bush home and concluding a long and historic flight, September 11, 2001.
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