Interview with Col Marr, MEADS Commander and Leslie Filson

Tape Side 2

F: Basically what I'll be asking you is, you probably understand what the project is about
already I think. General Arnold wanted a book about it. So I won't go into explaining all
that. But I want to get a run down on -1 know you have talked about it a million times,
the sequence of events that day. The kind of stuff that went on and what was going
through your mind. A couple of people mentioned their incident on September 12th, is
that public?

M: Is that the one where the yahoo came and looked like he was going to hit the saf(?) as
far as I know it's all public, I briefed it.

F: Good, well were you when this all went down, I understand you were all in exercise at
that point. What was that exercise called sir?

M: I think it was Vigilant overview, not positive, it was a NORAD exercise.

F: I'll find out

M: We had basically, we'd moved to 12-hour shifts, 8 to 8. So I was coming on the Sam
shift. We had our 8 o'clock am briefing, roughly short because this was the beginning.
We ran through the intelligence, so I think it probably took about 20 minutes to get our
initial briefing. I had checked in with General Arnold, we made sure that all the lines
were up and ready to go and we were ready to start our war. The night crew had been on
for 12-hours, because we had started the 12-hour shifts previously rather than listing that
as the initial time for 12 hours. So we had the battle staff fully in place.

F: Which is rare, right?

M: Well it is not rare anymore, but it was rare at the time.

F: Okay,

M: I remember standing up there at, let's see, we called in after the battle staff briefing
was over. Probably 8:35 to 8:40ish was closer. Seeing that there was a huddle of people
around one of the scopes in front. Have you had a chance to look on the ops floor.

F: I was there a few years ago, I haven't been there this visit.

M: Okay, there is the front row of scopes, that's where the weapons guys are. I
remember looking up and seeing the forward left one, there's four or five people
huddling around. Well, I use to run the exercise shop around here and I've seen many
many exercises, built them myself and as I saw them huddle, I said to myself "there's got
to be something wrong, somethings happened up there." Everything is getting ready to

NCT0071794
brief when they go and fly a mission, which is why the phone call came up into the
weapons position at 6313.

(tape interrupts with a fast forward that is inaudible)

M: (inaudible) with the last know information. You'll see some of the transcripts, I think \f
that transcript is pretty much intact. We lost Deskins (?) transcript, systems do it too once "^
in a while. So she came up trying to find on the scope what was going on and she told
me that, I directed a battle stations at Otis. The guys said they were about half way to
their airplanes when the horn blew to do battle stations. As they are trying to track down
where this aircraft is, I got on the phone, on the secure phone to Gen Arnold and said "sir,
I've got a potential highjack, they think it is going to JFK, this is not an exercise." In
fact, that was the first question I should have asked to Deskins "was this real world or
exercise?" So I told Gen Arnold that we had a real world highjack that my intent was to
scramble Otis to military airspace while we figured out what was going on. He said "go
ahead and do it." So we scrambled Otis, the guys said they were sitting in the jets when
they got the scramble order. The difference between battle stations is you go to the jets,
you don't start up, you wait. Scramble order you go and take off. The guys, you'll talk
to Maureen Dully (?) apparently she has gotten some of the word. She's in the ID
section, the identification section, so while we were getting this rolling, while they get the
jets launched, she's trying to track down the last known position, possible speed of the
airliner, assuming it's going towards JFK and sounds like she had a blip on the scope just
before it disappeared at about 8:46.

F: She feels that she ID it and then it disappeared?

M: You will have to talk to her, but my impression was that she felt she saw a dot on the
scope which could have been it. Because whenever it's not squawking you get a different
symbol, a much more faint symbol.

F: Because the transponder would have been turned off?

M: That's right. Please stop me if some of the language I'm using is not familiar
because some of it I just get so use to using.

F: Yea, some people I talk to use a whole different language, but I will.

M: Acronyms, the whole works. Even things that are acronyms we are treating as
words, because everybody understands it. Then you ask me what it stands for, I've got
no clue but I know what it means. So we were looking for the track, we were launching
out Otis, basically the scramble order went in at 8:46 which is the same time that later we
were reported that the World Trade Center was hit.

F: So the scramble order went out at the same time.

NCT0071796
 F: Yea

M: So the initial thought is that there had been an accident. A terrible accident, but an
accident none the less, that's hit the World Trade Center, the pictures show the tops
burning but there's not much we can do about it. At that point, I called Gen Berian (?)
who is the Chief of Staff at the New York ANG. Actually he would probably have a
really good story to tell you because what happened was, I called him "sir I don't have a
whole lot of good information for you but you need to get rolling down to your own JOC
- Joint Operations Center because we are getting word that the World Trade Center has
been hit by an airplane, I'll give you whatever information I've got. Mostly because we
are kind of a reporting center for New York state here. We have the largest number of
people here 24 hours a day, so we perform the reporting function for the whole state. So
he went down and got his command center rolling very quickly, got the New York state
response rolling. At this point there is not a whole lot more we can do. The jets are in air
or they are actually taking off and heading down south toward Whiskey 105. We don't
really have a mission for then, at this point we don't have any other problems in the air?

F: (inaudible)

M: The Whisky warning areas are areas that are out over water. Well Whisky 105 is the
area the Otis works in quite regularly, standard training airspace. Basically it's all the
water just south of Long Island, just off the shore of Long Island, South and to the East of
there. So we sent them down to Whisky 105, which would put them within just a few
minutes of New York city to CAP, burn down gas and await further instructions. By this
time we started getting CNN showing in the battle cap, we rolled a TV in there. I can't
remember if we had one in the Ops floor in there or not. We got a television rolled in
there and as we were watching the television, we see another aircraft come into view and
hit the second World Trade Center.

\L~ F: With the second one there had been no (inaudible)

(take speeds up and voices are inaudible)

M: (inaudible) then we'll talk about what we have to ask those pilots. That was the scary
^think because at that point now as United Airlines flight 93 was going out that's when we
did in fact receive the clearance to kill if need be. In fact the words almost verbatim were
we will take lives in the air to save lives on the ground.^

F: Who gave that order?

M: That just comes down to me from Gen Arnold.

F: That's crazy

M: We are still less than an hour here and the whole world has changed.

NCT0071798
 Remainder of interview with Col. Bob Marr, NEADS commander, June 25, 2002.

Rebecca, the tape sounds bad and messes up in the middle. Fortunately, I didn't lose
much ... this is the rest of the interview. I'm copying from my notes here; I put quotes
around direct quotes. Good luck. Also, you might contact Col. Marr for a copy of his
briefing.
Leslie

& UAL 93 was going west over Cleveland, there was nothing between him and D.C. ... if
he turned around to D.C
C? So we put Langley up toward D.C. (two alert F-16s from Fargo ANG)
The pilots thought they were going to NYC
The pilots see the smoke of the Pentagon
After scrambling Langley we hear from the FAA that flight 77 is out of coverage.
Right 77 is on nobody's radar anywhere, not even skin paint — S f *•
At that point, unable to pick up anything on radar
( We knew 77 was coming toward Washington pretty quickly and didn't find out until later
' that a C130, callsign Gopher 106, was taking off out of Andrews and headed toward
Michigan
An approach controller in Washington had picked up a high-speed track and Gopher 106
saw the airliner coming in
Now flight 93 can be seen on the scopes over Cleveland

( v "Now I'm thinking, America is under attack. I think he's looking for a target ->f
opportunity."
Flight 93 is pointed toward D.C., I already have F-16s (Fargo) in the air
There is a dense corridor of aircraft between Washington and Boston - I've got
traditional Soviet bomber routes and the Langley guys have to go over water now to get
over the corridor
Langley was well on their way to D.C. when flight 93 turned around
we pick it up before it hits Pennsylvania - it drops 1.200 feet in 12 seconds
Gopher 106, the C130, sees the Pentagon get hit and the plane flown into the field of
Pennsylvania
By the time UAL 93 his the ground, Langley jets (Fargo) was over D.C., 93 or 96 miles
away from impact point
"UAL 93 would not have hit D.C., he would have been engaged and shot down before he
got there."

FAA put hold on air traffic, only planes in air were alert jets
I turned to the staff and said what more can we do?
Let's get everyone in the air and see what they can provide us
Syracuse was available - told them we've got to get them up there to provide coverage
Syracuse told us they could arm guns on the F-16s in 10 minutes

NCT0071800
 Man questions:

Flight 93: Idea was to head off at pass with Selfridge guys ... who did you talk to at Selfridge. Pilots said
they didn't know what was going on. Not sure how to couch this info within the text...

TOLD CREW to get a hid of guys in air

\n 93 was potentially hijacked, heading west toward Chicago, neither fargo down at langley or otis
* could take care of that heading west, so we looked for any flights in the air between flight 93 and Chicago,

Looked like he was heding toward 93 or Chicago

Only guys in air selfridge guys off alpina, mich.,

Attempting to contact selfridge to get hold of guys in air flying over alpina to have them come down and
intercept flight 93
Duriing process as that weas being flushed outis when 93 started turning around and by that time we
scrambled lanlgey because 93 was heading toward Washington
In that process, mcc asked me question I said they'll intercept, pull up real close and try to convince the
guy to land
Selfridge became a nonissue when 93 turned around anyway

J, With Flight 93, did you vector Langley (Fargo) away from New York toward D.C. to intercept 77 and then
r Flight 93? A little unclear about Fargo's role ...

As unied 93 was heading towards Chicago we are consiering whatever actions might be possible so at that
point, ual 93 could turn around and come back toward d.c. once we got word it was hijacked
Launched fargo guys from langley at that time and headed them toward Washington, d.c., never scrambled
toward new vork
They thought plan was to iend them to n.y.. they ended up goin^ .^ •'.-.-'. .".J. and didn't get prior word to
go to d.c.
Coincidental that 77 was hijacked

Fargo at 20,000, 113 W much lower. Would you say 113W was CAP commanders? Who is a good source
at Fargo? Trying to get in touch w/them through PA officer there.

w-in a couple mos. Of sept. 11, gave them radar data slides not knowing what their issues were
showed fargo taking off and over city at 9:30

113 w took off around 10:30 after everything had occurred

they took off on direction from reagan tower, by that time, we had guys over top of city

fargo up and down depending on mission, pushing out after intercepts just like guys in n.y.
when 113 took off, they set up a low-altitude cap
guys at higher altitudes saw them from the air
113 was autonomously

story unfolds w/fog of war, delta 89 heading into Cleveland, faa cleared out Cleveland center, just a pilot
trying to get airplane on the ground

scatana process? NORAD

NCT0071802
Marr questions:

TOLD CREW to get a hid of guys in air

Looked like he was heding toward 93 or Chicago

Only guys in air selfridge guys off alpina, mich.,

°utis d "" ™°d "*by that time we

leTmdgTbecame a nonissue when 93 turned around aryway

Wim Flight 93, did you vec,or Lang,ey (F?o, away from *. Yo* ,o»ard D.C. «o ,n,ereep« 7, and then
Flight 93? A little unclear about Fargo's role ...

un,d ,3 « he,ding .owards d, iea^ «.. ^^^t^ ""

„ » send .hen, ,o n,, ,hey ended up8oing ,o «h d.c. and didn, ge, pr,or
20 to d.c.
Coincidental that 77 was hijacked

Fargo a. 20
000 , ,3 W much ,ower. Wou.d youSay M3W was CAf commanders? Who is , good source
aZgo-Trying ,o ge. in ,ouch w/,hem through PA officer mere.
„,„ a couple mo, Of sep,. , .. gave mem radar data siide, no, knowmg what their issues were
showed fargo taking off and over city at 9:^0

fargo up and down depending on mission, pushing out after intercepts just like guys in
when 1 13 took off, they set up a low-altitude cap
guys at higher altitudes saw them from the air
1 1 3 was autonomously
story unfoids *,fog of war. «. 89 heading ,n,o ci,ve«. faa cieared « cieve,and center. Jus, a p,,o,
trying to get airplane on the ground

scatana process? NORAD

NCT0068068
Colonel Bob Marr
NEADS Commander
June 25, 2002

You talking about the one where the yahoo came, and looked like he was going to h,t the
SAF(?) as far as I know that's not public.
0 ok well were you when this all went do™? I understand you were in exercise at
the time. And what was that exercise called?

So we had the battle staff(?) fully in place.

Q - Which is where? Right here?

arfs.-.s
a hudd,e of people around one of *e scnps. Have you
ever set foot on the ops floor?

Q . 1 was there a few years ago and ???

S^^^^

ret™ tdta theytsttntact vSh them. They lost the transponder and then the
voice communication just dropped off the scope.

NCT0068070
Q - How did Major Denson(?) find this out? ^,

Talking to the folks that were huddled around..

Q - Didn't Somebody call?

Jenny (or Jeremy)?? had been called. The FAA had called Jenny Pow. Jeremy Pow had
been called as(?) the FCC division. ???? This is what they found out later: That the
FAA, up at Boston center, has been used to working with they guys out of Otis, the F-
15s. so the two guys that were on alert received a call at the ops desk there at Otis, from
the FAA that said, we think we have a path of a jet, would you be able to put a couple
airplanes in the air for us?

Q - Called them because they?

I said listen - Yeah, better call the center because they're the ones that actually control
jets. So we grabbed our gear and went running out to the airplane. And the guy that was
the eventually the lead, Ken Duffy, talked to the other guy who was actually scheduled to
be the lead and said, hey have you ever done this before? this sounds like it might be a
real-world hijack. The other guy ???? about ten minutes, said I don't have it (??). it just
so happened that Ken Duffy had flown in the formation the last time we had a hijack.
And so he took the lead. The last time we had a hijacking I think it was fall 92, early 93,
just so happened that I was in the battle club(?) on that particular day also. But was in the *
2-ship at Otis that we sent out after that guy.

Q-??

????? if you're there long enough, you know most of the guys, and that one landed safely
at JFK(?) as a matter of fact. But anyway, we told them to call us, and then remembered
what they had were four of the weapons crew because these were the guys that brief(?)
into that by technician, which is why the phone? com? back into the weapons position (of
2(or6)313?).

Q - (odd tape speed up)

I thought that it was going towards JFK based gauging from the ? on information, ????•
transcript, I think that transcript is pretty much intact.

Q - That's great.

We lost depth in the transcript(?), but that the best systems do it to you once in a while.
So she came back up trying to find on the scope what was going on. She told me that; I
directed(?) a battle station, at Otis, and the guys at Otis said that they were about halfway
to their airplanes when the horn blew to get battlestation. As they were trying to track
down where this aircraft is, I got on the phone., on the secure phone to general Arnold, I
 said 'sir I've got a potential hijack, FAA thinks it's going to JFK. this is not an exercise.'
In fact, that was the first question, I guess I should have sensed (?) the question: Is this
real-world exercise? No this is real world, so I told General Arnold we got a real-world
exercise. Said my intent was to scramble Otis to military airspace while we figured out
what was going on. And he said, go ahead, do it. So while I was still getting him the
information we scrambled, Otis. Guys said they were sitting in the jets ready to go when
they got the scramble order. ?? battle stations you just get in the jets, jets start up, and
wait. And then the scramble order, take off. The guys, you'll talk to Maurine Julie,
apparently she had gotten some of the word - she's in the ID(?) Section, the identification
section. Said, while we're getting the floor(?) while you get the jets launched - she's
trying to track down the last known position, possible speed of the airliner, assuming it's
going towards JFK(?), sounds like she thought she had a blip on the scope just before it
disappeared at about - disappeared at 8:46.

Q - Did she ID it?

You'll have to talk to her, but my impression is that she thought that she saw a dot on the
scope which could have been it. Because it looks not squad team (?).... Have Different
symbol, you get a much more clean symbol.

Q - Because the transponder would have been turned off. Yeah.

/T~\n of using acronyms, as words)

At any rate. So we're looking for the track. We were launching at Otis basically
scrambling order went at 8:46 which is the same time that later we heard reported the
world trade center was hit.

Q - So the scramble order went out at the same time?

Basically. ... the FAA had called us at 8:40, so by the time that we got the words all
going forward, we probably left the battle stations at 8:43 roughly, and then scramble
more than likely, probably 8:46.

Q - This is the same moment ???

What really happened from what I understand later, took off.. ??????????? really nicely -
the shape of the radar detections and ???, sure ??? on the internet even???

Q - (strange speed up of tape)

so we got our first word about 6 minutes prior to the time that it hit the world trade
center.

Q - And I know you've been asked this a lot: in your mind, this is not an accident at this
point.
Well, action, at this time, that's what we think has happened , at least what's going
V
through. At this point we don't even know if there's been a problem. A few minutes
later, one of the groups going in from ground control, which has a TV going on CNN, the
first words that I know something's happened is they tell me the world trade center's
been hit by an airliner. At that point I'm thinking there's possibly an accident because
there's been a hijack, the guy's going into JFK, every hijacker's to this day has been an
individual that wants to fly an airplane somewhere other than where it's supposed to; so
the thought that perhaps this guy got too low, flying out of control and hit something on
the way into JFK. If you look from overhead at the world trade center site, I've flown a
number of CAPS over there, you can look up,

Q - (Strange tape speed up)

right straight down the Hudson river, the first thing you hit coming from north to south
would be LaGuardia on the left, so you pass that, and then you hit Newark on his right,
and he didn't go to Newark, so it appears he's going to JFK. He'd come down the
Hudson, turn around lower Manhattan, stay over water(?), and that's the standard pattern
into the Northwest runway for JFK.

Q - So it wouldn't be inconceivable that he could have just crashed.

That's - exactly. As you look at it, the world trade center, right on the roof of that - right
there on the peninsula of lower Manhattan, so if you have airplane problems or whatever,
it could be conceivable that he would have crashed, at least from^back here, without
seeing what the weather is or anything, although it looked like a clear day, not obviously
a very clear day. So initial thought is an accident, a terrible accident, but an accident
nonetheless. Took the world trade center the pictures show that the top's burning, but
there's not much we can do about it. At that point then I called up Jennifer Berrian (?)
who is the chief of staff of the New York air national guard.

Clarification on wording and spelling: Berrian

Actually, he'd probably have a really good story to tell you: Bob Foley - because the
captain that I -1 called him, I don't have a whole lot of good information for you but you
need to get rolled back to your own job - your jet operations center because the world
trade center's been hit by an airplane, I'll give you whatever information I get, but mostly
because we're kind of a reporting center for New York state here - we have the largest
number of people here 24 hours a day. So we felt like we were reporting bunch(?) for the
whole state. So we went down and got his command center rolling very quickly and kept
the New York state response rolling. At this point there's not a whole lot more we can
do, the jets are in the air, and they're also taking off and heading down south towards
whisky 105 - we don't really have a mission for them, at this point, we don't have any
other problems.

Q - (weird tape speed up)

the whisky flying areas are military air space outside of the water. So whisky 105 is the
area that Otis works in quite regularly, that's their standard training air space. And it's
basically on the water south, just south of Long Island, south and then east of it. So we
sent them down to whisky 105, that should put them within just a few minutes from New
York city, to CAP?, burn down? gas and await further instructions. At this time we start
getting CNN showing in the battle CAP, we roll a TV in there and I think, I don't know if
we had any ops ? up there or not. The television's running in there and as we're
watching the television, we see another aircraft come into view and hit the second world
trade center.

And with the second one, didn't you know

Q - (weird tape speed up)

well then we'll talk about what we have to ask those pilots. But, scary thing because at
that point now, and later on as Flight 93 is going out, that's when we received clearance
to kill... in fact the words almost verbatim were 'we will take lives in the air to save lives
on the ground.'

Q - (Some question here)

comes down to me from general Arnold.

Q - That's crazy. I bet you didn't really expect to hear that that day when you got in. it's
not funny but just amazing...

We're all still well less than an hour here and the whole world has changed. Suffrage(?)
is already out.

Q - They're already flying.

If you look at the way this guy's going toward the West, he's well, about over Cleveland
heading west. So from there if he turned around and headed for Washington DC, there's
nothing between him and DC. so what we did. we put Langley out there - we had them
holding to go over New York City,

(tape cuts out)

The End
Remainder of interview with Col. Bob Marr, NEADS commander, June 25, 2002.

Rebecca, the tape sounds bad and messes up in the middle. Fortunately, I didn't lose
much ... this is the rest of the interview. I'm copying from my notes here; I put quotes
around direct quotes. Good luck. Also, you might contact Col. Marr for a copy of his
briefing.
Leslie

UAL 93 was going west over Cleveland, there was nothing between him and D.C. ... if
he turned around to D.C.
So we put Langley up toward D.C. (two alert F-16s from Fargo ANG)
The pilots thought they were going to NYC
The pilots see the smoke of the Pentagon
After scrambling Langley we hear from the FAA that flight 77 is out of coverage.
Flight 77 is on nobody's radar anywhere, not even skin paint
At that point, unable to pick up anything on radar
We knew 77 was coming toward Washington pretty quickly and didn't find out until later
that a C130, callsign Gopher 106. was taking off out of Andrews and headed toward
Michigan
An approach controller in Washington had picked up a high-speed track and Gopher 106
saw the airliner coming in
Now flight 93 can be seen on the scopes over Cleveland

"Now I'm thinking. America is under attack. I think he's looking for a target of
opportunity."
Flight 93 is pointed toward D.C.. 1 already have F-16s (Fargo) in the air
There is a dense corridor of aircraft between Washington and Boston - I've got
traditional Soviet bomber routes and the Langley guys have to go over water now to get
over the corridor
Langley was well on their way to D.C. when flight 93 turned around
we pick it up before it hits Pennsylvania - it drops 1.200 feet in 12 seconds
Gopher 106. the C130. sees the Pentagon get hit and the plane flown into the field of
Pennsylvania
By the time UAL 93 his the ground, Langley jets (Fargo) was over D.C., 93 or 96 miles
away from impact point
"UAL 93 would not have hit D.C.. he would have been engaged and shot down before he
got there."

FAA put hold on air traffic, only planes in air were alert jets
I turned to the staff and said what more can we do?
Let's get everyone in the air and see what they can provide us
Syracuse was available - told them we've got to get them up there to provide coverage
Syracuse told us they could arm guns on the F-16s in 10 minutes

NCT0068088
They said in 30 minutes they could get heat-seekers on the wings; they said give us an
hour and we can put radar missiles on board
The Otis guys had been on a training mission

Some went up unarmed

"What do I do?"
One guy from Otis had newborn twins and had just built a house.
"I was telling this guy he might have to give his life up for this."

I was realizing the impact that this day had on so many different lives
In two hours we had jets over all the major population centers in the Northeast... when
we called up they all said you bet

Pretty soon, fighters were all over the sky, like you kicked a hornet's next
The 113W in D.C. had 3 fighters in the air and one had enough gas to go back up...it's
the closest fighter unit to the capital.
A secret service agent had called the unit and said get aircraft in the air, fighters from
Langley (Fargo) was up at a higher altitude.
D.C. took off at about 10:30 or so.

We had a high CAP and low CAP and eventually the two groups got coordinated

At one point, we had 21 unaccounted for aircraft that weren't talking to FAA centers, not
on flight plan or otherwise unaccounted for

There was report of another light aircraft that had hit close to Camp David, a number of
false reports out there

The fog of war had set in - what was valid, what was a guess? Anything from overseas
had to be diverted.
We called American Airlines and the flight we were concerned about had gone back to
Madrid
At one time, there were at least nine hijacking reports
Not all squawking
We just didn't know - we were in foreign territory. We are used to protecting the shores.
way out overseas. Our processes and procedures weren't designed for this
By the afternoon, only military tankers were up in the air
"Everybody was really fired up ... in my area of responsibility there is only one active
duty fighter wing, all the rest are Air National Guard. The mindset of a lot of old military
guys is that the Guard is the standby force ... but the Guard guys got up there very, very
quickly."

"All I was doing was getting any forces someone would give to me. I had the structure
and the eyes, all I needed was the weapons."
I left at 11 or 12 that night.

NCT0068089