The crater formed by their heroic activities was over 30 feet deep." "And we knew there were not any likely targets in that area, so I made the assumption that there was a struggle in a cockpit and somehow they were able to force the aircraft into the ground, and it was at a high rate of speed too. "We were not aware of the struggles that were actually occurring onboard," Mr McCormick told Sky News, adding: "However, we were closely tracking the aircraft, so we could see that the aircraft was descending. "Shortly thereafter is when United 93 crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, due to the heroic efforts of the passengers and crew onboard that aircraft. Image: United Airlines Flight 93 crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, when passengers fought the hijackers. Unfortunately, they got over Washington DC, just as the aircraft hit the Pentagon," he said. "Fighter jets were also scrambled to perform an intercept at Washington DC. It continued its right turn around and came back and hit the Pentagon." I thought perhaps the target was changed to the Capitol, but the aircraft was too high and too fast. "Ten miles from White House, nine miles from White House, all the way down to one mile from White House when the aircraft made a sweeping right turn. "I got on a national teleconference with FAA (Federal Aviation Authority) headquarters in Washington DC, and a controller joined our teleconference from Washington Dulles Airport and was counting down miles from the White House for a fast moving jet aircraft. Shortly after closing down the airspace, the team was made aware of another potentially in-progress hijacking, this time of United Airlines Flight 93, which had departed from Newark Airport in New Jersey and was heading eastbound over western Pennsylvania. Image: United Airlines Flight 77 hit the Pentagon. I had never thought that aircraft would be used as weapons."īut by the end of the day, he thought back to "how the men and women, the air traffic controllers across the entire United States rose to the occasion and cleared the skies of all the other aircraft, because that was in fact the only way that we could disarm the terrorists, was to remove their access to their weapons of choice". File pic: APĬlosing down the skies over New York effectively meant closing down air travel over the "northeastern United States, and the North Atlantic, western Atlantic, and Caribbean portions of Atlantic Ocean, where we butt right up against the air traffic control services provided by NATS UK ," Mr McCormick told Sky News.Īs the reality of what was happening became clear to Mr McCormick, he became angry: "I was very angry that someone would choose an industry that I love, and that's aviation, to attack our country. Image: Mr McCormick made the decision to shut down all New York airspace.
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