Lt. Col. Tim Duffy and Maj. Dan Nash received new information from the FAA as they flew south. They were informed that World Trade Center had been hit by American Airlines Flight 11
According to Sgt. Alfred Tripolone on the Massachusetts National Guard Facebook page, the F-15Cs currently stationed at Westfield-Barnes Regional Airport in Westfield, Massachusetts and part of the 104th Fighter Wing of the Massachusetts Air National Guard were the first military response to New York on September 11, 2001.
Eagles flying over New York
Sgt. Alfred Tripolone
The 9/11 terrorist attacks, which were carried out by members of the al Qaeda network, are commemorated every September 11. In New York City, Washington, DC, and Somerset County, Pennsylvania, they hijacked four commercial airline flights and used them as human cruise missiles, murdering more than 3,000 people.
Two F-15 Eagles were scrambled by members of the 102nd Fighter Wing (since re-assigned as the 102nd Intelligence Wing) in response. The Massachusetts Air National Guard was the country’s first military response to New York on that terrible day as word of the hijackings continued to come in amid the initial turmoil and confusion.
Within six minutes after boarding their aircraft, Lt. Col. Tim Duffy and Maj. Dan Nash of the 102nd were flying 153 miles away toward New York City.
“Right, so we got into the jets for battle stations, and the green light went off to give us the scramble order,” said Nash.
“Duff taxied out as No.1 While we were taxiing out, I followed him and we got the words to climb to a certain altitude and a certain heading in the direction of New York City.”
New information was being passed along from the Federal Aviation Administration as they flew south. They found out that American Airlines Flight 11 had hit the World Trade Center as they were getting ready to leave. Then a second hijacking was reported, that of United Airlines Flight 175.
Flight 175 collided with the South Tower of the World Trade Center while the F-15s were still en route to NYC and more than halfway there.
The North East Sector’s congested airspace made it difficult for Air National Guard weapons controllers to locate the hijacked aircraft, which was made worse by the fact that the hijackers disabled the electronic transponders that the FAA uses to identify commercial airliners.
“They came back and told us we had a new mission to proceed direct to Manhattan and set up a combat air patrol,” said Duffy. “We’re just trying to make sure we can identify and escort to land or turn away (aircraft) or do whatever we need to do to keep it from happening again.”
As soon as they were above New York City, Duffy and Nash established a combat air patrol, ordering all civilian aircraft to avoid the area. As soon as it became apparent that they were being attacked, the FAA ordered all civilian aircraft to land.
When the second tower collapsed, Duffy and Nash were flying in formation straight over it and attempting to visually assess its condition.
“And as I’m looking at the square, the roof, it starts getting smaller. All of a sudden I saw the plume coming out of the bottom, it was falling away from me when we were looking at it,” Duffy said.
KC-135 Stratotankers from Maine’s 101st Air Refueling Wing refueled the F-15s. Later, members of their unit and F-16s from the 158th Fighter Wing of the Vermont National Guard and the 177th Fighter Wing of the New Jersey National Guard joined them.
They escorted around 100 aircraft out of the area during their more than five-hour patrol over New York City before returning to Otis Air National Guard Base.
Through patrols and training drills, the Massachusetts Air National Guard still defends the safety of Americans and the integrity of the nation’s airspace.
Photo by U.S. Air Force
