All language subtitles for 9-11.Inside.Air.Force.One.2019.1080p.WEBRip.x264-LAMA.English

[soft dramatic music]

♪

- This was the most rapid
ascent that I could remember.

- We flew straight up.
- Air Force One was a target.

We had to protect
the president.

[plane whooshing]

- We're under attack.

And I said,
"I'm getting on Air Force One,

and I'm gonna be
in Washington pretty soon."

- Washington was a war zone.

The skies are not safe.

- It was surreal, in a sense.

I said, "I'm coming home,"
and they said,

"We recommend you not do so."

- He kept getting
more and more angry.

- The president
was hot to trot.

He wanted to get back
to Washington.

But then, 10:32, we got the
report saying Angel is next.

- Angel is the code word
for Air Force One.

- It has to be an insider.

Nobody else would use
that code word.

- We lost all communications.

- Sabotage--somehow, somebody
had gotten to the system

aboard Air Force One.

- Air Force One
was flying blind.

- There was so little clear
information coming in to us.

- Air Force One
and the president

were disconnected from every
other level of the crisis.

- We didn't know how many
hijackers there were.

We didn't really know
who the enemy was.

- But we did know now
it was on.

It was fully on.

♪

- Flying Air Force One,

you're constantly
reminding yourself that

you have the president
of the United States

onboard the aircraft.

[soft piano music]

♪

Angel is iconic.

Angel is the United States
Secret Service's code word

that they use
to refer to Air Force One.

- It is a powerful,
powerful, powerful image.

It did not matter whether
we were in Maine or Mongolia,

whether we're in the state
of Georgia

or the country of Georgia,

that plane, to this day
when I see it on TV,

it still makes the hair rise
on the back of my neck,

and I mean that from my heart.

[plane whooshing]

- September 10th, 2001--

it was no different
than any other trip.

The plan was to leave
Washington D.C.,

Andrews Air Force Base,

take the president
on an education visit

to the state of Florida.

It was a two-day trip.

That's all
that was planned for.

- Two full days
in one state, Florida,

where he would
talk about education

morning, noon, and night.

It was about as low-priority
as any White House trip

I had ever taken.

This was gonna be
a real sleeper of a trip.

- Hey.
- Just warming up.

Come on, Stretch.
Come on.

Come on, Stretch!

- I knew the president
was gonna go

for a run that morning.

I went outside to check
on things with the motorcade

and how the advance team
was doing,

and I noticed
the terrible stench.

"Whew!
That stinks."

It was the red tide
killing the fish

that had washed up
on the beach.

I actually was worried that

the stench might cause
the president to be sick,

and I remember saying to him,
"Oh, by the way,

"the terrible stench
is out there,

"but I checked
with the doctor,

and no, you're not
gonna get sick,"

and he looked at me like,
"You're an idiot,"

which I got that view
quite a few times from him.

- Thank you, sir.
- Can we talk about tax cuts?

- I'd rather not.

We can talk about it
at the next event.

- Very good.

- He took his shower.

Then we sat down,
had a CIA briefing.

- On the morning
of September 11th itself,

there was nothing in the
briefing specifically related

to Al-Qaeda or even generally
related to terrorism.

[haunting piano music]

In the spring and
early summer of 2001,

we were picking up chatter
among Al-Qaeda operatives

about something big
was to occur,

some significant attack.

People used--actually used
the word "catastrophic."

I delivered the famous
August 6th briefing:

"Bin Laden Determined
to Strike in the U.S."

♪

- Pre-9/11 America
was a country that

felt pretty secure
within our borders.

Turmoil overseas

really didn't say
to the American people,

"This is likely to hurt us
here at home."

- There wasn't
anything specific.

There was no mention
of a specific threat.

It was not actionable
in any way.

"But you do need to know,
Mr. President, that Bin Laden

would like nothing more
than to bring the fight here"

- And then 9/11 happened.

- This just in.

You are looking at obviously
a very disturbing live shot..

- I just witnessed a plane

that appeared
to be cruising...

- Unconfirmed reports that
a plane has crashed

into one of the towers there.

- We were in the motorcade
headed to the event.

As Secret Service agents,
we always assume the worst,

but at the same time,

we understood there's
a lot we just don't know.

Is this a terrorist incident?
Is this a accident?

Suicidal thing by a pilot?

What is this?

♪

- We arrived at the school
when all of us--the presiden,

the principal, and I--
had the same reaction.

"Oh, what a horrible accident.

The pilot must have had
a heart attack or something."

And then the principal
of the school

and the president
walked into the classroom.

- Sound it out.
Get ready.

kids: Smile.
- What word?

kids: Smile.
- Yes, "smile."

- I was standing three paces
to the president's left.

All of a sudden,
the radio call came over to e

that the second plane
hit the building.

- Another one just hit
the building. Wow.

- [gasps]
- Oh, my God.

Another plane has just hit.

- This is a whole
different deal.

- You saw a plane?

- Yes, I just saw a plane
go into the building.

- We're standing
in the staff room

watching the television set
that they had on there,

and it hit me right then,

this was the attack that
we had heard so much about

in the late spring,
early summer.

This is what
they were planning.

- Ready.
kids: Light.

- Yes, "light."
Ready.

kids: Light.

- Then all of the sudden,
it had hit me that

the president's the
only one that doesn't know

that the second plane
has hit the building,

because he's still
talking to the kids,

and he's reading to the kids.

[foreboding music]

And it became increasingly
uncomfortable in the room,

and again, we're only talking
about another minute or two,

but it still became
increasingly uncomfortable,

and quite honestly,

I knew that with the news
media in the back of the roo,

it was probably a matter
of time when one of them's

gonna just shout out
to the president that,

"Hey, did you know a second
plane has hit the building?"

kids: Plane.
- Yes, "plane."

- And then I performed a test
that chiefs of staff

have to perform all the time,

and it's usually
not an easy test:

does the president
need to know?

You get that test
a thousand times a day.

This was an easy test to pass.

Yes.

- 60 on page 153.

- I bend over,
and I whisper into his ear,

"A second plane
hit the second tower.

America is under attack."

That's an unbelievable
message to deliver.

- I was stunned.

No one interrupts a president,

even in a classroom
full of second graders.

[shutters clicking]

I looked at
the president's face...

- At the count of three,
everyone should be on page 150.

- And there was
a look of gravity,

of concern,

I don't think I'd ever seen
on George Bush's face before.

♪

- About that same time,
the press corps

that had been crammed

in this small elementary
school classroom...

Started getting the same
message I had just gotten.

kids: N-E-A-K...

- It was surreal in a sense,
like watching a silent movie

of bad news being delivered
to the country.

- Mr. President,
are you aware of the reports

of the plane crash in New York?

- We'll talk about it later.

- That was--definitely
looked like it was on purpos.

- Why do you say
"very deliberately"?

- The pilot aimed
right for the building.

- I do remember
standing there wondering

whether somebody
might fly a plane

into Booker T.
Elementary School.

After all, it had been
public for some time

that the president
was going to be

at this particular place
at this particular time.

- I thought about
walking over

to the lead
Secret Service agent

and mentioning this to him,
but he had a look on his face

like he was just
as worried as I was,

so I decided
he didn't need to be told.

- The president of the
United States is the target.

When there is
a terrorist incident

taking place in this country,

we automatically assume the
president is a target of thi.

If all of a sudden we do get
a threat toward the presiden,

or that direction of interest
changes toward Sarasota,

then we're only gonna
have seconds to react.

So I said, "Guys,
we have got to leave here.

We've got to
leave immediately."

But the president was
adamant about the fact,

"I have got to send a message
to the American people.

Citizens need to hear from me
at this time."

[soft indistinct chatter]

[applause]

- I had been in crises before
as governor of Texas--

nothing like this, of course.

[tense music]

The people that
were watching me

give this statement
were horrified,

'cause they hadn't
gotten the news.

Today, we've had
a national tragedy...

- I could tell you
one thing emphatically,

and that is no one knew
what was going on.

- In an apparent terrorist
attack on our country.

- No one knew
what was going on.

- Terrorism against our natin
will not stand.

- We've got multiple radios

tuned to all the
different agencies.

We started getting pieces
of information.

We were told
Air Force One was a target.

[plane whooshing]

There is an aircraft
in the Florida area

that's descending
with its transponder off,

and it's not talking to any f
the air traffic controllers,

so it's got the same MO
as all the hijacked aircrafts.

We're sitting on the ground
in Sarasota

with the idea that a plane
could attack us from above.

A large aircraft
sitting on the ground,

so Air Force One
was a sitting duck.

- And now if you'd join me
in a moment of silence.

[shutters clicking]

- The Secret Service
said to all of us,

"Get in the motorcade now,

"because when the president
is done, we are leaving,

and we're not waiting
for anybody."

- Thank you very much.

- Sir, do you have
any more information...

[applause]

- That was it.

And then,
all hell broke loose.

[dramatic music]

- It was like no other
motorcade we've probably see.

This was at break-neck speed

to get to the aircraft
as soon as possible.

♪

- We heard the engines
of Air Force One

already grinding away,

so I said,

"The pilot must really
want to get out of here.

He must not know if this
is even a safe place."

- The agents are
over our heads yelling,

"Move it, move it, move it!"

- There was some reference
from the Secret Service that

maybe there'd be somebody
with a stinger missile

sitting at the end
of the runway.

[plane whirring]

♪

- As we started to taxi,
the Secret Service advises

that someone has come up
to the end of the runway

with what they perceived
to be a long gun.

I had planned to taxi down
to that end of the runway

and take off.

I would go right by

whoever they considered
to be the threat.

At that point,
I turned around,

and we went
the opposite direction.

- Colonel Tillman said to me,

and I can remember it like
it was yesterday--he said,

"Well, I can take
the steepest takeoff,

you know,
you could ever imagine."

I told the president,

"Mr. President,
you got to sit down."

- We're gonna make sure that
we don't get near

that tree line,
so we're gonna climb out steep

to make sure that
no ground fire

could reach us at that point.

♪

- We took off so fast,
it was dizzying.

- We flew right up
pretty straight.

male narrator: It's 9:54 a.m.

Angel has taken wing.

But with only four hours
of fuel on board,

and the skies
filled with threats,

where can they go?

- I kept thinking,
the president is running,

but there's no place to hide.

The skies are not safe.

♪

♪

[plane whooshing]

narrator: Just over an hour
after the attack

begins in New York,
Angel takes wing.

- Air Force One has engines
on it that are designed,

you know,
for a heavy aircraft,

yet the plane
never gets that heavy.

It has tremendous
maneuverability.

It goes extremely fast.

It is literally
a little sports car,

only it's about the size
of a football field.

The takeoff out of Sarasota
was extreme.

If there was anybody that was
gonna fire at the aircraft,

the chances of them hitting it
are relatively low

if the plane's got
a high angle of attack.

♪

But the Secret Service
identifies the threat

as just a man that's filming
at the end of the runway.

There were a lot of unknowns
at the time we were countering.

Those were the kind
of fog of war facts

that we were getting
at the time

that were being passed to us

and that we were hearing
over the radios.

narrator: Angel has only
four hours of fuel on board,

and many urgent questions.

How well is the military
prepared to respond?

Who's in command here
and on the ground?

And how much danger
is Angel in

right now?

- The main focus the entire day

was answering the question,

"Is the president in danger?"

We may not even have
begun to understand

the magnitude of this.

There could be
30 planes in the air.

- My plan was to get him
to Washington, D.C.

as quick as possible.

narrator: But as the
president is taking off,

Washington is turning
into a war zone.

- We were in our office
doing our thing.

All of a sudden, an airliner
overflew the White House.

And I will tell you,

if you're not
a Marine One pilot,

nobody overflies
the White House, ever.

It's prohibited airspace.

Within moments,
we had breaking news.

Fire and explosion
over at the Pentagon.

We were a city under siege.

And within minutes,
all the loudspeakers

blared to life to
evacuate the White House.

[sirens wailing]
- Everybody out! Everybody out!

- A Secret Service agent

stationed outside my door
burst in.

He said,
"Sir, we have to leave, now."

Put his left hand
on my left shoulder

and grabbed the back of my belt
with his right hand,

and just lifted me
out of the chair

and propelled me
out of the room.

[soft suspenseful music]

He took me downstairs
into a tunnel

that runs from the West Wing

under the mansion
all the way over to the

East Wing, the Presidential
Emergency Ops Center.

narrator: One of the most
top secret areas

of the entire
White House complex

is located underneath
the East Wing:

the Presidential
Emergency Operations Center,

or PEOC.

It's a hardened bunker
buried deep underground,

and this is where
Major Darling is stationed

all day long.

- I'm not really at liberty
to discuss its exact locatio,

its depth,
or its capabilities.

All I can tell you is
it's pretty impressive.

And when that door swings open
and it closes behind you,

and it's vacuum sealed,
you know that

you're in someplace
that's pretty special.

[tense music]

narrator: Now, with the
vice president in place,

the PEOC becomes the
White House command center.

And like Angel,

the White House itself
is in the crosshairs.

- When I first arrived
inside the PEOC,

there was a lot going on.

They opened up
lockers down there,

passed out weapons,
more weapons to the agents,

gas masks, things like that.

Nobody knew
what was gonna happen,

just that the word had come in

that the White House
might be a target.

There was an airplane headed
at a very high rate of speed,

believed hijacked,
that was headed for Crown.

[sirens wailing]

Crown is the code name
for the White House.

[phones ringing]

- The phones are now
ringing off the hook.

It's the Situation Room
saying,

"We have an
unidentified aircraft

"eight miles out
coming down the Potomac River

headed to the White House."

- Vice President Cheney says,

"Don, we have an
unidentified aircraft

"seven miles out
coming at the White House.

"Do I have an F-15,
an F-16, an F-18?

Do I have anything over
at Washington, D.C.?"

And while
he's talking to Rumsfeld,

the Secret Service and I
are going,

"Six, five, four..."

He goes, "Stop counting.

"If the Secret Service can't
deal with it on the roof,

everybody stand by
for impact."

♪

And I remember going,
"Holy mackerel,

"the world's
greatest super power

"doesn't have a way
to defend itself.

"We're gonna take a body blow

"right here at the
White House on 9/11.

The terrorists are going
to get to the White House."

[radio tuning]

[radio chatter]

All of a sudden,
all the satellite radios

blared back to life.

It's not a bogie.

[helicopter whirring]

It's a medevac helicopter

heading to the Pentagon
to save lives.

We had no fighters in the area.

Had it been a bad guy,

we would have taken a hit.

♪

- At that point,

those of us in the
press cabin learned

that the Pentagon
had now been hit.

This was no longer
a terrorist attack

on the financial heart of
the United States in New York.

This was now an attack
on the American government.

narrator:
In spite of the attack,

the Pentagon actually
continues to function.

Deep inside, off the D ring,

the National Military
Command Center begins

a top-secret phone call:

the air threat
conference call.

Its hundreds of pages
are a real-time record

of the nation's military
and civilian leaders

as they struggled
to respond to the attack

and to keep
the president safe.

The transcript was only
recently declassified,

and like no other
9/11 document,

it reveals just how vulnerabe
the president is...

- This is NORAD.
Do you have any information

on final destination
of Air Force One?

- This is STRATCOM.

Negative.

narrator: And how chaotic the
military response is as well.

- This is the PEOC.

Can you give us an update on
fighter CAP

of Washington, D.C., area?

- Conference, conference,
this is Air Force.

We don't have that
information at this time.

Can NORAD provide?
- This is NORAD.

We have no further informatin
at this point.

Stand by, scrambling assets.

- The air threat conference
call was in many ways

the conference call from hell.

When you read the transcript,
and when you hear it

playing out in real time,

it exposes the vulnerability

of our nation's top command
to the chaos of that day.

No one really knew
what was going on.

There could be a threat
on the president's plane.

There could be another attack
in Washington.

So, if there had been a more
serious threat out there,

one capable of taking
Air Force One,

he was vulnerable.

- It was a situation where,
from the standpoint

of our defensive capability,
we were totally flat-footed.

[dramatic music]

- But we did know now
it was on.

It was fully on.

There was some sort of
coordinated terrorist attack

that did not
just include New York,

so you can imagine that
completely changed things.

There's no way we can take te
president back to Washington

until we figure out
what the heck's going on.

narrator: But that's
a question no one can answer,

neither the president
nor any of the millions

wondering where
the next attack will be.

And it turns out
the next threat

is against Angel itself.

[somber music]

♪

narrator: Air Force One
has served as the backdrop

to momentous historic events,

both inspiring and tragic.

And today, Angel is again

the backdrop to history.

- I was in the president's
cabin just taking notes

as a witness to history,
verbatim notes on everything

and anything that
the president did or said.

At 9:45 a.m.,
the president says,

"We're at war."

He deliberately did not
say that to the nation

on September 11th,

but for those of us
who heard him say,

"We're at war,"

it was just a chill
down the spine.

- I realized I had become
a wartime president.

We're at war.
We're under attack.

And I said,
"I'm getting on Air Force One,

and I'm gonna be
in Washington pretty soon."

narrator: But shortly
after takeoff,

a debate erupts
over their destination.

- The president's adamant.
"I'm going to Washington."

[sirens wailing]

[helicopter whirring]

But until we know
what's going on,

there is no way
in good conscience

the Secret Service
could take the president

of the United States
back to Washington, D.C.

- I said, "Mr. President,
I don't think

you really want to make
that decision right now."

I said, "The Secret Service
is very nervous about

"going back to Washington D..
We've got to learn more.

I don't think you want
to make that decision."

- "This is not your call,
Mr. President.

This is a Secret Service call."

We've got to follow the
protocols that are called for

in this type of incident
to protect the Oval Office,

protect the office
of the presidency,

and make sure that
we protect our president.

But the president
kept continuing to say,

"I need to be
in the Oval Office.

"The American people
need the strength

of a president being there."

- He said, "I'm ordering you!

We're going back
to Washington."

He kept getting
more and more angry.

- The president was vehement,

adamant, aggravated, irritated.

He was stomping mad.

Anybody who was on the plane
saw and heard the argument.

- As a wartime president and
being the commander in chief,

you want to be
in the center of the action.

- The president said to us,
you know,

"I'll be criticized for this.
You guys don't realize that."

He was ticked off because
we had him out there

basically running
from the bad guys,

as he sort of saw it.

But we continued
to explain to him that

it ultimately wasn't his call.

I think that made him
even madder,

and we came dangerously
close to sort of

a mini constitutional
crisis here because

we did have the president
wanting to go one way,

the Secret Service saying,
"You're going the other,"

and the military
caught in the middle.

[soft dramatic music]

- Technically, I'm the
commander of the aircraft,

so it's my decision, you know,
what that aircraft's gonna do.

But that's--you know,
that's not really the case.

I'm gonna make sure
the aircraft's safe,

but the command authority
is downstairs

with the president
and Andrew Card.

- I just felt that he had
to do his job as president,

and I couldn't guarantee that

he could do his job
in Washington, D.C.

if D.C. itself was under
a significant attack.

I tried to be very polite,
not argumentative.

I just kind of refused
to implement it

without telling him that
I was refusing to implement it.

The president was
very angry with me,

and he held that anger
for a long time.

narrator: It's 10:10 a.m.,

barely 20 minutes
after takeoff.

With the president
now overruled,

Angel turns away
from Washington, D.C.,

flying unescorted
and unprotected.

- So, Air Force One is alone...

No support structure,

alone in the sky
with no fighter escort.

- Now, to this point,
we never traveled

with fighter support
at Air Force One.

You never needed fighter
support in the United States.

- I called the Presidential
Emergency Operations Center,

and I asked
for a fighter escort

to give us a bubble
around the airplane

should a threat arise that
we were unaware of at the time.

I did some quick math
and figured,

"Okay, it's gonna take them
30 minutes to an hour

to get their aircraft
ready and airborne."

narrator: Up to an hour
to defend the president.

Thanks to post-Cold War
cutbacks, on 9/11,

the military has a total
of just 14 fighters on alert

to defend the entire
continental United States,

which means, for the moment,

the president is suspended
high above the attacks

on his country
with no clear destination

on the most high-profile
target in the sky.

- This aircraft is
representing the republic,

our republic,
the United States of America.

Air Force One is one
of those national symbols

that is immediately
recognizable by anyone

around the world.

It just shows fluidity,
motion, and timelessness.

narrator: The flying White
House is actually bigger

than the physical White House.

- It's 230 feet long,

the wingspan is 195 feet,

and it's six stories tall.

narrator: And in fact,

there are two Air Force Ones,

twin 747-200s

housed at Joint Base Andrews
in the ultra secure hangar

of the Presidential
Airlift Group.

These 747s are
the latest generation

of presidential aircraft.

- It's a standard
commercial airliner 747

with a lot of modifications.

The nose of the aircraft
has been redesigned

for the president's quarters.

[mellow music]

- The president has
his own shower

and twin oval sinks in the
presidential bathroom.

- And then as you move aft
through the plane,

the president has
his own office space.

♪

The aircraft has
the same capability

as a normal office would have.

- There's one room
that's a hospital room,

where literally they could
stretch the president out

onto a platform and
do surgery if they had to.

Parts inside look kind of
like a living room.

There's a sofa along
the walls with lamps

that are nailed down.

Big, comfortable first-class
seats, 19 televisions,

38 telephones
scattered around the cabin.

- In the bubble
of the aircraft,

there's an entire
radio office,

so there's
multiple stations.

There's usually four to five
radio operators

that are onboard
the aircraft.

The communications gave the
president the capability

to call anywhere in the world
at any time

in no matter
what phase of flight we're i.

- As a Secret Service Agent
on the presidential detail,

there are moments when you
sort of think to yourself,

you know,
"This is pretty cool."

Right?
"This is pretty cool."

narrator: But on this day,
for over half an hour,

Air Force One
is holding over Florida

when word comes
Angel has been targeted.

[tense music]

- Be aware
we have received threats.

- Understand
you have received threats?

- That's correct, but we can
confirm where they came from.

It was a telecon.

- I'll always remember
the call coming in.

"Angel is next."

At 10:32 that morning,

the president got off the
phone with the vice presiden,

turned to the mil. aide,
and said,

"A call came into the White
House switchboard saying,

quote, "Angel is next."

"Angel."
That's not a public code wor.

Nobody should know
the name of Air Force One.

Imagine what that means.

- We're now airborne over the
Panhandle, northern Florida,

and we're the next target.

How are they
going to attack us?

Every aircraft in the sky

could be a threat to us.

- We train for every
conceivable emergency

you can imagine,

but not even I
or anyone else that day

could have imagined
this scenario.

[phones ringing]

- I picked up the phone call,

and it was
the Situation Room again.

The gentleman on the
other end said,

"Major, we have
a credible source

that Angel is the next target."

[tense music]

- "Angel" would
have been a term that

insiders would have known,

but the general public
generally did not.

The White House
took it incredibly seriously.

- So now we're thinking,
who could have that code word?

Could this be--
it has to be an insider.

♪

Nobody else would use
that code word.

- There was a lot of emotion
on Air Force One.

We didn't know
what threats there would be.

And we were
appropriately paranoid.

- We're running through
in our minds,

the pilots and the navigators,

"All right,
how are they gonna attack us?"

Maybe they're gonna
do it from the inside,

maybe somebody
onboard the aircraft,

or maybe something
in the aircraft.

- Colonel Tillman asked me
to come to the cockpit.

He said, "Will, are you aware
what's taken place?"

And I said, "Yes, sir."

I've known Colonel Tillman
for a very, very long time.

He has a way
of telling you things

or showing you things
by his facial expression.

He looked me in my eye.

"This is serious.
Let's lock it down."

We went into
an extreme security mode.

Going back
through the aircraft,

we're gonna look out
for bombs.

It could be drugs,
it could be powders,

anything that could be
potentially harmful.

♪

- Colonel Tillman assigns
an armed security policeman

to the base of the steps
that go up to the cockpit.

Think about that.

In the safest of safest

of the inner
of the most inner sanctums

for the president,
Air Force One,

the pilot has reason to believe
there could be an inside job.

- The president's in the
nose of the aircraft.

We had these agents up,

standing between sort of
the midpoint of the aircraft,

not allowing anyone,

anyone from the back
of the plane to come up

to the front of the plane
for any reason whatsoever.

narrator: If there's
a threat on the plane,

they've done all they can.

But what if the threat
is from outside?

- To think that an airliner
or a general aviation aircraft

was gonna try to,
you know, ram itself into us,

that was something
we could just never,

you know, defend against.

Air Force One
doesn't have the capability

to be offensive,

so you just
never thought about it.

narrator: But today,
everyone is thinking about i.

- We didn't know
at that point in time

how many hijackers there were.

narrator:
The military aide on board

has already called
for fighter escorts.

But that request has generated

more confusion than clarity.

Even after three separate
requests for fighters,

the Air Force seems to wonder
if escorts are even needed.

- This is Air Force
Ops Center here.

Should we be providing
escort on Air Force One?

narrator: The PEOC tries agan
to get an answer.

- This is PEOC.

Can you let us know
when we have fighter craft

that have intercepted
Air Force One?

narrator:
And so does the Pentagon.

- Have the fighter aircraft
intercepted Air Force One

to provide escort?

narrator:
But NORAD has no answers.

- We have no indication
at this time.

- What's reflected on the
air threat conference call

is that there were
numerous attempts,

numerous requests made,
and no one was really sure

if it was happening or not.

That confusion resulted in,
you know,

potentially inadequate
coverage for the president

as he's traveling
across the country.

narrator: Which means
Angel can't rely on

anyone else
for her own protection.

[dramatic music]

Fortunately,
there are a number of

highly classified
countermeasures on board.

- Air Force One comes
with a whole suite

of protective capabilities

to meet any threat
it would come across,

either from
an air-to-air threat,

a ground-to-air threat,

and even during
a nuclear engagement.

- On the underbelly,
the aircraft has special

armor plating to keep it safe
from electromagnetic pulses

that would come from
a nuclear weapon.

The aircraft can also
dispense chaff.

That's little pieces
of metal foil

that's dropped out
the back of the aircraft

and scatters around,
so if a radar-guided missile

is trying to lock in
on the aircraft,

all of a sudden, it just has
a huge cloud in front of it,

and it'll lose the aircraft.

It also has flares.

They can pump them out
just like you've seen

in so many movies
with flares coming out

the side of an aircraft
and dropping down,

and it pulls a heat-guided
missile away from the airplane.

narrator:
Even with its capabilities,

Colonel Tillman still
has to take evasive action

and climbs higher than
anything else in the sky.

- Airliners are
normally in the mid-30,

30,000 regime.

I was gonna take the plane
all the way up to 45,000 fee.

My concept was, if anyone
is gonna try to attack us,

we're gonna be able
to know that they're

intentionally trying
to climb into us.

[soft dramatic music]

♪

narrator: On a day
filled with air attacks,

flying high seems
to be the safest plan,

but there's an
unintended consequence.

- Radio communications
became very sketchy.

- Angel was supposed
to be designed

so in a time of stress,
a time of war,

it has the best communications
in the world.

It didn't work.
It broke down.

narrator:
Angel has soared into safety,

but right out of range.

- You've failed the president
if you've lost communications.

We failed the president.

- Air Force One
and the president

were disconnected
from what was going on

at every other level
of the crisis,

decisions having to be made

without his input.

narrator: Almost an hour
after takeoff,

Angel flies on,
destination unclear.

It's been two hours
since the attack began.

The Pentagon is in flames,

and both towers
have collapsed.

♪

While Angel may have
climbed out of range

of an air attack...

[dial tone]

It now faces another problem:

communication.

- I mean, the communications
weren't terrible,

but they were sporadic.

- Communications are usually
flawless on Air Force One,

and that's why
it was so remarkable

to see the communications
break down

the way they did on 9/11.

- Think about today
when you're on a cell phone,

you say, "Can you hear me?
Are you there?"

And you kind of hold the phone
to your ear and go, "Hello?"

That's what it was like
aboard Air Force One that da.

narrator: On a typical day,

Angel has more than
20 phone lines,

both commercial and military,

to ensure that the president
is never out of touch.

- The morning of 9/11,
that went down to two.

narrator: Just two.

- It was extremely stressful
to sit there

and try to battle
through and understand

why some of our circuits
that had worked perfectly

just the day before coming
into Sarasota, Florida,

at this moment in time
were not working for us.

narrator: Angel's system
crashes so suddenly

that those on board assume
it can only mean one thing.

- Sabotage.

I won't lie,
it crossed my mind

that somehow somebody
had gotten to the system

on board Air Force One.

- Everyone was wondering,
"All right,"

you know,
"Is this part of the attack?"

narrator: What no one
yet realizes is that

communication lines everywhee
are swamped this morning.

- The radio operators
were breaking out

options that we'd use
in case of a nuclear attack

using different kind
of military satellites.

♪

- Phone calls cutting off
was endlessly frustrating

for the president.

The president was hot to trot.

He wanted to get back
to Washington.

We're a nation under attack.

He understands the ability to

command and control
everything from Washington

and from the facilities
at the White House.

He wanted to get back.

[somber music]

♪

- In the press cabin
toward the rear,

there's a television mounted
in the front bulkhead wall,

and that was our lifeline.

- We were flying over
TV stations' zones,

and up would come the news,

and then we'd
get out of the zone,

and it would flicker off

because we didn't have
DirecTV on Air Force One the.

- I think the average Americn
on the ground

had a more textual feel
for what was going on,

a more emotional feel,
because if you could watch

the collapse of the building,
and the crowd running,

and the dust covering people,

you would just gasp
as everybody gasped

and watched it all
and took it in

in utter shock and silence.

We didn't have that type
of minute-by-minute coverage.

- Flying on Air Force One,

we were so far removed

from what was going on,
the danger on the ground,

and there was so
little information,

clear information,
coming in to us.

narrator: But it turns out

there's very little
clear information

flowing between any
government agencies that day,

especially between
the FAA and the military,

the very ones who are supposd
to be keeping Angel safe

from other airplanes
in the sky.

- If there was
one essential agency

to give real-time
accurate information,

it was the FAA.

narrator: That's because
the FAA is the only agency

whose radar is capable
of tracking the location

of the hijacked planes.

NORAD, the military's radar,
can't.

- All of the NORAD radars
are on the perimeter

of the United States
looking outward,

because that's where
they anticipated

the threats would be.

Their radars didn't look
internal to the United State.

narrator:
Without data from the FAA,

the military doesn't know
where to send its fighters.

But for almost an hour,

the FAA is not on the
air threat conference call,

despite numerous urgent
requests to get them on.

- This is NORAD.

Please confirm the FAA
is on this conference.

- Is the FAA
in the conference?

- FAA.
Are you in the conference?

narrator: But all the
Pentagon can do is say...

- We are trying to contact
the FAA on a different line.

- They didn't realize that

the FAA's teleconferencing
capabilities

were incompatible with the
teleconferencing capabilities

needed for an
air threat conference call.

It's one of those things
you don't want to find out

the day of the battle.

narrator:
Even after a workaround

is finally figured out,
communication between the FAA

and the military
is almost impossible.

- The FAA and NORAD evolved
separate vocabularies

to describe what's
going on in the sky,

and it caused confusion at

a lot of different levels
that morning.

Terms like "scramble code"
took on different meanings

over time
in different agencies.

- NORAD, do you have scramble
code for your fighters?

- Do not understand your
terminology "scramble code."

Are you looking for
a mode 3 or a call sign?

- Say that again.

- I don't understand
your term, sir.

- They're speaking
a different language.

Neither understands
the other's lingo.

- That's a microcosm, really,

of the entire
American government's

preparation for
and response to 9/11.

- It's the inability
of the agencies

to coordinate effectively

in this high-level call

that has left
the president out there

not knowing
where he needs to go

because they don't
seem to have a grasp

of the scope of the attack

and where the president's
the safest.

[soft suspenseful music]

narrator: An hour
and a half after takeoff,

two and a half hours
since the attack began,

the president
is still in limbo,

still flying with
no fighter support,

still fearing an attack...

[radio tuning]

When the radio
crackles to life,

a warning that there are
unidentified aircraft

on their tail.

- The radio operators have
no idea who these guys are.

They're supersonic.

They're coming up on us
very fast.

narrator:
It looks like the attack

they've been bracing for
all morning

is finally here.

narrator: Angel is soaring
45,000 feet above the

unable to return
to Washington.

- We're at such a height
that--where it's like

we're on a highway
all to ourselves,

so if anyone starts to drive
onto that highway,

we'll know immediately
they're up to no good.

- [inaudible]

Air Force One is--

apparently has some people
coming in behind it.

- Houston Center advises us
that we have fast movers

coming up on us from our rear.

- If any of you are on this
frequency, please respond.

- We're asking them
what the status is.

I am out of the seat now
near the radio operators.

- Air Force One, go ahead.

- So, I get on one
of the headsets.

Sure enough, we've got
fighters coming up at us.

We don't know who they are.

- Air Force One,
it's your 12:00, and...

- Everybody's making ideas of,

"Okay, this may be how
we're gonna be attacked."

♪

- I remember looking
out of the window,

and there was two fighters.

- They were jumping us.
They were right there on us.

And then we hear this,
you know,

"Air Force One,
this is Cowry 4-5."

You could hear the Texas
twang in their voice.

They explain to us
they're a flight of two F-16,

and they are our cover,

and that was the coolest thing
ever in my life.

- And it turns out
they were fighters

from my old guard unit
in Houston.

[soft dramatic music]

♪

- As we start approaching,
I see it's a 747,

and then I see, wow,
that's actually Air Force On.

This is...

This is no joke.
This is the real deal.

We each had
two heat-seeking missiles

and a hot gun.

I'm being trusted
with live missiles

right next to the president
of the United States.

- I can still recall,

with the president
looking out the window,

when the fighter jets
first arrived,

and just feeling
a sense of calm

that if this scenario,
this terrorist incident,

takes a turn in any direction,

I think now we're prepared.

narrator:
It's taken an hour and a half

and a dozen urgent calls

for those fighter escorts
to reach the president.

In less time than that,
and with far fewer calls,

the country's defense policy
has made a historic shift.

Now, for the first time ever,

the military is authorized
to shoot down hijacked plane.

- The Region Commander
has declared that

we can shoot down aircraft

that do not respond
to our direction.

Copy that?
- Copy that, sir.

narrator: How that
authorization happened

is a window into
the improvised nature

of the day's response,

and raises questions about
the president's ability

to command from 45,000 feet.

It begins with yet
another phone call

to the PEOC underneath
the White House.

- I don't know
if the president

was in the midst
of getting airborne.

I don't know if he was
airborne exactly at that time.

The phone rings.

"We have another
hijacked plane

16 miles south of Pittsburgh
inbound Washington, D.C."

And who's standing
right next to me

but Vice President Cheney?

- An Air Force officer
said that

there was an airplane
they believed hijacked

headed towards Washington

at a high rate of speed.

Did they have authorization
to take it out?

- He did not hesitate.

He said,
"I want you to listen to me.

"I want two F-15s.

"I want them out of
Otis Air National Guard Base.

"Let me know
when they're airborne.

Stand by to shoot
this aircraft down."

- And I said, "Yes.

"If it's believed hijacked,
it won't divert.

Take it out."

And it was about that fast.

- And without hesitation,
Vice President Cheney said,

"You are weapons free."

And I remember
covering the receiver,

turning slightly to my right
to stare briefly

at the vice president,
because the vice president

is not a part--

is not part of the
military chain of command.

It goes from the president
to the Secretary of Defense,

from the Secretary of Defense

through the chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff,

out to our four-star combatant
commanders around the world.

The vice president
essentially asserted himself

back into the military
chain of command.

- So the question is, did the
vice president act on his own,

or was he acting at the
direction of President Bush?

narrator: In other words,
with the country under siege,

who's calling the shots?

- The president and
vice president both recall

having a conversation
shortly before 10:00

where the president
authorized the shoot-down.

The 9/11 Commission Report was
that every other major decision

was recorded in somebody's
notes that morning.

That call never was.

So, I think the vice president
did what everybody else

in the chain of command
did that day,

he improvised
our national defense.

- I think Dick Cheney may have
jumped the gun a little bit.

♪

- The vice president
had already

given the order
to shoot the plane down

but needed the president
to confirm that,

needed the president
to okay it and approve it,

'cause it was ultimately
the president's call.

And he did.
- Dick Cheney and I talked.

He was at the PEOC at this
point in the White House

and gave the command.

Any airplane
that was flying in the sky

without proper
transponder signal

would be identified
by fighters and shot down.

- After the president
had authorized or echoed

the authorization
for our fighter jets

to shoot down
commercial jetliners,

he hung up the phone
and he said to me,

"I can't believe
I just gave that order.

"I was a fighter jet pilot.

I cannot imagine
getting that order."

narrator: The order and its
origin are both unprecedente,

and both come as a surprise
to the Secretary of Defense,

who first hears about them
from the vice president,

as the air threat conference
call makes clear.

- Vice President Cheney
tells Secretary Rumsfeld...

- I gave authorization
for them to be taken out.

- And then there's
a long pause.

- Hello?
- [laughs]

And I'm sure the Secretary
of Defense was thinking,

"What?"
[laughs]

"You did what?"
Even though it's not said,

I mean,
the pregnant pause says it all.

- The thought
of a 25-year-old pilot

flying, getting the weapons,

taking off,
flying over Washington, D.C.,

and...

having to make
that calculation

as to whether or not to shoot
at an American airline

filled with Americans
and passengers,

innocent passengers,
and making the judgment that

that plane represented
a threat--

you think about that.

- Now it's all on me.

So, now I'm the judge,
jury, and executioner.

Would it be easy?

No, you know,

it might haunt you
a little bit afterwards,

but...

that's what
I signed up to do.

[tense music]

narrator: Just moments later,
shortly after 10:00 a.m.,

it appears everyone's worst
fears have been realized.

- All the SATCOM radios
blared to life.

- There's a report
of black smoke...

- We got word that there was
a plane down in Pennsylvania.

- All air was just literally
sucked out of the complex.

- Yeah, he's down.
- He's down?

narrator: Had the U.S. just
shot down a commercial jet?

♪

- There's a report
of black smoke,

and it's in the
last position I gave you.

narrator:
Shortly after 10:00 a.m.,

Angel learned that
United Flight 93

was down
in rural Pennsylvania.

There were no survivors.

The conclusion seemed clear.

First, the shoot-down
authorization was issued,

and then this.

- United 93, have you got
information on that yet?

- Yeah, he's down.

- He's down?
- Yes.

- Nobody moved
just for a second.

Nobody even breathed.

- Question from the
vice president is,

is that the result
of fighter engagement?

- We could not
confirm or deny that.

- FAA, do you have
any information

on how that aircraft
went down?

- At this time,
no, we do not.

- All eyes were on
the vice president.

He turned around,
he walked right over to me,

and he goes, "Major,

"for the congressional
investigation,

state your full name."

And I remember standing up
and snapping to and going,

"Mr. Vice President,
it's Major Bob Darling.

Major Darling."

He goes, "Major Darling,
to the vice president,

"to the National
Military Command Center,

we just shot that plane down."

- It was a very sober thought,

so it was a very, very,

very dramatic chain of events,

which invited
even greater paranoia.

- It was probably
30 seconds later

where somehow we got
the communications back

basically saying that
the plane was not shot down.

It appears that it was just--
it just crashed.

I can only tell you
the sense of relief,

I think,
from all of us in the room,

even the though the sadness
knowing this plane had crashd

and all those brave souls
that had been lost,

but I don't think
I'd be honest if I didn't say

there wasn't also sort of
a feeling of relief that

we had not shot the plane down.

- You were sort of in
a state of back and forth

between elation and despair.

narrator:
The chaos around Flight 93

fuels the president's desire

to gain control
of the situation

by returning to Washington
and addressing the nation.

[somber music]

- First job of the president
is to protect the nation.

The first job of any president
is to keep us all alive.

The other job of the president
at the same time is

to always talk to the country
and communicate

with the country
to help people to understand,

to know what is coming,
what he might do next,

to give a sense of purpose
and direction.

That's an essential part
of democracy.

- And again, I don't mean to
say this in melodramatic terms.

Where is the president
of the United States?

- The Secret Service
is not saying exactly

where the president
of the United States is.

- We know that the White House
and the State Department

and CIA have been evacuated.

- This is a nation that
has not heard publicly

from its government.

- The country looks to the
president to be reassuring.

No, we don't know where
he is, but pretty soon,

the country needs
to know where he is.

- In our little huddle
in the Oval Office,

the president decided

that he needed to talk
to the nation within an hour.

My recommendation to Andy Cad
and the Secret Service,

and to the president
eventually,

was to land at
Barksdale Air Force Base.

narrator: Located in
Shreveport, Louisiana,

Barksdale Air Force Base
is home

to the storied
Eighth Air Force,

the nation's massive fleet
of strategic bombers.

It's just
15 minutes' flying time

from Angel's current
location over Louisiana.

- We got the call.

"There's a code alpha
inbound."

And I said,
"What's a code alpha?"

and they said, "Big.

"They need
150,000 pounds of gas,

"70 boxed lunches,
25 pounds of bananas,

40 gallons
of juice and coffee."

We figured immediately--

figured out that
it was Air Force One.

[plane whooshing]

[indistinct chatter]

- Touchdown.

- The base was in lockdown

because they were
doing an exercise

or a drill of some sort.

- I remember I had never
seen anything quite like it,

actually,

to see the B52s lined up
with pilots in the seat,

and it was almost like,

you know, we were getting
ready to invade someone.

narrator:
As it happens, we are.

[soft suspenseful music]

- On 9/11, our forces
are preparing to go to war

against a fictitious enemy
called Slamoni,

or Slamonia.

narrator: Air Force One
has landed in the middle

of a military war game

called "Global Guardian."

- Bombers will never,
in peacetime,

fly with a nuclear weapon
on board,

and so,
during Global Guardian,

it gives a chance
for the young airmen

to go and actually
load nuclear weapons

on the bombers.

narrator: In other words,

bombers fitted
with nuclear weapons

are sitting side-by-side
with the president's plane.

- Bringing him to a base

that's undergoing
a nuclear exercise

when you've got planes that
are hot on the ramp, and--

probably the wrong place
to have brought the president.

- We were, at the time,

particularly
at our bomber bases,

in a pretty
vulnerable situation,

so I wanted to get
the nuclear weapons

back into their storage areas

so that there was
no potential for

a significant attack.

- I think I would have fainted
if I'd realized the extent

of which we had landed
in the middle of a war game.

We had a lot of questions,

but we had very few answers
from Air Force One.

- And that's all I'm gonna
indicate at this moment.

You'll have additional
information shortly.

- A blue Dodge Caravan van

pulled up next to the plane.

The president got in one side.

- And some airman or sergeant
or whatever he was

was driving
as fast as he could,

and we're bouncing around,
and I said,

"Man, slow this thing down,"
you know?

"This is probably the greatest
danger I'll have all day."

- With the exception
of the president

driving his own pickup truck
at the farm,

that is the only time
that the president,

his entire eight years,
was driven by anyone else

other than
a Secret Service agent.

- President Bush was relieved
to have good communications.

He spoke with
the vice president.

He spoke with
the national security team.

You know, "Where do we go?
What are we going to do?

When do we get back
to Washington, D.C.?"

And then he worked
on some remarks there

in the commandant's office.

- He said, "You know,
America's gonna watch me

"and see if I am perspiring,

"or my voice cracks,
or I'm nervous,

and they'll see what kind
of demeanor I have."

And I could tell
he was psyching himself up.

He was getting his head
in the game

for making a press conference

that would go around
the world instantaneously.

He was making corrections

and crossing out words
and says,

"I used the word
'resolve' twice.

Should I say 'resolve' twice?"

So I said, "Sir,
I think the American people

"want to know that
we have strong resolve,

and saying that
is probably a good idea."

And he said, "Okay."

- President Bush
wanted so much

to address
the American people,

to assure them
that the government

had not been brought
to its knees.

- [exhales]

[shutters clicking]

Freedom itself was
attacked this morning

by a faceless coward,

and freedom will be defended.

narrator: He seems to be
speaking about his presidency

as much as he is
about the country.

- The resolve
of our great nation

is being tested,

but make no mistake.

We will show the world that
we will pass this test.

God bless.

- The president
didn't know it,

but that camera's not
plugged into anything.

This was not going out live
to the American people.

It was a long time before the
president's words were heard.

All I could do was,
on my cell phone,

call in to ABC News,

tell them what the
president had said.

- ABC's Ann Compton is with
the president at the moment,

and we have her
on the telephone. Annie.

- The president has just
made a statement, Peter.

World leaders
have been assured that

the U.S. will do
whatever it takes

to protect America
and Americans.

Let me know if we're being
taken out of here.

We may be scrambled
out of here.

- Okay.
- Are we leaving? Okay.

Peter,
so we are leaving, and--

- Where are you going, Annie?

- Peter, I have no idea.

Ari Fleischer had told us

that the president
would keep moving,

but he couldn't tell us where,

and I definitely had the
impression that's because

he had no idea
where we were headed.

[plane whirring]

[soft dramatic music]

♪

narrator: Almost five hours
since the attack began,

Angel lifts off once again.

- After we took off
from Barksdale,

the president turned to Andy
Card aboard Air Force One,

and he said, "Well, I wanna
go home as soon as possible.

"We don't need some tin-horned
terrorist to scare us off.

"The American people
want to know

where their dang president is."

narrator: The president
wants an answer

to the biggest question
of the day.

- He said,
"Michael, who did this?"

And I said, "Mr. President,

"I have not seen
any intelligence

"or any information
that would take us to

"a perpetrator.

"I think when we get
to the end of the trail,

we will find Bin Laden."

I told him that I would bet
my children's future on that.

At which point he said to me,
"When will we know?"

I told him, "Mr. President,
we may know soon.

"Based on the history
that I just told you,

we may know soon,
or it may take some time."

He didn't say a word.
He sat there.

He sat there for
almost five minutes

and didn't say anything,
and neither did Andy.

I started to feel
uncomfortable,

and so I finally said,

"Mr. President,
is there anything else?"

And he said, "No, Michael.
Thank you very much."

And so I got up
and walked out.

At that moment, he was
alone with his thoughts.

narrator: Alone,

and seemingly unable
to influence the day's event.

- The number one job of the
president of the United Stats

is to protect the country
from attack,

is to protect your citizens
from attack,

and you just failed.

You just failed in your number
one responsibility, right?

That must weigh
terribly on you.

And you don't know
what's going on.

And you're having
trouble communicating.

It must be extraordinarily
frustrating

at the same time.

- Remember, he was elected
after a very divided election

where the Supreme Court
made a decision,

and so I was very impressed
how President Bush

actually shifted gears
from being a president

that was focusing on
economic policy

and domestic policy to focus
on the real job of a president.

I was respectful
of the burden he carried.

The burden, unfortunately,
is a very lonely burden.

narrator: But the president
is not entirely alone.

Many Americans
are taking action

that will help speed
Angel's return to Washington,

like giving the order to land
every plane in the sky.

- The land order was
the first of its kind,

and it ran
through my mind that,

at the time I was issuing
the order that the--

this was going
to cost billions,

because I was going to displace

the entire aviation fleet
in the United States,

and the passengers and
everything associated with it.

narrator: September 11th
is Ben Sliney's first day

on the job as the FAA's
national operations manager.

Despite the agency's trouble
communicating with NORAD,

his order is received
loud and clear.

- When I gave the order
to land all the aircraft,

there was almost a cheer.

It wasn't articulated,

but I could feel a surge
in the personnel

that they were gonna
do something positive,

and it was going
to accomplish something.

I can see them
in my mind's eye literally--

if I'm the epicenter,
they're, like--

like dropping a rock
into water,

there are waves
that are spreading out.

Those individuals went out,

and they spread
their waves further.

Each individual that
I gave the direction to

communicated that order
to five or six or eight

or ten air traffic
control facilities,

who in turn spread it out

to other air traffic
control facilities.

[soft music]

♪

narrator: Even as commercial
flights come down,

the skies are
not yet safe enough

for Angel to return
to Washington,

but there's one place
the president can go.

- Let's just say that
it is the safest place

for the president to continue
the continuity of operations

for the presidency
in any kind of war--

nuclear war,
or any kind of major incident.

narrator: And for Angel,

it's less than an hour's
flying time away.

narrator:
It's been over five hours

since the attack began
on the East Coast.

Angel continues flying away
from Washington.

- This is all classified,

but there are places
around the country

where the president could go
to meet responsibilities

in case of a nuclear attack.

♪

narrator:
And one of them is just

over an hour's
flying time away:

STRATCOM, the United States
Strategic Command,

located at Offutt
Air Force Base in Omaha.

- We're responsible

for all our nation's
strategic deterrent forces,

all our nuclear forces,

the intercontinental
ballistic missiles,

and also our bombers
that carry nuclear weapons.

- STRATCOM is
a military facility

that has all of the capacitis
of the underground bunkers

and is part of the
National Response Plan.

The president could actually
set up shop there,

if you will, basically, and run
the presidency from there.

narrator: The destination
is supposed to be secret,

but Angel is spotted
on approach.

- Up on the television screen,

the crew was still
trying to pull up signals

from television stations
on the ground,

and here was a reporter
standing on a highway saying,

"Air Force One
is coming here to land."

I looked out my window,

and there indeed
was the satellite truck

and a young male reporter
standing by a highway.

We were flying
right over his head.

♪

When we landed,
they brought the president

out through the lower stairs
in the nose of the aircraft

to keep him low profile,
as invisible as possible,

into another kind of
makeshift motorcade.

- I gathered my driver
and a Secret Service agent

and went out to the plane
in a simple Chrysler.

There was not a lot of pomp
and circumstance.

My goal was to get him
to the command center

as quickly as possible.

- I used my cell phone
to call in to ABC News live

as the president's
motorcade was approaching

this huge
headquarters building.

- Annie, can you hear me?
- Yes, Peter, I can.

- What are you doing
in Nebraska?

- President Bush
is here at the home

of the Strategic Command.

He has come to as secure
a place as he could,

where he is trying
to marshal the forces.

narrator:
As imposing as STRATCOM

and its nuclear forces are...

- The president
gets out of the car

and goes into a small
little cinder block

square building.

- And it just had
a staircase inside it.

And it went down,
down, down, down, down.

- That's the fire escape,
which I had never used before,

but I had the command center
open the fire escape,

so we just dropped down
the fire escape

and went right into
the command center.

He followed me right down.

- He has disappeared down
the rabbit hole, Peter,

down through a brick,
small building,

he and what skeleton staff
are with him,

down into an
underground bunker.

- We arrived into a room

that looked like
right out of the movies,

you know, "Dr. Strangelove."

- Monitors all over
the walls, basically,

monitoring everything from
A to Z across the country.

Very impressive.

- To my knowledge,
it's the first time

a sitting U.S. president
has visited

the Offutt command center
in a real world situation.

narrator: Six hours after
the first tower was hit,

the president finally
gets the chance

to confer with his cabinet.

- The video conference call
was an important call,

'cause it gave me
a chance to talk to

my national security team.

It was along the lines of,
you know, "Tough situation,

but we've got a team
in place who can deal with it."

- He was trying to find out

exactly what
was happening where,

were there more planes
out there,

how much damage had been done,

what we know,
what don't we know.

narrator:
And in another in a series

of communication failures
that characterized the day,

the president only now learns

what the CIA
has known for hours.

- Turns out that
the CIA pretty early on

knew that
three of the passengers

who were on those four planes
were Al-Qaeda operatives.

It was not until the president
was being briefed

in the underground bunker
at Offutt

that Director Tenet
told him this information.

Clearly,
something went wrong here.

I got up and
walked out of the room

and called
the director's line again,

using language that
I won't use here,

about the CIA's failure
to send me the information

that the director
briefed to the president.

His executive assistant said,

"Michael, this information
was embargoed

"from leaving this building
and is still embargoed

from leaving this building,"
and I said,

"Embargoed from the President
of the United States?

Send it to me right now."

You know, even if
you're the president,

it's tough to get
situational awareness

as events are unfolding.

- And we will try
to let you know

when we take off
and where we're headed.

narrator: The topic
quickly shifts

to the president's
main priority.

- I knew I needed
to give an address

to the nation that night,

and I damn sure wasn't gonna
give it from a bunker

in Omaha, Nebraska.

I said, "I'm coming home."

And they said,

"We recommend you not do so."

And I said,
"Fine, I'm coming."

- We're getting on the plane.
We're with the Secret Service.

- You have to go around, sir.
- All right.

Can we get an escort?

narrator: After a full day
of being out of the loop,

hidden from view,
and overridden,

the president
finally gets his way.

- I was going home.

narrator: At 4:33,
over 7 1/2 hours

since the attack began,

Angel takes off from Omaha,

heading at long last
for Washington.

But the day is not yet over.

- The report said
that what happened today,

what happened
on September 11th,

was the first
of what would be

two waves of attacks.

There's going to be
a second wave.

[soft dramatic music]

♪

- We left off the
Air Force base heading home

as fast as the plane would go.

Fighters took off after us,

and they're having
to catch up to us,

cause, I mean,
we are going extremely fast.

We're doing about .92 Mach
heading across the country.

♪

narrator: Angel's nose
is finally pointed east.

Within two hours,

the president will be back
in the center of power.

The CIA is now sending
intelligence to Air Force On,

but their latest report
is almost too much to bear.

- That report said
that what happened today,

what happened
on September 11th,

was the first of what would be

two waves of attacks,

so implicitly saying there's
going to be a second wave.

The president read it
extraordinarily closely.

I felt that it was
almost numbing

to the president.

Here he had just suffered,
as president,

the worst attack on the
American homeland ever,

and here was his
intelligence briefer

showing him a report that says
another attack is coming,

just like this one--

the guy who's responsible

for making sure that
that doesn't happen.

He didn't say anything.

- For a period of time,
there was uncertainty

as to how many attacks
there would be.

My overriding attitude was,

"We will defend America."

♪

- The president came back

for the first time
on the trip,

and he came to the door
of the press cabin

with just the five of us
sitting there,

and he waved away
our reporters' notebooks.

He did not want
to talk on the record.

Presidents at time of crisis
have to be very careful

with every word they say.

But he did say
something about,

"We're going
to get those thugs."

He was focused and determined.

narrator:
The skies are now safe,

the capital secured.

The president
will address the nation

at 8:30 this evening.

- So as we're descending in,

you could actually see
the Pentagon still smolderin,

and for the first time,
you could actually see

what we'd been working
with the entire day.

It--you know,
it was just--

it was sad.

- The president
turned to me and said,

"That's the face of war

in the 21st century."

♪

- Fighters do a high-speed
pass over the runway.

As far as they're concerned,
everything is clear,

and then we bring
Air Force One in to land.

[plane whirring]

- Air Force One did great
in getting the president

to where he needed to be and
to get him back to Washington.

- I give credit to the pilot
for being the one who said,

"I think I can land
at Andrews Air Force Base.

Andrews Air Force Base
has been swept."

- Our day was filled
with unanticipated risk,

unanticipated events,

and we countered
all those events.

By the end of the day,
it was obvious that

we'd accomplished
a great mission,

and we had supported the
president of the United States.

And that's what you do
at Air Force One day to day.

- We did it.
That felt fantastic.

But at the same time,
you still had that heavy heart.

You knew it was
a great mission,

but you knew it was the
beginning of something else.

♪

[helicopter whirring]

- What I distinctly remember
is the streets were empty

except for checkpoints.

I'd left a bustling city
and came back to a city

that was locked down.

- The president knew
he was going to be leading

a very different
type of administration,

an administration that
was going to go to war.

- He walked with
great determination...

Right to the Oval Office.

- I remember the rug
was rolled up,

Klieg lights
had been installed,

a teleprompter
was being set up.

- Good evening.

The pictures of airplanes
flying into buildings,

fires burning,
huge structures collapsing

have filled us with disbelief,
terrible sadness.

- I get in my car and go home,

and as I start
driving away from Langley,

the day catches up with me
and I start crying...

For the first time.

- Immediately following
the first attack,

I implemented our government's
emergency response plans.

Our military is powerful,
and it's prepared.

- I wish I could say
the enemy has been defeated.

It has not.

The enemy of terror

is very real today

and is gonna continue
to be real for a long time.

- None of us will
ever forget this day,

yet we go forward
to defend freedom

and all that is good...

I made a lot
of tough decisions,

some of which were
highly criticized,

and I gave it my best shot.

I did what I thought
was right for the country.

Good night,
and God bless America.

[dramatic music]

♪