Like all of our public programs, this lecture is prevented is presented free of charge. This is possible thanks to the generous support of g. E. Aviation. Private contributions like theres are critical to our programs and exhibitions. Tois my privilege acknowledge them for their long and outstanding support. Joining us is the Digital Solutions leader of military solutions. Lisa, our colleagues at g. E. , we thank you for your substantial and enduring support. [applause] mr. Browne since we opened the museum on the mall, and our center in chantilly in 2003, more than 250 Million People have walked through our doors to be informed and inspired by the history of flight and space travel. Drawing from the museums priceless collection of iconic artifacts and intellectual trust, our curators, volunteers, curators, educators, volunteers, and others, and ever and others, endeavor to tell stories about aerospace and how it is defined and shaping the american experience. This evening we are joined by a daughter a fatherdaughter team who by , virtue of their professional roles on september 11, 2001, offer us a unique glimpse into the horrors and tragedy of that fateful day. Not every aviation stories story is uplifting or happy. Indeed, for those of us professionally committed to the furtherance of aerospace, the horrific use of their vehicles for domestic terror was particularly disturbing but yet we endured as a community. Since 9 11 the Aviation Industry , has become more accessible, more affordable, more more proficient, affordable, more proficient, and even more influential than ever before. 9 11, for all of its pain and tragedy is a story to be told and remembered. Two up to that, i would like to introduce heather lucky penney. Most likely recognized for her service on september 11, she was part of the first wave of women who went first into pilot training. She grew up around planes and warbirds and applied to the National Guard to fly f16s as soon as she Learned Congress had opened combat flight to women. The first and only woman in the she deployed to Operation Iraqi freedom for initial operations in nighttime scud hunting in Western Desert iraq. Heather flew the f16 for 10 years before joining Lockheed Martin as the director of air force Aviation Training systems specializing in strategic development. Heathers passion has never faded. She has raised jets in races and has over 3000 hours in transport pilot ratings and volunteers with a foundation copiloting their b17 when her , busy schedule permits. She enjoys flying her own teerman. Own s ladies and gentlemen, it gives me great pleasure to introduce to you heather lucky penney. [applause] ms. Penney so, thank you for coming out here. Lisa, thank you for the generosity of ge to support this lecture series. What the Aerospace Museum does and what the lecture series allows the museum to do is to tell the stories like mine. So people like yourself can yourselves can experience aviation and history in a far more personal and more personal and impactful manner than when you can simply see the signs next to the airplane. So again lisa, thank you for everything you and g. E. Are doing to make it possible for people like me to come listen to my heroes on the podium. I am not calling myself a hero at all 9 11 was nothing that any of us planned. As you all know because you all have your stories and your experiences of 9 11. Single one of us, every sale american every single american, was somehow touched by that day. We all have our connections. We all somehow lost people, loved ones, so i appreciate the fact that you were all here today to listen to my 9 11 story because really, all i did that day was show up for work. Right . We had just gotten back from two weeks at red flag which was at red flag, which which was at that point in my time as a young baby Fighter Pilot the pinnacle of what i could ever hope for. I had dropped bombs, i had been there for my time on target, we had just gotten back from that prior weekend. We had landed on saturday. Most people had taken that monday and tuesday and wednesday off to reconnect with family. With our families. I was in at the time, so i went home on sunday, did laundry, and was ready to go to work. So, that tuesday when we were going through the normal administration of running a fighter squadron, what gets do we have which hets do which jets do we have . What are we going to be flying . We were traditional mostly at the time with guard units. A guard is comprised of a few fulltime staff to make sure the administration and it is taking care of so that when the fighters show up they can jump in the jets and train. I was one of those few fulltime staff. Who needs check rides . Who is doing upgrades . We had just gotten back from red flag said the jets were fitted out with fuel tanks, pods, training missiles. We were moving into a training phase. The maintainers, it was going to take them a wild to pu tak pull thewhile to fuel tanks. We had three guys who could send down to the ranges in north carolina. Lou shooter campbell was bully 1. Eric puck was bully 2. Hutchinson was bully 3. Theybrief, they take off, had to north carolina. Everyone loves shooting a gun. By the way, ive never seen a Fighter Pilot put bullets on and not go, brrrrt we all make that noise. They are all bombing. There was a knock on the door. It was david callahan. He said, an airplane just flew into the world trade center. We looked outside because our Conference Room was right on the flight line. Were thinking, how does that happen . As you know, new york city is not that far away. It is really just a stone flow as far as a bird flies. We share similar weather patterns. We look outside, it is a perfect crystal out of day. How . What . Were thinking, you know, did someone blow their approach into laguardia . It mustve been one of those sightseeing airplanes going down the hudson. Maybe it was scud running. We made a couple jokes about the little airplanes bouncing off the buildings. They certainly dont do any damage. They fall to the ground the airplanes, that is. It was not really anything that triggered us. Until a few minutes later, a not on the door again and chunks and he said another airplane flew into the world trade center. It was on purpose. We got up from our chairs and walked to the bar where we had the television. We saw what everyone else in america saw that day. We saw the footage of these airliners crashing into the trade centers. We were absolutely stunned. People have asked how could this event be possible . Didnt we have aircraft on alert . Once upon a time we were on , alert that was before we got our f16s. We gave up alerts when we shifted. It had been a long time since we had alerts because a few were called in 1991 when the wall fell in the soviet union fell we , did not need it anymore, right . The soviet threat was gone. On september 10, on september on september 11th, there were only four units sitting on alert, looking out over the oceans and the polar region to ensure that no stray bombs came over the north pole. I mean, that was the paradigm we were living in. So no one ever imagined that the , threat would come from inside. We had never we just had never conceived that something so ingenious in the most so ingenious in the most horrible way could be done. In the most verbally could be done. Nearly immediately our dl at the time, he goes to the operations and operations desk and dan kane who is our weapons officer turned to me and said, lucky i need you and igor to build a sum etcs some dtcs some dtcs. So, brandon and i went to the planning room and started Mission Planning for something, we dont know what. Again, i mean, this is not the defense encounter and air mission i had trained for you had to do. There was a certain point where you had a combat air patrol and you are descending, but defending against who . We do not know who is hostile. We do not know who is hostile, who is friendly. Everything is confused as you can imagine. But, we do our best. We print out our lineup cards. We take to jets because some jets are clean, some are still dirty in the air to ground configuration. We print out maps. We put points on top of where we know government buildings are, memorials are. We load up our Data Transfer cartridges. They are like these big bricks like thumb drives for your jets where you can take on data and put it in the jet and downloaded so you can accelerate and program all of your avionics. We get that done. I go to the ops desk. Now i need to go through a , little bit of bureaucracy because the National Guard in washington, d. C. , is not like the National Guard in any other state. In other states, you know, the National Guard has two chains of command. The federal chain of command which occurs when you get activated to deploy. In the case, you are taught to to the activeduty air force and for all intents and purposes you are activeduty air force. That is your federal chain of command. The civilian chain of command is up to the states governor. We are seeing that now with texas and florida and montana and washington, oregon, activating elements of their National Guard to serve their domestic requirement to protect their people in their state. So there is a very clear chain , of command goes up to the governor. Well, washington, d. C. , does not have a governor and our chain of command does not go to the mayor. Our chain of command, our civilian side, goes to the president of the United States. As you can imagine, he was pretty busy at that point in point and time. And, honestly, i do not think even realized that we were a resource that he had because his authority was traditionally delegated down through the secretary of the army. And that was certainly not what the secretary of the army was thinking, how do we get this up over washington, d. C. That was not on his mind. So we are trying to get activated so we can we are trying to get the chain of command energized, we are to find someone who has the Legal Authority to tell us to launch. How to get airborne how do we get airborne . We cannot just take off on our own. There is a very real and important reason why civilians have the command of our military. So, as much as we know we need to be airborne, we cannot. We are grounded. Our Jennifer David our general officer, david had come down from the winged building and was sitting by the ops desk making phone calls. Trying to find someone to energize through his you know, he is our top guy. He is making as many phone calls as he can. Our commander, he makes a call to the ops desk. It is where we keep our missiles, bullets, bombs. We do have some live bombs. We do have some life missile. We do not fly with them everyday. You certainly would not want live bombs flying over your house on a daily basis if we have no intention of dropping them or using them. And that would not make any sense to us either because it wears out the system. We dont keep the explosives and fuses in the bomb body all built up ready to go. You have it all separated. You have to build it. It takes time. For example, only go to war, it for example, when we go to war, it is a threeday cycle from the planning process to come down to the wing for the bomb to know how many bombs they need to build, to put that together, to bring it out of the flight line. It is not happen instantaneously. Some heatseeking sidewinders. Can you imagine if you are one of the enlisted airman down in the bomb dump . You are not watching television. You are probably in the middle of a card game. You get a call from the weapons officer and he says, build me up some missiles. No, live ones. Just trust me. Can you imagine what would be going through your mind . You have no no air testing order. You have no Legal Paperwork to prove this is a legal order for you to execute. So, it really is a testament to the vision, leadership, and the had to that he mustve make that phone call. We desperately needed a missiles, even though, in my case it would not be in time. , being in washington, d. C. , something unique operating out of andrews, we always had to deal with the hassle of air force one. Any time a distinguished visitor moves on Andrews Air Force base, especially when it is the president , the entire base shuts down. You cannot drive on the perimeter, you cant take off, you cant land. For very good reason, to secure the important leaders of our nation. But when you are a little fighter that burns a lot of gas and uses it quickly, it is a problem. So, we had been working with the secret service to try to develop better coordination so that we could facilitate our training as well as meet their security requirements. That is part of developing that relationship. We brought some of the secret service and our unit, flung them thenit and flew them in back of the f16 to prove we are good guys. So we knew who they were and so, they knew who we were. As a result, it was when the pentagon was hit that Vice President cheney said, we have some fighters and andrews . Somebody get those guys airborne. And they knew who to call. I mean, as i mentioned, when we had a peace dividend in the 1990s and we drew down all of our forces, drew down our alert forces, we were no longer sitting alert, either, even if forcen if the first air if that authority had known we were andrews, i dont even know that they would they would not had the Legal Authority to be able to activate us. It is a really unfortunate lesson that has real world consequences. Fortunately, we had the authorization from Vice President cheney. Seth looks at me and said you , are with me. You take igor. I want you to make i want to make sure you have missiles. We run down the hallway to life support. We are putting on gsuits. I am putting on my vest. Throwing on my harness. Major have my helmet, might atc my akc. , my vest. He looks at me and says, i will take the cockpit. I knew i would take the tail. I remember my dad had been involved in a Safety Investigation analyzing a crash of a 737 out of Colorado Springs and they had lost the vertical and horizontal tail locked and the airplane just went straight in. There was just nothing left. There was no way they couldve pulled out, no way they could have controlled it. There would be no pattern of debris. It would just be straight down. I knew i would take the tail. We are running out as fast as we can go, as fast as i can go. He out ramey. He is a major, he is an old guy. [laughter] with all my flight gear it kind of nearly doubled my body weight. He ran to the first line and i ran to the next one. Again, recall that you know, i am just a brand new lieutenant. I recently became combat missionready. I just went to my first red flag. As every pilot knows, it is when you begin to deviate from your habit patterns mistakes are made. I went up to my jet and i put my gear down and i shake his hand and i grab the forms and i look through the forms. He goes, lucky what the hell are you doing . Get in the jet. It was not because i was negligent, it was because i knew that if anything in my life mattered, that was it. I could not screw it up. You recall we had sent a ship to we sent a ship to the air force. While we were working to try to get the authorization launch, while i was making dtcs and minor cards, while he was calling to get missiles dont get missiles lined up. Our supervisor, doc thompson had doc thompson, had this big fluffy vietnam mustache, he was just a crusty old Fighter Pilot and i loved him. I respected him. He had good tactical core sense testicle hos tactical hosrse sense. I did not realize when he called down there, bully to rant bully 2 ran out of gas. He had reached bingo which meant he no longer had fueled to play on the ranges. It rather had just enough fuel to come home. So shooter clears pack off. , he says, go home and we will go home, finish up the mission, finish the debrief later. , is on his way helmet and another gets a call. Where did he go . Washington does not want to let me in the airspace. All right, bully 2, head home, i will take care of this. Doc puts the phone down. Then in a couple of minutes, but called back and says, bully 2, go. They are asking me if i have any missiles or bullets or bombs on board. Dont you worry about that, just come on home. The center had been asking air asking eric if he had those weapons on board because they needed to know in case they could somehow find a way to use them. Now, the bullies were still living in the pre9 11 world, right . We all know there was a pre9 11 world and a post9 11 world. What mattered, what defined the doorway was if you had seen the images. On that day, some of us were still living in a pre9 11 world because who could have imagined Something Like that happening . Those of us who had seen it, we were now living in that post9 11 world. So puck had no idea what was going on. E comes back home and lands doc called down to the ranger bully 3ad bully 1 and coming back home. It was until a few weeks later that i had the opportunity to listen to puck. s tapes. It still gives me the chills to this day. As he is getting ready to land, he is pulling up the air drum terminal information system. It is a loop. It is a loop and audio loop transmitted every to give hour pilots the information they need to know to land. The weather barometric pressure, landing, runway, any information you need to know to prepare. It lightens the work of the air traffic controllers. This is what pucks adis said, this is Andrews Information bravo. Andrews air force base is close. D. Any aircraft tried to enter washington airspace will be shot down. So, i am in my jet. Realize, i have to throw the book out. I do not even bother strapping in. Normally, it is about a 20 minute process to strap in, with your get up, to make sure you downloaded, and check your systems, go through your tests, configure on navigation, get your avionics set up right. If you are doing a close mission, 10 minutes most 10 minutes at most. At that point, we did not have gps on the aircraft. We had actually just upgraded to the ringleader ins system. It only took eight minutes, not 16 minutes, so we were highspeed. We did not have 20 minutes. We did not have 10. We did not have 8. We needed to go. I dont bother strapping young. The mantra, the rhythm, the dance of the challenge and response you do with your crew chief was out the windows. I was relying on my knowledge to know what i needed to do. Mcmaster battery on. Start. 20 , over the help to idle. I am watching my rpm, temperature. Im good. I am yelling at my crew chief, pull the choke. I did not have a radar. There is no data link in the aircraft. All i have right now is my engine, and i am waking up the rest of the airplane as i can. They pulled the chocks. I am taxiing. And, my crew chief is still plugged in and he is running underneath me. Other crew chiefs are running underneath me pulling the pens out of my external fuel tanks, gears, other things. As we are taxiing on my tapes, i call twos up. And you can hear Billy Hutchison taking off. Shooter and billy, bully 1 and d landed. Has lan billy had 200 pounds. Dog says we think there is another one coming down the river. You have fuel for one pass up and down the river. Billy takes off. He is the first one airborne. He takes off, he stays low, he goes northwest over the center pentagon, up to great falls, turns around, down the potomac, down where the potomac books into the bay and come that, and he lands. We take off seconds after him. We take off and we head northeast into a serene and peaceful and silent sky. There is no one airborne. We head out to the northwest and we never find anything. We were not heroes that day. The passengers on flight 93 were the heroes. So you can see why i believe that what i was going to do that day was nothing special. Because anyone wouldve been willing to do what i was willing to do and what they actually did. They were average, every day americans. Who realized that there were things in this world more important than themselves. And although they might not have raised their hand and taken an oath to give their life in our nations defense, they did. So they were the true heroes. [sniffles] [sighs] heather the d. C. Guard committed the combat air patrol for two weeks after. That was unprecedented. Clearly, an incident like that unprecedented, but for the National Air Guard to on the authorization of that combat control was truly unique and different. We did it because there was a lot of untangling to do after that day. As you can imagine, trying to go through what went wrong, figure out the appropriate lines of authority, lines of command, and even something as mundane as how do you schedule and provide to ensure we can protect our Nations Capital . These were all the projects we were dealing with over the next few weeks. Not me i was just a line flyer. I am getting in my jet, and i am pulling a midnight to 4 00 a. M. Night air combat patrol. , jefffice to commander johnson, was in the pentagon doing a lot of that. He is wearing his flight suit. He has his patches on. If you understand how that works, you know, not only was you know the aircrew, but you can decode what the patches mean. So tuna gets stopped by some guy in the pentagon that says, are you from the d. C. Guard . He says, yeah. Let me tell you a story. This is a story that he told tuna and the story that tuna told us. One day pentagon was hit, they of course evacuated everyone. People went flowing into self parking, most likely got in their cars and drove away. But for the people who had to evacuate through the north parking were trapped. They were coming out the river and they were coming out to north parking, going over the bridge that goes over 110 and getting stuck in that parking lot that is in between route 110 and the potomac river. They cannot go anywhere. Because the evacuation procedures were built for primarily fire, not Something Like this. And the wind was light. It was a perfect flying day. It was light, out of the southwest. So, it was blowing the smoke and ashes in the air up over the center and actually right up over north parking. And there is a Child Development center, it is still there but it is closed now. The women are evacuating the babies out of the center. It is like dod daycare. Their procedures are for fire drills. So they are pushing out these cribs with four babies to a crib. Six toddlers to a buggy, right . But they cannot stay next to the building. They have got to get up the stairs and over the bridge to get to north parking, but they do not have enough people to do that because it was not something they were manned for. It should not have been. So these women are giving babies away. As people are climbing out of the pentagon, they are literally handing babies to strangers. I cannot take them all away. Can you please get them to safety . Take them away. They are giving babies away. But once they get to north parking, they are trapped. The ashes are falling on them. The air is acrid and smoking. It was. The pentagon burned for weeks, for months afterwards. They know something is coming. If you remember, this was before everyone had a cell phone in their pocket, right . I mean, if you were really somebody, you might have a pager. They know there is Something Else coming. They dont know what, they dont know when. They are not at their desks, so they cannot get information refresh, so they are simply waiting. They are trapped. And Billy Hutchinson comes zooming over them in full afterburner. And out of the silence, they are broken into cheers because they know we are now airborne. That american air fighter jets are airborne, and we are not going to let anyone hurt them. They are going to be ok. I think that now, with the years between me and that day, and again, i was there just as i showed up for work. And anyone would have been willing to do what i was willing to do. And i know that because not only because the passengers on flight 93 proved it, but when you look at what everyone up in new york did. The heroism of the First Responders running toward the towers are not running away. The individuals in that towers who helped each other get out, saved each others lives, and if you think about this, the people who cleaned up the towers. Going to work every day, knowing they would die for what they were doing. And they did it every day and any way. So, when i look back on that day, with the years being able to reflect upon what it might mean, it is strange to see this , but i actually have hope because we showed who we are as americans. That we are not a fearful people. That we are not a weak people. That we do not shy from hardship , and that we know that there are things in this world that are more important than ourselves. That are more important than our own personal safety. And that risk is worth taking. It is worth taking for the same thing that is us, collectively, together. America. Our constitution, baseball, mom, apple pie, freedom, our way of life. These are things that matter. These are things that bring us together. So when i think back, as hard as that day has been far our nation, it gives me hope. Thank you. [applause] christopher thank you, heather. We do all have stories as to where we were and how that date impacted us. As i segue into the next part of our program and make our next introduction, allow me a moment to sort of share context that might help with the introduction. On 9 11, i was was the airport manager of Reagan International , so i saw it from the ground, like most of us, and i dont want to take your time now because actually, if i do my job well, i will save time for questions from you all later, but i think, as you know, we were closed at national not for three days, but we remained closed following after all the other airports reopened, and it was rather disconcerting, and we did not know whether to mothball the airport, put it on life support, to close it. You may recall from my opening remarks, in 2003 there were people who mentioned to me in 2001, why dont we turn reagan into an annex for hobby. Most people did not think national was going to reopen. Vice president cheney and the secret service were dead set against it. It was interesting because they would say, we cannot have aircraft close to the airport. And yet, when the system reopened in the course of the day, 18,000 aircraft were within 30 minutes time of flight of reagan national. There were things put in place afterwards in retrospect you wonder, did it make much sense . That many of us worked very hard to go ahead and take the actions necessary to reopen reagan. And from my perspective, from a background of flying, it is startling to me that there was this idea that somehow the Nations Capital could not be sufficiently protected in a way that would allow aviation to proceed. Because on aircraft carriers, we are in harms way all the time. But we have very distinct procedures you have to follow to get back on that ship when you are 100 miles off of lebanon. I can assure you, in an f14 coming back from a ship, we did not follow very prescribed flight procedures, we were going to get shot down. If we did not, going to get shot down, and so i met with secretary norm monadnock, one of this countrys great, great americans who is arguably the one who shut down the airspace on that day. And, as a side note, what airtraffic did that day is a heroic and a story in itself. But i remember going to his office at the time and showing him a picture of an aircraft carrier. And i said, think of national as an aircraft carrier. What we need to do is to go by procedures. Profiles, squat, chicken, all the various things on the ship. Do that and you can get airplanes in and out of here. And oh by the way, you might not know that there were missile batteries set up at anacostia. You could see them from the airport. And somebody did not follow those procedures. There was a rule of engagement to shoot them down. So i do not know that that suggestion carried the day, but i do know what came out of it was this idea that yes, you can fly into a highthreat area and do it safely and successfully if you have proper procedures. The idea that you had to stay seated for 30 minutes before a flight kind of went away for obvious reasons. But at the end of the day, 3. 5 weeks later, the decision the president made the decision to reopen, and i recall going back over to the secretarys office on a tuesday and he said, and i went into the foyer and who was in there smoking a cigarette and a bunch ofr the ceos were sitting there and said i dont think you can do that here. And secretary mineta had summoned the ceos. Those who cannot make it wanted telephone and said, the president once to reopen wants to reopen national can you do it in 48 hours . I was sitting there thinking, every cabdriver, restaurant operator, rental car worker, everyone was gone. I was thinking, this is sort of like starting a jet. It normally takes time to get back into the game. Without skipping a beat, every ceo said, yes, sir, we will be ready. I am sitting there thinking, you do not even know where your people are. The reality is, we did reopen but it was very limited. 10 flights a day. We eventually joined the rest of the Aviation System and reopened. And sometimes it is the day after what happened after 9 11 that is as informative and impressive in my mind as many of the action set people took on actions that people took on that date itself. Among the commercial airline pilots, who boldly returned to cockpits and helped restore our nations most critical transportation infrastructure, was heathers dad john. During his Academy Years he built model airplanes, sale planes, earned a degree in aeronautical engineering. He flew combat missions in vietnam. After the war, he served as an aviation instructor. He left the air force in 1979, after his first brief stint with the airlines with united, he landed a job with lear at reno airport where he worked for 5. 5 years as an engineer and test pilot. During his tenure in reno, john became associated with an joined the rare bear air team and flu ew in his first champion or race air race in 1975. John kept his hand and military aviation by joining the nevada interNational Air Guard. Flying the air force better. He started his own business flight testing and instructing instructing u. S. And foreign aircraft including the big 15 make 17, make 21, and others. His perspective as a commercial aviator with united which he , which he rejoined after 9 11, and as the father of a daughter tasked with defending our skies that day is to really amazing. We will hear from both of them now. I invite heather and john back to the podium. [applause] john thank you, chris. It is an honor to be here tonight and shares some perspectives as the father of a Fighter Pilot, as an air pilot, airline pilot, now retired from United Airlines. I like to thank lisa and the g. E. Corporation and todd and bill who are here sponsoring this event. It is an honor to be here and speak to you folks. I would like to share with you a few things and events that happened on the day of 9 11 and some perspectives that we gained from that day and things that happened that affected us as a family and as pilots of the united and as all americans. The morning of 9 11, actually, my wife and i were starting the first of 30 days of vacation i had stored up for a couple years. The activities that morning were pretty much normal morning activities. Breakfast, coffee. Until my younger brother eric called and said, is your tv on . I said, no. He said, turn on the tv. So we turned on the tv, and it is everywhere. At that time, both of the towers had been hit. It was obvious the United States was under attack at that point. My wife, stephanie, was very distraught at that time, and i did everything i could to reassure her. I said, heather is ok. She is airborne. Of course, little did i know what was going on. It seemed to calm some of her fears, though. So we got on the phone and tried to call heather immediately, and of course, as i am sure all of you know, the telephones were jammed. There was no way to get through. My wife got on and emailed to heather, what is going on . After heathers First Mission when she got on the ground, she emailed back and said, im ok. I am fine. I am busy. I will call you tonight. Or i will call later. Sometime soon thereafter, heathers twin sister, jill, called us up and said, i need to talk to my sister. I need to talk to her now. The phone lines were jammed, so she could not get through, and we could not get through. Heather did call that evening. I have flown, i am really tired, and i am going to bed. I will call later. We did not know what had get happened with that First Mission she had described. The only noise we heard in the skies above where the f15s patrolling from the interNational Guard base. The air force base in denver. And boy, some of them came over low. Some were an afterburner. That noise is the sound of freedom. We found out also that day that jason dahl, captain jason dahl was the captain on flight 93, united flight 93. A friend of ours. His wife called and told us about what had happened with jasons airplane, and as you all know, that airplane crashed in pennsylvania. Now, there was a threeway link between heather, jason dahl, and myself. Jason was the pilot of flight 93, and flight 93 was the flight that heather and Lieutenant Colonel were searching for after they launched out of Andrews Air Force base, unbeknownst to them, flight 93 had already crashed even as they were getting airborne, so that is why they never found it. The airplane crashed in shanksville. Now, captain jason dahl and i shared an Office Cubicle at the United Airlines Flight Training center. We were both captains. Jason and i had a couple of desks, he had a picture of his son matt, who i believe at that time he was still in high school. And his lovely wife, sandy. Whenever jason and i had a talke to chat, he would about his son and how smart he was, bragging about everything they did, all the fun they had, his love for his wife, sandy. After the events of 9 11, there was a Memorial Service in denver at the church. Mattjason and sammy and went to. And there were about 400 united pilots i think more than that we were all in our uniforms. This was not a mega church they went to but i guess you could call it about the size of a mega theater, about as big as what you are sitting in right now. It was standing there. Again, all of us were in our uniforms the unit was looked over by matt, jasons son. He was poised. He was very articulate. It was a beautiful eulogy. There was not a dry eye in the house. To this day, i do not know how he stood there and did that. Pardon me. After the service, another friend and united pilot said, john, tomorrow lets put our uniforms on and go out to Denver International airport in go into the terminal and talk to the passengers. I said, that is a great idea. We did that. We got in there and the next day, we went out to dia, spent several hours going up and down the terminal talking to passengers, trying to reassure them about the security and safety of flying on all of the airlines, not just United Airlines but all airlines. For some people, it was very emotional and they were very touched. For other folks, they were very stoic and showed a lot of courage to be, you know, good, loyal americans and get up and get these guys and trouble again. We hope that was a meaningful experience for them. Hap andinly was for myself. I can guarantee you that. There are some anecdotal accounts by other pilots of things that happened on 9 11 and afterwards. After the initial attack, and dullese at dallas airport, Ground Control and the tower, anybody they could get a hold of, they turned them around and sent them back to the gate out at dulles airport. I talked to actually one of the captains and they said, as soon as they parked and shut down and opened the door, several young males, middle eastern in a , jumped up and ran forward out the door of the aircraft and disappeared into the crowds in the terminal. It can only be supposed what might have happened had that airplane gotten airborne. I can only theorize about that, but i think you might know. The four airplanes used as weapons were not the only ones they had planned for that day. There were other accounts and and someht attendants other pilots that i talked to after 9 11 that had gone up in altitude and cruising that there were incidences, once, twice, of again, young men that probably came from that part of the world would get up and were moving rapidly up the aisle toward the cockpit area, and then then would stop and sit down and go back and sit in their seats. So again, we can only surmise perhaps maybe they were trying to probe. Who knows . I do not know what came of any reports of those incidents. I know that people were searched by the fbi or secret service. I had my own personal experience. It was prior to 9 11. We had heard some reports at united of some Airline Crews whose uniforms had been stolen, some of their hotel rooms in their layovers had been broken into. I think in one hotel room, a guy knocked on the door, and the guy answered it and subdued the guy who answered it and overpowered him and stole his uniform. And they ran off. Back at that time, you might surmise they were just trying to get a free ride in the cut it as a free ride in the cockpit, much like who was in that movie . What was the name of the movie, heather . Heather catch me if you can. John catch me if you can. Yes. I dont know if the movie was made yet, but that was a scenario. Get a uniform and try to get a free ride in the cockpit wherever you want to go. I had a layover, i think you are all obviously local to washington. Is it the courtyard marriott out of dulles airport, next to the terminal, i think it is anyway, i had a trip i had a layover at the hotel at the airport and a early in the morning, there was a knock on my door. So, i get up and i look out and guess what the gentleman looks like . Outside that door . I said, who is it . He said, [in an accent] sir, we had a report of a problem with the airconditioning. I said, just a minute, let me put my clothing on. I ran back and got on the phone and called the front desk and said, have you sent anybody from engineering to come and work of my airconditioning . They said, no. I went back to the door and looked out the peephole and there was nobody there. Foolishly, i opened the door to take a look. They couldve been hiding. I looked up and down the hallway and the person was gone. I got dressed, and immediately went to the desk and said that they were from engineering. That was prior to 9 11. Only a few weeks prior. So that was a dot. It couldve been connected to other dots. Some other things were going on regarding some of these people getting trained at some flight schools who said, i do not want to know how to land the plane only how to fly it. The dots were not being connected. Some of the reports were made to the fbi, but nothing was done. They did not communicate to the secret service, and they were not pursued. The dots i saw that morning, i must admit i did not try to get it connected to anything. Now, many of you, almost everybody in this country, has a tie to something that happened on that day of 9 11, or somebody, whether they were involved in some activities or tragically killed as a result of the terrorist act. My wife stephanie and i live in evergreen, and there are four families on that court. Three out of the four families on that court had a tie to something or someone from 9 11. Obviously, my wife stephanie and i with our daughter, heather. And the mission she performed on that day with honor. Right across our court, the gentleman and his wife who moved in there, he had been an executive at a Financial Services company that had their offices up on one of the upper floors on one of the twin towers. If i recall correctly, i think he told us that they lost about 12 or 13 friends that morning. Down at the bottom of the court, the couple down there, their son joe worked for a company that was either at the bottom of one of the twin trade towers or the building in neatly next to it. The building immediately next to it. On 9 10 do you ever hear of 9 10 . You only hear of 9 11. Joe worked very, very late that night and into the next morning, and he decided to sleep in and did not come into work that morning. And whether or not he wouldve perished, whether he couldve been one of the people escaped, we will never know, but he on a normal course of events, would have been going in to work that morning. Let me know if ive gone past my 10 minutes. Get the hook or get the gong. There is something i would like to talk about briefly in closing. There have been a lot of media stories written about our daughter heathers activities on the morning of 9 11, launching in her f16 and everything that transpired afterwards. And i had been interviewed about that also. They have used some Artistic License in trying to say that heather could have thought she was maybe taking off and could have shot down an airliner that i may have been the captain of. I had been to the east coast. Ok fact. I had in fact recently flown some flights from the east coast on a layoverwas here, when i arrived door, was getting ready to leave, i would call. Fact. As i said, i had called heather. When i was here on those layovers. Another fact. Did she know if i was flying that morning . No, she did not. Fact. Heather, as you have seen from her story, was totally focused on the mission at hand. To perform her duty as an f16 pilot in a correct manner, and do whatever was required on that morning to try to protect our country. Now, the supposition by some of these news writers to try to , again, using dramatic license, try to make us sound as if our daughter heather was running out to the airplane or getting airborne and heading on out looking for united flight 93, and they did not know if it was 93, just that it was inbound, was that she was thinking oh, my gosh, my dad might be a captain on this airplane, and i might have to bring down an airplane for which my dad is on board. That is not the case at all. She was totally focused on the mission at hand. So there was a lot of Artistic License taken by people who have written stories about this, and that gives me some concern. Heather talked about the true heroes on united flight 93. She has been called a hero by some people who have written and she has, as you heard by her declaration, she discounts being called a hero. On that day. She did not use the terminology, but she has been for said that she was an accidental witness to history on 9 11, along with Marc Sasseville and so many other people who were involved in the rescue operations. And she said that the true heroes in that chapter of what happened on 9 11, regarding flight 93, where those passengers who prevented the terrorists from turning united flight 93 into a weapon of terror, and we should all never forget that. They were a small group of heroes who did that. A very, very small group along with all the heroes and responded and did what they did, the pentagon, in the air over washington, d. C. , who responded at the twin trade towers, doing what they could to save as many lives as they could. So, again, thank you very much for listening to my drivel, and i guess we will start some question and answer here. Thank you very much. [applause] christopher thank you, john. Now i am going to go a little bit over, so i hope i will keep my job. I think it is important to provide you all at least a few minutes of opportunity to ask questions, because, you know, it is so important not just to tell the story and remember the story, but to get the facts right, and who better to answer to that that john and heather . Question up here . I have a question for heather about being in my house at about two miles southwest of the national, seeing an f16 turn onto what would have been final of the unused runway, the northeast, southwest runway, it i think from landing configuration, it was definitely nose up and quite slow. Only a couple feet. Was that you . [laughter] christopher i dont think i need to repeat the question, i think probably everybody heard that. No . The question is, the gentleman witnessed that there was an aircraft a short mile from national, and wondered if it was in fact heather. Heather no, although i would love to put it in my logbook, i never got into a situation like that. During the course of that day, we did a number of intercepts on small aircraft which, if you are flying a cessna, you are flying an f16, they go very different speeds. [laughter] heather so one of the more convenient ways to slow down to get to a closer speed that is more cessnalike is to throw your gear down, because that automatically deploys the flaps. You can have a flap override system in the f16 to manually override, but it is not something we normally do. The only thing that i can speculate is that someone and i did not do that i did not make that kind of intercept that day is that someone that day later, who had took off, might have been able to intercept a small aircraft and wouldve put his aircraft in that configuration to achieve that kind of speed, but that was not me. Christopher im not sure if it syncs up with the timing of what you witnessed, but i do know that when the air traffic system was effectively being shut down , we did have arrivals into reagan coming in, and it was at that point determined better to. Get them on the ground, even if it was reagan or national at the time rather than someone else. I do know that in the midst of everything happening, we were getting some arrivals into reagan national. I do remember watching a 757 coming in and having that same thought. A question over here. Prior to 9 11, you said something about coming over. If you were on hot standby as of in the 1990s, or if somebody were on hot standby as of procedure, what would that have gained for your mission after 2001 . Christopher do you want to repeat the question . Heather i will a little bit. The question is about, correct me if i am wrong, you are interested in the units which were sitting alert, what was their response . If we had been on alert in d. C. , what would that response have in life . The aircraft sitting on alert, they had preplanned flight profiles. When they were scrambled, they would jump in their aircraft and take off over the atlantic. That is why you have the aircraft that were attached to detached to langley actually taking off and flying east over the atlantic and why you have the aircraft that was sitting alert at otis flying over the atlantic, before they are turned around to respond to these threats that were actually internal. So, had andrews been sitting alert, would that have solved the problem . I cannot speculate in an educated manner because there are a number of things that wouldve needed to happen within, not just how their profile looks like, how long it wouldve taken them to turn around, the chain of command, what would trigger that kind of risk on, etc. Unfortunately i do not think it is fair to what have, could have, should have the situation. It just is. Christopher the gentleman in the redshirt . I was one of those rescue workers working that day. Heather thank you. No, i want to thank you, because they pulled us away from doing what we was trained to do for years at that moment. Until those fighters showed up. We were trained. You are absolutely correct. We were trained. We are thanking you all for showing up to save us and looking out for us. I want to thank you. I want to thank you. [applause] christopher right here, sir. You said you did not have missiles, but did you have any weapons on your f16 . Heather we were carrying christopher if you could repeat the question, sorry. Heather the question was, we did not have missiles but did we have any kind of weapon loadout. We routinely flew with 105 rounds of bullets in the nose, partly for a weightbalance issue, but those bullets were kinetic bullets, they were leadnose. They were just lead balls. When we go to combat, we fly with those. The cannon in the f16 fighters its rounds at 6000 rounds per minute. So 510 rounds is a little over five seconds of guns, and 100 rounds is one second of gun. We knew taking off, that between the two of us, even with perfect aim, that 200 rounds would be utterly insufficient to take down the airliner. Christopher in the back, sir. Declared the civil aircraft coming down as the day progressed, who had the authority or took authority to authorize two downs of civil aircraft . Was it on the white house . Heather we were provided the question is, after all the civil aircraft were grounded, who had the command and control, who had the authority to declare an aircraft hostile so we could take it down . Typically, within combat operations, the rules of engagement, the roe, have a very specific matrix that you have to fulfill in order to be able to shoot somebody down. We need to know what the aircraft is. We need to know where it originated from, does it have hostile intent, things like that. The r. O. E that we had, that was actually provided, we were provided free fire, which meant that as an individual Fighter Pilot sitting in my f16, i, heather penney, could make the decision to shoot down an aircraft. I did not need to ask, mother may i . There was no going up the chain of command. Which, i mean, two things. The level of risk that was assumed by enabling us to make that decision was necessary because of the confusion and the chaos that was going on within all of the military elements , because, as you mentioned, there was no clear chain of command. There was nothing set up to be able to support that kind of our r. O. E. My other observation is that during that free fire authorization was that nobody used it. So, within the chaos and the fog of war, the confusion, and as you can also imagine, the anger, all of those emotions that every american was feeling that morning, it was overcome by the professionalism and the discipline of every Fighter Pilot who was airborne that morning that they chose not to use it. Because the skies were still full of airplanes. There were people who had there was a time when you did not have to file before you flew. You did not have to file a flight plan. You did not have to talk on the radio or file a flight plan. If you did not listen to your favorite, wtop, or watch the news that morning, you just got up and went into your little airplane and poured on some oil and took off, you had no idea that we had just suddenly shut down the entire national airspace. So i think it is also truly a testament to the professionalism of all of us who were airborne that day, that we did not actually get trigger happy. I went close to a lot of day, iairplanes that have a lot of guilt for what i must have done to their poor little wings, owning the airplanes myself. I mustve scared the heck out of them, but we did, and we kept everyone safe. Here is what i want to bring up. Chris, this is tied to your story. Is how underappreciated, the potomac trade is, as a response to 9 11. I would love to kiss those airtraffic controllers because their mental agility, in transitioning from keeping aircraft separated and sequencing them, for the most effective operations to get them on final landing and taking off, i am sitting there trying to but they were so competent. When staffers said, hey, potomac, do you have any military background . No, ok. Let us call the national vortec, lets call it bullseye. Can you do that . You have the radials coming off of there. You have the range rings. So if you see a contact, if you get a radar contact that is due east on the radar, and it is 30 miles away, here is what i want you to say. You know, contact bullseye 090 for 30. And if you get an altitude cut, give me the altitude as well. And like that, the controllers swapped their mental approach, they swapped their paradigm and adopted our Fighter Pilot language, and they helped facilitate our ability to clear the air space, and then, as the airspace got super congested with all of the responders, the helicopters, the medevacs, the army flights, not only did they call out the unknown, the bogeys, but they also called out the aircraft we knew were friendlies. And they would say hey, that is flight 90 whatever, this is their bullseye cut. This is their destination. So we did not have to waste our time on friendlies who were helping to respond and take care of people, and we could focus on the unknowns, the bogeys and keep everyone safe. I really think that potomac is the Unsung Heroes here. Christopher absolutely. I know were going a little bit over, but we will take one more question, if there is another question in the audience. In the way back. I fly out of my airport, the airport near annapolis, we were near the arrivals, of dwi. Bwi. After 9 11, it was so eerily quiet. I know you do not call yourself a hero, the only thing we heard were the f16s. It was an extreme comfort when i knew it was you. Thank you so much. [applause] christopher on that note, a fitting note, i think we will go ahead and wrap up. I want to thank all of you for taking time this evening to listen to the story. As mentioned, it is an important story to be remembered, and it is a story to be told and retold. We were very fortunate to have john and penney join us tonight. Again, thank you for taking the time. Both of you. For what you have done for aviation in this country. [applause] christopher i would appreciate that we will not be able to provide autographs tonight, i know that sometimes we do, but given the hour, we will not be able to do that. Again, lisa, to ge, and your entire team, thank you for sponsoring this event, past events, and future events. Thank you so much. [applause] christopher and i guess i will just close by saying, i hope in a few days time on the 11th of september, each of you will and your own way remember that day, what it meant to this nation, and to what it meant to us individually, collectively, and take a moment to thank those people that sacrificed so much that day and lived on in our memories. Thank you and have a great evening. [applause] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2017] you are watching American History tv, 48 hours of programming on American History, every weekend on cspan3. Follow us on twitter for information on our schedule and to keep up with the latest sunday night on book, mentaln the health incorporated. By dr. Ine is interviewed jeffrey lieberman, director of the new york psychiatric institute. Care asl health currently offered is pretrade is portrayed as a good and more people need to receive more treatment, regardless of the quality. The Healthcare System is such a ps fiasco that even having what you are saying basically is that funding eeeds to be sufficient to serv people and it has to be good quality care, which most of it is not. You, as well as anyone, with know there have been discussions over various decades, how do we have meaningful quality measurements, and to keep offering new methods reallyure, but it is not a measurement of enforcement, and that is why i have argued that what we are facing in this country is what amounts to Epidemic Health malpractice, even if it is not acknowledged as such, in part because the reality of malpractice is they do not take a case unless someone dies. Watch afterwards, sunday night at 9 00 p. M. Eastern on cspan2s book tv. Miles ofd about 100 washington, d. C. , on the Eastern Shore of the chesapeake day, the Harriet Tubman underground Railroad Visitors Center opened in the spring of 2017. Up next on american artifacts, i a half a half hour