Who ordered the FAA “Ground stop”?

“As that crisis unfolded, NORAD set up a secure line so it could brief key officials and act on their decisions.  Jellinek was listening as President George W. Bush made the order to drain the skies of commercial aircraft.”⁷²

                                                         — NORAD stand-in, Capt. Mike Jellinek (Canadian)

At 9:26 a.m. rookie FAA manager bans all take offs nationwide.  Or did she?

On the issue of the FAA grounding, Time magazine reported:

[FAA head Jane Garvey]  Almost certainly after getting an okay from the White House, initiate[s] a national ground stop, which forbids takeoffs and requires planes in the air to get down as soon as is reasonable.  The order, which has never been implemented since flying was invented in 1903, applies to virtually every single kind of machine that can takeoff — civilian, military, or law enforcement.[i]

Only a limited number of military flights were allowed to fly during this ban (However, some of a chosen few, like the Bin Laden Family, were allowed to fly!).

After the press heralded the move as a “heroic feat,” everyone was clamoring to take credit for the unprecedented order.

Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta later says he was the one to give the order, “As soon as I was aware of the nature and scale of the attack, I called from the White House to order the air traffic system to land all aircraft, immediately and without exception.”[ii]  However, it is later reported by a different Washington Post reporter that Mineta did not even know of the order until 15 minutes later.  This reporter “says FAA officials had begged him to maintain the fiction.”[iii]

A later account states that Ben Sliney, the FAA’s National Operations Manager, makes the decision without consulting his superiors, like Jane Garvey first.  Would Sliney really make that decision by himself?  September 11 is Sliney’s first day on the job as National Operations Manager![iv]  Sliney, a former NYC lawyer later sued the FAA.  Was Ben Sliney the fall guy for the inactions and poor performance of the FAA on 9/11?

Yet another account, by Linda Schuessler, manager of tactical operations at the FAA Command Center where Sliney was located, says, “... it was done collaboratively...  All these decisions were corporate decisions.  It wasn’t one person who said, ‘Yes, this has got to get done.’”[v]

At the time of the order — 9:26 a.m. — 4,452 planes are flying in the continental US.  About 500 planes land in the next 20 minutes, and then much more urgent orders to land are issued at 9:45 a.m.[vi] [vii] [viii] [ix] Seventy-five percent of the planes (3,339) land within one hour of the order.[x]

Was the FAA grounding used as a diversion?

But was the grounding of 4,452 aircraft over such a short time, serving another purpose during 9/11?  The grounding that happened on 9/11 — was a predictable event that day.  The perpetrators used the checklist responses of the Counterterrorism Security Group, headed by Richard Clarke who with his staff coordinated the Principles of each of the major agencies of the U.S.  In June of 2001, counterterrorism “tsar” Richard Clarke prepared a document that outlined a checklist in case of a terrorist attack, which he passed on to Dick Cheney’s staff (Condoleeza Rice, NSA advisor).  Clarke correctly believed, “something big was coming”.  The perpetrators had first hand knowledge of the responses to their attack even before it occurred — not unlike reading your enemies playbook.  One of the first items discussed by Richard Clarke to FAA’s Jane Garvey, was the grounding of aircraft over the U.S., “Well Jane, can you order aircraft down?⁶⁰

Was the preoccupation and accompanying perplexity of having to bring down almost 5,000 aircraft overwhelming to air traffic controllers?

Were they able to take the time to search or track aircraft with their primary radar?  Or were they tremendously occupied with giving information and approach instructions to thousands of aircraft making impromptu landings at the “closest practical airport”?  Could the situation have been taken advantage of?  Would thousands of aircraft scrambling for airports (especially over the congested East Coast region), have caused a massive diversion allowing a “hostile aircraft” to move about more easily?

The perpetrators anticipated the FAA grounding, or may have even ordered it themselves — and they had planned to take full use of its overwhelming effect.