Flight 93 Controller Looks Back

CBS News Exclusive: Flight Controller Remembers His Plane On Sept. 11

(CBS)  "United 93, understand you have a bomb on board. Go ahead," Werth said. The cockpit did not reply.

Werth watched the unresponsive plane climb to 41,000 feet and directed nearby traffic out of the way. He says, "I did what I could. I mean, I was not controlling United 93, I was controlling the other aircraft, and that was my intent – to keep them safe."

At 9:39a.m., Werth heard Lebanese pilot-hijacker Ziad Jarrah essentially repeat his announcement that there was a bomb on board and the plane was "going back to the airport" to meet the "demands."

But Flight 93 was not heading back to Newark. After making a U-turn near Cleveland, it was on a southeast collision course with Washington, D.C. The U.S. military had no idea.

"I would've liked to have just talked directly to the military myself and tell them where the guy is," Werth says. Though Jarrah had turned the transponder off, Werth tracked the flight using primary radar and sightings from other planes. "I thought that the military had enough firepower and enough time to, you know, assuming we knew where he was and could lead them to him, that he would eventually be intercepted."

The 9-11 Commission would conclude our homeland defense was "improvised" that day, as communication between the pillars of our aviation security, the civilian Federal Aviation Administration and the military's North American Regional Aerospace Command, or NORAD, was chaotic and ineffective.

"Within three or four minutes, probably, of when it happened, I asked if the military was advised yet. Had anybody called the military?" Werth says. "They said, 'don't worry. That's been taken care of,' which I think to them, meant they had called the command center in Washington."

But, according to the 9/11 Commission, FAA headquarters never notified NORAD, in Colorado, that Flight 93 was hijacked until after it crashed at 10:03a.m. in a field in western Pennsylvania. No military plans had been scrambled in its direction. No shoot down order had been issued. The only counterattack came from passengers informed of the trade center debacle by phone calls to family and friends on the ground. In under half an hour, a group of strangers had organized to retake the cockpit. They defeated suicide hijackers who were just 20 minutes flying time from destroying the Capitol.

Five years later, the FAA and NORAD operate a permanent conference call known as the Defense Event Network, or DEN, giving officials on both ends a near instant heads up when something is wrong. The FAA and NORAD can also see each other's radar screens, and along with other agencies, they repeatedly undergo drills for aircraft emergencies.

Although Werth retired in 2003, he knows air traffic controllers see themselves as the first line of that improved air defense.

"You just have to assume the worst now. You can't assume that it's a best-case scenario," Wertrh says. "From now on, it's always gonna have to assume that these are suicide planes."