Newly released documents from the National Archives detail how President George W. Bush authorized the shootdown of hijacked airplanes at 10:00 a.m. EDT on 9/11 after Bush had learned that two had already crashed into the World Trade Center towers.
But these orders were too late to save the people who died in the Twin Towers or 183 people who died when the western side of the Pentagon was struck by American Airlines Flight 77 at 9:37 a.m. (the fourth hijacked plane, Flight 93, crashed southeast of Pittsburgh in Somerset County, Pennsylvania, at 10:03 a.m. after passengers reportedly took over the plane).
The sixty-four thousand dollar question is why Bush did not order the shootdown of the planes earlier—when it could have saved people’s lives.
Bush had been alerted just minutes after a hijacked plane crashed into the World Trade Center at 8:46 a.m., while he was on a visit to schoolchildren in Sarasota, Florida.
After an aide whispered news of the second attack on the Twin Towers, President Bush continued reading a children’s book, The Pet Goat, and then at 9:30 a.m. addressed Americans at a press conference in which he said that “terrorism against our nation will not stand,” before being whisked away and stopped at about seven locations that were reported, including Barksdale Air Force Base.
Webmaster addition: Witnesses on the ground reported seeing Flight 93 being followed by a military jet. The debris from the aircraft was spread over an area of 8 miles, consistent with Flight 93 coming apart high in the air rather than impacting the ground.