MItchell Zuckoff - Fall and Rise - The Story of 9/11

Either before they received Ballinger’s warning or before they read it, Jason Dahl or LeRoy Homer Jr. checked in with a routine altitude and weather report to an air traffic controller at the FAA’s Cleveland Center: “Morning Cleveland, United Ninety-Three with you at three-five-oh [thirty-five thousand feet], intermittent light chop.” The controller didn’t reply; he was busy rerouting planes affected by the ground stop. At 9:25 a.m., Flight 93 checked in again with Cleveland Center. This time the controller answered, but still he didn’t warn them.

One minute later, at 9:26 a.m., Ed Ballinger’s intrusion warning registered with the pilots of Flight 93. Jason Dahl’s chatty messaging tone changed. He wrote a hasty, misspelled ACARS reply: “Ed cofirm latest mssg plz—Jason.”

In a stressful atmosphere, it wouldn’t have been hard to overlook the “plz” in Jason Dahl’s reply and focus instead on the misspelled word “confirm.” That was especially true for Ballinger, as he kept track of fifteen flights after having just learned from one of United’s top officials that the sixteenth plane on his roster, United Flight 175, had crashed in New York. Without the word “plz,” the response from Flight 93 pilot Jason Dahl could easily read as a simple acknowledgment of a message received—“Ed cofirm latest mssg”—as opposed to a worried request for more information.

Ballinger didn’t immediately reply to Flight 93. In the meantime, at 9:27 a.m., the pilots responded to a routine radio call from a Cleveland air traffic controller, who told them to watch for another plane twelve miles away and two thousand feet above them.

“Negative contact,” Jason Dahl replied. “We’re looking.”

Seconds later, at 9:28 a.m., every missed opportunity, every minute of delay in the spread of information and warning, every bit of bad luck and timing, coalesced in the cockpit of United Flight 93. The terrorists’ element of surprise remained intact, and Melodie Homer’s and Ed Ballinger’s worst fears came true.

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