billski
Active member
When word of a possible hijacking came, Lt. Col. Dan Nash and Col. Tim Duffy flew at supersonic speed to Manhattan. The same minute they left, the first plane struck the towers.
DUFF: We’re going down there. We’re accelerating to (Mach) 1.3, 1.4, so we’re doing a mile every three, four seconds. We’re kind of hauling the mail getting down there. And actually Nasty even called me up at one point and said, “Duff, you going supersonic?” And I said, “Yeah, OK.” We’re not supposed to do that, but this time I figured we were high enough, we weren’t going to blow out any windows or do any damage so, we kept the Mach up trying to get there as quick as we could.
“I said, ‘Tell me that’s a cloud.’ And he came back and said, ‘No, that’s smoke.’”–Lt. Col. Dan Nash
...
DUFF: It was never an order or anything like that. They said it was just one of those, “You may have to shoot down the next hijacked track, understood?” Because they even came back and said, “Do you have a problem with that?”
And I was thinking, “Well, if I have a problem with that, I’m probably the wrong person to be sitting in a single seat fighter,” you know?
...
So I think the frustration comes in that way, that it was a no-win kind of situation. And, you know, here we are with very capable planes, we’re trained pilots in them, and there’s nothing we can do about it. I think that kind of frustration was tough to deal with. You’re kind of going through that, because there’s nothing you could do.
http://www.wbur.org/2011/09/07/fighter-pilots
DUFF: We’re going down there. We’re accelerating to (Mach) 1.3, 1.4, so we’re doing a mile every three, four seconds. We’re kind of hauling the mail getting down there. And actually Nasty even called me up at one point and said, “Duff, you going supersonic?” And I said, “Yeah, OK.” We’re not supposed to do that, but this time I figured we were high enough, we weren’t going to blow out any windows or do any damage so, we kept the Mach up trying to get there as quick as we could.
“I said, ‘Tell me that’s a cloud.’ And he came back and said, ‘No, that’s smoke.’”–Lt. Col. Dan Nash
...
DUFF: It was never an order or anything like that. They said it was just one of those, “You may have to shoot down the next hijacked track, understood?” Because they even came back and said, “Do you have a problem with that?”
And I was thinking, “Well, if I have a problem with that, I’m probably the wrong person to be sitting in a single seat fighter,” you know?
...
So I think the frustration comes in that way, that it was a no-win kind of situation. And, you know, here we are with very capable planes, we’re trained pilots in them, and there’s nothing we can do about it. I think that kind of frustration was tough to deal with. You’re kind of going through that, because there’s nothing you could do.
http://www.wbur.org/2011/09/07/fighter-pilots
