 |
||||||||
 |
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
Ashcroft had tense trip on Sept. 11©Washington Post
© St. Petersburg Times, WASHINGTON -- The morning sky on Sept. 11 was so crystalline that John Ashcroft and his staff, peering out the windows of the Cessna Citation V jet, could easily pick out other aircraft gliding in the distance. The attorney general, jovial and talkative on his way to Milwaukee, had just finished pointing out Detroit and some of the Great Lakes when the emergency call came through. "Yes," Ashcroft said into the secure phone, suddenly somber. "Yes." "One plane hit World Trade NY," he scribbled on a legal pad. "Second plane hit World Trade NY." Ashcroft hung up the phone and delivered a solemn message to his four passengers: "Our world has changed forever because of what I'm about to tell you." Then they tried to return to Washington. What followed was a hair-raising four-hour trip, described in an e-mail written by pilot David Clemmer that has been circulated on the Internet and by another passenger on board. It wasn't always clear if they would make it: Clemmer was warned at one point that the Cessna, a seven-passenger jet owned by the Federal Aviation Administration, would risk being shot down by the Air Force if it tried to enter the airspace around Washington. "We knew we had to get back," said one of the passengers, Susan Dryden, deputy communications director for the Justice Department. "It just wasn't clear how that was going to happen." In addition to Dryden, Ashcroft was joined that morning by David Israelite, his deputy chief of staff; Ralph Boyd, assistant attorney general for civil rights; and a detail officer from the FBI. Ashcroft was headed to Milwaukee to announce some grants and to visit an elementary school as part of President Bush's literacy initiative. After Ashcroft was briefed by the FBI, he asked the pilot to return to Washington. They needed to land in Milwaukee first to refuel, according to Dryden and the pilot's e-mail. Back in the air -- with a second FBI agent and another Justice aide joining them -- the plane was heading east when a flight controller ordered them to land at the nearest airport, according to the pilot's account. Clemmer requested an airport closer to Washington, but controllers continued to ask them to land and warned that they could be shot down if they disobeyed. "I remember the pilot saying, "The military has been ordered to shoot us down if we approach Washington,' " Dryden recalled. To avoid trouble, Clemmer charted a path to Richmond, while he negotiated for a fighter escort. "We didn't want to do anything that would jeopardize our safety or the safety of the AG," the pilot wrote in his e-mail, which has been confirmed in most respects by government officials. "I know I didn't want to get shot down either." During most of the flight, the skies were empty and the radio was quiet. Ashcroft sought to steel his staff for what lay ahead. "This is a battle that we have set before us," he said. "This is much bigger than anything we've seen before." But for the most part, Ashcroft, who had talked with FBI director Robert Mueller by secure phone early on, was quiet. "I think he sensed the enormous responsibility that he had," Dryden said. "He knew this would be his responsibility." As the jet got closer to Richmond, Clemmer was cleared for Washington. About 100 miles out, he was informed that fighter jets had been dispatched to intercept and escort the Cessna. Twenty miles ahead, one of the F-16s pulled alongside. The attorney general's plane, descending on Reagan National Airport, would be one of the last to land in the United States that day.
 © 2006 • All Rights Reserved • Tampa Bay Times
490 First Avenue South • St. Petersburg, FL 33701 • 727-893-8111 
|
From the Times wire desk
From the AP |
