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Started By
Message
‘We’re the Only Plane in the Sky’
Posted on 9/11/18 at 10:58 am
Posted on 9/11/18 at 10:58 am
quote:
Where was the president in the eight hours after the Sept. 11 attacks? The strange, harrowing journey of Air Force One, as told by the people who were on board.
Nearly every American above a certain age remembers precisely where they were on September 11, 2001. But for a tiny handful of people, those memories touch American presidential history. Shortly after the attacks began, the most powerful man in the world, who had been informed of the World Trade Center explosions in a Florida classroom, was escorted to a runway and sent to the safest place his handlers could think of: the open sky.
For the next eight hours, with American airspace completely cleared of jets, a single blue-and-white Boeing 747, tail number 29000—filled with about 65 passengers, crew and press, and the 43rd president, George W. Bush, as well as 70 box lunches and 25 pounds of bananas—traversed the eastern United States. On board, President Bush and his aides argued about two competing interests—the need to return to Washington and reassure a nation and the competing need to protect the commander in chief. All the while, he and his staff grappled with the aftermath of the worst attack on American soil in their lifetimes, making crucial decisions with only flickering information about the attacks unfolding below. Bush struggled even to contact his family and to reach Vice President Dick Cheney in the White House bunker.
The story of those remarkable hours—and the thoughts and emotions of those aboard—isolated eight miles above America, escorted by three F-16 fighters, flying just below the speed of sound, has never been comprehensively told.
This oral history, based on more than 40 hours of original interviews with more than two dozen of the passengers, crew and press aboard—including many who have never spoken publicly about what they witnessed that day—traces the story of how an untested president, a sidearm-carrying general, top aides, the Secret Service and the Cipro-wielding White House physician, as well as five reporters, four radio operators, three pilots, two congressmen and a stenographer responded to 9/11.
Originally published in 2016, but worth the read on today.
LINK
17
Posted on 9/11/18 at 11:00 am to AA77
quote:serious question: were they just just not prepared for something like this and just grabbed whatever the hell they could or did they specifically have 25lb of bananas for a reason?
as well as 70 box lunches and 25 pounds of bananas
Posted on 9/11/18 at 11:02 am to AA77
Where did they get 70 lunches and 25lbs of bananas on such short notice?
Posted on 9/11/18 at 11:02 am to jimbeam
quote:
did they specifically have 25lb of bananas for a reason?
sorry baw, that's classified
Posted on 9/11/18 at 11:02 am to jimbeam
quote:
serious question: were they just just not prepared for something like this and just grabbed whatever the hell they could or did they specifically have 25lb of bananas for a reason?
Really?
This post was edited on 9/11/18 at 11:03 am
Posted on 9/11/18 at 11:03 am to TigahTeeth
quote:
Where did they get 70 lunches and 25lbs of bananas on such short notice?
walmart
Posted on 9/11/18 at 11:04 am to TigahTeeth
quote:
Where did they get 70 lunches and 25lbs of bananas on such short notice?
quote:
filled with about 65 passengers, crew and press, and the 43rd president, George W. Bush, as well as 70 box lunches and 25 pounds of bananas
I wonder. Maybe just maybe they were procured when airforce 1 landed and were planned for lunch on the flight back to Washington.
This post was edited on 9/11/18 at 11:05 am
Posted on 9/11/18 at 11:04 am to TigahTeeth
quote:
Where did they get 70 lunches and 25lbs of bananas on such short notice?
Posted on 9/11/18 at 11:04 am to TigahTeeth
quote:
Where did they get 70 lunches and 25lbs of bananas on such short notice?
AF1 pretty much never rolls out without a pretty good stash of vittles and a lot of contingency planning
Posted on 9/11/18 at 11:05 am to TigahTeeth
Posted on 9/11/18 at 11:06 am to AA77
What I want to know is why they left the President sitting in a public school classroom while the VP and cabinet were whisked away to bunkers.
Posted on 9/11/18 at 11:08 am to jimbeam
They left Florida without any food, they were supposed to be going back to DC after the event there, and after the attacks they didn't know how long they would be in the air for.
quote:
Andy Card: I was comforted to find Barksdale was already on alert. It was going to be secure. No random terrorist would have mapped that Barksdale was where the president was going to go. We didn’t have to ring some bell and everyone would run out of the firehouse. Everyone was already out.
Lt. Gen. Tom Keck: We were already in a practice THREATCON Delta, the highest threat condition. I said lock her down for real. My deputy came in, Lt. Colonel Paul Tibbets—his grandfather was the pilot who flew the Enola Gay [which dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima]. He told me that at THREATCON Delta, general officers have to wear sidearms. I tried to refuse, but he insisted. So I was wearing my sidearm, which I never do. We got this radio request—Code Alpha—a high priority incoming aircraft. It wanted 150,000 pounds of gas, 40 gallons of coffee, 70 box lunches, and 25 pounds of bananas. It wouldn’t identify itself. It was clearly a big plane. It didn’t take us long to figure out that the Code Alpha was Air Force One.
Ann Compton: We were landing going into Barksdale, Ari came back to the press cabin and said, “This is off the record, but the president is being evacuated.” I said, “You can’t put that off the record. That’s a historic and chilling fact. That has to be on the record.” It was a stunning statement, about the president trying to hold the country together but facing a mortal enemy. The president cannot be found because of his own safety. That sent chills down my spine.
quote:
Gordon Johndroe: I don’t really remember eating, but the stewards put out some sandwiches and chips. The Air Force bills you for your meals aboard Air Force One, through the White House Military Office. I remember a couple days later getting a bill for $9.18. The bill said for meals on September 11th between Sarasota-Barksdale, Barksdale-Offutt, Offutt-Washington.
Posted on 9/11/18 at 11:08 am to TigahTeeth
quote:
Where did they get 70 lunches and 25lbs of bananas on such short notice?
Well they were at a school, so I'm gonna say the kids didnt get bananas with their lunch that day
Well I was wrong but seemed like a good guess
This post was edited on 9/11/18 at 11:11 am
Posted on 9/11/18 at 11:08 am to mikelbr
So the President of this he United States and his associates regularly eat boxed lunches and bananas for lunch while on AF1?
Posted on 9/11/18 at 11:10 am to jimbeam
25 lbs of bananas is about 65-70 bananas.
So they had a box lunch and a single banana for everyone on board.
So they had a box lunch and a single banana for everyone on board.
Posted on 9/11/18 at 11:11 am to TheCaterpillar
One pound bananas? Dang!
Posted on 9/11/18 at 11:12 am to TigahTeeth
quote:
Where did they get 70 lunches and 25lbs of bananas on such short notice?
They stole them from the school cafeteria GW was at
Posted on 9/11/18 at 11:12 am to mikelbr
How soon people forget.
Posted on 9/11/18 at 11:13 am to oleyeller
Didn’t they stop at Barksdale. Standard Air Force fligh lunch
Posted on 9/11/18 at 11:14 am to TigahTeeth
standard Air Force box lunch...not a big deal for any major base to pull that together quickly...
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