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In the NEADS bunker, mission commander Nasypany had no way of knowing that. What he knew, thought he knew, was that his Langley fighters were by now close to Washington, well positioned for an intercept. “Get your fighters there as soon as possible,” he ordered.

Two minutes later, at 9:38, the major asked where the fighters were and learned that they were out over the ocean, 150 miles from where they were needed. Nasypany hoped against hope there was still time to respond. He urged them to fly supersonic—“I don’t care how many windows you break.” And, in frustration, “Why’d they go there? Goddammit! … OK, push ’em back!”

Too late, far too late. Even before Nasypany asked the whereabouts of his fighters, American 77 had scythed into the Pentagon.

Then, and even before the devastating news reached NEADS, Colin Scoggins was back on the phone again from Boston Center—this time with information as misleading as had been his report that Flight 11 was still airborne. “Delta 1989,” he said, “presently due south of Cleveland … Heading westbound.” Delta 1989 was a Boeing 767, like the first two planes seized, and like them it had left from Boston. “And is this one a hijack, sir?” asked Airman Rountree. “We believe it is,” Scoggins replied.

They believed wrong. Boston Center speculated that Delta 1989 was a hijack because it fit the pattern. It had departed Boston at about the same time as the first two hijacked planes. Like them it was a 767, heavily laden with fuel for a flight across the continent. Unlike them, however, it was experiencing no problems at all—until the false alarm.

NEADS promptly began tracking the Delta plane—easy enough to do because as a legitimate flight it was transmitting routine locator signals. It was the only airplane the military was able to tail electronically that day for any useful period of time. On seeing that Delta 1989 was over Ohio, NEADS sent a warning to the FAA’s Cleveland Center. For the airliner’s pilots, already jolted out of their routine by what little they had learned of the attacks, hours of puzzlement and worry began.

First came a text message, instructing Captain Paul Werner to “land immediately” in Cleveland. When the captain sent a simple acknowledgment, back came a second message reading, “Confirm landing in Cleveland. Use correct phraseology.” A perplexed Werner tried again—more wordily, but still too casually for Cleveland. Phrases like “confirmed hijack” and “supposedly has a bomb on board” began flying across the ether. Information from Delta 1989, a controller would report, was “really unreliable and shaky.”

By 9:45, only six minutes after his initial warning, Scoggins was saying the plane “might not be a hijack … we’re just not sure.” By then, though, the Air Force was busy trying to get fighters to the scene, Cleveland airport was in a state approaching panic, and 1989’s pilots feared they might have a bomb on board.

“I understand,” Cleveland control radioed Captain Werner meaningfully, “you’re a trip today,” The word “trip” was an established code for hijack, and Werner assured control he was not—only to be asked twice more. Once on the ground, at 10:18, he was ordered to taxi to the “bomb area,” far from the passenger terminal. Passengers and crew would not be allowed to disembark for another two hours, and then under the wary eyes of gun-toting FBI agents and a SWAT team in full body armor.

It had all been, a Cleveland controller would recall, like a “scene out of a bad movie.” Even before the innocent Delta 1989 landed, however, the latest phase of the aviation nightmare had become real-life horror—for Cleveland, for the Air Force team in its bunker, and, for the fourth time that day, for the nation. At 10:07, a phone call between the FAA’s Cleveland Center and NEADS produced a revelation.

FAA: I believe I was the one talking about that Delta

1989 … Well, disregard that. Did you? …

NEADS: What we found out was that he was not a confirmed hijack.

FAA: I don’t want to even worry about that right now. We got a