In the heat of the moment, all suggestions were considered, but no decision was made to employ unarmed fighters as battering rams. -- Colonel Robert Marr Jr

Ramming Planes Considered on 9-11

By ROBERT BURNS ASSOCIATED PRESS
Associated Press

WASHINGTON -- Moments after the Sept. 11 attacks, a U.S. air defense commander considered sending pilots in unarmed Air Force fighter jets on suicide missions to ram any other hijacked airliners.

No such missions were ordered, nor did the commander, Air Force Col. Robert Marr Jr., ask his superiors in the North American Aerospace Defense Command for authority to issue such orders.

"It was a thought that went through his mind," said Marr's spokeswoman, Lt. Col. Kacey Blaney.

Marr said Friday the idea of ramming any additional hijacked airliners -- beyond the three that hit the World Trade Center and Pentagon and the one that crashed in Pennsylvania -- came up as he and aides huddled in their command center to consider the unprecedented crisis that was unfolding.

At that moment, it was unclear how many hijackings would occur, and Marr knew he had only four armed fighter jets available in his area of responsibility, called the Northeast Air Defense Sector, stretching from Minnesota to Maine to Virginia.

"In the heat of the moment, all suggestions were considered, but no decision was made to employ unarmed fighters" as battering rams, Marr said in a statement provided by Blaney.

The fact that the United States had only a small number of armed fighter jets on air defense duty on Sept. 11 reflects that in the aftermath of the Cold War, aerial attacks were considered a minimal threat. Also, the U.S. military never before had the mission of defending against domestic aerial attack.

For months after Sept. 11, combat air patrols were flown continuously over Washington and New York. Such patrols are now periodic, and fighter jets are on short-notice alert at bases across the country.

Marr first disclosed that he had considered this last-ditch tactic in an interview with the British Broadcasting Corp., which is preparing to air a documentary on the events of Sept. 11.

In his statement Friday, Marr said it was his responsibility to consider even the most extreme measures.

"An airman asked to make the ultimate sacrifice in defense of his country is no more or less than the soldier asked to storm the beaches at Normandy," he said.

Unsure how many attacks might follow those on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Marr diverted unarmed Michigan Air National Guard fighter jets that happened to be flying a training mission in northern Michigan at the time of the first attack, but they were released after the fourth hijacked plane went down in Pennsylvania.

"There was a push to get everything available in the air," to defend the skies after the attacks began, said Maj. Barry Venable, spokesman for the North American Aerospace Defense Command, the parent unit of Marr's command.

Blaney said Marr and others who huddled in his command center in Rome, N.Y., that morning searched for ideas, realizing that unarmed fighter jets could be used in a variety of roles -- as extra "eyes and ears," possibly even as battering rams.

"All of this was considered: How can we possibly use them?" Blaney said. "All good commanders are called on to think outside the box, and this probably would have been outside the box."

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