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DUBROOM
ARTICLE SECTION |
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| Agency
Was to Crash Plane on 9/11 |
By
JOHN J. LUMPKIN
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) — In what the government
describes as a bizarre coincidence, one U.S.
intelligence agency was planning an exercise
last Sept. 11 in which an errant aircraft
would crash into one of its buildings. But
the cause wasn't terrorism — it was to be
a simulated accident.
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Officials at the Chantilly, Va.-based National
Reconnaissance Office had scheduled an exercise
that morning in which a small corporate jet would
crash into one of the four towers at the agency's
headquarters building after experiencing a
mechanical failure.
The agency is about four miles from the runways of
Washington Dulles International Airport.
Agency chiefs came up with the scenario to test
employees' ability to respond to a disaster, said
spokesman Art Haubold. No actual plane was to be
involved — to simulate the damage from the
crash, some stairwells and exits were to be closed
off, forcing employees to find other ways to
evacuate the building.
``It was just an incredible coincidence that this
happened to involve an aircraft crashing into our
facility,'' Haubold said. ``As soon as the real
world events began, we canceled the exercise.''
Terrorism was to play no role in the exercise,
which had been planned for several months, he
said.
Adding to the coincidence, American Airlines
Flight 77 — the Boeing 767 that was hijacked and
crashed into the Pentagon — took off from Dulles
at 8:10 a.m. on Sept. 11, 50 minutes before the
exercise was to begin. It struck the Pentagon
around 9:40 a.m., killing 64 aboard the plane and
125 on the ground.
The National Reconnaissance Office operates many
of the nation's spy satellites. It draws its
personnel from the military and the CIA.
After the Sept. 11 attacks, most of the 3,000
people who work at agency headquarters were sent
home, save for some essential personnel, Haubold
said.
An announcement for an upcoming homeland security
conference in Chicago first noted the exercise.
In a promotion for speaker John Fulton, a CIA
officer assigned as chief of NRO's strategic
gaming division, the announcement says, ``On the
morning of September 11th 2001, Mr. Fulton and his
team ... were running a pre-planned simulation to
explore the emergency response issues that would
be created if a plane were to strike a building.
Little did they know that the scenario would come
true in a dramatic way that day.''
The conference is being run by the National Law
Enforcement and Security Institute.
Updated: August 22, 2002 4:53 PM
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