Reply #13: YES!! It was running that morning! Operation Vigilant Guardian [View All]

[spooked]

"Vigilant Guardian" (NORAD exercise on 911/2001)

from "The Failure to Defend the Skies on 911" http://www.unansweredquestions.net/timeline/main/essayairdefense.html

Lt. Col. Dawne Deskins figured it would be a long day.
Sept. 11 was Day II of "Vigilant Guardian," an exercise that would pose an imaginary crisis to North American Air Defense outposts nationwide. The simulation would run all week, and Deskins, starting her 12-hour shift in the Operations Center as the NORAD unit's airborne control and warning officer, might find herself on the spot.
Day I of the simulation had moved slowly. She hoped the exercise gathered steam. It made a long day go faster.
8:40 A.M.: REAL WORLD
In the Ops Center, three rows of radar scopes face a high wall of wide-screen monitors. Supervisors pace behind technicians who peer at the instruments. Here it is always quiet, always dark, except for the green radar glow.
At 8:40, Deskins noticed senior technician Jeremy Powell waving his hand. Boston Center was on the line, he said. It had a hijacked airplane.
"It must be part of the exercise," Deskins thought.
At first, everybody did. Then Deskins saw the glowing direct phone line to the Federal Aviation Administration.
- "Amid Crisis Simulation, 'We Were Suddenly No-Kidding Under Attack'"
by Hart Seely, Newhouse News Service, January 25, 2002
http://www.unansweredquestions.net/timeline/2002/newhousenews012502.html