ON A PRE-9-11 OCCASION.
October 26th, 1999. This day the chartered Learjet carrying golfer Payne Stewart crashes and kills all on board.
The following is from the official National Transportation Safety Board crash report:
9:19 a.m. - The flight departs
9:24 - The Learjet's pilot responds to an instruction from air traffic control
9:33 - The controller radios another instruction. No response from the pilot. For 4 minutes the controller tries to establish contact.
9:38 - Having failed, the controller calls in the military. Note that he did not seek, nor did he require, the approval of the President of the United States, or indeed anyone. It's standard procedure, followed routinely, to call in the Air Force when radio contact with a commercial passenger jet is lost, or the plane departs from its flight path, or anything along those lines occurs.
9:54 - 16 minutes later -- the F-16 reaches the Learjet at 46,000 feet and conducts a visual inspection.
TOTAL ELAPSED TIME: 21 MINUTES.