5:07 P.M. ET THE LAST LEG During the flight we spotted President Bush coming into the Secret Service cabin in the rear of the plane, speaking quietly to the agents, and then he stopped at the door of our press cabin. He waved away our reporters’ notebooks. He would save his public words for the Oval Office address to the nation coming up in three hours, but he did have a note of resolve in his voice when he warned the United States would “get those thugs.” We crossed the Blue Ridge Mountains as the sunlight faded on a day that had been so mild and clear all across the United States. The aircraft made a slow, full circle— probably not too far south of the spot where the fourth plane crashed in Pennsylvania—before we descended to the land at Andrews Air Force Base. Marine One was on the tarmac as usual, ready to whisk the president fast to the White House South Lawn. For the only time in memory, there was a second helicopter to take our small press travel pool down along the same river route to land in a golden sunset at 7:00 p.m. on the lawn of the Washington Monument, just outside the White House gates. We saw the same scene President Bush saw as he flew across the deserted capital. It was his first real glimpse of the shock and reality of that day—the thick black smoke rising from the ruins of the Pentagon’s gaping wound. America under attack. One month later, the United States bombed terrorists’ training camps in Afghanistan. One year later, Air Force One had been equipped with secure video satellite communications. One decade later, Osama bin Laden was killed when U.S. Special Operations stormed his secret location in Abbottabad, Pakistan.
Blanton, Thomas S. “The President’s Daily Brief,” updated April 12, 2004, including PDB for August 6, 2001, “Bid Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.” National Security Archive, nsarchive2.gwu/edu. Graff, Garrett M. The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of 9/11 (New York: First Avid Reader Press), 2019. Morell, Michael J. “The Turn to War: 11 September 2001, With the President,” Studies in Intelligence 50, no. 3 (September 2006): 23–34, document C01407035, approved for release September 10, 2014. Onion, Amanda. “September 11: Six Ways Uncertainty Reigned Aboard Air Force One,” posted September 10, 2019, updated September 12, 2019, History.com.
Air Force One arrives at Andrews Air Force Base, finally bringing President Bush home and concluding a long and historic flight, September 11, 2001.
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