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As thousands of first responders and emergency workers rushed to Ground Zero on 9/11, America’s military also rapidly leapt into action.
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine was the chief of Weapons and Tactics for the 121st Fighter Squadron at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland that day. He told CBS News’ Norah O’Donnell that he had just entered a scheduling meeting when a young staffer burst in to say that a plane had struck the North Tower of the World Trade Center. He and his colleagues then watched on live television as the second plane hit the South Tower at 9:03 a.m.
“I still remember to this day, Norah, what I felt and what I thought as we all watched that news helicopter camera filming the burning tower. What I felt and thought when the second airplane entered that shot and hit the second tower,” Caine said. “I knew right away that our nation was under attack, and we began to move right into action immediately.”
There was “no doubt” that the country was at war, Caine said, and his squadron began preparations.
Caine gave orders for the base’s weapons, including air-to-air missiles, to start moving, he said. With smoke from the Pentagon visible on the horizon, Caine received a call from the White House ordering the squadron “to get airborne to scramble to defend” Washington, D.C. The rules of engagement were “very liberal,” Caine said.
Orders were given to try to intercept United Flight 93, which hijackers planned to fly into a federal building in Washington, D.C., shortly before it crashed in a Pennsylvania field.
“They put the responsibility on us, and they came to our wing commander, Brig. Gen. Dave Wherley,” Caine said. “He said something that I’ll never, ever forget. He said, ‘Look, Dan, I don’t know what you’re going to have to do out there, but I know you’re going to do the right thing. I trust you.'”
Some planes were put in the air so quickly that there wasn’t time to arm them with missiles. Two of those planes were piloted by squadron operations officer Lt. Col. Mark Sasseville and wingman Heather Penney. In 2021, Sasseville and Penney told CBS News they had planned to ram their aircraft into the plane. It would have been a fatal maneuver.
“In the military, we don’t send our service members on suicide missions,” Penney said. “But it was clear what needed to be done that morning.”
Caine’s jet, however, was loaded with live missiles, and he took off knowing that he might have to take down a commercial airliner. All planes had been ordered to stop flying in the airspace over Washington, D.C., with a warning given that any disobedient craft would be shot down immediately.
“I remember thinking, ‘Wait a minute, that’s me that’s going to do the shooting here,'” Caine said. “And I think the biggest thing that ran through my mind is the, sort of, the fighter jet pilot prayer: ‘Dear God, please don’t let me screw this up.’ I just want to get out there and be able to do my job, to think through chaos, to remain calm through uncertainty, and if possible, protect, protect the country.”
But because the passengers aboard United Flight 93 stormed the cockpit and crashed the plane in an empty field far from any intended target, Caine didn’t have to fire, and Washington, D.C., was not directly hit. Caine praised the courage of those passengers.
“We take an oath in the military to protect and defend the United States of America. They got on an airliner, and yet they were the first ones that fought back in those dark, dark moments on September 11,” Caine said.
Caine also commended the emergency workers who responded to the crash sites.
“That is what makes our country great: to set aside that uncertainty and that fear and move towards the problem for somebody else,” Caine said.
Even 25 years later, Caine said he still remains affected by the events of the day.
“I don’t think I understood what it means to serve this country until September 11,” Caine said. “You know, I was probably a young fighter pilot who thought it was cool to fly jets, but then it got very real on September 11 and the days that followed, and the examples that the American people got on that day of courage, tenacity, grit, patriotism, remain a gift in many ways for me 25 years later.”
