“What the hell is a freight dog doing here at this time of the day and pretending to be a Citation?”
The only answer that occurred to the veteran controller brought a full sense of panic to the surface.
“Oh, my God! This can’t be happening to us. No, no, no!”
“What is it, what’s going on?” Phil asked.
“They’re headed for the navy base…”
“What are you talking about?”
Claire’s mind raced back to earlier that morning, when she’d been in the break room reading the Virginian-Pilot.
She remembered that Bush and Truman were at port, with Truman scheduled to depart today. Instead of replying, she grabbed for the phone and hit the speed dial for her superiors at the Federal Aviation Administration Air Traffic Control Systems Command Center in Herndon, Virginia.
As she did so, the DC-9 banked sharply to the left, accelerating away from the airport very low to the ground. It flew over Interstate 64 just high enough to clear the tops of vehicles. A large number of startled motorists panicked and swerved off the busy highway, causing several collisions.
After slipping her moorings, Truman remained twenty-five yards from the pier, giving Betty Lou ample time to wrap up her final interview before motioning Stu to direct the camera at the carrier. But instead, he started moving toward one edge of the pier, away from the crowd.
“Where are you going?” she asked as she heard the sound of jet engines over the horizon.
“Navy flyover,” he said. “Need some separation from the carrier to get a good shot. Be right back.”
Betty Lou had covered ship deployments before and nodded approvingly as Stu took off, reaching a spot several hundred feet from Truman, near the north edge of the pier, before panning toward the southeastern skies. Navy jets zooming over the carrier would make a great finish to her piece in the evening news.
But as she started to improvise a narrative, she noticed what appeared to be an airliner skimming the water. The low-flying commercial jet suddenly banked steeply toward the aircraft carrier.
As the shocked crowd realized what was happening and began running down the pier, Betty Lou froze, the unthinkable becoming painfully obvious. Terrifying images of airliners plunging into the World Trade Center flashed through her mind.
Chaos on a grand scale broke out as people stampeded, stumbling over one another in an effort to avoid the impending carnage. Betty Lou considered joining them as she noticed Stu at the edge of the large dock capturing the surreal moment.
Traveling in excess of 340 miles per hour, and still accelerating low to the water, the DC-9 almost overshot the turn toward Truman.
The force of an eighty-five-thousand-pound aircraft traveling at nearly 360 miles per hour struck the aircraft carrier’s island just above the large “75” painted on its side. Thousands of pounds of explosives and fuel ignited on impact, creating a fireball that consumed the island. The massive antenna array toppled from the top into the sea on the starboard side of the ship.
The detonation engulfed the steel superstructure overlooking the flight deck, including the admiral’s bridge, the captain’s bridge, the navigation bridge, the chart room, flight-deck control, and primary flight control.
A solid wall of flaming jet fuel and molten debris swept across the flight deck. It incinerated hundreds of sailors before leaping over the water toward the pier like a wave of red-hot shrapnel, cascading into the crowd still trying to get away from the carrier.
Stu Winters watched in horror, yet managed to keep his footing, capturing the attack in high definition. Acrid smoke burned his eyes and lungs as he panned the camera looking for Betty Lou. But everywhere he focused, he saw only death and destruction.
His instincts told him to keep filming, but his conscience took over as images of the wounded and dead filled his viewfinder.
Turning off the camera, he went to help those he could.
Twenty-seven seconds after the airliner struck the ship, an automatic distress signal from the damaged carrier reached the National Military Command Center at the Pentagon. Less than three minutes later, the news reached the White House. At the same time, NS Norfolk and nearby military installations went to their highest security posture, including the skeleton crew aboard USS George H. W. Bush (CVN 77), also in Norfolk and with a clear view of the destruction of Truman.
Commander Jeff Weathers, the carrier’s executive officer (XO), had witnessed the attack from the captain’s bridge. He had immediately ordered the ship to general quarters.
Bush was the second Nimitz-class carrier to receive a modernized island, smaller and also set farther aft for improved flight-deck operations and reduced radar signature. It also meant that all of the ship’s defensive systems, including two Raytheon Phalanx close-in weapon systems were at his fingertips.
Weathers scanned the horizon with a pair of field binoculars as his weapons officer came running inside the bridge, responding to the general quarters alarm. Ensign Deena Kohl rushed to her station, shoulder-length hair tucked inside her cap and lips compressed, settling behind her console. Other crew members followed behind her.
In addition to the Phalanx system, Weathers had two MK 29 missile launchers loaded with Evolved Sea Sparrow Missiles, plus two RIM-116 Rolling Airframe Missile launchers — both designed for threats that were further out. The Phalanx was the last line of automated weapons defense against anti-ship missiles and attacking aircraft.
“Turn on the starboard CWIS,” he ordered, pronouncing it “sea-whiz.”
Kohl did a double take on him, narrowing her brown eyes. “But — but, sir, we’re at port, and it’ll track and shoot at anything that—”
“I know where we are, Ensign Kohl! This is not a drill! Do it!”
“Aye, sir!”
Weathers had already been patched in to the Norfolk Airport tower and also Norfolk Approach a minute after the DC-9 went rogue, and he had been informed about a C-46 cargo plane also inbound toward the port. Approach was tracking the latter on their radar as it made a wide circle to reach the base from the east. The last report still showed it around five miles out at a hundred feet pushing 140 knots.
Weathers glared at the column of smoke billowing into the air from the burning Truman. He would be damned if Bush would suffer the same fate.
Not on my watch.
Thirty seconds later the radar officer looked up from his screen. “Incoming bandit. Range three point four miles. Altitude one-one-zero. Heading three-one-zero. Speed one-four-three knots. Sir, it’s turning toward us!”
Weathers panned the binoculars across the sky, his pulse racing.
“Range two point nine miles. Altitude one-two-zero feet. Heading two-seven-zero. Speed one-six-one knots. It’s accelerating… on a direct collision course.”
Where are you, mother—?
“There!” he shouted, spotting it around a bend in the Elizabeth River. Snapping his head at Kohl, he said, “Engage.”
She worked the keyboard, and the starboard 20 mm Vulcan Gatling cannon swung into action. Mounted on a swivel base beneath its independent radar inside a barrel-shaped housing, it started tracking the incoming threat.
“Range two point three miles. Altitude one-two-zero feet. Heading two-seven-zero. Speed one-six-niner knots.”
Weathers stared at the Phalanx forward of the island making final adjustments as the C-46 crossed inside the gun system’s effective range.