>>> Each day, the Federal Aviation Administration office for each region of the US produces a Daily Operations Report. Additionally, the central FAA office produces a Daily Alert Bulletin. In June 2002, I sent a Freedom of Information Act Request for these reports dated 10, 11, and 12 September 2001.

Specifically, I asked for Daily Operations Reports from the New England region (Flights 11 and 175 originated in Boston) and from the Eastern region (Flight 93 originated in Newark; Flight 77 took off from Dulles International, outside of Washington, DC). I also requested the FAA's Daily Alert Bulletins for those three days.

Below are the results.

Daily Operations Reports from the New England Region

The FAA's New England office released all three reports (10 through 12 September). I've scanned them and converted them to Acrobat files:

10 Sept report

11 Sept report

12 Sept report

I was hoping these reports would yield some insights into what happened on 9/11, but they don't seem to add anything new. However, I would be interested in hearing interpretations from people who are knowledgeable about aviation matters.

Here is the entry for Flight 11:

SECURITY INCIDENT (S) 1

92 FATAL when American 11, B767, enroute from Boston - Los Angeles,
CA was hijacked in the vicinity of Albany, VOR, NY at 0813 EDT,
9/11/01. Aircraft subsequently crashed into the World Trade Center in NY.

RPRTD BY: Boston ARTCC (Biggio)
NTFYD: CASFO/(Turano) /O'Connor

Two aspects of the report for 12 Sept (which actually covers the period from 6:00 AM on 9/11 to 6:00 AM on 9/12) made me take notice:

First, there is no mention of Flight 175, which struck the North Tower. Flight 11, which hit the South Tower, is mentioned (as noted above), but not the other hijacked Boston flight. Talk about an oversight!

Second, the report lists the wreckage of a small, private plane being discovered by police at 2:30 PM EDT on 9/11. Further research reveals that the plane--with only the pilot on board--crashed in Connecticut at 8:23 PM EDT on the previous day. The accident was apparently due to bad weather at night and is not related to 9/11. [More info from the NTSB]

Daily Operations Reports from the Eastern Region

The FAA's Eastern office has refused to release its Daily Operations Reports for 10-12 September 2001. Specifically, the letter states:

The information that you seek, the Daily Operations Reports that cover September 10, 11, and 12, 2001, are not releasable and are exempt from disclosure as they concern 'inter-agency or intra-agency memorandum and letter which would not be available by law to a party...in litigation with the agency.' This determination is made in accordance with 5 U.S.C., Section 552 (b)(5), as implemented by 49 C.F.R., Section 7.13(c)5.

Take a moment to savor the apparent capriciousness of these decisions. I requested the same documents from two offices of the same agency. One office sends me all the documents (completely unredacted, no less), while the other office refuses to send me anything.

Obviously, someone has made a mistake. Either the Daily Operations Reports are releasable, in which case the Eastern region is unfairly withholding theirs. Or the Daily Operations Reports should not be released, in which case the New England region made a mistake by sending theirs to me.

Daily Alert Bulletins

The FAA main office has refused to release the Daily Alert Bulletins for 10-12 September 2001. They wrote:

That Daily Alert Bulletins that you have requested are prepared by the FAA Administrator's staff for the Administrator, and other senior agency officials. Much of the material contained in the Daily Alert Bulletins consists of specific facts that the Administrator's staff has selected from a larger group of facts. This exercise of judgment by agency personnel is deliberative in nature. The Daily Alert Bulletins also contain sensitive preliminary information and transportation security incidents with potential national security implications. Accordingly, the Daily Alert Bulletins qualify for withholding under the deliberative process privilege incorporated into Exemption 5 of the FOIA, 5 U.S.C. § 552 (b) (5), which protects deliberative, predecisional materials.

Because the content of many of these reports contain information regarding bomb threats, hijackings, etc., those portions would alternatively qualify for withholding under Exemption 2 of the FOIA, 5 U.S.C. § 552(b) (2), which protects from disclosure records, which relate to internal practices of the agency, release of which would risk the circumvention of the law.

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