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MEMORANDUM FOR THE RECORD

Event: Lt Col Ryan Gonsalves
DECLASSIFIED UNDER AUTHORITY OF THE
INTERAGENCY SECURITY CLASSIFICATION APPEALS PANEL,
E.O. 13526, SECTION 5.3(b)(3)
ISCAP APPEAL NO. 2011-048, document no. 19
DECLASSIFICATION DATE: September 29, 2014
Type: Interview
Date: 5/14/04
Prepared by: Miles Kara
Special Access Issues: None
Participants (non-Commission): J effDonathin, Major Meyer, J CS General Counsel's
Office
Participants (Commission): Dana Hyde andMiles Kara
Location: by conference call from9-11 Commission office at theGSA building
Background
Army officer assigned inJ une 1999toNMCC, served as Senior Operations Officer, but
rotated through all positions. Was quitecomfortable at theposition.
9/11
Normal shift, started at 0500. Normal brief at 0530 or 0600 inthemorning. Hemade a
chronology that was observable at theDDO andADDO positions. ADDO andhewere
talking inside theDDO shack when thenews came in. They talked about it for afew
minutes andthen he said"let's call theFAA andseewhat they have." Called onthered
switch totheduty officer and got patched into another office inFAA. Hewas told there
were acouple of hijacks, but hadno ideait was aterrorist attack. Whilethat call was
going onthesecond aircraft hit thesecondtower. It didn't come together until the
second strike.
Hewas getting accurate information fromFAA about two aircrafts. Believes hewas on
the linefor sometime. They kept thelineopen andthought that it was recorded at the
SOO station. It sounded likeit was aconference call.
Reporting fromSOO station was that there areacouple of aircraft that arepossibly
hijacked+-one that hit WTC andonethat hit thePentagon. That recall was clarified
against thelog entry which mentions thefirst oneandthe word hijack inconjunction with
American flight 11.
He doesn't recall asking if FAA needed any assistance, that isn't something hewould do.
They went through thechecklist for hijacking maintained intheDDO shack. Hedoesn't
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recall that anyone asked for assistance. No oneasked for F-15 support fromNew York
andNew J ersey National Guards.
Healways thought that there weretwo aircraft anddoesn't recall ifhe heard that inthe
first FAA call. Any further information was fromthefirst call that stayed open. He
wasn't surehow longthat linestayedopen. They hadto get other conferences up.
Onceall thebig players went into theDDO shack, hesort of dropped off theFAA call.
Hethough guidance was coming fromeither theVCJ CS or theDirector of the J oint staff.
After thesecond hit hewent to help out intheDDO shack.
Between WTC 2andPentagon herecalled assisting theDDO to gain information onwhat
was happening, establishing communications and getting other military command centers
up. Healso determined where themilitary leaders were. Hedid not talk to CIA, doesn't
recall if hecalled FBI. All conferencing was brought upintheEA cell.
Hewas not involved with theNOIWON conference. Oncethe SIEC andATCC are
stood up heis taken out of theloopandtheADDO gets involved. He was not involved in
theattempts to get FAA ontheline. 1,------,---------,------
E.O.13526, section 1.4(a)
Hisjob, then, was to help theADDO. When SECDEF cameinheworked onthe] I
requirements, monitored access tothe SOO station, answered questions rethe DEFCON
3message-the day-day operations of answering questions within NMCC andto the
commands. .
Hewas not aware of anSVTS ongoing. "No, Ma'am."
Initially, hedid not equate thePentagon strikewith the second hijack. He didn't even
feel the impact, helearned about it fromothers. He was not receiving updates onwhere
thesecond hijacked aircraftwas. Hethought that FAA was part of the SIEC conference.
Hetalked to them. EA can bring entities not ontheFRPIC (phonetic) into the
conference. Afterwards hethought heknew that theFAA comms difficulties were not a
red switch problembut aSTU III problem.
Inreference to red switch call, hehadnoknowledge that agencies outside theFAA were
onthat call. Herecalled that theadditional hijack information may have been after the
second STC strike. Hecould not link hijack information fromtheFAA call to anything
beyond what was inthe logentry. (KaraNote: theimplication helearned what weknow
FAA knew, that something hit thefirst tower aridthat AAII hadbeen hijacked.)
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