63.  091836 AA77 Summersall to ZID from ATCSCC ZID TMU

Indianapolis Center:  Indy.

Herndon Center:  Hey Indy, this is Bob, Command Center.  Need you to find, tell me anything, or everything you can about American 77, where he is and if you have radar or not

Indianapolis Center:  Well, ok, I’m listenin’ to my Ops Manager talk to Washington.

Herndon Center:  I’m sorry.

Indianapolis Center:  We were talkin’ to him in the vicinity of, ah, Henderson.

Herndon Center:  Henderson? What’s Henderson?

Indianapolis Center:  Hang on, hang on a second. Ok. We, ah, I guess we were talkin’ to him, in the vicinity of Henderson, HNN. We lost communications and radar with him. Hang on a minute, I’m goin’ to have the Ops Manager tell ya the story.

Thomas:  Hello, Command Center.

Herndon Center:  Yes sir.

Thomas:  This is John Thomas, Ops Manager.  I think we need to let everybody know this right away, if they don’t already. American 77 was over, ah, was just west of Charleston, West Virginia, at flight level three five zero, it’s a heav—, heavy Boeing seven fifty two, and disappeared off our radar scope about twelve fifty six Z, a long with lost, ah, frequency. We were treating it as a lost, started to do some procedures to notify search and rescue, and what not, when—, when American Airlines told us they’d had some aircraft, or an aircraft hijacked. We now believe that aircraft may have been hijacked, although no one has, we have nothing, you know, to verify that. What with the World Trade Center we could have another loose aircraft out there somewhere.

Herndon Center:  K. At the time of loss do you, ah, what altitude was he at? Flight level.

Thomas:  Flight level, flight level three five zero.

Herndon Center:  And he just, just lost primary, also?

Thomas:  Lost all, yes lost, no primary, or ah that we could see. Course we couldn’t, wouldn’t necessarily be able to pick up a primary there anyway.

Herndon Center:  I’m assuming then that you’re, ah, doing what you can to do a primary read, re-track on him, if you can do that.

Thomas:  Yes, sure.

Herndon Center:  And then, ah, so at twelve fifty-six Zulu we lost front comm and radar. Any, ah, ELTs?

Thomas:  No ELTs.

Herndon Center:  Ah, um, ok, ah, any more information you get, I’d appreciate it, and I’ll forward this immediately up to the NOM and everyone that’s standin’ up there.

Thomas:  Thank you.

Herndon Center:  Thank you, bye.

Thomas:  Bye.