New York Deputy Mayor Requested Navy Fighter Jets to Protect the City on 9/11 but None Arrived
Admiral Robert Natter, then commander of the US Atlantic Fleet, recalls how he received a request for the US Navy to provide fighter jets to help protect New York following the attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, and yet, inexplicably, no Navy fighters subsequently arrived over the city. Natter says that following the first crash at the World Trade Center, Rudy Washington, the deputy mayor of New York City, called him "to ask for assistance, due to the significant damage to the first tower." The assistance he requested included a hospital ship and construction equipment. While the two men were talking, though, a second plane crashed into the World Trade Center, which made clear that this was a terrorist attack. Washington therefore "asked for air assistance," Natter recalls. Washington called Natter once more after the South Tower collapsed. During that call, he again asked "if we could provide air cover." Natter immediately called Vice Admiral Michael Malone, the commander of naval air forces, and to him that they needed to "check in with the North American Air Defense Command, who should have had control of this operation." And yet, despite Washington's request and Natter's subsequent action, apparently no Navy fighters ever arrived over New York to help protect the city that day. This video is an excerpt from "The September 11 Attacks: A 20 Year Reflection." Naval Historical Foundation, September 10, 2021.
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