[Scan-DC] RE: Sunday's String on 121.5

[tom at clouse.com]

From today's New York Times:

Hijacking Scare Brings Jets to Northeast

Published: March 15, 2005

The North American Aerospace Defense Command scrambled two F-16 fighters from Atlantic City, N.J., on Sunday afternoon to patrol airspace in the Northeast after an airline pilot and two other pilots overheard transmissions indicating a hijacking, officials said on Monday.

The Coast Guard also received reports of aircraft with mechanical problems, but the reports included tail numbers for planes that did not exist, officials said.

The location of the planes was not clear. "I'm hearing Boston, I'm hearing New York, I don't know where," said Maj. Douglas Martin of the Canadian Army, a spokesman for Norad. He would not say exactly where the fighters, which were from the New Jersey Air National Guard, patrolled.

Major Martin said Norad had flown about 40,000 sorties since Sept. 11, 2001, about 2,000 of which were diversions from planned air controls, or planes that were gathered in a scramble.

A spokeswoman for the Transportation Security Administration, Lauren G. Stover, said of the radio broadcasts: "There were a few things that were communicated. The overall transmissions were distress-related."

Ms. Stover said that her agency coordinated with the Federal Aviation Administration, Norad and other agencies and used the occasion as an exercise to practice its response. She said the government had carried out "a serious response to a noncredible threat."