NORAD Exercises (and Other) 9/11 Questions for Kara [UPDATED]

Greetings Miles Kara, and welcome to the blogosphere! 

As the History Commons contributor ‘paxvector’ who’s been scanning and uploading NARA’s 9/11 Commission records to Scribd.com/HistoryCommons (including many of yours), your public expression of gratitude for the project is appreciated. 

I am very interested in your blog, 9/11 Revisited, and that you’re responding to questions from the public. With your knowledge from having served on the Commission’s staff as a member of Team 8, you may be able to settle some of the unanswered questions and speculation regarding 9/11. 

I’ve compiled a list of questions and posted this as an open letter to you at my blog, 911Reports.com; Questions for Miles Kara on NORAD (and Other) Exercises. Your responses are up to you, of course, but as a courtesy to readers please include the questions with your responses, or provide a link to the questions and number your answers to correspond. 

Thanks for your time- I look forward to your response, and any additional information you may provide. 

Erik Larson 

1. What were the name(s) and scenario(s) of the hijack exercise(s) that NORAD conducted or planned to conduct on September 11, 2001?        

         At least one hijack exercise is documented by the NEADS tapes, and was reported on by Michael Bronner for Vanity Fair in 2006. Bronner provides some details of the exercise, and quotes Major Kevin Nasypany, who helped design the exercise:        

          ”When they told me there was a hijack, my first reaction was ‘Somebody started the exercise early,’” Nasypany later told me. The day’s exercise was designed to run a range of scenarios, including a “traditional” simulated hijack in which politically motivated perpetrators commandeer an aircraft, land on a Cuba-like island, and seek asylum. “I actually said out loud, ‘The hijack’s not supposed to be for another hour,’” Nasypany recalled.