[Classification]

MEMORANDUM FOR THE RECORD

Event: Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Boston Center Field Site Interview 1 with
Shirley Kula, Operations Supervisor, Boston Center.
Type of event: Interview
Date: Monday, September 22, 2003
Special Access Issues: None
Prepared by: Geoffrey Brown
Team Number: 8
Location: FAA Boston Center, Nashua, New Hampshire
Participants - Non-Commission: Chris , FAA General Consul
Participants - Commission: John Azzarello, Miles Kara, Geoffrey Brown

NOTE: Unless otherwise noted, the following paraphrases the response and opinion of
the interviewee. Please refer to the interview transcript for a complete account.

Kula has been an Air Traffic Controller (ATC) since 1982, and was an ATC supervisor
for three years prior to 9/11. On 9/11 she was fulfilling a supervisor requirement to spend
8 hours per month at a radar scope, and was working the Athens Sector 38 Radar
Associate (RA) position.

On 9/11 Kula was notified from 46R that AA11 took a 20 degree turn but did not change
elevation to the instructed Flight Level 350 (35,000 feet). 46R had called Sector 47
(Boston Approach) to see if AA11 had stayed on radio frequency 112.7. After that proved
unsuccessful, Kula instructed a call be placed through Aeronautical Radio Incorporated
(AKA Airlnc) to attempt to call AA11 through their system, and Kula instructed AA11
be contacted on "guard" (an open frequency used for the entire Boston Center airspace).
Kula found out from John Schippani that there was suspicious communication in the
cockpit. Kula instructed Ron Smith to call all vertical airspace under Sector 22 for AA11,
and once AA11 took the hard southern turn Kula input the change in route to inform
other ATCs there was an airplane that may cross the paths of their air traffic.

Kula noted that it was at this point at which she became extremely concerned for AA11.
She noted that though it was usual to have a NORAC (no radio communication) airplane
in that sector, the serious course deviation and unsure altitude were dangerous factors for
the other air traffic traveling through Boston Center.

In efforts to determine AAl 1 's altitude, Kula asked a Delta flight to visually check
AAl 1 's altitude. The Delta flight reported approximately FL 290.

Kula was no longer directly supervising AAl 1 after the handoff of the flight to Sector 20.

It was definitive in Kula's mind after she heard of an impact at the World Trade Center
that it was AAl 1.

Military:

Kula was unaware that military radar could find altitude, and she was not involved with
the fighter scramble from Otis Air Force Base. Kula did vaguely recall a scramble in the
"early 80s" off the eastern coast, but "certainly nothing since 1985."

Kula noted the Dynamic Simulation (DynSim) training programs usually have a hijack
scenario every year, but those scenarios in her experience have never consisted of
multiple hijacks, or in her experience of a single hijack that necessitates a vectored
military fighter.

Kula noted that the Boston Center Watchdesk open line with Giant Killer (military
airspace coverage of low to mid range altitudes along eastern coast), which rings once a
shift for a line check, as well as the open line with DENS are both positive steps for more
rapid communication.
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