D.C. in Dark While Plane Was Intercepted

The episode rekindled concerns expressed after the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, when D.C. officials were not consulted about evacuations and road closures. Since then, authorities have staged drills in hopes of improving coordination. But similar problems occurred in March when Pentagon officials did not consult local health authorities about distributing antibiotics to 900 defense workers during an anthrax scare.

Ramsey and top D.C. police officials said Sgt. Guy Poirier was stationed Wednesday at the Homeland Security Operations Center, along with members of other local, state and federal agencies. He was in a room with law enforcement officials who do not have high-security clearance. Federal authorities with such clearances, stationed in another room, reported monitoring the actions starting at 11:28 a.m. But Ramsey said that they did not share information with Poirier.

"It is compartmentalized," Ramsey said. "Everyone is not privy to all the information over there. . . . They are literally separated by doors."

Asked about federal coordination, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the District has a liaison posted to the Department of Homeland Security's operations center round-the-clock.

"You have a number of personnel, that includes local officials, as well, or representatives of local organizations, like the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department," McClellan said, "and they're in constant communication" with other command centers.

But Ramsey said Poirier learned about the plane when a Capitol Police intelligence official called him for information about the airspace violation. Capitol Police had learned of the intrusion by monitoring radar and FAA communications at their own high-tech command post, police said.

The Capitol Police official also was having difficulty getting details, Ramsey said, and "thought he could get more information from calling our guy."

After the telephone call, Poirier scrambled to get information. He then called his boss, Cmdr. Cathy Lanier, on her cell phone at 12:05 p.m., police officials said. By then, the plane had flown within three miles of the White House, and authorities had started evacuations.

Lanier said that she quickly sent a page to alert her superiors. Ramsey, at his desk and unaware of the evacuations, received his page at 12:11 p.m. The page said that a plane had entered restricted airspace and that fighter jets had intercepted it and turned it away from the city, Ramsey and Lanier said.

Ramsey said he then alerted the mayor.

The chief said he is looking into how the other communications breakdown occurred. Someone in the D.C. police command center -- a high-tech setting where officers monitor daily operations, emergencies and world events -- had lost the telephone connection that is supposed to be continuously tied to the FAA communication system. The network, connected to a speakerphone in the police command post, carries air traffic control communications when a major incident occurs anywhere in the country.

Ramsey said: "Had they been listening, we would have gotten an earlier heads-up that there was some activity in skies around Washington. At least we would have known something was going on."

Ramsey said officers in the command center also monitor two computer systems that display alerts about emergencies. The system, run by the Homeland Security Department, never issued an alert about the plane, he said.

"It didn't have anything" about the airplane, Ramsey said.

Staff writers Sara Kehaulani Goo, Sari Horwitz, Fredrick Kunkle, Susan Levine and Eric M. Weiss contributed to this report.