The television sets showed the South Tower of the World Trade Center collapsing. Transportation Secretary Norm Mineta, who'd been one of the first in the "PEOC," the Presidential Emergency Operations Center, was making lists of airline flight numbers,
trying to figure out which planes were confirmed hijacked and crashed, and which might still be threatening us in the air. Norm was working two telephones, with the FAA on one and his chief of staff on the other, trying to get the skies cleared until we
knew just what we were dealing with.
A commercial airline pilot usually has wide discretion to handle his aircraft in an emergency, and apparently someone said something to Norm about pilots deciding when and if to bring
their planes down. I heard him say in no uncertain terms that pilot discretion would not be the rule today. "Get those planes down now," he ordered.