The Plan for the Security Control of Air Traffic and Air Navigation Aids (SCATANA) is an emergency preparedness plan of the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

which prescribes the joint action to be taken by appropriate elements of the

Department of Defense The United States Department of Defense (DoD, USDOD, or DOD) is an executive department of the U.S. federal government charged with coordinating and supervising the six U.S. armed services: the Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, Space Force, ...

Federal Aviation Administration The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is a Federal government of the United States, U.S. federal government agency within the United States Department of Transportation, U.S. Department of Transportation that regulates civil aviation in t ...

, and the

Federal Communications Commission The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is an independent agency of the United States government that regulates communications by radio, television, wire, internet, wi-fi, satellite, and cable across the United States. The FCC maintains j ...

in the interest of national security in order to effectively control air traffic and air navigation aids under emergency conditions. Known versions of the plan are dated June 1971 and August 1975. The plan implements parts of the Federal Aviation Act of 1958, the

Communications Act of 1934 The Communications Act of 1934 is a United States federal law signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on June 19, 1934, and codified as Chapter 5 of Title 47 of the United States Code, et seq. The act replaced the Federal Radio Commission w ...

, and Executive Order 11490 of October 28, 1969 (amended by Executive Order 11921 on June 11, 1976). A similar plan by the same name existed in

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

for many years before it was replaced by the Emergency Security Control of Air Traffic (ESCAT) Plan on October 9, 2002.

Use on September 11, 2001

The U.S. plan has been implemented once (other than tests) since its inception, and even then, it was a modified version. On September 11, 2001, the codeword was broadcast ordering that all U.S. air traffic be grounded, after the

September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks, also known as 9/11, were four coordinated Islamist terrorist suicide attacks by al-Qaeda against the United States in 2001. Nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners, crashing the first two into ...

. Even in that instance, the emergency plan was only partially implemented as the Defense Department left command and control of the air traffic system with the FAA and intentionally allowed all radio navigational aids to remain in operation to aid in the process of controlling and landing the thousands of planes which were aloft in domestic airspace. The ''

9/11 Commission Report ''The 9/11 Commission Report'', officially the ''Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States'', is the official report into the events leading up to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. It was prep ...

'' never refers to SCATANA directly, but it does discuss this unprecedented order and commends the

air traffic controller An Air traffic controller (ATC) is a person responsible for the coordination of traffic in their assigned airspace. Typically stationed in area control centers or control towers, they monitor the position, speed, and altitude of aircraft and c ...

s who carried it out. While several people have been credited with issuing the SCATANA order for a national ground stop, the 9/11 Commission credits FAA National Operations Manager Ben Sliney with effectively issuing the directive. At 9:42 am on the morning of September 11, 2001, after the Air Traffic Control System Command Center learned from news reports that a plane (

American Airlines Flight 77 American Airlines Flight 77 was a scheduled domestic transcontinental passenger flight from Dulles International Airport in Northern Virginia to Los Angeles International Airport in Los Angeles. The Boeing 757-200 aircraft serving the flig ...

) had crashed into the

Pentagon In geometry, a pentagon () is any five-sided polygon or 5-gon. The sum of the internal angles in a simple polygon, simple pentagon is 540°. A pentagon may be simple or list of self-intersecting polygons, self-intersecting. A self-intersecting ...

, Sliney "ordered all FAA facilities to instruct all aircraft to land at the nearest airport".

References

{{Federal Communications Commission air traffic control in the United States aviation law Federal Aviation Administration Federal Communications Commission September 11 attacks United States administrative law United States Department of Defense United States federal government administration legislation

Use on September 11, 2001

See also

References