Joint Chiefs Chairman Caine recalls split-second decision to defend D.C. on 9/11

General Dan Caine was sitting in a scheduling meeting at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland when a young staffer rushed in with news that a plane had struck the North Tower of the World Trade Center. It was the morning of September 11, 2001. Caine, then chief of Weapons and Tactics for the 121st Fighter Squadron, watched on live television as the second aircraft hit the South Tower at 9:03 a.m. The moment the second plane appeared on screen and struck its target, he knew without hesitation that the country was under attack. His squadron moved into action immediately.

Within minutes, Caine issued orders to begin moving the base's weapons—including air-to-air missiles—into position. Smoke from the Pentagon was visible on the horizon when the White House called with a direct order: get airborne and scramble to defend Washington, D.C. The rules of engagement were unusually permissive. The wing commander, Brigadier General Dave Wherley, pulled Caine aside and told him something he has never forgotten: "Look, Dan, I don't know what you're going to have to do out there, but I know you're going to do the right thing. I trust you." That trust came with the weight of an impossible decision.

The scramble happened so fast that not all aircraft could be armed in time. Two pilots—squadron operations officer Lieutenant Colonel Mark Sasseville and his wingman Heather Penney—took to the air without missiles. In 2021, Sasseville and Penney revealed that they had discussed ramming their aircraft into the hijacked plane if necessary, a maneuver that would have been fatal. Penney later said that while the military does not send service members on suicide missions, it was clear what needed to be done that morning. Caine's jet, by contrast, was loaded with live missiles. He took off knowing he might have to shoot down a commercial airliner carrying hundreds of civilians.

All aircraft had been ordered to clear the airspace over Washington, D.C. Any plane that refused to comply would be shot down on sight. Caine remembers the thought that crystallized in his mind as he climbed into the cockpit: "Wait a minute, that's me that's going to do the shooting here." He found himself repeating what he calls the fighter jet pilot's prayer—a plea to God not to fail in the moment, to think clearly through chaos, to stay calm in uncertainty, and if possible, to protect the country.

But the passengers aboard Flight 93 made a different choice. They learned through phone calls what had happened at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. They understood that their plane was being used as a weapon. A group of them, led by Todd Beamer and Mark Bingham and others, decided to fight back. They rushed the cockpit. The hijackers, realizing they had lost control, deliberately crashed the plane into an empty field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. No building was hit. Washington, D.C., was not directly attacked from the air.

Caine never had to fire his missiles. He praised the passengers who fought back, calling them the first to strike a blow in defense of the country that dark morning. "We take an oath in the military to protect and defend the United States of America," he said. "They got on an airliner, and yet they were the first ones that fought back." He also commended the emergency workers who rushed toward the crash sites and burning towers while others fled.

Twenty-five years later, Caine carries the weight of that day differently than he did when he was a young pilot who thought flying jets was cool. September 11 made it real. The examples of courage and tenacity he witnessed—from the passengers who fought hijackers, from the first responders who ran toward danger, from his own squadron preparing to make an unthinkable choice—remain with him as a gift and a measure of what it means to serve. He said he did not truly understand the meaning of military service until that morning, and the understanding has only deepened with time.