As the events on the morning of September 11, 2001, were taking place, “Flight 175 also had been hijacked, but the New York Air Traffic Control was slow to respond, in part because the controller assigned to the flight was also assigned to Flight 11 and was busy searching for that missing plane. At 9:03 a.m.–at almost the exact moment Flight 175 hit the South Tower–the New York Center called NEADS [NORAD’s Northeast Air Defense Sector] to report that Flight 175 had been hijacked. The fighters awaiting target assignments off Long Island did not know that a second hijacked plane was en route to New York City. Within five minutes of the second plane’s impact, the NEADS mission crew commander asked for authorization to station the fighters over Manhattan in case there were even more hijacked planes. At 9:25 a.m., the two fighters established combat air patrol over the city.”
– Popular Mechanics editors, Debunking 9/11 Myths, Pages 17-18