9/11: Cheney ordered shoot-down too late

Blindsided by terrorists and beset by poor communications, US officials were so slow to react on September 11, 2001, that the last of four hijacked planes had crashed by the time Vice President Dick Cheney ordered hostile aircraft shot down.

In an unflinching report, the independent panel investigating the attacks depicted the Federal Aviation Administration as slow to alert the military to the hijackings – even failing to pass along word that one of the planes had been seized.