Reply #30: Ahh, we joust again. :)

[MercutioATC]

The Center was evacuated, but SOMEBODY had to talk to the airplanes in our airspace. Volunteers to stay were solicited and Stacey was one of the volunteers chosen. I'd imagine that it wasn't presented that was because nobody asked. It wasn't a matter of "cowards and heroes", the Center just went to absolute minimum staffing.

I don't think you have a good picture of the size of our facility. We're the busiest ATC facility on the planet, employing about 470 controllers and 250 support staff. We cover 70,000 square miles of airspace. There's no way one controller could have handled that kind of workload, even if it was physically possible to combine all of the airspace at one sector (which it's not). There were obviously other controllers working at the time, they just didn't have contact with any of the 9/11 pl,anes (other than one other controller who's voice can be heard on the tapes when UAL93 first checks in at Cleveland Center).