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Ben Sliney was the National Operations Manager for the FAA on September 11 and Sept 11 was his FIRST day on the job.

Sliney seems to be the guy who initially gave the order to ground ALL planes stateside.
Sources: http://baylink.pitas.com/20020822.html http://my.metafilter.com/search_comments.cfm?user_ID=3063
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2002/09/10/ED40688.DTL http://www.davidrhenderson.com/articles/0902_mrwhitehouse.html
From an report by David R. Henderson, Monterey: "I teach at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey (->), meaning that I instruct young military officers who are generally smart, hard working and curious. On Aug. 27, I realized that I might well have one of the best jobs in America. That afternoon, the school's guest speaker was President Bush's White House counsel, Alberto Gonzalez, widely believed to be on the short list for the next Supreme Court appointment. What happened spoke volumes, not just about Gonzalez and his likely positions on the Constitution, but also about the students at the Naval Postgraduate School. Let me explain. I went to the talk prepared to ask Gonzalez how he could justify the president's making war without a congressional declaration, and took my pocket copy of the U.S. Constitution in case he needed reminding of the its words. Unfortunately, he did. Fortunately, I didn't need to be the one to remind him: The students did the job and much more. In his speech, Gonzalez tried to justify not just war without a congressional declaration, but the government's decision to imprison U.S. citizens such as Jose Padilla, the alleged "dirty bomber," without charging them with a crime or allowing them a lawyer. Padilla is now in a military prison in South Carolina. Bush needed power to make quick decisions, Gonzalez said, and Congress would take too long. Among the examples he cited was the Sept. 11 decision to close down U.S. airspace and force commercial and private planes to land or remain grounded. But that example was, to put it mildly, a reach. The person who made that decision, and who didn't need even Bush's consent to do so, was Ben Sliney, the FAA's national operations manager."

In addition to his duties at the Naval Postgraduate School, David R. Henderson is a research fellow with the Hoover (->) Institution and author of "The Joy of Freedom: An Economist's Odyssey" (Prentice Hall, 2002). (-> Stand down)


from...
cooperativeresearch.org/entity.jsp?entity=ben_sliney

The FAA's Command Center in Herndon, Virginia, begins its usual daily senior staff meeting.
 National Operations Manager Ben Sliney interrupts the meeting to report a possible hijacking in progress,
as the Center had been told about the Flight 11 hijacking two minutes earlier. Later, a supervisor interrupts the meeting
 to report that a flight attendant on the hijacked aircraft may have been stabbed.
The meeting breaks up before the first WTC crash at 8:46 a.m.
 Apparently, no one in the meeting contacts NORAD. [Aviation Week and Space Technology, 1/17/2002]

According to Mineta, "At approximately 9:45 ... I gave the FAA the final order for all civil aircraft to land at the nearest airport as soon as possible." [9/11 Commission, 6/23/2003] At the time, 4,452 planes are flying in the continental US. A later account states that Ben Sliney, the FAA's National Operations Manager, makes the decision without consulting his superiors, like Jane Garvey, first. It would be remarkable if Sliney was the one to make the decision, because 9/11 is Sliney's first day on the job as National Operations Manager, "the chess master of the air traffic system."
 [USA Today, 9/13/2002] When he accepted the job a couple of months earlier, he had asked, "What is the limit of my authority?" The man who had promoted him replied, "Unlimited." [USA Today, 9/13/2002] Yet another account, by Linda Schuessler, manager of tactical operations at the FAA Command Center where Sliney was located, says, "... it was done collaboratively 

In the FAA's command center in Herndon, Ben Sliney learns of the radio transmission. The words will haunt him all morning. "We have some planes."

Some? How many?

Sept. 11 is Sliney's first day on the job as national operations manager, the chess master of the air traffic system. The New Yorker, a lawyer who once sued the FAA on behalf of air traffic controllers, now walks the floor of the center - a room that resembles NASA's Mission Control.

By Tim Dillon, USA TODAY
Ben Sliney, the national operations manager at the FAA's command center in Herndon, Va., was on duty at the center on Sept. 11.


Loud and forceful, Sliney fits the mold of others there. After managers at the center were criticized for not taking enough action to prevent record flight delays in 1999, the specialists were urged to speak freely during crises. That way, those in charge would have the information they needed to make sound decisions. On this day, that policy will be put to the test, and the center is deafening, like the New York Stock Exchange when everyone's trying to sell.

"We have some planes..."

Sliney can't shake the words. Are there more hijackers out there?

8:30 a.m.: 3,786 planes

"Wow, look at that!"

In the FAA's largest air traffic facility in New York state - a warehouse-like structure on Long Island, an hour east of Manhattan - manager Mike McCormick rushes to the banks of radar screens where controllers are trying to track Flight 11.

The former Marine presses his cordless phone to one ear as he talks to officials at other facilities in the New York area. But the other ear is doing most of the listening - to the radio reports of pilots who are watching the jet's progress.

usatoday.com/travel/news/2002/2002-08-12-clear-skies.htm
full article
911review.org/brad.com/archives/FAA_clear-skies.html


You have probably read about how the 9/11 Commission was a bit disturbed by the confusion caused by the plane headed
toward the Capitol building just before the Reagan service. An even more disturbing indication that we have not learned enough from
9/11 also occurred in early June, but was less widely reported. According to the testimony of the Federal Aviation Administration's New York
operations manager, Benedict Sliney, as an unidentified aircraft was nearing New York, controllers reported the hazard to the
North American Aerospace Defense Command. But, according to UPI's Shaun Waterman,
"Sliney and his NORAD counterpart were unsure who had the power to order a military intervention.
It took Sliney more than five minutes to ascertain where the authority lay." In five minutes, a jet under full throttle can cover 50 miles.

 www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1316/is_7-8_36/ai_n6159486


Mr. Benedict Sliney
Operations Manager, New York Terminal Radar Approach Control, Federal Aviation Administration
http://www.9-11commission.gov/hearings/hearing12.htm

FAA Response on 9/11
Monte R. Belger, former Acting Deputy Administrator, Federal Aviation Administration
Jeff Griffith, former Deputy Director, Air Traffic Control, Federal Aviation Administration
John S.White, former Facility Manager, Air Traffic Control Systems Command Center, Federal Aviation Administration
Benedict Sliney, Operations Manager, New York Terminal Radar Approach Control, Federal Aviation Administration
http://www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report_App.htm

At 9:42, Command Center learned from television news reports that a plane had struck
the Pentagon. The Command Center's National Operations Manager, Ben Sliney,
ordered all FAA facilities to instruct all airborne aircraft to land at the nearest airport.
This was a totally unprecedented order. The air traffic control system handled it with
great skill, as about 4,500 commercial and general aviation aircraft soon landed without
incident.

At 9:46 and again two minutes later, Command Center updated FAA headquarters that
United 93 was now "twenty-nine minutes out of Washington, DC."
A minute after that, at 9:49, 13 minutes after getting the question from Cleveland Center
about military help, Command Center suggested that someone at headquarters should
decide whether to request military assistance:

FAA Headquarters: They're pulling Jeff away to go talk about United 93.

Command Center: Uh, do we want to think about, uh, scrambling aircraft?

FAA Headquarters: Uh, God, I don't know.

Command Center: Uh, that's a decision somebody's gonna have to make

probably in the next ten minutes.

FAA Headquarters: Uh, ya know everybody just left the room.


http://www.9-11commission.gov/staff_statements/staff_statement_17.pdf

At 9:53, FAA headquarters informed Command Center that the Deputy Director for Air
Traffic Services was talking to Deputy Administrator Monte Belger about scrambling
aircraft. Then Command Center informed headquarters they lost track of United 93 over
the Pittsburgh area. Within seconds, Command Center received a visual report from
another aircraft, and informed headquarters that the aircraft was 20 miles northwest of
Johnstown. United 93 was spotted by another aircraft, and, at 10:01, Command Center
advised FAA headquarters that one of the aircraft had seen United 93 "waving his
wings." The aircraft had witnessed the radical gyrations in what we believe was the
hijackers' effort to defeat the passenger assault. United 93 crashed in Pennsylvania at
10:03:11, 125 miles from Washington, DC. The precise crash time has been the subject
of some dispute. The 10:03:11 time is supported by evidence from the staff's radar
analysis, the flight data recorder, NTSB analysis, and infrared satellite data.
Five minutes later, Command Center forwarded this update to headquarters:

Command Center: O.K. Uh, there is now on that United 93.

FAA Headquarters: Yes.

Command Center: There is a report of black smoke in the last position I gave
you, fifteen miles south of Johnstown.

FAA Headquarters: From the airplane or from the ground?

Command Center: Uh, they're speculating it's from the aircraft.

FAA Headquarters: Okay.

Command Center: Uh, who, it hit the ground. That's what they're speculating,
that's speculation only.

The aircraft that spotted the "black smoke" was the same unarmed Air National Guard
cargo plane that had seen American 77 crash into the Pentagon 26 minutes earlier. It had
resumed its flight to Minnesota and saw the smoke from the crash of United 93, less than
two minutes after the plane went down. At 10:17, Command Center advised
headquarters of its conclusion that United 93 had indeed crashed.
Despite the discussions about military assistance, no one from FAA headquarters
requested military assistance regarding United 93. Nor did any manager at FAA
headquarters pass any of the information it had about United 93 to the military.


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