In Sarasota, Florida, the presidential motorcade was arriving at the Emma E. Booker Elementary School, where President Bush was to read to a class and talk about education.White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card told us he was standing with the President outside the classroom when Senior Advisor to the President Karl Rove first informed them that a small, twin-engine plane had crashed into the World Trade Center.The President’s reaction was that the incident must have been caused by pilot error.

At 8:55, before entering the classroom, the President spoke to National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, who was at the White House. She recalled first telling the President it was a twin-engine aircraft—and then a commercial aircraft—that had struck the World Trade Center, adding “that’s all we know right now, Mr. President.”184 At the White House,Vice President Dick Cheney had just sat down for a meeting when his assistant told him to turn on his television because a plane had struck the North Tower of the World Trade Center. The Vice President was wondering “how the hell could a plane hit the World Trade Center” when he saw the second aircraft strike the South Tower.

Elsewhere in the White House, a series of 9:00 meetings was about to begin.

In the absence of information that the crash was anything other than an accident, the White House staff monitored the news as they went ahead with their regular schedules.