By Tom Vanden Brook August 26, 2011 10:44PM Col. Mark Tillman holds a photo of himself with Presidents George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush. | Michael Schennum~Arizona Republic Article Extras Updated: August 27, 2011 2:04AM WASHINGTON — For Mark Tillman, Air Force One pilot, neither doomsday training nor years of experience prepared him for Sept. 11, 2001.“There are all kinds of plans to keep the president safe, emergency action plans, in the event of nuclear attack,” Tillman says. “Pretty much any major military attack, I knew exactly what do with the president and where to take him to keep him safe.“This was different. This was an attack from within. We had the president who didn’t want to follow our plans for a nuclear attack, which is hide him, keep him safe and allow continuity of government.”As the 10th anniversary of the largest terrorist attack on U.S. soil approaches, Tillman, 53, who retired as a colonel from the Air Force in 2009, agreed to talk about the chaotic hours that followed the attacks, the worry that Air Force One was being stalked by terrorists, the flight back to Washington and the sight of the smoldering Pentagon.The attacks in New York and Washington killed nearly 3,000 people and set the nation on a path to war.Mission No. 3,480 appeared simple enough on paper. Depart Andrews Air Force Base near Washington at 1:15 p.m. on Sept. 10, according to the official flight itinerary. There would be stops in Jacksonville and Sarasota, Fla., where President Bush planned to showcase educational initiatives. Fly back to Andrews the afternoon of Sept. 11.That round trip did occur — but with previously unscheduled stops at military bases in Louisiana and Nebraska, and a return to a Washington and a world that had changed forever.The morning of Sept. 11, Tillman arrived at Sarasota airport a few hours before the scheduled return to Washington. Threats against Air Force One were routine, he says. They’re mostly disgruntled folks making false claims. All of them are checked out. “In this case, there was nothing like that,” he says. “On Sept. 11, literally going up to the plane, everything was normal.”The first reports of trouble in New York came from airmen watching local television and seeing images of the north tower of the World Trade Center ablaze. “At that point, we just assumed it was operator error because it was clear,” Tillman says. “You can see clear skies, you can see a million miles.”There was no doubt about an attack when terrorists smashed United Airlines Flight 175 into the south tower. Tillman watched on television as White House chief of staff Andrew Card relayed the news to Bush.Tillman went through his checklist as Air Force One, a Boeing 747 with its familiar robin’s-egg blue belly, idled on the runway at Sarasota-Bradenton International Airport, waiting for the president to board:Double-check the identity of everybody getting on board.Post an armed Air Force security officer outside the cockpit.Keep the president safe.The jet roared down the runway, “a rather steep takeoff,” Tillman recalls. He heard from air controllers in Gainesville that an unidentified plane was descending toward them. He asked for fighter jets to protect the plane.“I didn’t know the capabilities of the terrorists, so just err to the worst case,” Tillman says. “It wouldn’t be bad to have fighter support in the event that airliners were tracking us. Maybe that airliner was coming to crash into us over Sarasota, saw us take off and was coming after us. In reality, it was just like many of the threats that day. It was not an actual threat. It was an airliner whose transponder had failed.”On Air Force One, staffers were asked to keep their cell phones turned off because the signal might allow terrorists to home in on Air Force One.In the cockpit, Tillman received a chilling message. Air Force One was being targeted.“We get out over the Gulf of Mexico, and the vice president advises the plane that ‘Angel’ is next,” Tillman says. Angel at the time was the classified call sign of Air Force One. “We asked for fighter support as well as AWACs, a radar plane overhead to keep watch on any type of threats coming at us.”Bush wanted to return to Washington. Tillman’s training, instinct and advice from White House aides was to stay away until the capital had been secured. There were airliners unaccounted for, and terrorists had seized San Francisco-bound United Airlines Flight 93 after takeoff from Newark, N.J..Tillman was aware that the president had ordered threatening planes be destroyed.“When we got the word that (Flight 93) had gone off radar and had crashed, we all assumed immediately that the fighters had shot it down,” Tillman says of Flight 93. “That was the most eerie feeling I’d ever had. We’d killed our own people to save the city of Washington, or wherever they were planning to attack. That was very sickening.”It took about half an hour to determine that the passengers, not the Air Force, brought the plane down, Tillman says. Still, Washington was not deemed safe for the president.“One of the concerns was that Washington was where the terrorists would expect us to run to if something happened,” Tillman says. “My plan was not to get back to Washington right away.”Tillman recommended Barksdale Air Force Base just outside Shreveport, La. The president’s advisers agreed.“It was a B-52 base,” Tillman says. “Tremendous security. A kind of place you could definitely have the president hide out, address the nation and still be completely secure.”Air Force One landed at Barksdale at 10:45 CT. Bush went on the air at 11:36. His message was terse, lasting two minutes.“Freedom itself was attacked this morning by a faceless coward,” Bush said.Just after 12:30, Air Force One took off, this time headed to Offutt Air Force Base near Omaha, home of U.S. Strategic Command. Its top-notch security and communications network appealed to Tillman and national security advisers. They spent only about an hour and a half at Offutt as Bush was eager to return to Washington.Fighters escorted Air Force One back to Washington; it landed at Andrews Air Force Base just after 6:30 p.m.The Pentagon, where 184 people were killed, smoldered as rescue crews combed the debris.“Heading by the Pentagon kind of brought it all home to me,” Tillman says. “I could see now the destruction.” Gannett News Service