102d Intelligence Wing The 102d Intelligence Wing ( 102 IW ) is a unit of the Massachusetts Air National Guard , stationed at Otis Air National Guard Base , Mashpee , Massachusetts . If activated to federal service , the Wing is gained by the United States Air Force Intelligence , Surveillance and Reconnaissance Agency . It is one of three Air National Guard wings that are gained by the Air Force Intelligence , Surveillance and Reconnaissance Agency . As commonwealth militia units , the units in the 102d Intelligence Wing are not in the normal United States Air Force chain of command . They are under the jurisdiction of the Massachusetts National Guard unless they are federalized by order of the President of the United States . Mission . According to their home page , the 102d ' s mission is " to provide world wide precision intelligence and command and control , along with trained and experienced airmen for expeditionary combat support and homeland security . " In addition , the website says that their Air Force based mission is in line with the ability of joint force commanders to keep pace with information and incorporate it into a campaign plan . In addition to its strictly military role , the wing shares the overall Air National Guard mission of providing assistance during national emergencies such as natural disasters and civil disturbances . History . The 102d Intelligence Wing traces its roots to the 318th Fighter Group which was formed in 1942 . It fought in the Pacific as part of bomber escort missions to Japan , and participated in aircraft carrier operations , rarely experienced by the Army Air Force . The 318th returned to the United States after the war , was inactivated on 12 January 1946 The wartime 318th Fighter Group was re - designated as the 102d Fighter Group , and was allotted to the Massachusetts Air National Guard on 24 May 1946 . It was organized at Logan Airport , Boston , and was extended federal recognition on 22 October 1946 by the National Guard Bureau . The 102d Fighter Group was bestowed the lineage , history , honors , and colors of the 318th Fighter Group . Cold War . In the post - war era the National Guard Bureau began a major expansion of its air units . Massachusetts was allotted the 67th Fighter Wing , which consisted of the 101st Fighter Squadron , the 131st Fighter Squadron , the 132nd Fighter Squadron , the 202nd Air Service Group , 601st Signal Construction Company , 101st Communications Squadron , 101st Air Control Squadron , 151st Air Control and Warning Group , 567th Air Force Band , 101st Weather Flight and the 1801st Aviation Engineer Company . The 67th Wing was assigned to Air Defense Command . Guard units were generally neglected when the United States Air Force was created . Despite the introduction of jet fighters , the Guard units were left with generally overused World War II propeller aircraft , and had few funds for training . As the Cold War intensified , the Air Force looked to the Guard to fill United States - based interception missions and started overhauling their organization . Although the Massachusetts Air National Guard wasn ' t federalized for the Korean War , many airmen volunteered for active duty and flew in Korea . On 1 November 1950 the 67th Fighter Wing was inactivated and replaced by the 102d Fighter Wing , including just the 101st and 131st squadrons and their associated support units , and at some point before 1961 the wing was renamed a Tactical Fighter Wing . Additionally , the wing kept the 567th , and the 1801st . The squadrons were issued F - 84B Thunderjet s , but these were recalled and replaced by F - 51 Mustang s which were flown until 1954 when the F - 94 Starfire replaced the Mustangs . In 1952 the 253rd Combat Communications Group was activated and added to the 102d . In 1958 the Wing converted to the F - 86H Sabre . From 1956 to 1976 , the 102d was commanded by Brigadier General Charles W . Sweeney , pilot of the B - 29 Superfortress " Bockscar " that dropped the Fat Man nuclear bomb on Nagasaki , Japan . During his tenure , the wing developed from a rather new unit to the mainstay of air defense in the Northeastern United States . Berlin Wall Crisis . On 16 August 1961 , when the Berlin Wall crisis was unfolding , several United States Air Force Reserve units were notified of their pending recall to active duty . On 1 October the wing and its three squadrons , the 101st , 131st and 138th were placed on active duty at Otis Air Force Base . In late October , the 102d departed Logan for Phalsbourg - Bourscheid Air Base , Phalsbourg , France . The wing had 82 Sabres , plus two C - 47 Skytrain s and six T - 33 Shooting Star s for support and training purposes . During the crisis , the wing controlled the 102d Tactical Fighter Group , the 104th Tactical Fighter Group , and the 174th Tactical Fighter Group from New York . The 102d ' s primary mission was to provide close air support to NATO ground forces , including the Seventh Army , and air interdiction . During the blockade , the 102d did not incur any losses . Starting on 5 December 1961 the 102d began deploying to Wheelus Air Base , Libya for gunnery training . During its time in Europe , the 102d participated in several United States Air Force and North Atlantic Treaty Organization exercises , including a deployment to Leck Air Base , West Germany near the Danish border . At Leck , ground and support crews from both countries exchanged duties , learning how to perform aircraft maintenance and operational support tasks . The 102d returned to the United States in August 1962 . Regular Air Force personnel and a group of Air National Guard personnel who volunteered to remain on active duty formed the 480th Tactical Fighter Squadron of the newly activated 366th Tactical Fighter Wing . Relocation to Otis . In 1968 , the 102d Tactical Fighter Wing moved to Otis Air Force Base , and was reassigned from the Air Defense Command to the Tactical Air Command the next year . The wing flew the F - 84F Thunderstreak from 1964 until June 1971 , when a squadron of F - 100D Super Sabres was transferred directly from units fighting the Vietnam War . These were superseded soon after by the Mach 2 F - 106 Delta Darts and on 10 June 1972 , the unit became the 102d Air Defense Wing . On 30 December 1973 , Otis Air Force Base was inactivated and transferred to the Massachusetts Air National Guard as Otis Air National Guard Base . The wing intercepted Soviet Tupolev Tu - 95 Bear bombers on many occasions , the first of which occurred off Long Island on 25 April 1975 . Many of these incidents involved escorting the Bears to Cuba . The wing occasionally shadowed drug smuggling aircraft , and on one occasion was scrambled to escort an unidentified object , which later turned out to be a weather balloon . In 1976 , the 102d Fighter Interceptor Group was inactivated and reformed as the 102d Fighter Interceptor Wing . It assumed authority for the 177th Fighter Interceptor Group at Atlantic City Air National Guard Base and the 125th Fighter Interceptor Group at Jacksonville Air National Guard Base . Both units flew the F - 106 . It also assumed command of the 107th Fighter Interceptor Group at Niagara Falls Air Reserve Station and the 147th Fighter Interceptor Group at Ellington Field , Texas . The latter two flew the F - 4C Phantom . The 102d Fighter Interceptor Wing lost its F - 106s on 5 January 1988 . Between January and April 1988 , the wing converted to the F - 15A Eagle , which it received from the 5th Fighter - Interceptor Squadron which was inactivating at Minot Air Force Base . It then resumed its alert commitment at Otis , and also established a new Detachment 1 at Loring Air Force Base , taking over for the inactivating 5th Fighter - Interceptor Squadron . The 102d was the first Air National Guard unit to be equipped with the F - 15 . On 24 January 1989 , airmen monitoring the radar at the Northeast Air Defense Sector at Griffiss Air Force Base spotted a plane which was not following any known flight plan . The order was then given to " scramble the Eagles , " after repeated attempts to contact the pilot failed . Two jets then took off from Loring to search for the " unknown rider . " The pilots later came across a plane that was blacked out , with no lights on on the inside or outside . The pilot was a narcotics smuggler from Colombia ' s Medellin drug cartel . He was carrying had a street value of two hundred million dollars in the amount of 500 kilograms of cocaine . Post - Cold War . Local defense . The wing continued its air defense mission after the fall of the Soviet Union . In 1992 , the wing deployed eight pilots , five F - 15 Eagles , and 48 maintenance and security personnel , for five days training at Canadian Forces Base Goose Bay , Labrador , Canada . The same year , with the reorganization of the Air Force , the wing was reassigned from the disbanding Tactical Air Command to the newly formed Air Combat Command . In July 1993 , the wing deployed 50 personnel from the 102d Civil Engineering Squadron under field conditions , to the island of Eleuthera in the Bahamas . They helped rebuild schools and municipal facilities damaged by Hurricane Andrew . On 11 February 1993 , jets were scrambled to intercept the hijacked Lufthansa Flight 592 , which eventually landed at John F . Kennedy International Airport without incident . The planes were joined by F - 16s from the 177th Fighter Wing in Atlantic City , New Jersey . The F - 15s initially intercepted the aircraft off the coast of eastern Canada . The planes then began to trail the jet at a distance of . As they approached the airport , the distance decreased to . The fighters then did a low fly - by as the plane landed . They continued to circle around the airport until they returned to Otis . In 1994 , the 102d received more F - 15A / B Eagle s from the 32nd Fighter Group at Soesterberg Air Base , which was inactivating as part of the post Cold War draw down of forces in Europe . Deployments . Between 1991 and 1995 the wing deployed to Panama as part of Operation Coronet Nighthawk , a drug interdiction operation . In 1992 the wing became simply the 102d Fighter Wing as part of an Air Force - wide renaming of units . From 1995 to 1998 the wing deployed to Iceland for 45 days of air defense duty . During 1998 members both trained for and carried out assignments in Iceland , Canada , Korea , and Europe . In 1999 the wing participated in Operation Northern Watch when it deployed with its F - 15s to Turkey to patrol and enforce the no - fly zone north of the 36th Parallel in northern Iraq . In 2000 , more than 350 personnel were deployed to the Middle East and Europe to participate in Operation Southern Watch . 9 / 11 terrorist attacks . Around 8 : 30 on the morning of 11 September 2001 , the Otis Air Base Operations Center received a call from the Federal Aviation Administration ' s Cape Cod Facility Calls Operations Center that it might be receiving a call from the North American Aerospace Defense Command ' s Northeast Air Defense Sector . The manager of the Cape Cod facility then called the 102d at Otis Air National Guard Base as they figured " . . . a call [ to Otis Air Base ] will be coming from NEADS soon and a scramble order is likely . " He called the base because he figured that the pilots would appreciate the heads up . When he called the Otis operations center , the superintendent of aviation management , Mark Rose , answered . He was initially confused by the call as no identification was given . Lieutenant Colonel Timothy Duffy was then handed the phone and alerted of the situation . On his radio , he called pilot Major Daniel Nash , the pilot who was sharing alert duty , and told him to get ready for a coming alert call . He also told him to suit up and get ready for a scamble call . Soon after , the commander of the 101st Fighter Squadron phoned the Northeast Air Defense Sector and asked for permission to launch the fighter jets . The sector in turn responded by ordering the commander of the weapons team which controlled the jets , Major Kevin Naspany , to place the fighters on " battle stations . " This resulted in a warning siren sounding at Otis and the pilots scrambled to their jets . Four to five minutes later , the scramble order was received and the jets took off . Officially , this occurred at 8 : 46 am , with a six - minute difference between the official and unofficial accounts . Duffy radioed his command post for guidance and was told among other things that American Airlines Flight 11 was a Boeing 737 , when in reality it was a 767 . Once in the air , their radar kicked in , allowing them to effectively intercept the plane . Difficulties in accurately locating Flight 11 caused a delay of five minutes , to 8 : 43 am , before the scramble order was given and pilots Duffy and Nash could respond . When Flight 11 hit the North Tower at 8 : 46 , the two jets were still readying for flight and did not take off until 8 : 52 am . Major Naspany was then asked what to do with the fighters and he responded by saying , " Send ' em to New York City still . Continue ! Go ! This is what I got . Possible news that a 737 just hit the World Trade Center . This is a real - world . . . Continue taking the fighters down to the New York City area , JFK [ International Airport ] area , if you can . Make sure that the FAA clears it — your route all the way through . . . Let ' s press with this . " Unsure of their target , they were directed to a holding pattern in military - controlled airspace Whiskey 105 off of Long Island to avoid New York area air traffic . At 9 : 03 am , United Airlines Flight 175 hit the South Tower as the fighters were progressing to their holding position . The Northeast Air Defense Sector was not advised of this hijacked aircraft until 9 : 03 . Between 9 : 09 and 9 : 13 , the jets stayed in a holding pattern . Soon after , they headed toward Manhattan and arrived at 9 : 25 , where they established a Combat Air Patrol over the city . While all of this was going on , senior battle staff at Otis were watching the news when United Airlines Flight 175 crashed into the South Tower . This immediately caused one commander to shout out , " We need to go to battle staff ! " This order caused senior commanders to disperse and head towards nearby operations buildings . Inside , the gathered together in the battle cab of the installation operations center . Soon after , a voice came over the base ' s loudspeakers : " The commander has ordered the 102d core battle staff to assemble . Please report to the operations building immediately . " Mobilization of the wing began to occur after this time . At the time of the order , eighteen planes were ready for flight and commanders began to prepare based on what they anticipated they would be asked to do . Most of these actions were guessing because there had never been an attack on the country before . Knowing that they couldn ' t await on guidance from the North American Aerospace Defense Command , the recalled all training flights and began loading fuel and weapons onto all available fighter jets . Meanwhile , at the battle cab , a maintenance squadron officer was told , " Listen , I want you to generate as many airframes [ i . e . fighter jets ] as you can ! " This immediately caused all personnel to be called back and they were ordered to work on the remaining jets . This rush involved the placement of missiles on all jets , including some newer missiles which were rarely pulled out . Six jets which were on a training mission were traversing through the Whiskey Airspace when they were told by the Boston Air Route Traffic Control Center to head back to Otis immediately . Once landed , the pilots were told to park their jets but leave the engines on . Finally , the first planes took off at 10 : 20 in the morning . After a while , an order was received to launch all available fighters . Pilots were briefed on the national emergency and the potential that they might have to take out an aircraft . At this point , someone then ran into the room and said that there had been an order that was received from the Northeast Air Defense Sector that all available jets must launch . The pilots then ran out to their aircraft with speaker Treacy saying " Go , go , go ! " In the haste that the morning had become , not all the jets had been refueled and a majority of the jets were still unarmed . The handful of jets that were armed were sent up with one or two missiles . The standard missile load involves at least two missiles at launch . This is after the handlers had worked at a " furious pace " and " hurried to fix all available jets with live weapons . " Arming of the jets even began fifteen minutes after the South Tower had been hit . Interestingly , this fact would later lend credence to the theory that there was an idea floating around to ram the hijacked planes with a jet . Starting around 10 : 30 and ending at six that night , all twenty one planes were put into the air . Conspiracy link . After the initial shock of the attacks had passed , questions arose about how the military handled the hijacking and subsequent response with the jets . Some thought that the jets had been purposely kept from flying immediately to New York City . The questions arising from the response time of the jets come from the practice of Cold War era policies which prohibited the immediate response to an emergency like a hijacking . First responder and pilot Daniel Nash said that he could not recall being told that the North Tower was hit but he did remember seeing the smoke over away . It is also claimed by conspiracists that the calculations of North American Aerospace Defense Command were incorrect because according to their own calculations , the planes were flying at 24 % of their maximum speed . This statement takes into account the time in which the planes were in a holding pattern over military airspace . The jets were also prohibited from going supersonic over land by Federal Aviation Administration rules . These rules are meant to prevent damage to buildings from the shock wave a sonic boom produces . Global War on Terror . Operation Noble Eagle . More than 600 wing members were mobilized for Operation Noble Eagle at different times . The wing began flying around - the - clock combat air patrol missions immediately thereafter , and continued doing so until February 2002 . On 22 December 2001 the wing escorted " American Airlines Flight 63 " as a direct result of Richard Reid trying to blow up a plane . In the buildup to the invasion of Afghanistan , six F - 15s and 161 personnel were sent to the Persian Gulf region . The wing also patrolled the skies of the Northeastern United States during this time period . The wing though never deployed for Operation Iraqi Freedom . The wing converted from the F - 15A / B to the F - 15C / D in 2004 . These planes came from Kadena Air Base . BRAC 2005 . The Base Realignment and Closure 2005 commission originally planned to close Otis Air National Guard Base and dissolve the 102d . Locals argued that this would leave a huge gap in the national air defenses . Commission officials , after visiting the base , decided to keep it open , but the 102d would still lose its planes , only this time they were only going to the 104th Fighter Wing , based at Barnes Municipal Airport . In May 2006 it trained with the Israeli Air Force ' s 115 Squadron . The wing hosted the Cape Cod Air Show & Open House , its last air show with the F - 15C Eagle at the end of Air Force Week in August 2007 . The wing shared a commonality with the 101st Air Refueling Wing , the 103d Fighter Wing , and the 104th Fighter Wing , which due to commission decisions , also changed the type of planes that they flew . Beginning in 2007 , the F - 15s began moving to Barnes Municipal Airport . With the grounding of the F - 15 Eagles , the 158th Fighter Wing , which is based in Vermont took over the role of patrolling the Northeast ' s skies earlier than expected . This interruption of the F - 15 ' s flight , coinciding with the transitioning of the fighter jets to the 104th Fighter Wing , created some issues . On 24 January 2008 , the 102d Fighter Wing flew its last patrol mission . The unit ' s wing commander , Colonel Anthony Schiavi , led the flight , accompanied by Major Daniel Nash , who was one of the first responders for 9 / 11 . Fire trucks were on hand when the team landed a half - hour later , giving the planes and the pilots the customary ceremonial hose - down for the last time . New mission . When it was announced that the wing would be restructured and Otis Air National Guard Base would remain open , discussions began about the future of the 102d . Staff of the 102d and those at Massachusetts Air National Guard headquarters considered a plan centered around the idea that the wing could transition to an intelligence mission to support the growing War on Terror . The idea hit a roadblock when it was announced that the funds which the wing could use to convert into its new mission had been depleted . Eventually , Governor Deval Patrick announced that the wing would adopt an intelligence role as soon as the aircraft left . Original Base Realignment and Closure commission plans only hinted at a Distributed Common Ground System being created at Otis . These plans did not include the air guardsmen affected by the loss of their jobs . The issue was resolved when the Air Force announced its plans , right before the F - 15s started to leave for Barnes . The 102d Fighter Wing was formally re - designated the 102d Intelligence Wing on 6 April 2008 and was planned to reach full operational capacity in 2010 . Members of the wing had the option of moving with the F - 15s to Barnes , but most decided to stay behind and train for new missions . The crash trucks went to Barnes , leaving the brush breaker s of the Massachusetts Military Reservation behind . The buildings formerly occupied by the fighter wing , including the hangars , will be occupied by the intelligence mission . On 6 November 2009 , ground was broken on new facilities for the 102d Intelligence Wing . The building will eventually replace the temporary facilities that the wing is now operating in .