Flights arriving at Reagan National Airport will follow descent patterns named to honor those who died in the terror attacks and those who have served to defend our nation since then.

(CNSNews.com) – On this 11th anniversary of 9-11, U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood announced that flights arriving at Reagan National Airport will follow descent patterns named to honor those who died in the terror attacks and those who have served to defend our nation since then.

One flight arrival sequence is called FRDMM (Freedom) and the other is called TRUPS (Troops).

Those two flight arrival paths contain a series of five-letter “waypoints,” which are the points in the sky through which an aircraft must fly to remain on course. Together, these waypoints now spell out what DOT calls “messages of support and remembrance for 9/1l.”

For example, aircraft flying the FRDMM (Freedom) route to Reagan National Airport from the northwest pass through waypoints named “WEEEE,” “WLLLL,” “NEVVR,” “FORGT” and “SEP11.”



Planes flying the TRUPS (Troops) route from the southwest pass through waypoints named “USAAY,” “WEEDU,” “SUPRT,” “OOURR” and “TRUPS.”



Depending on the runway configuration, aircraft might also pass through waypoints named “STAND” and “TGTHR (together)”or “LETZZ,” “RLLLL,” “VCTRY” and “HEROO,” the FAA said.

An FAA spokesman told CNSNews.com that although the public may not be aware of the waypoints’ names, the pilots will be.

“Pilots are intensely aware of where they are at all times,” the spokesman said. “So while they might not make verbal reference to them, they will be acutely aware that they are passing through these waypoints.”

According to the Transportation Department’s “Fast Lane’ blog, on one recent flight from Detroit to Reagan National Airport, a Delta Air Lines pilot shared the story of the new arrival procedure with his passengers over the plane’s public address system.

“As the flight crew began their precision descent into the capital area, the pilot read aloud the names of the waypoints they would be passing through, which included: HONNR, BRVRY, COURG; MORLL PLDGE: WEEEE WLLLL NEVER FORGT SEP11, ALWYZ FRDMM.”

“’As he was reading them,’ reported one passenger, ‘the people were all quiet, and we all stopped talking or reading or whatever else we were doing. Everyone just listened. We could hear the pilot starting to get choked up as he talked about how proud he was to read those points off as we entered DC.’”

“No one who was working at the Department of Transportation 11 years ago will forget the morning of September 11, 2001,” Secretary LaHood wrote in the blog.



“Whether it was the Federal Aviation Administration's air traffic controllers who helped bring every aircraft in U.S. airspace safely to ground, or the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy's midshipmen, who went into the chaos of Lower Manhattan to support the maritime evacuation of Wall Street workers, 9/11 is permanently etched into the Department's memory.”

The FRDMM (Freedom) and TRUPS (Troops) arrival sequences are part of FAA’s “NextGen” descents, which use satellite-based information (as opposed to ground-based radar) to make more efficient arrivals and departures at airports.