McInerney served as:
- Commander of the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) - the military agency responsible for protecting the United States and Canada from foreign jet attacks - for the Alaska region
- Commander of the Alaskan Air Command
- Commander of 11th Air Force in Alaska
- Commander of the 3rd Tactical Fighter Wing, Clark Air Base, Philippines
- Commander of the 313th Air Division, Kadena AIr Base, Japan
- Commander of 3rd Air Force, Royal Air Force Station Mildenhall, England
- Vice Chief of Staff of the U.S. Air Force
- A command pilot wiht more than 4,100 flying hours, including 407 combat missions
Yesterday, McInerney told Fox News - much to the surprise of the reporter interviewing him - that assuming the Turkish version of the flight path of the Russian jet is accurate, Russia wasn't threatening Turkey, and that Turkey's shoot down of the Russian jet "had to be pre-planned", as the jet wasn't in Turkish air space long enough for anything other than a premeditated attack to have brought it down.
McInerney is right ... especially given that a U.S. official told Reuters that the Russian jet was inside of Syria when it was shot down:
The United States believes that the Russian jet shot down by Turkey on Tuesday was hit inside Syrian airspace after a brief incursion into Turkish airspace, a U.S. official told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Comment: The assessment that the Russian jet was in Syrian airspace when it was shot down was based on detection of the heat signature of the jet, confirmed by an anonymous official.