Where was the airforce ?
 

I have not seen anything on t.v. or read anything online that mentioned the presence of any military jets.

This seems strange to me. After losing comm with ATC, and seeing wild deviation on radar / lost on radar, would the mil / SAR .. etc not be alerted ?

As a former fighter pilot I can tell you that the only way succesfull intercepts would have been carried out is if armed fighters were sitting on alert ready to go at the first sign of trouble. That only happens when they know that 'trouble is a coming'. Unfortunately the US was caught with its pants down. The failure was not because the fighters weren't ready but because intelligence failed to see it coming.