Today marks the 22nd anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks. I consciously try not to single out this day on the blog, but after reading the stirring recollection of an airline passenger on that fateful 9-11 day, I believe it merits sharing.
Flyertalk member Putt4eagle posted a vivid recollection of his 09/11 experience in a post titled, “Listening to Channel 9 on September 11, 2001”. Channel 9 is (well, mostly was) the “From the Flight Deck” audio channel on United Airlines that allowed passengers to listen in on ATC communications.
An Excerpt
You can read his full story here, but I’ll quote this expert:
ATC got on the air and started by saying this was going to go quick and pilots needed to listen up. “Protocol responses are not required, just do exactly as I say quickly”. Then it began. “UA ###, turn right heading blah, blah expect Springfield airport. SWA ###, turn left heading blah, blah expect Rockford. Delta ###….” This went on for about 3 solid minutes before I rang the bell for the FA who was passing out breakfast. Our number had not yet been called. The FA came by and I said “We are all going back to O’Hare, they are landing every plane in the sky. What is going on?!?” She looked at me in disbelief and kind of leaned down to look out the window. I could see that she was about to start to tell me not to worry about it when we pitched right at about 45*s. It was so quick it nearly dumped the FA in my lap.
Her expression changed quickly. I could see she knew that was no turn you make in a 757 under normal conditions. She said, I will be right back and picked up the comm. She went flush. Not saying a word, not “ok”, not “goodbye”, not “I understand”… nothing, she hung up the phone. I don’t know why I remember that she did not respond so vividly in my mind but it took the whole thing up a notch for me. I knew she thought this was very serious and was scared. She walked right back to me, scooped up my tray and said in a voice full of authority, “Pull up your chair, put away your tray table and buckle up, now. We are landing in a few minutes. The pilot will be on with more instructions in a few minutes.” I was frozen.
Read more.
CONCLUSION
Many of you remember exactly where you were on that day that changed history. I was sitting in a high school chemistry class when I first heard about it. What I like about the story above is the ending (not included in the excerpt). Just like the tragedy of Hurricane Harvey brought out the best in people, so did the 09/11 attacks.
I remember it vividly:
I was on the west coast. I had slept in when my wife burst into our bedroom and said urgently: “Turn on the TV! Something bad is happening!!!”
I was groggy but alarmed by my wife’s voice. so I quickly grabbed the TV remote, turned on the TV and to my absolute horror witnessed the second tower in the middle of collapsing. A few seconds previously I was sleeping and then to awake to seeing the most horrible thing I had ever witnessed in my life happen before my eyes. I had never been so shocked in my life! What was going on???????? This is absolute insanity!!!! This can’t be true!!! What????????
It was a traumatic event and I have always stayed away from reading or watching anything related to 9/11. I did not want to relive that horrifying gut wrenching moment. For historical purposes, for my family I bought copies of all the news magazines that week that reported on the event. I buried them at the bottom of a box with old souvenirs and have no intention of ever reading them during my lifetime.
I landed at LGW the morning of 9/11 from ATL.
We, my ex and I, spent 4 days in the airport trying to get back to the US.
We finally made it back on either the 15th or 16th on BA and remember flying just west of Manhattan and looking out the window and seeing the smoke still rising from the giant hole. It was so surreal and sad.
Those next few week’s at ATL tower were a blur. At one point we had a NORDO twin landing at a field just south of ATL (FFC) that decided that, because he was NORDO, he should land on 27L at ATL without any permission. Looking south of the airport and seeing that aircraft coming straight towards the tower was terrifying.
My best friend and original trainer at ZBW’s wife was on AA11 while he was on his way into work. They stopped him at the gate and, though he had about 5 years left until retirement, never stepped foot in the facility again. The area we worked (Area E) encompassed the airspace where the hijackimgs took place (just north of NYC) and his friends and colleagues were the ones talking to the aircraft when it was hijacked.
Of course, in the FAA’s wisdom they refused to give him the required s/l to get to his retirement date. Fortunately we and the Union donated enough leave for him never go into the building again.
Thanks for sharing!
I was living in California on 9/11. As I was getting ready for work, Good Morning America broke in to the local news to report the events. That was unusual, as GMA did not come on until 7 am and this was well before 7. My story is not about traveling on 9/11 however. My father was in the hospital and was being moved to hospice care the next day in a nursing home. On the evening of September 12, my sister called me to tell me he had passed away.
In a panic, I told my sister that I wasn’t sure when the airports would reopen and that they may have to schedule the funeral without me. Fortunately, I was able to fly home to Pennsylvania on Sunday. Because of the security changes in the aftermath of 9/11, I had to be dropped off at a parking lot at LAX, wait in line, then board a bus to the terminal. I was dropped off well before 6 am for an 8:30am flight.
When we were dropped off at Terminal 1, the line for security stretched all the way to Terminal 2. I was sure I was going to miss my flight. Somehow, I managed to board the flight about 10 minutes before our scheduled takeoff time.
Everyone was eerily silent throughout the flight to Pittsburgh. Everyone looked at everyone else suspiciously. I don’t think anyone even used the lavatories. The Pittsburgh airport was quiet. No one was there. Most of the bars and restaurants were closed. I had time between my flights and found a bar and had a couple drinks. I do not even remember the flight to Harrisburg, getting the rental car, or much of what happened after that. I was exhausted, more mentally that physically. I had made it home for my father’s funeral, but I still had a return flight to LA about a week later and dreaded the thought of flying again.
Over the years, my opinions on funerals have changed. Funerals are for the living, not the dead. They are to comfort as much as even possible those that are alive. As such, I don’t mind missing funerals or someone missing mine. A genuine thought 10 years later is more than enough.
On 9/10/2001, I flew on a flight that I originally wanted to book for 9/11/2001 in the morning. If I had, I would have been stuck at a diversionary airport. On 9/11/2001, just after WTC1 was hit, I was making lots of copies as part of a huge legal battle against corrupt people in the South. So evil, they were in a position of trust, they fabricated lots of stuff. They did not win in the end. One of them could still be severely punished if turned in today. This doesn’t compare with those that perished on UA93 or AA11 but still it is memorable.
I was at the WTC and WFC on September 10th, I had slept at the Marriott there on the 9th night and was looking to stay until the 11th, but I was too cheap to personally eat the costs of changing flights to fly out of JFK on the 11th instead of on the 10th. On September 11th morning, I was already in the air on a UA flight. Upon my UA flight landing, passport control told me what had happened in the US and it felt surreal. After digesting what I could see on the TV screens, I made my way out to a Hyatt hotel to get a room and make calls to the people I knew who worked in or supported the people who worked in the WTC (on high floors at that), the WFC and around that part of lower Manhattan and then family and friends in Northern Virginia and DC. And then I dealt with Asia until flights back into the US were again allowed. UA wasn’t able to fly me back due to disruptions/positioning for a few days and the closed airspace, so it was Lufthansa that brought me back into the NYC area when airspace opened up and common carrier international flights from Europe recommenced. Will never forget that day and what followed. Even to this day, we as travelers are paying for it and a lot of expensive and self-defeating mistakes have been made by the country and the world and mourning the people gone is only part of the mourning about 9/11.
“….mourning the people gone is only part of the mourning about 9/11”
You’re so right, it’s almost painful. We lost so much that day. People in their 20s have never known a world without TSA, shoe removal, and liquid restrictions. Flight attendants focused “on your safety” and how to prevent a cockpit breach. Not being able to kiss your loved ones goodbye at the gate. The joy of travel versus the pain of travel. Our confidence in being safe in our own country gone forever.
My cousin was in her early 20s and returning from a vacation in Malaysia, flying first to LAX, then plane change and on to LHR.
She had spent basically all of her money while on vacation. Her credit card, which had a tiny limit, was at its max. She had no US currency as it was supposed to be just a plane change. When she got off the plane in LA on 9/11, she had no cash on hand, and no phone (lots of people didn’t have cell phones in 2001), and a maxed out credit card– she was totally stuck. Everyone was kicked out of the airport. She slept outside of LAX for a few days until the airport reopened, and eventually made her way home.
It’s easy to look at this story and think of it as terrible planning on her part, to a degree it was but it was also a different world back then. Young people didn’t have mobile phones, and credit cards for young people– if you could get one– often had incredibly small limits. Many young people got on flights home from a big trip with very little money on hand.
For me, I was assigned to work the month of September for a team that had a boss with a reputation of being a total jerk. Thankfully he was on a trip in Africa until 9/13 or 9/14. When the air travel got shut down, we all thought we’d get a few more days without him around, but he showed up just as scheduled. We asked him how he made it back and he wouldn’t explain– just said “my flight wasn’t impacted”. For years I wondered how he got home on time in that situation. The best I can figure is that he was already home from the trip on 9/11, but had told work that he would be gone longer to get a few additional days off. He more than lived up to his reputation of being a total jerk too.
The idea that 9/11 brought out the best in people is only true to some extent. It also brought out the worse in some people. We had to arrange to protect our potentially perceived Muslim”-looking American friends, colleagues and relatives or what was happening to them because they were being harassed and threatened around the DC area and elsewhere in the county and even in places like London where some visiting Americans of color were assaulted with things like thrown food from cars and such.
A lot of racism and other bigotry got a big boost from 9/11 and we are worse for it.
That is a very reasonable point.
My wife and I were in NYC for the weekend before 9/11. We took the ferry to Ellis Island and while sailing there, I insisted my wife come up to the top deck to see lower Manhattan. She gets seasick in the bathtub but I dragged her up there and she agreed, it was a beautiful view. The weather was CAVU, crystal clear. The towers stood tall. I kicked myself for not bringing my camera with me.
Heading back to St. Louis on Sunday night, our departure path from LGA took us west of Manhattan as we turned south. I had the window seat and could see the two towers; I leaned over to my wife and told her to look. I said to her, “say goodbye,” meaning, goodbye to NYC. She looked and whispered, “goodbye.”
Thirty six hours later, the twin towers were gone forever.
I worked as a Letter Carrier( Mailman) a co worker walked past me at 9am and said “ something is going down in New York, go to lunch room”. The tv was on and everything was indeed going down. My supervisor came into lunch room and asked me “ what do we do?” I was shop steward. We agreed to turn off tv and announce a problem with tv and we got an early dismissal to get out on the street. Everyone was happy. Once I was on my route I noticed two things right away. 1) how quiet the skies were. 2) my customers inviting me into their homes to watch what happened and to seek assurance that we were safe in Canada. We live one by air from NYC. It was a troubling day and months after.
I was watching the Today Show and gulping coffee. After the first plane hit there was speculation it was a small aircraft and was it an accident. While dressing the second plane struck the other tower. Matt Lauer said now I guess we know. I was out the door and at my bank in minutes. Withdrew a pile of cash, threw the dog, a backpack and a few other things in the big truck and started driving to SW Pennsylvania. Turned around when the UA 93 crashed. By that time they we flying Combat Air Patrols over the house (5 miles from the White House). Both cell and land lines were useless to connect. But as Cam mentioned it was the unnerving silence that I will never forget.
I was working at United Airlines Cargo JFK and was phoned and told not to come in that day. I lived at the highest point of Queens NY and could see the Towers in the distance — that billowing smoke, all the while, like everyone else, shocked, horrified and helpless watching what I knew were hundreds of FDNY men and thousands of building occupants were going to die that day. How many widows and other family members would be wailing in grief that night ?? …. and of course the loss of the United flights, employees and their occupants.
Next day summoned to work under orders where to park and bussed to the cargo facility. There was no work to be done, of course and within 24 hours quite a few staff were laid off with no one knowing if and when they would be called back. (None ever were). Only those of us with at least ten years of seniority held onto our jobs which took a while to get back to “normal”. Then a month later AA crashes in Belle Harbor Queens, it was enough to keep us reeling in shock yet again.
I’ve kept an article (but can’t find it buried somewhere) of an interview with the United CEO at that time, James E. Goodwin (I’m pretty sure it was a NYTimes Magazine article) and it was a very good read of things from UAL Chicago headquarters, real time dialogue and perspective etc. Hard to believe it’s 22 years gone by.