jetaway96

I have read this every year and every time, it brought tears in my eye. I'm a proud flight attendant for UA and still remember that day As it happened yesterday. We were coming in to land in DEN when it happened and we found out after we were in the terminal. We were the fist crew to walk into the FA crew room to turn on the TV and watched the event unfolded.

1KHI

One of the most moving posts I have read on FT...

caseminole

A very moving tribute.

Thanks so much for posting.

Although I wasnt flying on 9/11, I was on a Virgin Airlines flight from London to LAX on August 27, about 2 weeks prior

We were seated in Upper Class, and I had a perfect view of the cockpit and open sky (the cabin doors completely open)

Unbelievably, the captain allowed me to "peer" inside the cockpit of the aircraft and said "what an amazing view isnt it?"

I'll never forget that. And I remember 2 weeks later thinking how incredibly lucky I was NOT to be flying the same flight on 9/11 - I imagine how scary it must have been for any Transcons that day

GregMM

Thanks to the mods for moving this to the active forum. I hadn't seen this post before today. It has been a very moving post. This is now a rather interesting day in our household, as it is also my wife's birthday.

We both remember exactly where we were when we first heard about it, in our cars on our ways to work. I had just left the house, and heard about the first plane on the radio. I called her and she hadn't heard anything yet. as she was listening to a CD. I was at work by the time that the first tower fell, people were watching it on their computers. At that point, they told everyone they could go home.

My Boy Scout troop meets on Tuesday nights, and that night we were having a meeting at our local camping area. After some discussion among the leaders, we decided to have the meeting for those Scouts who wanted to come, to help keep things a little normal. I think we had about half our normal attendance that night. We sat around the campfires and talked about what happened for a little while, and had a few moments of silence.

A few years previously, the troop had visited Washington DC, and had toured the Pentagon (we had an Army Colonel as one of our leaders at the time). We later learned that the person who lead the troop on that tour was killed that day, as the plane hit his Pentagon office.

When the news in our area reported on the local residents who were on the flights headed for the west coast, one of the names was that of one of our college friends, who routinely travels to the west coast. No one was able to contact him for quite a while afterwards, and the person's general description (where he lived, general age, general occupation, etc.) matched his, so we weren't sure if it was him or not. Fortunately, it was not.

Our first flight after 9/11 was the day after Thanksgiving. Security was a bit tighter, but not too bad. The crowds were still pretty light at that point. I did have to take a drink of my wife's Diet Coke that she handed to me so she could put her bags on the belt. That was interesting, as I hate Diet Coke.

milepig

Of the many things I remember, one that stands out was my first flight post 9/11.

I remember exactly - it was on AA, ORD-AUS on a maddog. It was fairly soon after - a couple weeks?? It was clear that none of us wanted to be on that plane. Everyone just sat staring forward and you could almost hear everyone thinking "just get me to Austin." Eerie, and I truly thought flying would never be the same.

Now I'm back flitting around the world and thinking nothing of it. Life does indeed go on, even after tragedy strikes.

I was actually stranded in Europe on 9/11 itself, but Mrs. Milepig, who was home in Chicago, still speaks of how oddly quiet it was those first couple days. Obviously, no planes, but everything else was also just very quiet and subdued.

haddon90

no prob. this thread is always fascinating to read.

haddon90

my first flight was 9/20/11. TYS-IAD-ORF for my brothers wedding on 9/22. i remember all of my friends telling me to drive to norfolk. they were saying terrorists were going to crash my plane, and that if i did fly to call them the moment i landed. the two things i will always remember is walking by D26 at dulles and seeing the american flag there. the other was i was the only civilian on IAD-ORF. everyone else was military going to the naval base in norfolk. such a surreal experience. and my brothers wedding ended up being one of the best weddings i have ever attended.

ualisthebst

I remember my first flight post 9/11.

It was a about 2-3 weeks post 9/11 on a 737-300 from IND to DEN. I distinctively remember sitting on the plane at the gate and you could literally cut the tension with a knife. Everyone on the plane was tense until the captain came out and asked everyone to look towards the front of the plane. She grabbed the PA and assured everyone that we were going to have a safe flight to Denver and asked everyone to take a deep breath and relax. It calmed my nerves and many of us on-board. Her ability to diffuse the tension is something I'll never forget.

Off topic, the amount of patriotism this country showed in the days and weeks after 9/11 is something I'll never forget.

RIP to those who perished on that horrible day.

-Ualisthebst

747FC

Clearly remember waking up in HNL that day, knowing that I needed to call Continental to make a reservation. Used my bedroom phone immediately after awakening. The reservation agent said she could not make any reservations, and I asked why. All she said was "Turn on the TV."

mdtakamine

First time I've read this...teared up when I did - even all these years later.

hoopics

Thanks for bringing this thread back. It absolutely brings back a flood of memories. The morning of 9/11 I got off a USAir LAS-PIT-EWR redeye. We deplaned at EWR at about 8:00 AM. Near as I've been able to reconstruct in subsequent years, the flight that crashed in PA would have been taxing out to take off as we were taxing in to the gate. My golf bag mis-connected on the way to EWR from LAS. Boy was I angry. I still have the "sorry we delayed your bag" printout from the US baggage office, time stamped 8:32 AM. 14 minutes later, AA 11 hit. When I finally saw my clubs again six days later, I could not have cared less about golf.

I walked into my office in Newark, put down my carry-on bag, and before even turning on my computer heard that a plane had hit the WTC. My co-workers and I went up to the 6th floor, which had panoramic windows with a clear view of the NYC skyline (about 11 miles away). A few moments later I watched UA175 hit with my own eyes. At that distance it looked like a massive bomb, not a plane crash. But somehow we just knew it was connected to the fire in the other tower.

I did not know that at that moment, but my then girlfriend (who is now my wife and the mother of our two children) was coming up out of the subway in NYC at Rector Street -- a few blocks from her office across the street from the WTC. When the south tower came down, she was four blocks away from it, waiting in line for a pay phone (remember those?). She was trying to call me because she'd known I was flying that morning, and she'd heard that the chaos she saw before her was from planes crashing. After the first tower came down, she escaped through the dust cloud to the Staten Island Ferry, even though she did not live on Staten Island. Neither of us knew whether the other was safe until much later that day.

The subsequent anniversaries have been hard, even though we know we both had MUCH easier experiences than countless others in our circle of friends who lost loved ones. But somehow there's always been some reminder, or trigger, or reason to just stop and reflect.

Fast forward 12 years to today. This morning I woke up in Chicago. I went to ORD, breezed through PreCheck, and had a perfectly forgettable UA flight to DCA. When I called my wife after landing, she asked "Do you know what today is?" To which I responded "Wednesday?" I honestly had no idea. She then reminded me of the date. We talked about it, and both agreed that this year, for the first time, it's starting to feel like something that happened in history as opposed to a personal event in our lives. I feel like I'm starting to forget a day I'd previously believed to be unforgettable, and at bottom I don't know how to feel about that. If you'd told me on the 1st anniversary that I'd be able to fly on future anniversaries and not think about it, the notion would have seemed preposterous. But here we are.

Sorry for the Tolstoy.

bbmatt

Wow amazingly detailed recollection. Thanks!

PTravel

The day before that day, I flew into MSP from SNA on United. I woke up that morning and, as is my habit, turned on CNN to see what was new. I switched on just as the second plane was crashing into the second tower. At first, I actually thought I was watching a trailer for some movie -- I remember thinking that it looked kind of fake. I quickly realized this was actually happening. I immediately called my wife, who had been still sleeping. I told her that two planes had crashed into the World Trade Center in New York, and that I was okay and safe in the hotel in Minneapolis. She mumbled something and went back to sleep. About 20 minutes she called me back, saying, "Oh my god, oh my god." She was still sleep-addled when I spoke to her the first time and what I had said didn't penetrate. When she got up, she turned on the television, just in time to see the first tower collapse (I'm getting a little choked up just recalling as I write this).

My boss was supposed to fly in from New York later that day but, of course, didn't make it because his flight canceled. His daughter worked in one of the towers but, fortunately, she had been late leaving for work that day and was in a subway heading downtown, well out of the danger zone, when it happened. Our New York office had overlooked the towers and the staff there sent us pictures via email all day.

I got out of MSP 5 days later on Saturday morning, one of the first flights, if not the first, to depart the airport after the FAA had shut everything down. Everyone was nervous and edgy as we boarded, including the FAs who were, understandably, shaken to the core by events. Right before push-back, the pilot got on the intercom and gave us a nice talk, reassuring us that he and the first officer were very experienced and were veterans of combat flying, that no one would get in the cockpit, and that our plane had been very carefully checked. He also said, and this I'll never forget, "I know, too, that you [meaning us passengers] will not allow anything to happen to this flight." It was a great talk and we all relaxed measurably after hearing it. The FAs on that flight were terrific and all, passengers and flight crew, felt a closer connection than I've ever experienced on a flight, before or since.

I was very proud of how our country pulled together immediately after that horrible tragedy. I wish that sense of unity had lasted.

GregMM

Apparently you're not the only one. Someone scheduled a training drill at Logan Airport for today, which included setting a dummy plane on fire, apparently without considering the date. They have since issued a public apology.

A friend of mine was working customer service for a satellite TV provider at the time. She had many calls that day asking why several of their channels were off the air (the NY ones that had transmitters on top of the WTC). She told them to put on one of the news stations that was still broadcasting (CNN?).

IADDCA

Dumb question... Why all the quick pitching and rolling? Is that something you do to quickly lose altitude? Is that to keep people from running up to the front of the aircraft?