Home in bed when one of my mates (also a United pilot) called me to tell me a plane (American) had flown into the WTC. I asked him how the stupid fella got so far off course in the weather, as it’s not that close to any airways we fly. He said, “No, I think it was a big one, and it’s clear and a million!”
I immediately got up and turned the TV on to see the second tower hit by a United 767.
Then, the American 757 hit the Pentagon and the United 767 went down in Shanksville, PA.
That was all bad enough, and one wondered how many people might have died from the impact with the WTC towers, but when the first tower came down, then shortly after the second one, then Building 7, it started to dawn on me that this was going to be the deadliest day in recent American history. Worse than the attack on Pearl Harbor, which was labeled ”a day that will live in infamy,” by the President at that time.
As I sat there watching this unfold, it was all about connecting with my family and letting them know I was safe at home and not out flying, but I knew my life was going to change forever that day and boy did it ever.
I recognized a few of the Flight Attendants from the United flights, but I actually personally knew the FO on United 93, that was taken down by the passengers before it made it to DC. We had gone through flight training at United at the same time. His voice was the one shouting “Mayday, Mayday” on the radio call as they were being overpowered from behind and murdered.
That day, I lost friends, and in the aftermath of that tragedy, I lost my initial 737 Captain position (20 yrs later I’m finally moving up from that same position to 787 Captain!), lost untold amounts of money (pay, benefits, pension due to the airline filing for bankruptcy), led to me getting trained as one of the cadre of armed pilots (had never handled a gun before), inexorably changed my daily work life (gun on my hip, security procedures at airports, in the cockpit and especially on international flights) and it has forever changed the modern American mindset on war being a distant rumble.
As Condi Rice points out in the excellent new 9/11 documentary about the President on that day, mainland America was attacked on home soil for the first time since the war of 1812. That’s 189 years without a drop of American blood being spilled in a foreign war on the soil of the American fortress, which we all thought was protected on both sides by vast oceans and the strongest military on earth.
