Dear Readers,
Twenty-five years. It doesn't seem possible, and yet here we are.
For most of us in this industry, September 11th isn't a date on a calendar. It's a morning we can still walk through minute by minute — where we were standing, who called, what we thought before we understood. I was working on my CFI, watching from the outside, the way most of the country was.
Thousands of people didn't come home that night. Crews were gone. Families were gone. In the days and weeks that followed, thousands of pilots and flight attendants got furlough letters, carriers that had flown for generations went into bankruptcy, and the industry we all thought we understood stopped existing. And somewhere far down the list of things that mattered that week, a kid with a fresh logbook watched his hopes and dreams drift away and wondered whether the profession he wanted would still be there when the sky opened back up.
I would like to remember who paid for first. Before the towers, before the Pentagon, before a field in Shanksville, there were thirty-three crewmembers at work — eight pilots and twenty-five flight attendants — doing an ordinary Tuesday turn. Some of them, in the last minutes of their lives, got word to the ground about what was happening in their cabins. That information shaped everything the country understood in the hours that followed. They were the first responders of that day, and they were doing the same jobs you'll be doing this month.
Twenty-five years is long enough that the industry has changed hands. There are first officers flying today who weren't born on 9/11. There are flight attendants working trips who know it only as history — something covered in a training module, not something they lived. That's not a failure. That's what a generation looks like. But it does put something on the rest of us. Much of what we now treat as simply the way the job is done was not inevitable, and it did not arrive on its own. It was built afterward, deliberately, and a great deal of it was fought for by crewmembers and their unions who decided that day would not be repeated. When a newer crewmember asks why we do it this way, that history is the worthy answer.
In whatever way you spend the 11th — mid-Atlantic, in a hotel room, on a short call, or home for once — take the minute. Say the names if you know them. And then go do the job the way this industry has done it for twenty-five years since: carefully, professionally, and with these people in back in mind.
Thank you, as always, for trusting us to be part of your career.
Fly Safe,
Craig Pieper
The Crews of September 11, 2001
Thirty-three airline crewmembers were at work aboard four aircraft that morning. This is the record of who they were, and the flights they were flying.
33 CREWMEMBERS 8 PILOTS 25 FLIGHT ATTENDANTS 4 AIRCRAFT
AMERICAN AIRLINES Flight 11
EQUIPMENT: Boeing 767-223ER REGISTRATION: N334AA
DEPARTED: Boston Logan (BOS) — 07:59 DESTINATION: Los Angeles (LAX)
IMPACT: 08:46 SITE: North Tower, World Trade Center, New York — floors 93 to 99
FLIGHT DECK
John Ogonowski — Captain
Thomas McGuinness Jr. — First Officer
CABIN CREW
Karen Martin — Purser
Barbara Arestegui — Flight Attendant
Jeffrey Collman — Flight Attendant
Sara Low — Flight Attendant
Kathleen Nicosia — Flight Attendant
Betty Ong — Flight Attendant
Jean Roger — Flight Attendant
Dianne Snyder — Flight Attendant
Madeline Amy Sweeney — Flight Attendant
UNITED AIRLINES Flight 175
EQUIPMENT: Boeing 767-222 REGISTRATION: N612UA
DEPARTED: Boston Logan (BOS) — 08:14 DESTINATION: Los Angeles (LAX)
IMPACT: 09:03 SITE: South Tower, World Trade Center, New York — floors 77 to 85
FLIGHT DECK
Victor Saracini — Captain
Michael Horrocks — First Officer
CABIN CREW
Kathryn Laborie — Purser
Robert Fangman — Flight Attendant
Amy Jarret — Flight Attendant
Amy King — Flight Attendant
Alfred Marchand — Flight Attendant
Michael Tarrou — Flight Attendant
Alicia Titus — Flight Attendant
AMERICAN AIRLINES Flight 77
EQUIPMENT: Boeing 757-223 REGISTRATION: N644AA
DEPARTED: Washington Dulles (IAD) — 08:20 DESTINATION: Los Angeles (LAX)
IMPACT: 09:37 SITE: The Pentagon, Arlington County, Virginia — west face
FLIGHT DECK
Charles Burlingame III — Captain
David Charlebois — First Officer
CABIN CREW
Renee May — Purser
Michele Heidenberger — Flight Attendant
Jennifer Lewis — Flight Attendant
Kenneth Lewis — Flight Attendant
UNITED AIRLINES Flight 93
EQUIPMENT: Boeing 757-222 REGISTRATION: N591UA
DEPARTED: Newark (EWR) — 08:42 DESTINATION: San Francisco (SFO)
IMPACT: 10:03 SITE: Stonycreek Township near Shanksville, Somerset County, Pennsylvania
FLIGHT DECK
Jason Dahl — Captain
LeRoy Homer Jr. — First Officer
CABIN CREW
Deborah Welsh — Purser
Lorraine Bay — Flight Attendant
Sandra Bradshaw — Flight Attendant
Wanda Green — Flight Attendant
CeeCee Lyles — Flight Attendant
Each of them reported for an ordinary Tuesday trip. Crewmembers on all four aircraft got word to the ground about what was happening in their cabins, and what they relayed shaped everything the country understood in the hours that followed.
