Twenty three years ago today I was sitting in my office in Arlington, Virginia. I was fortunate not to be on the road, although several colleagues were and it was a challenge to help them get home when planes were grounded on 9/11. A whole generation of adults was born after that day that remains ingrained in my experience.
The first news I heard about planes crashing into the World Trade Center came over email. It wasn’t on the newswires yet. I was on an airline industry list, and the subject line was “Terrorists are bombing us with airplanes.” I didn’t think it was real. News was quickly coming in, much of it wrong, speculating on the aircraft types (a private plane!) and that there could have been an accident (especially after only one plane had hit).
Two 9/11 hijackers almost missed their flight. One American Airlines agent still deals with the guilt of helping them make it onto American Airlines Flight 77 from Washington Dulles to Los Angeles that crashed into the Pentagon at 9:37 a.m., killing 59 passengers and crew and 125 in the building as well.
Ticket agent Vaughn Allex saw two full fare first class passengers and wanted to offer his best customer service.
"I realize that there's probably nothing I could've done to prevent what happened. I've come to terms with that."
Vaughn Allex, former American Airlines gate agent, speaks about the guilt he feels for allowing hijackers onto Flight 77 on Sept. 11, 2001. https://t.co/qabkKxf6WD pic.twitter.com/HYj7VXTVRK
— ABC News Live (@ABCNewsLive) September 10, 2021
He marked the two men for extra security because they couldn’t answer the standard security check-in questions, but they didn’t have bombs or guns so got through just fine.
Here’s an amazing thread with an inside look at how 9/11 unfolded. Dick Cheney gave the order to shoot down United flight 93. Lt. Heather “Lucky” Penney scrambled her jet without any missiles on board, in a suicide mission to take out the civilian jetliner. She made the decision that she would ram the tail of the aircraft. It was the first time the U.S. military had been given permission to shoot down a civilian plane, and with U.S. citizens on board. It would not be the last.
On 9/11 it didn’t happen because passengers took matters into their own hands. One passenger dialed 911 from the lavatory using a cell phone while other passengers used Airfones to call loved ones.
- Passenger Todd Beamer: “Ok. Let’s roll.”
- The cockpit voice recorder has a man in Arabic saying “Cut off the oxygen. Cut off the oxygen. Cut off the oxygen. Cut off the oxygen.”
- And as United flight 93 is crashed into an abandoned coal mine in Pennsylvania, nine times in Arabic, “Allah is the greatest.”
People cleared out of my office fairly quickly after the news broke, but my boss kept me around wanting to work through budgets. Traffic that afternoon was terrible, worse than I’ve ever seen in DC. The atmosphere in the city was completely surreal, and the days that followed were just sad.
D.C. didn’t ‘come together’ in the same way I remember New York being different at the time. And I didn’t lose anyone very close to me, though many friends of friends were in the Towers that day. I grew up visiting the towers. One friend lost all four of her roommates.
I would bring snacks and chocolates and other little gifts to the agents I knew at United’s city ticket offices. There were neighborhood offices then and those are the people I knew best. Here are the names of the flight crew who lost their lives on 9/11.
Flying in the aftermath of 9/11 is hard to describe. I remember flight attendants who were genuinely scared. And when the flight attendants are scared passengers are too.
Washington National airport didn’t re-open right away. The approach path is so close to ‘important people’ and important people are always more protected. When anthrax was delivered in the mail on Capitol Hill, Hill staffers all got Cipro but Postal Service employees didn’t.
I had a ticket to fly in and out of National airport before flights had resumed, so United moved me over to Dulles but capacity was limited. I had to fly back from South Florida Miami – Orlando – Washington Dulles since I couldn’t get anything non-stop home.
Many airfares after 9/11 actually rose briefly even though people were avoiding the air. Normally you think empty planes means lower prices. But dropping price wouldn’t have convinced marginal flyers into the skies. The people flying were the ones who really had to and they were less price sensitive.
Airport security was federalized. The TSA was initially part of the Department of Transportation. There was no Germanic-sounding Department of ‘Homeland Security’ yet. We got secondary gate screenings but could still bring liquids through checkpoints for about 5 more years. We didn’t have to take off our shoes yet.
Passengers became our best line of defense. Before 9/11 if a plane was hijacked passengers would remain docile. We’d wait it out until terrorist demands were met, and in all likelihood most people would be ok. The equilibrium shifted and passengers now assume terrorists will bring down planes, so they aren’t going to sit idly by. That may be the most important change in aviation security over the past 20 years. Reinforced cockpit doors are a net positive as well. Everything else is far less clear, or clearly negative. It saddens me to see this displayed by TSA as though they somehow own the legacy of 9/11, even if they’re a sad result of it.
Each day for the next 8 years was a reminder for me of 9/11 because my daily commute back then took me right past the Pentagon. Flying for me wasn’t scary. Neither were most of the places I’ve visited. I attribute that to driving twice a day past an actual 9/11 target. What else that I would do would be more dangerous?
We all remember 9/11 in different ways. In 2013 the San Diego Marriott Mission Valley offered 30 minutes of free mini-muffins for guests.
What pic.twitter.com/L35ytAtCWP
— guillotease (@eclectrica) September 11, 2013
9/11 will always be personal for many people, and I’ll forever resent those who used it for their own political or business purposes. Congressman Jim Moran of Virginia for instance, a month after 9/11, declared of the government pork opportunities “It’s an open grab bag, so let’s grab.”
Sadly the legacy of 9/11 isn’t the part about coming together, it’s the forever wars (including in places not at all connected to the attacks) and the forever war at home that’s given us a ramped up security state. George W. Bush said they hate us for our freedoms, but if that’s true then surrendering our freedoms capitulated to them.
And some are sympathetic to the current morons in the Middle East ?
I had an employee who flew weekly, he was on the first SWA flight out of Tampa when airspace was opened. The crew actually allowed him to visit the cockpit that day. AFAIK, he may have been the last passenger to set foot in a cockpit. The world shifted that day and we’ve never shifted back. I doubt we ever will.
And of course, the federal government took over airport security overnight, (yea!) and for the past two decades, we’ve been taking off our shoes, getting “stroked” by federal agents, and throwing away our liquids. Most of these TSA Security rules – largely adopted around the world – seem pretty stupid. Does anyone honestly believe that a 3-ounce tube of toothpaste is fine, but 3.5 ounces is a security threat? It was mainly used to herd the cattle and more finely control us.
Thanks for sharing your personal experience, Gary. I remember well where I was, as well.
For increased security, follow the money. Campaign contributions by big corporations (scanning came in after the president of that company had a nice long talk with Obama) and investments in organizations that make and use such things guarantee endless returns. Meanwhile the U.S. flounders around; spending vast sums on “defense”, and chasing variants of ISIS (an organization directly created by the pointless Iraq War) without dealing with the reasons why they flourish. This means that they can never be defeated. Kill them all and a new group will simply arise. But man, is it profitable.
I was in NYC at the time. l hate the TSA theater and…well, everything you just described so eloquently. I just wanted to add that for a couple of months afterwards, you could really feel the collective hurt, shock, sorrow, uncertainty, frustration, survivor guilt of everyone in the city.
This experience really reshaped the airline industry, which was already in a flux due to the Internet and the Southwest effect. JetBlue was a new and gaining popularity entrant. Quickly gone were coach amenities and later in the decade the start of unbundling.
American sent the current flight attendants in training home and wouldn’t hire new flight attendants for over ten years (2012). Airlines cut routes and aircraft deliveries but eventually that wasn’t enough to save them from a bankruptcy filing.
And unfortunately this led to the TSA.
The United States has never recovered from 9/11. Mega Federal Government programs and Mega corporations use tragedy to line their pockets.
COVID was another example of this line up to the trough mentality. Again using a tragedy as an excuse to ignore ethics.
What are we left with? Watching two utter buffoons talk about nothing for 90 minutes. It’s jaw dropping.
The fear of forever wars makes America weak. No guts, no drive.
Star Trek is partly to blame. We are too used to Captain Kirk always winning and winning in less than 60 minutes (120 minutes if a movie).
We should be like Israel who is prepared to fight a 100 year war or longer. Israel has been fighting since 1948 (1948 wars, 1956, 1967, 1973, 1982-2000 (Lebanon), 2006-2023 (lower level), 2023-present). Try to avoid a fight but am prepared to fight…
“Watching two utter buffoons talk about nothing for 90 minutes. It’s jaw dropping.”
“Consider, for example, a campaign for the Presidency. Would it be possible to imagine anything more uproariously idiotic – a deafening, nerve-wracking battle to the death between Tweedledum and Tweedledee, Harlequin and Sganarelle, Gobbo and Dr. Cook – the unspeakable, with fearful snorts, gradually swallowing the inconceivable?” H.L, Mencken
Fantastic comment Dan. So true.
@derek- I’m not sure how America is weak concerning forever wars. We certainly haven’t cut our military spending since Iraq or Afghanistan. We spend more than the next 20 nations, 17 of which are allies. I’d contend that we are justifiably shy of losing American lives in foreign wars, given the typically poor outcomes in the last 70 years.
Israel is surrounded by enemies. We are surrounded by allies and ocean. While I am not an isolationist by any means, I think we could cut US military spending without hampering our ability to defend ourselves.
Terrible tragedy that continues on and on with TSA and security theater. Good comment about Covid. People were willing to “stop the spread” and give up everything. Never again. And I mean never. I just laugh when I see people walking around in a mask. Complete stupidity.
My future wife flew to LAX on flight #93 on September 10. She was visiting a friend who had urged her to delay her trip by a day, but thankfully did not do so. I still get choked up thinking about “what if” and just yesterday I reminded my teen that she would not exist had other choices been made.
I had personally met two of the lawyers who died on airplanes that day. I knew others who were on the streets and barely avoided debris from the collapse. Those of us on the West Coast did not feel the same sense of fear, but it is certainly a day that no one will forget.
One result of the catastrophe was a fare sale to get people flying again. My best friend and I purchased $1 tickets to fly SFO-LAS on now-defunct National Air (the return was $25 IIRC) and then paid $50 each to upgrade to First Class. The upgrade was well worth the $$ as it allowed us to move to the front of the massive lines at the airport.
Thank you Gary for your untiring annual recap of this event that we will never forget, and for the reminder about its unfortunate and unnecessary political aftermath.
Now, you could honor this occasion even more by dropping your tabloid-style entries, and focus on the thoughtful and intelligent business content that you are so capable of.
Thank you again for all that you do, and happy (unhappy) 09/11 remembrance!
“We spend more than the next 20 nations, 17 of which are allies.” While this may be true in a conversion to nominal USD sense, the USA does not lead the world of military spending as a percentage of nominal GDP, Ukraine does, with quite a few countries on the list before you come to the USA. If a look at what you get is done instead, a lot of countries are much higher than on the conversion to USD list. China has a significantly larger military and also has the ability to make competent military aircraft. As the war in Ukraine has shown, the USA has let a lot of military industries contract to the point that artillery replacement is affected. India spends less than 10% of what the USA does but the nominal GDP per capita is much less than 10% of that of the USA. India doesn’t produce it’s most advanced military aircraft, though.
There is/was only one buffoon – cackling hyena Harris. President Trump stated the truths while she glossed over her responsibilities and out and out lied. America was much better off when President Trump was in the White House. If covid had of not happened, President Trump would have been honestly reelected and the nightmare that has happened to America the past 3 1/2+ years would have never happened. The corrupt DemocRats and the lying liberal media are responsible for where America finds itself today. Anyone voting for Harris and any DemocRat is a traitor to America.
Very good remembrance. There were so many different stories and viewpoints.
I’m just afraid that the memories of that day and the following days are now fading.
When I found out about 9/11 I was in a Property Risk Management class in university.
Within a few months after 9/11, there were a lot of deals to be had by flying US airlines in economy class and crediting the flights to the operator’s frequent flyer program. 2002 was quite a bonanza year for me racking up miles from economy class flights.
I was on United flights on 9/10 and 9/11. Then got stuck outside of the US for several days until international flights from Europe to the US resumed. Within a week I arrived back in NYC on a LH flight from Germany.
David R. Miller: Apparently you are so blinded by your partisan favorite that you didn’t bother to watch the debate Tuesday. If that hallucinating, dementia-exhibiting orange buffoon is what you want for the country, complete with imaginary pet-picnics, nonstop bigotry and the wonderful relationship he imagines he has with Putin, Hungary and Maduro, you’ve got to be kidding. The world is laughing at us indeed— but it’s at him trying to slip one more over on you before he ends up in prison.
Meanwhile, the rest of us on here congratulate Gary on this (again) thoughtful post about that terrible day.