The Rerouted Skytress

This Friday will be the nineteenth anniversary of 9-11. The other day when I was looking for pictures of my sister for my blog post about her, three pictures of the World Trade Center Twin Towers in New York fell to the ground. I took these pictures when my family went back East. My sister Patti was running in the NYC marathon. We went to New York to cheer her on and to visit our relatives. I remember I loved the pictures of the towers when I got them developed. Now, I look at them and I am sad….and I remember. I remember September 11, 2001, like it was yesterday. I can no longer look at pictures of the airplanes hitting the towers. I turn my head. Though we may all fly for different airlines, we in the airline industry consider each other family. Thirty-three of our family members died on 9-11. This week I will again wear my 9-11 airline pin in honor of each crew member.

For several years after the terrorist attacks, I chose not to fly on September 11th. I know I am not the only one. I have talked to numerous crew members that didn’t and still don’t fly on the 11th. I, fortunately, was not flying on 9-11. I had transferred from Atlanta to Cincinnati and I had to switch my vacation dates. I had just moved into my new house in Cincinnati, so I changed my October vacation to September. The morning of September 11, I was heading across town to go to physical therapy to treat a bulging disk. I had the radio on in my car. I remember the DJ’s talking about a plane hitting the World Trade Center. I thought they were doing a skit like Orson Welles’, “War of the Worlds”, where martians invade the Earth. I couldn’t believe a radio station would air a skit as tasteless as this. I turned the radio off in disgust. When I entered the Medical building for therapy every one asked me if I heard what had happened. They all knew I was a Skytress. I stood in disbelief with them as we watched the television. When I got home I had numerous messages from friends checking to see if I was flying that day. I called them back as the cable man hooked up my TV cable for the first time in my new home. Then I sat for days by myself watching Peter Jennings on ABC World News Tonight. He talked and I cried. Everyone in my neighborhood lit candles and placed them on our porches at night. We all hung out our American flags. These were simple gestures to express our utter sadness….and our resilience as a nation.

I was in Atlanta days before 9-11 with my friends and my family. My best friend, Tara, a Skytress for United, was married on September 8th. There were several people from her airline and my airline in Atlanta for the wedding. Our friend, John, a Secret Service Agent on President Bush’s detail, was also there for the wedding. We all made it back to our respective homes before 9-11 and before the skies went quiet. Needless to say, my heart ached for my friends that flew for United. Tara told me American Airlines sent a flower wreath to their crew lounge. I can’t imagine how powerful that was to see. I thought about that days later when I was in our crew lounge preparing for my first trip after the terrorist attacks. I remember walking by our duty desk in our crew lounge. Skytresses and Skyters were calling in to get off their trips. No questions were asked when they called in. Everyone understood. I went to my flight with my crew. Our crew briefing with the pilots was like no other. John’s email warning me to be careful and keep my eyes open for anything usual had me on full alert. However, I quickly felt empowered when the handful of passengers came on the airplane. Even though we were all nervous about flying for the first time after the attacks, I knew with certainty they were now part of our crew. We all had each other’s backs if anything happened on the flight. Several weeks later, I was flying when American Airlines flight 587 crashed in New York City. I remember our Skytress-In Charge was called to the cockpit. The pilots told her a plane had gone down in NYC. They suspected it was an accident, but the FAA wasn’t sure it wasn’t another terrorist attack. They told her we were over Atlanta, so if we had to land, Atlanta would be our airport. I can honestly say when our Skytress-In Charge first told us this, I thought I was going to be sick. It took me a moment to regain my composure. I felt guilty for hoping it was just a plane crash. The passengers had no idea about the American airplane. We Skytresses acted as if everything was normal, but we started to develop an action plan just in case. Thankfully we landed in Cincinnati without any incident.

The topic of conversation for our crews the next few days and weeks centered around whether you were flying on September 11th. I flew with one Skyter that went out on a one day trip with no luggage. He got grounded in Boise, Idaho for a few days. He told me every morning he would go to the sports bar behind the hotel and buy a $2 sports team t-shirt to wear for the day. Then there was the story of the Cincinnati Skytresses thinking outside the box for getting home from Atlanta. They knew renting a car was no longer an option…..all cars had been rented. They decided to rent a U-Hall van. A passenger on their flight drove them to the U-Hall facility. They made it home safely. I flew with another Atlanta Skytress that told me her daughter and a pilot’s son were taken to the principal’s office on 9-11 and were told what had happened to the World Trade Center towers. She said the principal wanted to put the children at ease that their parents were not on the airplanes. It only made them more scared that something could happen to their parents that day, too. Her story definitely made me wonder about all the other experiences the children of airline employees across the world encountered on that awful day.

I flew with another Skytress that was at Reagan Airport in Washington D.C. on 9-11. She said she and the first officer were out walking the concourse between flights. They could see smoke outside. They thought it was just a big fire. Then there was an announcement that passengers needed to evacuate the airport. Airline crews were to report to a designated area. The Skytress said they were told about the airplanes hitting the towers and the smoke they were seeing was from another plane hitting the Pentagon. There was great concern that the airport could be another target, so they needed to evacuate, too. She told me all the crews left the airport and walked to the airport hotel. She said people were evacuating the city in their cars en mass as they walked along the roads to the hotel. She, also informed me, to this day she never leaves the plane without water. She explained it was a warm day in D.C. She told me she became extremely thirsty walking with all her bags to the hotel. No one thought about bringing water for the hot walk. They were in shock and just wanted to get away from the airport. When they arrived at the hotel one of our airline Captains took a copy of each crew’s flight rotations to call the company and tell them who was at the hotel. The Skytress said they could smell the jet fuel and smoke the whole time they were there. She recalled how she quietly sat in her hotel room and listen to the fighter jets continuously fly overhead. I thought about this story several years later when I was in D.C. the night before 9-11. I had flown on other 9-11’s and I never had an issue. That night I started to have a panic attack. I was in the same hotel as the Skytress had been staying in on 9-11. I could hear airplanes flying overhead. I worried about someone defiantly crashing one of those planes into the airport. I texted Ron that I couldn’t sleep. He asked me why. I told him I was in D.C. and tomorrow was 9-11. He told me he understood. He sent me some funny texts to ease my mind. Then he called me to check on me. He gave me some breathing techniques to use so I could calm my nerves and go to sleep. Hours later, I standing was in the crew security line at the airport. The passenger security line was next to us. Several passengers were wearing 9-11 pins and 9-11 patriotic shirts. We silently acknowledged each other and the fact that it was 9-11. No one on my crew said anything about it being September 11th. On the last leg of our day, our young Skyter-In Charge came back in the plane and asked us if we knew it was September 11th. He completely forgot until a passenger said something. The rest of us Skytresses knew it was 9-11. Unlike him, we all were flying in 2001. We Skytresses had been thinking about it all day. No one wanted to say anything. We all decided separately that we wanted to quietly make it through the day.

I remember when the National September 11 Memorial and Museum was first opened in New York. The lines into the memorial were long. However, if you were an airline crew member you were able to go in before other visitors. This was a small way the memorial recognized the airline crews as being the first responders on 9-11. Our security training since 9-11 has changed drastically. This is largely in part because of what we know the crews and passengers on United and American did to try to stop the hijackings. I like to remind younger Skytresses and Skyters what our protocols were prior to 9-11. I like to tell them about the strict procedures we had to follow flying into certain cities, such as Washington D.C., right after the terrorist attacks. I wear my 9-11 pin so the younger generation of Skytresses and Skyters will know that we must always honor those crews that died on 9-11. Friday as I fly my trip, I will look out the airplane window and say a prayer for all those who died on September 11th. I will pray for all those who mourn them. I will say an extra prayer for the crews of American Flight # 11, United Flight 175, American Flight #77, and United Flight #93. After all, we are family and I will forever honor and remember them.