aboard Flight 175 isn’t known.
Hamza al-Ghamdi apparently took to heart the instruction in the handwritten Arabic letter to “wear cologne.” Earlier that morning, his overbearing fragrance had made a lasting, unpleasant impression on the desk clerk when he checked out of the off-brand Days Hotel, a few miles from the airport. He made no better impression on the cabdriver who drove them to the airport when he left a fifteen-cent tip.
Upon their arrival at Logan’s United Airlines ticket counter shortly before 7 a.m., the Ghamdis had seemed confused. One told a customer service agent that he thought he needed to buy a ticket for the flight, not realizing that he already had one. Both had limited English skills, so they had difficulty answering standard security questions about unattended bags and dangerous items. The customer service agent repeated the questions slowly, and the Ghamdis eventually gave acceptable answers. Aboard Flight 175, the Ghamdis sat together in the last row of business class, in the center two seats, 9C and 9D.
None of the five men or their luggage was chosen by the computerized system or by airport workers for additional security screenings.
“I THINK WE’RE BEING HIJACKED”
American Airlines Flight 11
WHEN AMERICAN FLIGHT 11 TOOK OFF, FLIGHT ATTENDANT BETTY “Bee” Ong sat buckled into a jump seat in the tail section, on the left side of the plane, ready to begin her onboard routine. From that vantage point, she had a direct view up an aisle through coach and business into first class.
Less than twenty minutes after takeoff, just as she normally would have begun serving passengers breakfast, Betty witnessed the reason why Flight 11 changed direction without authorization, why someone switched off the transponder, why the cockpit stopped communicating with air traffic controller Peter Zalewski at the FAA’s Boston Center, and why it didn’t answer calls from other planes.
At 8:19 a.m., six minutes after Flight 11 pilots John Ogonowski and Tom McGuinness stopped responding to Zalewski’s calls, Betty grabbed an AT&T telephone called an Airfone, built into the 767. Airfones were common on cross-country flights in 2001, and many planes had an Airfone, for use by passengers with credit cards, on the back of every middle seat in coach. Betty dialed a toll-free reservations number for American Airlines, a number she often used to help passengers make connecting flights. The call went through to the airline’s Southeastern Reservations Office in central North Carolina, where a reservations agent named Vanessa Minter answered.
“I think we’re being hijacked,” Betty said, her voice calm but fearful.
Vanessa Minter asked Betty to hold. She searched for an emergency button on her phone but couldn’t find one. Instead, she speed-dialed the American Airlines international resolution desk on the other side of her office and told agent Winston Sadler what Betty had said. Sadler jumped onto the call and pressed an emergency button on his phone. That allowed the airline’s call system to record about four minutes of what would be a more than twenty-five-minute call from Betty that would provide crucial information about what occurred and who was responsible. Sadler also sent an alarm that notified Nydia Gonzalez, the reservations office supervisor, who also joined the call.
“Um, the cockpit’s not answering,” Betty said. “Somebody’s stabbed in business class, and, um, I think there is Mace—that we can’t breathe. I don’t know, I think we’re getting hijacked.”
For employees of a call center who normally helped stranded travelers find new flights, Betty’s call was beyond shocking. After some confusion about who Betty was and what flight she was on, during which the airline employees asked Betty to repeat herself several times, eventually they understood that Betty was the Number Three flight attendant on American Airlines Flight 11. Once that was established, Betty stammered at times as she did her best to describe a bloody, chaotic scene.
“Our, our Number One got stabbed. Our purser is stabbed. Ah, nobody knows who stabbed who and we can’t even get up to business class right now because nobody can breathe. Our Number One is, is stabbed right now. And our Number Five. Our first-class passenger that, ah, first, ah, class galley flight attendant and our purser has been stabbed and we can’t get to the cockpit, the door won’t open. Hello?”
She remained polite and self-possessed, even as her throat tightened with fear. Betty repeated herself several more times in response to the questions of reservation office employees.
Supervisor Nydia Gonzalez asked if Betty heard any announcements from the cockpit, and Betty said there had been none.
Two minutes into Betty’s call, at 8:21 a.m., Gonzalez called Craig Marquis, the manager on duty at American Airlines’ operations control headquarters in Fort Worth, Texas, to report an emergency aboard Flight 11, with stabbings and an unresponsive cockpit.
Meanwhile, Betty turned to other flight attendants clustered around her at the back of the plane: “Can anybody get up to the cockpit? Can anybody get up to the cockpit?” Then she returned to the call: “We can’t even get into the cockpit. We don’t know who’s up there.”
At that point, reservations agent Winston Sadler displayed the widely held but tragically mistaken belief that only the airline’s pilots could fly a Boeing 767. “Well,” Sadler told Betty, “if they were shrewd”—meaning the original crew—“they would keep the door closed and …”
Betty: “I’m sorry?”
Sadler: “Well, would they not maintain a sterile cockpit?”
Betty: “I think the guys [hijackers] are up there. They might have gone there, jammed their way up there, or something. Nobody can call the cockpit. We can’t even get inside.”
Sadler went silent.
Betty: “Is anybody still there?”
Sadler: “Yes, we’re still here.”
Betty: “Okay. I’m staying on the line as well.”
Sadler: “Okay.”
Nydia Gonzalez returned to the call. After asking Betty to repeat herself several times, Gonzalez asked: “Have you guys called anyone else?”
“No,” Betty answered. “Somebody’s calling medical and we can’t get a doc—”
The tape ended, but the call continued for more than twenty minutes as Nydia Gonzalez and Vanessa Minter took notes and relayed information from Betty to Craig Marquis at the airline’s control headquarters in Fort Worth. Throughout, Gonzalez reassured Betty, urging her to stay calm and telling her she was doing a wonderful job.
“Betty, how are you holding up, honey?” Gonzalez asked. “Okay. You’re gonna be fine… . Relax, honey. Betty, Betty.”
Several times Betty reported that the plane was flying erratically, almost turning sideways.
“Please pray for us,” Betty asked. “Oh God … oh God.”
EVEN AS HIS anxiety rose about American Flight 11, Boston Center air traffic controller Peter Zalewski knew nothing about Betty Ong’s anguished, ongoing
