among the passengers, waiting to attack anyone who posed a threat or disobeyed commands.
Just as the military operated under certain expectations about how hijackings played out, aircrews were taught that they should refrain from trying to negotiate with or overpower hijackers, to avoid making things worse. Under a program known as the Common Strategy, crews were told to focus on attempts to “resolve hijackings peacefully” and to get the plane and its passengers on the ground safely. The counterstrategy to a hijacking also called for delays, and if that didn’t work, cooperation and accommodation when necessary. In these scenarios, “suicide wasn’t in the game plan,” as one study phrased it. Neither was a hijacker piloting the plane. Further, no one considered the possibility that a hijacked airplane would attempt to disappear from radar by someone in the cockpit turning off a transponder.
Still operating under the old set of beliefs, some air traffic controllers predicted that Flight 11 would land at John F. Kennedy International Airport in Queens, New York, although at least one put his money on the plane making a run for Cuba. But the old playbook on hijackings had become dangerously obsolete. That was clear as soon as Betty Ong and Amy Sweeney revealed details of a precise, multilayered plot aboard Flight 11.
AFTER THE LAST routine contact between pilots John Ogonowski and Tom McGuinness and Boston Center’s Peter Zalewski at 8:13 a.m., Atta and his men pounced. Based on the timing, about fifteen minutes into the flight, they might have used a predetermined signal: when the pilots turned off the Fasten Seatbelt signs.
One or more of the hijackers, possibly the brothers Wail and Waleed al-Shehri, who were sitting in the first row of first class, sprayed Mace or pepper spray to create confusion and force passengers and flight attendants away from the cockpit door.
Using weapons smuggled aboard, perhaps the short-bladed knives bought in the months before September 11, they stabbed or slashed first-class flight attendants Karen Martin and Bobbi Arestegui. Amy Sweeney told Michael Woodward in Boston that Karen was critically injured and being given oxygen. Betty Ong told Nydia Gonzalez in Fort Worth that Karen was down on the floor in bad shape. Both said Bobbi Arestegui was hurt but not as seriously as Karen. They didn’t say what kind of knives or weapons the hijackers used. Neither indicated that the terrorists had guns or other weapons.
All nine flight attendants had keys to the cockpit, but it’s not clear how the hijackers gained entry—Atta and his crew might have attacked Karen and Bobbi to steal their keys, or the hijackers might have gotten into the cockpit another way. When the plane dipped and pitched erratically, Betty suspected that a hijacker was already in control. She said she thought they had “jammed the way up there.” In fact, the cockpit doors were relatively flimsy and weren’t strong enough to prevent forced entry. Another possibility was that the hijackers stabbed the first-class flight attendants to induce the pilots to open the cockpit door. Or maybe it was even simpler: In September 2001, one key opened the cockpit doors of all Boeing planes. Maybe the hijackers brought a key on board with them.
Whichever way Atta and the others gained access, no one who knew John Ogonowski, the Vietnam veteran who farmed when he wasn’t flying, or Tom McGuinness, the former Navy pilot, would believe that either went down quietly. Possible evidence of that came during Betty Ong’s call. She said she heard loud arguing after the hijackers entered the cockpit. If Ogonowski and McGuinness were in their seats, low and strapped in, they would have been at a distinct disadvantage against knife-wielding attackers coming at them from behind with the element of surprise.
As the only hijacker with pilot training, Mohamed Atta almost certainly took control of the plane after the hijackers killed or disabled the pilots. He spoke English fluently, so he likely made the radio transmissions heard by Peter Zalewski in Boston Center. It’s also possible that Atta’s seatmate, Abdulaziz al-Omari, accompanied him into the cockpit.
Betty Ong reported to Nydia Gonzalez that a passenger’s throat had been slashed and that the man appeared to be dead. On her call to Michael Woodward, Amy Sweeney said the passenger was in first class. Betty told Nydia Gonzalez the passenger’s name was “Levin or Lewis” and that he’d been seated in business class seat 9B. In her first, brief call, Amy identified the attacker as the passenger who’d been seated in 10B.
Nydia Gonzalez tried to confirm the killer’s identity. She asked Betty: “Okay, you said Tom Sukani?”—a name phonetically similar to that of “muscle” hijacker Satam al-Suqami. “Okay—okay, and he was in 10B. Okay, okay, so he’s one of the persons that are in the cockpit. And as far as weapons, all they have are just knives?”
Based on Betty and Amy’s calls, it’s possible that the brilliant computer entrepreneur and former Israeli commando Daniel Lewin saw the hijackers attack the flight attendants and heroically leapt into action. But unknown to Lewin, seated directly behind him was the fifth hijacker, Satam al-Suqami, whose name Nydia Gonzalez heard as “Tom Sukani.” In that scenario, when Lewin rose to fight back, Suqami slit his throat, making Lewin perhaps the first casualty of 9/11. Another possibility was that the hijackers had planned all along to begin the takeover by attacking crew members and at least one passenger, to frighten the rest into compliance. In that scenario, Lewin would have been an unwitting victim who happened to be sitting in the targeted seat.
Amy told Michael Woodward the three hijackers in business class were Middle Eastern and gave him their seat numbers, key pieces of evidence to identify the terrorists. Betty identified the seat numbers of the two hijackers in first class, the Shehri brothers.
Amy told Michael she saw one of the hijackers with a device with red and yellow wires that appeared to be a bomb. He wrote “#cockpit bomb” on his notepad. Betty didn’t mention a bomb, and no one knew if whatever Amy saw was real or a decoy.
On their separate calls, the two flight attendants said they didn’t know whether coach passengers fully understood the peril. Amy told Michael that she believed the coach passengers thought the problem was a routine medical emergency in the front section of the plane. First-class passengers were herded into coach, but in the uproar, it wasn’t clear whether former ballet dancer Sonia Puopolo, business consultant Richard Ross, venture capitalist David Retik, or anyone else who’d been up front mentioned the violence they’d seen.
Amy told Michael that in addition to Betty, the flight attendants who weren’t injured—Kathy Nicosia, Sara Low, Dianne Snyder, Jeffrey Collman, and Jean Rogér—kept working throughout the crisis, helping passengers and finding medical supplies.
Betty and Amy relayed all the information they could, as quickly and completely as they could, for as long as they could. At 8:43 a.m., roughly a half hour after the hijacking began, Flight 11 changed course again, to the south-southwest. The move put the Boeing 767, still heavy with fuel, on a direct course for Lower Manhattan, the heart of America’s financial community.
At the American Airlines center in Fort Worth, Nydia Gonzalez begged for information: “What’s going on, Betty? … Betty, talk to me… . Betty, are you there? … Betty?”
Betty didn’t answer.
Nydia turned to her colleagues: “Do you think we lost her? Okay, so we’ll like—we’ll stay open.”
Then Nydia Gonzalez added an unintentionally haunting coda to Betty Ong’s bravery: “We—I think we might have lost her.”
AROUND THE SAME time, Amy Sweeney told Michael Woodward: “Something is wrong. We’re in a rapid descent… . We are all over the place.” Another American Airlines employee who overheard the call said she heard Amy scream.
Michael tried his best to calm Amy. He told her to look out the window and tell him what she saw. “We are flying low,” she said. Amy told Michael she saw water and buildings. “We
