American Airlines Flight 11
From Debunk911myths
American Airlines Flight 11
Hijackers
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| Mohamed Atta | Abdulaziz al-Omari | Wail al-Shehri | Waleed al-Shehri | Satam al-Suqami |
Timeline
Portland
- 6:00 a.m. - Atta and Omari boarded a flight from Portland to Boston's Logan International Airport.
- Atta selected for CAPPS (Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening System) screening.
Boston
- 6:45 a.m. - Atta and Omari arrived in Boston.
- 6:52 a.m. - Atta apparently took a call from Marwan al Shehhi, a longtime colleague who was at another terminal at Logan Airport. They spoke for three minutes.
- Between 6:45 and 7:40 - Atta and Omari, along with Satam al Suqami, Wail al Shehri, and Waleed al Shehri, checked in and boarded American Airlines Flight 11, bound for Los Angeles.
- Suqami, Wail al Shehri, and Waleed al Shehri were selected for CAPPS screening in Boston.
- Globe Aviation Services Corp. operated security checkpoints at Logan for American Airlines.
Boarded flight
- They boarded American 11 between 7:31 and 7:40.
- Atta, Omari, and Suqami took their seats in business class (seats 8D, 8G, and 10B, respectively). The Shehri brothers had adjacent seats in row 2 (Wail in 2A,Waleed in 2B), in the first-class cabin.
Departure
- The aircraft pushed back from Gate 26 of Terminal B[1] at 7:40.
- The flight was scheduled to depart at 7:45.
- The flight was piloted by Captain John Ogonowski and First Officer Thomas McGuinness, with nine flight attendants, and 81 passengers aboard.
- The initial service assignments for flight attendants on American 11 would have placed Karen Martin and Bobbi Arestegui in first class; Sara Low and Jean Roger in business class; Dianne Snyder in the midcabin galley; Betty Ong and Amy Sweeney in coach; and Karen Nicosia in the aft galley. Jeffrey Collman would have been assigned to work in coach, but to assist in first class if needed.
- Flight took off at 7:59.
Hijacking
Just before 8:14, the aircraft had climbed to 26,000 feet, not quite its initial assigned cruising altitude of 29,000 feet. All communications and flight profile data were normal. (About this time the "Fasten Seatbelt" sign would usually have been turned off and the flight attendants would have begun preparing for cabin service.) American 11 had its last routine communication with the ground when it acknowledged navigational instructions from the FAA's air traffic control (ATC) center in Boston.
Sixteen seconds after that transmission, ATC instructed the aircraft's pilots to climb to 35,000 feet. That message and all subsequent attempts to contact the flight were not acknowledged.
As it began, some of the hijackers-most likely Wail al Shehri and Waleed al Shehri, who were seated in row 2 in first class-stabbed the two unarmed flight attendants who would have been preparing for cabin service.
Passenger Daniel Lewin was also likely stabbed at the outset of the hijacking. Lewin was seated in the row just behind Atta and Omari, with another hijacker, likely Satam al Suqami, seated directly behind Lewin. Lewin had served four years as an officer in the Israeli military. He may have made an attempt to stop the hijackers in front of him, not realizing that another was sitting behind him.
The 9/11 Commission does not know exactly how the hijackers gained access to the cockpit; FAA rules required that the doors remain closed and locked during flight. Ong speculated that they had "jammed their way" in. Perhaps the terrorists stabbed the flight attendants to get a cockpit key, to force one of them to open the cockpit door, or to lure the captain or first officer out of the cockpit. Or the flight attendants may just have been in their way.
At the same time or shortly thereafter, Atta-the only terrorist on board trained to fly a jet-would have moved to the cockpit from his business-class seat, possibly accompanied by Omari.
The hijackers quickly gained control and sprayed Mace, pepper spray, or some other irritant in the first-class cabin, in order to force the passengers and flight attendants toward the rear of the plane. They claimed to have a bomb.
Listen to Atta speaking to Boston ATC
Phone calls
Betty Ong's phone call
About five minutes after the hijacking began, Betty Ong contacted the American Airlines Southeastern Reservations Office in Cary, North Carolina, via an AT&T airphone to report an emergency aboard the flight. This was the first of several occasions on 9/11 when flight attendants took action outside the scope of their training, which emphasized that in a hijacking, they were to communicate with the cockpit crew. The emergency call lasted approximately 25 minutes, as Ong calmly and professionally relayed information about events taking place aboard the airplane to authorities on the ground. [2]
- At 8:19, Ong reported: "The cockpit is not answering, somebody's stabbed in business class-and I think there's Mace-that we can't breathe-I don't know, I think we're getting hijacked." She then told of the stabbings of the two flight attendants.
- At 8:21, one of the American employees receiving Ong's call in North Carolina, Nydia Gonzalez, alerted the American Airlines operations center in Fort Worth, Texas, reaching Craig Marquis, the manager on duty. Marquis soon realized this was an emergency and instructed the airline's dispatcher responsible for the flight to contact the cockpit. At 8:23, the dispatcher tried unsuccessfully to contact the aircraft. Six minutes later, the air traffic control specialist in American's operations center contacted the FAA's Boston Air Traffic Control Center about the flight. The center was already aware of the problem.
- At 8:26, Ong reported that the plane was "flying erratically." A minute later, Flight 11 turned south. American also began getting identifications of the hijackers, as Ong and then Sweeney passed on some of the seat numbers of those who had gained unauthorized access to the cockpit.
- At 8:38, Ong told Gonzalez that the plane was flying erratically again. Around this time Sweeney told Woodward that the hijackers were Middle Easterners, naming three of their seat numbers. One spoke very little English and one spoke excellent English. The hijackers had gained entry to the cockpit, and she did not know how. The aircraft was in a rapid descent.
- At 8:44, Gonzalez reported losing phone contact with Ong.
Listen to an excerpt
Madeline "Amy" Sweeney's phone call
- Starting at 8:22, Amy Sweeney attempted by airphone to contact the American Airlines flight services office at Logan, which managed the scheduling and operation of flight attendants. Sweeney's first attempt failed, as did a second at 8:24.
- At 8:25, and again at 8:29, Amy Sweeney got through to the American Flight Services Office in Boston but was cut off after she reported someone was hurt aboard the flight. Three minutes later, Sweeney was reconnected to the office and began relaying updates to Michael Woodward, the American Airlines ground manager at Logan International Airport.[2]
- Sweeney calmly reported on her line that the plane had been hijacked; a man in first class had his throat slashed; two flight attendants had been stabbed-one was seriously hurt and was on oxygen while the other's wounds seemed minor; a doctor had been requested; the flight attendants were unable to contact the cockpit; and there was a bomb in the cockpit. Sweeney told Woodward that she and Ong were trying to relay as much information as they could to people on the ground.
- At 8:41, Sweeney told Woodward that passengers in coach were under the impression that there was a routine medical emergency in first class. Other flight attendants were busy at duties such as getting medical supplies while Ong and Sweeney were reporting the events.
- About 8:44, Sweeney reported to Woodward," Something is wrong. We are in a rapid descent . . . we are all over the place." Woodward asked Sweeney to look out the window to see if she could determine where they were. Sweeney responded: "We are flying low. We are flying very, very low. We are flying way too low." Seconds later she said, "Oh my God we are way too low." The phone call ended.
Crash
Jules Naudet, a French cameraman, and his brother Gedeon, were there filming a documentary, accompanying firefighters. While out on a call, Naudet captured footage of American Airlines Flight 11 as it crashed into the North Tower.[3]
Pavel Hlava, a Czech immigrant, also filmed the crash of the plane into the building, as he was filming video from the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel toll area. He came through the tunnel to Battery Park, where he also caught footage of Flight 175 crashing into the South Tower.[4]
A web cam set up by Wolfgang Staehle at an art exhibit in Brooklyn to take images of Lower Manhattan every four seconds, also captured images of American Airlines Flight 11 crashing into the North Tower.[5]
Images taken by Wolfgang Staehle
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Images captured on a webcam by Wolfgang Staehle from Brooklyn
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Footage captured by Jules Naudet
Aircraft debris
- See also: more debris
See also
References
- ↑ The Washington Post September 16, 2001
- ↑ http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5315883/
- ↑ [1]
- ↑ Glanz, James. "A Rare View of 9/11, Overlooked", The New York Times, September 7, 2003.
- ↑ Staehle, Wolfgang. Rare Scenes from 9/11. Vanity Fair. Retrieved on 2007-06-12.
Other references
- 9/11 Commission Report, Chapter 1 [3]
- NTSB report, "Flight Path Study-American Airlines Flight 11," Feb. 19, 2002
- AAL report, "Flight Attendant Jump Seat Locations During Takeoff And Flight Attendant Typical Cabin Positions During Start of Cabin Service," undated
- NTSB report, Air Traffic Control Recording-American Airlines Flight 11, Dec. 21, 2001
Betty Ong
- Betty Ong's Call from 9/11 Flight 11
- Betty Ong: Unsung Hero of Sept. 11 - NPR
- Goo, Sara Kehaulani and Dan Eggen, "9/11 Hijackers Used Mace And Knives, Panel Reports", Washington Post, January 28, 2004.