Less we forget......

[stormchazer]

A little reminder......


9/11 Panel Hears Flight Attendant's Call

Wednesday, January 28, 2004



WASHINGTON — The calm voice calling from American Airlines Flight 11 (search) belied the mayhem unfolding on the jetliner: a hijacking was under way, three people were stabbed, the cockpit was silent.

"The cockpit is not answering their phone," flight attendant Betty Ong told the American Airlines operations center shortly before the plane slammed into the World Trade Center (search). "There's somebody stabbed in business class, and we can't breathe in business. Um, I think there is some Mace or something. We can't breathe.

"I don't know, but I think we're getting hijacked."

Ong, 45, known as "Bee," of Andover, Mass., was working coach class on the American Airlines Boeing 767 flying from Boston to Los Angeles on Sept. 11, 2001, before suspected 9-11 ringleader Mohammed Atta and four others took over the plane and crashed it into the North Tower of the Trade Center.

Nydia Gonzalez, on duty at the operations center that morning, told the panel how she received Ong's call at about 8:20 a.m.

"Several media accounts of what occurred on Flight 11 claimed that Betty was `hysterical with fear,' `shrieking' and `gasping for air,"' Gonzalez said. "Those accounts were wrong."

"In a very calm, professional and poised demeanor, Betty Ong relayed to us detailed information of the events unfolding on Flight 11," Gonzalez added.

The Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (search) heard portions of Ong's 23-minute conversation with the operations center on the second of a two-day hearing Tuesday.

In it, Ong tells the operations center her flight and seat number and describes the scene on board.

"I'm sitting in the back. Somebody's coming back from business. If you can hold on for one second here, they're coming back.

"Our No. 1 [flight attendant] got stabbed. Our purser is stabbed. Nobody knows who stabbed who. We can't even get up to business class right now, because nobody can breathe. Uh, our No. 1 is stabbed right now.

"Our No. 5, our first class passenger, er, our first class galley flight attendant and our purser have been stabbed. And we can't get into the cockpit. The door won't open."

"We can't even get into the cockpit. We don't know who's there," Ong says, before the call ends in a dial tone.

The Boeing 767 rammed into the World Trade Center's north tower at 8:46 a.m.


© Associated Press. All rights reserved.
Copyright © 2004 ComStock, Inc.
This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Copyright 2004 FOX News Network, LLC. All rights reserved.
All market data delayed 20 minutes.