Reflecting and Realizing the Effects of 9/11 as a Flight Attendant
I have been wanting to write about 9/11 for quite sometime, though I am never to sure how to address it- except the fact that I do almost everyday I work.
As a flight attendant so much of my training, continued knowledge,
and every day procedures stem from this day.
I often have to remind passengers of the effects it has had in the aviation industry- its usually when they’re fighting me to use the bathroom in first class or are scoffing at me when I don’t let them back on the aircraft after deplaning.
We are so use to air travel, with an entire generation traveling now, having no real tangible idea what that day brought - because how could you if you didn’t live through it? ( IE: I feel the devastation of the assaniation of MLK but not living in that time period I just will never truly know- you feel me? ) Also an entire loot of people who have quite merely forgotten. Or so they act as though.
This blog is to share my POV, as a flight attendant.
Whenever I hear the words nine eleven, the only word I can immediately say is vivid. I can remember every detail of that hour that day the 2 planes crashed into the world trade center. And even now I have a lump in my throat. I was a senior in high school, sitting next to Travis Burginoun and Dixi Baker. We were in Mr. Curry’s Vietnam War Class. It was our first or second period. And I remember goofing off, laughing. Not really giving a shit.. when Mr. Curry got a call on his cell phone- which was very rare, because teachers didn’t exactly have their phones on them all the time- I remember it was in his desk.. he answered it. Mr Curry was probably 5’5- on a good day, balding, a tad over weight. He answered and I remember his face - this rosy cheeked man turned sheet white. Darted out of the classroom grabbed a two tier chest high cart, with a boxy TV on it- plugged it in and said “watch this- this is history”. Then he ran out. We sat there and watched United Airlines flight 175 hit the south tower of The World Trade Center.
Just typing this right now I have anxiety. and I’m tearing up.
Every generation has its life changing, altering, catastrophic events that shape time, an era, that will be seared into minds. For some of us depending on how old or young you are, it could be the JFK Or Martin Luther King assassination, the extreme draft of the Vietnam war, polio, the AIDS epidemic, Rodney King beating, Oklahoma City bombing, Newtown shooting, it could have been 9/11, and it could even be the now- as in the COVID ERA and the summer of 2020 none of us will forget.
Wherever your timeline falls, when you are witnessing and living through these extreme events- from my experience, you know the impact but you don’t know the impact it will have on life moving forward… with people, with society, shaping the nation.
This year marks 20 years since the unspeakable happened on September 11th.
A lot has happened in 20 years, me becoming a flight attendant 5 years ago being one of them. I have to say, though I have always reflected on every anniversary of this day- NOTHING has quite put into perspective then a career in the aviation industry.
On the REAL- it just hits differently. MORE NOW than it EVER DID.
We ( flight attendants ) may not fly the plane- but we sure as hell keep everything else going. With anywhere from 160-400 passengers on any given flight, flight attendants are trained for medical emergencies- that includes death on board, emergency evacuations, we know the nitty gritty names of each part of the aircraft, and we’re trained to spot threat levels- and terrorism. Which we take very seriously. And that includes domestic terrorism- as we know, these acts know no race limit. We are first responders in the air.
Can you believe TSA was only created 20 years ago?
It’s hard to imagine we use to be able to board a flight with no boarding pass, anyone could meet us at the gate, and strolling through a metal detector was the extent of out airport security. No shoes off, no laptops out, no coats off. Like what?? I didn’t travel enough as a teen ager to remember - but I do remember when you could go to the gate..
As I share stories below from different POVs of people who worked in the depths of that day- I want to leave you with this-
Everything we in the aviation do - is for your safety. It’s still a pretty mind boggling and ahhhmazing that we travel in a metal tube at the speed of up to 500mph at 35,000 feet in the air!! I mean think about how wild that is. Truly. Because it has been so normalized and so commonly used we often forget the details. We get mad and mean to flight attendants, TSA agents, and we forget the implications anger can have when acting that way in a federal air space.
There were so many moving parts to that day. So many everyday heroes.
Including United Airlines Flight 93.
source: https://www.flight93friends.org/flight-93-story
POV: John Fogleman my Uncle. A retired detective who at the time of 9/11 worked in Narcotics in QUEENS. Also volunteered as a Firemen for the state of New York.
“9/11 changed me FOREVER”
Uncle John was suppose to be at work on September 11th, usually starting around 8, but because of circumstances and traffic he was given the opportunity to go in at 12- which made life easier to commute into the city- less traffic.
“I woke up, and I never turn on the TV- but for some reason I did that morning, and by that time both towers had fallen” Not thinking for another second John raced out the front door- on his motorcycle and headed straight to work.
From the moment he got to the site he just started digging into the debris.
As he continued to tell me the sights and sounds of his journey to ground zero, about men he knew that happen to be off work that day because of whatever reason, a word I hadn’t thought of came up- survival guilt.
My uncle worked “on the pile” ( of debris from the fallen towers ), for 7 days a week, 12 hours a day, a month straight before finally taking a week off for mental health. He took a trip to Florida, and decided to go to Bush Gardens. When he got free admission, he felt sick and it just broke him. “I didn’t want to receive a gratuity for my friends lives & it hurt- I don’t want to sound cliché- but I didn’t want recognition.”
No News, no newspaper. just everyday straight to work. A shower at night, but no time to shower in the morning- there was a job to do and minutes wasted were minutes he could use to help find remainders of people, their things, anyway to identify the lives lost.
“People ask- how’d you do it? Someone had to physically go there and do it. When its all said and done, when you were there you were looking for people you knew. There are still people, never found. Never identified. I can still smell it. Taste it. I don’t watch anything anymore- I use to listen for my friends names, (when they read it on TV) when I see news about it now- like a clip, I look for people I knew.”
We talked for almost an hour, and there are certainly details he kept from me, and other things we talked about I am deciding to keep between us.
“I loved my job, I wouldn’t change any of it- but I could have done without September 11th”.
Uncle John retired last summer July 2020 after 30 years of service.
POV: Sara Nelson President of Association of Flight Attendants.
I had the chance to interview Sara last year for my running column BOAM of the month. You can read the full interview here. But we dove deep on how the actions of 9/11 shaped her career and led her to where she sits today as our President of our union. I asked her a series of questions- one being the biggest misconception of her career as the President of AFA- Here is an excerpt from that interview:
I get chills every time I read this and I get a lump in my throat- thank you Sara. For everything you have done and continue to do for our group.
The other very very vivid thing I remember from that time- was national unity. As a young adult entering the world, graduating from high school- oddly enough I felt safe. I could count on a selfless act of strangers because this tragedy happened to all of us. We were in this together.
In today’s environment I definitely feel differently. There is so much division. Not to mention the recent rise in air violence amongst passengers who simply just won’t wear a mask.
*And to clarify your right to a free country does include that choice to not fly*
Its horrifying, still shocking, and disgusting the way passengers treat flight attendants, customer service agents, and TSA agents- all of who are doing their best. Lets also remember those heroes of 9/11, the men and women in uniform who were doing the work, weeks after the rest of the world and country went about their lives- they still carried on that promise to serve and protect and still carry this day with them, in so many different ways. Physically, emotionally, and with them spirts lost in that day.