Captain Beverley Bass will never forget that moment, 20 years ago. She was piloting American Airlines Flight 49 from Paris to Dallas over the North Atlantic when the news came across an air-to-air frequency: Airplanes had hit each of twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City in a terrorist attack.
Soon after, ATC notified Bass that the U.S. had shut down the entire national airspace system. “They said, ‘American 49 land your airplane immediately in Gander, Newfoundland [CYQX],’ Bass recalled. “It was an order.”
“We as airline pilots don’t normally get orders. If we’re going to divert, we usually coordinate with our dispatcher. Ultimately, it’s the captain’s decision. Nobody orders us to land at a certain airport,” she said. “But that day was different.”
At about the same time, in Los Angeles, Captain Les Abend was heading to KLAX to captain his American Airlines flight to Newark (KEWR). When he heard the horrific news, he knew he had flown those exact planes at some point during his many years as a pilot for the carrier. He knew immediately he’d lost friends aboard those airliners.
Meanwhile in a Washington office building, general aviation pilot Leon Jackler had heard the news and was watching in disbelief as billows of smoke rose across the Potomac River. An airliner had slammed into the Pentagon. Even in the moment of the disaster, in the back of his mind, Jackler knew piloting a GA aircraft in the Washington area would likely never be the same.
So many Americans who are old enough to remember know exactly wher they were when they heard the news on September 11, 2001. That’s especially true across the aviation community. They remember their colleagues aboard hijacked American Airlines Flights 11 and 77, as well as United Airlines Flights 175 and 93.
The terrorist attacks that day killed 2,977 people in New York City, rural Pennsylvania, and the Pentagon.
For this anniversary, Abend, Jackler, and Bass—American Airlines’ first female captain—spent time with Flying to share their memories about that infamous day and how it has changed aviation.
