story334.xml

story334.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-04-01

In the early hours of Sept 11, 2001 I was notified by Crew Scheduling that my morning show for flight 909, DTW to LGA, would be changed due to a mechanical that the aircraft was on in LAX. Our original show for LGA was suppose to be 0700, for a 0800 departure. Our new show time was 0915.
I remember driving to the airport that morning and listening to a radio talk show, I was laughing so hard at the jokes they were telling, just another day, or so I thought. I arrived at the airport around 0840 morning and parked my car and waited for the shuttle bus. When the shuttle bus arrived the driver informed me that a bomb had gone off at the WTC, all I could think was, not again. I arrived at the airport and walked in and saw people staring at the televsions in one of the airport stores. I walked over to see what was happening and a another crewmember from another airline looked at me and said it was an aircraft that hit one of the towers. I didn't know what to think, I know from my experience that when you fly over the city you feel like you can reach out and touch it sometimes. I still couldn't believe it though, I just figured it was a terrible accident. Never in my wildest dreams did I ever consider that it was a terrorist act. I walked over to where our crew office was and it was chaos, at first no one knew which airline had hit the first tower. We had aircrafts that were due in and out of LGA. I walked back to the resturant by our crew office and watched in horror as the second plane hit. I couldn't believe my eyes, it didn't even look real. I have never been so scared in my life, I had no idea what was happening, my first thoughts were of my friends who were flying that day. As the newscast were reporting they weren't sure which airlines had hit the towers, now my mind was racing. I started to call my friends that I knew were suppose to be flying to find out where they were. My cellphone started ringing off the hook, my family and friends all knew I was suppose to head to LGA that morning, nobody knew that I was on a delay and still in Detroit. I am still thankful for that delay that morning. I couldn't imagine having to be stuck in New York on that day. I remember so well how chaotic it was in the office, the phones were ringing, peoples cell phones ringing, the look of shock on eveyones faces. It was like a bad dream except it was worse, it was real.
They closed the airports down in a matter of minutes, they told us all to go home. I offered to drive on of my fellow crewmemebers home, we were sitting on the shuttle going to the parking lot, there was so much commotion on the bus and then we heard that the pentagon had been hit. Our whole lives were changed in that moment, I don't think we fully realized it just then, we were all in shock.
On the way home my cell phone rang and it was a friend who was in inital training at our headquaters, she said that they were having a hard time locating one of our aircrafts, finally she called me back and said that all of our aircrafts had been accounted for.
I ended up meeting my mother and my cousin for lunch that day, I don't remember if we ate or not, I just remember how shocked and saddened we were.
Although I personally did not lose someone that day, I was affected by it greatly, the airline industry is like a family within itself. We all lost that day.
Since then, as much as I hate to say this, some things are different but not much. Everytime I go to work, and go through security its an issue now. I have had crew members go through security and beep, and noboby is paying attention, they could just grab their bags and go but they don't they let someone know they beeped so that they can get wanded. I wonder how many other people go through and beep and aren't getting wanded? Its really not any better than it was before. Obviously that is my opinion, but I am sure there are other people who feel the same way.