Its 9/11/2007...
09-10-2007, 08:07 PM
#1
Gets Weekends Off
Thread Starter
Joined APC: Jun 2007
Posts: 361
Its 9/11/2007...
...First, please remember those who lost their lives 6 years ago and the thousands now dying of lung disease from working at ground zero for months on end.
Second, where where you when you heard what was happening? If you were in the air, what was it like on the radio and in the cockpit?
Second, where where you when you heard what was happening? If you were in the air, what was it like on the radio and in the cockpit?
09-10-2007, 08:28 PM
#2
Chief Jeppesen Updater
Joined APC: Oct 2005
Position: Executive Transport Driver
Posts: 3,080
Certainly 9/11/01 is a day that will affect (and has affected) all of us, regardless of where you were or what you were doing that day, or if you personally knew any of the victims that day.
It's certainly a day that I will never forget. I was a first year FO, flying for Atlantic Coast Airlines. We'd started the fourth and final day of our scheduled trip in Saginaw, Michigan, flying the first flight of the day for United Express to Chicago.
We caught a quick Starbucks and breakfast, and turned the plane for our final city pair home... ORD to Charleston, SC, then the last leg home to Washington-Dulles. Our departure from ORD was uneventful, except for the fact that at the same time we pushed back, several other aircraft in DC and Boston were also departing on their fateful journeys.
It was a beautiful day, and we cruised along at FL330, enjoying the paper and breakfast. The crew was in good spirits (it was the last day after all), and we had a good laugh about some crew room antics that we'd seen that morning. As we neared Ashville, NC, I started to think about putting down the paper and looking up the ATIS frequency. We got a normal handoff from Atlanta Center to Jacksonville... the exchange that followed is still etched in my mind:
Jax: "Jacksonville center, good morning. Blue Ridge 743, flight level three three zero."
Me: "Blue ridge 743, Jax center. Do you want Columbia or Greenville sir?
<A second or two passes as we look puzzled at each other...>
Me: "Uhhh, sir, we're going to Charlie South this morning."
Jax: "Haven't you guys heard?"
Me: "Heard what?"
<Pause>
Jax: "Multiple aircraft have been hijacked in the Northeast. One just hit the Pentagon. The FAA is closing down the national airspace system. Descend to one-zero thousand, maintain two five zero knots. Expect vectors to Columbia, SC. You'll be about number seventeen for the airport."
As you can imagine, things got a bit crazy... at least they did after the initial shock of the transmission went by. Of course from there it was all @$$es and elbows for a few minutes as we did our divert to an airfield that was only about 100 miles away (and we were still at FL330).
We landed and talked to the passengers about what we knew. They could sense that something was wrong as soon as we landed since so many other aircraft had already beat us to the field, including several international flights and large aircraft that never fly to places like CAE. Fortunately our station was on the ball, and had a bus for our folks within an hour. We never did get through to dispatch... but they figured out where we were over the next few days.
Ended up staying in CAE until early Saturday morning when we got released to fly home. Fortunately, the hotel there treated us magnificently, and we weren't alone... several other crews were still there from the previous night, as well as a USAirways A321 that diverted.
It's a day that I'll never forget... and never should.
It's certainly a day that I will never forget. I was a first year FO, flying for Atlantic Coast Airlines. We'd started the fourth and final day of our scheduled trip in Saginaw, Michigan, flying the first flight of the day for United Express to Chicago.
We caught a quick Starbucks and breakfast, and turned the plane for our final city pair home... ORD to Charleston, SC, then the last leg home to Washington-Dulles. Our departure from ORD was uneventful, except for the fact that at the same time we pushed back, several other aircraft in DC and Boston were also departing on their fateful journeys.
It was a beautiful day, and we cruised along at FL330, enjoying the paper and breakfast. The crew was in good spirits (it was the last day after all), and we had a good laugh about some crew room antics that we'd seen that morning. As we neared Ashville, NC, I started to think about putting down the paper and looking up the ATIS frequency. We got a normal handoff from Atlanta Center to Jacksonville... the exchange that followed is still etched in my mind:
Jax: "Jacksonville center, good morning. Blue Ridge 743, flight level three three zero."
Me: "Blue ridge 743, Jax center. Do you want Columbia or Greenville sir?
<A second or two passes as we look puzzled at each other...>
Me: "Uhhh, sir, we're going to Charlie South this morning."
Jax: "Haven't you guys heard?"
Me: "Heard what?"
<Pause>
Jax: "Multiple aircraft have been hijacked in the Northeast. One just hit the Pentagon. The FAA is closing down the national airspace system. Descend to one-zero thousand, maintain two five zero knots. Expect vectors to Columbia, SC. You'll be about number seventeen for the airport."
As you can imagine, things got a bit crazy... at least they did after the initial shock of the transmission went by. Of course from there it was all @$$es and elbows for a few minutes as we did our divert to an airfield that was only about 100 miles away (and we were still at FL330).
We landed and talked to the passengers about what we knew. They could sense that something was wrong as soon as we landed since so many other aircraft had already beat us to the field, including several international flights and large aircraft that never fly to places like CAE. Fortunately our station was on the ball, and had a bus for our folks within an hour. We never did get through to dispatch... but they figured out where we were over the next few days.
Ended up staying in CAE until early Saturday morning when we got released to fly home. Fortunately, the hotel there treated us magnificently, and we weren't alone... several other crews were still there from the previous night, as well as a USAirways A321 that diverted.
It's a day that I'll never forget... and never should.
09-10-2007, 08:47 PM
#3
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Jun 2005
Position: Retired
Posts: 2,934
I was supposed to have my private checkride on the 12th. I was sleeping and my roomate called me and these were his exact words, "Dude, turn on CNN, put a tape in the VCR and start recording NOW." Three minutes into recording the second plane hit.
By noon, I was walking to class and was amazed at the silence. Nothing in the sky, nobody talking, just this sense of anger everywhere. It was a beautiful day in St. Louis too and we were only two weeks into a new semester. I think this thing that I thought would be fun to do lost some of that. While I still enjoy flying I think that some of the joy was taken away from it that day. Suddenly life got a lot more serious.
By noon, I was walking to class and was amazed at the silence. Nothing in the sky, nobody talking, just this sense of anger everywhere. It was a beautiful day in St. Louis too and we were only two weeks into a new semester. I think this thing that I thought would be fun to do lost some of that. While I still enjoy flying I think that some of the joy was taken away from it that day. Suddenly life got a lot more serious.
09-10-2007, 11:22 PM
#6
CA
Joined APC: Oct 2005
Position: I am the Captain now...
Posts: 1,006
I was flying a light twin around SoCal, was told to land immediately. Rented a car with my student and drove back to the San Francisco Bay Area, listening to the news coverage the entire way back. Neither of us said a word on the drive home.
9/11- Never Forgive, Never Forget
And to the U.S. Armed Forces- Good job, and don't stop until each and every one of the pigs responsible for that attack are lying face down, drowning in a pool of their own blood, in the back alley of whatever $hithole they crawled out of!
9/11- Never Forgive, Never Forget
And to the U.S. Armed Forces- Good job, and don't stop until each and every one of the pigs responsible for that attack are lying face down, drowning in a pool of their own blood, in the back alley of whatever $hithole they crawled out of!
09-11-2007, 03:17 AM
#10
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Feb 2006
Position: B-737NG preferably in first class with a glass of champagne and caviar
Posts: 5,902
Its a sin that the pin heads in DC knowingly allowed the Binladen clan along with their entourage to flee the US without questioning by the FBI, CIA, Justice Department. What a miscarriage of security and justice to not only our country... but to the respect of the families of the fallen many. May those who have perished never be forgotten...
