Faithless
01-28-2004, 08:30 AM
http://images.chicagotribune.com/media/thumbnails/photo/2004-01/11177225.jpg Betty Ong
Attendant on jet that hit 1st tower (http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-0401280331jan28,1,544697.story?coll=chi-news-hed)
WASHINGTON -- The tape of Betty Ong's voice Tuesday, alive and urgent yet amazingly calm, describing how hijackers had stabbed two of her fellow flight attendants and taken over the first plane that slammed in the World Trade Center, silenced the congressional hearing room.
"The cockpit is not answering the phone. Someone's coming. Another one [passenger] got stabbed. Our first class gal's stabbed, our purser has been stabbed. We can't get inside the cockpit," Ong told an American Airlines reservations specialist in a call from the rear phone aboard doomed Flight 11.
For the first time in two days of testimony from more than two dozen officials, members of the commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks had nothing to say.
Ong's voice, captured on tape, broke only when the aircraft suddenly plunged at the hands of inexperienced pilots who had taken over the cockpit. The tape of her call offered some of the first insight and an all-too-real account of what was happening aboard the four hijacked airplanes on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, and lasted until her plane flew with explosive force into a Trade Center tower.
While her conversation was the most dramatic new revelation at the hearing, 9/11 commission investigators also released a nine-page report Tuesday that said the hijackers probably sprayed Mace around the cockpit area on all four flights, apparently to keep passengers away, and that they persuaded passengers to sit quietly on at least one of the flights by announcing over the intercom that there was a bomb on board.
Investigators believe the hijackers also may have used autopilot and a GPS global positioning system to target the Trade Center and the Pentagon. The report said the flight data recorder found buried in the rubble of the Pentagon indicated the pilot "had input autopilot instructions for a route to Reagan National Airport."
On Ong's flight, the hijackers appeared to have killed at least one passenger, and possibly two, before taking over the aircraft.
The tape recording picks up midsentence after an unidentified--and somewhat impatient--reservations specialist had answered the phone.
"The cockpit's not answering the phone," Ong tells the man. "Somebody's been stabbed in business class, and, um, I think there's Mace and we can't breathe and I don't know, I think we're getting hijacked."
The man replies, "What seat are you in?" apparently unaware that Ong is a flight attendant.
"Ma'am, are you there?"
"Yes," Ong says, who was having trouble hearing the man.
"What seat are you in?" the man asks, and then again forcefully, "Ma'am, what seat are you in?"
We're bound "for Boston, we're up in the air. The cockpit is not answering the phone," Ong says urgently.
The man replies, "What seat are you in?"
After a pause, Ong says, "I'm in my jump seat right now."
At that point the man seems to realize she is a flight attendant. He pauses and then asks, "What is your name?"
"OK, my name is Betty Ong. I'm an employee on Flight 11. The cockpit is not answering their phone. There is somebody stabbed in business. We can't breathe in business class. I think they have Mace or something. Somebody's coming back. Can you hold on for one second? Somebody's coming back.
"OK, our number one [flight attendant] got stabbed. Our purser is stabbed. There is no air in business class. No one can breathe. Our first class gal and our purser has been stabbed. We can't get into the cockpit. The door won't open."
After a long pause, Ong says, "Hello?"
The man responds, "Yeah. I'm taking it down, all the information. "
About a minute later the man's boss, Nydia Gonzalez, takes over the phone call.
Commission investigators on Tuesday credited Gonzalez and Ong for relaying as much information as they did, largely by way of a three-party conversation with the American Airlines emergency operations center in Dallas.
Attendant noted seat numbers
In a staff report to committee members, investigators said it was because of Ong's call that they learned about the Mace, which they said they also discovered among the belongings left in the suitcase of hijacker Mohamed Atta, who piloted Ong's plane.
Ong reported to Gonzalez that they had moved all the passengers out of first class and business class, but that many passengers in the rear of the plane didn't know what was going on.
She was also the first person to alert authorities to who the hijackers were, saying she believed there were three or four hijackers and giving authorities the men's seat numbers.
Ong's voice is absent from the second part of the tape as Gonzalez communicates with the emergency center in one ear, and listens to Ong in the other.
Ong told Gonzalez no doctors were on board to treat the flight attendants--one of whom she suspected was dead and the other who was breathing with the aid of oxygen administered by the other flight attendants.
The aircraft was flying erratically, Ong reported. Gonzalez relayed to the center that the flight attendant suspected the airlines' pilots were not flying the airplane.
Twenty-three minutes later, the line went dead.
Ong's brother and sister wiped away tears as they listened from the first row of seats in the hearing room, saying later that they felt relieved that the world would finally know that their sister, a 45-year-old from San Francisco, was a consummate professional to the end, selfless and brave.
`Our first soldiers'
Harry Ong and Cathie Ong-Herrera said the tape gives them comfort, even though they were not allowed to hear it until almost six months after the attacks, and only then after Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) intervened. "I believe that the tape belongs to the people," Cathie Ong-Herrera said. "She and the crew did the best they could. They were our first soldiers."
Also Tuesday, staff reports presented to the commission--formally known as the Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States--showed that by 7:35 a.m. on Sept. 11, all five hijackers on American Airlines Flight 77 had been tagged by a passenger prescreening program as "a risk to aircraft safety," and four of them had set off metal detector alarms at airport checkpoints, Newsday reported.
But even after those red flags and some additional screening at Dulles International Airport in Virginia, all five were allowed to board Flight 77, which they hijacked and crashed into the Pentagon.
Commission members also asked for an extension of their May 27 deadline, saying they needed more time to review records and hear testimony. Congressional Democrats voiced their support of such a delay, but President Bush and Republican congressional leaders have said they would oppose it. Republican officials say a delay would put the release of the report too close to elections.
Such poise in the face of danger. :frown:
Chokes you up.
Attendant on jet that hit 1st tower (http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-0401280331jan28,1,544697.story?coll=chi-news-hed)
WASHINGTON -- The tape of Betty Ong's voice Tuesday, alive and urgent yet amazingly calm, describing how hijackers had stabbed two of her fellow flight attendants and taken over the first plane that slammed in the World Trade Center, silenced the congressional hearing room.
"The cockpit is not answering the phone. Someone's coming. Another one [passenger] got stabbed. Our first class gal's stabbed, our purser has been stabbed. We can't get inside the cockpit," Ong told an American Airlines reservations specialist in a call from the rear phone aboard doomed Flight 11.
For the first time in two days of testimony from more than two dozen officials, members of the commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks had nothing to say.
Ong's voice, captured on tape, broke only when the aircraft suddenly plunged at the hands of inexperienced pilots who had taken over the cockpit. The tape of her call offered some of the first insight and an all-too-real account of what was happening aboard the four hijacked airplanes on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, and lasted until her plane flew with explosive force into a Trade Center tower.
While her conversation was the most dramatic new revelation at the hearing, 9/11 commission investigators also released a nine-page report Tuesday that said the hijackers probably sprayed Mace around the cockpit area on all four flights, apparently to keep passengers away, and that they persuaded passengers to sit quietly on at least one of the flights by announcing over the intercom that there was a bomb on board.
Investigators believe the hijackers also may have used autopilot and a GPS global positioning system to target the Trade Center and the Pentagon. The report said the flight data recorder found buried in the rubble of the Pentagon indicated the pilot "had input autopilot instructions for a route to Reagan National Airport."
On Ong's flight, the hijackers appeared to have killed at least one passenger, and possibly two, before taking over the aircraft.
The tape recording picks up midsentence after an unidentified--and somewhat impatient--reservations specialist had answered the phone.
"The cockpit's not answering the phone," Ong tells the man. "Somebody's been stabbed in business class, and, um, I think there's Mace and we can't breathe and I don't know, I think we're getting hijacked."
The man replies, "What seat are you in?" apparently unaware that Ong is a flight attendant.
"Ma'am, are you there?"
"Yes," Ong says, who was having trouble hearing the man.
"What seat are you in?" the man asks, and then again forcefully, "Ma'am, what seat are you in?"
We're bound "for Boston, we're up in the air. The cockpit is not answering the phone," Ong says urgently.
The man replies, "What seat are you in?"
After a pause, Ong says, "I'm in my jump seat right now."
At that point the man seems to realize she is a flight attendant. He pauses and then asks, "What is your name?"
"OK, my name is Betty Ong. I'm an employee on Flight 11. The cockpit is not answering their phone. There is somebody stabbed in business. We can't breathe in business class. I think they have Mace or something. Somebody's coming back. Can you hold on for one second? Somebody's coming back.
"OK, our number one [flight attendant] got stabbed. Our purser is stabbed. There is no air in business class. No one can breathe. Our first class gal and our purser has been stabbed. We can't get into the cockpit. The door won't open."
After a long pause, Ong says, "Hello?"
The man responds, "Yeah. I'm taking it down, all the information. "
About a minute later the man's boss, Nydia Gonzalez, takes over the phone call.
Commission investigators on Tuesday credited Gonzalez and Ong for relaying as much information as they did, largely by way of a three-party conversation with the American Airlines emergency operations center in Dallas.
Attendant noted seat numbers
In a staff report to committee members, investigators said it was because of Ong's call that they learned about the Mace, which they said they also discovered among the belongings left in the suitcase of hijacker Mohamed Atta, who piloted Ong's plane.
Ong reported to Gonzalez that they had moved all the passengers out of first class and business class, but that many passengers in the rear of the plane didn't know what was going on.
She was also the first person to alert authorities to who the hijackers were, saying she believed there were three or four hijackers and giving authorities the men's seat numbers.
Ong's voice is absent from the second part of the tape as Gonzalez communicates with the emergency center in one ear, and listens to Ong in the other.
Ong told Gonzalez no doctors were on board to treat the flight attendants--one of whom she suspected was dead and the other who was breathing with the aid of oxygen administered by the other flight attendants.
The aircraft was flying erratically, Ong reported. Gonzalez relayed to the center that the flight attendant suspected the airlines' pilots were not flying the airplane.
Twenty-three minutes later, the line went dead.
Ong's brother and sister wiped away tears as they listened from the first row of seats in the hearing room, saying later that they felt relieved that the world would finally know that their sister, a 45-year-old from San Francisco, was a consummate professional to the end, selfless and brave.
`Our first soldiers'
Harry Ong and Cathie Ong-Herrera said the tape gives them comfort, even though they were not allowed to hear it until almost six months after the attacks, and only then after Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) intervened. "I believe that the tape belongs to the people," Cathie Ong-Herrera said. "She and the crew did the best they could. They were our first soldiers."
Also Tuesday, staff reports presented to the commission--formally known as the Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States--showed that by 7:35 a.m. on Sept. 11, all five hijackers on American Airlines Flight 77 had been tagged by a passenger prescreening program as "a risk to aircraft safety," and four of them had set off metal detector alarms at airport checkpoints, Newsday reported.
But even after those red flags and some additional screening at Dulles International Airport in Virginia, all five were allowed to board Flight 77, which they hijacked and crashed into the Pentagon.
Commission members also asked for an extension of their May 27 deadline, saying they needed more time to review records and hear testimony. Congressional Democrats voiced their support of such a delay, but President Bush and Republican congressional leaders have said they would oppose it. Republican officials say a delay would put the release of the report too close to elections.
Such poise in the face of danger. :frown:
Chokes you up.