Pilot Guides.com: Ian Wright Live - Your Travel Tales: "9/11 Close Encounter
'It was September 10th, 2001 and I was standing in line at the Rio de Janeiro airport, waiting to check in for my flight. I had been delayed in getting to the airport because a fire in the subway line had collapses some of the freeway pilings and the traffic was horrendous. When I did get there, I ran in and hoped I wasn't too late for my flight. The woman at the United Airlines counter issued boarding passes for me, one to New York, and the other from Newark to San Francisco, on Flight 93. But as soon as she pushed the boarding passes across the table, she pulled them back. 'Wait,' you are too late for the flight. You will have to go via Miami instead.'
She refused to listen to me explain that I needed to get on that flight, and I was forced to fly to
Miami. Cursing, I went to the lounge and boarded the flight. The next morning we arrived in Miami. It was September 11, 2001. I had a few hours to kill in the airport, and when I boarded the 767, we took off at 7.45 am. The plane was empty as we lifted off over the skyscrapers of Miami, and settled into watching a program about earthquakes in New York, where an expert came on and said that the Twin Towers would stand, despite a large earthquake.
Just then, a voice came over the intercom: 'Cabin crew, Emergency!' The crew began running to the cockpit, and the passengers around me pulled off their earphones. 'Did you head that?' asked the guy behind me. I shook my head and was about to answer when the plane began dropping faster and faster, and it was clear we were in some trouble. The crew came back and
began shouting to us to prepare for an emergency landing. As we pushed out seats up, the plane kept dropping like a rock, and as the nose angled down sharper and sharper, we were literally rocketing to the earth! People screamed and shouted as the crew stowed drink carts and other things, and more than a few of us thought we were crashing.
Three minutes later, we were on final approach to Oklahoma City. The TV screens then switched off and the cabin lights dimmed. People weren't screaming now, but there was just dead silence. As we turned, I could see a shadow racing across the ground. It was our plane. But I noticed a small shadow off to the right: it was a fighter jet and it was following us!
Before I had time to think what it was, we were on the ground. A heavy bumpy landing, and the plane's passengers were told to stay in their seats, and then run off to the terminal when we parked. This we did, and when we go there, several hundred people were rooted to where they were standing, statue like and calm. When we saw the TV screens the twin tower and Pentagon events had already taken place, and there were reportedly several planes missing.
When the shock sunk in, we were evacuated to the nearest hotel, and later that day I heard about flight number 93 and I remembered the boarding pass I had got the night before. Chills ran down my spine. For the next three days, there was nothing we could do but wait. We had no luggage, there were no trains or buses that we could have taken. We played cards, got drunk, some people got high and some even got laid. The hotel looked like a mini United Nations, with people from 20 countries wandering around, wondering how the hell they got stuck in Oklahoma.
When we finally took off, the atmosphere was tense, The pilots and crew were cheered, and they did their safety demo with defiance. No one was going to stop them from doing their job! When we landed in San Francisco, we were the first commercial flight to land. The airport was dark, and there were no planes at all moving around the runways. When we pulled into the gate area, there were ground staff cheering and waving at us, and when we got into the terminal, staff were cheering more and clapping as we went to get our luggage. It was the most surreal way to end one of the most surreal experiences of my life."
"Disaster" Dave Lowe, Saigon, Vietnam
09/11/2001
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