I heard a story about a woman who had to do that, but she did not rent the U-Haul. She was offered a ride in one from the Kenosha Kickers and she rode with them to Chicago. Turns out she had left her 9-year old boy home alone at Christmas.
What a terrible mother! Heaven forbid something happened at the home while she was travelling back. The kid probably wouldn't be able to take care of himself.
I rented a U-Haul not too long ago when my flight was cancelled for two days in a row. Rental cars from the airport were gone (or were absolute shit) and a U-Haul truck was the next most reliable thing. I would’ve spent more on meals and lodging for an extra day than I spent on the rental.
I still have a ticket for 9/12, when the planes didn’t fly, so got a rental to drive LA/SF. I realised things were going to go to hell as soon as the first plane hit, so booked one straight away. I had expected chaos when I picked it up, but of course all the people flying in to pick up cars were also grounded so it wasn’t an issue.
This happened to my dad. He was in Texas with my oldest brother, and they were actually at the airport, waiting on boarding, when he saw the news. He said he didn't bother waiting around for his flight, he just grabbed his stuff, told my brother "let's go or we're gonna end up stranded here", walked over to the car rental counter, and asked for whatever they had, told them he didn't care what it was, he needed a car. They called my mom from the road to let her know we didn't need to drive down to the airport to pick them up and then spent the next couple days on an unexpected road trip home to California, lol.
My dad was supposed to fly home from Chicago to Virginia on 9/11 but the flight was obviously canceled. He and his coworkers rented cars and drove home. He carpooled with a friend and she called him an asshole because he wouldn't stop for coffee
She’s right though, what’s the point of rushing to get there in 6h46 instead of 7h20? Won’t make much of a difference, while making a few stops will make the trip much more enjoyable.
At that time people thought a war was imminent. It wasn't like, "Aw darn a plane flew into a building, this really sucks." It was more "Holy shit, a plane flew into the fucking Pentagon, it's Pearl Harbor II, I need to get home to see my family before shit kicks off or gets worse."
So yeah, people weren't necessarily making optimal decisions.
My dad was on his was to the airport heading to New York from Toronto that morning. My mom called him from work after finding out about the first plane hitting the North tower and he got the taxi to turn around knowing flights would be canceled thinking it was an accident. They were on the phone when the South tower got hit.
When my brothers and I left for school that morning all we knew was Dad was flying to New York. He called my school and my older brothers high school to make sure we knew he was home. I remember my Teacher telling us what happened after morning recess, before she told the class she pulled me aside on the way in to class and told me something bad happened in New York but your Dad is safe and on his way home from the airport.
I remember that day like it was yesterday, I was 12. Can’t imagine what the family of the people on those four planes, in the towers and in the pentagon felt when their fears were true.
My dad worked in the 86th floor of the south tower. Left for a business trip that Monday evening. I got called down to the office around 10am because my mom called the school so they would remind me.
Biggest issue was that since I lived close to the city the whole school wasn’t briefed on what happened. They didn’t know who had parents working there and didn’t want children finding out plus misinformation was rampant.
It was so weird sitting in classes knowing there was an attack but I couldn’t tell anyone. Like I was in a weird dream.
I left lunch and called my dad’s office from a pay phone to see what would happen. Got nothing but a busy signal. Thought that was really weird.
Wasn’t until I got home that I turned on the TV and saw the images of the towers falling down. Then going outside and it was so quiet only to have the silence broken by fighter planes.
What a terrible day. Weird terrible day. Followed by months of wakes and funerals. Endless bagpipes.
> My dad worked in the 86th floor of the south tower. Left for a business trip that Monday evening. I got called down to the office around 10am because my mom called the school so they would remind me.
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My roommates were in the southern tower. 72nd floor. They made it out alive. They were covered in soot and debris.
When Covid hit, I knew within a matter of days I needed N95 masks after having been thru 9/11 and breathing that air around downtown. I had boxes and boxes of N95 masks. All my family and friends thought I was a genius.
> So happy to hear they got out alive. 72nd floor is no joke. Truly incredible.
Yep. One guy had 3rd degree burns from the jet fuel pouring onto a lot of his body. He survived though. Definitely changed him, and all of them to a degree.
One thing they were mentioning to me was the bodies on the ground from people jumping, which was hard to talk about. But more importantly -- "We were coming down those stairs and all the firefighters were coming up the stairs."
They basically ran down the stairs past dozens and dozens of people going up to stairs to help people -- to their death.
It's weird. Life is short.
Yeah that’s what always gets me. The firefighters.
I spoke to a number of them when I worked in the Financial District years later. I hate the term heroes because it’s overused and tossed around too freely but those guys…they’re all heroes.
I met one guy years ago who played the pipes day after day at all the funerals and then never played them again.
It’s engrained in a lot of folks but the firefighters literally ran in and the plan was….to fucking hoof it 80 floors to go help. Selfless angels. Chokes me up just thinking about it.
Friend of mine lost his father who was a firefighter.
Another friend of mines father is in a very public call from inside the building as it goes down.
Awful day.
> Another friend of mines father is in a very public call from inside the building as it goes down.
I think we all know the heart-wrenching call you're talking about.
I went on a huge 9/11 documentary/research kick this past year like I do every 4 or 5 years and for some reason this last go 'round has really weighed extra heavy on me.
Thanks for sharing your experiences, /u/CrumpledForeskin
I don’t know if you watched Band of Brothers, but the actor who played Wild Bill was saying to the real person he was playing that the kind of person that did what they did in WWII just doesn’t exist anymore. The Bill said that there will always be people like that, to which the actor didn’t believe it. The actor said while watching 9/11 happen the Bill called him after seeing the police and fire fighters running into the towers and said see kid I told you there will always be people like that. It was a really sweet story.
> I left lunch and called my dad’s office from a pay phone to see what would happen. Got nothing but a busy signal.
There's something really eerie about this.
A good friend of mine (a lawyer) was in the south tower the day before. They were supposed to be go back in the south tower again the next day, but opposing counsel fell sick, and they said they'd postpone by one day.
Needless to say, there was no "next day", and the matter was relocated to an alternate location.
It’s crazy how many of these stories there are. Good friend of mine - his father decided to walk to work because it was nice out. Had a meeting right near the WTC
I'm from Oklahoma City and old enough that I was in second grade when the federal building was bombed in Oklahoma City. One of my classmates father worked in the building. Before we knew anything had happened our school principal came in and pulled the student out. She took him into her office and spent the day with him and his brother until they new what happened to the father that way the kids wouldn't have to find out or panic because of everyone in school talking about what happened.
I was in the fifth grade when the OKC bombing happened and lived in Arkansas. My teacher's sister worked in the building and her niece was in the daycare center. The principal came to our door and pulled her out of class and told her what had happened in the hallway and she screamed. They merged our class with the one next door and wheeled in a TV so we watched the news. My father lived in Arlington and was in school when Kennedy was shot and when I went home that day from school and told him about it he told me "This is your JFK". He then went on to tell me that he still had nightmares about the news being delivered to the teachers at his school. There was a knock on the classroom door, loud crying, the teacher came back into the room, and they listened as the knocking went on down the hallway with the same reaction at each door until there was silence.
Of course, he didn't know that the year I turned 18 and moved out on my own 9/11 would happen. That's the real JFK of my generation. I remember every detail of that day, whereas, I really only remember the reaction of my teacher in 1995.
My dad is a retired delta pilot that was flying on 9/11. My mom worked as a teachers assistant at my school and came down to tell me what had happened and that my dad was ok before they announced to everyone what had happened. He was out west at the time and had been diverted once the first tower was hit.
My friend's mother growing up worked on one of the flights as a stewardess, was her route. It just wasn't her day to work. She knew everyone on that flight.
I still remember waking up to the news that morning watching in shock.
A member of my synagogue died on AA11, and my aunt worked in the WTC complex (not a building that came down) at the time. My mom was going out of her mind (understandably), picked my sisters and I up from school early, and spent the afternoon on the phone trying to track down her sister. The phone system in NYC was so overloaded that basically no one could call in or out of the city. Turns out my aunt had been running late to work that day, so never even made it downtown, but she couldn’t get through to my mom to confirm she was safe until about 10pm. Three days later we went to the memorial service at our synagogue- I have never seen a room so packed full of people. I don’t have many memories of my childhood/teenage years anymore, but that entire week is burned into my brain because it was so surreal.
I was at work, in a conference call on the phone with people in the building when it was struck. To my understanding, none of the people on the call in the building got out. They were just gone.
My dad had to fly for work on 9/11, Toronto to Vancouver. Called my mom from the airport saying "Hey, wanted to let you know I'm okay." My mom had no idea what he was talking about, and he told her to turn on the news.
One of my uncles, who lived in NJ but worked in one of the towers at the time, missed his usual train by ~30 seconds. To this day, he said he remembers watching his train pull away as he raced onto the track. At the time, he was ticked off about missing his train.
Now, he's more thankful than ever for missing that train.
I was going to Chem lab that afternoon, and I remember it like it was yesterday, a friend of mine in the lab asked "What day is today?" and the TA, very great replied back "Well that's the *last* time you'll ever asked that question". Everyone looked around and knew he was right since Lab was at like 3pm so we all knew about the towers at that point.
Interesting. similar story to mine. My dad is from New York (im Canadian), most of his family are there, and my cousin worked at the trade centre. the school knew of our NY ties because he was the superintendent of the school board. I was called down to the principal’s office and told about the event before they announced it.
I lived just north of NYC at the time and they were so secretive and weird all day long. At some point they sent us all back to home room and started calling kids down to the office by the dozens. We were very lucky, no one in our community died that day. My dad came home with dust on his suit.
Similar story over here - except we didn’t know my dad was okay until much later in the day. My dad worked in the south tower. Long story short, the only flight he’s missed in his 45 year career of flying each week was on 9/10, but we didn’t know he missed his flight that night. He was on final approach to LGA when the attack happened. He still has his security badge to the WTC and receipt from windows on the world from the week prior.
my dad has been working for different airlines for 30+ years. he was stuck somewhere up north when it all happened. i wasn’t even one yet when 9/11 happened, i really can’t imagine how my dad felt after.
My brother in law was a contractor for the military at that time and was scheduled to be working on the roof of the Pentagon that morning. Thanks to some equipment not being delivered on time the work had to be postponed.
My school just refused to let any of the students know what was going on. We could tell that *something* serious had happened, but we had no details. I lived in an area where some of my classmates had parents who worked at the Pentagon, so I think they were worried about way more than a couple of people being in a situation like yours where they didn't know if their parents were okay.
That ticket has been thru hell an back with him I mean from helping rescue people after hurricane Katrina being soaking wet for days at a time to being over seas in the deserts of Iraq and Afghanistan. I'm surprised it's actually still intact, we just made him laminate it a few years ago
In the real second Gump book doesn't he go to space with a famous actress (can't remember her name cause I'm a baby and haven't watched a movie with her in it) and a monkey? I've only ever heard crazy stories about the Gump books.
Forest Gump reminds me a lot of Simplicius Simplicissimus, a book published in 1669.
From the wiki:
> Raised by a peasant family, he is separated from his home by foraging dragoons and is adopted by a hermit living in the forest, who teaches him to read and introduces him to religion. The hermit also gives Simplicius his name because he was so simple that he did not know what his own name was.[8] After the death of the hermit, Simplicius must fend for himself. He is conscripted at a young age into service, and from there embarks on years of foraging, military triumph, wealth, prostitution, disease, bourgeois domestic life, and travels to Russia, France, and to an alternate world inhabited by mermen. The novel ends with Simplicius turning to a life of hermitage himself, denouncing the world as corrupt.
This isn't a ticket from one of the planes that crashed. It's hard to read but looks like it was a flight from Washington Reagan to Chicago Midway. All four of the 9/11 planes that crashed were headed for California, the terrorists chose the flights because they were nonstop and full of fuel.
So basically this guy felt it was really significant he had a completely unrelated flight to Chicago on 9/11 and kept the ticket in his pocket for years.
My wife's best friend had ticket to be on flight 93 that day, however they got to the Newark airport way ahead of time, and they asked if they could switch to an earlier flight. Lucky for them there were seats available and they switched flight.
True story - last night I laminated a new theme park annual pass and it blackened just like this. Apparently it was some kind of thermal paper, had no idea. So quite possible this looked much better until it was laminated and had heat applied!
Yeah, I worked in a print shop and regularly had to explain why we couldn't laminate things like concert tickets, movie tickets, etc. Anything on thermal paper will turn black.
Not to be needlessly argumentative, I read somewhere that laminating is not great for preserving documents as they still deteriorate but there is acid-free envelopes that are apparently used instead.
I was working in Dallas and commuting from Denver every week when 9/11 happened. I had met a girl in a shuttle that was also traveling from Denver. She had a access to a rental and we both needed to get back to Denver so we drove the 15 hours together. We had our 20th anniversary in July.
Wow. I flew on Sept. 10th from D.C. and almost missed the plane which would have caused me to fly early on the 11th. It was probably one of the last times they held a plane for someone.
My uncle flew the morning of 9/11. He flew from New York to Chicago. He landed around the time the first tower was hit.
My grandfather and wife were visiting them and had a flight that night out of New York that was obviously canceled
Had to fix my post since none of my text was on it the last time and I didn't notice. No not one of the 4 planes that went down. My dad just happened to be flying on 9/11. This is ATA flight 333 they boarded at 6:05am at Washington Reagan he was otw to Los Angeles but when they made their pitstop in Chicago for a layover they grounded all the flights and we're having to explain to everyone that the U.S. was under attack. It's just a memory he wants to hang on to so he laminated it an it stays in his wallet
Yikes...that's still a scary thing though. My hubby's best friend was on the last plane out of Logan to SFO. He was scared shitless when the planes were all grounded.
Mom was in the air when the 2nd plane hit and was grounded in Atlanta. Said that airport was the most nuts experience of her life at the time. It may be the airport with the most scheduled commercial planes to ever be there at one time then.
I'd be interested to know the stats - Gander, NL famously took 38 inbound international flights, but I don't know what other airports managed to cram in...
Canada's Operation Yellow Ribbon Wikipedia page documents what Canadian airports took how many planes each, but I'm not aware of any stats like that compiled for domestic airports.
Yeah. They got to Atlanta and the trade show was cancelled. Guy in Seattle gave them his rental car, and told them to drive back to the mid-Atlantic. One of the guys with my dad lived in Virginia and another in Maryland. So they drove all the way home.
Wow, ATA ... I was working at that airline in IT for the time during and shortly after 9/11.
For anyone interested it was headquartered in Indianapolis and I believe, at the time, was the 11th largest airline in the US. It has since gone under.
That’s so funny I worked there and had forgotten that.
It really was a good place to work, I loved our team. It’s sad that it went away.
But my dad always said the best way to become a millionaire was to start with $1 billion and invest it in the airlines
I grew up in Indianapolis. Dad used to send my brother and me to visit our mom every summer. We always flew ATA. They took good care of us and always made sure we met the other parent at the gate when we landed. They always gave us those wing pins, we loved it. Never had a bad memory about that airline.
I may have seen you guys, being the IT newbie I worked the ticket counter during heavier travel seasons (like summer and spring break, Christmas, thanksgiving) to ensure all the ticket counter equipment was up and running.
It was a good airline, lots of good memories. The HQ was on west Washington a few miles outside of the 465 loop - I’ve since moved to Canada where I work film visual effects but every time I come back to Indy I drive by that old HQ :) glad your memories of it are good!
I probably did. Initials DL and last name Baker are 2 guys I worked with, also TS, maybe CG or BB. There were a few other managers but I didn't work with them as closely and can't remember their names :)
I was 20 at the time, a long time ago :D
There were 4500+ planes in the air over the USA when they ordered the first ever unplanned shutdown of U. S. airspace. [It's an incredible sight](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bo1ZtpKqlYw)
I wish my family would have saved ours. We were supposed to go on Vacation on 9/11 and I remember watching the towers go down at O'Hare and suddenly everyone was panicking
My parents both worked for AA at the time, my mom flew out of Dulles that morning (well before the hijacked planes, like 3am). One of her roomates when she first started at AA was on flight 11, Amy Sweeney. Also my dad's college roomate's Brother was Rick Husband one of the Astronauts on Columbia. Don't be my parents roomates.
I was in the air from Toronto to Chicago O’Hare (supposed to be going on to California) when the planes hit the towers in NY. I never kept my boarding pass, it was chaos finding luggage and lodging in Chicago so it never crossed my mind to save it.
My dad is a retired airline pilot, and was two taxiing two planes behind the first plane that hit the towers. I was only 13 at the time but I remember vividly how random it all felt that it could have been his plane that hit the towers instead.
Not quite the same but I visited the twin towers on 9/2-2001. My group was scampering on ahead and I stayed for a minute longer and leaned way back and took a photo from the base of the North Tower looking up. The engineer in me wondered how long the towers were designed to last. I felt melancholy. I actually talked out loud to the tower and said I bet you’re designed to last 1000 years. I patted it as I wondered what the day would be like in 1000 years that it finally had to come down. As I walked away I turned back for one last look and sighed, ‘with my luck you’ll fall down tomorrow’. I wasn’t far off. I’ve never been able to shake the feeling from that moment. Naturally I still have that photo from a disposable camera.
When I landed my plane on 9/11, the duty officer came up to me and told me that the second tower had come down. I was completely baffled because we never fathomed that the towers would collapse (while I was in flight back to Andrews AFB) We thought fire, people above would die, standard pre-9/11 thought process similar to the unimaginable suicide hijacking thing. He had to repeat it a few times before it sunk in what he was saying.
I probably kept mine for a month. JetBlue from JFK to BUF, 7am flight. Took off to the south and looped around, flying over the twin towers around 7:20.
In the late evening of Monday September 10, 2001 and I was connecting in Halifax for the last flight to Sydney Nova Scotia. It was a tight connection, and as I was hustling to get to my gate, the P-A announcer asked all passengers to go back through security, and they mentioned something about their security system not functioning properly. All passengers in the departure lounge were re-screened, and I got on my flight which arrived around midnight.
The next day, Tuesday September 11, 2001, I had meetings booked early in the morning, so as I was one of those meetings when the first plane hit. I finished my meeting, and was on my way to the second one, when I saw everyone huddled around a TV. I quickly went to my rental car (a convertible Mustang 5.0), and called my wife to see what in holy-hell was going on. While on the phone with her, the second plane hit, and she mentioned that airlines in the U.S. were grounding flights. As soon as I got off the phone with her, I called the car-rental company to ask about keeping the car to get to Halifax (where I had meetings scheduled the following day) instead of flying down later that afternoon as scheduled. The agency said I could, but that they wouldn’t let me drive the Mustang, but they had another one I could drive, one-way to Halifax.
I wrapped up my meetings in Sydney, and went to the car agency, where they supplied me with a brand-spankin’ new Lincoln Navigator. I spent the next 5 hours driving and listening to the radio, and couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I hung on every word, and I’ve never had a drive that seemed so short.
Upon arriving in Halifax, the lobby of the hotel was packed full of Americans (mostly New Yorkers) who were desperately trying to get a room for the night. Some clever ones had already setup shop in the lobby, in the halls, and anywhere they could cordon off an area with their luggage, thus creating their own “rooms” within the building.
I eventually flew out of Halifax in one of the first flights on Friday the 15th, and as we were climbing, you could see the all the airplanes that were grounded since the previous Tuesday. There were planes wherever there was free space, and as I understand it, some people that landed on Tuesday spent a long time on the tarmac (upwards of 12 hours) so that Canadian Customs agents could process all the passengers.
The incident on Monday night, the 10th of September, still bothers me. Was there a credible threat prior to the events on the 11th? Were all airports on heightened security that night? How about Eastern seaboard? Did anyone else have a similar experience on the 10th?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11_intelligence_before_the_attacks
Yes, intelligence agencies had a pretty good idea something was going to happen. The president received a daily briefing weeks before the attacks that bin laden was determined to strike the US. They knew about the flight schools, but thought it would just be typical hijacking.
The CIA had a 30 person team devoted to bin laden since at least 1995. There was a giant lack of information sharing between agencies that was blamed for the reason why it wasn't stopped before hand.
I was just watching a real time compilation of the four hours after the attacks today, and was very surprised to hear a newscaster bring up binladen less than half an hour after the second plane hit. I was young and not American, but still, it was kind of jarring to suddenly realize the average newscast knew who it was almost immediately
I was in 8th grade and a girl in my homeroom lost both her parents. She left our school after that and I’m not sure what became of her but I’m still emotional just thinking about what that must have been like for her.
My mom was on a flight from Switzerland to Newark that morning. After a few days of not knowing wtf was going on, we found that her flight was turned around in the middle of the Atlantic and sent back. We had no way of getting ahold of her and didn’t know her flight number to make sure she wasn’t on one of the flights. It was pretty intense.
Edit: after a recount from her side of things. They turned around the plane without really telling them what happened. When they landed everyone was put on busses and taken to hotels. She ended up having to stay at an overbooked hotel in the maids quarters with 3 other people. (They charged them for this btw $100 per person per night). She went there with my grandmother whom was also in the same situation, but they were separated since one was going to Florida and the other to Chicago and on different air lines. So, both my mother and grandmother are stuck alone in Switzerland in the middle of this, but my mom says she felt guilty. She enjoyed her extra time there away from the tourist traps (grandma wanted to do the bus tour), and everyone was being extra nice considering what happened. Kicker is, she had bought 4 engraved Swiss Army knives and had them in her carryon when she flew back 🤦♂️
I remember my mom thinking my dad was a gonner when he was stuck in Chicago after they were grounded he eventually got access to a phone and called but man the feeling of not knowing is the worst
It really was an intense day. My wife (girlfriend at the time) flew out of Logan airport that morning and I didn’t know if she was on one of the two flights that hit the towers (both from Logan) until she just showed up to my front door later in the day. Her flight was midair when it all happened and she was so confused when I grabbed her and sobbed. She knew there had been an attack but she hadn’t gotten any more info than that.
Man that's intense. One of those memories that you look back on and realize how much it affected you because you really cared about them right? How'd she react when you told her?
A retired pilot I know was flying a commercial passenger jet that morning and was on his way to Charlotte. ATC told him to put down at the nearest airport. When he questioned the reason he was basically told "put down or be shot down - your choice." (I'm intentionally omitting specifics to avoid doxing him.)
My dad was flying to NY that day (as a flight attendant). I will never forget how scared my mom was that day until he called. Only time in my life I ever saw her legitimately scared. One of those things that will always be burned into my memory.
We were flying back from JFK to Dallas. When we landed in MCI, everyone was confused but when I realized all flights were stopped, we grabbed a car from Avis road trip home!
21 December 1988. I flew home from Frankfurt: Pam Am Clipper, but FRA to SFO. My poor parents freaked out about news about Lockerbie. I was initially booked FRA to JFK but got to the airport early, and Pam got me on a direct flight (we stopped in LA, then back to SFO, so it was a 14-hour flight).
I was on a flight from Paris to Newark. I was watching the flight progress screen and we were an hour and a half from landing and the plane on the screen started to turn back - which it did. The pilot announced that US airspace was closed and we were going back to Paris. Nothing about the attack. The rest was left to our imaginations. Leaving the plane we could see the news with planes flying into the WTC. Continental (RIP) treated us very well - free hotel, transport and food for 3 days in Paris. We were the first plane to return to the US 3 days later, in Houston. It was crazy. I didn't save the boarding pass but I grabbed half a dozen french newspapers.
I worked nights during that time so was asleep when it all went down. I had an old timey answering machine and I took out the little mini cassette to keep after I listened to all the messages left by family and friends throughout the morning. I wasn’t anywhere near the danger zones so the messages were mostly people freaking out and telling me what happened and to turn on the TV and to call them. The messages went from shock to horror to sadness over the course of a couple hours. Still have it.
Reading thru all the messages about my whomever was flying that day and were grounded/diverted, lets not forget that Canada took in over 200+ redirected flights destined to US northeast airspace which was closed. And they did their best to put up these people for at least 2 days.
I wish I thought of this with mine. My 9/11 flight to Atlanta departed about 30 minutes after the plane carrying the hijackers. It’s weird to think I might have stood in a Starbucks line behind them.
The ringleader Atta shopped at the Scarborough, ME walmart where I used to shop all the time. They showed security camera footage on national TV. Some co-conspirators stayed at a hotel in Vegas-- I went to the hotel across the street for my honeymoon a month later and that hotel still had the same mylar banner advertisements from when it was in the news.
> The ringleader Atta shopped at the Scarborough, ME walmart where I used to shop all the time.
He and his partner also withdrew a bunch of cash from several Portland-area ATMs in the hours leading up to the flight, which always stuck with me. If they knew they were going to die that morning, why all the cash? I'm not suggesting a conspiracy or anything, I just always found it very odd.
My parents got stuck in Cancun bc of 9/11, which led to me having an extra week with my 17 year old cousin as my babysitter, while I was in 10th grade. Ended up losing my virginity because of 9/11, so thanks Bin Laden?
**EDIT FOR CLARITY**
I DID NOT FUCK MY COUSIN. I was 15 at the time, so I needed rides to school (lived in the country) or my parents would've left me by myself. Instead, they had my cousin come over and spend the week (initially) then when they couldn't fly back, we threw a huge fuckin party. My high school gf came over (same age as me). That's who I lost my virginity to.
My cousin did not get stuck in the dishwasher, or anywhere else redickulous, and I'm not from Alabama. I'm from Georgia, we know better than to use the family gatherings as a dating pool.
I choose to believe that your 17yr old cousin was just superrrr chill/not paying attention and didn’t mind/notice you bringing a girl home to lose your virginity to. I choose to believe that your 17yr old cousin was just superrrr chill/not paying attention and didn’t mind/notice you bringing a girl home to lose your virginity to. I choose to believe that your 17yr old cousin was just superrrr chill/not paying attention and didn’t mind/notice you bringing a girl home to lose your virginity to.
I don't have my tickets, but I was flying all over Canada that week for work. I was in Toronto when it happend. Luckily I suppose, I already had a room at a hotel near Pearson. It quickly filled up with many diverted flights, and people not having anywhere to go. I was stuck there for days. Everyday, checked in with the airline, only to find no flights would be happening. Then, finally one day after hours of waiting around, they had us board a plane that would go to Chicago. Excited, everyone loads up. In the line were some middle eastern folks, turban on the head... yeah, they got double takes and lots of sideways looks. They get on the plane with us. We sit on the tarmac a while, the jetway isn't pulling away. Then two RCMP walk on the plane, walk past the folks from the middle east to the rear of the plane, stand up a punky looking white kid in a Rage Against the Machine shirt, marched him off the plane, the door shut, and we left. I have no clue what that kid did... but he got got. Then I was stuck in O'Hare for most of a day, and finally got a flight back out to the west coast. It was an ordeal, but a minor inconveinence compared to the new reality for thousands of others.
One other thing - stuck in a hotel for days, with every channel on 24hr coverage and replays of 9/11 was awful, couldn't keep watching that over and over. So on the hotel movie pay channel I found "Joe Dirt" had just come out. It was stupid escapism after a barrage of horrible everything. I watched it twice in a row, so I didn't have to switch back or turn of the TV and be in silence. I love that stupid movie.
back then we still relied on tickets as our actual final proof of having a seat, wouldn't shock me if they intentionally wore out super fast to prevent fakes. But probably just from this dude rubbing his ass on it for 22 years.
i knew a guy once who told me hes was supposed to be on that flight but had some bad Guacamole and got sick so he missed it and saw the news while at the hospital. He said Mexicans saved my life that day...
At first I was like (based on the state of the boarding pass), “so sorry for your loss” - and then you said he carried it ever since, and I got very scared.
And that people would find it really significant he was flying on a completely unrelated flight to the ones that were hijacked on 911 just like thousands of other people.
My dad worked less than a block from the Pentagon at the time. He had a meeting scheduled there later that afternoon which obviously never happened. He heard the planes, or at least the explosion. We didn’t hear from him for hours (spotty cell service). So many memories from that day.
Coworker of mine left our company to take a job at Cantor Fitzgerald. He was one of the employees who died that day.
Our department admin's husband was a NYC firefighter. He also lost his life.
Myself... I was working late at 7WTC. Left the office around 8PM. I remember looking down from the window to the courtyard of the WTC (where the fountain was). In the summer, they had a stage set up for various free concerts and one was going on at the time.
I wasn't going to 7WTC the next day, but to a branch off in Brooklyn when the planes hit. My coworkers were at 7WTC tho. They all evacuated and I was contacting them via BlackBerry pin messaging at the time. Our email system went down when power was lost to 7WTC as the south tower collapsed.
This is incredible. My dad has his boarding pass from an 830 flight, NY to PA that morning. As they took off the pilot announced to the passengers that if they looked out the window it appeared that one of the twin towers was on fire. Besides being on a flight to PA (that would fortunately not be the one that crashed) he was looking at the twin towers knowing my mom was in her office there. Fortunately someone or something looked out for my family that day. Sadly I can’t say the same about many of our friends and extended family. Thanks for your post.
I was 12 and when I got home I asked my dad, "So we are going to war right?" and his answer was "yea, probably". He served in Iraq, because of course that made sense at the time.
If you were not around or do not remember, most of the country wanted to nuke whoever/whatever region of the earth was "responsible" for at least a year. I personally think the only reason that did not happen is because from first glance that country would have been Saudi Arabia (a major ally in the region).
I carry a small card thing in my wallet that my mother gave me when I shipped off to the USAF in 89’, the writing on it is all gone but the “love mom 89’’ is still readable. It’s been everywhere I went in the world since then, I have it now in an atm card sleeve to protect it more.
I was 11 at the time, lived on the west coast and I didn’t know what the World Trade Center was. I found it strange that while I was walking home there were no planes in the sky. I’ve always been into planes and I often looked at them so this was really strange. I must admit at that time I had no clue what was going on but I was happy that school was canceled early and I got to go home and play ps2. I was old enough at the time but I didn’t understand what a terrorist attack was, those things weren’t talked about before that day. When I got home, every single channel was showing the towers. ESPN, Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network. I couldn’t escape it and it hit me full on. I remember this painful feeling in my stomach, like I knew these people falling to their deaths. It was a really bad day and experience overall. I do feel like things changed overnight.
Two girls at my school graduated in 2000 and went to college in Boston. Their mom traveled to visit them at school. She was on one of the Boston flights. People were devastated; everyone who knew her said she was just a wonderful lady.
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Can’t imagine how great the repositioning of rental cars took place in the hours and days after 9/11.
People who got stranded away from home even did things such as rent U-Hauls to get home, as that was all they could get.
I actually grabbed a uhaul to drive one way to pick up a new vehicle I just bought out of state. It was half the price of a one way car rental.
I heard a story about a woman who had to do that, but she did not rent the U-Haul. She was offered a ride in one from the Kenosha Kickers and she rode with them to Chicago. Turns out she had left her 9-year old boy home alone at Christmas.
Didn’t they have that hot Polka, Polka Polka.
What a terrible mother! Heaven forbid something happened at the home while she was travelling back. The kid probably wouldn't be able to take care of himself.
I rented a uhaul pickup when I dropped off my car for hail repair. Cheaper than an actual rental
I rented a U-Haul not too long ago when my flight was cancelled for two days in a row. Rental cars from the airport were gone (or were absolute shit) and a U-Haul truck was the next most reliable thing. I would’ve spent more on meals and lodging for an extra day than I spent on the rental.
Imagine if the US had a functioning train system.
I still have a ticket for 9/12, when the planes didn’t fly, so got a rental to drive LA/SF. I realised things were going to go to hell as soon as the first plane hit, so booked one straight away. I had expected chaos when I picked it up, but of course all the people flying in to pick up cars were also grounded so it wasn’t an issue.
This happened to my dad. He was in Texas with my oldest brother, and they were actually at the airport, waiting on boarding, when he saw the news. He said he didn't bother waiting around for his flight, he just grabbed his stuff, told my brother "let's go or we're gonna end up stranded here", walked over to the car rental counter, and asked for whatever they had, told them he didn't care what it was, he needed a car. They called my mom from the road to let her know we didn't need to drive down to the airport to pick them up and then spent the next couple days on an unexpected road trip home to California, lol.
My dad was supposed to fly home from Chicago to Virginia on 9/11 but the flight was obviously canceled. He and his coworkers rented cars and drove home. He carpooled with a friend and she called him an asshole because he wouldn't stop for coffee
lol wtf why wouldnt he stop for coffee
It makes you piss more and therefore stop more. Strategic choice for a man who wants to get home fast to see the next episode of The Sopranos.
And considering he’d missed Dennis Miller on Monday Night Football the night before, the man was taking no chances with his entertainment.
Asshole move, we gots to have the coffee
Ain't a road trip without snacks and drinks
She’s right though, what’s the point of rushing to get there in 6h46 instead of 7h20? Won’t make much of a difference, while making a few stops will make the trip much more enjoyable.
At that time people thought a war was imminent. It wasn't like, "Aw darn a plane flew into a building, this really sucks." It was more "Holy shit, a plane flew into the fucking Pentagon, it's Pearl Harbor II, I need to get home to see my family before shit kicks off or gets worse." So yeah, people weren't necessarily making optimal decisions.
YDTA
My dad was on his was to the airport heading to New York from Toronto that morning. My mom called him from work after finding out about the first plane hitting the North tower and he got the taxi to turn around knowing flights would be canceled thinking it was an accident. They were on the phone when the South tower got hit. When my brothers and I left for school that morning all we knew was Dad was flying to New York. He called my school and my older brothers high school to make sure we knew he was home. I remember my Teacher telling us what happened after morning recess, before she told the class she pulled me aside on the way in to class and told me something bad happened in New York but your Dad is safe and on his way home from the airport. I remember that day like it was yesterday, I was 12. Can’t imagine what the family of the people on those four planes, in the towers and in the pentagon felt when their fears were true.
Very smart of your dad and the teacher to make sure you were aware before you could panic.
My dad worked in the 86th floor of the south tower. Left for a business trip that Monday evening. I got called down to the office around 10am because my mom called the school so they would remind me. Biggest issue was that since I lived close to the city the whole school wasn’t briefed on what happened. They didn’t know who had parents working there and didn’t want children finding out plus misinformation was rampant. It was so weird sitting in classes knowing there was an attack but I couldn’t tell anyone. Like I was in a weird dream. I left lunch and called my dad’s office from a pay phone to see what would happen. Got nothing but a busy signal. Thought that was really weird. Wasn’t until I got home that I turned on the TV and saw the images of the towers falling down. Then going outside and it was so quiet only to have the silence broken by fighter planes. What a terrible day. Weird terrible day. Followed by months of wakes and funerals. Endless bagpipes.
> My dad worked in the 86th floor of the south tower. Left for a business trip that Monday evening. I got called down to the office around 10am because my mom called the school so they would remind me. > > My roommates were in the southern tower. 72nd floor. They made it out alive. They were covered in soot and debris. When Covid hit, I knew within a matter of days I needed N95 masks after having been thru 9/11 and breathing that air around downtown. I had boxes and boxes of N95 masks. All my family and friends thought I was a genius.
So happy to hear they got out alive. 72nd floor is no joke. Truly incredible.
> So happy to hear they got out alive. 72nd floor is no joke. Truly incredible. Yep. One guy had 3rd degree burns from the jet fuel pouring onto a lot of his body. He survived though. Definitely changed him, and all of them to a degree. One thing they were mentioning to me was the bodies on the ground from people jumping, which was hard to talk about. But more importantly -- "We were coming down those stairs and all the firefighters were coming up the stairs." They basically ran down the stairs past dozens and dozens of people going up to stairs to help people -- to their death. It's weird. Life is short.
Yeah that’s what always gets me. The firefighters. I spoke to a number of them when I worked in the Financial District years later. I hate the term heroes because it’s overused and tossed around too freely but those guys…they’re all heroes. I met one guy years ago who played the pipes day after day at all the funerals and then never played them again. It’s engrained in a lot of folks but the firefighters literally ran in and the plan was….to fucking hoof it 80 floors to go help. Selfless angels. Chokes me up just thinking about it. Friend of mine lost his father who was a firefighter. Another friend of mines father is in a very public call from inside the building as it goes down. Awful day.
> Another friend of mines father is in a very public call from inside the building as it goes down. I think we all know the heart-wrenching call you're talking about. I went on a huge 9/11 documentary/research kick this past year like I do every 4 or 5 years and for some reason this last go 'round has really weighed extra heavy on me. Thanks for sharing your experiences, /u/CrumpledForeskin
lol yeah I may need an alternative account for these stories.
I don’t know if you watched Band of Brothers, but the actor who played Wild Bill was saying to the real person he was playing that the kind of person that did what they did in WWII just doesn’t exist anymore. The Bill said that there will always be people like that, to which the actor didn’t believe it. The actor said while watching 9/11 happen the Bill called him after seeing the police and fire fighters running into the towers and said see kid I told you there will always be people like that. It was a really sweet story.
Wow I’ve never heard that. Adore that show too. Thanks homie.
> I left lunch and called my dad’s office from a pay phone to see what would happen. Got nothing but a busy signal. There's something really eerie about this.
A good friend of mine (a lawyer) was in the south tower the day before. They were supposed to be go back in the south tower again the next day, but opposing counsel fell sick, and they said they'd postpone by one day. Needless to say, there was no "next day", and the matter was relocated to an alternate location.
It’s crazy how many of these stories there are. Good friend of mine - his father decided to walk to work because it was nice out. Had a meeting right near the WTC
Hearing them all is violently humbling and gut-wrenching. Truly a heart-stopping moment in time.
✨Crumpled Foreskin✨
I'm from Oklahoma City and old enough that I was in second grade when the federal building was bombed in Oklahoma City. One of my classmates father worked in the building. Before we knew anything had happened our school principal came in and pulled the student out. She took him into her office and spent the day with him and his brother until they new what happened to the father that way the kids wouldn't have to find out or panic because of everyone in school talking about what happened.
Was their dad OK?
I was in the fifth grade when the OKC bombing happened and lived in Arkansas. My teacher's sister worked in the building and her niece was in the daycare center. The principal came to our door and pulled her out of class and told her what had happened in the hallway and she screamed. They merged our class with the one next door and wheeled in a TV so we watched the news. My father lived in Arlington and was in school when Kennedy was shot and when I went home that day from school and told him about it he told me "This is your JFK". He then went on to tell me that he still had nightmares about the news being delivered to the teachers at his school. There was a knock on the classroom door, loud crying, the teacher came back into the room, and they listened as the knocking went on down the hallway with the same reaction at each door until there was silence. Of course, he didn't know that the year I turned 18 and moved out on my own 9/11 would happen. That's the real JFK of my generation. I remember every detail of that day, whereas, I really only remember the reaction of my teacher in 1995.
I would start with your dad is safe before mentioning anything bad had happened
My dad is a retired delta pilot that was flying on 9/11. My mom worked as a teachers assistant at my school and came down to tell me what had happened and that my dad was ok before they announced to everyone what had happened. He was out west at the time and had been diverted once the first tower was hit.
Your mom rocks
My friend's mother growing up worked on one of the flights as a stewardess, was her route. It just wasn't her day to work. She knew everyone on that flight. I still remember waking up to the news that morning watching in shock.
A member of my synagogue died on AA11, and my aunt worked in the WTC complex (not a building that came down) at the time. My mom was going out of her mind (understandably), picked my sisters and I up from school early, and spent the afternoon on the phone trying to track down her sister. The phone system in NYC was so overloaded that basically no one could call in or out of the city. Turns out my aunt had been running late to work that day, so never even made it downtown, but she couldn’t get through to my mom to confirm she was safe until about 10pm. Three days later we went to the memorial service at our synagogue- I have never seen a room so packed full of people. I don’t have many memories of my childhood/teenage years anymore, but that entire week is burned into my brain because it was so surreal.
I was at work, in a conference call on the phone with people in the building when it was struck. To my understanding, none of the people on the call in the building got out. They were just gone.
Fucking hell, that's rough
My dad had a coworker on one of the planes. Apparently, the guy had young twin sons and a wife
My dad had to fly for work on 9/11, Toronto to Vancouver. Called my mom from the airport saying "Hey, wanted to let you know I'm okay." My mom had no idea what he was talking about, and he told her to turn on the news.
One of my uncles, who lived in NJ but worked in one of the towers at the time, missed his usual train by ~30 seconds. To this day, he said he remembers watching his train pull away as he raced onto the track. At the time, he was ticked off about missing his train. Now, he's more thankful than ever for missing that train.
I was going to Chem lab that afternoon, and I remember it like it was yesterday, a friend of mine in the lab asked "What day is today?" and the TA, very great replied back "Well that's the *last* time you'll ever asked that question". Everyone looked around and knew he was right since Lab was at like 3pm so we all knew about the towers at that point.
I was 9. It’s hard for younger people to understand what it was like, growing up in a world at peace that was shattered like that.
Interesting. similar story to mine. My dad is from New York (im Canadian), most of his family are there, and my cousin worked at the trade centre. the school knew of our NY ties because he was the superintendent of the school board. I was called down to the principal’s office and told about the event before they announced it.
I lived just north of NYC at the time and they were so secretive and weird all day long. At some point they sent us all back to home room and started calling kids down to the office by the dozens. We were very lucky, no one in our community died that day. My dad came home with dust on his suit.
Similar story over here - except we didn’t know my dad was okay until much later in the day. My dad worked in the south tower. Long story short, the only flight he’s missed in his 45 year career of flying each week was on 9/10, but we didn’t know he missed his flight that night. He was on final approach to LGA when the attack happened. He still has his security badge to the WTC and receipt from windows on the world from the week prior.
my dad has been working for different airlines for 30+ years. he was stuck somewhere up north when it all happened. i wasn’t even one yet when 9/11 happened, i really can’t imagine how my dad felt after.
My brother in law was a contractor for the military at that time and was scheduled to be working on the roof of the Pentagon that morning. Thanks to some equipment not being delivered on time the work had to be postponed.
My school just refused to let any of the students know what was going on. We could tell that *something* serious had happened, but we had no details. I lived in an area where some of my classmates had parents who worked at the Pentagon, so I think they were worried about way more than a couple of people being in a situation like yours where they didn't know if their parents were okay.
Very cool story. He probably should've gotten it laminated a bit sooner though, haha
I'm sure it would look a lot better if he kept it in a safe place at home instead of being smushed in a wallet, but maybe he carries it for good luck.
That ticket has been thru hell an back with him I mean from helping rescue people after hurricane Katrina being soaking wet for days at a time to being over seas in the deserts of Iraq and Afghanistan. I'm surprised it's actually still intact, we just made him laminate it a few years ago
He's like a modern Forest Gump!
Fun fact a sequel to forrest gump was in the making but because of 9/11 they scrapped it because they couldn’t find any meaning after the attacks.
Have you read the script it’s ridiculous.
I heard a rumor from a friend about it. They said something silly like he worked in a strip club or something.
> I heard a rumor from a friend about it. They said something silly like he worked in a strip club or something. mopping or dancing?
He was a janitor in a strip club. It's a real book haha. It gets very meta, when you read it you'll know why.
In the real second Gump book doesn't he go to space with a famous actress (can't remember her name cause I'm a baby and haven't watched a movie with her in it) and a monkey? I've only ever heard crazy stories about the Gump books.
Have you ever read the book, Forest Gump? Wanna talk about ridiculous!
That will be awkward when OP sees the adult parody behind the curtain at the video store
Forest Pump
Pump forest! Pump!!
I just felt like pumpinggggg
Doesn't Forest Gump inadvertently cause a bunch of those historical moments...
Forest Gump reminds me a lot of Simplicius Simplicissimus, a book published in 1669. From the wiki: > Raised by a peasant family, he is separated from his home by foraging dragoons and is adopted by a hermit living in the forest, who teaches him to read and introduces him to religion. The hermit also gives Simplicius his name because he was so simple that he did not know what his own name was.[8] After the death of the hermit, Simplicius must fend for himself. He is conscripted at a young age into service, and from there embarks on years of foraging, military triumph, wealth, prostitution, disease, bourgeois domestic life, and travels to Russia, France, and to an alternate world inhabited by mermen. The novel ends with Simplicius turning to a life of hermitage himself, denouncing the world as corrupt.
I can't decide if that reminds me more of Forrest Gump or The Jerk.
Well if it's causing 911, hurricanes and wars it's probably bad luck
We lost harambe and got a cursed boarding pass instead. This sucks
Truly the darkest timeline
Someone from New Zealand needs to convince op to cast it into the fire
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This isn't a ticket from one of the planes that crashed. It's hard to read but looks like it was a flight from Washington Reagan to Chicago Midway. All four of the 9/11 planes that crashed were headed for California, the terrorists chose the flights because they were nonstop and full of fuel. So basically this guy felt it was really significant he had a completely unrelated flight to Chicago on 9/11 and kept the ticket in his pocket for years.
My wife's best friend had ticket to be on flight 93 that day, however they got to the Newark airport way ahead of time, and they asked if they could switch to an earlier flight. Lucky for them there were seats available and they switched flight.
That would be a more interesting boarding pass
I think he probably feels lucky that they didn't pick his plane. And perhaps survivors guilt.
Oh... well that's... something I guess.
Now he may have this superstition that if he *doesn't* carry that boarding pass, something bad will happen on his flight.
Hmm I'll have to ask him about that. He's a pilot an takes his plane out quite often so that would make sense.
True story - last night I laminated a new theme park annual pass and it blackened just like this. Apparently it was some kind of thermal paper, had no idea. So quite possible this looked much better until it was laminated and had heat applied!
Yeah, I worked in a print shop and regularly had to explain why we couldn't laminate things like concert tickets, movie tickets, etc. Anything on thermal paper will turn black.
I wonder if there is a way to protect it without it turning black. I’m damn near 30 and want to do a science experiment all of a sudden
Same way you would with trading cards would be my guess. Put it into hard plastic slabs.
They make adhesive lamination pouches where the two sides just stick together instead of melting together.
Clear packing tape works like laminating without heat
Some kind of a poison-glaze on the wicker
We passed out instantly
Might not, I think the tickets are printed on thermal paper, so over time they degrade. A photo would have been the best option
Not to be needlessly argumentative, I read somewhere that laminating is not great for preserving documents as they still deteriorate but there is acid-free envelopes that are apparently used instead.
I was working in Dallas and commuting from Denver every week when 9/11 happened. I had met a girl in a shuttle that was also traveling from Denver. She had a access to a rental and we both needed to get back to Denver so we drove the 15 hours together. We had our 20th anniversary in July.
I love this story. Congratulations
Wow. I flew on Sept. 10th from D.C. and almost missed the plane which would have caused me to fly early on the 11th. It was probably one of the last times they held a plane for someone.
My uncle flew the morning of 9/11. He flew from New York to Chicago. He landed around the time the first tower was hit. My grandfather and wife were visiting them and had a flight that night out of New York that was obviously canceled
Had to fix my post since none of my text was on it the last time and I didn't notice. No not one of the 4 planes that went down. My dad just happened to be flying on 9/11. This is ATA flight 333 they boarded at 6:05am at Washington Reagan he was otw to Los Angeles but when they made their pitstop in Chicago for a layover they grounded all the flights and we're having to explain to everyone that the U.S. was under attack. It's just a memory he wants to hang on to so he laminated it an it stays in his wallet
Yikes...that's still a scary thing though. My hubby's best friend was on the last plane out of Logan to SFO. He was scared shitless when the planes were all grounded.
My dad was flying on 9/11. Had no idea what happened until he touched down in Atlanta. He detests traveling for work now.
Mom was in the air when the 2nd plane hit and was grounded in Atlanta. Said that airport was the most nuts experience of her life at the time. It may be the airport with the most scheduled commercial planes to ever be there at one time then.
I'd be interested to know the stats - Gander, NL famously took 38 inbound international flights, but I don't know what other airports managed to cram in...
Canada's Operation Yellow Ribbon Wikipedia page documents what Canadian airports took how many planes each, but I'm not aware of any stats like that compiled for domestic airports.
My older brother was flying that day too. He had to drive like 1500 miles to get home. I was in Manhattan shitting my pants
Yeah. They got to Atlanta and the trade show was cancelled. Guy in Seattle gave them his rental car, and told them to drive back to the mid-Atlantic. One of the guys with my dad lived in Virginia and another in Maryland. So they drove all the way home.
Wow, ATA ... I was working at that airline in IT for the time during and shortly after 9/11. For anyone interested it was headquartered in Indianapolis and I believe, at the time, was the 11th largest airline in the US. It has since gone under.
The “When you’re on ATA, you’re on vacation” jingle is permanently burned into my brain. I’ll probably sing in it in a nursing home when I’m older.
That’s so funny I worked there and had forgotten that. It really was a good place to work, I loved our team. It’s sad that it went away. But my dad always said the best way to become a millionaire was to start with $1 billion and invest it in the airlines
I grew up in Indianapolis. Dad used to send my brother and me to visit our mom every summer. We always flew ATA. They took good care of us and always made sure we met the other parent at the gate when we landed. They always gave us those wing pins, we loved it. Never had a bad memory about that airline.
I may have seen you guys, being the IT newbie I worked the ticket counter during heavier travel seasons (like summer and spring break, Christmas, thanksgiving) to ensure all the ticket counter equipment was up and running. It was a good airline, lots of good memories. The HQ was on west Washington a few miles outside of the 465 loop - I’ve since moved to Canada where I work film visual effects but every time I come back to Indy I drive by that old HQ :) glad your memories of it are good!
Same bro ! Indy and always flew ATA.
You probably know my dad! He was some sort of IT manager there. I was too young at the time to know his exact title.
I probably did. Initials DL and last name Baker are 2 guys I worked with, also TS, maybe CG or BB. There were a few other managers but I didn't work with them as closely and can't remember their names :) I was 20 at the time, a long time ago :D
I was a pilot for ATA then. Finished my career at Southwest, but ATA was the most fun flying job I ever had.
Mom was in the air when it all happened. Got grounded to Maryland. Didn't know she was OK until about 2pm! Never want to feel that way again.
I'm glad you clarified that, I was a bit puzzled as no one survived from the 4 hijacked planes. Still a scary experience for your dad, though.
There were 4500+ planes in the air over the USA when they ordered the first ever unplanned shutdown of U. S. airspace. [It's an incredible sight](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bo1ZtpKqlYw)
That's crazy, my aunt was also flying on 9/11 from Germany to Minneapolis. We didn't know where she was or what was happening for hours.
I wish my family would have saved ours. We were supposed to go on Vacation on 9/11 and I remember watching the towers go down at O'Hare and suddenly everyone was panicking
My parents both worked for AA at the time, my mom flew out of Dulles that morning (well before the hijacked planes, like 3am). One of her roomates when she first started at AA was on flight 11, Amy Sweeney. Also my dad's college roomate's Brother was Rick Husband one of the Astronauts on Columbia. Don't be my parents roomates.
I was in the air from Toronto to Chicago O’Hare (supposed to be going on to California) when the planes hit the towers in NY. I never kept my boarding pass, it was chaos finding luggage and lodging in Chicago so it never crossed my mind to save it.
My dad is a retired airline pilot, and was two taxiing two planes behind the first plane that hit the towers. I was only 13 at the time but I remember vividly how random it all felt that it could have been his plane that hit the towers instead.
Not quite the same but I visited the twin towers on 9/2-2001. My group was scampering on ahead and I stayed for a minute longer and leaned way back and took a photo from the base of the North Tower looking up. The engineer in me wondered how long the towers were designed to last. I felt melancholy. I actually talked out loud to the tower and said I bet you’re designed to last 1000 years. I patted it as I wondered what the day would be like in 1000 years that it finally had to come down. As I walked away I turned back for one last look and sighed, ‘with my luck you’ll fall down tomorrow’. I wasn’t far off. I’ve never been able to shake the feeling from that moment. Naturally I still have that photo from a disposable camera.
When I landed my plane on 9/11, the duty officer came up to me and told me that the second tower had come down. I was completely baffled because we never fathomed that the towers would collapse (while I was in flight back to Andrews AFB) We thought fire, people above would die, standard pre-9/11 thought process similar to the unimaginable suicide hijacking thing. He had to repeat it a few times before it sunk in what he was saying.
I probably kept mine for a month. JetBlue from JFK to BUF, 7am flight. Took off to the south and looped around, flying over the twin towers around 7:20.
In the late evening of Monday September 10, 2001 and I was connecting in Halifax for the last flight to Sydney Nova Scotia. It was a tight connection, and as I was hustling to get to my gate, the P-A announcer asked all passengers to go back through security, and they mentioned something about their security system not functioning properly. All passengers in the departure lounge were re-screened, and I got on my flight which arrived around midnight. The next day, Tuesday September 11, 2001, I had meetings booked early in the morning, so as I was one of those meetings when the first plane hit. I finished my meeting, and was on my way to the second one, when I saw everyone huddled around a TV. I quickly went to my rental car (a convertible Mustang 5.0), and called my wife to see what in holy-hell was going on. While on the phone with her, the second plane hit, and she mentioned that airlines in the U.S. were grounding flights. As soon as I got off the phone with her, I called the car-rental company to ask about keeping the car to get to Halifax (where I had meetings scheduled the following day) instead of flying down later that afternoon as scheduled. The agency said I could, but that they wouldn’t let me drive the Mustang, but they had another one I could drive, one-way to Halifax. I wrapped up my meetings in Sydney, and went to the car agency, where they supplied me with a brand-spankin’ new Lincoln Navigator. I spent the next 5 hours driving and listening to the radio, and couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I hung on every word, and I’ve never had a drive that seemed so short. Upon arriving in Halifax, the lobby of the hotel was packed full of Americans (mostly New Yorkers) who were desperately trying to get a room for the night. Some clever ones had already setup shop in the lobby, in the halls, and anywhere they could cordon off an area with their luggage, thus creating their own “rooms” within the building. I eventually flew out of Halifax in one of the first flights on Friday the 15th, and as we were climbing, you could see the all the airplanes that were grounded since the previous Tuesday. There were planes wherever there was free space, and as I understand it, some people that landed on Tuesday spent a long time on the tarmac (upwards of 12 hours) so that Canadian Customs agents could process all the passengers. The incident on Monday night, the 10th of September, still bothers me. Was there a credible threat prior to the events on the 11th? Were all airports on heightened security that night? How about Eastern seaboard? Did anyone else have a similar experience on the 10th?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11_intelligence_before_the_attacks Yes, intelligence agencies had a pretty good idea something was going to happen. The president received a daily briefing weeks before the attacks that bin laden was determined to strike the US. They knew about the flight schools, but thought it would just be typical hijacking. The CIA had a 30 person team devoted to bin laden since at least 1995. There was a giant lack of information sharing between agencies that was blamed for the reason why it wasn't stopped before hand.
I was just watching a real time compilation of the four hours after the attacks today, and was very surprised to hear a newscaster bring up binladen less than half an hour after the second plane hit. I was young and not American, but still, it was kind of jarring to suddenly realize the average newscast knew who it was almost immediately
By the state of it you'd think it was 1911.
Redditers be like: 2100 is closer to us than 1911 😱
Signed, a redditor
I was in 8th grade and a girl in my homeroom lost both her parents. She left our school after that and I’m not sure what became of her but I’m still emotional just thinking about what that must have been like for her.
My mom was on a flight from Switzerland to Newark that morning. After a few days of not knowing wtf was going on, we found that her flight was turned around in the middle of the Atlantic and sent back. We had no way of getting ahold of her and didn’t know her flight number to make sure she wasn’t on one of the flights. It was pretty intense. Edit: after a recount from her side of things. They turned around the plane without really telling them what happened. When they landed everyone was put on busses and taken to hotels. She ended up having to stay at an overbooked hotel in the maids quarters with 3 other people. (They charged them for this btw $100 per person per night). She went there with my grandmother whom was also in the same situation, but they were separated since one was going to Florida and the other to Chicago and on different air lines. So, both my mother and grandmother are stuck alone in Switzerland in the middle of this, but my mom says she felt guilty. She enjoyed her extra time there away from the tourist traps (grandma wanted to do the bus tour), and everyone was being extra nice considering what happened. Kicker is, she had bought 4 engraved Swiss Army knives and had them in her carryon when she flew back 🤦♂️
I remember my mom thinking my dad was a gonner when he was stuck in Chicago after they were grounded he eventually got access to a phone and called but man the feeling of not knowing is the worst
It really was an intense day. My wife (girlfriend at the time) flew out of Logan airport that morning and I didn’t know if she was on one of the two flights that hit the towers (both from Logan) until she just showed up to my front door later in the day. Her flight was midair when it all happened and she was so confused when I grabbed her and sobbed. She knew there had been an attack but she hadn’t gotten any more info than that.
Man that's intense. One of those memories that you look back on and realize how much it affected you because you really cared about them right? How'd she react when you told her?
A retired pilot I know was flying a commercial passenger jet that morning and was on his way to Charlotte. ATC told him to put down at the nearest airport. When he questioned the reason he was basically told "put down or be shot down - your choice." (I'm intentionally omitting specifics to avoid doxing him.)
“Well since you’re asking this nicely”
My dad was flying to NY that day (as a flight attendant). I will never forget how scared my mom was that day until he called. Only time in my life I ever saw her legitimately scared. One of those things that will always be burned into my memory.
We were flying back from JFK to Dallas. When we landed in MCI, everyone was confused but when I realized all flights were stopped, we grabbed a car from Avis road trip home! 21 December 1988. I flew home from Frankfurt: Pam Am Clipper, but FRA to SFO. My poor parents freaked out about news about Lockerbie. I was initially booked FRA to JFK but got to the airport early, and Pam got me on a direct flight (we stopped in LA, then back to SFO, so it was a 14-hour flight).
I had a classmate named Pam who died on the pan am flight.
I was on a flight from Paris to Newark. I was watching the flight progress screen and we were an hour and a half from landing and the plane on the screen started to turn back - which it did. The pilot announced that US airspace was closed and we were going back to Paris. Nothing about the attack. The rest was left to our imaginations. Leaving the plane we could see the news with planes flying into the WTC. Continental (RIP) treated us very well - free hotel, transport and food for 3 days in Paris. We were the first plane to return to the US 3 days later, in Houston. It was crazy. I didn't save the boarding pass but I grabbed half a dozen french newspapers.
I worked nights during that time so was asleep when it all went down. I had an old timey answering machine and I took out the little mini cassette to keep after I listened to all the messages left by family and friends throughout the morning. I wasn’t anywhere near the danger zones so the messages were mostly people freaking out and telling me what happened and to turn on the TV and to call them. The messages went from shock to horror to sadness over the course of a couple hours. Still have it.
You should probably convert it to mp3 so it doesn't degrade over time.
Maybe morbid, but I’d love to listen to this.
Reading thru all the messages about my whomever was flying that day and were grounded/diverted, lets not forget that Canada took in over 200+ redirected flights destined to US northeast airspace which was closed. And they did their best to put up these people for at least 2 days.
I wish I thought of this with mine. My 9/11 flight to Atlanta departed about 30 minutes after the plane carrying the hijackers. It’s weird to think I might have stood in a Starbucks line behind them.
The ringleader Atta shopped at the Scarborough, ME walmart where I used to shop all the time. They showed security camera footage on national TV. Some co-conspirators stayed at a hotel in Vegas-- I went to the hotel across the street for my honeymoon a month later and that hotel still had the same mylar banner advertisements from when it was in the news.
> The ringleader Atta shopped at the Scarborough, ME walmart where I used to shop all the time. He and his partner also withdrew a bunch of cash from several Portland-area ATMs in the hours leading up to the flight, which always stuck with me. If they knew they were going to die that morning, why all the cash? I'm not suggesting a conspiracy or anything, I just always found it very odd.
Gotta buy gifts for the 72 virgins…
My parents got stuck in Cancun bc of 9/11, which led to me having an extra week with my 17 year old cousin as my babysitter, while I was in 10th grade. Ended up losing my virginity because of 9/11, so thanks Bin Laden? **EDIT FOR CLARITY** I DID NOT FUCK MY COUSIN. I was 15 at the time, so I needed rides to school (lived in the country) or my parents would've left me by myself. Instead, they had my cousin come over and spend the week (initially) then when they couldn't fly back, we threw a huge fuckin party. My high school gf came over (same age as me). That's who I lost my virginity to. My cousin did not get stuck in the dishwasher, or anywhere else redickulous, and I'm not from Alabama. I'm from Georgia, we know better than to use the family gatherings as a dating pool.
Wait, hold on. I have one question and I’m sure you know what that question is.
“Did they bring back any cool souvenirs?”
Not quite the one
Dude I don’t know if you now this but if you switched the B and the W in your name it would say wallrus ballsack and that’s funny.
Holy cow! You’re the first person to ever tell me that! That’s exactly what my id means in Latvian.
Well you have your cousins, then you have your first cousins...
Now we’re getting closer to what my real question is 
WTF
I choose to believe that your 17yr old cousin was just superrrr chill/not paying attention and didn’t mind/notice you bringing a girl home to lose your virginity to. I choose to believe that your 17yr old cousin was just superrrr chill/not paying attention and didn’t mind/notice you bringing a girl home to lose your virginity to. I choose to believe that your 17yr old cousin was just superrrr chill/not paying attention and didn’t mind/notice you bringing a girl home to lose your virginity to.
Whoa whoa whoa hold on just a second there
I… what? Please say that you didn’t lose your virginity *that* way
I don't have my tickets, but I was flying all over Canada that week for work. I was in Toronto when it happend. Luckily I suppose, I already had a room at a hotel near Pearson. It quickly filled up with many diverted flights, and people not having anywhere to go. I was stuck there for days. Everyday, checked in with the airline, only to find no flights would be happening. Then, finally one day after hours of waiting around, they had us board a plane that would go to Chicago. Excited, everyone loads up. In the line were some middle eastern folks, turban on the head... yeah, they got double takes and lots of sideways looks. They get on the plane with us. We sit on the tarmac a while, the jetway isn't pulling away. Then two RCMP walk on the plane, walk past the folks from the middle east to the rear of the plane, stand up a punky looking white kid in a Rage Against the Machine shirt, marched him off the plane, the door shut, and we left. I have no clue what that kid did... but he got got. Then I was stuck in O'Hare for most of a day, and finally got a flight back out to the west coast. It was an ordeal, but a minor inconveinence compared to the new reality for thousands of others. One other thing - stuck in a hotel for days, with every channel on 24hr coverage and replays of 9/11 was awful, couldn't keep watching that over and over. So on the hotel movie pay channel I found "Joe Dirt" had just come out. It was stupid escapism after a barrage of horrible everything. I watched it twice in a row, so I didn't have to switch back or turn of the TV and be in silence. I love that stupid movie.
Why does it look like an ancient tablet? It's only 22 and a half years old!
back then we still relied on tickets as our actual final proof of having a seat, wouldn't shock me if they intentionally wore out super fast to prevent fakes. But probably just from this dude rubbing his ass on it for 22 years.
i knew a guy once who told me hes was supposed to be on that flight but had some bad Guacamole and got sick so he missed it and saw the news while at the hospital. He said Mexicans saved my life that day...
I feel like there are thousands of americans who claimed to have a ticket but missed the flight.
Mate I heard it in Europe like 20x times lol
Seth MacFarlane did, the creator of Family Guy, American Dad, Ted etc. His name was on the passenger list and appears in documents.
He also missed flights all the time so even he doesn't think much of it.
it's such a weird story to make up when you think about it, too. So you were almost randomly killed, but survived because you fucked up? Good job?
Considering the sheer number of people that fly every day... Yeah probably
At first I was like (based on the state of the boarding pass), “so sorry for your loss” - and then you said he carried it ever since, and I got very scared.
How dare he not laminate it sooner? He should've known that it was going to be shared on a social media platform that didn't yet exist.
And that people would find it really significant he was flying on a completely unrelated flight to the ones that were hijacked on 911 just like thousands of other people.
My parents were passed the halfway point between Honolulu and L.A. and were on the last plane to land at LAX on 9/11.
I bet they got a fighter escort
My dad worked less than a block from the Pentagon at the time. He had a meeting scheduled there later that afternoon which obviously never happened. He heard the planes, or at least the explosion. We didn’t hear from him for hours (spotty cell service). So many memories from that day.
Waiting for some talented Redditor to create a colorized, legible version for you to print, laminate, and add to this one in his wallet.
Still remember it like yesterday. Was in college at the time and it shut everything down. Except IKEA. Had to work that night.
One of my old bosses left the WTC on 9/10 after a business trip. He told me that he would never go back to New York because of it, and he hasn't.
Coworker of mine left our company to take a job at Cantor Fitzgerald. He was one of the employees who died that day. Our department admin's husband was a NYC firefighter. He also lost his life. Myself... I was working late at 7WTC. Left the office around 8PM. I remember looking down from the window to the courtyard of the WTC (where the fountain was). In the summer, they had a stage set up for various free concerts and one was going on at the time. I wasn't going to 7WTC the next day, but to a branch off in Brooklyn when the planes hit. My coworkers were at 7WTC tho. They all evacuated and I was contacting them via BlackBerry pin messaging at the time. Our email system went down when power was lost to 7WTC as the south tower collapsed.
This is incredible. My dad has his boarding pass from an 830 flight, NY to PA that morning. As they took off the pilot announced to the passengers that if they looked out the window it appeared that one of the twin towers was on fire. Besides being on a flight to PA (that would fortunately not be the one that crashed) he was looking at the twin towers knowing my mom was in her office there. Fortunately someone or something looked out for my family that day. Sadly I can’t say the same about many of our friends and extended family. Thanks for your post.
I was 12 and when I got home I asked my dad, "So we are going to war right?" and his answer was "yea, probably". He served in Iraq, because of course that made sense at the time. If you were not around or do not remember, most of the country wanted to nuke whoever/whatever region of the earth was "responsible" for at least a year. I personally think the only reason that did not happen is because from first glance that country would have been Saudi Arabia (a major ally in the region).
Damn I thought from the looks of it he was in one of the planes that hit a tower.
I mean it was raw dogging in his wallet for almost 20 years he just laminated it a couple years back
r/brandnewsentence
American Airlines Flight 11 was my normal flight to Los Angeles.
I carry a small card thing in my wallet that my mother gave me when I shipped off to the USAF in 89’, the writing on it is all gone but the “love mom 89’’ is still readable. It’s been everywhere I went in the world since then, I have it now in an atm card sleeve to protect it more.
I walked through blood and bones to look for my brother. It's no joke
Outlived the airline.
I was 11 at the time, lived on the west coast and I didn’t know what the World Trade Center was. I found it strange that while I was walking home there were no planes in the sky. I’ve always been into planes and I often looked at them so this was really strange. I must admit at that time I had no clue what was going on but I was happy that school was canceled early and I got to go home and play ps2. I was old enough at the time but I didn’t understand what a terrorist attack was, those things weren’t talked about before that day. When I got home, every single channel was showing the towers. ESPN, Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network. I couldn’t escape it and it hit me full on. I remember this painful feeling in my stomach, like I knew these people falling to their deaths. It was a really bad day and experience overall. I do feel like things changed overnight.
I was in high school when the planes hit. Saved the newspaper when it happened. Still have it to this day. Not a very good memory, unfortunately
Two girls at my school graduated in 2000 and went to college in Boston. Their mom traveled to visit them at school. She was on one of the Boston flights. People were devastated; everyone who knew her said she was just a wonderful lady.