I Will Never Forget, A Flight Attendant's Story

was a flight attendant for one of the flights that flew into the twin towers in New York that morning of September 11. We were a crew of 3 on our way to meet the larger crew in Boston to in order to upgrade the crew numbers for the aircraft.

had been in route since Sunday. The flights from California had been delayed the entire day and we were not able reach our flight connections. As a result, we exceeded our duty time and were notified in Chicago right before we boarded our flight to Boston to meet our crew on Tuesday, the crew desk notified us that we were being removed from that flight and we were being "deadheaded" to Oklahoma City to crew rest for the next 24 hours and would return to our base in SFO.

My room in the designated hotel over saw the Oklahoma City post office which had been bombed a few years earlier by a domestic terrorist. I also had a view of the hundred plus chairs, designating the people in the building who were killed by the bombing. The sight was overwhelming at 2:00am when we finally arrived to the hotel.

The next morning I was awakened by a frantic phone call from my crew member who told me to turn on the T.V. I saw what I thought was a movie, when he screamed "that's our flight! That's the aircraft we were supposed to be aboard this morning!" The aircraft had flown into the Trade Center. I couldn't believe my eyes or move for several minutes. My other crew member would not leave her room. We were there for 8 days because all flights had been grounded.

I took 30 days leave of absence when we finally arrived back to our base in SFO, as did many others. I later discovered who it was that replaced me. It was a flight attendant I met earlier that year. She was going to resign on September 30 in order to be with her husband and two children.

2012, before m retirement, I visited the newly reconstructed site and stood before the reflective pool and touched the names of my crew members. They included my mentor, and the flight attendant who replaced me. I will never forget their heroism......