Desperate Plea From The Sky For Help
Sydney Morning Herald
Wednesday September 12, 2001
There was not even the grace of instant death. Instead, there was time to call from the sky over Virginia to loved ones, fingers pumping cell phones, voices saying quick, final goodbyes.
Herded to the back of the plane by hijackers armed with knives, the 64 passengers and crew of American Airlines flight 77 including the wife of Solicitor-General, Theodore Olson, three schoolchildren and three teachers on an educational trip, and a family of four headed to Australia for two months were ordered to call relatives to say they were about to die.
About an hour after take-off from Dulles International Airport on Tuesday morning US time, Flight 77, a Boeing 757 headed for Los Angeles, became a massive missile aimed at the White House. The target would change suddenly, but the symbolism was equally devastating.
By 9.45am, when the diving plane carved out a massive chunk of the Pentagon, untold dozens died and the nation's symbol of security lay shattered.
Barbara Olson, the former federal prosecutor who became a prominent commentator during the impeachment of President Bill Clinton, called her husband twice in the final minutes. Her last words to him were ``What do I tell the pilot to do?"
``She called from the plane while it was being hijacked," Theodore Olson said.
The conversations each lasted about a minute, said Tim O'Brien, a CNN reporter and friend of the Olsons. In the first call, Barbara told her husband: ``Our plane is being hijacked." She described how hijackers forced passengers and the pilot to the rear of the airplane.
Olson's husband immediately called the Justice Department's command centre, where he was told officials knew nothing about the Flight 77 hijacking.
His wife called again. And again, she wanted to know, ``What should I tell the pilot?".
That call was also cut off.
On the ground, air-traffic controllers watching Flight 77's progress westward suddenly lost touch with the plane.
Someone aboard Flight 77 had flipped off the transponder, the tool that sends a plane's identification, flight number, speed and altitude to controllers' screens.
Soon after losing contact, Dulles controllers saw an unidentified aircraft speeding towards the airspace around the White House. Federal aviation sources said Dulles controllers noticed the craft east-south-east of Washington Reagan National Airport and called controllers. Controllers warned the White House that the jet was aimed at the President's mansion and was travelling at full throttle.
But the hijacker pilot extraordinarily skilled according to aviation sources executed a pivot so tight it reminded observers of a fighter jet. Flight 77 then carved a hole in the nation's defence headquarters.
The Washington Post
© 2001 Sydney Morning Herald
