Flight Attendant on jet that hit 1st tower

From the Chicago Tribune:

The tape of Betty Ong's voice Tuesday, alive and urgent yet
amazingly calm, describing how hijackers had stabbed two of her fellow
flight attendants and taken over the first plane that slammed in the
World Trade Center, silenced the congressional hearing room.
"The cockpit is not answering the phone. Someone's coming. Another one
[passenger] got stabbed. Our first class gal's stabbed, our purser has
been stabbed. We can't get inside the cockpit," Ong told an American
Airlines reservations specialist in a call from the rear phone aboard
doomed Flight 11.
[...]
While her conversation was the most dramatic new revelation at the
hearing, 9/11 commission investigators also released a nine-page report
Tuesday that said the hijackers probably sprayed Mace around the
cockpit area on all four flights, apparently to keep passengers away,
and that they persuaded passengers to sit quietly on at least one of
the flights by announcing over the intercom that there was a bomb on
board.
Investigators believe the hijackers also may have used autopilot and a
GPS global positioning system to target the Trade Center and the
Pentagon. The report said the flight data recorder found buried in the
rubble of the Pentagon indicated the pilot "had input autopilot
instructions for a route to Reagan National Airport."
On Ong's flight, the hijackers appeared to have killed at least one
passenger, and possibly two, before taking over the aircraft.
The tape recording picks up midsentence after an unidentified--and
somewhat impatient--reservations specialist had answered the phone.
"The cockpit's not answering the phone," Ong tells the man. "Somebody's
been stabbed in business class, and, um, I think there's Mace and we
can't breathe and I don't know, I think we're getting hijacked."
The man replies, "What seat are you in?" apparently unaware that Ong is
a flight attendant.
"Ma'am, are you there?"
"Yes," Ong says, who was having trouble hearing the man.
"What seat are you in?" the man asks, and then again forcefully,
"Ma'am, what seat are you in?"
We're bound "for Boston, we're up in the air. The cockpit is not
answering the phone," Ong says urgently.
The man replies, "What seat are you in?"
After a pause, Ong says, "I'm in my jump seat right now."
At that point the man seems to realize she is a flight attendant. He
pauses and then asks, "What is your name?"
"OK, my name is Betty Ong. I'm an employee on Flight 11. The cockpit is
not answering their phone. There is somebody stabbed in business. We
can't breathe in business class. I think they have Mace or something.
Somebody's coming back. Can you hold on for one second? Somebody's
coming back.
"OK, our number one [flight attendant] got stabbed. Our purser is
stabbed. There is no air in business class. No one can breathe. Our
first class gal and our purser has been stabbed. We can't get into the
cockpit. The door won't open."
After a long pause, Ong says, "Hello?"
The man responds, "Yeah. I'm taking it down, all the information. "
About a minute later the man's boss, Nydia Gonzalez, takes over the
phone call.
Commission investigators on Tuesday credited Gonzalez and Ong for
relaying as much information as they did, largely by way of a
three-party conversation with the American Airlines emergency
operations center in Dallas.
Attendant noted seat numbers
In a staff report to committee members, investigators said it was
because of Ong's call that they learned about the Mace, which they said
they also discovered among the belongings left in the suitcase of
hijacker Mohamed Atta, who piloted Ong's plane.
Ong reported to Gonzalez that they had moved all the passengers out of
first class and business class, but that many passengers in the rear of
the plane didn't know what was going on.
She was also the first person to alert authorities to who the hijackers
were, saying she believed there were three or four hijackers and giving
authorities the men's seat numbers.
Ong's voice is absent from the second part of the tape as Gonzalez
communicates with the emergency center in one ear, and listens to Ong
in the other.
Ong told Gonzalez no doctors were on board to treat the flight
attendants--one of whom she suspected was dead and the other who was
breathing with the aid of oxygen administered by the other flight
attendants.
The aircraft was flying erratically, Ong reported. Gonzalez relayed to
the center that the flight attendant suspected the airlines' pilots
were not flying the airplane.
Twenty-three minutes later, the line went dead.

9/11 Commission Says It Needs More Time to Complete Inquiry, Republicans vow fight
The independent commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, terror
attacks announced on Tuesday that it was seeking an extension of its
deadline to complete the investigation until at least July, raising the
prospect of a public fight with the White House and a final report
delivered in the heat of the presidential campaign.
The White House and Republican Congressional leaders have said they see
no need to extend the congressionally mandated deadline, now set for
May 27, and a spokesman for Speaker J. Dennis Hastert said Tuesday that
Mr. Hastert would oppose any legislation to grant the extension.
But commission officials said there was no way to finish their work on
time, a situation they attribute in part to delays by the Bush
administration in turning over documents and other evidence.

Ong's relatives listen as the tape of her phone call from Flight 11 is played Tuesday during the 9/11 commission hearing. (Photo: CBS)

Posted by flow Frazao on January 28, 2004 at 09:00 AM | Permalink