Posted on 09/11/21
| News Source: NY Post
At 8:20 a.m. on Sept. 11, 2001, Betty Ann Ong spoke in a low voice on an Airfone from the rear of American Airlines Flight 11.
Calm and businesslike, she told ground employees: “The cockpit’s not answering. Somebody’s stabbed in business class — and I think there’s Mace … I think we’re getting hijacked.”
Betty, 45, had asked to work an extra shift on Flight 11, bound for Los Angeles out of Boston’s Logan Airport, so she could join her sister Cathie for a vacation in Hawaii. But 14 minutes after takeoff, the hijacked plane made a U-turn and headed toward New York City.
Thanks to Betty’s furtive phone call, the world knows that terrorists critically wounded flight attendants Karen Martin and Bobbi Arestegui, slit the throat of business-class passenger Daniel Lewin, and “jammed their way” into the cockpit, where they likely killed co-pilots John Ogonowski and Thomas McGuinness Jr.
We also know that they sprayed Mace — which was prohibited on flights — and that passengers huddled in coach to escape the toxic fumes as the plane flew erratically toward the NYC skyline.
Authorities were able to quickly identify the five hijackers because Betty and fellow attendant Madeline Sweeney relayed the seat numbers of the men.
Ong’s last words: “Pray for us. Pray for us.” Flight 11 crashed into the World Trade Center’s North Tower at 8:46 a.m.