Too Close to 9/11

Press play above for "Why?" from Annie Lennox's 1992 Diva

On September 10th 2001...

... I flew from LAX to Boston on the first leg of an extended business trip that was planned to include a PDC partners meeting in Boston, sightseeing in Brussels and then a client meeting in the Netherlands. My flight was the last American Airlines 767 into Logan Airport on the evening of the 10th. That plane was the first one that crashed into the World Trade Tower the next morning.

After my flight on the 10th, I happened to ride with the flight crew on the hotel van and heard them talking about their return flight to LAX the next morning. All of them died on Flight 11 the next day. I recall one of the flight attendants in First Class who had told us during the flight that she had recently gotten engaged and was starting a new life. I still remember her face with crystal clarity all these years later.

On the evening of the 10th, I had an incredible dinner with a professional colleague and friend, Stewart, in Boston's North End. In retrospect, it seems like a last evening of innocence.

After the attack, the hotel turned into a media circus. I had to show my passport to the FBI to get through the lobby to my room. By Thursday the 13th, Logan didn't show any signs of reopening, so I rented a car and drove to Pittsburgh, visited with my parents and flew home from there on Sunday.

I went to New York City in March 2002 to see the site of the Trade Towers and the sidewalks with missing persons pictures lining the streets. The graphic in the upper left is built from one of the pictures. The two pictures below are views walking around the site.

I returned again in December 2004, and although the site continued to change, its impact on me remains (two pictures below). I returned again several times, most recently in 2016 to visit the new World Trade Center, the 9/11 memorial and the 9/11 museum.

In earlier times, the World Trade Center offered an unmatched view of New York City. The two pictures below show the view and Mary Lou on the windy observation deck back in March of 1985, just after we returned from our first trip to England.