My phone rang again minutes later. It was Joey Cuzzi, Massport’s director of communication, who was coming with me to Washington.
“They’re saying that one, maybe both planes are from Boston.” Joey’s tone was even but insistent. “Two planes are off the radar.”
I closed my eyes, just for a second, and whispered a quick prayer. God. Please, no. Not our planes. Not our people.
“Okay, we’re headed in,” I told Joey and disconnected the call.
“Jack.” My first thought was of my son. I wanted to tell James to turn around. I wanted to drive straight to Jack’s day care center. I wanted to take him in my arms and keep him safe from whatever this was.
“I’m taking the back way in,” James said. “It’s faster.”
“Good,” was all I said in response.
9:07 a.m.—North Tower
Fire companies begin to ascend stairwell B.
9:07 a.m.—En route to Logan
“The kind of plane they’re describing is not in our fleet mix,” James said. WBZ had switched to airing live New York City radio coverage. One caller into the station who had witnessed the crash described the aircraft as a DC-3, an old prop-driven cargo aircraft.
I wanted to hang on to this trace of doubt, but Joey’s words echoed in my head: “Two planes are off the radar.”
9:09 a.m. to 9:10 a.m. All air traffic controllers in Boston Center use their radio frequencies to advise aircraft in their airspace to heighten cockpit security.
Approximately 9:11 a.m. As I listened to the radio reports describing the chaos in Lower Manhattan, James and I raced through back streets of Lynn, Revere, and East Boston. The buildings and streetscape were deeply familiar. Double- and triple-decker houses next to Italian delis, statues of the Virgin Mary next to convenience stores with signs in Spanish, Dunkin’ Donuts outlets, fast-food Chinese and burger joints. The aboveground tracks of the Blue Line subway, its trains rumbling past, heading in and out of Boston.
How was it possible that it still looked just as it did yesterday and the day before? Exactly the same as it did just a few hours before, when surely some of the passengers on the two planes—“Two planes are off the radar”—drove by here to park at Logan, or be dropped off at the terminals’ curb?
James pulled to a stop at a busy intersection. We were in the Beachmont section of Revere, an old neighborhood of working-class families, directly under the approach to Runway 22-Left, one of Logan’s busiest. Local leaders here had been pushing me hard to fund sound-insulation windows to shield residents from the noise of low-flying aircraft overhead.
The incongruity of what was, just yesterday, just hours before, a pressing priority with what was happening in New York jarred me as I stared out the window.
“Two planes are off the radar.”
Joey’s refrain echoed among the other questions reverberating in my mind:
Were there more out there?
“Two planes are off the radar.”
Were the planes that crashed in New York from Logan?
“Two planes are off the radar.”
How did this happen?
“Two planes are off the radar.”
Again and again, I asked myself variations of the question that would take investigators years to answer: How?
Approximately 9:12 a.m. As James turned onto the road leading to the back entrance to Logan, I could see the one remaining house on East Boston’s Neptune Road. The rest of the homes were taken by eminent domain decades earlier by Massport officials in their relentless march toward expansion. Whenever I spoke to Logan neighborhood activists, I was still asked questions about Massport compensating the community adequately for the loss of the Neptune Road homes and the destruction of nearby Wood Island Park. No matter how many years later, as Massport’s leader, I understood I bore the responsibility of answering for the agency’s past decisions.
But I didn’t know yet, just several minutes after the world was changed forever by the hijackings of two planes from Logan, that I would soon be asked to take responsibility for something that would prove nearly impossible to bear, the deaths of thousands of innocent people.
Approximately 9:15 a.m. After confirming that two airliners had struck the World Trade Center, American Airlines orders all its airborne flights to land.
Approximately 9:15 a.m.—Logan Airport, Air Traffic Control Tower, eighteenth floor
Logan security director Joe Lawless activates the Emergency Operations Center at Logan’s Massport Fire Rescue headquarters. Airline, airport, federal, state, and local public-safety agencies are notified to report immediately.
9:15 a.m.—Logan Airport, Logan Office Center
James screeched to a stop in front of Logan Office Center. It had been twelve minutes since I’d heard the live report of the second plane flying into the tower. Before getting out of the car, I took a deep breath. I steeled myself. I knew I couldn’t freeze in the face of the horror that was taking place. I couldn’t, as I wanted to, weep as I heard the reports coming out of New York.
I could not scream. I could not cry. I don’t think I actually thought these words but I felt them. Felt them more deeply than I had ever felt anything.
I had to do my job. I had to do my job better than I had ever done anything in my life. I was the leader of more than one thousand Massport employees at Logan. There were sixteen thousand more who worked for the airlines and other contractors. Millions of Logan passengers relied on all of us for their safety. I had to lead Logan through this. Whatever “this” turned out to be.
9:17 a.m. All New York airports are shut down by the FAA.
9:18 a.m.—Logan Office Center
The lobby was eerily empty as I walked quickly across it. I impatiently jabbed my finger on the elevator call button. Once. Twice. A third time. My office was on the second floor. As I quickly walked toward it, I saw several people gathered around the TV in the office next to mine.
I wanted to see this alone. I had to see this alone. I stepped into the doorway, and stopped in front of my desk. The TV, some fifteen feet away, was already on. I wrapped my arms protectively around my chest. As if I were cold. As if I were freezing. I stood perfectly still, squeezing my arms so hard to stop myself from shaking that I left red finger marks. The images I had been able to conjure in my mind from the radio reports were no match for the reality.
It came out of nowhere.
Impossibly low. Unbelievably fast.
The explosion.
The ball of fire.
The black smoke.
Against the backdrop of a perfect blue sky.
“Two planes are off the radar.”
Joey’s words. I swallowed the vomit that rose up in my throat and reached for the phone to call Acting Governor Jane Swift.
9:28 a.m. Russ Aims came into my office. He’d been my deputy since I was chief of staff for Governor Weld. “Can you give the official okay to open the family assistance center?” he asked. His exceedingly thin face looked thinner and paler than usual. We briefly locked eyes. The Logan Hilton hotel was the headquarters of the Care Team. The families who gathered there would be looking for answers. For comfort. Just like we’d practiced in the drill the year before. Except this was nothing like we’d practiced the year before. My saliva burned as I swallowed. I took a deep breath to ease the sensation.
“Yes, get it open right away,” I answered.
9:25 a.m. The FAA institutes a national ground stop.
9:36 a.m. Fearing that the Logan air traffic control tower itself might be a target, employees evacuate.
9:37 a.m. American Airlines Flight 77 flies into the Pentagon.
Approximately 9:39 a.m. Oh my God, did they get the people out? I thought as I looked at the image on the television of the smoking hole in the side of the Pentagon. How many more planes are out there?
9:42
a.m. The FAA halts all flight operations at US airports.
9:43 a.m. Ed Freni and John Duval tried to confirm with the FAA that the planes that hit the towers were from Boston. No one seemed to know for sure. Freni was able to get some information from the airlines, but even that was inconsistent. He called to tell me it was American Flight 77 that crashed into the World Trade Center and United 175 was safely on the ground.
The TV in my office was still on, and as I placed the phone back in its cradle, a question posed by an anchor to a reporter on the ground in New York drew my attention. “Do you think the towers will fall?” the anchor asked.
I looked up and glanced over at James, who was standing nearby. “What do you think?” I asked. “Is that even possible?”
9:59 a.m. The South Tower of the World Trade Center collapses.
10:02 a.m. My direct line rang. It was John Duval. “We can’t reach Delta Flight 1989. They have no radio contact,” he said. The Delta flight was another one from Boston to Los Angeles. John’s voice trembled with emotion. He and Ed, he said, were working with air traffic control to account for all Boston originating flights. “I’ll keep you updated.”
“Okay, thanks.” I took another deep breath as I absorbed the possibility that another plane might be missing from Logan.
10:03 a.m. United Airlines Flight 93 crashes near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
10:18 a.m.—Logan Airport
John Duval called again from the tower. “Delta 1989 has landed safely in Cleveland,” he reported.
“Thank God,” I answered, exhaling, as if I had been holding my breath for all of the fifteen minutes since he told me the flight was missing.
10:28 a.m. I noticed Russ standing, open mouthed, at his office door. His hand gripped the right doorframe as if for support. “What is it?” I asked him.
“They’re gone,” he said. I followed his gaze to the television. The North Tower had collapsed, too.
Approximately 10:34 a.m. My assistant Julie said my mother was on the phone. “Are you okay?” she asked.
“I’m okay,” I answered. I wished I could have said in response, The towers, Mom, the towers are gone. Thousands, maybe tens of thousands, of people are dead. Oh my God, Mom, the planes came from Logan.
But I couldn’t, even then, change the dynamic of a family relationship in which I was always the “good one,” the “successful one.” The okay one.
A devout Catholic, my mother in turn tried to comfort me with our shared faith. “God always has a reason,” she said.
“God would never stand by and let this happen,” I snapped back, my voice rising. I paused a second to try to speak more calmly. “I refuse to believe in that kind of God.”
The all-powerful God she raised me to believe in “opens a window when a door closes.” He answered prayers, worked miracles. How could He stand by and let hijackers murder thousands of innocent people? Barely concealing my rising fury—at her, at God, maybe at both—I said shortly, “I can’t talk about this now. I have to go. I’ll call you later.”
Neither she nor I knew then that a major foundation of my life—my belief in God—had shifted. A faith that had been as tangible and present as the ground I stood on—solid and unmoving—was gone. Destroyed in a matter of hours as completely and as unimaginably as the Twin Towers.
Approximately 11:00 a.m. My private line rang again. It was David. “The courthouse is being closed for security reasons,” he said.
I don’t remember what else either of us said, beyond my urgent plea: “Just please go get Jack and bring him home.” I tried to steady my voice. “Please keep him safe.”
“I will,” David answered. “I love you.”
11:05 a.m. Massachusetts State Police searched the air traffic control tower and Logan’s communications tower for any signs of a follow-on attack.
Ed and John came to my office. They sat on the edges of the two opposing leather couches, poised as if they might have to get up and race back to the tower for another emergency.
John updated me that the remaining aircraft on the airfield were being secured so each could be searched for potential evidence. Passengers were continuing to be cleared from the terminals. He noted that the Care Team was preparing for the first arrival of families at the Hilton hotel, his voice catching as he related details of the operation.
As he spoke, I envisioned the drill the year before in which the students’ convincing performance as family members brought me to tears. John looked over at me. With a thick shock of white hair, he had always looked older than he was. Now he looked older still. We held each other’s eyes for a long moment and nodded, a silent acknowledgment of the shared grief we could not yet allow ourselves to express.
Ed, too, had pages of notes, jotted as he continually called contacts he had at American, where he used to work, and United Airlines. A father of eight, Ed still looked like the college hockey player he once was. He confirmed that it was American Flight 11 that had been the first plane hijacked.
“I know these people. I used to work with them,” he said, the shock evident even through his professional recital of what he had learned. A flight attendant, Madeline Amy Sweeney, he said, had called the American control center from the back of the plane. The manager on duty told Ed what Sweeney had told him: “They’re in the cockpit. Two flight attendants have been stabbed.” I leaned forward. I folded my hands in front of my mouth, not conscious that I may have wanted to shield my reaction.
“She said a passenger had his throat slashed.” A sharp gasp escaped through my now-clenched fists blocking my mouth.
This was the first time I would hear about the murder of Daren Abelman, though not by name, the only passenger thought to be killed on Flight 11 before the plane crashed. Abelman had once served in the Israeli military, and it’s likely he leaped to the defense of the flight attendant being attacked, unaware another hijacker sat directly behind him. Some two years later, I would hear of him again in a call from my lawyer, telling me I had been personally sued for wrongful death. For Daren Abelman’s wrongful, horrifying death.
I could see the harbor and the Boston skyline silhouetted beyond the floor-to-ceiling glass windows, the same view I had every day. Again, this struck me as odd, just as the familiar street scenes had this morning on the ride in. I kept expecting everything to look different in the wake of a world completely changed in a few short hours.
“They used a box cutter,” Ed continued, relating what Sweeney had reported. I crossed my arms in front of my chest then and dug my fingers deeper into the skin of my forearms.
“What’s a box cutter?” I asked, unfamiliar with the term.
Ed described the flat metal sheath holding a razor blade. It was most commonly used in supermarkets to open boxes, he said. Sweeney was likely right about the kind of knife it was, he added, because airline employees more typically used a utility knife to open boxes, with a thick handle and small blade that could be extended with a click of a button. Either could be bought in any hardware store.
Approximately 11:30 a.m.—Terminal C
Anne MacFarlane, still waiting at home in Revere for her daughter Marianne to call, decided to drive back to Logan. Maybe some of Marianne’s United Airlines colleagues had heard from her. She parked and hurried to the departures level of Terminal C.
As she approached the ticket counter, she couldn’t help but notice the abnormal quiet. On any other Tuesday, the terminal would be abuzz with activity. Passengers rushing to get to their gates, others peering at the arrival and departure listings. Children crying. Baggage being wheeled across the tiled floor. Just ahead, she saw a group of United Airlines employees gathered by the ticket counter. They were talking quietly. When they saw Anne coming toward them, several began to cry. It was then that she knew for sure: her daughter was on one of the hijacked planes.
Approximately 11:45 a.m. Julie handed me a stack o
f pink message slips. I sorted through them. I couldn’t return any of them now, but I appreciated the calls from friends and acquaintances who were simply showing their support. I was startled, though, by the name on the message slip at the bottom of the pile: “Fred Salvucci,” the state transportation leader under former governor Michael Dukakis who was no fan of Massport. The message he left was equally unexpected: even if Israel were in charge of Logan, this still would have happened.
11:59 a.m. United Airlines confirms there were fifty-six passengers and nine crew on Flight 175.
12:10 p.m. Logan Airport officials are notified that four international flights bound for Boston from Europe have been rerouted to Canadian airspace, joining some 250 flights and more than thirty-three thousand passengers that will be diverted to airports across Canada by the end of the day.
Approximately 1:00 p.m.—Logan Airport, Massport Fire Rescue headquarters
Ed placed a faxed sheet of paper on the table in the upstairs conference room. We’d moved to Massport Fire Rescue headquarters, next to the airfield where the Emergency Operations Center had been set up. Dozens of federal, state, and local first responders were in the auditorium downstairs. Had a plane gone down on the airfield or in the harbor, we’d have coordinated rescue efforts from there just like we’d practiced in the response and rescue part of the drill last October. Instead, there was a restless energy in the room as the emergency response unfolded hundreds of miles away.
I stood behind Ed and leaned over his shoulder to read the passenger manifest for Flight 11. “It’s generated from scanning the boarding passes,” Freni explained, “so these are the people actually on the plane.”
I noticed someone had written “AA #11” in thick black permanent marker along the margin of the list of names. The manifest listed the seat assignments, too. As I scanned the names, I pictured the organized chaos of a typical plane boarding—passengers waiting patiently while the person in the aisle in front of them pushed and tugged a too-big carry-on into the overhead bin, others fastened their seat belts, tucking a water bottle into the seat-back pocket, alongside the folded morning newspapers.
On My Watch Page 5