September 11, 2009

“My Name is Betty Ong. I’m Number 3 on Flight 11”

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Take a few minutes to listen to the last phone call of Betty Ong, a flight attendant on American Airlines Flight 11 before it hit the World Trade Center, eight years ago today on September 11, 2001. Ong is calm and matter-of-fact as she describes what was occuring within minutes of the hijacking to skeptical airline personnel on the ground. She was forced to repeat the same basic details again and again: “Ok. Our Number 1 got stabbed. Our purser is stabbed. Nobody knows who stabbed who, and we can’t even get up to business class right now cause nobody can breathe…” She remained on the phone for 23 minutes, calmly relaying information up to seconds before the impact. Just over four minutes of the phone call were replayed at the 9-11 commission hearings. Her last words were “Pray for us. Pray for us.”

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