Dorothy Brush "Random Thoughts" Published Sept. 11, 2002

A year ago today ...

Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2001, began like every other morning. First a cup of coffee, as television gave the news. At 7:46 CST the day was no longer like every other day, when we saw the plane hit the World Trade Center. We remembered watching the scenes from this same place on Feb. 26, 1993 after it was bombed, but when the second plane hit the south tower, we knew this was different.

With members of our family scattered around the country, our first thought was where were they, especially our son and his wife who both worked for American Airlines. It was early evening before we talked with that son. This couple has a crazy schedule. He is involved in the construction and expansion of American's concourse at the Miami airport. She is in American Airlines reservation operations, and at that time was manager of the facility in Hartford, CT, but a new reservation office in North Carolina was about to open and she was responsible for that one too. She was there for a few days and our son was caring for their 2-year-old son in her absence.

As we discussed the day's happenings, he mentioned she had been on the phone with one of the flight attendants on AA Flight 11. He gave strict orders that this was off the record. We talked again the next evening and he added that she had been questioned by the FBI for most of day and into the wee hours of Sept. 12.

During the rest of that week of chaos and restricted air schedules, she finally made her way back to Connecticut by car with several other American employees. We spoke to her by phone and told her she and her ordeal had been in our thoughts and prayers. Additional prayers were with our Navy grandson, whose small special forces team had immediately volunteered and were on their way to Afghanistan.

Since that frightful day we have been with our son and wife twice, but her part in that day seemed too private to ask about unless she chose to talk. Now almost a year later, on Aug. 12, USA Today gave a minute-by-minute account of Sept. 11 and we knew. They referred to her as the North Carolina reservation agent and our son confirmed it was she.

The story said, "The ordeal began at 8:15 a.m. when the first indication that something was wrong came from a reservations agent in North Carolina." She called American Airlines Operations Center in Fort Worth and told them she was speaking on another line with a flight attendant on American Flight 11, a Boeing 767, heading from Boston to Los Angeles. She cannot transfer the call to Fort Worth because the system won't let her, so she begins to relay messages coming from the attendant.

In hushed tones the attendant tells there is a passenger dead and a crew member dying. The jet is on an erratic path and there are intruders in the cockpit. At 8:46 a.m. the North Carolina agent abruptly loses the call. The north tower of the World Trade Center had just been rammed.

As we read that account we realized for the first time the significance of our daughter-in law's part in that day of thousands of tragedies.

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Dorothy Copus Brush is a Fairfield Glade resident and Crossville Chronicle staffwriter whose column is published each Wednesday.