‘I don’t know, but I think we’re getting hijacked’

THE flight attendant aboard American Airlines Flight 11 seemed calm and professional beyond reason as she reported a ghastly scenario during a 23-minute telephone call just before the plane slammed into one of the World Trade Center towers.

A hijacking was under way, she knew three people had been stabbed and she couldn’t tell what was happening in the cockpit.

The Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States heard portions of flight attendant Betty Ong’s 23-minute conversation with the operations centre on the second of a two-day hearing Tuesday.

“The cockpit is not answering their phone,” Ms Ong told the American Airlines operations centre. “There’s somebody stabbed in business class, and we can’t breathe in business. Um, I think there is some Mace or something. .

“I don’t know, but I think we’re getting hijacked.”

Ms Ong, 45, known as Bee, of Andover, Massachusetts, was working coach class on the American Airlines Boeing 767 flying from Boston to Los Angeles on September 11, 2001, before suspected 9/11 ringleader Mohammed Atta and four others took over the plane .

Nydia Gonzalez, on duty at the operations centre that morning, told the panel how she received Ms Ong’s call at about 8:20am.

“Several media accounts of what occurred on Flight 11 claimed that Betty was ‘hysterical with fear’, ‘shrieking’ and ‘gasping for air’,” Gonzalez said. “Those accounts were wrong.”

“In a very calm, professional and poised demeanour, Betty Ong relayed to us detailed information.

In the conversation, Ms Ong describes the scene: “I’m sitting in the back. Somebody’s coming back from business. If you can hold on for one second here, they’re coming back.

“Our No 1 (flight attendant) got stabbed. Our purser is stabbed. Nobody knows who stabbed who. We can’t even get up to business class right now, because nobody can breathe.

“I’m sitting in the back. Somebody’s coming back from business. If you can hold on for one second here, they’re coming back.

“Our No 1 (flight attendant) got stabbed. Our purser is stabbed. Nobody knows who stabbed who. We can’t even get up to business class right now, because nobody can breathe.

“Our No 5, our first-class passenger, er, our first-class galley flight attendant and our purser have been stabbed. And we can’t get into the cockpit”.