From painful goodbyes to loved ones to panicked alerts to first responders, these messages left by 9/11 victims capture the true horror of the day.
September 11, 2001 started out as a normal day. Flight attendants showed up for work, New Yorkers headed to their offices, and Americans everywhere went about their mornings. But at 8:19 a.m., everything changed when a flight attendant named Betty Ong made the very first 9/11 phone call. Ong was on American Airlines Flight 11, and the plane had been violently hijacked by five al-Qaeda terrorists.
“I think we’re getting hijacked,” Ong said in her call to the AA reservation desk, shortly after the flight took off from Boston’s Logan International Airport.
As the horrifying day unfolded, Ong was far from the only person to make a final phone call. Other flight attendants reached out to personnel on the ground to alert them to what was happening, just as passengers on hijacked planes called their loved ones to say goodbye. Meanwhile, office workers at the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City also made phone calls after two of the hijacked planes crashed into the buildings.
Below, look through a small sample of the final phone calls and messages left that day. They range from airplane passengers like Brian Sweeney, who left a heart-wrenching voicemail for his wife, to office workers like Melissa Doi, who made a frantic 911 call from the burning South Tower.
“I Absolutely Love You”: Brian Sweeney’s 9/11 Message To His Wife
Julia Sweeney Roth/FacebookBrian Sweeney was 38 years old when he perished during the September 11th terrorist attacks.
On the morning of September 11, 2001, Brian Sweeney said goodbye to his wife, Julie, and headed out to catch a flight from Boston to Los Angeles. Sweeney was a defense contractor, and he flew to Los Angeles once a month for his job. But this flight would be tragically different.
Brian boarded United Airlines Flight 175, which took off at 8:14 a.m. and initially started flying toward California. But then, at 8:47 a.m., the plane took a sudden, unscheduled turn. The plane had been hijacked — and it was heading straight for the South Tower of the World Trade Center.
After Brian realized what was going on, he called Julie using a seat-back phone. Julie, a teacher, was in class, so Brian left a voicemail.
9/11 Memorial & MuseumBrian Sweeney and his widow, Julie Sweeney.
In the voicemail, he said: “Jules, this is Brian. Listen, I’m on an airplane that’s been hijacked. If things don’t go well, and it’s not looking good, I just want you to know I absolutely love you. I want you to do good, go have good times. Same to my parents and everybody, and I just totally love you, and I’ll see you when you get there. Bye, babe. I hope I call you.”
Tragically, Brian Sweeney died when United Airlines Flight 175 crashed into the South Tower, just 17 minutes after American Airlines Flight 11 crashed into the North Tower. But for Julie, who received Brian’s message after she got home, his final voicemail has brought her comfort.
“I’m thankful for it. So thankful for that message,” she remarked years later. “Because, at least I know, without a shadow of a doubt, what he was thinking. The calmness in his voice soothed me… And it’s very powerful. He made very powerful statements with that message.”
