it wasn’t quite four weeks after September 11, 2001, when my wife and I chose to visit Ground Zero. Still in uniform after returning from a trip, I approached a beat cop standing on one corner. He was guarding a perimeter of the devastation. I nodded and gestured toward the rubble, firmly holding my wife’s hand.

The cop asked, “Did you fly the kind of airplane that hit the towers?”

With a slight lump in my throat, I replied, “Actually, I flew that airplane.” 

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Both the 767 that struck the North Tower and the 757 that crashed into the Pentagon were entries in my logbook. The cop offered a solemn nod and waved us past an opening in the fence. 

“Just be careful. The site is still a mess,” he said.

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Despite having watched the continuous loop of media footage like the rest of the world, what remained of two iconic structures that were symbols of American culture was incomprehensible. We stared at the scene in silence. Excavators and backhoes were lurching backward and forward in a seemingly endless task of moving debris. Nearly 3,000 people perished where we stood.

On the day of the attacks, I was awoken earlier than my alarm. Directly outside our Los Angeles layover hotel, a group of picketers were noisily assembling in the dark morning hour. Grumbling at the disturbance, I rolled my travel bag out of my room and into the elevator.

A TV hanging from the ceiling in the corner of the empty lobby bar was displaying distant video of an airplane smashing into a World Trade Center tower. The caption seemed to imply it was a small airplane. My phone rang. A friend was calling for a consultation. Surely, it was an idiot that had made a critical mistake while sightseeing his Cessna 172 down the Hudson River? My friend wasn’t so sure.

Our hotel van to LAX had a satellite TV mounted into a bulkhead. By the time we were halfway to the airport, the South Tower had been hit. It wasn’t until the report of the Pentagon strike that reality began to creep in. When we pulled up to the curb at the terminal, we were fairly certain that our departure home to JFK was not going to happen. I asked the driver to remain parked while pressing the speed dial for crew tracking. 

I stepped onto the sidewalk. The male voice that answered was cracking. He had no additional details other than the fact two crews from our airline were gone. We shared a moment of strained silence. It seemed best that the first officer and I returned to the hotel. The voice agreed.

Before climbing back into the van, a captain colleague flying a later trip home to JFK rolled up next to us with a full complement of flight attendants from another hotel. I conveyed my prior conversation with crew tracking. Knowing that my colleague had a limited capacity for empathy, we parted company with me saying, “Take care of your crew.”

The front desk welcomed us back with an abundance of sympathy and understanding. Approximately 30 crewmembers, mostly flight attendants from our airline, were sharing the same circumstance. The hotel set up a room with complimentary beverages and snacks strictly for our use. Even though the entire world had just stepped through a doorway into a troubling future, the hotel staff focused on us. Humanity was alive and well.

Having been trained in Critical Incident Stress Management (CISM), I took it upon myself to rally our troops for a meeting in the newly designated crew room. A call to union leadership advised me not to engage in peer support for liability concerns. I dismissed the advice and turned to my first officer for assistance. He was a kind, gentle man. I gave him an ultra-abbreviated lesson in CISM. He was a natural. We still contact each other on every 9/11 anniversary. 

Throughout our extended layover, I remained in communication with our dispatch, volunteering to fly the first trip out of LAX to New York once U.S. airspace opened. On Day 5 my copilot and I were assigned a red-eye flight to Newark, New Jersey. Oversaturated with TV special reports, we were more than ready to be home.

As we shuffled into the cockpit of our B-757, somehow it seemed different. Perhaps it was the focus on new security procedures. Or perhaps it was the realization that the airplane had been used as a weapon of mass destruction rather than a tool that united families, friends, and businesspeople. Trepidation had now crept into our workspace. Our LA-based flight attendants offered wary smiles as they walked down the jet bridge. I gave them the opportunity to refuse the trip, but none did.

Descending via the arrival into Newark, the menacing finger of gray smoke became visible, stretching from the southern tip of Manhattan to Sandy Point. The view was a gut punch. Media coverage didn’t do the reality justice. The copilot and I paused for a moment. Nothing needed to be said. We resumed our before-landing tasks in a deliberate effort to avoid the distraction outside the cockpit windows.

Our touchdown on Runway 4L was without fanfare. Airport activity was minimal, either because of the early morning hour or the events that unfolded days earlier. Agents and ground personnel seemed to be in a trance. Blank expressions were interrupted by the occasional weary smile. The outgoing crew nodded to us when we exited into the gate area from the jet bridge. I told the captain, “Good airplane,” a report that the B-757 had no mechanical issues. That was the extent of our conversation.

Having originated our trip from JFK, a van drove us from Newark across the Hudson River back to our cars. The view of Manhattan while traveling over the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge provided a quiet moment for reflection. We solemnly shook our heads.

While my copilot was engaged in conversation with another first officer riding with us on the van, I took a moment to call my wife. Unexpectedly, the words, “I’m almost home,” were difficult to say. My wife had been on the phone with a cordless headset nearly nonstop for days. Family and friends just wanted to know it wasn’t me in those airplanes.

After a firm handshake and a brotherly hug with my copilot, we were both on the road to our respective homes. As I parked in the driveway, I scanned my house. It appeared better than it had in years. My wife met me at the front door. She was more beautiful than I remembered.

This September marks 25 years since the day that silenced our skies. Aviation and the world have been changed forever. I still can’t shake the feeling that we failed to protect our passengers and the people on the ground as the last line of defense. Many of my colleagues will argue that prior protocol regarding a hijack situation was to cooperate, where now it is our responsibility to resist, even with lethal weapons. 

But the lives lost on 9/11 are gone forever. We should never forget. 

This column first appeared in the September Issue 974 of the FLYING print edition.