@Coloma I wish I could let it go and perhaps I do have some PTSD from that morning. Mind you I was on a United long distant flight and before we even left the gate something strange happened that caught my eye. Two stewardess’s rushed down the isle shepherding people into their seats shouting “please get in your seats we HAVE to leave the gate NOW”!! Time 8:10 am CST. I thought to myself…gee I have never seen THAT before and zip off we go. Now looking back I wonder what they may have already known and why we even took off at all. Anyway, barely 10 minutes into the flight the Captain comes on the intercom and announces…
“Due to terrorists activities the entire East Coast traffic control system has been disabled and we have been ordered by the FAA and parent company to land immediately. Please prepare for landing”.
So I say to myself,...hmmm, we just left Chicago are in Indiana which means we were under east coast air traffic control…..HS that means we are flying without radar!!!! Talk about pucker factor 10! Why the Captain said what he said I will never understand as there was a collective OMG near panic in the airplane. 6 very long minutes we approached INDY airport an literally fell out of the sky….I mean down and stopped. I looked out my window and there was a line of planes in the sky near nose to tail streaming down out of the sky like leaves on a fall day and they were all landing wing tip to wing tip out on the taxi way. The second we stopped out came the cell phone and scream of shock after scream spoke to the true horrors unfolding at that very second. When I heard that terrorists had flown two airplanes into the twin towers and other planes were hijacked as well…..I think HS!!! I am in an airplane!!! GET ME THE HELL OUT OF HERE!! Panic for me sets in, but I have to keep my cool and try to explain to my two young boys what all the fuss was about. I kept the truth from their ears but can only imagine what their young minds were processing at that moment. What seemed like hours we sat and listened to the people on the plane discussing this horror we were trying to comprehend and finally got to a gate to disembark. The door pops open and I here shouting and screaming….it’s the Indian National Guard screaming at us to run and “GET THE HELL OUT OF THE TERMINAL!!” So if you were not yet terrified you were now as people were literally running full gallop down the terminal seemingly for their lives. I mean I expected a plane to come crashing through the wall any second. So as best we could, my wife, son and another son in his car seat ran into the center of the now deserted airport. Like confused flocks of sheep, each plane load of people moved towards luggage or the exit. Finally as we were now walking I saw for the first time the image of the first plane plowing into the twin tower and the gravity of that day sunk in. Though the odds of what had happened are very small, but I was in a plane, a United long distant flight and now the odds of what happened became instantly smaller, either way I experienced probably one of the more terrifying moments of my life.