Unfinished Business

Lifting the Curtain on 911

Apr 01, 2023

Lifting the Curtain on 9/11

a tall building — Photo by Documerica on Unsplash

September 11, 2001 is one of the few dates in our history as a nation when almost everyone remembers where they were when they heard the news. It was a beautiful Iowa morning, with a bright blue, cloudless sky, and I was driving to work in Des Moines when I heard a mention of a plane flying into one of the Twin Towers. By the time I arrived at work several minutes later, a group was gathered around the small TV in the conference room.

As we watched the horrific destruction, I recalled my last trip to New York City in 1997 when my daughter Allison and I went to the ground floor of the World Trade Center to buy discounted tickets for Cats. While we were in New York, we also enjoyed lunch with my husband's high school classmate, Jane.

Through the years, our family had kept in touch with Jane and her two brothers. Their parents, Bob and Mildred Thorngren, were our neighbors, and Mildred, was a music teacher who mentored Allison, as well as our church musician and organist––and a master Kringla-maker!

Jane's younger brother Doug had moved to California in the '70's where he played drums for Johnny Mathis. He met Sandy, a United flight attendant in L.A. and they made it their home for years after Doug's music career transitioned into selling real estate. When Doug and Sandy and their two children came back to Iowa to visit his parents, our kids played together. And the next generation became friends.

In 2002, our family decided to take Amtrak to California, and visit relatives in Santa Barbara and San Diego. On our way through the state, we stopped to see Sandy and Doug and their kids. Sandy no longer was flying to NYC for United at that time; I think she said she said she was on leave. So she spent time driving us to tour Universal Studios, eat at Planet Hollywood, and delivering us back to the Amtrak station to head to San Diego. We had a great time, thanks to her!

Mildred passed away in 2004, and the next summer, her three adult children and their families returned for a pig roast that my husband organized so they could host friends and relatives on the farm one last time before it was sold. By that time, Sandy no longer was flying to JFK for United, or any other airline. Not long afterwards, she and Doug and their family moved from California to Nevada. But our kids were in high school and college, and we never visited them there. We kept in touch at Christmas for several years. Eventually, we relied Jane to keep us up with their family.

In 2012, I visited NYC with my husband and daughters, and we stood in line to tour the newly-completed 911 Memorial. The museum was not quite ready to open. We enjoyed a visit with Jane and her husband. She returned for a class reunion a few years later and they both visited Iowa last fall.

How did we not know?

Fast forward to March 2023. My husband was channel surfing in the kitchen, and I was in another room, when he said, "Cheryl, come here a minute and look at this!"

He said, "I think Sandy Thorngren is on this show. It sounded like her voice." Then we saw her being interviewed on camera, and there was no doubt. It was a documentary titled 9/11 the Fifth Plane, produced by Harvey Levin of TMZ, a subsidiary of Fox. Corporation. Maybe you saw it, too? For the next hour, Stan and I were riveted to our seats. As we watched, we recalled that Sandy had been flying out of JFK on 9/11, and that her plane, like many others, had been grounded.

But we never knew any of the details that she, along with two other flight attendants, the pilot, co-pilot, and United dispatcher disclosed during this show.

Sandy had arrived in NYC on September 10, and was scheduled on a 9 a.m. return flight to L.A. the next day. There was nothing unusual about how the early hours of September 11 unfolded. But after boarding 100 passengers on the Boeing 767, four passengers in the first-class cabin attracted her attention. One was wearing a burqa pulled very tightly around the eyes. Sandy and Barbara, another attendant, noticed the passenger's hands were very large for a woman. But even more striking, both hands were hairy! One of the men asked to take the young boy traveling with him into the cockpit. He was told that it wasn't allowed. Nevertheless, Sandy said when she returned to the first-class compartment, the two were peering into the cockpit. All these individuals, in addition to two others in business class, appeared to be of Arab descent.

As the boarding process continued, the purser realized that the four first class passengers did not eat meat. When the steward hurried to substitute fruit plates, the passengers became agitated, insisting that they didn't want breakfast-- they did not want to delay the flight. "They said they wanted to take off," Sandy says. She noticed that one of two Arab passengers seated in the front rows of the business class was sweating profusely, although it was a cool in the plane that morning.

The attendants decided to call the cockpit to relay their concerns about these passengers. "We were not profiling," Sandy says. "Barb and I had been flying for 30 years. We had seen how people from all walks of life act, and their usual demeanor. We sensed something was wrong. There were red flags all over it."

Traffic was backed up on the tarmac, and United 23 was delayed for take-off. Soon the pilot and co-pilot were alerted by the control tower that a plane had crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center. The pilot and co-pilot were ordered to secure the cockpit. Next, the airport was closed, the control tower was evacuated, and the pilots were told to return to the gate on their own. As the passengers were deplaning, one of the Arab business class passengers asked Sandy, "Did they get the White House?" Sandy and the other flight attendants combed through the plane and the lavatories, checking for anything unusual. The plane was locked as they left. Later, the authorities found their unclaimed luggage containing box cutters and Al Qaeda documents.

Twenty minutes later, ground crew on the tarmac looked up and saw two uniformed persons running through the cabin of the locked United 23 plane, and alerted authorities. When they arrived, the hatch to the E & E compartment containing the aircraft's radios and electronics, was open. Another hatch in the floor of this compartment allowing access from the tarmac was closed.

All nearby planes were searched, including a plane parked next to United 23. Its tail number was 6001--one digit off from United 23's tail number, 6002. That plane was not scheduled to depart on September 11.

The FBI interviewed all the United 23 flight crew individually at their hotel that night. "We were shocked when they asked about the hatch--It wasn't open when we locked up the plane," Sandy says. "The FBI drove us in a windowless van the next morning to a line-up at the Port Authority. We didn't recognize anyone."

Sandy was in New York for three days afterward. "There was a bomb threat at the hotel when I got there," she says. "There were fighter jets overhead. I didn't know if I would see my husband and children again." United wanted her to work the flight back to L.A. the following Friday, but she told them that she was in no condition to do her job. "Two of the other flight attendants drove back to L.A," she told me.

Sandy and the other attendants were denied compensation by United, and finally had to sue to recoup their pay and other costs. "It's been 21 years, and it still stays with me," she says. "The terrifying, horrific events, and the way I was treated by a company I was loyal to for 30 years."

Neither Sandy nor another veteran flight attendant ever worked a flight again after that day. "I decided I just couldn't do it anymore," Sandy says. "I retired in 2003."

None of the United 23 flight crew ever was contacted by the FBI again, and nothing about United 23 was included in the official 911 Commission Report when it was issued in 2004. TMZ filed a Freedom of Information request, but the FBI never responded.

gray and blue airplane — Photo by Nick Morales on Unsplash

Getting the story out

When I called Sandy earlier this week, I asked if the FBI had told the flight crew not to talk about the events of 9/11. She said that their employer, United, told them to keep quiet. "As time went on, we didn't know if the FBI ever caught anyone," she says. "It's not a subject you bring up for small talk. It was traumatic. It was life changing."

Three of the five attendants, and the pilot were interviewed for the show. A fourth attendant declined to participate, and another had become an alcoholic, and committed suicide years ago. "We [the flight attendants and pilot] never spoke to each other about it until after this documentary," Sandy says.

"When I was approached by Harvey about this show, I knew it would be upsetting and emotional to re-live it again," Sandy says. "But I felt we had to finally get the story out. Americans should know how close we came."

Was United 23 a fifth plane intended to hit another strategic U.S. site? Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the operational planner of 911, has been quoted as saying he hoped to take over 10 planes. (He never has been brought to trial, and remains at Guantanamo, along with four alleged co-conspirators)). I'm not a fan of conspiracy theories regarding our government. But box cutters also were found on a Delta plane, as well as an American Airlines plane scheduled to fly cross-country on September 11. The FBI knows more than it ever releases, and wouldn't it be interesting to know why United 23 was left out of the Commission's report?

One day at a time

I was unfamiliar with TMZ, but I've read that its programming is a mixture of news and entertainment. However, my husband and I have known Sandy, and her family for decades. She's a smart, capable, take-charge woman who speaks with authority. I believe every word of what she says.

To Sandy and her family, the intervening years have been a gift. "When I finally returned home, it felt like I had won the lottery of life," she told me. She and Doug have celebrated 40 years of marriage, hosted the wedding of their daughter, welcomed two grandchildren into this world, and try to live each day to the fullest.

She adds, "We sensed what was going on at the time, but it's only through the years that we put it all together. Some flight attendants say, 'I don't believe it. I never heard anything about this before.' " Well, this is what happened, and it was real."

grayscale photo of water fountain — Photo by Tomas Eidsvold on Unsplash

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