(FOX 25 / MyFoxBoston.com) – Tower transmissions recorded just moments after the two hijacked planes took off from Logan Airport are chilling and hard to hear. Air traffic controllers attempted to make sense of it all as chaos unfolded in the sky.
The first hint of trouble on September 11, 2001 occurred around 8:14 a.m. The Boston center lost contact with American Flight 11 just 15 minutes after take off from Logan Airport.
Audio: Boston Sector: This is Boston, I turned American 20 left, and I was going to climb him, he will not respond to me now at all.
Audio: Athens Sector: Looks like he is turning right.
A few minutes later flight attendant Amy Sweeney manages to make a phone call from the rear of the plane.
Audio: Americans Reservations Supervisor: I am monitoring a call in which Flight 11, the flight attendant is advising our reps that the pilot, everyone's been stabbed.
The military is notified of the hijacking, but before two fighters are able to get off the ground from Otis Air Base on Cape Cod, American 11 hits the North Tower. At the same time, hijackers take control of United 175, another flight from Logan.
Two more planes would be hijacked that day in a horrific event carried out by 19 hijackers, 10 of which took off from Boston.
The 9/11 clips are from a compilation of recordings meticulously put together by the Rutgers Law Review. The final moments of United Flight 93, the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania, are not included.
Families of those board that plane fought hard to keep that audio private.
