I wrote this post on September 11, 2026.
On the morning of September 11, 2001, I was asleep when my son called from Okinawa. He was serving in the United States Marine Corps as an air traffic controller and had just watched the aftermath of the first jet striking the World Trade Center.
As he urgently described what he was seeing on television, he watched a second Boeing 767 crash into the South Tower.
I was scheduled to work the 1:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. shift that day. When I walked into the radar room, the normally crowded scopes were empty. Only one radar position was active, tracking a single aircraft – an F‑16 about 50 miles northeast of Houston Intercontinental Airport.
I relieved the controller working that position. A few minutes later, Houston Center handed off the F‑16, which was headed to Ellington Field just east of Houston.
This F-16 was providing air protection to the President Bush, who was on the ground in Air Force One at the Barksdale Air Force Base just outside of Shreveport, Louisiana.
When the pilot checked in, I cleared him direct to Ellington, told him to descend at his discretion to 2,000 feet, and asked him to report the airport in sight.
He descended unusually fast. When he leveled at 2,000 feet about 20 miles northeast of Ellington, he told me that Air Defense – communicating with him on another frequency – wanted him to climb to Flight Level 310, 31,000 feet.
I asked whether he had enough fuel to climb back to that altitude.
He had already begun climbing without authorization and was passing through 8,000 feet. In a panicked voice, he said:
“No. I don’t even have enough fuel. I’m not sure I can make it back to Ellington.”
I declared an emergency for the aircraft. The pilot landed safely a few minutes later.
He was clearly under tremendous stress and no longer thinking clearly. At the rate he was climbing, he could have run out of fuel if I had not asked about his fuel status.
I didn’t want the pilot to get into trouble for what had happened. And I didn’t want to become part of the 9/11 story, so I chose not to alert FAA management.
Only my Marine son knew that story that day.
That is all I did on September 11, 2001.
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