American Airlines Supervisor Joins Call from Flight 11 Attendant Betty Ong

[Archangel]

Nydia Gonzalez. [Source: 9/11 Commission]

Nydia Gonzalez, a supervisor at the American Airlines Southeastern Reservations Office in Cary, North Carolina, joins a phone call between two employees at her office and Betty Ong, a flight attendant on the hijacked Flight 11. [9/11 Commission, 8/26/2004, pp. 8-9] Ong called the reservations office at 8:18 a.m. to report the hijacking (see 8:18 a.m. September 11, 2001), and has since then been talking to two employees there: Vanessa Minter and Winston Sadler. Sadler pushed the emergency button on his phone to alert personnel in the operations area of the reservations office, so that one of them could pick up the call from Ong. A colleague of Gonzalez's initially picked up the call, but Gonzalez quickly takes over from them. [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 9/12/2001, pp. 38-41; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 453; US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006] Gonzalez, Minter, and Sadler are in different areas of the reservations office, but all three of them are able to monitor Ong's call. [9/11 Commission, 11/19/2003 pdf file]

Supervisor Told of Stabbings on Flight 11 - The first thing Gonzalez says when she joins the call is: "This is operations. What flight number are we talking about?" Ong earlier told Minter and Sadler, incorrectly, that she was on "Flight 12," not Flight 11 (see 8:19 a.m. September 11, 2001). Sadler therefore tells Gonzalez, "Flight 12." Ong quickly corrects him, saying: "We're on Flight 11 right now. This is Flight 11.... Boston to Los Angeles." She also repeats information she previously gave to Minter and Sadler, saying, "Our number one [flight attendant] has been stabbed and our [number] five [flight attendant] has been stabbed." [American Airlines, 9/11/2001, pp. 3-6] Supervisor Notifies Airline's Operations Center - Gonzalez is an operations specialist, and her responsibilities include monitoring any emergency situations with American Airlines flights and forwarding information to the American Airlines System Operations Control (SOC) center in Fort Worth, Texas. [9/11 Commission, 1/27/2004 pdf file; Spencer, 2008, pp. 17] She immediately realizes the seriousness of the situation on Flight 11 and therefore, while remaining connected to Ong's call, phones the SOC on a separate line to notify it of the problem (see (8:21 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 11/19/2003 pdf file; 9/11 Commission, 8/26/2004, pp. 9] Gonzalez will later recall that she finds Ong to be "calm, professional, and in control throughout the call." [9/11 Commission, 1/27/2004 pdf file] She will also say that during the time she is monitoring Ong's call, she does not hear much commotion in the background. [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 9/12/2001, pp. 69-71]