Betty Ong's Role in 9/11 Attacks

Betty Ong was the first person to alert authorities to the terrorist

attacks on September 11th, 2001, when she

called American Airlines to tell them that their plane had been hijacked.

The San Francisco flight attendant calmly stayed on the line for 23

minutes before Flight 11 struck the North Tower of the World Trade

Center. The terrorists would hijack three more

commercial

planes that day.

Okay, my name is Betty Ong. I'm number three on Flight 11.

It still hurts. I tell you , you, you almost die 25

times.

Every year, you hope that America wouldn't forget

9/11, uh, yet you yourself want to forget 9/11.

That we can't breathe and I don't know, I think we're getting hijacked.

Betty was the first to sound the alarm about the unfathomable tragedy

unfolding before the world that day.

The cockpit's not answering their call.

Hijackers had commandeered American Airlines Flight 11, and Betty's

voice, the only window into the terror about to

grip a nation as her plane collided into the World Trade

Center's North Tower.

I just called American Airlines, kept calling them for about five,

six times, and

finally they acknowledged that, uh, Betty may have been on that flight.

A flight she wasn't supposed to be on.

She'd picked up an extra shift to earn money for an upcoming trip with her

sisters, Kathy and Gloria.

When she didn't call back after we've left messages on her cellphone to please

call and contact us, and she never returned a call, our hearts

were sinking fast. I had to call

my mom and dad, and I told them, "I'm not sure if you're

standing up," uh, but I said, "Please sit down."

Betty was always dutiful.

Growing up in Chinatown, she worked in her parents' market on

Jackson Street.

And when they retired in 1987, she set out to see the

world.

Her lifetime dream was to really travel.

She wanted to become a flight attendant.

Betty's memory is also carried on through the Betty Ong Foundation and

at the Betty Ann Ong Chinese Recreation Center in the very neighborhood

her family called home, at the same center she once

played. Betty's name is everywhere, on the walls,

on posters.

So proud of her, too.

Yeah.

And most memorably, on a bronze plaque for all to see as

they enter.