Betty Ong, a flight attendant on the hijacked Flight 11, tells American Airlines employees on the ground that there are no doctors on her plane who could help the injured crew members, and this information leads an airline manager to decide that he wants Flight 11 to land at the next available airport. [American Airlines, 9/11/2001, pp. 7-19; Federal Bureau of Investigation, 9/11/2001, pp. 49-51; 9/11 Commission, 1/27/2004 
] Ong is on the phone with employees at the American Airlines Southeastern Reservations Office in North Carolina (see 8:18 a.m. September 11, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 8/26/2004, pp. 8] She previously told them that the “number one” flight attendant on her plane—Karen Martin—and the “number five” flight attendant—Barbara Arestegui—had been stabbed (see 8:19 a.m. September 11, 2001 and 8:21 a.m. September 11, 2001). [American Airlines, 9/11/2001, pp. 3-6]
Ong Confirms that Stabbed Flight Attendant Is on Oxygen – Nydia Gonzalez, one of the reservations office employees talking to Ong, asks, “So the number one flight attendant—the one that was stabbed—she’s on oxygen right now?” [American Airlines, 9/11/2001, pp. 7-19] Ong says that other crew members have been “able to administer oxygen” to Martin and that Martin is “able to breathe,” Gonzalez will later recall. [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 9/12/2001, pp. 69-71; 9/11 Commission, 1/27/2004 ] Gonzalez then asks, “And the number five: that was a superficial wound, you were saying?” [American Airlines, 9/11/2001, pp. 7-19] Ong says the number five flight attendant’s injury is less serious. [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 9/12/2001, pp. 69-71]
Ong Says There Is No Doctor on Flight 11 – While she is on the phone with Ong, Gonzalez has been relaying the information Ong provides to Craig Marquis, the manager on duty at the American Airlines System Operations Control center in Texas, on another phone line (see (8:21 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 11/19/2003 ; Spencer, 2008, pp. 17-18] Marquis now requests that Gonzalez ask Ong a question. He says to Gonzalez: “Who’s helping them? Is there a doctor on board?” Gonzalez passes on Marquis’s question, asking Ong, “Is there a doctor on board, Betty, that’s assisting you guys?” [American Airlines, 9/11/2001, pp. 7-19] Ong indicates that there isn’t a doctor on Flight 11. [9/11 Commission, 1/27/2004 ]
Marquis Wants Flight 11 to Land – Marquis will tell the FBI that because there is “no doctor on board Flight 11 to help the injured,” he wants “the aircraft to land at the next available airport.” Because of “the medical emergencies and the violence” on the plane, Marquis will say, he intends “for medical personnel and law enforcement to meet the aircraft as soon as it landed.” [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 9/11/2001, pp. 49-51]
8:37 a.m.-8:39 a.m. September 11, 2001: Flight 11 Attendant Betty Ong Says Her Plane Is ‘Flying Sideways’ and Descending
Betty Ong, a flight attendant on the hijacked Flight 11, tells American Airlines employees on the ground that her plane is flying erratically, and then says it is in a rapid descent. [American Airlines, 9/11/2001, pp. 7-19; 9/11 Commission, 8/26/2004, pp. 13] Ong is on the phone with employees at the American Airlines Southeastern Reservations Office in North Carolina (see 8:18 a.m. September 11, 2001). One of these employees, Nydia Gonzalez, is simultaneously relaying the information Ong provides to Craig Marquis, the manager on duty at the American Airlines System Operations Control (SOC) center in Texas (see (8:21 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 11/19/2003 ; 9/11 Commission, 8/26/2004, pp. 8-9] Ong reports that all of the passengers on Flight 11 have been moved out of the first class section of the plane, back to the coach section. Gonzalez passes this information on to Marquis.
Ong Says Flight 11 Is ‘Flying Sideways’ – Gonzalez then asks Ong, “What’s going on honey?” Ong previously mentioned that Flight 11 was flying erratically (see 8:25 a.m. September 11, 2001), but she subsequently said it had stabilized (see 8:28 a.m. September 11, 2001). She now says the plane is flying erratically again. [American Airlines, 9/11/2001, pp. 7-19; 9/11 Commission, 8/26/2004, pp. 13] Vanessa Minter, an employee at the reservations office, will later recall that Ong describes the way the plane is being flown by saying it is “flying sideways.” According to Minter, another reservations office employee, Winston Sadler, then asks Ong if she means the plane is flying erratically and Ong says yes. [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 9/12/2001, pp. 38-41] Gonzalez will similarly recall that Ong says the plane is “flying sideways, erratically.” [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 9/12/2001, pp. 69-71] Gonzalez relays the information to Marquis, telling him, “The aircraft is erratic again, flying very erratically.”
Ong Says Flight 11 Is in a Rapid Descent – About a minute later, Gonzalez again asks Ong, “What’s going on?” [American Airlines, 9/11/2001, pp. 7-19] Ong says her plane is descending rapidly. [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 9/11/2001, pp. 1-8; Federal Bureau of Investigation, 9/12/2001, pp. 69-71] Gonzalez passes this information on to Marquis, telling him, “Seems like the aircraft is descending quite a bit right now.” Marquis replies, “Okay, I have it on the radar here.” Marquis then asks Bill Halleck, an air traffic control specialist at the SOC, if Flight 11 is descending. [American Airlines, 9/11/2001, pp. 7-19; 9/11 Commission, 11/19/2003 ] When Halleck recently contacted the FAA’s Boston Center, he was told that air traffic controllers had lost Flight 11’s transponder signal (see 8:29 a.m. September 11, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 3/25/2004, pp. 15] He therefore tells Marquis: “We don’t know [if Flight 11 is descending]. The transponder is off, so we have no active read on him.” [American Airlines, 9/11/2001, pp. 7-19; 9/11 Commission, 11/19/2003 ]
8:41 a.m. September 11, 2001: American Airlines Manager Tells Reservations Office Supervisor that Flight 11 Is a ‘Confirmed Hijacking’
Craig Marquis, the manager on duty at the American Airlines System Operations Control (SOC) center in Texas, tells Nydia Gonzalez, a supervisor at the American Airlines Southeastern Reservations Office in North Carolina, that FAA air traffic controllers are handling Flight 11 as a “confirmed hijacking.” [American Airlines, 9/11/2001, pp. 7-19] Gonzalez is one of several employees at the reservations office who are on the phone with Betty Ong, a flight attendant on Flight 11 who has been describing to them the trouble on her plane. Gonzalez has been relaying the information Ong provides to Marquis. [9/11 Commission, 11/19/2003 ; 9/11 Commission, 8/26/2004, pp. 8-9] She asks him, “What’s going on on your end, Craig?” [American Airlines, 9/11/2001, pp. 7-19] Marquis has just been told by a colleague at the SOC that FAA controllers are treating Flight 11 as a hijacking (see 8:40 a.m. September 11, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 11/19/2003 ; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 6] He therefore replies: “We contacted air traffic control. They are gonna handle this as a confirmed hijacking. So they’re moving all the traffic out of this aircraft’s way.” He says that Flight 11 has its “transponder off, so we don’t have a definitive altitude for him.” Marquis adds that FAA controllers “seem to think that they have [Flight 11] on a primary radar. They seem to think that he is descending.” [American Airlines, 9/11/2001, pp. 7-19]
8:42 a.m. September 11, 2001: American Airlines Manager Asks Dispatcher to Determine How Far Flight 11 Can Travel with Its Remaining Fuel
Craig Marquis, the manager on duty at the American Airlines System Operations Control (SOC) center in Fort Worth, Texas, instructs Peggy Houck, a dispatcher at the SOC, to calculate how far Flight 11 could travel with the fuel it has left. [American Airlines, 9/11/2001, pp. 20-22; 9/11 Commission, 11/19/2003 ; 9/11 Commission, 1/8/2004 ] Marquis was recently told by a colleague at the SOC that FAA air traffic controllers are treating Flight 11 as a hijacking (see 8:40 a.m. September 11, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 11/19/2003 ; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 6] He now talks to Houck and tells her that Flight 11 has “turned off his transponder.” He says controllers have the plane “on primary radar and they see him descending.” Marquis then asks Houck to calculate how far the plane could go with its current amount of fuel. He says: “Could you run me a model? [Flight 11] is currently 66,000 pounds of gas back from the time I got the call. Just give me some sort of endurance for 25,000 feet, if you would.” [American Airlines, 9/11/2001, pp. 20-22] Marquis is also on the phone with Nydia Gonzalez, a supervisor at the American Airlines Southeastern Reservations Office in North Carolina who is simultaneously participating in a call with Betty Ong, a flight attendant on Flight 11. [9/11 Commission, 11/19/2003 ; 9/11 Commission, 8/26/2004, pp. 8-9] Marquis updates Gonzalez on what is happening. He tells her, “I have the dispatcher currently taking the current fuel on board, and we’re gonna run some profiles to see exactly what [Flight 11’s] endurance is.” [American Airlines, 9/11/2001, pp. 20-22] Houck will perform an analysis of the fuel capacity of Flight 11 and determine that the plane has “an approximate range of six hours.” [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 9/11/2001, pp. 5-7] She will tell the 9/11 Commission that, around this time, she thinks the situation with Flight 11 is “looking like a typical hijacking.… She was thinking they might be headed to Cuba or Colombia.” [9/11 Commission, 1/8/2004 ]
8:43 a.m. September 11, 2001: Airline Reservations Office Loses Contact with Flight 11 Attendant Betty Ong
Employees at the American Airlines Southeastern Reservations Office in Cary, North Carolina, lose communication with Betty Ong, a flight attendant on the hijacked Flight 11. [American Airlines, 9/11/2001, pp. 20-22; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 5-6]
Ong Stops Responding to Questions – For about the last 25 minutes, Ong has been on the phone with a number of employees at the reservations office, and has been providing them with information about the trouble on her plane. [9/11 Commission, 8/26/2004, pp. 8] But now she stops responding to their communications. Nydia Gonzalez, one of the reservations office employees, continues questioning Ong. She says: “What’s going on Betty? Betty, talk to me. Betty, are you there? Betty?” Receiving no response, she asks her colleague Winston Sadler, who is also participating in the call, “Do you think we lost her?” On another phone line, Gonzalez immediately notifies a manager at the American Airlines System Operations Control center in Texas that contact with Ong has been lost (see 8:44 a.m. September 11, 2001). [American Airlines, 9/11/2001, pp. 20-22; 9/11 Commission, 8/26/2004, pp. 14]
Ong Asked Airline Employees to ‘Pray for Us’ – Toward the end of the call, Ong said repeatedly to the reservations office employees: “Pray for us. Pray for us.” [ABC News, 7/18/2002] Gonzalez will say in an interview later today that Ong’s final words, before the call ends, were, “Oh my God, the flight, it’s going down, it’s going down.” [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 9/11/2001, pp. 1-8] But in a subsequent interview, she will say that before the call ends, Ong “started to cry” and then her final words were, “Oh God, oh God, what is going on?” [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 9/12/2001, pp. 69-71] The reservations office employees have lost communication with Ong by 8:44 a.m., according to the 9/11 Commission Report. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 6] But according to a summary of phone calls from the hijacked flights presented at the 2006 trial of Zacarias Moussaoui, the call from Ong began at 8:18 a.m. and 47 seconds, and lasts exactly 27 minutes, meaning it ends at 8:45 a.m. and 47 seconds. [US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006] Flight 11 will crash into the World Trade Center less than a minute after that, at 8:46 a.m. (see 8:46 a.m. September 11, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 7]
8:44 a.m. September 11, 2001: American Airlines Manager Learns of Loss of Communication with Flight Attendant; Tells Supervisor to Keep Quiet about Hijacking
Craig Marquis, the manager on duty at the American Airlines System Operations Control center in Fort Worth, Texas, is told that the American Airlines Southeastern Reservations Office in North Carolina has lost contact with Betty Ong, a flight attendant on the hijacked Flight 11, and he then says he wants the reservations office employees to keep quiet about the hijacking. [American Airlines, 9/11/2001, pp. 20-22; 9/11 Commission, 8/26/2004, pp. 14] Marquis is on the phone with Nydia Gonzalez, a supervisor at the reservations office who, for over 20 minutes, has been relaying to him information she was receiving in a simultaneous phone call with Ong (see (8:21 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 11/19/2003 ; 9/11 Commission, 8/26/2004, pp. 8-9] Ong, however, has stopped responding to communications (see (8:43 a.m.) September 11, 2001). Gonzalez promptly informs Marquis of this. She tells him, “I think we might have lost her.” Marquis says, “Okay,” and then tells Gonzalez, “If in fact she calls back, you call me back.” Gonzalez agrees to do this.
Marquis Tells Gonzalez to Keep Quiet about Hijacking – Marquis then tells Gonzalez that he wants her and her colleagues to keep quiet about the hijacking of Flight 11. He says, “I don’t want this spread all over.” Gonzalez has already instructed the other reservations office employees who were on the phone with Ong to keep quiet about the hijacking (see 8:31 a.m. September 11, 2001), and agrees to Marquis’s request. She answers: “Right. I’ve already made that indication to our people here.” Marquis says, “Try to make sure that it’s followed through on, okay?” Gonzalez replies, “Okay.” Just before the call between Marquis and Gonzalez ends, Marquis tells Gonzalez, “I’ll be back in touch with you.” Gonzalez then says, “I’m gonna stay on the line with my agent just in case we get the line [with Ong] back, and I’ll call you back.” [American Airlines, 9/11/2001, pp. 20-22]
