At least four of the nine flight attendants who will be on American Airlines Flight 11—the first plane to hit the World Trade Center—on 9/11 are not originally scheduled to be on this flight, but are assigned to it shortly before September 11 or early in the morning of 9/11: 
Jeffrey Collman does not “normally work the Boston-to-Los Angeles route but [makes] an exception to get vacation time at the end of the month.” [Seattle Times, 9/17/2001] Barbara “Bobbi” Arestegui accepts extra shifts as she is saving up her earned vacation time. [Cape Cod Times, 9/18/2001; Cape Cod Times, 9/10/2002; Cape Cod Times, 9/11/2006] Jean Roger is on a “standby” work list in September 2001. Someone calls in sick the morning of 9/11 and she takes their place. [Chicago Tribune, 9/15/2001; Boston Globe, 9/9/2003] Sara Low is “not originally scheduled to work” Flight 11. [Associated Press, 9/25/2001]
John Ogonowski, the plane’s pilot, is also not originally scheduled to be on Flight 11, but requests to fly it shortly before September 11 (see Shortly Before September 11, 2001). [Georgetown Record, 9/18/2003] Many of the flight attendants on the other three hijacked planes are also only assigned to those flights shortly before 9/11 (see Shortly Before September 11, 2001, Shortly Before September 11, 2001-Early Morning September 11, 2001, and Shortly Before September 11, 2001).
8:16 a.m.-8:28 a.m. September 11, 2001: Four Calls Made From Flight 11 by Unknown Individual, Possibly Flight Attendant Sara Low
According to a computer presentation put forward as evidence in the 2006 trial of Zacarias Moussaoui, an unknown person—or persons—makes four calls from Flight 11. These are at 08:16:50, 08:20:11, 08:25:31, and 08:28:33. The calls do not appear to have gone through properly: they are each described as “On button pressed, no call made.” Though the trial exhibit identifies the caller(s) only as “Unknown Caller,” other evidence suggests that at least one of the calls is made by—or on behalf of—Sara Low, who is one of the plane’s flight attendants. Her father, Mike Low, later says he learned from FBI records that his daughter had given her childhood home phone number in Arkansas to another of the flight attendants, Amy Sweeney, for her to report the hijacking. Low speculates that the reason his daughter gave this particular number was that she had just moved home, and so, in the stress of the hijacking, her childhood phone number was the only one she could remember. The Moussaoui trial presentation lists Sweeney as making five calls from the plane. However, it says these are all to the American Airlines office at Boston’s Logan Airport. [US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006; New York Times, 9/4/2007] Sara Low lets Sweeney use her father’s calling card in order to make these five calls from an Airfone (see 8:22 a.m.-8:24 a.m. September 11, 2001). [New York Observer, 6/20/2004]
8:25 a.m. September 11, 2001: Flight 11 Attendant Amy Sweeney Calls Airline Office at Logan Airport and Describes Trouble on Plane
Amy Sweeney, a flight attendant on Flight 11, finally reaches the American Airlines flight services office at Logan International Airport in Boston, and tells the employee who answers the call about the trouble on her plane. Sweeney’s two previous attempts at calling the flight services office failed to connect (see 8:22 a.m.-8:24 a.m. September 11, 2001). But her third attempted call is answered by Evelyn Nunez, a passenger service agent for American Airlines. [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 9/11/2001, pp. 57-58; 9/11 Commission, 2004, pp. 4; 9/11 Commission, 8/26/2004, pp. 9-10]
Sweeney Says Two Attendants Stabbed, One Passenger Had Throat Cut – Sweeney talks fast during the call. She says she is an American Airlines flight attendant, but does not give her name. Nunez will later tell the FBI that Sweeney says that “Flight 12 at Gate 32 had two flight attendants stabbed.” [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 9/11/2001, pp. 57-58] (Although Sweeney is on Flight 11, not Flight 12, Flight 11 departed from Gate 32 at Logan Airport (see 7:40 a.m. September 11, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 8/26/2004, pp. 7] ) Sweeney says a passenger seated in row 9 of the plane had their throat cut by a passenger in seat 10B. [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 9/11/2001, pp. 57-58] This would be a reference to passenger Daniel Lewin being attacked by hijacker Satam Al Suqami (see (8:14 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [Ha’aretz, 7/22/2004; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 5] Sweeney also says there is a bomb on the plane. [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 9/11/2001, pp. 57-58]
Sweeney Given Details of Hijacking by Another Flight Attendant – Sweeney makes this call from the next-to-last row of passenger seats in the coach section of her plane, using an Airfone. [New York Observer, 2/15/2004; New York Observer, 6/20/2004] She gets her information about the trouble on Flight 11 from Sara Low, another of the flight attendants, who was assigned to the front of the plane and so would have witnessed the hijacking when it happened. [Boston Herald, 12/15/2008; Associated Press, 3/5/2009] But after 1 minute and 47 seconds, the call is cut off. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 6; US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006]
Flight Services Manager Overhears Call – Michael Woodward, an American Airlines flight services manager at Logan Airport, hears Nunez talking on the phone to Sweeney. Nunez is talking in a “rather loud” voice, Woodward will recall, and keeps saying to Sweeney: “What, what, what?… Who’s hurt?… What?” When Woodward asks what is wrong, Nunez says she has received an odd phone call, in which the caller said someone was hurt on Flight 12. “She indicated that someone had been hurt, stabbed,” Woodward will recall. Woodward will tell the 9/11 Commission that he mistakenly thinks the incident the caller described “was air rage, because there was a lot of that type of thing going on at the time.” He thinks that “maybe there was a disturbance in the terminal.” Woodward will subsequently head to a departure gate to see if anything is wrong there (see (8:27 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 1/25/2004 
]
Agent Determines Name of Hijacker – Nunez immediately calls flight operations for American Airlines to determine the status of Flight 12, the plane Sweeney said she was on. Nunez learns that it was in fact Flight 11 that recently left Logan Airport. She then runs a computer check to find the name of the passenger Sweeney identified, who was in seat 10B on Flight 11. Nunez determines that the passenger was Al Suqami. [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 9/11/2001, pp. 57-58] Sweeney will call the American Airlines flight services office again at 8:29 a.m. and 8:32 a.m. (see 8:29 a.m. September 11, 2001 and (8:32 a.m.-8:44 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 6; US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006]
8:32 a.m.-8:44 a.m. September 11, 2001: Flight 11 Attendant Amy Sweeney Talks on Phone with Airline Manager at Logan Airport, Gives Details of Hijacking
Amy Sweeney, a flight attendant on Flight 11, reaches the American Airlines flight services office at Logan International Airport in Boston for the third time, and, in a phone call lasting 12 or 13 minutes, gives details of the trouble on her plane to a manager there. [9/11 Commission, 8/26/2004, pp. 11; US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006] Sweeney has already called the flight services office two times and provided employees there with details of the hijacking of Flight 11, but both calls were cut off after a short time (see 8:25 a.m. September 11, 2001 and 8:29 a.m. September 11, 2001).
Manager Takes Over Answering Call – At 8:32 a.m., Sweeney reaches the office for the third time. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 6; US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006] The call is answered by James Sayer, a staff assistant. But Sayer tells Michael Woodward, an American Airlines flight services manager at Logan Airport, that the caller is Sweeney, and Woodward then takes over the call. Woodward is friends with Sweeney and has known her personally for 10 years. Furthermore, Woodward will tell the 9/11 Commission, Sayer is not trained to handle emergency calls. Woodward asks Sweeney, “Amy, sweetie, what’s going on?” She replies, “Listen to me very, very carefully.” Realizing that Sweeney is going to give him important information, Woodward immediately begins taking notes.
Sweeney Provides Details of Hijacking – Woodward will tell the 9/11 Commission that, in a matter-of-fact and official manner, Sweeney then describes to him the trouble on her plane. She says she is sitting in the back of the aircraft next to Betty Ong, another flight attendant, and the two of them are trying to relay as much information as they can to people on the ground. She says her plane has been hijacked, a man in first class had his throat slashed, and two flight attendants—Karen Martin and Barbara Arestegui—have been stabbed. Sweeney says that Martin isn’t doing very well and is on oxygen, but Arestegui is less seriously injured and seems to be alright. She says the hijackers have gained entry into the cockpit, though she doesn’t say how they did this, and there is a bomb in the cockpit. She makes no comments about the condition of the pilots, but says the flight attendants are unable to contact the cockpit. Later in the conversation, she says she doesn’t think the original pilot is in control of the plane, because they are flying “all over the place.” [9/11 Commission, 1/25/2004 ; 9/11 Commission, 8/26/2004, pp. 11-12]
Sweeney Gives Seat Numbers of Hijackers – Sweeney apparently believes there are only three hijackers on Flight 11. She tells Woodward that the people who hijacked her plane were in seats 9D, 9G, and 10B. [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 9/11/2001, pp. 5-6; 9/11 Commission, 1/25/2004 ; 9/11 Commission, 8/26/2004, pp. 14] However, apart from seat 10B, these are different seats to those assigned to the hijackers on the tickets they purchased. [Los Angeles Times, 9/20/2001; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 2] Sweeney tells Woodward that the hijackers are of Middle Eastern descent. She says one of them spoke excellent English and another spoke very little English. [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 9/13/2001, pp. 1-2; 9/11 Commission, 1/25/2004 ]
Doctor or Nurse Requested – Woodward will say, when he is first questioned by the FBI about Sweeney’s call, that Sweeney tells him that a doctor and nurse are caring for the passenger who had his throat slashed. [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 9/11/2001, pp. 5-6] But Ong, who is on the phone with employees at the American Airlines Southeastern Reservations Office in North Carolina (see 8:19 a.m. September 11, 2001 and 8:21 a.m. September 11, 2001), says there are no doctors on Flight 11 (see 8:36 a.m.-8:37 a.m. September 11, 2001). [American Airlines, 9/11/2001, pp. 7-19; 9/11 Commission, 1/27/2004 ] However, in a second interview with the FBI and in his interview with the 9/11 Commission, Woodward will say only that a doctor or nurse has been paged.
Woodward Gives Contradictory Accounts of Type of Phone Used – Woodward hears no noise in the background during his conversation with Sweeney. [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 9/13/2001, pp. 1-2; 9/11 Commission, 1/25/2004 ] The information Sweeney provides about the hijacking has been given to her by Sara Low, a flight attendant who was assigned to the front of Flight 11 and so would have witnessed the hijacking when it happened. [Boston Herald, 12/15/2008; Associated Press, 3/5/2009] In interviews with the FBI, Woodward will say that Sweeney makes the call using an Airfone, or that he is unsure whether she uses an Airfone or a cell phone. [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 9/11/2001, pp. 5-6; Federal Bureau of Investigation, 9/13/2001, pp. 1-2] But he will tell the 9/11 Commission that she makes the call on a cell phone. [9/11 Commission, 1/25/2004 ] However, the FBI will state that Sweeney is using an Airfone. [9/11 Commission, 2004, pp. 4; New York Observer, 6/20/2004; Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, 9/11/2011] There is no tape machine in the flight services office, and so her call is not recorded. [9/11 Commission, 1/25/2004 ; New York Observer, 6/20/2004]
Airline Contacted about Call – At 8:40 a.m., one of Woodward’s colleagues in the flight services office calls the American Airlines System Operations Control center in Fort Worth, Texas, and passes on to it the information that Sweeney is providing to Woodward (see 8:40 a.m.-8:48 a.m. September 11, 2001). Sweeney’s call ends after 12 or 13 minutes (see (8:44 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 8/26/2004, pp. 11, 14; US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Alexandria Division, 7/31/2006]
