Dear blogreader,September 11 2001 is one of those days in your life that you will always remember what you did when the Twin Towers when down. I was in Sweden to attend the funeral of my father, who lost the fight against cancer the week before, and was watching a movie on TV when the breaking news stopped all TV programs and the scene switched to New York.
We soon learnt that the US airspace was shutdown and airtravel was forever changed. We had a return flight scheduled on Sunday the 16th to LAX and was polling for updates in what/if/how/when the airspace would be opened up again.
The flights open up in the morning on the 16th and we got the message in the morning and took off to Frankfurt. It was total chaos at the US bound gates, and there were approx 10 flights scheduled between 10 and 12 in the morning. The manual search of all bags was a new routine no one had planned for. Four hours delayed we left as the second outbound flight going to Los Angeles. The adhoc meal/drink wagons passing the line every 2 hours made people manage the situation reasonably well.
LAX international terminal was super empty when we arrived. I think I saw 2 other planes at the terminal. The huge parking house in the middle had been emptied and every single car taken out. Rental cars had been returned en masse, without anyone picking up cars and the 800 name big Herts #1 club screen had 16 names on it when we arrived. The 5-10 blockes slosest to the Rental car center was full of cars that did not fit at the rental companies parking spots. Obvious as very very few cars were rented out as normally. It was a silent ride to our Santa Barbara home. and arriving we learnt that evry single TV channel had shown CNN only for 4 days.
I did not fly for 3 weeks and the first flight afterwards was a short domestic one, and I had to show up 2 hours in advance and there were 10 of us going on the small 30 seater. and Airlines were cutting flighst like crazy. Including the AA79&80 that used to be my favourites out of ORD. Fun to see that they now operate to Europe where I am now living 10 years later.
The conversation topics for my Sunday morning golf trips changed from Football and Fun to foreign policies, my view on America as a non native/citizen. Gone was the self confidence and security in people I have got to known a few months earlier. One of the key take-aways after a few weeks was that people expressed a deeper and profound understanding between clients and suppliers that phone conferences would play a bigger role in doing business to reduce air travel.
On my second trip there was a man of Asian descent with a big black beard entering the plan. The whole plan went silent and he was followed by veryone in the plans as he entered. Three persons felt so uncomfortable so that they complained to the stewardesses and the he was eventually asked to leave the plane. I remember thinking who was most the most disadvantaged, all people becoming nervous when a bearded asian man entered a plane, or all the asian men having to live with everybody viewing them as a suspicious person.
A few weeks later was the fatal SAS accident at Linate Milan. When hearing about the accident on radio I immediately realized that I would recognize names on the passenger list. I came down one third when I saw the name of a colleague that I have got to know a few years earlier. That day I took the decision to get back up in the air as quickly as possible, in order to regain confidence of flying and doing it with teh airlines that had lost planes. It turned out to be a wise decision that cemented my confidence.
The 11th of September is also the date that Ronnie Peterson died in 1978 after the tragic accident at Monza the day before. And today tehre has been many ceremonies to remember the players of the russian hockey team, a few of them from my home country including one of the most talented goal tenders ever. I am quite confident that KHL will loose their appeal from young hockey players taking an extra year to prepare for NHL or extend their careers in a country where flying safety has been under the radar.
But my biggest hero was not a man that did fly a lot, but he pushed my to aim high up in the sky. I carry his insights and early encouragement deep into my heart, and those events back in 2001 made my re-evaluate a few principles in my life and the most important one being, "We all get a life, and you are allways the pilot on your own journey"
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