September 12, 2001 Wednesday

At Logan Airport, Nobody Saw Plane's Sharp Turn South

Hanna Rosin and Pamela Ferdinand, Washington Post Staff Writers

BOSTON Sept. 11

American Airlines Flight 11 began routinely, in every way.

At 6 a.m., pilot John Ogonowski left his wife and three daughters asleep in their farm house in Dracut, Mass., and headed for Boston's Logan Airport. He had flown the Boston-to-Los Angeles route for three years, every couple of weeks, so he was used to getting up early.

On his way, he drove by his uncle Al's house and tooted the horn, the requisite family greeting in a town sprinkled with Ogonowskis.

About an hour later, he reached the plane, which had been at the airport since the night before.

Like most morning flights in late summer, Flight 11 left nearly on time, at 7:59 a.m., with little notice or incident -- one of 220 flights that took off from Boston between 7 and 9 a.m. today.

The plane was less than half full; its 81 passengers filed onto the Boeing 767 from Terminal B along with nine flight attendants. Ogonowski and co-pilot Tom McGuinness were already on board.

Flight 11 began on its normal path from Boston west toward central New York, radar shows. But about a half-hour into the flight, around the time flight attendants would have been serving drinks, the passengers must have known something was wrong.

Somewhere near Albany, the plane took a sharp turn and headed south, following the course of the Hudson River straight to downtown New York City.. It had been hijacked by terrorists armed with knives, Attorney General John D. Ashcroft said.

About 8:45 a.m. the plane became the first of two aircraft to crash into the World Trade Center, smashing into the North Tower. At that moment Cathy Carron, 50, was two blocks away at the American Stock Exchange. She looked up and saw a huge, low-flying plane bank into the side of the World Trade Center.

Then she saw chaos, random bits of debris -- chunks of fuselage, a Louis Vuitton bag, papers fluttering to the ground. Then blinding smoke, people running from the building, screaming.

Boston airport officials said they did not spot the plane's course until it had crashed, and said the control tower had no unusual communication with the pilots or any crew members.

But a source said a crew member aboard the flight had called American Airlines' operation center in Fort Worth to report that something was going on. The airline would not confirm that report.

Sometime before 11 a.m., federal aviation officials showed up at the houses of both pilots -- Ogonowski's in Dracut and McGuinness's in Portsmouth, N.H., to notify their families. They were soon followed by clergy.

Outside Ogonowski's colonial-style house, the pilot's brother, Jim, and a friend struggled to lower a military-size flag. They also put up an 8-by-10 portrait of John, a boyish 50-year-old, sandy haired, smiling, his face reddened from farm work.

His wife, Margaret, an American Airlines flight attendant, and his three daughters, Laura, 16, Caroline, 14, and Mary Catherine, 11, stayed inside the house all afternoon.

Jim Ogonowski came out to the fieldstone fence and spoke to reporters gathered there.

"Take a good look at the beauty around you; that's John's legacy," he said, spreading his arms to take in the 150-acre farm. He explained how his brother had spent his life working to preserve this patch of farmland in a town that was quickly turning suburban.

"I keep looking at the cornfields behind me, hoping my brother will come walking out," he said.

Several friends came walking up the road to visit the family.

"I used to tell him: You'd never catch me flying," said Mitchell Pietryka, who did part-time work for him. "He'd tell me, 'It's the safest thing in the world.' "

In Portsmouth, two pastors were with McGuinness's wife, Cheryl, when she was notified about her husband's death. She and her two children, a 14-year-old son and a 16-year-old daughter, survived him.

More than 800 people, including several pilots who lived in the area, attended a special prayer service at Bethany Church in Greenland, N.H., where McGuinness was a longtime member. "He was a man of God, a loving husband and father," said Rick Dekoven, an administrator at the church.

Rosin reported from Washington, Ferdinand from Boston.