Last Plane in the Sky on 9-11

 

Michelle flew the last civilian plane on 9-11

For the 25th anniversary of the 9-11 attacks, I present this chapter from my book Broadcasters: Untold Chaos

Where were you during the 9-11 terrorist attacks?  Anyone old enough to remember will have an immediate answer.  As News Director for WOI Radio, I was in the Des Moines bureau helping a colleague prepare for a live broadcast.  I was also packed and ready to fly to Nashville the next day to receive a national journalism award.  For a woman from Manhattan, Kansas, it was a fine morning for flying.  Michele Stauffer, the owner of Kansas Aircraft Corporation, was ferrying a small plane from Wyoming, to Kansas, where her company is headquartered at New Century Air Center near Olathe.  She was an innocent bystander who almost became the last casualty of that day’s terrorist attacks, in a dramatic, chance meeting with another female aviator over Nebraska.   

We all have memorized President Bush’s expression of disbelief when he was kept informed of the ongoing terrorist attack as he read to grade school kids in Sarasota, Florida.  It was an agonizing moment in television history.  At about that time, Michele was settling in for a long flight from Afton, in western Wyoming, to a stopover in Omaha.  She bought and sold aircraft, and had acquired a Cessna Turbo-210 that she was flying back to her company.  I just happened to stumble across her extraordinary story through blind luck.  I was doing research for a radio project on the first anniversary of 9-11, when I heard about the incident involving Michele.  She invited me down to her office to record her memories first hand. 

As Americans watched the fast developing terrorism story on TV, Michele cruised in ideal conditions, “severe clear” as she calls it.  She was flying with Travis Fordham, a young pilot who just started to work for her.  As they were leaving, Travis thought he’d heard another aircraft being called in for a landing.  Michele reached up and turned off the radio.  Due to the perfect conditions and light traffic, they were flying by VFR, Visual Fight Rules.  Travis was at the controls and Michele wanted peace and quiet so she could do some paperwork.  Meanwhile, the rest of America was reeling from the worst attack on our homeland since Pearl Harbor. 

Iowa F16s Scramble

In Sioux City, National Air Guard pilots in Iowa’s 185^th Fighter Wing were watching the coverage on TV like most of us.  “We were sitting around for probably 15 minutes after it happened, glued to the TV, just really in shock,” according to Major Brian Miller.  The squadron already had a colorful past, nicknamed the “Bats” for conducting night missions in Vietnam.  Long before 2001, actor Jimmy Stewart learned how to fly bombers at the Sioux City airbase.  History has a way of finding this remote facility.  On 9-11, commanders of the unit were at a conference in Washington, so officers, like Maj. Miller, were suddenly in charge. Then there was an urgent call over a secure phone system.  “It was the North American Air Defense,” said Miller, “A General called and wanted to know how long it would take us to get planes in the air.”  Air Force One was leaving Florida, and no one knew how long the attacks would persist.  Security officials were looking for a safe haven, including Sioux City, to bring President Bush and his entourage.  That’s when pilot Scott Plambeck realized America was at war. “So let’s break the seals on the munitions and let’s go,” said Plambeck, “and within 15 minutes I think, we had our first missile on board the airplane.”  Miller called a quick pilots briefing and one of the young officers was Bobbi Doorenbos, a local girl, who was among the very first women in the country to fly F16s.  “You know,” Miller told the pilots, “in light of what’s happening, there is some chance we’re going to be asked to shoot an airliner down today. That’s going to be a very tough decision you’re going to have to make.”  An advance White House security team landed in Sioux City to assess facilities there for an urgent visit by the Commander in Chief, and Maj. Miller felt certain that President Bush would be showing up at the 185^th. “Sioux City has hosted the president before,” he told me, “being first with the Iowa caucuses we’re used to having a lot of presidentials and their types come through here, but not under those circumstances.” 

Air Force One left Florida and initially was returning to Washington.  “I felt the plane bank,” President Bush recalled in a 10^th anniversary program on National Geographic TV.  With the Pentagon ablaze, Bush said, “The Secret Service felt it was irresponsible heading into a city that had just been attacked.”  Instead, the Commander in Chief was diverted to Barksdale Air Force Base in Shreveport, Louisiana.  The President stayed long enough to record a brief statement to the nation that was broadcast later: “Freedom itself was attacked this morning by a faceless coward, and freedom will be defended.”  Air Force One’s next destination would not be Iowa, but rather, the Strategic Air Command at nearby Offutt Air Base in Omaha.  Iowa F16s had already been clearing the sky over Omaha, as part of the nationwide closure of air space to civilian access.  In President Bush’s personal diary for National Geographic, he said, “The first decision I made on Air Force One was to give our Air Force orders to shoot down aircraft that did not respond to orders to land.  This is what war was like in the 21st century.”

Meanwhile, Michele Stauffer was cruising above the suspense as it was unfolding on the ground below.  “I’m kind of old school,” Michele told me. “I’d been flying for 30 years and I don’t enjoy all the chatter on the radios.” So, Michele and Travis were oblivious to the pain and fear 13,500 feet below, as the country was staggered by multiple attacks and bracing for another possible strike.  The Federal Aviation Administration ordered every non-military plane to land ASAP.  By 9 a.m. Iowa time, the entire country had become a “no fly” zone so that any remaining hijacked planes could be identified and dealt with.  Soon, only birds were in the sky and civilian air travel was thrown back to the days of the Wright Brothers, except for Michele and her rookie pilot.  Nearing the halfway point of their flight to Omaha, bathing in sunshine and solitude, the squawking avionics remained turned off.  Michele and Travis may have been the final two Americans still in flight who thought that Sept. 11^th was an immaculate, glorious, day.         

Iowa Air Guard Intercept

Across the country, military jets were flying over major metropolitan areas and the Sioux City pilots were now providing close air patrol over Omaha and the adjacent Offutt Air Force Base.  It was a mission that would extend the Iowa fighter wing’s proud history.  The 185^th had been called into action repeatedly, most recently to enforce the “no fly” zones in Iraq.  Twelve years before 9-11, the squadron suddenly became a rescue unit, when United Flight # 232 crashed on farmland a quarter-mile from the flight line.  Airmen helped pull passengers from the wreckage in a cornfield, and guided others to safety after they’d walked away from the crash and had become lost in the tall corn.  Although 111 people died, there were 184 survivors.

President Bush was mistaken when he told National Geographic producers, “It dawned on me that we were the only other (civilian) aircraft left.”  There was also that curious, private plane navigating over the Midwest.  A quick check of the suspicious Cessna would have raised a warning flag.  Most concerning, the aircraft was ignoring calls.   Furthermore, it was only recently purchased, and was still registered in a Middle Eastern sounding name.  It also was equipped with Flint tip-tanks, add-on reservoirs for the long flight from Wyoming to Omaha that provided an extra 30 gallons of fuel.  Add it all up; no response, Mideast connection, sensitive location, and extra fuel and it was a real-time threat, resembling the commandeered airliners that crashed into the World Trade Center, Pentagon, and Pennsylvania.  Now over Cambridge, Nebraska and approaching the busy Omaha air corridor near President Bush’s destination, the diminutive Michele Stauffer began to re-establish contact.  More than 3 hours after all aircraft were ordered to land, Michele finally tried to make contact with Epply Airport in Omaha but got strange recordings that it was, “closed indefinitely.” This was about the time Air Force One was leaving Barksdale for Offutt.  Michele was confused, “I’d never heard anything like this and thought there must be a military exercise.”  She contacted “Center,” the regional hub for air traffic control.  Michele told me, “Here I am, still in the air after 4 hours, but in the same air space as Air Force One?  When I called Center, they seemed panicked in their voice, and they said, ‘We’ve opened Fremont (Nebraska) for you, you need to descend rapidly and land immediately.’  Major Kurt Kindschuh was startled by the radio traffic, “a lot of people were saying ‘hey, we got this airplane out to the west, it’s pointed right at Omaha, we need you guys to do something.” 

Bobbi Doorenbos was already airborne, along with pilot Mike Jones.  They were ordered to intercept the unresponsive aircraft, but because they were among the first F16s up, they were only armed with dummy rounds.  Bobbi said she and Mike located the Cessna and held a “wheel” pattern above it for a good 10 minutes.  “I didn’t see it as a threat.  Maybe they hadn’t got the word or the radio was out,” Bobbi thought at first.  Although her instincts were correct, the craft was still considered aggressive and in violation of the no-fly restrictions.  It needed to be dealt with. 

Michele took the controls and couldn’t imagine that they’d schedule an air show on Tuesday.  The Cessna 6-seater she was piloting was a “high wing aircraft,” meaning the wing was above her and she had no overhead vision and couldn’t see the fighter jets.  But she sensed something was very wrong.  “I’m coming down as fast as I can, without pretty much ripping your ears off, and then she (air traffic controller) comes back and she says, ‘We need you on the ground immediately, we have two special F16s descending on you.’  With the fighter jets circling overhead, Michele landed safely.  “My knees crumpled when I was finally told of the terrorist attacks.”  That was her moment of trepidation, when she thought of her family, like other Americans had done more than 4 hours earlier.  “If the thought I had of turning and going to Kansas City, if I’d have done that, I think they’d have shot me down in an instant.  Had I been one of those pilots of an F16, I’d have probably done the same thing if I thought an airplane was going to resist.” 

For the 10^th anniversary of that day, I re-connected with many of the pilots who were airborne on 9-11.  Bobbi Doorenbos had been promoted to the staff of the Vice President, serving as Special Advisor for Defense and Intelligence.  Looking back at 2001, she told me the incident with the Cessna was the only time she’s ever intercepted an aircraft in a real life situation.  Since she was unarmed, Bobbi said that ramming Michele with her F16 would have been the only recourse to take out the plane.  “We aren’t trained for that,” she admitted, “but that was the only option available.”  One of her most vivid memories was being told, “You are clear to do what is necessary.” 

The “Top Guns” of Sioux City still had another mission that day.  Major Kindschuh told me, “I never thought, driving through the cornfields of the Midwest that morning, that I’d actually be talking to the pilot of Air Force One.” About an hour after Michele landed, Kindschuh watched as the Commander in Chief arrived at Offutt.  Once President Bush was on the ground and waiting out the attack, the Iowa fighters continued to fly air cover, in vast, sweeping patterns that extended over Iowa and Nebraska.  About ten F16s flew that day, two at a time, providing continuous protection, armed with 20 mm cannon and Sidewinder air-to-air missiles.  The sorties lasted several hours each, sometimes requiring mid-air refueling.  After her encounter with the Cessna, Bobbi Doorenbos landed, was finally armed with missiles and live ammo, and flew a second sortie.  For the 10^th anniversary of 9-11, Bobbie told me, “I couldn’t believe I was flying over Iowa with live weapons and the possible need to use them.  It was such a sad moment.  Very sad.”   

As the “Fighting Falcons” circled over Offutt’s underground bunker, President Bush called a videoconference of his National Security Council.  It was during this Omaha stop when the first indication of al Qaeda involvement surfaced.  Despite objections from “just about everyone,” the President said he wanted 9-11 to end with a speech to show the government was functioning and he wanted to deliver it from the Oval Office.  “I damn sure wasn’t going to give it from a bunker in Nebraska.”  He thought the image of a cowering president would give the enemy a psychological victory.     

As Air Force One departed Offutt and flew across Iowa, two Sioux City F16s escorted the President part way home to the nation’s capital.  One of them was Lt. Tyson Herbold, a rookie who just graduated from flight training school.  “Tactically speaking, we wanted to be higher and behind him so we could sweep out in front, in case another aircraft was out in front of him.”  The other F16 escort was Kurt Kindschuh. “We would have been able to provide any offensive support that would have been needed but no, we did not flight right off his wingtip like you see in some of the pictures.”  A year after the 9-11 incident, Operations Commander, Lt. Col. Gary Cranmer, told me, that in the interview process for new pilots, they ask the candidates if they could shoot down an airliner, “Can you go kill somebody?  And a lot of them don’t think about the process, but that’s the job we’re trained to do…that’s the job NORAD tasked us to do that day.”

For the 2011 anniversary, I wanted to follow up with Michele.  She was still running Kansas Aircraft and Travis, her co-pilot on 9-11, was flying for an airline.  Michele was experiencing occasional flashbacks about that day, and how close she was to being taken out.  If she had decided to over fly Omaha and continue on to Kansas City, either Bobbi would have rammed her or an armed F16 could have been on the scene in minutes to shoot her down.  “When I look at pictures from the 9-11 Memorial,” she told me, “or when I see certain things or when I’m flying, it will make me think of that day.  I was very blessed.”  Raised as a Catholic, Michele said, “I believe in a master plan and that things happen for a reason.  I try not to out fly my guardian angles.” 

As we talked about the fragility of life, Michele shared a devastating story about a former customer.  She had become friends with the late Christopher Reeve, the best actor to play Superman on the big screen, and his wife Dana.  He purchased an airplane from Kansas Aircraft to peruse his interest in flying and Michele delivered it to White Plains Airport in New York, where she met the couple.  “One day,” Michele recalled, “Christopher said, ‘Dana worries about me flying and told me to sell the plane.’  Chris said he was going to put the money into horses.”  It was in 1995 when Reeve was thrown by his horse and became a quadriplegic.  He died in 2004, at the age of 52.     

Sept. 11^th ended with mostly vacant skies.  Because of the nationwide air traffic shut down, Michelle Stauffer drove home from Nebraska in a rental car and my awards ceremony in Nashville was cancelled.  “Sometimes, over a glass of wine, I’ll be asked to recite my 9-11 story,” she said, but in the decade since that harrowing day, Michelle has never heard of another civilian pilot who was in the air longer than she was.  As for the 185^th Fighter Wing, the Iowa Legislature honored the unit for meritorious service.  For the first anniversary of the attacks, I requested an interview with President Bush and suggested the White House create a special citation for the Sioux City Air Guard.  There were so many other heroes on 9-11 that nothing ever materialized.  In a final twist of fate, the squadron’s F16 fighters were de-activated two years after their historic mission and the 185th has been flying refueling tankers ever since, often ‘topping off’ jet fighters in the continuing war against terrorism spanning the Middle East.