At 8:20 a.m. on September 11, 2001, Betty Ann Ong spoke quietly on an Airfone from the back of American Airlines Flight 11.
Calm and enterprising, he told the ground employees: “The cabin does not respond. Someone stabbed me in business class and I think there’s a mace … I think they kidnapped us. “
Betty, 45, had asked to take an extra turn on Flight 11, bound for Los Angeles, departing from Logan Airport in Boston, so she could join her sister Cathie for a vacation in Hawaii. But 14 minutes after takeoff, the hijacked plane made a U-turn and headed for New York City.
Thanks to Betty’s furtive phone call, the world knows that the terrorists critically injured flight attendants Karen Martin and Bobbi Arestegui, who cut the throat of business-class passenger Daniel Lewin and “made their way” to the cabin, where co-pilots were probably killed. John Ogonowski and Thomas McGuinness Jr.
We also know that they sprayed mace (which was forbidden on flights) and that passengers crowded the bus to escape the toxic fumes as the plane flew erratically toward the New York skyline.
Authorities were able to quickly identify the five kidnappers because Betty and co-worker Madeline Sweeney transmitted the men’s seat numbers.
Ong’s last words: “Pray for us. Pray for us. “Flight 11 crashed into the north tower of the World Trade Center at 8:46 a.m.
Many of the 25 flight attendants killed on 9/11 showed enormous courage. But the contribution of Betty, an American Chinese, shines even brighter 20 years later, amid an increase in hate crimes against Asian Americans.
“My sister gave her life for her country on September 11,” Cathie Ong-Herrera, one of Betty’s two older sisters, told The Post, “and it’s very painful to think about what’s going on today. “.
Betty, whose mother emigrated from China, was born in San Francisco and was the youngest of four siblings.
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With her slender figure and pretty face, she once posed to Betty about modeling, but her mother ruffled it. Instead, the 22-year-old then moved into her parents’ beef factory, where the signs of her steely nerves arose.
“One day the store was maintained,” Cathie said. “Betty was in front and had a gun to her head. My mother said she never panicked. All he said was, “Dad, they’re stealing from us.”
They handed over the money and the thieves left. “He never shook her.”
Nearly a decade later, in 1987, Betty was driving in U.S. 101, south of San Francisco, when she saw a Honda being cut by a fast pickup truck and turning twice.
Betty and another motorist immediately approached to help them. I know you! “” I Ellen Chew, the Honda rider, remembered what Betty told her. It turned out the two had met a month earlier at a local bowling alley.
“Courage, kindness, compassion,” Chew told The Post of Betty. “Most people would just pass by. But to stop and run towards me? A miracle! ”
Betty had wanted to travel since she was little (sometimes she would hang out at San Francisco International Airport just to see how the planes took off), but her parents were always too busy working. As a flight attendant, he was able to take his sisters to places such as China, Japan, Hawaii, Canada, and England.
“Betty often flew nonstop to San Francisco to see her family,” said Michelle Brawley Ferragamo, a co-worker. The rest of the crew may mention dinner plans, but Betty would say, “Have fun, I’m going home.”
On September 11, 2001, when the first plane flying to the World Trade Center was unveiled, Betty’s brothers desperately tried to get there. At first, airline staff assured them he was not on flight 11.
But then the family heard about a brave assistant who had provided information from the plane. “I said to myself,‘ This must be Betty, ’Cathie recalled.
Two weeks later they learned more about Betty’s heroism at her memorial, where Chew, the conductor she had helped, sang Whitney Houston’s “Hero.”
A woman introduced herself to Cathie as Nydia Gonzalez, an American Airlines employee. “I am the person who spoke to your sister [from the ground]”He told Cathie.
“You have to be very proud of your sister. He provided a lot of information with a lot of peace of mind.
That’s when the Ong family learned of a recording of Betty’s conversation with the American Airlines ground crew.
When asked to hear it, Cathie said, the airline said the FBI would not allow it.
“I was angry,” Cathie said. “We wanted to know the truth of what happened to our sister.”
A call to Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy yielded results, he recalled. “The next day, American Airlines called me and asked, ‘When and where do you want to listen to Betty’s tape?'”
The family listened in dismay as the recording revealed that the ground crew did not immediately grasp the severity of Betty’s call and continued to ask the same questions, wasting precious time. Even though the call was driving her crazy, the family is glad they caught her on a tape.
“I am so grateful that we can get to know the last minutes of Betty’s life,” Sister Gloria Ong said.
In 2004, the Ong family created a foundation in honor of Betty. It funds summer camps for children and social programs for seniors at the Betty Ann Ong Chinese Recreation Center in San Francisco.
“We continue to keep his legacy alive by the work we are doing,” Cathie said. “We want to reflect who Betty was.”