Woman's life, job changed by the attacks

Sherrie Peif, (Bio) speif@windsortribune.com
September 11, 2006

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Tammie Ingino never thought it was possible.

Every time the 16-year American Airlines veteran went to work as a flight attendant before Sept. 11, 2001, one of the last things on her mind was the way terrorists could change her life forever.

Sure, Ingino had been through all the training classes, seen the safety videos and learned the proper ways to treat terrorists. Still, Sept. 11 shocked her.

"You just don't think it will ever happen to you," she said. "And for sure, no one ever thought they would do it the way they did."

Twenty-five of Ingino's co-workers were taking off on flights from the East Coast, Ingino, 37, was asleep in Las Vegas, laid over from another flight.

But it proved to be a short sleep. At 5:45 a.m. Las Vegas time, a coworker called to tell Ingino to turn on the television in her hotel room.

"At that time, all I could think of was it had to be a terrible mistake -- a terrible accident," she said. "I wanted to believe it was an accident."

Ingino, who lives in Greeley with her husband and son, knows she could have been on one of those flights. Some of her friends were.

She'd flown that route many times. It was a preferred route among the senior staff.

"I just wanted to get home. I wanted to know who did it. I wanted to know how many planes were still in the air. There was so much happening," she said through tears. "My phone was going crazy with people wanting to know where I was. That day was just too surreal."

Ingino could have gone home. Many did. But she couldn't. She felt an obligation to stay and work. She wanted to help get passengers stranded by flight bans home. But mostly, she wanted to get right back up in the air to show passengers she trusted American Airlines and flying again.

Five days passed before Ingino saw her family again.

"I didn't want them to win," she said of the terrorists and why she didn't leave Las Vegas.

Two weeks later, Ingino made her first trip back to New York. She spent several hours helping clean up the thousands of stuffed animals, pictures and other memorial items left at the World Trade Center site. She lit candles at the church across the street. And she kept returning -- sometimes three or four times a month.

She doesn't talk much about the events that happened that day. Instead, she sheds a silent tear as she watches the war in Iraq, tours the local fire station with her son's elementary school class or hears one more story of a child who lost his parents in the attack.

A friend and former roommate, Karen Martin, was working Flight 11, which flew into the north tower. More friends, Jennifer and Ken Lewis, were working Flight 77, which flew into the Pentagon.

She knows first hand there is nothing that could have prepared them any differently.

"We've all been through the mock hijackings," she said. "American's training has always been amazing. No crew could have done any different."

She thinks about Madeline Sweeney, the flight attendant who hid in the lavatory of Flight 11 while she called American Airlines to give information on the hijackers.

And she thinks about her own son. He was only 4 in 2001. She was truthful with him about the attack because she never wanted him to be scared of her profession. She wanted him to understand that bad people created Sept. 11.

And only one time has she thought about quitting -- five months after.

"My son came to me and said, 'Mom, I just wanted to tell you I'm glad you weren't on those planes.'" she said wiping away more tears. "Oh, wow. That was the hardest thing to hear as a mom. So that day -- yeah, I thought about it."

But she didn't and today, Hayden's OK with that.

Ingino has never been afraid of flying -- she still isn't, but she is afraid of people forgetting.

"I hope that day will generate in-depth discussions in schools and in the community," she wrote in a letter expressing feelings she had a hard time discussing. "I hope as a result of such devastating events on our own soil, people will want to change our world by helping others. We stand for freedom and we cannot let terrorists of any kind take that from us. We must look ahead, not live in fear. And never forget those heroes that have fallen for this country."

Tammie Ingino never thought it was possible. But now, every time the 16-year American Airlines flight attendant steps on a plane to go to work, the terror plot that changed her life forever is the first thing that comes to mind.