Friday’s Cut Sheet turns to college students being asked who attacked America on 9/11, and their answers send us into a pointed discussion about schools, parents and basic history education. The final stretch of the hour is built around voices from the attacks. We play Betty Ong’s Flight 11 call, where her calm delivery gives ground personnel crucial details about the hijacking, and then Brian Sweeney’s final voicemail to his wife from Flight 175. We talk about the composure inside those calls, the love directed toward family in the face of death and the responsibility to pass these accounts to people who were not alive in 2001.
We start the 8 AM hour with the shutdown of American airspace and then turn to Flight 93. Lisa Jefferson recounts her call with Todd Beamer, including their prayer and the moment passengers prepare to fight back. We trace the actions of Beamer, Jeremy Glick, Mark Bingham and Tom Burnett, then hear from Kenny Nacke about his brother Louis J. Nacke II and the 40 passengers and crew whose revolt prevents an even larger attack in Washington.
The Flight 93 discussion continues with the traffic stop involving hijacker Ziad Jarrah two days before the attacks and the still-unresolved prosecution of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. From there, Kevin Killian joins us to describe being inside Verizon’s New York office as the attacks unfold and returning the next day to help restore communications. His work leads him into a damaged building to recover backup equipment tied to systems supporting the stock exchange, and he later witnesses George W. Bush’s Ground Zero bullhorn remarks in person.
We then replay the second-plane strike through historical coverage before Robert Hahn tells us what it was like to be aboard a Philadelphia flight ordered down in Kansas City. He describes the confusion inside the airport, police screening, a sealed Fort Leavenworth and days spent waiting for air travel to resume. Hahn also explains how that experience later helps him stay steady during military deployments, while the eerie silence of skies with no aircraft remains one of the strongest images from his account.
Sep 11, 2026
