Boeing workers take plane crash attacks personally
Published 9:00 pm Monday, September 10, 2001
By Bryan Corliss
Herald Writer
The jets may have crashed on the East Coast, but the explosions from Tuesday terrorist attacks on echoed in the hearts of aerospace workers around Puget Sound.
"It’s just sickening to think of something that large smacking into a building," said Boeing Co. engineer Michael Hoag. "It’s closer for an aerospace guy. When you’re closer to the design, and you realize the size and the amount of damage it will do … just the amount of fuel on board an airplane like that."
The fact that Boeing planes — assembled in Everett and Renton —were involved doesn’t make horrible feelings any worse, Boeing employees said.
"It can’t be any worse," said David Swain, the Boeing Co.’s senior vice president and chief technology officer. He spoke as chairman of the international Aerospace Congress and Exhibition, which is being held in Seattle this week.
But it is a heartfelt blow, he added. Boeing workers have dedicated their lives to building planes to defend the United States and to tie the world’s people together. The terrorist attacks struck at both missions.
"That part’s really personal," Swain said.
As he spoke, a television in the background showed slow-motion video of the second Boeing-built plane striking the World Trade Center. Swain turned to watch, but looked away before the collision.
The first shift was already on the job at Boeing’s Everett factory when the 767s that are built there crashed in New York.
Somebody heard the news on their radio, said machinist Tony Perry, who works on 767s. Then "everybody went running over to their computers" to get more news from the Internet.
Boeing officials considered closing the factory, but about 9:30 a.m. they sent out e-mail saying work would continue as usual — not that there was much work going on.
"You’ve got every computer on in the world here, and all the TVs and radios," Perry said.
The news was a shock, Perry said. "A lot of people are devastated."
Boeing did close its new corporate headquarters in Chicago and its offices in Washington, D.C.
Puget Sound operations continued under tightened security.
Boeing jets, including newly painted 757s and 767s in United and American airlines colors, glistened in the sun Tuesday at Paine Field, which was shut down.
Boeing had scheduled a number of test flights for those planes and others, airport director David Waggoner said. Those were all canceled when the Federal Aviation Administration shut down the skies over America.
At midday today, the FAA announced that the national airspace will be closed until 9 a.m. Wednesday.
No planes were diverted to Paine Field when the FAA order came, Waggoner said. A little bit of work continued around the field as Boeing engineers conducted ground tests on the engines of a 777 being readied for Singapore Airlines.
The plane is ready to take its first flight, Waggoner said, but "its first flight won’t happen today."
The mood at the airport and elsewhere was "somber" and "sorrowful," Waggoner said. "People don’t want to say hi."
Swain and other officials decided to cancel today’s events at the Aerospace Congress, urging those in attendance to follow the news and contact their loved ones.
After, Hoag and colleague Wayne Bowles sat somberly with other conference-goers for a bus to take them back to their offices at Boeing Field.
Bowles said it has made him think twice about a plane trip he’d planned for this week.
"I have faith in our product," he said. But even if air service is back to normal by then, the hijackings "make you think about just flying itself."
"There’s been a travesty in New York, an attack in Washington, D.C.," said Swain, as he announced today’s events at the conference had been canceled. "This is a day that will be remembered in history, a day that will be imprinted on my conscience."
You can call Herald Writer Bryan Corliss at 425-339-3454
or send e-mail to corliss@heraldnet.com.
