And at the time when the plane crashed, they had announced over the radio that United Airlines Flight 93 had just crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, and a guy put his hand on my shoulder and said, “Lisa, you can release the line now. And people in the company started gathering around me in the call center because they knew I was on the phone with one of the planes that was being hijacked. We both just talked about them landing their plane safely, he gave me personal information regarding him and his family. I just could not believe that that plane had crashed because we never gave up hope. It seemed like you had to be taken off the phone. I never lost connection, but it just went silent. It’s a squealing sound when you lose a connection. We didn’t lose a connection because there’s a different sound that you use. I held on until after the plane crashed-probably about 15 minutes longer and I never heard a crash-it just went silent because-I can’t explain it.

And I was still on the line and the plane took a dive and by then, it just went silent. What happened after he said what actually turned out to be his last words, which were, “Let’s roll'?Īfter he said, “Let’s roll,” he left the phone and I would assume that’s at the point that they went to charge the cockpit. You know, it was just something in God’s hands that he had a plan. At that point, I knew that his wife’s name was Lisa and when I told him my name was Lisa also, he said, “Oh, my God.” He couldn’t believe it.Īnd at Verizon Airfone, when we went to call the authorities and the FBI to report this to the emergency center, the emergency operator’s name was also named Lisa. That’s my wife’s name.” And at that point, I knew we held the same name and I just-it was just so many coincidences that we had.

And then I said, “Yes?” And he said, “Oh, I’m sorry. Jefferson, but when the plane took a dive and he thought they were going down, he hollered, Lisa! And I had a look on my face like, how’d he know my first name? I’m sure I answered as Mrs. And like I said, when I took the call over, I introduced myself as Mrs. When did you realize that you and Todd’s wife had the same first name? It’s remarkable that you had the presence of mind to be able to pray with Todd.Ī lot of people told me that they wouldn’t have been able to do it, but I guess, God just works in mysterious ways, and I can only say that’s why he used me because I made myself available to him. His wife called me a pillar of strength and told me that she was glad that I was the one to take the call and to be on the other end and to be there for her husband. I know it brought his family a lot of comfort. One of the most moving things that most people learned about this was when you prayed the Lord’s Prayer with Todd. He was calling out my name and I didn’t want to lose his call. At one point, he thought I had left the phone. I could hear the commotion in the background and after we continued to talk, I’m thinking to myself, this is for real. And everything he was telling me was adding up. We have monitors that let us know if they are in flight or on the ground and what airline and flight information. I could just not believe this was actually happening. He made me doubt the severity of the call. But he stayed calm through the entire conversation. He got a little scared when the plane took a dive. But he was calm through the entire conversation, and I tried to stay just as calm with him. And he asked me if I knew what they wanted-was it ransom money or what. Jefferson and I understand your plane is being hijacked. When he told me his plane was being hijacked-when I took the call over, I said my name was Mrs.

Well, you know, Todd, when he came to me, he was calm. She was just dazed.Īnd so I actually lifted her up out of her seat and put her in the seat next to me, and I put her headset on and took her call over. And by the time I came back, she appeared to be traumatized, and that’s when I told her I would take the call over…I was asking her additional information and she wasn’t answering me. I asked her information that I needed to report to our surveillance center. She called me over to her station and told me that she had a gentleman on her line and his plane was being hijacked. As I stepped out of my office, I probably took six steps, and then I was stopped by a representative that received the actual phone call from Todd in flight. You know, it sounded like it was meant for a purpose. And I said, “Two planes?” I said to myself, that didn’t sound like a mistake. I was the supervisor over the call center in Oakbrook, Illinois, for Verizon Airfone, and someone had just come into the call center and asked me if I heard about the two planes that had just crashed into the World Trade Center and at that point, I told her no. How did you happen to be the one to take the call from Todd Beamer on 9/11?

Todd beamer recording audio