[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 112 (Monday, September 9, 2002)]
[House]
[Pages H6091-H6093]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
RECOGNIZING THE HEROISM AND COURAGE DISPLAYED BY AIRLINE FLIGHT
ATTENDANTS EACH DAY
Mr. PETRI. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and agree to the
concurrent resolution (H. Con. Res. 401) recognizing the heroism and
courage displayed by airline flight attendants each day, as amended.
The Clerk read as follows:
H. Con. Res. 401
Whereas over 100,000 men and women serve as airline flight
attendants in the United States;
Whereas flight attendants dedicate themselves to serving
and protecting their passengers;
Whereas flight attendants are responsible for customer
service aboard an aircraft;
Whereas flight attendants react to dangerous situations as
the first line of defense of airline passengers;
Whereas safety and security are a flight attendant's
primary concerns;
Whereas flight attendants evacuate aircraft in emergency
situations;
Whereas flight attendants defend passengers against
hijackers, terrorists, and abusive passengers;
Whereas flight attendants handle in-flight medical
emergencies;
Whereas flight attendants perform routine safety and
service duties on board an aircraft;
Whereas 25 flight attendants lost their lives aboard 4
hijacked flights on September 11, 2001;
Whereas 5 flight attendants helped prevent United Airlines
Flight 93 from reaching its intended target on September 11,
2001;
Whereas flight attendants provided assistance to passengers
across the United States who had their flights diverted on
September 11, 2001;
Whereas on December 22, 2001, flight attendants helped
subdue attempted shoe bomber, Richard Reid, who attempted to
kill all 185 passengers and 12 crew members on board American
Airlines Flight 63; and
Whereas on February 7, 2002, flight attendants helped
prevent Pablov Moreira, a Uruguayan citizen, from breaking
into the cockpit during United Airlines Flight 855 from Miami
to Buenos Aires: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate
concurring), That Congress--
(1) expresses profound gratitude to airline flight
attendants for their daily service to make air travel safe;
(2) honors the courage and dedication of flight attendants;
(3) expresses support for the flight attendants who
displayed heroism on September 11, 2001, and to all flight
attendants who continue to display heroism each day; and
(4) directs the Clerk of the House of Representatives to
send a copy of this resolution to a family member of each of
the flight attendants killed on September 11, 2001.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from
Wisconsin (Mr. Petri) and the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Cummings)
each will control 20 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Petri).
Mr. PETRI. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of House Concurrent
Resolution 401, honoring the over 100,000 men and women who serve as
flight attendants. As we near the final anniversary of the September 11
attacks, I think it is appropriate that we stop to recognize these
everyday heroes.
America's flight attendants dedicated their lives to ensuring the
safety and the security of their passengers. There are over 20,000
commercial airline flights each day, and on these flights, flight
attendants put the well-being of each of their passengers ahead of
their own. They are the first responders to all emergencies in the
cabin of an aircraft. They provide in-flight medical assistance to
passengers in need. They may be the only line of defense should
terrorists once again attempt to take control of an airplane.
It was the flight attendants who subdued attempted shoe-bomber
Richard Reid aboard American Flight 63 last September. Last year, 23
flight attendants lost their lives aboard the four hijacked flights on
September 11. In recognition of their important role, the House
overwhelmingly passed legislation that would significantly increase
self-defense and situational training to aid flight attendants in the
case of another terrorist hijacking.
I would like to express my profound gratitude for all airline flight
attendants for their daily service to make air travel safe and secure,
and urge the passage of this resolution.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I, too, want to commend the subcommittee chairman, the
gentleman from Florida (Mr. Mica), and the ranking member, the
gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Lipinski), for their action on House
Concurrent Resolution 401 that recognizes the largely unsung heroism
that airline flight attendants display on a daily basis.
On September 11 of last year, 25 flight attendants lost their lives
as a result of terrorist attacks. When they left their homes and loved
ones that morning, I am sure that none of them knew what tragic events
would unfold before the day's end, and what role they would play in it.
Five flight attendants working on United Airlines Flight No. 93 helped
prevent hijackers from reaching their intended target of Washington,
D.C. I am sure that many of us have to give credit to them for perhaps
saving our lives.
Everyday a workforce of 100,000 flight attendants make it their
mission to ensure the safety of passengers that rely on them. In the
war on terrorism, they can be compared to ground soldiers. They are our
front line of defense. Not only did flight attendants display acts of
heroism on September 11, but they also have repeatedly reacted
courageously to thwart acts of terrorism on American aircraft.
Mr. Speaker, it is an honor to acknowledge the heroism and bravery of
flight attendants. After September 11, when many were afraid to return
to the air, these courageous workers devotedly returned to their jobs.
I admire their sense of dedication and professional attitude. I urge my
colleagues to support this very, very appropriate resolution.
Mr. RAHALL. Mr. Speaker, on behalf of West Virginians and Americans
as a whole, I want to express our deep appreciation for the flight
attendants who provide outstanding service while ensuring public safety
for thousands of Americans on a daily basis. In addition, I want to
commend our Nation's flight attendants for their acts of heroism. A
considerable number of them demonstrated their great courage during the
September 11th attacks that occurred almost exactly one year ago today.
It should not be overlooked that in the days, weeks, and months
following that terrible day, America's flight attendants bravely
resumed their duties serving our flying public. This contribution aided
the almost immediate restoration of air service, and it provides a
profound demonstration of this country's refusal to let the terrorists
win. Our flight attendants, and by extension, all of us would not allow
a few evildoers to destroy our daily activities and our unique way of
life.
As we approach the anniversary of September 11th, we must remember
the contributions of this group of individuals who have so ably
demonstrated their importance to this country and to its citizens. They
stand as an example for the brave efforts of all hardworking Americans
as we cope with the events and the aftermath of that infamous day.
Mr. SIMMONS. Mr. Speaker, a great many things changed on September
11, 2001. Among them, Americans began thinking differently about air
travel, and we all gained a greater respect for those who are pledged
to guarantee our safety as we fly.
For its part, Congress has moved to make air travel safer, and I have
not doubt we will do more. But one of the main lines of defense against
events in the air rests with the pilots and flight crews.
The professionalism, courage and common sense exhibited by these
individuals is clearly exemplified in the actions of Madeline Amy Todd
Sweeney, who was a flight attend aboard American Airlines Flight 11 on
September 11. That was the first aircraft to crash into the World Trade
Center.
Showing courage under pressure, Amy was one of the first individuals
to use a cell phone and notify the world of the hijackings that were
underway. Her last acts of bravery were critically important in
identifying and exposing those terrorists who threatened our lives, our
country and our values.
Ms. Sweeney is a true American hero. She was many things to many
wonderful people, a
[[Page H6092]]
faithful wife, a loving mother, and a devoted daughter. But she will be
remembered by most Americans for her extraordinary heroism and devotion
to duty on a fateful day.
Consider this--those who hijacked American Airlines Flight 11, had
years of training and preparation for their terrible mission. They had
plenty of time to consider what they were going to do. But for Amy, the
decisions of a lifetime were compressed into a few terrible minutes.
Yet she responded with tremendous courage, calmness and common sense.
She did her duty in the face of death. And at the last moment, she
called out to God for salvation.
I had the honor earlier this year to attend a ceremony in
Massachusetts where she became the first individual to be awarded the
``Madeline Amy Todd Sweeney Award for Civilian Bravery.'' It is in
recognition of Amy Todd Sweeney's heroism and courageous spirit that
this award was created.
Future recipients--awarded annually on the anniversary of her death--
must demonstrate exceptional bravery, without regard for personal
safety, in an effort to save the life or lives of another or others in
actual or imminent danger. It is a fitting tribute to her conduct that
this award has been established. There can be little doubt that many
people are alive today because of her quick thinking and her heroism.
Her actions remind us that courage is rightly esteemed as the first of
human qualities because it is the quality that guarantees all others.
And we should remember that courage does not mean an absence of fear,
because without fear there can be no courage. Courage is doing the
thing you think you cannot do.
Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to enter into the Record a
recent article from the New London Day entitled, ``A Hero On Flight 11,
She Put Her Job First: Madeline Amy Todd Sweeney.''
May God bless and keep you, Madeline Amy Todd Sweeney, and may God
bless America.
A Hero on Flight 11, She Put Her Job First: Madeline Amy Todd Sweeney
9-11: The Shadow Of A Day
(By Bethe Defresne)
Once the extended family of Madeline Amy Todd Sweeney
verified that she was aboard the flight, there was no waiting
for a miracle. There was no use praying that the blond, blue-
eyed young mother with the dazzling smile had been caught in
some pocket of hope within the ashes of the World Trade
Center, and that somehow she would rise up and come home to
them.
Relatives and friends of victims who worked in the towers
would spend days or even weeks holding off the inevitable.
But for Sweeney's loved ones, there was only the swift,
burning onslaught of grief.
She was a flight attendant on American Airlines Flight 11,
the plane that hit the north tower at 8:48 a.m. on Sept. 11,
when the world still thought it must have been some terrible
accident.
Sweeney's colleagues in air control back at Logan
International Airport in Boston, where the flight had taken
off that morning bound for Los Angeles, were among the few
who knew better--because she had told them.
Calmly, and with painstaking attention to detail, Sweeney
had explained that the plane was being hijacked. What she
said would later help federal investigators reconstruct how
the plane was taken over.
Sweeney reported the seat numbers of the hijackers,
including suspected ringleader Mohamed Atta, and the progress
of their assault. She described the landscape below after the
flight was diverted, right up until the shocking end.
Her last words were, ``I see water and building. Oh my God!
Oh my God!''
Sweeney's father, William A. Todd of Norwich, expects that
some day he'll listen to a tape of conversations from the
airplane. But he's not ready.
This Sept. 11, Todd will be in Boston, the point of
Sweeney's departure, not New York, the site of her tragic
end, to mark the anniversary of the terrorist attacks. There
he will witness the presentation of the second annual
Madeline Amy Todd Sweeney Award for Civilian Bravery,
posthumously presented to her in February with her family in
attendance.
Sweeney lived in Acton, Mass., with her husband, Michael,
and their two children, Anna, 6, and Jack, 5. The award, in
the form of a medallion, is to be given each year to a
Massachusetts resident who exemplifies the courage that
Sweeney displayed.
Her reports from the doomed airplane have been credited
with helping officials make the crucial decision to ground
all airplanes on Sept. 11, perhaps saving many lives.
It's good, Todd acknowledged, to have something to do and
somewhere to go on this grim anniversary. And he really
didn't want to be in New York.
``It's too much,'' he says.
Mike Sweeney, who could not be reached, is reportedly
coping as best he can, and also plans to be at the
presentation in Boston on Wednesday.
Reflecting today on what enabled his 35-year-old daughter
to show such remarkable strength under intense pressure, Todd
draws upon an apt and familiar analogy, that of a soldier in
battle. As an Army war veteran who saw combat in Korea, Todd,
65, says his daughter was doing what she was trained to do in
a situation like that: focus not on yourself, but on your
job.
Todd treasures an American flag carried in Sweeney's honor
aboard an F-16CG Falcon during a Jan. 26 combat mission over
Afghanistan. The flag was sent to him along with a citation
from the 332nd Air Expedition Group, called ``The Tip of the
Spear,'' certifying that the flag was carried ``In Memory of
the Grace and Bravery of Madeline Amy Todd Sweeney, who lost
her life to a terrorist attack on the WTC while serving on
American Airlines Flight 11 on Sept. 11, 2001.''
Todd hasn't decided yet where to display the flag, which he
handles reverently, like a flag that has been draped over a
soldier's coffin. It was a nephew in the Air Force, Patrick
Todd, who arranged through his commanding officer to have the
flag carried and delivered.
Sweeney came from a large extended family, with numerous
aunts, uncles and cousins. She reveled in those myriad
relationships, said Todd, and will be especially missed at
the Sept. 28 wedding of her brother, William Todd III, who
lives in Massachusetts. He was her only sibling.
Sitting at the kitchen table in his home on Corning Road,
Todd, who retired after 15 years as a welder at Electric Boat
in Groton, appears to take some comfort in thinking about the
lasting impression his daughter's life has made on others.
But he is not a man given to displaying an excess of emotion.
``What can you say?'' he asks. ``Not a day goes by that I
don't think of her.''
Tears well up in his tired eyes, but he won't let them go.
His wife of 23 years, Doris, is more talkative and openly
emotional. Sweeney was like a daughter to her, she says,
although they only got together on visits, mostly during the
summer. Todd and his first wife divorced when Sweeney was 10,
and she continued to live with her mother in Nashua, N.H.
It's not very difficult for family members to imagine what
Sweeney, whom everyone called Amy, would have been doing this
past year had she not been among the 3,008 victims of Sept.
11. She would have continued to love being a wife and mother,
kept in close touch with her large circle of friends and
family, and, of course, kept on flying.
The 12-year veteran of American Airlines was at a point in
life where, it seems, she had everything she wanted. ``She
loved to fly, and she loved to travel,'' says Todd. She
especially relished trips to the Caribbean.
The flight to Los Angeles was also one of her favorites,
Todd says, because she got a layover in California.
After Sweeney graduated from high school, before she
married and went to flight attendant school, she took a year
off to live and travel in California, says Todd. This was her
one real fling with being totally carefree.
But shouldering responsibility was something Sweeney
apparently did willingly, with a modest touch that endeared
her to family, friends and colleagues, as well as passengers.
She was ``a natural at being a flight attendant'' wrote one
of her peers in a tribute booklet put out by American
Airlines and given to all the families of those who died on
Flight 11. She was a genuine people person, it was said,
always the first to volunteer when help was needed.
In her heroic death, Sweeney is forever linked with one
colleague in particular, fellow flight attendant Betty Ong.
The two women worked as a team to alert ground officials
about what was happening.
The Todds have a tape of a Prime Time TV segment on the two
women, hosted by Diane Sawyer. Sweeney's husband, Mike, is
featured along with several members of Ong's family. So, too,
are home videos of Sweeney playing and singing with her
children.
But most of the program is devoted to what happened on
Flight 11.
Doris Todd cries softly, and her husband sits stoically
upright in his chair, as a Logan flight manager who got the
first call recounts his conversations with Sweeney. ``Amy,
honey,'' he began, ``what's going on?''
Everything after that was dark--throats slashed, orders
from hijackers--but Sweeney remained purposeful and calm
through it all.
The Todds find this tape difficult to watch, but say
they've looked at it several times. During the program, the
Ong family reports that a bone and a flesh fragment from
Betty Ong were recovered from the WTC site.
``Nothing was found of Amy,'' says Todd, not even a bit of
DNA. But this is not something to dwell on, he says. He'd
rather hold the flag that was carried over a battlefield in
her honor, or point out the sign in her memory attached to
his truck, the one he drove in the June parade for A Reason
to Ride, an organization that raises funds for disabled and
homeless veterans.
There's been talk, Todd says, that Sweeney and some other
Sept. 11 heroes might be posthumously awarded the
Presidential Medal of Freedom. U.S. Rep. Rob Simmons, R-2nd
District, and Sen. Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts are among
those who have proposed Sweeney for the prestigious award.
The Todds haven't gotten involved in the debate over what
kind of memorial should be erected at Ground Zero, but they
do have two thoughts on the subject. ``It should be tall,''
they say. ``And it should have all the names, like the
Vietnam War Memorial.''
Sweeney didn't have enough information in that early hour
of Sept. 11 to go on the offensive, like the crew and
passengers of
[[Page H6093]]
United Flight 93, forced down in a field in Pennsylvania. But
she died in service to her passengers and, it turned out, to
her country.
It's almost impossible to find a source of gratitude in the
horror of Sept. 11. But the Todds say they're at least glad
to know that almost to the last moment Madeline Amy Todd
Sweeney was not living in terror, but helping others.
{time} 1415
Mr. CUMMINGS. Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I
yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. PETRI. Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I
yield back the balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Dan Miller of Florida). The question is
on the motion offered by the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Petri) that
the House suspend the rules and agree to the concurrent resolution, H.
Con. Res. 401, as amended.
The question was taken.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. In the opinion of the Chair, two-thirds of
those present have voted in the affirmative.
Mr. PETRI. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
The yeas and nays were ordered.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX and the
Chair's prior announcement, further proceedings on this motion will be
postponed.
____________________