Earlier this week, officials in Denver advised residents that if they saw a commercial jetliner flying above downtown, accompanied by fighter jets, not to worry: It was just a tribute for people who died in the Sept. 11 attacks.
As the 25th anniversary of the day two Boeing planes were catastrophically flown into New York City skyscrapers drew closer, the organizers of this tribute finally had second thoughts. On Wednesday, United Airlines officials canceled the planned flyover, which was to have featured a Boeing passenger jet escorted by a squadron of F-16 aircraft. They pointed to “concerns in the community.”
On Tuesday, the Denver Office of Emergency Management posted an alert about the upcoming event to the public to prevent panic and calls to emergency lines with worries about a hijacked plane. The planes for this tribute were set to take off at 8:15 a.m. local time in Denver.
At 8:15 a.m. Eastern time on Sept. 11, 2001, United Flight 175 took off from Boston en route to Los Angeles, according to the 9/11 Memorial and Museum. It was hijacked by terrorists and flown into the South Tower of the World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan at 9:03 a.m., the second of the two planes that would take down the towers, killing over 2,700 people.
The flyover tribute would have had the planes in Denver visible around 9:03 a.m. local time.
Across the country on Sept. 11, fighter jets, including F-16s, were scrambled, according to the National Guard, and some had orders to shoot down jets that did not follow their directions.
The community response was swift. Some responders on social media called the flyover “insane,” “disgusting” and “insensitive.”
In a statement, United Airlines said it now planned to commemorate the 25th anniversary of 9/11 with events at United’s Flight Training Center in Denver, including the unveiling of a monument made from steel recovered from the World Trade Center “to honor the United Airlines crew members aboard Flight 175 and Flight 93.”
United Flight 93 took off from Newark, N.J., that Tuesday 25 years ago and was plunged into a field in Shanksville, Pa., after passengers attacked the hijackers. Seven crew members and 33 passengers died on that plane, and nine crew members and 51 passengers were killed aboard Flight 175.
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