Only one other story was even scarier. I only learned this when this couple got back a couple of days after 9/11.
I found out that the couple who owned my daughter’s dance studio were over the Atlantic on an Air Italia flight inbound to Miami from Rome on 9/11. An hour out of Miami they were told they could not land in Miami and were being diverted north.
The passengers speculated it was bad weather, when they were informed that the flight was -returning- to Rome speculation was rampant. Upon landing at Rome everyone’s cell phones were confiscated, the men and women were put in separate rooms and “detained” for eight hours.
They were compliantly out of communications, tired, hungry and now scared.
The rumor spread amongst the detainees that the US was nuked and their was no place left to land.
Wow!
OMGosh, imagine being on that plane and subjected to that. wow.