A Chilling Letter

This came to me as an e-mail and its provenance is not known to me, but it rings true.

Pat Gilmore is a Delta pilot retiree..

I haven’t seen the movie (UAL 93), yet, but I
intend to when I get the chance. Retirement has made me busier than
ever, and I haven’t had the chance to see many movies lately.
As a Delta B-767 captain myself at the time of
the attacks on 9/11, I was in crew rest in Orlando that morning. I had
just turned on the TV in my hotel room only to see the WTC tower on
fire, then saw the second airplane hit the other tower. My immediate
reaction was “Terrorists. We’re at war,” followed by the realization
that we airline crewmembers had all dodged a bullet; it could have been
any one of us flying those planes.
As soon as the news stations flashed the first
pictures of the terrorists I knew just how close and personal the bullet
I dodged was. There, on the screen for all to see, was a man who had sat
in my jump seat the previous July. His name was Mohammad Atta, the
leader of the terrorist hijackers. Atta had boarded my flight from
Baltimore to Atlanta on July 26, 2001 wearing an American Airlines first
officer uniform He had the corresponding AA company ID identifying him
as a pilot, not to mention the required FAA pilot license and medical
certificate that he was required to show me as proof of his aircrew
status for access to my jump seat. An airline pilot riding a cockpit
jump seat is a long established protocol among the airlines of the
world, a courtesy extended by the management and captains of one airline
to pilots and flight attendants of other airlines in recognition of
their aircrew status. My admission of Mohammad Atta to my cockpit jump
seat that day was merely a routine exercise of this protocol.

Something seemed a bit different about this jump
seat rider, though, because in my usual course of conversation with him
as we reached cruise altitude he avoided all my questions about his
personal life and focused very intently upon the cockpit instruments and
our operation of the aircraft. I asked him what he flew at American and
he said, “These”, but he asked incessant questions about how we did this
or why we did that. I said, “This is a 767. They all operate the same
way.” But he said, “No, we operate them differently at American” That
seemed very strange, because I knew better. I asked him about his
background, and he admitted he was from Saudi Arabia. I asked him when
he came over to this country and he said “A couple of years ago”, to
which I asked, “Are you a US citizen?” He said no. I also found that
very strange because I know that in order to have an Airline Transport
Pilot rating, the rating required to be an airline captain, one has to
be a US citizen, and knowing the US airlines and their hiring processes
as I do, I found it hard to believe that American Airlines would hire a
non-US citizen who couldn’t upgrade to captain when the time came. He
said, “The rules have changed.”, which I also knew to be untrue.
Besides, he was just, shall I say, “Creepy”? My copilot and I were both
glad to get rid of this guy when we got to Atlanta.

There was nothing to indicate, though, that he
was anything other than who or what he said he was, because he had the
documentation to prove who he was In retrospect, we now know his uniform
was stolen and his documents were forged.
Information later came to light as to how this
was done. It seems that Mohammad Atta and his cronies had possibly
stolen pilot uniforms and credentials from hotel rooms during the
previous year. We had many security alerts at the airline to watch out
for our personal items in hotel rooms because these were mysteriously
disappearing, but nobody knew why. Atta and his men used these to make
dry runs prior to their actual hijackings on 9/11. How do I know? I
called the FBI as soon as I saw his face on the TV that day, and the
agent on the other end of the line took my information and told me I’d
hear back from them when all the dust settled.

A few weeks later I got a letter from the Bureau
saying that my call was one of at least half a dozen calls that day from
other pilots who had had the same experience. Flights were being
selected at random to make test runs for accessing the cockpit. It seems
we had all dodged bullets. Over the years my attitude towards the War
Against Terrorism and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have been known
to be on the red neck, warmongering, rah-rah-shoot-em-up side of things.
I’ve been known to lose my patience with those who say the war in Iraq
or anywhere else in the Muslim world is wrong, or who say we shouldn’t
become involved in that area of the world for political correctness
reasons. Maybe it’s because I dodged the bullet so closely back in 2001
that I feel this way. I have very little patience for political rhetoric
or debate against this war because for a couple of hours back in July
2001, when I was engaged in conversation with a major perpetrator in
this war, I came so close to being one of its victims that I can think
in no other terms.

I don’t mind admitting that one of the reasons
I retired early from Delta last May, other than to protect my
disappearing company retirement, was because it became harder and harder
for me to go to work every day knowing that the war wasn’t being taken
seriously by the general public. The worst offenders were the Liberal
detractors to the present administration, and right or wrong, this
administration is at least taking the bull by the horns and fighting our
enemies, which is something concrete that I can appreciate. Nobody was
taking this war seriously, and it seems everyone found fault with the US
government rather than with those who attacked us. I found that
incomprehensible I also found myself being scrutinized by TSA screeners
more and more every day when I went to work, and suffered the
humiliating indignity of being identified about half the time for body
searches in front of the general flying public who looked at the entire
process as being ludicrous. “They don’t even trust their own pilots!”
Accompanied by an unbelieving snicker was the usual response. Here I
was, a retired USAF officer who had been entrusted to fly nuclear
weapons around the world, who had been granted a Top Secret clearance
and had been on missions over the course of 21 years in the military
that I still can’t talk about without fear of prosecution by the DOD,
who was being scanned by a flunkie TSA screener looking for any sign of
a pen knife or nail file on my person.

It wasn’t until six months after my retirement
when my wife and I flew to Key West, FL last November that I was finally
able to rid myself of the visage of Mohammad Atta sitting behind me on
my jump seat, watching my every action in the cockpit and willing to
slit my throat at the slightest provocation. I missed being a headline
by a mere 47 days, and could very well have been among the aircrew
casualties on 9/11 had one of my flights on my monthly schedule been a
transcontinental flight from Boston or New York to the west coast on the
11th of September. Very few people know that, while only four airliners
crashed that day, four more were targeted, and two of them were Delta
flights. The only reason these four weren’t involved is because they
either had minor maintenance problems which delayed them at the gate or
they were scheduled to depart after the FAA decided to ground all
flights Theirs are the pilots and flight attendants who REALLY dodged
the bullet that day, and my faith in a higher power is restored as a
result.

I will see United 93 when I get the chance, and
I will probably enjoy the movie for its realness and historical
significance, but forgive me if I do not embrace the Muslim world for
the rest of my life. The Islamic world is no friend of the West, and
although we may be able to get along with their governments in the
future, the stated goal of Islam is world conquest through Jihad and it
is the extremist Jihadists, backed and funded by “friendly” Moslem
governments, whom we have to fear the most. We must have a presence in
the Middle East, and we must have friends in the Middle East, even if we
have to fight wars to get them. Only someone who has dodged a bullet can
fully appreciate that fact.

Editor’s Note: For some reason which is beyond
me, some people do not want to believe this. Perhaps they do not want to
believe that Jihadist terrorism actually exists, because if someone
doesn’t believe it yet, they never will. Capt. Gilmore himself posted
this comment, in our comments below, but I will put it here for all to see:

I assure you this letter is true. As to the fact
that I wrote that a holder of an Airline Transport Pilot rating (ATP)
must be a US citizen, I admit that I was mistaken here. I had always
assumed so, because that’s what I had heard, so I looked up the
requirements for an ATP just now. There is nothing that says that US
citizenship is required. Okay, I’ll bite the bullet on that one. I
received my ATP back in 1975 and now that I think of it I do not
remember having to prove my citizenship. However, the rest of the story
is true.

As for my airline career, I worked for Western
Airlines (who merged with Delta in 1987), Jet America Airlines (who was
bought by Alaska Airlines in 1988), and Delta Airlines, as well as a few
“fly by night” cargo airlines during my furlough period from Western
from 1981-1985. I also flew in Vietnam as a transport pilot and retired
from the USAF Reserve in 1991 after the Gulf War. I have 21,500+ flight
hours in T-41, T-37, T-38, C-141/L-300, CE-500, CV-440, MD-80/82, B-727,
B-737, B-757, and B-767 aircraft, all logged between 1970 and 2005 when
I retired from Delta. Trust me, folks, this was real.

I must admit I am quite surprised that my
letter made it this far on the internet. The letter was nothing more
than am innocent reply to a group of friends, one of whom sent me a
similar letter from another Delta pilot who had been flying the morning
of 9/11 and who had experienced the flying that day for himself. His
letter had detailed his thoughts as he viewed the movie “United 93”, and
he also told in detail how he had been diverted to Knoxville when the
FAA shut down the airspace. My friend had asked me if I had known of any
other similar experiences, so I wrote him what I had encountered myself
a few months before. This was my letter to him.

Another retired Delta captain contacted me
yesterday after reading this blog and related an experience his wife had
on a flight from Portland, OR to Atlanta in August 2001, just a week or
so after my experience with Atta. She was riding on a company pass and
seated in First Class. A person of “Middle Eastern” descent had sought
permission to sit on the cockpit jump seat, but was denied access by the
captain because he did not have an FAA Medical certificate. She said he
ranted and raved because he couldn’t ride the cockpit jump seat, even
though there were three empty seats in First Class, which the captain
offered him. What pilot in his right mind would refuse a First Class
seat over a cramped cockpit jump seat? He stormed off the aircraft and
they left him at the gate.

You see? Mine wasn’t the only experience leading up to 9/11.
Delta Airlines Corporate Security even contacted
me a few days ago to ask if I had, indeed, written this letter. I wrote
them back that I had. They were worried that someone was using my name
without my knowledge. I assured them I was the author.

Keep the faith, and don’t let the *******s get you down.
Pat Gilmore