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9/11 attacks: When Jill Biden was ‘scared to death’ after realising her sister…
In her prepared remarks for Sunday, Jill Biden says that after the shock of 9/11 “settled into sorrow” and she had spoken with her husband and children, her thoughts turned to her sister, who continues to work as a flight attendant with United Airlines.
US First Lady Jill Biden recalled being “scared to death” when she realized that her sister, a United Airlines flight attendant, could be onboard one of the hijacked planes that were used to attack America on September 11, 2001, according to Associated Press. After learning that her sister was safe at her Pennsylvania home, she "went straight to Bonny's house.”
“I called Bonny to see where she was because I was scared to death ... I didn’t know where she was, whether she was flying, not flying, where she was,” Jill Biden recalled. “And then I found out she was home.”
Biden's sister, Bonny Jacobs, came home around 2am after a late night flight, hours before the hijacked airplanes were flown into World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field, reported AP. Jacobs said she slept a little and then got up to help get her kids off to school, turned off her phone and went back to bed on the fateful morning.
“So when I got up around noon, it was such a gorgeous day,” she said. “I had my coffee. I sat outside. I literally said out loud, ‘I’m doing nothing today, this day is gorgeous.’”
But the reality dawned upon her when she read a message from Jill asking if she'd been watching television. TV news channels were showing the replay of the horrific terror attack that claimed nearly 3,000 lives. It was the biggest terrorist attack the US had ever seen.
“I started to shake,” Jacobs said, adding that she spent the rest of the day watching TV.
“And then the first person that came to the house was Jill,” she said. “I hadn’t called her to come, but she just showed up, and she was there for me, as usual.”
On Sunday, Jill Biden will mark the 21st anniversary of the 9/11 attacks by delivering remarks at the Flight 93 National Memorial in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. She will be accompanied by Jacobs.
(With inputs from AP)
