Leesburg, VA – American Airlines ticket agent Vaughn Allex had no idea when he checked in two late arriving passengers on September 11, 2001, that he was sentencing over 180 people to their deaths.
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15 years later, the Leesburg, Virginia resident still struggles to come to terms with feelings of guilt when he thinks about the darkest day in American history.
In a rare interview, Allex told ABC’s Virginia affiliate WJLA that he was working the ticket counter at Dulles Airport, helping passengers boarding Flight 77 to Los Angeles, when two men raced into the terminal.
The pair were running late and almost missed their flight, but Allex checked them in and got them on the fateful flight. The two men, brothers, were among the hijackers who crashed the plane into the Pentagon.
Allex was being interviewed by the FBI a day later when he recognized the names of the two latecomers on the passenger manifest. Investigators told him that the pair were among the hijackers.
“I looked at the FBI agents and they looked at me and they knew and I just went, ‘I did it, didn’t I?’” said Allex. “They said ‘You did what?’ I said, ‘I did it, I put them on the plane.”
Allex was plagued by thoughts of others he had checked in on the same flight, reported NPR. The family of a retiree. A student group, which included parents and teachers.
“And they were gone,” said Allex. “They were just all gone.”
The days following 9/11 were particularly difficult for Allex, whose co-workers refused to talk to him, even though both the FBI and the FAA cleared him of any wrongdoing. It was Allex’s family and close friends who helped him deal with the waves of guilt that were his constant companions, believing that he was personally responsible for the events of September 11th.
“It was pretty bad,” recalled Allex who wondered if he could have changed the course of history by having reacted differently that morning. “It was pretty much a bottomless pit for a long time.”
Allex left American Airlines in 2008 and is currently employed by the Department of Homeland Security. He makes periodic visits to the National 9/11 Pentagon Memorial and rode in a commemorative motorcycle ride at Dulles Airport today. While he is still plagued by guilt and thinks about 9/11 practically every day, Allex said that he is finally starting to move on.
“I think we’ve come a long way,” said Allex. “I know I have. We’re commemorating something rather than mourning something, I think.”
Do you think that stating “he was sentencing over 180 people to their deaths” is appropriate?
He was a ticket agent performing his duties. he didn’t sentence anybody to anything. He doesn’t need to feel guilty and we shouldn’t be saying he sentenced people to death.
The FBI, and CIA knew that those terrorists were in the USA; however, they refused tot speak to each other, and share information. The FBI refused to act upon information from field agents, about Muslims taking flying lessons, which didn’t include how to land. The FAA didn’t warn the airlines about credible threats to its security. The airlines failed to warn the flying public, and did nothing to increase security, including better screening of passengers. El Al would never have permitted those 19 terrorists to have boarded their flights. For decades, the philosophy of the airlines was to “cooperate” with hijackers. The stupid airline companies never envisioned a suicide group, whom they could not negotiate with. Also, the airlines refused to place armed security personnel on all domestic flights. Unfortunately, Congress got the airlines off the hook for any legal liability, as it paid all of the families off.