BOSTON (WHDH) - September 11, 2001 began as another day in the skies for flight attendant Barbara Bowen, who was in San Jose waiting to take off.
“The captain came out and said we think we’ve been attacked in New York,” Bowen remembered.
Bowen’s mind went straight to her best friend and colleague, Madeline “Amy” Sweeney, who was in the air that morning working Flight 11 out of Logan Airport in Boston.
“I don’t think it hit,” she said. “It hit you that you knew they were on the plane but until you saw it on TV until you physically saw it happening. It didn’t dawn on me that they didn’t make it.”
The loss ended years of a friendship built in the skies and far beyond them.
“You’d be with this person other than sleeping for 24 hours for three straight days,” she said. “Going to dinner with them, going for our walks, going to sightsee so we’re doing our little mini vacations together.”
As the miles added up, so did the milestones: both got married and started families around the same time, growing together with the job.
“She was truly a sweet, sweet human being, and she loved her family so, so much,” Bowen said.
Family is also why Bowen wasn’t flying with Amy on Flight 11 that September morning; she had switched crews so she could be home when her son started school.
“My nine-year-old kept thinking I was on the plane because he only knew Flight 11,” she said. “And when I couldn’t get home, he really believed that I was on that plane.”
As Bowen’s family waited for word from her, Amy was making a call of her own.
From Flight 11, she relayed critical information about the hijacking to American Airlines.
“I truly believe in my heart that it was one of the strongest things she could have ever done and I don’t know if I would’ve had that strength to call the office as opposed to picking up the phone and calling my family,” Bowen said.
That strength lives on through the Madeline “Amy” Sweeney Award for civilian bravery.
For more than two decades, the state has honored others who show that same courage when someone else’s life is on the line with the award named after Sweeney.
“It gives me so much pride,” Bowen said. “I am so proud of the fact that Amy gave up everything and she gave up her life, and she is honored for the dedication that she took with the job.”
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