Former RN had Sept. 11 shift in NYC; airman recalls shuffling air traffic

If she could, Claudia Litt would remember it as just a picturesque September day.

"It was one of those days you live for in New York," she recalled, "a gloriously beautiful day."

But Sept. 11, 2001, will never be thought of with fondness as just a glorious day in New York City.

As the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks nears, memory and emotion of that historic day live on.

Akin to the Nov. 22, 1963, assassination of President John F. Kennedy, most Americans have a tale of where they were on the day that about 3,000 people lost their lives and a nation was changed.

For some, such as Litt , their stories hit closer to home.

NEW YORKER FOREVER

Born in Manhattan and raised in Queens, N.Y., Litt, 69, keeps a firm grip on her roots.

The Centennial Hills resident was serving out the last years of her three-decade career as a registered nurse with NYU Langone Medical Center when she reported for work on Sept. 11, 2001.

Around 9 a.m., she was waiting to open up the office as a coworker chatted through her daily phone call with her mother in Florida.

The Floridian's passing glance at the television alerted them as to what was going on blocks away.

"She said, 'Wait, a plane just crashed into World Trade Center,' " Litt said.

The group turned on a radio and listened as events unfolded.

"We were just stunned," she said.

Sounds of sirens punctuated their silence, she said.

The hospital's central computer command, headquartered near the World Trade Center , suddenly cut out, as did phone lines. All staff members were put on alert in the event that survivors were brought to the Park Avenue medical center.

They never received patients.

In the hours that followed, Litt met up with her husband and joined the masses trying to get home. Subways were down. Buses were packed. Streets were filled and emotions were high.

"Some people were shouting, some people cursing that they were going to kill the sons of (expletive) that did this," Litt said. "They had rookie cops directing traffic. It was the most peculiar, surreal feeling in Manhattan.

"It was a lot to take in."

The Litts were able to get a train to their home on Long Island. As the train car exited a tunnel and revealed a view of the downtown skyline, Litt got her first real visual.

"That's when we saw the smoke," she said. "It was huge, just huge, and it was drifting."

The next day, the plume reached Litt's offices.

"I thought, 'Oh my god, I'm breathing in ash and possibly human remains,' " she said.

Litt said her anger fueled for a moment when she vengefully glanced at a Muslim woman in a head scarf.

"If I could see her today, I would tell her how sorry I am," she said.

Litt struggled to digest images of posters pinned all over town. They begged for information on missing love ones or whispered remembrance for those confirmed dead.

"Every time I saw one, I cried," she said. "It was in your face 24/7."

Every time she saw an airplane, her mood soured, she said.

Litt didn't know any victims directly. A friend's son-in-law escaped one of the towers unscathed. Litt met a man during a wait for a train who was near the buildings that day. He saw the whole thing, she said.

"How do you live with that?" she said.

She saw the cavernous site of ground zero only once, in 2003.

That same year, Litt and her husband moved to Las Vegas.

"I'm not sure that (Sept. 11, 2001) didn't have some place, some part in my decision," she said of the move. "I had to leave New York. It was time on many levels."

Litt is now retired. She plans to watch anniversary coverage on Sept. 11 this year but flatly denied a friend's suggestion that she fly to California on the day for a reunion.

"I said, 'You have no idea the visceral impact on me of that day,' " she said.

She opts to drive rather than fly to a destination, she said. Her memories of 9/11 are too vivid.

"It still hurts, and I can't imagine what it's like for those who had loved ones (die)," she said.

Although Las Vegas is home now, Litt has her loyalties.

"I'm a New Yorker forever," she said.

EYES ON THE SKY

On 9/11, Scott Lichte was in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean yet in the thick of turmoil happening in his native land.

Lichte was assigned as an air traffic controller with the U.S. Air Force on the Azores islands. Portugal ran the set of islands, and American planes on cross-country flight would stop to refuel there.

On the day of the attacks, Lichte was on the tail end of a swing shift when the base received word of the attacks.

"I was eating lunch, and I turned it on just like everybody in the world," he said. "They were cutting into all the morning shows, and as they were talking, they realized the country was under attack.

"Immediately I dropped my lunch."

Lichte and his fellow airmen scrambled to find out what to do.

Air traffic was halted and many planes were still in the sky. All international civilian aircraft were either turned back or redirected. Pilots manning about seven commercial flights with about 100 passengers on board each chimed into Lichte's base looking to land.

A rumor floated around that one of the flights coming from Paris had a terrorist aboard with an unfulfilled mission . It was unfounded.

Lichte said the pilots were fearful and confused.

"You could hear it in their voices," he said. "(They said), 'We need to land, we are declaring minimum fuel.' "

Lichte said their words indicated that time was of the essence. Lichte dispatched a Portuguese lieutenant to find the high-ranking brigadeiro officer for commands.

Crews worked to coordinate with other bases and landing strips to get all the planes grounded. After about 30 high-pressure minutes, the problem was ironed out and planes started to land.

"It seemed very intense at the time," he said. "It was so unexpected."

Lichte later served in the war on terrorism in Iraq.

"I met people who joined right after 9/11, and I told them good on them for serving their country," he said.

Lichte's eldest child was an infant on the day of the attacks. He's now 10, and Lichte said they talk about what happened, just as his parents did after Kennedy was killed.

"The memories are etched into your head so strong," he said.

He said he plans to watch the news with his four children on Sunday. He said he is ready to use "Star Wars" as an analogy to explain things to his younger children.

"You try to explain in terms they can understand," he said. "This is a story of good trying to triumph over evil."

Contact Centennial and Paradise/Downtown View reporter Maggie Lillis at mlillis@viewnews.com or 477-3839.