She made the historic first call from a hijacked plane on 9/11. 25 years later, her family met the woman who answered.

September 11, 2026 / 9:21 AM EDT / CBS News

In Cary, North Carolina, Vanessa Minter was among the first people on the ground to learn about the terror unfolding in the air on September 11, 2001.

Minter, an American Airlines reservations agent, was on the other end of a phone call with flight attendant Betty Ong, who was sitting in the back galley of hijacked American Airlines Flight 11, which had departed Boston for Los Angeles.

"She said, 'I think we're being hijacked,'" Minter recalled in an interview with "CBS Mornings."

Minter said she knew the threat was real from the tone of Ong's voice.

"I had to ask myself, could I have done that? Because she was literally a pillar. She knew what she was doing. She knew what information we needed, and she was all business," Minter explained. Ong relayed critical information during the call that contributed to the FAA's decision to close U.S. airspace.

She would be the last person Ong spoke with before the plane crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center. Minter recalled some of Ong's final words during their conversation: "Pray for us."

"I was the last person that she…

Original source: https://www.cbsnews.com/entertainment/