December 26, 1:11 PM
LA Celebrity Hot Spots ExaminerJane Lasky
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December 26, 2009 -- BREAKING NEWS: TSA has issued a statement regarding last night's (December 25) terrorism attempt on Northwest Airlines flight 253 (click HERE to read).
As background, just before landing in Detroit with 278 passengers on board, Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23, set off an explosive mixture -- reportedly made from powder and liquid -- in an effort to bring down the A330-300 aircraft. Luckily, this terrifying plan failed when Abdulmutallab tried to detonate the device. The alleged terrorist told authorities that he acted on behalf of Al-Quida instruction.
What happened on the NW/Delta aircraft -- originating in Nigeria through Amsterdam and on to Detroit -- is a scary, awful act. As a result, security measures at all airports are being ramped up and much attention is being paid to no-fly lists, no matter what the level assigned to the person being scrutinized.
Meanwhile, like so many others, when learning of the Christmas Day scare, 9/11/2001 immediately came to mind. And like so many others, I felt there was nothing I could do yesterday and there was nothing I could do nine years ago when that horrible terrorism plot brought untoward tragedy.
Steaming and scared, with no way I could help, I did what I do best: I wrote.
I wrote about my personal experience, about how I felt and where I was, and how it affected me (I was on the road when it happened).
I talked to other travelers through my syndicated newspaper column, pleading with them to never stop traveling but to always remember what happened.
So, to take my own advice, I am re-running that column here on Examiner.com. Please give me any feedback as we continue to learn about random acts of terrorism all the time, everywhere, what seems like every day, whether we are at home or on a trip. Thank you.??
Here's the column, called Business Travel Report: Acts of terrorism won't keep us grounded
by Jane Lasky, Business Travel Report
?September 13, 2001: Putting business travel out of my mind, I left with my husband and two teenage boys in our Taurus wagon for a road trip to Reno in early September. We played I spy, we sang familiar tunes, we ate lots of junk food and we laughed and bickered about silly things.
Once there, we picked up my Mom and headed straight for the mountains.
Monday night was spent in sheer bliss at a luxury Hyatt resort, surrounded by the Sierra Nevadas and a kind of peacefulness none of us city dwellers can conjure up when we're in the thick of it. Armed with flashlights, the kids walked down to a private beach to look for sea treasures while we the adults reminisced long into the night.
I have not slept so soundly in quite some time, and now I am sure it will be a long time again before I can.
My husband drew me out of a dream and into a nightmare as he made me aware of the horrific happenings in Manhattan the morning of Sept. 11.??Shocked, I snapped on the TV and watched a landmark building I have memorized both from the air and from the ground disintegrate into enormous heaps of crumbled cement and steel.
A die-hard New Yorker who has not had an address there for nearly 20 years, my heart stopped as an address I knew so well was receiving such devastation.
This had to be some sort of movie, a Hollywood tale of destruction. Trying not to watch, but finding it impossible not to, I witnessed replay after replay of passenger jets turned lethal weapons hitting their targets.
When word came that the Pentagon was also prey, and then later that another plane had gone down in Pennsylvania, I an unwilling witness to a succession of incomprehensible crimes that could never be explained.
My computer became my companion as I reached out to my best friend back home, to a dear colleague in New York who works near the Empire State building and to a longtime friend in Washington, D.C.
We compared notes from our vantage points as we worried about each other and all our other loved ones, many of whom we hadn't been able to locate yet.
After an exhausting exchange, we all came to the same conclusion: That this senseless tragedy would not curtail neither our need nor our zest for travel.
In due time it would be business as usual when we would be back in the air, going everywhere for every reason, business and otherwise. We had no doubt that those evil terrorists would neither keep us grounded nor would they ground our spirits - not now, not ever.
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