Palm Desert resident shares memories of 9/11 plane hijackings

On this eve of 9/11, we look back 17 years later at the day that changed the face of our nation.

Palm Desert resident, Christine Nickerson, was a corporate travel agent near Boston in 2001 and had early knowledge of the plane hijackings. She says even today she struggles with trauma from those memories.

Nickerson was on the phone with a client in New York when she got word the first tower was hit.

“She puts me on hold…and she comes back on and she says ‘Oh no, they think it was a small plane that just might have hit one of the buildings.’ We didn’t think anything of it,” said Nickerson. “[Then] she comes back on and she says, ‘We’ve got to go. Another plane hit another building.'”

It wasn’t long before phones started ringing from company contacts and the media.

“I started getting calls saying, ‘Was that American Flight 11?'” said Nickerson. “Whenever there is a disaster the airline will pull that flight number, so you can’t check on it. So yes, I did know it was Flight 11…then we heard it was United Flight 175. I went and checked. Again it was pulled.”

While none of Nickerson’s clients were on any of the hijacked flights, three people from her small hometown of Rowley, Massachusetts were on American Airlines Flight 11.

“I always had 5 businessmen that always took Flight 11 on Tuesday morning. They had gone out the evening before,” said Nickerson. “My thought was although it wouldn’t have been my fault if I had had those business people on…I don’t book airline tickets for people to crash into buildings.”

Nickerson says the feeling of helplessness she had while trying to assist clients internationally in getting home following 9/11 led to the end of her 14-year career in the travel industry. She says the post-traumatic stress she still experiences today pushed her to relocate to California the following year.

“It’s always been very very sensitive for me to even talk to anybody about just because of being there that day. It’s hard for me to even talk to people about it. Still. To this day,” said Nickerson.

Regardless, she believes 9/11 is too important to forget.

Watch tomorrow on CBS Local 2 for full coverage of local and national memorial ceremonies in honor of 9/11.