Travel succumbs to terrorism today on Northwest Airlines 253: Alerts heightened, 9/11 remembered

Tonight's terrorism attempt on Northwest Airlines flight 253 out of Amsterdam

and just before landing in Detroit with 278 passengers on board is no doubt a

scary, awful act. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23, reportedly told authorities

that he acted on behalf of Al-Quida instruction.

The Nigerian national allegedy set off an explosive mixture of 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.

Like many, 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

today 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 teenaged 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 diehard 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.