The one airplane permitted to fly on Sept. 11, 2001, following the U.S. terrorist assaults, was a airplane delivering an antivenom to a snake-bite sufferer.
An plane was certainly granted particular permission to move an antivenom from San Diego to Miami throughout a nationwide grounding that adopted the Sept. 11, 2001, U.S. terrorist assaults. Nonetheless …
The flight came about on Sept. 12, 2001. Not less than three different flights occurred that day, one in all which was the return transit of the antivenom plane and a second flight that’s believed to have been a navy helicopter, presumably transferring the bitten man.
It’s unknown, although unlikely, that any non-military plane flew on Sept. 11, 2001, after the assaults.
Lawrence Van Sertima was a snake handler in Florida who, after struggling a chunk from the lethally venomous taipan snake, was chargeable for what’s mentioned to have been the one non-military flight instantly following the Sept. 11, 2001, U.S. terrorist assaults.
It is mentioned that Van Sertima required a uncommon antivenom that was solely accessible in sure components of Florida and California on the time of his chunk. To move the antivenom from San Diego to Miami, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is alleged to have made a particular flight allowance, permitting for the antivenom to be delivered in sufficient time to avoid wasting Van Sertima’s life.
Van Sertima’s story has recirculated within the many years following the assaults and has been featured in blog posts and social media platforms together with Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and in quite a few Reddit posts (here, here and here, for instance) garnering tens of 1000’s of upvotes.
One such post (archive) shared on Sept. 9, 2024, had obtained greater than 82,000 upvotes on the time of this publication, which claimed that the antivenom-carrying plane was the one non-military flight “permitted to fly on 9/11 after the assaults.”
Snopes spoke with a responding paramedic on the time and, together with newspaper archives, was in a position to confirm that it’s true an anti-venom was transported by airplane from San Diego to Miami throughout a multi-day nationwide plane grounding that adopted the Sept. 11, 2001, U.S. terrorist assaults.
Nonetheless, the flight came about on Sept. 12, 2001, and was one in all three documented flights that came about that day.
Given these nuances, we’ve rated this assertion as a combination of truths and inaccuracies.
On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, four planes had been hijacked and deliberately crashed – two on the World Commerce Heart, one on the Pentagon, and a fourth at a discipline in Pennsylvania – in a terrorist occasion that may make American aviation historical past.
The FAA History Office experiences that by 9:45 a.m. EST, roughly an hour after the primary assault, the company had grounded all planes in U.S. airspace and shut down the nationwide airspace. Airports and industrial flights started to reopen two days in a while Sept. 13, 2001. (Basic aviation, which incorporates all civilian flights apart from scheduled passenger flights, took even longer to renew.)
Snopes reached out to the nonprofit aviation group, Plane House owners and Pilots Affiliation (AOPA), which published a model of the story on Sept. 1, 2021.
Christopher Freeze is an aviation historian who works underneath the FAA Flight Service Station to offer pilots with climate briefings and help in flight plans. Freeze can be a pilot and flight teacher. Chris, together with AOPA author Julie Walker, despatched Snopes a scanned model of The Associated Press (AP) article that ran on Sept. 14, 2001:
(AP article courtesy of Chris Freeze)
Nonetheless, the article above, additionally printed and accessible on-line by the Tampa Bay Times, doesn’t specify that the antivenom plane was the one one to fly proper after the assaults.
Freeze additionally despatched Snopes some flight-tracking knowledge he obtained from Flight Conscious in 2021, which confirmed at the least two different flights came about on Sept. 12, 2001:
(Flight Conscious knowledge courtesy of Chris Freeze)
Within the article, a person recognized as “Capt. Al Cruz, a paramedic with Miami-Dade Fireplace Rescue’s Venom 1,” was mentioned to have handled Van Sertima.
Cruz confirmed to Snopes in a telephone interview that the occasions depicted in The Related Press and AOPA articles had been factual. He recalled sitting by Van Sertima’s bedside for “30 hours” whereas he recovered. AOPA writes:
After greater than six hours of debate, Cruz mentioned, permission was granted at 3 a.m. The Chrysler Aviation flight piloted by John Rapis left San Diego at 9 a.m., touring throughout the nation to reach in Florida and save Van Sertima with an extra 5 vials. Van Sertima continues to be alive and lives in North Carolina. He not handles lethal snakes, however his spouse reportedly retains a few king snakes in cages of their bed room.
On the time, AOPA reported that the person was bitten by a snake on Sept. 11, 2001, and was administered antivenom accessible in Florida on the time. He was then administered an extra dose of antivenom that was transported by airplane from San Diego. The flight was accompanied by “two fighter jets and landed at Miami’s Kendall-Tamiami Airport (now Miami Government) at 4:30 p.m. Wednesday” on Sept. 12.
The truth is, the AOPA additionally notes that Van Sertima was additionally “taken by helicopter to Baptist Predominant Hospital in Miami the place the antivenom was administered.”
The director of the hospital the place Van Sertima was handled is credited within the AP article with saying that the flight was “the one nonmilitary airplane over North America at the moment.”
The Federal Aviation Administration referred Snopes to the U.S. Division of Protection, which declined to touch upon the declare.
The Nationwide Archives, in the meantime, referred Snopes to its 9/11 FAA Finding Aid, which hosts some – however not all – data associated to the terrorist assaults. We didn’t discover a related doc to help the truth that the plane was the one one to fly.
Snopes has debunked other claims associated to 9/11, together with a photograph that supposedly confirmed cars in a commuter lot at Giants Stadium that victims of the 9/11 terrorist assaults owned and one other mentioned to point out a young woman seated on a building ledge and watching one of many Twin Towers burn in the course of the assaults.
