SOMERSET CO, Pa (WJAC) — As we honor the 40 brave men and women who were on board United Airlines Flight 93 twenty years ago, and whose heroic actions to take control of the plane from al Qaeda terrorists who hijacked it saved countless lives, we share the story of one of those brave flight attendants who was from Pennsylvania.
Lorraine Bay had decades of experience as a United Airlines flight attendant, but September 11, 2001 would be the last day she’d take a flight.
“She was in many ways the older sister I never had, Lorraine and I were both only children growing up in Pennsylvania together.”
Ed Root and his cousin Lorraine Bay always had each other.
“As a teenager she was the captain of the color guard high school team, she was a very effervescent person from the get-go, I never saw her frown.”
Root says after graduating high school, Lorraine wanted to travel and see the world.
Her ticket to make it happen was to become a flight attendant for U.S. airlines in 1964.
“It's hard work and you're dealing with people, some of them are nice people and really happy, and some of them are not happy people, but she was a quintessential people person.”
Ed says it was a very involved job, but Lorraine’s passion for it always shined through.
“She's handing out sandwiches, but she thought it would be really nice and proper to unwrap them all before she handed them out, so the plane is landing and she's still handing out sandwiches. She could laugh at herself. There were other instances when she was naïve in the early part of her career, but that's just who she was, she thought it would be a nice thing to do.”
She didn't have children, but Lorraine made sure to spoil Ed every chance she got, from shopping sprees to getting autographs from famous athletes on her flights.
“She would say 'I have an autograph for you, I don't know who he is, but I think he's important,' and it turned out to be a hall of fame hockey player or something.”
By 2001, Lorraine had spent 34 years with United, and rose to the position of senior flight attendant.
She had also scaled back her travels, with only a few flights a month, but on September 11, 2001, Lorraine boarded her last flight.
“She was a senior flight attendant on Flight 93, but she liked working in coach, she liked mentoring younger flight attendants, she liked dealing with the public.”
That same day, Ed and his wife thought they were flying home to Pennsylvania, from London, but then their flight was redirected back to London.
And it wasn't until they returned to the U.S., days later, that they learned about the heroic actions of Lorraine, and the other crew members and passengers, on Flight 93.
“What made it even worse was trying to make sense of it all and figure it all out.”
The days following 9/11, Lorraine’s kindness was still felt.
“She was known for sending cards to people and keeping in touch with people. After September 11th, a couple people actually received cards that she had mailed that morning on the way to the airport.”
Lorraine's legacy lives on as Ed's children, who she adored so much, carry her name, Lorraine and Abigail Grace, Lorraine's middle name.
“The sadness on our part is how Lorraine would have been with these three little children who are now 11, 12 and 13.”
Over the years, and to this day, Ed shares Lorraine’s story, and says he'll never stop.
“Those of us who have lived through it know the anger, the suffering, the emptiness; somebody today couldn't really understand that but it's important to try and make people understand a little bit more the personal feelings, the intensity of the day, so it doesn't just become another event in history that's kind of just turn the page and move on.”
After the crash, Lorraine’s corkscrew was found among the wreckage, and just recently, more debris was given to her family, including Lorraine's credit card, which has since been buried at the Flight 93 National Memorial.
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