Nia Gilliam wasn’t a captain yet on Sept. 11, 2001. At just 25 years old, she was sitting in the co-pilot seat on the runway at Newark Liberty International Airport, waiting for air traffic controllers to clear them for takeoff.
“Smoke was already coming out of the North Tower, but we didn’t know at the time what was going on,” she recalls. “Pilots were asking air traffic controllers, and we heard them make comments about how, ‘We know at this time, but we’d rather not say.'”
It was the first sign that something was wrong. The response from air traffic control was unlike anything she had heard before. Their hesitation was disorienting. Pilots and air traffic controllers are teammates who don’t withhold information from one another.
Her first assumption was that a small tour plane crashed. It wasn’t unusual to see small planes or helicopters flying along the Hudson River. What happened next changed America forever, and, as a pilot, the next moments nearly broke Gilliam.
“We saw what we know now was the United 175 Flight come up the Hudson, turn around and hit the building … then, we were cleared for takeoff,” she shares.
During our interview, I wasn’t sure I heard her correctly, so I asked again. It took a moment to process. Gilliam is used to the reaction, especially when she looks back at how she processed what she had witnessed. For a moment, her mind reached for anything except the truth. A news helicopter flying unusually low for a shot. Another aircraft dropping water, like a forest fire, to help. Then, it hit her on the runway: two planes. On purpose.
“Seeing the plane fly into the tower just does something unexplainable to your psyche.”
A particular cruelty happened next, one that Capt. Gilliam has spent years trying to explain. The airport had shut down, but Gilliam and her co-pilot were already on the runway. The tower cleared them for takeoff since they were already there. While Gilliam had been flying planes since she was 17, fulfilling a dream she remembers as early as 10, there was no manual, no simulator scenario, and no checklist for what to do when you just watched a passenger plane fly into a building.
“You’re not trained for those psychological issues,” Gilliam said, describing the moment. She and her captain did what they had been trained to do with the tools they had: Compartmentalize. Take off. Get passengers safely to Boston.
Now, as the 25th anniversary of 9/11 approaches, Gilliam is sharing the experience in her new book, “Cleared for Takeoff: A Pilot’s Memoir of Purpose and Resilience After 9/11.” Published by Storehouse Voices, her words chronicle her journey from childhood under the O’Hare flight path to the cockpit on 9/11, and the years it took to process what she witnessed. Gilliam recently turned 50 and finally decided to tell her story of how she nearly fell apart in the cockpit after witnessing such horror. Admittedly, Gilliam has carried some guilt about nearly breaking down. She said sharing her truth and story was hard to do.
Cleared For Takeoff: Flying Through Fear On September 11
Gilliam vowed to never fly again after returning to Boston. It was a striking reversal for a young woman who held on tight to her dream of becoming a pilot at just 10 years old. Airplanes were a big part of her childhood growing up under the flight path just outside of Chicago O’Hare International Airport.
“[I would] look up at a plane … and think it’s the coolest thing ever. I always wondered where [the airplanes] were going, and I knew I wanted to be the one flying them there.”
Capt. Gilliam was serious about walking away from aviation entirely. A positive pregnancy test changed that. Providing for her son became her priority, and flying was all she knew how to do. Her son turned out to be exactly what she needed. He pulled her back into the cockpit and into the air.
Gilliam isn’t the only pilot in the family. Her son has been flying since he was in her womb. Despite her initial attempts to steer him toward a different career path, he’s also a pilot. Gilliam now recognizes that her reluctance was actually fear stemming from her own trauma from 9/11.
Part of her hesitation was the layered weight in her identity. A Black woman in a profession overwhelmingly represented by white men. She didn’t think her own story would be acceptable for a pilot.
“I’m ready for there to be some different perspective from that day and to contribute to history,” Gilliam says. “I had to give myself grace. It took a while to be okay. I nearly fell apart, but I got passengers where they needed to be safely.”
While “Cleared for Takeoff” explores heavy moments, including 9/11, it also reflects on the joys of Gilliam’s childhood, her determination to pursue a dream that seemed impossible to some, the challenges of motherhood when airlines had no maternal policies, and her search for purpose. She hopes the book inspires the next generation of Black pilots.
The book, released on Aug. 4, is available at bookstores nationwide, in-store and online.
