{"id":282584,"date":"2026-09-10T00:12:14","date_gmt":"2026-09-10T00:12:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/282584\/"},"modified":"2026-09-10T00:12:14","modified_gmt":"2026-09-10T00:12:14","slug":"pennsylvania-911-worker-remembers-flight-93-call-after-25-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/282584\/","title":{"rendered":"Pennsylvania 911 worker remembers Flight 93 call after 25 years"},"content":{"rendered":"

‘This is history’: Westmoreland 911 dispatcher reflects on Flight 93 call 25 years later<\/p>\n

\"Ed<\/a>HEMPFIELD TOWNSHIP, Pa. \u2014<\/p>\n

United Flight 93 crashed on a Somerset County field on Sept. 11, 2001. The story of how first responders made it there begins in Westmoreland County.<\/p>\n

The Westmoreland County 911 center in Hempfield Township opened the same morning as the crash. While some of his colleagues were training at the new building, dispatcher John Shaw took a call from Ed Felt, who was right above him.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first thing he said was that he was on an airplane that was hijacked,\u201d Shaw said in a 2002 interview with Pittsburgh\u2019s Action News 4. \u201cIt\u2019s like someone was screaming at the top of their lungs without being above a whisper.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dispatcher reflects on Flight 93 call 25 years later: Watch the interview in the video player above<\/p>\n

Shaw remembers that 70-second call like it was yesterday.<\/p>\n

\u201c[My co-workers] knew I was listening to something bad,\u201d Shaw said on Wednesday. \u201cYou could have probably dropped a pin in there at the moment, and everybody would have heard it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that was the moment that everybody knew that we were a part of history now,\u201d said Gene Good, one of those co-workers at the center. \u201cYou don\u2019t take a 911 call saying that someone\u2019s attacking your country.\u201d<\/p>\n

Good said that day was the busiest he and Shaw have ever been answering the phones. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe had people calling, asking, ‘Hey, should I go pick my kids up at school? What\u2019s going on here?’ There\u2019s no script for that,” Good said. “We\u2019re telling people you have to do what you have to do at that point.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"Image<\/p>\n

WTAE<\/p>\n

Gene Good and John Shaw<\/p>\n

\"Image<\/p>\n

Good said there\u2019s no script for something like that. However, following their training got them through Felt\u2019s call, and the hundreds that followed. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe basic information that, to this day, we still get here all applied,\u201d Shaw said. \u201cEarly on, in any type of call, it\u2019s name, phone number, where they\u2019re located and go from there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Making it through that fateful situation was a sign for Shaw. He was meant to help people. <\/p>\n

\u201cOnce I came to that realization, this was it. This was my life. This was my career,” Shaw said.<\/p>\n

He currently works as the operations supervisor at the Westmoreland 911 center. <\/p>\n

Helping county residents on their worst days for 25 years wouldn\u2019t be possible if it weren\u2019t for the people who Good was with on 9\/11. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re here together,\u201d Good said. \u201cWe have each other\u2019s backs, and we\u2019re here to support each other, no matter how bad it can be. We were there for each other, and everybody\u2019s still there for each other today.\u201d <\/p>\n

That\u2019s why, when Shaw said he remembers Sept. 11, 2001, he doesn\u2019t forget the heroes on the plane, on the ground and answering the phones.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not about me, but this department,” he said. “It\u2019s not about [Gene]. This department. This was history.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"‘This is history’: Westmoreland 911 dispatcher reflects on Flight 93 call 25 years later HEMPFIELD TOWNSHIP, Pa. \u2014…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":282585,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[39760,115842,21137,13590,4329,17880,117951,11408,110853,117950,10803,94,2340,28,30,29,523,4528,110854,102647,39716,12931,117949,78],"class_list":["post-282584","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-39760","tag-9-11","tag-call","tag-center","tag-day","tag-dispatcher","tag-ed-felt","tag-flight","tag-flight-93","tag-gene-good","tag-hempfield-township","tag-history","tag-interview","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news","tag-people","tag-phone","tag-sept-11","tag-september-11","tag-shaw","tag-westmoreland","tag-westmoreland-county-911","tag-year"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282584","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=282584"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282584\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/282585"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=282584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=282584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=282584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}