Twenty-five years after the 9/11 attacks, the final moments of a family aboard United Airlines Flight 175 are once again being remembered – including a heartbreaking phone call.
Peter Hanson was flying from Boston to Los Angeles with his wife, Sue, and their two-and-a-half-year-old daughter, Christine Lee Hanson, on what was supposed to be an exciting family vacation.
The family planned to visit relatives before heading to Disneyland. It was Christine’s first time on an airplane.
Instead, the toddler became the youngest person killed in the September 11 attacks.
At 8:52 a.m. on September 11, 2001, Peter called his father, Lee, from aboard the hijacked plane.
“Dad, we’ve been hijacked,” he told him, according to a transcript of the calls published on Substack.
“Don’t worry, Dad”
Peter said the cockpit appeared to have been taken over and told his father that a flight attendant had been stabbed. He asked Lee to contact United Airlines and report the incident. Lee instead called police in Easton, Connecticut.
Peter called his father again around 9 a.m.
According to the 9/11 Commission’s account, Peter said passengers were becoming ill and that the plane was making sudden, jerky movements. He believed the pilot was no longer in control.
“Don’t worry, Dad,” Peter said. “If it happens, it will be very fast.”
The conversation then took a terrifying turn.
Peter repeatedly said, “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God” before a woman screamed and the call abruptly ended.
Just minutes later, Lee and his wife, Eunice, watched on television as the flight slammed into the South Tower of the World Trade Center.
Peter, Sue, and Christine all died in the crash.
Youngest 9/11 victim
But while Christine’s final moments have become part of the historical record of September 11, her family has also worked to preserve memories of the little girl she was.
The National September 11 Memorial & Museum describes Christine as a “bright, busy toddler who loved taking trips to the playground and helping her father in the garden. “
She also had a stuffed Peter Rabbit which she loved: “It was given to her by her grandmother, Eunice Hanson, in acknowledgement of Christine’s birth in the Chinese Year of the Rabbit.”
Christine had a habit of decorating things with stickers. Two Winnie-the-Pooh stickers were still stuck to her Peter Rabbit toy.
“She put stickers on everything she liked; I suppose it was her mark of approval,” Eunice said.
The museum also holds a photograph of Christine taken on her first birthday. In the picture, she is dressed in traditional Korean clothing, while the frame is carved with the word “Peace.”
Remembered by their loved ones
For Eunice, the word was especially fitting as she remembered her granddaughter and Christine’s parents.
“The Peace frame containing Christine’s picture… is most poignant,” she said. “That one word describes Christine’s parents, who were loving people and believed in kindness.”
Lee also once remembered a final visit with his granddaughter, when he told Christine that he loved her.
“I love you too, Papa,” she replied.
He then asked her: “Aren’t we lucky that we have each other to love?”
Christine responded by happily dancing and spreading her arms.
Today, Peter, Sue, and Christine Hanson’s names are listed together on the September 11 memorial, preserving the memory of the family whose planned vacation ended in tragedy.
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