15 Years Later, 9/11 Haunts Former Massport CEO Buckingham

Virginia Buckingham gets emotional when she talks about what happened on September 11, 2001. You can hear it in her voice.

She says she’s thinking about the terrorist attacks not because it’s the 15th anniversary Sunday, but because the attacks are woven into the fabric of her every day of life.

Buckingham, the former CEO of the Massachusetts Port Authority (Massport), was at the helm the day terrorists hijacked and rammed two Boston-based flights in the two World Trade Center Towers in New York. She had been on the job for two years.

On that fateful day, Buckingham was on her way to Logan airport to catch a flight to Washington for a meeting with the Federal Aviation Administration to discuss a new runway project when she heard a radio report about a plane hitting the north tower. After the second plane hit the other tower, she says knew it was terrorism. Shortly thereafter, she learned from a staff member at Logan Airport that two planes out of Logan were “off the radar.”

Buckingham described the morning as one of “shock and horror and focus. Focus on what we needed to do to make sure the rest of our planes were safe and that our people were safe.”

Within hours, she says, the entire airport was shut down and a care team of professionals was brought in to meet with family members that had come to the airport to obtain any information they could.

"We had trained for disaster response," she said. "But no one could train for anything like this, which was beyond anyone’s worst imaginings.”

Buckingham told Morning Edition host Bob Seay she believes she became the political scapegoat. Within six weeks following the attacks, then-Gov. Jane Swift asked her for her resignation. Buckingham complied, otherwise she would have been fired.

Buckingham, who had no aviation experience when she was appointed to head Massport, says a 9/11 Commission examination of safety at Logan determined there was no reason the hijackers selected Logan other than its geographical proximity to New York, which provided jets fully loaded with fuel.

Buckingham said her experience pales in comparison to the anguish and grief that families of the victims have endured.

“I was shattered for being blamed for something so horrific," she said. "I considered myself a strong leader, a good person who tried to do the right thing. But to be defined as someone who had done something so horrific...I was sued for wrongful death by a family shortly after 9/11 and to have someone think I could have stopped it took me a long time to come to terms with that.”

At the time of the attacks, Buckingham had a 2-year-old son and was five weeks pregnant with her second child. She says they’re a daily reminder of how blessed she is, but she says the pain of 9/11 and being unable to help the victims of 9/11 sits with her every single day.

To listen to the entire interview with Virginia Buckingham, former head of Massport and former chief of staff to Governors’ Weld and Cellucci, click on the audio file above.