A September 11 story of a different sort

Jonathan Knezel, who earned a bachelor’s degree this year from the University of Wisconsin—Milwaukee, went to Korea not long ago to teach English. It’s not at all unusual for a young man of 25 to explore the world.

Jonathan Knezel

What makes his story special are the circumstances under which he left Korea for the first time and traveled to the United States with 240 strangers.

I met him on September 11, 2001 when he was a four-month-old and the center of attention inside the busy terminal at Fairbanks International Airport. He was wrapped in a blanket, wearing an ID on his wrist and a smile on his face.

He was in the arms of a young Korean woman who had flown with him on a United Airlines flight that was supposed to deliver him to his adoptive parents at O’Hare International Airport, Jeff and Jennifer Knezel.

A second Korean escort held 5-month-old Hannah So Weong Fuller, who was going to her adoptive parents in Washington, D.C., David and Kathy Fuller.

The United Airlines nonstop Tokyo-Chicago flight had been diverted to Fairbanks and everyone in the crowded terminal was pretty much in a daze that day. The 747, passengers and crew were stranded in Fairbanks for four days while air traffic across the U.S. was grounded.

Some people on domestic flights took to renting cars from Hertz, the only company that allowed one-way rentals to the Lower 48.

The first day produced many anxious hours for the adoptive families who didn’t know what had happened or exactly where the babies had been taken. There were reports that they had gone to Calgary or Anchorage.

But Kerry Savereide of the airport marketing office in Fairbanks stepped in and told the families what was happening during the four-day layover for the infants and the escorts.

Kathy Fuller told me that there was “happiness and sadness at this time,” an emotional mix that all who remember those days can understand.

I wrote about this at the time and again 10 years ago, when Knezel was in high school.

High above the North Pacific, the United Airlines 747 carrying 240 passengers from Tokyo received instructions to land in Anchorage, instead of flying above Alaska en route to Chicago.

The news that hijacked planes had crashed into the World Trade Center towers in New York City had prompted U.S. authorities to shut down aviation in the United States, stopping many international flights short of their destinations.

The United crew locked the cockpit door on that September morning and prepared to descend, but the Anchorage controllers said they had an emergency and diverted the aircraft to Fairbanks.

The emergency in Anchorage — one of the lesser-known incidents following the terrorist attacks — occurred when a Korean Air Lines pilot gave confusing messages that led controllers to believe his flight had been hijacked.

At about 8 a.m., the pilot of KAL Flight 85 had dialed in the four-digit code for hijack, 7500. Fighter jets responded from Elmendorf Air Force Base in case they had to shoot down the plane.

"We're down to 934 aircraft aloft, but we have a problem in Alaska," Federal Aviation Administration Director Jane Garvey told federal officials during a video conference at the White House, a statement recounted by White House security adviser Richard Clarke in his 2004 book, "Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror." She described the jet emitting a hijack signal over Southwest Alaska.

"OK, tell KAL it will obey orders from the F-15s or we will blow it up," Clarke said he told the FAA director.

While there were brief evacuation orders in Anchorage and in Valdez — out of fear that the pipeline terminal could be a target — the crisis ended when the KAL pilot followed instructions and changed course, landing in Whitehorse.

The KAL pilots had made a "dangerous bad call," perhaps because of a communications or training failure, author Lynn Spencer wrote in the best account of the aviation situation that day, "Touching History: The Untold Story of the Drama That Unfolded in the Skies Over America on 9/11."

"The crew had simply been trying to relay to controllers their awareness of the hijackings on the East Coast," Spencer said. "It was an odd idea for the pilots to have, and contrary to their training."

As that episode played out, passengers on the United flight diverted to Fairbanks had not been told where they were going until the aircraft crossed the Alaska Range, about 10 minutes out of Fairbanks.

Many of the passengers were Japanese who had only the vaguest idea they were in the middle of Alaska — and had never heard of Fairbanks. They learned about the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks after landing.

I was working as a columnist for the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner at the time and that's when I first met Jon Knezel, one of the passengers. He was coming to the United States to live.

He had a nametag on one of his wrists and he was practically beaming when I saw him, happy to be in Fairbanks that day. He was 4 months old.

Knezel and another infant, Hannah Fuller, were in the company of two young Korean women who served as escorts, assigned to accompany the babies to their new homes in Beloit, Wisconsin, and Washington, D.C.

When I saw the babies and the 238 other passengers at the airport, I was struck with how patient everyone was, with many sitting on the floor near the baggage claim area and waiting quietly. There was a single immigration official for the entire airport.

The passengers, who couldn't get their luggage, went to local hotels by bus, along with hundreds of other travelers who had been stranded by the aviation shutdown.

Things were peaceful enough for Jon Knezel on this end, but in Wisconsin, Jeff and Jennifer Knezel had risen early on Sept. 11, awaiting the arrival of their son.

After a frustrating decade of trying to have children, they had started the adoption process in January 2001. Jeff said he spent most of Sept. 11 alternately cleaning his house and making calls to try to find his son.

"I cleaned the garage for a while, then I'd make another phone call. Then I cleaned the attic and make another phone call. The house was spotless. That's how I deal with stress," he said.

They were relieved to learn the baby was safe on the ground in Fairbanks, but wondered who was taking care of him. They needn't have been worried on that score.

The United flight attendants stayed with the Korean escorts and the babies from Tuesday until Friday afternoon, making arrangements for food and diapers and keeping them entertained.

“The four days waiting for O'Hare airport to open and for him to come home were difficult," said Jon's mom, Jennifer. "His plane was the first allowed into O'Hare after the 11th. We were the only people waiting in the airport along with a social worker from our agency and a woman waiting for the other baby to take her to family in D.C."

(The other baby was Hannah Fuller, who was being picked up by her aunt. David Fuller had purchased three tickets to Dulles and two to Baltimore so that she and the baby could get to Washington, D.C.)

Jennifer wrapped Jon in an American flag blanket and held him for the first time in the terminal while the flight attendants and many of the passengers cried. They took him home to Beloit.

“He’s beautiful,” his mother said. “Everyone was here at the house at midnight when we arrived home.”

Both families had been working on adoptions since the start of 2001 and had been eagerly awaiting the homecoming.

In the 15 years since that day,  Jon has "brought us nothing but joy," Jennifer said Friday. Jeff said had he known how great it was to have children, he would have loved to have a "herd."

Jon loves volleyball and soccer and has traveled to Hawaii and Florida. He is a sophomore in a private Catholic high school, where he works hard and has lots of friends and interests. He is about to learn to drive.

He knows the story of his arrival in the United States, having heard the details from his mom and dad. Along with others of his generation, the national portrait of Sept. 11 amounts to a history lesson about loss.

For his parents, it's certainly that, but something more as well. "It is nice to remember life goes on, even when at the time it seemed to have stopped," Jeff said.