November 3, 2023 • 10 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, on the morning of September 11, 2001, Peter Braxton was the first military pilot in the air over the burning Twin Towers. It was his first day on the job. Here’s one harrowing story from Peter's Air Force pilot training.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
And we continue with our American stories. Up next a
story by Peter Braxton about his Air Force training, his
Air Force pilot training on the morning of September eleventh,
two thousand and one that would come into play because
he was the first military pilot in the air over
the burning twin Towers. Here's Peter with his story about
(00:35):
his pilot training at the Air Force.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
In the seven During training, it's a fully aerobatic subsonic trainer,
so you can like do loop de loops and immments
and cuminates and all these other tricks. And the thing,
you know, just think the thunderbirds are the blue angels.
You can do that stuff. We just do it way
higher in the air, Okay, we don't do it near
the Earth where there's zero room for air. So again,
(01:01):
pre war, I'm in pilot trending. I wanted to be
a doctor. I'm like flying around and they what they
do is they make you solo. You have to like
fly this thing alone, you know, very fairly quickly, within
like ten hours of flying, and you know, some of
its confidence and some of it's can you do it? Well?
(01:22):
I remember at that point I was like, well, I
guess I'm not going to fly a fighter because there's
no base near where I grew up, and I'll just
I'll go fly like I see seventeen or Casey ten.
This might be one of the last times I ever
fly alone. So I'm like, you know, I'm gonna make it.
I'm going to make it worth my while. So there's
(01:43):
a there's a problem with me is I'm more of
a Cadillac guy than a Ferrari guy, right, So I
like things a little loose where I can move and
not restrict blood flow and all this other stuff. And
you know, and yeah, you got like g get G
suits and you're pulling g's and you're just training. It
was so funny. I never used to this is embarrassing.
(02:05):
I used to. You know, you have the helmet on,
and I would wear the chin strap like it was
a hockey, Like it was just dangling, Like this doesn't
even need to be there, but it's got to be
connected because as part of the rules, right, like if
it's not connectually, breaking safety law. So I would connect everything,
but I wouldn't tighten it, tighten it, tighten it down
to myself. And so I'm flying alone, I'm like, all right,
(02:27):
here's your chance. Do all the get it out of
your system, do it, do it all. So I start
whipping this jet into full speed, entering all of these maneuvers,
and then I get this bright idea that I'm going
to try to fly like top gun like upside down
for a like sustained period of time. And I forgot
(02:50):
I forgot one that I didn't like strap in tight.
So like I flipped the plane upside down. Gravity took
over and I like fell out of the seat. And
I remember I was like laying on the cockpit on
the glass upside down. Can't reach the controls, and the
oxygen hose isn't built for this, so it's like yank
(03:11):
in my head to the side. It's still connected. I
was like, I mean, I'm like, I'm not immortal. This
is how it ends. I can't reach the ejection handles,
I can't reach the stick or the throttles, and just
like it, like you see the altimeter, just it starts
(03:37):
going down and I'm at I think I was at seven.
I had the block fourteen to seventeen thousand feet and
I mean, I'm I'm going straight down and the jet
is accelerating and the vertical loss that you must have
been ten thousand feet a minute. I probably had a
minute in eighteen seconds left to live. And it's funny
(03:58):
these the base that was it was a student pilot
training base. It was also a student air traffic control base.
It was a zoo. It was a bunch of little kids.
And so the the kind way to ask a pilot,
like what what are you doing is they say say
your say intentions. That's the way they do it. Say intentions.
(04:21):
It means what are you doing? I see on my
screen that you're not You're gonna write. It's like one
of those things where your life flashes in front of
your eyes and a millisecond, I remember my grandmother, like
I don't know, feeding me or pushing me out a swing,
and my brain instantaneously took over and said I'm gonna
fix this. We need to survive. It was like, we
(04:43):
need to live, we can live, we can do it.
And I did like neck push up and I kind
of like slid my leg on the stick instead of
going straight down, I kind of sliced down through the
air and the gravity kind of like helped me shim
me back in the seat, and I'm approaching like the
speed limits of the airframe, and I remember, I mean
(05:07):
throttle's idol speed bricks out, there's no speed limit on that,
and pulling what's called to the buffet right max performing
the plane. They're trying to pull out of this dive
that I've never been in and never been in since,
and I'm like, I mean, I mean, the whole thing
is shaking, like in the right stuff, like the right
The whole thing is shaking, and I'm pulling out and
(05:28):
still flying. And I pulled back into the area, and
I remember responding to the control. I was like, you know,
tiger to I requests river recovery, which is like, I
want to go home. I want to go home no more.
I've had enough. That was enough fun. And here's the issue.
(05:49):
The issue is these planes are so old. I mean,
I think Chuck Yeger, I mean, these are like nineteen
fifties era training jet. They have a T six now
and you have to fly the plane and level for
one minute holding this like fast slave button to get
like the I ins and the and the compass to
snap into place. After you're doing all these mate, because
(06:11):
it kind of tumbles, and so you're like, I want
to go home, and I request the recovery and I
hit the button and I hit it for like, I
don't know, forty five seconds, not a minute. But it
looked like it snapped into place. It like it kind
of tumbles and then it goes like this and it
goes and snaps. And I saw that happen, so I
was like, all right, let go. And the controller, who's
(06:35):
probably also a student, you know, it was like, you know,
turn right, zero three zero, and I'm like, you know,
I'm I'm going zero three zero. Like what do you
mean you're talking to me? Tiger three zero three zero?
That's all you say? And they say, turned again, right now,
zero six zero. Yeah, great, so you do that and
then they're like, say intentions. The compass never fully snapped back.
(07:00):
And oh, by the way, I was looking at the window.
I didn't recognize any of the stuff on the ground.
I was like flying into Mexico. I was going the
wrong direction. Well here's the problem. Well, if you don't know,
you have something called no gyro. You know, I don't
have any dry I need. I need, like you need
to tell me when it start my turn and stop
(07:20):
my turn. So we're trained to do this like in
an emergency. So I'm like, look, I mean I have
no gyro. I need no gyro. Vectors back to and
they're telling me, and then it's it's coming to me
that my compass is so I reslave the compass straight
and level, hold the finger down and it snaps back
(07:41):
into place, and now all everything's making sense. Well, here's
the problem. I'm so far away that I'm running out
of gas. And in the T thirty seven we have
these these light we call them the disco lights. There's
a red light and a yellow light. When you're getting
low on fuel, they start to like dance. They'll flash
on them off like an ambulance or something. And so
(08:05):
I'm coming back, coming back, come back, and I'm like,
oh my gosh, I'm run a field. I need direct
to initial. I need a vector direct to initial, which
is where you fly in fly with field and land.
And I had obviously already said, I mean I know gyro,
So they knew something was wrong. And I'm running a
(08:27):
gas and I'm like, you know what, better strap in,
You better put those seatbelts back on, because if you
have to eject, you know your body's gonna be torn
to shreds. You want to go out as one piece,
not like a bunch of different pieces. So I really,
I mean, I buckled everything up and I landed one
to a full stop, pulled into parking, and one of
(08:48):
my engines started flaming out, like just automatically shutting down
when I was on the ground. I think fuel starvation,
I guess, or fuel cavitation, I don't know, but I
was out of gas. I was literally I was out
of gas. So I come in and it's funny. The
flight commander has like a little radio and he listens,
especially to the students that are so low. He's like,
(09:12):
what was going on up there? And we have a
saying and then and it's I will tell my kids,
this mess up. Fess up, you mess up, you fess up.
So I told him this is what happened. And I
remember this is back in the day. I mean, these
guys are like gruffy fighter pilots that are training kit.
He had like a like dipped in his mouth and
(09:34):
he takes it out and he puts it to this
cup and it's disgusting, right, it's disgusting. I think it's
discussing habit. People will do it, enjoy your nicotine. I
don't really care. And he's like, you ain't gonna do
that again? Are you never ever ever again?
Speaker 1 (09:51):
And a terrific job on the production, editing and storytelling
by our own Greg Hangler, And a special thanks to
Peter Braxton for sharing his story with us. He also
shared us the story of being the first pilot over
the Twin Towers and that he was the last to
find out what happened there and it was a lesson
in just doing your job and doing what's ahead of you.
(10:14):
And we heard a lot about that pilot training in
this particular story, and I love that line you mess up,
you fess up. Only we all live by that credo,
how much simpler our lives would be and better. And
the story of how the training well, it has to
sort of get kicked into you sometimes through a crisis,
(10:34):
for pretty soon the protocols and the training well, they
turned you into a professional. The story of Peter Braxton
his near death experience here on our American Stories
And we continue with our American stories. Up next a
story by Peter Braxton about his Air Force training, his
Air Force pilot training on the morning of September eleventh,
two thousand and one that would come into play because
he was the first military pilot in the air over
the burning twin Towers. Here's Peter with his story about
(00:35):
his pilot training at the Air Force.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
In the seven During training, it's a fully aerobatic subsonic trainer,
so you can like do loop de loops and immments
and cuminates and all these other tricks. And the thing,
you know, just think the thunderbirds are the blue angels.
You can do that stuff. We just do it way
higher in the air, Okay, we don't do it near
the Earth where there's zero room for air. So again,
(01:01):
pre war, I'm in pilot trending. I wanted to be
a doctor. I'm like flying around and they what they
do is they make you solo. You have to like
fly this thing alone, you know, very fairly quickly, within
like ten hours of flying, and you know, some of
its confidence and some of it's can you do it? Well?
(01:22):
I remember at that point I was like, well, I
guess I'm not going to fly a fighter because there's
no base near where I grew up, and I'll just
I'll go fly like I see seventeen or Casey ten.
This might be one of the last times I ever
fly alone. So I'm like, you know, I'm gonna make it.
I'm going to make it worth my while. So there's
(01:43):
a there's a problem with me is I'm more of
a Cadillac guy than a Ferrari guy, right, So I
like things a little loose where I can move and
not restrict blood flow and all this other stuff. And
you know, and yeah, you got like g get G
suits and you're pulling g's and you're just training. It
was so funny. I never used to this is embarrassing.
(02:05):
I used to. You know, you have the helmet on,
and I would wear the chin strap like it was
a hockey, Like it was just dangling, Like this doesn't
even need to be there, but it's got to be
connected because as part of the rules, right, like if
it's not connectually, breaking safety law. So I would connect everything,
but I wouldn't tighten it, tighten it, tighten it down
to myself. And so I'm flying alone, I'm like, all right,
(02:27):
here's your chance. Do all the get it out of
your system, do it, do it all. So I start
whipping this jet into full speed, entering all of these maneuvers,
and then I get this bright idea that I'm going
to try to fly like top gun like upside down
for a like sustained period of time. And I forgot
(02:50):
I forgot one that I didn't like strap in tight.
So like I flipped the plane upside down. Gravity took
over and I like fell out of the seat. And
I remember I was like laying on the cockpit on
the glass upside down. Can't reach the controls, and the
oxygen hose isn't built for this, so it's like yank
(03:11):
in my head to the side. It's still connected. I
was like, I mean, I'm like, I'm not immortal. This
is how it ends. I can't reach the ejection handles,
I can't reach the stick or the throttles, and just
like it, like you see the altimeter, just it starts
(03:37):
going down and I'm at I think I was at seven.
I had the block fourteen to seventeen thousand feet and
I mean, I'm I'm going straight down and the jet
is accelerating and the vertical loss that you must have
been ten thousand feet a minute. I probably had a
minute in eighteen seconds left to live. And it's funny
(03:58):
these the base that was it was a student pilot
training base. It was also a student air traffic control base.
It was a zoo. It was a bunch of little kids.
And so the the kind way to ask a pilot,
like what what are you doing is they say say
your say intentions. That's the way they do it. Say intentions.
(04:21):
It means what are you doing? I see on my
screen that you're not You're gonna write. It's like one
of those things where your life flashes in front of
your eyes and a millisecond, I remember my grandmother, like
I don't know, feeding me or pushing me out a swing,
and my brain instantaneously took over and said I'm gonna
fix this. We need to survive. It was like, we
(04:43):
need to live, we can live, we can do it.
And I did like neck push up and I kind
of like slid my leg on the stick instead of
going straight down, I kind of sliced down through the
air and the gravity kind of like helped me shim
me back in the seat, and I'm approaching like the
speed limits of the airframe, and I remember, I mean
(05:07):
throttle's idol speed bricks out, there's no speed limit on that,
and pulling what's called to the buffet right max performing
the plane. They're trying to pull out of this dive
that I've never been in and never been in since,
and I'm like, I mean, I mean, the whole thing
is shaking, like in the right stuff, like the right
The whole thing is shaking, and I'm pulling out and
(05:28):
still flying. And I pulled back into the area, and
I remember responding to the control. I was like, you know,
tiger to I requests river recovery, which is like, I
want to go home. I want to go home no more.
I've had enough. That was enough fun. And here's the issue.
(05:49):
The issue is these planes are so old. I mean,
I think Chuck Yeger, I mean, these are like nineteen
fifties era training jet. They have a T six now
and you have to fly the plane and level for
one minute holding this like fast slave button to get
like the I ins and the and the compass to
snap into place. After you're doing all these mate, because
(06:11):
it kind of tumbles, and so you're like, I want
to go home, and I request the recovery and I
hit the button and I hit it for like, I
don't know, forty five seconds, not a minute. But it
looked like it snapped into place. It like it kind
of tumbles and then it goes like this and it
goes and snaps. And I saw that happen, so I
was like, all right, let go. And the controller, who's
(06:35):
probably also a student, you know, it was like, you know,
turn right, zero three zero, and I'm like, you know,
I'm I'm going zero three zero. Like what do you
mean you're talking to me? Tiger three zero three zero?
That's all you say? And they say, turned again, right now,
zero six zero. Yeah, great, so you do that and
then they're like, say intentions. The compass never fully snapped back.
(07:00):
And oh, by the way, I was looking at the window.
I didn't recognize any of the stuff on the ground.
I was like flying into Mexico. I was going the
wrong direction. Well here's the problem. Well, if you don't know,
you have something called no gyro. You know, I don't
have any dry I need. I need, like you need
to tell me when it start my turn and stop
(07:20):
my turn. So we're trained to do this like in
an emergency. So I'm like, look, I mean I have
no gyro. I need no gyro. Vectors back to and
they're telling me, and then it's it's coming to me
that my compass is so I reslave the compass straight
and level, hold the finger down and it snaps back
(07:41):
into place, and now all everything's making sense. Well, here's
the problem. I'm so far away that I'm running out
of gas. And in the T thirty seven we have
these these light we call them the disco lights. There's
a red light and a yellow light. When you're getting
low on fuel, they start to like dance. They'll flash
on them off like an ambulance or something. And so
(08:05):
I'm coming back, coming back, come back, and I'm like,
oh my gosh, I'm run a field. I need direct
to initial. I need a vector direct to initial, which
is where you fly in fly with field and land.
And I had obviously already said, I mean I know gyro,
So they knew something was wrong. And I'm running a
(08:27):
gas and I'm like, you know what, better strap in,
You better put those seatbelts back on, because if you
have to eject, you know your body's gonna be torn
to shreds. You want to go out as one piece,
not like a bunch of different pieces. So I really,
I mean, I buckled everything up and I landed one
to a full stop, pulled into parking, and one of
(08:48):
my engines started flaming out, like just automatically shutting down
when I was on the ground. I think fuel starvation,
I guess, or fuel cavitation, I don't know, but I
was out of gas. I was literally I was out
of gas. So I come in and it's funny. The
flight commander has like a little radio and he listens,
especially to the students that are so low. He's like,
(09:12):
what was going on up there? And we have a
saying and then and it's I will tell my kids,
this mess up. Fess up, you mess up, you fess up.
So I told him this is what happened. And I
remember this is back in the day. I mean, these
guys are like gruffy fighter pilots that are training kit.
He had like a like dipped in his mouth and
(09:34):
he takes it out and he puts it to this
cup and it's disgusting, right, it's disgusting. I think it's
discussing habit. People will do it, enjoy your nicotine. I
don't really care. And he's like, you ain't gonna do
that again? Are you never ever ever again?
Speaker 1 (09:51):
And a terrific job on the production, editing and storytelling
by our own Greg Hangler, And a special thanks to
Peter Braxton for sharing his story with us. He also
shared us the story of being the first pilot over
the Twin Towers and that he was the last to
find out what happened there and it was a lesson
in just doing your job and doing what's ahead of you.
(10:14):
And we heard a lot about that pilot training in
this particular story, and I love that line you mess up,
you fess up. Only we all live by that credo,
how much simpler our lives would be and better. And
the story of how the training well, it has to
sort of get kicked into you sometimes through a crisis,
(10:34):
for pretty soon the protocols and the training well, they
turned you into a professional. The story of Peter Braxton
his near death experience here on our American Stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
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