Twenty-five years after the September 11 attacks, several celebrities are reflecting on the split-second circumstances that kept them from death.
Seth MacFarlane, then 27, had a ticket on American Airlines Flight 11 out of Boston on the morning of September 11, 2001. The Family Guy creator had given a lecture at his former college the night before and stayed out drinking afterward. His travel agent had also given him the wrong departure time. Speaking to Howard Stern in 2011, MacFarlane recalled the cascade of errors that saved his life. “I was booked on that flight…and I missed the plane by about 10 minutes,” he said. “It was a very close call for me.” He fell asleep in the airport lounge after arriving too late, while the hijacked plane crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center.
Mark Wahlberg, 30 at the time, had also been scheduled on Flight 11 but changed his plans about a week earlier. He and friends decided to attend a film festival in Toronto instead. Wahlberg later made controversial comments about what he imagined he would have done had he been aboard, telling Men’s Journal: “If I was on that plane with my kids, it wouldn’t have went down like it did. There would have been a lot of blood in that first-class cabin and then me saying, ‘Okay, we’re going to land somewhere safely, don’t worry.'” He later called those remarks “ridiculous… Irresponsible… [and] insensitive.”
Grammy-winning singer Patti Austin, then in her early fifties, held a ticket for United Flight 93, the plane that crashed into a Pennsylvania field after passengers fought back against hijackers. Her mother, Edna, suffered a stroke in San Francisco, prompting Austin to fly there on September 10 instead. The change of plans kept her off the doomed flight.
Michael Jackson, 42, had performed at Madison Square Garden on September 10 for his 30th anniversary celebration and was due at a meeting at the World Trade Center the following morning. According to his brother Jermaine Jackson’s memoir You Are Not Alone: Michael: Through a Brother’s Eyes, Michael overslept after talking with family into the early hours. “Thankfully, none of us had had a clue that Michael was due at a meeting that morning at the top of one of the Twin Towers,” Jermaine wrote.
Gabourey Sidibe, then a student, missed a class near the World Trade Center because she overslept. The Precious actor later told the New York Daily News: “Later that day, one of the towers fell on the school building that I had class in, and people lost their lives.”
Australian Olympic swimmer Ian Thorpe, 18, had planned to visit the South Tower’s observation deck but returned to his hotel after forgetting his camera. His manager Frank Turner later told Australian radio: “He was probably 20 minutes away from being there.”
Sarah Ferguson, the Duchess of York, 41, was running late for an 8:45 a.m. Meeting at her Chances for Children charity on the 101st floor of the North Tower. An interview with Matt Lauer at NBC studios had run long, and traffic delayed her further. The first plane struck at 8:46 a.m. Ferguson later said: “I take every minute as a blessing, I really do, and I really work hard at it.” A rag doll called Little Red, created by Ferguson as a charity mascot, was later recovered from the rubble and displayed in a 9/11 memorial exhibit at Ground Zero.
Actor Rob Lowe, then 37, flew an American Airlines route just 11 days before hijackers would take the same path into the Pentagon. Flight records revealed the hijackers were aboard his flight, conducting a dry run. Lowe said: “It was a dry run with the 9/11 hijackers surrounding me in the cabin, same crew.” He was later called to testify against Zacarias Moussaoui in court.
Not all famous names escaped. Berry Berenson, the wife of Psycho actor Anthony Perkins, died aboard Flight 11. Frasier and Wings producer David Angell and his wife Lynn also perished, as did political commentator Barbara K. Olson on Flight 77. New York City firefighter Scott Davidson was killed responding to the disaster, leaving behind his seven-year-old son Pete, who would grow up to become a comedian.
The attacks killed 2,977 people in total, making them the deadliest act of terrorism in world history. The near-miss stories of those who survived by chance continue to resonate as the anniversary approaches.
The 25th anniversary commemorations will take place in New York City, Washington, D.C., and Shanksville, Pennsylvania.