Retired Mendota Heights Pilot Recalls ‘Paradigm Shift’

September of 2001 was the last month of Northwest pilot John Campbell’s career before retiring at age 60.

On Sept. 10, Campbell set out for his usual sequence, beginning with a flight from Detroit to Amsterdam. The flight was a night crossing, and it was Campbell’s custom to get some sleep at the hotel once he arrived.

He awoke a few hours later and turned the TV on mute. When he saw a burning building, he remembers thinking to himself, “They must be showing ‘The Towering Inferno,’”—a 1974 thriller about a fire in a skyscraper.

Then he watched as a plane flew into the second tower of the World Trade Center.

He was grounded in Amsterdam for a week.

“Up until that point … hijackers wanted money or they wanted to go somewhere. So the way we were instructed was basically to cooperate,” said Campbell. “This paradigm shift was huge. … Now, (cockpits are) secure and they’re armored.

“So the barn door has been shut, but unfortunately the rest of us pay the price for this. It really is changing us as a society. You can’t really prevent every bad thing from happening.”

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