Oct 9, 2013 3 min read

CLINTON – On the day that a nightmare visited the United States, Pittsburgh International Airport was hushed inside and out. Except for an occasional announcement over the public address system, the terminal was mostly silent.

As the scope of the terrorist attacks by hijacked airliners on two high-rise office buildings in New York City and on the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., were realized, the Federal Aviation Administration ordered all airplanes out of the sky Tuesday morning.

No planes – commercial or private – were permitted to take off from any airport in the nation. All aircraft already in the air were ordered to land at the nearest airport.

A fourth U.S. airliner, a Boeing 757, also under the control of terrorist hijackers, crashed near Indian Lake in Somerset County, roughly 80 miles east of Pittsburgh.

“The FAA ordered the airport closed, and that’s been done,” said JoAnn Jenny, director of communications for the Allegheny County Airport Authority.

The last of an estimated 25 commercial flights that were diverted Tuesday morning to Pittsburgh landed safely by 10:45 a.m. Although the airport’s control tower was manned and operational throughout the day, one of the few control towers in the northeast to remain functional, no air traffic came in or left Pittsburgh.

“We’re working with the passengers who were diverted to this airport to find them rooms and something to eat,” Jenny said. She indicated that at least seven of the 25 flights that landed Tuesday morning were scheduled flights into Pittsburgh.

Airport security guards and uniformed Allegheny County police cordoned off access to the twin-tube subway cars that carry passengers and airport visitors from the landside terminal to the arrival/departure gates and the stores, shops and restaurants in the larger airside terminal.

An estimated 600 flights arrive and depart Pittsburgh International Airport every day, most of them between 6 a.m. and 11 p.m.

On a normal day, as many as 10,000 people work at the airport. Few were visible Tuesday morning and into the early afternoon.

“All nonessential employees were permitted to go home,” said Jenny.

Only the occasional loudspeaker announcement broke the silence inside the landside terminal.

There was no roar of powerful jet engines to be heard outside when the automatic doors opened on the parking lot side of the terminal.

The only real sign of activity was at the Dollar Rent-A-Car counter, where two dozen or more travelers eager to reach their final destination tried to arrange a car rental to get out of town.

There was no line at the adjacent Avis counter, however, where travelers were warned by a sign indicating no vehicles were available unless by prior reservation.