The torment of the ticket inspector who let terrorists board the plane on 9/11

On September 11, 2001, two men arrived late to check in for American Airlines Flight 77 from Washington. Ticket inspector Vaughn Allex checked them and let them through.

Mr. Vaughn Allex and his wife, Mrs. Denise. Photo: StoryCorps

However, the two passengers were among the group of five hijackers who hijacked the plane and flew it into the Pentagon, killing 189 people, including the terrorists, according to NPR.

“I didn’t know what I was doing,” Allex recalls. He didn’t find out what had happened until the next day. “I came to work and people wouldn’t look me in the eye.”

The government officials handed Allex a flight declaration. "I glanced at it for a second, then looked up and walked away. 'I did it, did I?'" he shared.

Allex checked in a pensioner's family on the flight, a group of students, their parents and even their teachers. "They're all gone," he said.

Allex said people stopped talking to him as the story began to unfold. He began to think that he was the cause of what happened, that maybe if he had done something differently, he could have changed things.

Allex knew many people around him were struggling to cope with the loss of loved ones, but he felt uncomfortable attending support groups.

"How can I sit in a room with people who are crying and grieving? They might think about my role in the incident," Allex said. "What should I tell them? 'I checked in the two hijackers and let them on the plane.'"

As weeks, even months passed, Allex continued to feel the same torment. The mere mention of 9/11 would trigger a wave of guilt. A customer once told Allex that her husband was a victim of the terrorist attacks, but Allex misheard her saying, "You killed my husband on 9/11."

Allex says he still can't put the past aside. In one way or another, it still haunts him. But over time, Allex has gradually been able to talk about it.

“I feel like I’ve really come out of the darkness over the past 15 years,” Allex said. “Now I’m back in the light.”

According to VNE