The morning of Sept. 11, 2001, Nia Gilliam was a 25-year-old co-pilot on a commercial flight awaiting an early morning takeoff at Newark Liberty International Airport en route to Boston’s Logan International Airport. But by the time she was set to take to the air, two airplanes — American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175 had struck the North and South Towers of the World Trade Center.
Gilliam’s plane sat on the tarmac at Newark, where she could see what was transpiring just 13 miles away. Because it was already on the runway, the flight was allowed to leave. The terrorists that day did not choose her plane.
Another aircraft, United Airlines Flight 93, which had also left the same airport en route to San Francisco, had also been hijacked; passengers fought back against their attackers, and the plane crashed near Shanksville, Pa. Meanwhile, American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon’s west wall. Before the morning was over, the Twin Towers had collapsed, and a total of nearly 3,000 would be dead.
In Gilliam’s book, “Cleared for Takeoff: A Pilot’s Memoir of Purpose and Resilience After 9/11” (Storehouse Voices), which she released last month, Gilliam, 50, describes not only the events of that fateful day, but more importantly, the direction she took after experiencing one of the most horrific days in the nation’s history.
“It took me a while to get to the point where I would speak of [9/11],” she said in an interview with the Amsterdam News. “The very first time I did talk was part of a documentary, The Women’s List. I was asked the question, ‘ Was there ever a time that you were scared?’ I just told my truth ‘cause prior to it’s just not something I would talk about. After I did the documentary, I’ve been able to share my story of 9/11 which has been very personal and traumatic.”
After the terrorist attacks and having to be in the air amidst the uncertainty and fear of that day and the many that followed, Gilliam refused to fly on Sept. 11 for many years, and not to Boston at all. She did her schedule every month and put in a request for that particular time off. It worked for a while, but then one day it didn’t, and Gilliam found herself working on Sept. 11.
Her mother stepped in, encouraging her to not only seek professional counseling, but also consider joining a writing group as a form of personal repair to express the tightly held emotional trauma she carried, while confronting breast cancer in her 40s and raising her children while still working for the airline.
“When I was in the class, I shared just a portion of my story, and it really moved everyone in the room, including my instructor,” she notes. “They all reacted with tears, but when the teacher suggested I consider publishing, that was the initial spark. I didn’t feel like it was a story I wanted to share with the world, but I evolved as an individual, as a woman. After receiving my [cancer] diagnosis, I was off work for two years, so I just had to [write]. If I died, so did my story.”
A path into the skies
For Gilliam, now 50, that story was part of a journey from dreaming of being a pilot to becoming one of the youngest Black women to sit in a captain’s chair to her support of other Black women who aspire to do the same.
Growing up in the shadow of Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport, Gilliam was captivated by flight at an early age, beginning her journey at the age of 10. It was the story of Elizabeth “Bessie” Coleman who inspired her to pursue becoming a professional. Coleman was the first Black and Native American woman to receive a professional pilot’s license in 1921, later dying in a plane accident. It was Gilliam’s mother who pushed her to learn more about Coleman at local libraries in the absence of visible Black female pilots in her childhood.
Gilliam would eventually receive her bachelor’s degree in aviation management from Southern Illinois University-Carbondale, becoming a flight instructor then a traffic patrol pilot for radio news journalists.
It was through fellowship with other Black and woman pilots, flight attendants, and organizations such as Women in Aviation International and the Organization of Black Aerospace Professionals that Gilliam was able to reach the status of full captain for a major airline, which has been her professional home for more than 20 years.
“When I started in the early 90s, it was rare to see a Black woman in the cockpit, and it took a lot of effort just to meet those working in the field,” Gilliam said. “It’s wonderful that we’ve grown in numbers and I attribute that a lot to just representation and access to information. We still have a long way to go, but we’ll get there.”
A decade ago, Gilliam co-founded the nonprofit Sisters of the Skies with former U.S. Coast Guard pilot Angel Hughes. The organization supports Black women pilots, who are less than one percent of all pilots. It has awarded more than $1 million in scholarship money for training programs and flight schools and offered general coaching for Black girls across the country.
A glimpse back
It has only been in the past two years that Gilliam has been able to travel to New York City, thanks to a lot of work with her therapist and personal writing. She has traveled a sometimes-arduous journey in the years since the 9/11 attacks occurred, as the single mother of now-adult children, surviving breast cancer, and becoming one of a small, but growing number of Black woman pilots in the United States.
In 2024, she made it back to New York and the World Trade Center memorial and joined a guided tour. But the emotions still carry a weight.
“It was very good for me to have that experience,” she recalls. “They have an exhibit hall there with a timeline of the events of that day. The docent said to us, ‘if you need to leave, it’s okay because it’s very heavy in there.’ I did not get very far, and he led me straight to the door. I was trying to breathe, to catch my breath.”
But she’s back in the cockpit again as an airline captain, flying for United Airlines. She will be returning to the 9/11 memorial with her daughter this year and intends to make it through the entire space. “Out of respect for those who lost their lives, I want to pay tribute.”
Her new book is about more than her experience on 9/11 but cementing a lifelong legacy of mentorship, parenting, and being a role model that inspires other young Black girls and women to look to the skies for a career path.
“Part of my story, the non-9/11 portion, has always been celebrated in the community just because it’s rare to see a Black woman in the position that I’m in as a pilot and as a captain,” she explains. “I’ve done work in the community, and my story has been celebrated, but in my uniform, I get lots of positive affirmation.”
Right now, Gilliam is at cruising altitude and has no plans to land anytime soon. She likes inspiring others, and that includes her son, Thaddeus, who is now a corporate pilot himself.
“It would be wonderful to be retired, but I do love to fly; it’s a place of peace for me,” she said, laughing. “[9/11] was so unpeaceful, you know. I’ve done a lot as an ambassador, as a mentor, but the highlight of my career is not just that I became a captain or wrote a wonderful book that inspired others, but that I get to fly with my son.”
“For me that is a full circle moment for my whole purpose, to have that opportunity to fly with him,” she continued. “ [9/11] almost took away that peace, that solitude I feel when I fly, but I’ll keep on flying planes and being purposeful in my life.”
