In July, 2007, Denis Hamill wrote a column for the New York Daily News saying, “I sat in on a special class at Aviation High School in Long Island City today listening to a sharp, impressive collection of young men and women, some of whom we will entrust our very lives to when we board the flying machines that launch us into the jittery skies over New York from LaGuardia, JFK, and Newark airports.”
The Aviation High School students had read a book, “Reclaiming the Sky,” by Tom Murphy, and Hamill had been invited to listen to them share lessons learned. The book told of aviation workers in New York, Boston, and Washington, DC, who came to work on September 11, 2001, expecting a normal day, only to find that “just doing my job” was to become the creed of heroes.
They were inspired, the students told Hamill, by the courage aviation workers showed in “rising up” that day but also in the days, weeks, and months that followed.
“It’s a brand new world,” one student told Hamill. “That’s the world we’ll be working in.”
Hamill called the students “great kids,” adding “by the time I left Aviation High School, I was feeling a whole lot better about the next generation who will be reclaiming our skies.”
It’s been nineteen years since that workshop, and this spring, another generation of Aviation High School students will read “Reclaiming the Sky” to prepare for their new world – one that keeps spinning faster, requiring enhanced resiliency.
The “Reclaiming the Sky” project is based on a “resiliency development” program for young people developed by the Human Resiliency Institute at Fordham. The program has been offered since 2023 in partnership with Airports Council International – North America (ACI-NA) and SSP America to prepare Young Professionals at ACI-NA airports, employees forty and under who will one day be the industry’s leaders.
Now in 2026, the 9/11 Museum and Memorial and Fordham’s Center for Community Engaged Learning are joining a coalition to expand the program to all high school students. The NYS Senate has called for more 9/11 education. Again, Aviation High School will lead.
One hundred Aviation High School students will receive free copies of “Reclaiming the Sky” at an orientation on June 12. They will read the book over the summer and write an essay, which the school’s coordinator, Justin Foley, will score. Thirty students with the best essays will be invited to attend a workshop at the 9/11 Memorial and Museum on September 18. There Tom Murphy, the book’s author, will facilitate a discussion with the students and aviation leaders, including heroes profiled in the book, to give students a chance to share what they learned, followed by a 9/11 Museum tour.
As Denis Hamill said nineteen years ago, “Great kids.”
No doubt this new class of students from Aviation High School will be “great” also, as they prepare for the day when we’ll entrust our lives to them on flying machines.
