Like Pearl Harbor and the assassination of President John F. Kennedy for earlier generations, nearly everyone old enough to remember 9/11 can tell you where they were 25 years ago.

Retired Air Force Lt. Col. Scott Goodwin was in the cockpit of Air Force One.

“Just a normal day when everybody got up and got to the airplane about a normal time, 8:30 in the morning,” Goodwin said. “Then all hell broke loose.”

Like most everyone else, Goodwin first learned about the attack on television, which was playing aboard Air Force One.

“When we saw the second tower get hit, everyone almost didn’t have to say anything,” Goodwin said. “Everyone kind of knew, hey, this is not pilot error.”

The crew watched as White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card walked into the classroom at Emma E. Booker Elementary School in Sarasota, Florida, and leaned down to speak to President George W. Bush.

“We knew what he was telling him,” Goodwin said.

Goodwin, who died two years ago this month, previously spoke with WTOP’s Jimmy Alexander about what he experienced that day.

As Air Force One prepared to leave Sarasota, security concerns were changing even the most routine communications.

“I actually called the FAA controller on the phone that we were talking to on the radios because I wanted to let them know what we were thinking and not broadcasting on the radio,” Goodwin said.

“The FAA guys were great, and all of our security people and everyone else just, I mean, it just clicked. Everyone just was in sync.”

The president’s plane stopped at Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana and Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska before finally heading home.

The cockpit crew was led by Col. Mark Tillman, the presidential pilot and commander of the Presidential Airlift Group.

As they approached D.C., the crew made sure Bush and those aboard could see what had happened at the Pentagon.

“We just couldn’t believe it. I mean, just to see the damage and the smoke and just the destruction,” Goodwin said. “I’ve been to the Pentagon several, obviously, times in my career, and I just couldn’t believe it.”

At the time, Goodwin and his family lived in Southern Maryland near Andrews Air Force Base, almost beneath the normal approach path. He had no idea who would be watching from below.

“I didn’t know they were outside,” Goodwin said. “But my wife and daughters and our neighbor, her husband is in the Air Force, were outside, and we flew right over top of them with fighters around us. And I guess it was chilling looking.”

What Goodwin saw at the Pentagon would soon become even more personal. A neighbor who had been his daughters’ Girl Scout leader was among those killed there.

“We didn’t know at the time, but I had seen all that and just couldn’t believe it.”

By 9/11, Goodwin had already spent eight years on presidential airlift missions out of Andrews. He had flown during both the Bill Clinton and George W. Bush administrations and was serving as a squadron commander when the attacks happened.

Asked what he remembered about Bush that day, Goodwin didn’t hesitate.

“I think he’s a badass,” Goodwin said. “He’s a hard-charging Texan, and I was proud of him. I mean, that’s a lot for a new commander in chief.”

He also recalled the words Bush would deliver at Ground Zero three days later:

“I can hear you. The rest of the world hears you.”

Years later, the memory had not softened.

“Such an awful day,” Goodwin said. “We did what we were there to do, and felt good about it. But it’s still just a horrific memory.”

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