Remembering 9/11: Honoring Minnesota victims

The terrorist attacks on 9/11 impacted every single person in the United States and most people around the world. To this day, those terrorist attacks impact how we travel and our overall sense of security.

All this week on "Nightcast" at 10 p.m., Chief Political Reporter Tom Hauser will look at various aspects of those attacks from a Minnesota perspective. He’ll talk to relatives of victims of 9/11 about how their families and others are honoring their loved ones. We’ll hear from a flight instructor and Minnesota FBI agent who nearly unraveled the 9/11 plot before it happened. Plus, we’ll hear from a Minnesota man who served in the CIA and the U.S. State Department and helped write the 9/11 Commission Report. He’ll tell us whether we’re safer today than we were 20 years ago and what steps still need to be taken.

5 EYEWITNESS NEWS talked to two of the Minnesota families most directly impacted by the terrorist attacks. Gordy Aamoth was on the 104th floor of the south tower of the World Trade Center.

"I called my mom and I said, ‘Is Gordy OK?’" said Erik Aamoth, Gordy’s brother. "And she said I just talked to him. It was the other tower. And so then I was on the phone with my mom and then right then is when basically 20 minutes later the other plane hit the second tower."

Tom Burnett, Jr., was among the heroic passengers on Flight 93 that crashed in Pennsylvania before it could get to its likely target.

"I always figured that when I’m 38 years old like he was when he died I’d know how to be brave like that, but I’m 38 right now and have three kids like he did but I still can’t imagine," Burnett’s nephew, Devin O’Brien, said.

Wayzata 9/11 memorial video

Click here to see more 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS coverage of the 20th anniversary of 9/11.