Tragic day, harrowing job

Ben Sliney reported to work in his new position as national operations manager at the Federal Aviation Administration’s operations command center in Herndon, Va., on Sept. 11, 2001. The day didn’t go according to plans.

After terrorist hijackers flew planes into the World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon that morning, it was Sliney who gave the unprecedented order of a full ground stop. No commercial or private flight in the country was allowed to take off.

But the order came too late for United Flight 93: The Boston-to-San Francisco flight had already taken off with four hijackers intent on crashing the plane into the Capitol. Instead, the passengers thwarted their plans and the jetliner went down in a field in Pennsylvania, killing everyone aboard.

Sliney relives that harrowing day in Paul Greengrass’ film “United 93,” which opens Friday. He plays himself.

Originally, Universal had invited him to go to London, where the production was filming, to do a small scene. Then, he says, they asked him to stick around because the following week “they were going to shoot the command center and Ben Sliney stuff.”

Greengrass began filming those scenes with an actor playing Sliney. But after the first day, the actor was gone and Sliney was asked to take over. “I told Paul Greengrass, ‘I won’t hold it against you that I was your second choice,’ ” he recalls jokingly.

Sliney, 60, who plans to retire from the FAA in the next few months, says he had no qualms about re-creating the tension of that day. “I had been over that time many times in my mind,” he says. “My role [that day] was isolated, really, from the tragedy of the people in New York City and the Pentagon.”

In the film, Sliney loses his temper and swears. That’s a bit of dramatic license. “I didn’t shout at anybody that day and get aggravated,” he says. “Paul wanted me to swear. The first two takes I didn’t, and then he pleaded with me to swear. [On Sept. 11], people were pretty upset. I felt I had to maintain an authoritative and composed state. The best way was to set a good example.”

So will he try his hand again at acting?

“What the heck would they want me to do?” he asks. “If I did well in this particular movie, shouldn’t I do like a Ted Williams -- hit a homer and then hit the beach?”

-- Susan King