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PARKERSBURG -- Kristin and Jason Minnite were seated aboard a U.S. Air commuter plane at LaGuardia Airport, waiting to return home from a trip to New York City, when they saw smoke rising from the World Trade Center.
Their plane was fifth in line for takeoff on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, according to an account published the next day in The Parkersburg Sentinel. The Minnites had no way of knowing then that their flight would not leave or that the attack would reshape the nation.
The couple had traveled to New York with Jason's sister, Marlene Colombo, and attended a Michael Jackson concert at Madison Square Garden on Sept. 10. Earlier that day, they took a bus tour that stopped near the World Trade Center.
The guide asked whether anyone wanted to get off and visit the top.
"We didn't," Kristin recalled. "We said, 'We'll do it next time.'"
The next morning, their plane taxied toward the runway at LaGuardia. Jason watched other planes ahead of them take off, but their aircraft eventually stopped.
The pilot directed passengers on the right side of the plane to look toward the World Trade Center, where smoke was visible. Minnite said passengers initially believed a small plane might have struck one of the buildings.
After several minutes, the pilot ordered everyone back to their seats and announced that the plane was returning to the terminal.
"We were just thinking we were waiting," Jason said. "No one was 100% sure at that time. No one in the world knew what was going on."
Once the plane reached the terminal, passengers were ordered to leave their luggage behind and evacuate the airport. As the Minnites walked through LaGuardia, they caught glimpses of television coverage playing on monitors.
"The 'Today' show was on," Kristin said. "We're walking, and we're like, 'Oh, my God.'"
Both planes had struck the World Trade Center by then, Jason said. Police began urgently directing the thousands of people inside the airport to leave.
The Minnites and Colombo joined the crowd outside, uncertain where to go. Colombo, who was a travel agent, began calling contacts in search of a hotel.
They eventually walked across a large roadway with other displaced travelers and reached a hotel where people gathered around televisions to learn what had happened. Cellphone service was unreliable, and the Minnites initially struggled to contact relatives at home.
Their family knew the approximate time of their flight but did not know whether they had been aboard one of the hijacked planes. There was also concern they could have been on United Airlines Flight 93, which crashed in Pennsylvania.
"There was a short period of time where no one knew if we were on one of those planes or if we went down in Pennsylvania," Jason said.
After reaching the hotel, Jason recalled sitting outside and seeing a fighter jet fly overhead.
"I remember looking at you, and I said, 'I hope that's one of ours,'" he told Kristin. "At that time, we weren't sure what was going on."
The three later traveled by cab to a hotel near John F. Kennedy International Airport. With flights grounded, the hotel opened its doors to stranded travelers, providing food and places to sleep wherever space was available.
"There were people everywhere in that hotel," Jason said. "They did everything they could do to make everybody comfortable because they were just in shock, just like we were."
Colombo described the uncertainty in the Sept. 12, 2001, edition of The Parkersburg Sentinel.
"That's kind of an eerie feeling," she said from the Best Western near Kennedy Airport.
"Everybody on the plane was pretty much in shock," Jason told The Parkersburg Sentinel at the time.
The following day, the group obtained one of the last available rental cars at LaGuardia. A cab took them there using back roads because major routes were closed or restricted. They encountered armed security personnel and military vehicles as they navigated their way out of New York.
From a distance, they could still see smoke where the twin towers had stood.
"It was blue skies, clear as could be, and just that smoke," Jason said.
They drove to Pittsburgh, where they had left their vehicle, and continued home. Their luggage was delivered several days later.
Kristin and Jason said the experience remains surreal 25 years later. Jason recalled feeling "empty" as the scale of the attack became clear, but he also remembered the compassion among strangers.
"Everybody bonded for a short period of time," he said. "Everybody felt the same."
For the Minnites, part of the experience remains fixed in that moment at the airport -- close enough to see the towers and uncertain about what might happen next.
"There was a part of me that's still there," Jason said.