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The men and women who make up a plane's crew put their lives in jeopardy each time they fly. It's our job as much as anyone's to make sure we make it as safe as possible up there for them.

We were trying to get all of the planes down out of the sky. And we watched as the towers of the World Trade Center collapsed - something no one expected and anticipated. And you could sit there and see and be aware that thousands of people were at that moment being killed as a result of the terrorist attacks that struck the United States.

The people who went on that airplane were unexceptional.

For the last four or five years, I had been in the position where I didn't have to take a pilot. I took this one because the script and the people were terrific. It never frightened me. As we were doing the pilot, I could tell that it was working.

And so we try to address those concerns in every way possible, recognizing, again, in the final analysis, everybody on that flight wants to be assured with the highest level of confidence that everybody else on that flight has been properly screened, and including me and you and everybody.

When we saw our plane on TV as breaking news, it was the most surreal experience. A lot of the women were crying. There was a gentleman who was writing in his journal and crying. Seeing that isn't easy.

I feel very confident that Americans flying in the air are safe and that only under the most dire of circumstances would our pilots ever even request permission to do that.

And the two planes that were taking the band and crew that we had taken out to San Diego were flying out after the show. And so I was never supposed to be on that plane.

I suddenly felt the plane go down. I thought we were going to die. I was really scared. I was sitting with my head in my hands.