In “How we die matters” Danny Eisen, (The Ottawa Citizen, September 10, 2011) recounts, “My cousin fought his killers as his plane headed for the World Trade Center.”
Like virtually everyone else who knew Danny [Lewin], I wondered if more had happened in the last minutes of that flight. The question would be answered later by American authorities. They informed our family that Danny had been stabbed and critically wounded while physically confronting Mohamed Atta and his colleagues. Seated in their midst in business class, Danny fought, alone and unarmed, to prevent the hijacking.
Alone?
While Danny did not succeed in preventing the tragedy on Flight 11, his impact on 9/11 would be profound. As the co-founder of Akamai Technologies, Danny had invented technology to help the Internet handle huge amounts of traffic. As usage of the Internet surged to unprecedented levels on 9/11, Danny’s technology would prove itself under fire — just as Danny himself had on so many occasions. It prevented the collapse of many sites that would have been unable to handle the volume.
May he rest in the light of eternal peace.