Charles Burlingame (September 12, 1949-September 11, 2001) was the Captain of American Airlines Flight 77, the plane that was hijacked and crashed into the Pentagon by five Al-Qaeda Terrorists as part of the attacks of September 11, 2001.
Charles Burlingame was born on September 12, 1949 in St. Paul, Minnesota. His father was an active US Air Force Pilot, thus he moved through houses in Great Britain and California. In 1971, Burlingame went to the United States Naval Academy in 1971. In the Navy, he was a member of the 103rd Squadron, he flew F-4 Phantom Jets. In 1979, he left the US Navy and joined American Airlines.
On September 11, 2001, Charles Burlingame was piloting American Airlines Flight 77 as the Captain along with First Officer David Charlebois. At 8:51 am, the hijacking of American Airlines Flight 77 began. The muscle hijackers Nawaf and Salem Al Hazmi forcibly entered the cockpit and stabbed First Officer David Charlebois to death and herded Charles Burlingame out of the cockpit. Meanwhile, the other two muscle hijackers, Majed Moqed and Khalid Al Midhar pushed the passengers and crew, including Charles Burlingame to the back of the plane after he was herded out of the cockpit. Lead Hijacker Hani Hanjour then went into the cockpit and took over the plane's controls and diverted it from it's original flight path back to Washington DC. Flight 77 took off from Washington Dulles Airport and was headed to Los Angeles International Airport.
When Flight 77 had been hijacked, the passengers and crew though the hijackers were going to land the plane and demand money. Passenger Barbra Olson was sitting next to Charles Burlingame in the back of the plane after the terrorists took control of the plane, Olson asked her husband on her phone "what do I tell the pilot to do?" while she was sitting next to Burlingame at the back of the plane. At 9:37 am, Hani Hanjour intentionally crashed American Airlines Flight 77 into the West Wing of the Pentagon, killing all on board.