At 10:14 Tuesday morning, barely an hour after two planes from Boston crashed into the twin towers of New York’s World Trade Center, HBS Dean Kim Clark e-mailed all students, faculty and staff to cancel classes and offer help to shaken members of the campus community.
At the time Clark sent his message, only one plane had been confirmed to have originated at Logan Airport. American Airlines flight 11, a Boeing 767 from Boston to Los Angeles with 81 passengers and 11 crew aboard, crashed into the World Trade Center at 8:48 am. Clark wrote, “We have not been able to ascertain whether any members of the HBS community were on that flight.”
Later in the day, the second plane was identified as another Boeing 767 from Boston to Los Angeles. United Airlines flight 175, which had 56 passengers and nine crew aboard, crashed at 9:03 am.
Clark wrote that the day’s classes were cancelled to allow the campus community “to absorb this information, understand what is happening, and get information on people about whom they may be concerned.”
Clark offered more specific resources via a message sent at 1:24 pm. The Williams Room in the Spangler Center was open as a community gathering space and Clark referred community members to counseling resources at the Urgent Care in the Holyoke Center at Harvard Square (tel.: 495-5711).
Clark was out of town when he issued these messages and he was not able to return on Tuesday due to the moratorium on air travel, according to MBA Program Chair Carl Kester.
