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Here’s why there are American flags above gates B32 and C19 at Boston Logan Airport
The flags are one of Logan’s most enduring, yet inconspicuous, tributes to the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.
As the nation continued to grapple with the unthinkable in the weeks following the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, two American flags rose solemnly over gates at Boston Logan International Airport — one of Logan’s most enduring, yet inconspicuous, tributes to the passengers and crews lost that day.
The flags are posted at the exterior of B32 and C19, the gates from which the hijacked American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175 departed 24 years ago Thursday.
Each airline hoisted a flag between a week to a month after 9/11, a spokesperson for the Massachusetts Port Authority confirmed in an email to Boston.com.
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Speaking during the 2008 dedication of Logan’s official 9/11 memorial, then-Massport Chairman John Quelch shed further light on the flags’ origins.
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“Both memorials appeared spontaneously, raised by airport and airline employees without fanfare or ceremony,” he said. “These two memorials are one and the same. And there is no grander memorial. That memorial is the flag of the United States of America.”
The Massport spokesperson noted that because airlines have moved terminals in the years since, four American flags now fly over gates at Logan. In addition to B32 and C19, flags are raised over gates B11 and B27.
But the airlines opted against putting up any kind of marker to draw attention to the flags or denote their significance, former Massport CEO Thomas Glynn told WBUR in 2016.
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“They didn’t want to look like they were making a big deal out of something that was making a sign of respect,” Glynn explained at the time.
For those in the know, however, the flags remain a poignant symbol.
“The flags fly proudly to this day, and will likely fly forever,” Quelch said in 2008. “They symbolize the determination of this airport, this nation, and the community assembled here to recover from that grievous wound.”
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