Charles Burlingame

Captain, United States Naval Reserve, retired, and the pilot of American Airlines flight 77.

Known from childhood as Chic. Born in St. Paul to a Navy veteran of the Second World War who later served as a noncommissioned officer in the Air Force, he grew up on and around military bases and meant from an early age to go to a service academy and fly. He was an Eagle Scout and played trumpet in the marching band at Anaheim High School, and took a presidential appointment from Lyndon Johnson to the Naval Academy, graduating in 1971 with a degree in aeronautical engineering.

He flew F-4 Phantoms with Squadron VF-103 aboard the Saratoga and was an honour graduate of the Navy fighter weapons school at Miramar. He was recalled to active service during the Gulf War and served at the Pentagon, and retired from the reserve as a captain in 1996 with the Defense Superior Service Medal.

American Airlines hired him in 1979, furloughed him in 1980 and recalled him in 1984. He had been with them twenty-two years and was qualified on the 727 and on the 757 and 767.

He was killed the day before his fifty-second birthday.

His wife Sherri, his daughter Wendy, his grandson Jack, and his stepsons John and Chad Harris.