I first came across the Captain Steeeve YouTube channel back in January of 2025 after an Army Black Hawk helicopter crashed into a passenger jet over the Potomac River. A former Naval aviator and, at that time, a commercial airline pilot himself, Capt. Steve was able to offer unique insight into what may have happened and why. He'd flown airliners into Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport before, and he knew the runways and the crowded approach well.
Most importantly, he revisited the story when new information about the crash became available and corrected what he may have gotten wrong so his audience had the best, most up-to-date information available.
Capt. Steve's decades of experience, calm approach to explaining aviation disasters to the average person, and insistence on dealing only with the facts available have led to the explosive growth of his channel, and he now has well over one million subscribers.
As is the way with YouTube's algorithm, Steve started popping up regularly in my feed. My husband is a recreational pilot, so I was happy to watch and learn more about the industry. Then, one day, Capt. Steve's incredible 9/11 story was front and center on my feed.
In 2001, Capt. Steve Scheibner was an American Airlines first officer based out of Boston. On September 10 of that year, while serving reserve duty for his airline, he put his name in for the next morning’s American Airlines Flight 11 from Boston's Logan International Airport to LAX.
He was so sure he'd picked up the route that packed his bag and waited for the confirmation of his assignment.
“I waited for the phone call, and the phone never rang, which is not completely unusual,” Scheibner recalled. “It’s not the norm, but it’s not completely out of the question either. In fact, I didn’t even think about it for a while.”
The confirmation never came because, at the last minute, a more senior pilot, Capt. Tom McGuinness, took the flight instead. The next morning, McGuinness was sitting in the cockpit of American Airlines Flight 11 when terrorists hijacked the Boeing 767 and flew it into the North Tower of the World Trade Center at 8:46 AM.
FO Tom McGuinness, whose father was the first officer on American Airlines Flight 11, provides his perspective on the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks:https://t.co/kkzkaheVoJ pic.twitter.com/cKj8okL5FD
— Allied Pilots (@AlliedPilots) September 10, 2021
“I still didn’t realize that that was the flight I was supposed to be on. You know, I’m watching it on TV like everybody else, and it didn’t click with me. I knew the flight number and everything. It still didn’t click with me,” Scheibner remembered.
The series of events that had unfolded to keep him safe gave Capt. Steve, a devout Christian, pause. He hadn't overslept or gotten stuck in traffic, he had actually sought out the captain's seat on that first plane that crashed into a skyscraper and shocked the world.
When he looked on American’s online system to see who the crew was, he saw three words: “Sequence Failed Continuity.”
“That’s code at the airlines for the trip never made it to its destination. Wow, what an understatement,” Scheibner said.
The emotion of it all then hit him.
“Words can’t describe that moment of realizing that you should have been someplace. … Yeah, you do have a twinge of guilt,” Scheibner said.
That's got to be a heckuva thing to ponder, not to mention a weight to carry. Why did McGuinness come in at the last second to claim the flight that was seemingly Steve's?
Scheibner has spoken many times in the years since – way before he had a YouTube channel – about what it was like to realize how close he had come to being part of the 9/11 attack.
“Why does God take one and leave another?" he asked. "It’s not because I’m a better person or God wanted to do more with me than he wanted to with Tom. I think in God’s providence, that’s obviously His choice."
In the 25 years since 9/11, Capt. Steve has lived with renewed purpose. “I need to act like I’m living on borrowed time because I am. I can look and see my smoking hole. And it was on national TV,” he said.
“There’s an obligation that comes with that. I’ve got to live my days with a sense of urgency. I have to make sure I get the most out of them. And not the most for me. We live in a world where everybody’s out to kind of get the most for them.”
