Cleared for Takeoff

On the morning of September 11, 2001, Nia Gilliam was a pilot ready for an ordinary day in the air. She had wanted to fly since she was a small child, and she had grown up certain that no goal was too far away. Then, sitting in the co-pilot's seat and waiting for clearance to depart, she saw smoke rising from the North Tower of the World Trade Center, and moments later watched United Airlines Flight 175 strike the South Tower.

Gilliam found the resolve to fly that day, but the moment she landed, both she and her devotion to flying were changed for good. Cleared for Takeoff tells the story of her escape from the chaos she witnessed, and weaves it together with the story of how she came to be there: a girl whose ambitions were encouraged, who grew into one of the few Black women to hold a pilot's seat.

Along the way, she pays tribute to the Black aviators who came before her, including Bessie Coleman, Janet Harmon Bragg and the Tuskegee Airmen. Their example gave her the confidence to claim a place in a profession that had rarely made room for women like her. As her career climbed, she also had to live through the way the national tragedy reshaped air travel, and then to face startling personal news that forced her to ask who she was apart from the dream she had worked so hard to reach.

This memoir follows Gilliam from her first flight to that unforgettable day and beyond, showing how sacrifice, determination and love brought her back to the cockpit. It is an account of courage, of turning loss into purpose, and of one woman's steady belief in herself.