In the spring of 2011, a friend asked if I was interested in a job co-producing an independent film tribute for the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. The subject, he explained, was a passenger on the first plane to crash into the North Tower of the World Trade Center. From there, the story took on a life of its own.
It is the story of Daniel “Danny” Mark Lewin (1970–2001), who was almost certainly the first victim of the 9/11 attacks. It’s the story of an extraordinarily gifted young man who believed anything was possible and let nothing stand in his way. Of an all-American kid who moved to Israel against his will, ended up falling hopelessly in love with the country, and served as an officer in the most elite unit of the Israeli army. Of a young soldier who was trained to hunt and kill terrorists, and who—in a tragic twist of irony—later died at their hands. Of a loud, irreverent young computer science student who formed a beautiful friendship with a soft-spoken, reserved professor. Of a husband and father who spent years struggling to make ends meet and became a billionaire almost overnight. Of a theoretical mathematician who wrote a set of algorithms that would change the Internet forever.
Until now, it’s also a story that has remained largely untold. When Lewin was still alive, business journalists categorized him and his company, Akamai, as breakout stars of the first dot-com boom. After his death on 9/11, the mainstream media eulogized him as one of the 2,975 victims of the attacks but never fully investigated his actions on American Airlines Flight 11. His family and friends have remained largely silent. They are certain Lewin courageously tried to stop the terrorists, and that he was likely the first victim of the attacks, but they have been reluctant to share publicly why they believe this to be fact.
Some stories, I have learned, simply can’t be told without the passage of time. You can dig at them, push them, pound the pavement in search of ways to bring them to life, but you can’t be true to them until their keepers are ready to share a part of their lives long shrouded in privacy. It’s not until that point that they will reach willingly into the wells of their memory, perhaps even back to those moments hardest to relive, and begin to tell the story.