Founder of agency focusing on wireless technology phoned mother before crash

The founder of a public relations firm specializing in wireless technology phoned his mother to tell her he loved her before his plane crashed Tuesday in Pennsylvania in the worst terrorist attack ever on U.S. soil.

Mark Bingham, 31, the founder of The Bingham Group, was on United flight 93 bound for San Francisco from Newark, N.J.

Bingham, who was returning from the firm's New York office, called his mother on his cell phone shortly before the plane crashed near a strip mine in a wooded section of Somerset County, about 80 miles southeast of Pittsburgh, killing all 45 people on board.

"He said, 'I want to let you know that I love you,' and I told him we all love him," his mother, Alice Hoglan, told Reuters.

Investigators believe passengers on flight 93 may have struggled with the hijackers causing the plane to crash before it reached its intended target, believed to be the presidential retreat at Camp David.

"Mark was a person of action and he would not stand by and let something like this happen," says Judy Curtis, a senior account manager at the company and the first person hired by Bingham. "His friends here in San Francisco think someone like Mark would have tried to intervene and do something."

Bingham was known as a friendly man who was easily engaged in conversation, and passionate about his work and his love for sports.

"He was devoted to family," Curtis says. "He was a young man who had a more mature side. He worked hard promoting the Wi-Fi standard and with Bluetooth."

Bingham started The Bingham Group in 1999 after leaving his public relations job with 3Com in San Francisco. The Bingham Group's client roster includes Aflights, eframes.com, No Wires Needed and VARstreet.com.

According to Hoglan, a flight attendant and single mother who raised Bingham before sending him to the University of California, Berkeley, to study and play rugby, her stocky public relations executive son was sitting near the front of the plane. Bingham told her during the conversation, which took place after three other jetliners had crashed, that three hijackers told the passengers they had a bomb.

Plans for a memorial, to be held in San Francisco, are underway.

Contact Senior Editor John Fontana

Other recent articles by Fontana

More news on the attacks

No results were found for your search.

Your query is too restrictive.
You might want to try: wtc