Colonel Charles Edward Jones (November 4, 1952 – September 11, 2001) was a United States Air Force officer, a computer programmer, and an astronaut in the USAF Manned Spaceflight Engineer Program

Manned Spaceflight Engineer Program

The Manned Spaceflight Engineer Program was an effort by the United States Air Force to train American military personnel as payload specialists for Department of Defense missions on the Space Shuttle program.-Background:...

.

Biography

Jones was born in Clinton

Clinton, Indiana

Clinton is a city in Vermillion County, Indiana, United States. The population was 4,893 at the 2010 census. The city was established in 1829 and is named after DeWitt Clinton, who served as governor of New York from 1817 to 1823. Many of Clinton's original settlers were immigrants working in coal...

, Indiana

Indiana

Indiana is a US state, admitted to the United States as the 19th on December 11, 1816. It is located in the Midwestern United States and Great Lakes Region. With 6,483,802 residents, the state is ranked 15th in population and 16th in population density. Indiana is ranked 38th in land area and is...

. He graduated from Wichita High School East

Wichita High School East

Wichita High School East, known locally as East, is a public, co-educational secondary school located near the center of Wichita, Kansas With a student population of 2,200, it is the largest high school in the state. Originally known as Wichita High School, East was the first of eight traditional...

 in 1970 and earned a bachelor of science in astronautical engineering from the United States Air Force Academy

United States Air Force Academy

The United States Air Force Academy is an accredited college for the undergraduate education of officer candidates for the United States Air Force. Its campus is located immediately north of Colorado Springs in El Paso County, Colorado, United States...

 in 1974. He entered the USAF Manned Spaceflight Engineer program in 1982, and was scheduled to fly on mission STS-71-B in December 1986, but the mission was cancelled after the Challenger Disaster

Space Shuttle Challenger

Space Shuttle Challenger was NASA's second Space Shuttle orbiter to be put into service, Columbia having been the first. The shuttle was built by Rockwell International's Space Transportation Systems Division in Downey, California...

 in January 1986. He left the Manned Spaceflight Engineer program in 1987.

He was killed at the age of 48 in the attacks of September 11, 2001

September 11, 2001 attacks

The September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks (also referred to as September 11, September 11th or 9/119/11 is pronounced "nine eleven". The slash is not part of the pronunciation...

, aboard American Airlines Flight 11

American Airlines Flight 11

American Airlines Flight 11 was American Airlines' daily scheduled morning transcontinental flight from Logan International Airport, in Boston, Massachusetts, to Los Angeles International Airport, in Los Angeles, California...

. He had been living as a retired US Air Force Colonel in Bedford

Bedford, Massachusetts

Bedford is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. It is within the Greater Boston area, north-west of the city of Boston. The population of Bedford was 13,320 at the 2010 census.- History :...

, Massachusetts

Massachusetts

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...

, at the time of his death. He was survived by his wife Jeanette.

At the National 9/11 Memorial, Jones is memorialized at the North Pool, on Panel N-74.

See also

• Casualties of the September 11 attacks
  Casualties of the September 11 attacks
  The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 by Al-Qaeda resulted in 2,996 immediate deaths, including the 19 hijackers and 2,977 victims. 372 foreign nationals perished in the attacks, representing just over 12% of the total...