Ray Howland, an executive with American Airlines, was arrested early June 26, 2015 after allegedly attempting to meet a mother and her 10-year-old daughter for sex. 
 
 An American Airlines senior manager who was part of the company's initial response on 9/11 was arrested in an undercover sting operation, accused of trying to meet a woman and her 10-year-old daughter for sex, agents with the state Attorney General's Office said. 
 
 Ray Howland, 55, of Arlington, Texas, remained in the Allegheny County Jail, unable to post $150,000 bail. Investigators charged him Friday with multiple sex crimes, including attempted rape of a child. 
 
 Police said Howland posted an online ad saying he would be traveling to the Moon area for business and was “looking for a family or a couple of girls.” 
 
 Special Agent Duane Tabak, with the attorney general's Child Predator Section, replied to the ad, posing as a 32-year-old single mother and her 10-year-old daughter. Howland emailed the “mother” and sent the “daughter” text messages, agreeing to meet them at 8 a.m. and follow them to their house. Police arrested him at the meeting spot. 
 
 “He explained in detail, through email and text messages, the sexual acts he hoped to engage in,” Attorney General Kathleen Kane said in a statement. 
 
 Tabak said Howland knew the messages and the arranged meeting were wrong. 
 
 “(Howland) admitted what his conversations with the child looked like, agreeing that any reasonable person would read these conversations and believe that he was coming to meet the child for sex,” the agent wrote. Howland “admitted that, if the child and parent were willing, he would have had sexual contact with the child.” 
 
 Howland said “he was heading in a bad direction and he let himself get caught up in this,” according to the complaint. 
 
 “He stated that he couldn't tell me how ashamed he was,” Tabak wrote. 
 
 Howland told police he travels to Pittsburgh about once a month for business. 
 
 Police said he admitted placing the ad, setting up the meeting and having a sexual conversation with the “child” in text messages. 
 
 Howland said a man in Texas sent him photos of his 12-year-old daughter who, the father said, had “met with other people,” according to police. 
 
 In the complaint, investigators said they found the girl's photo on Howland's iPad, along with communications between Howland and the Texas man. 
 
 Airline spokesman Ross Feinstein wrote in an email that “American Airlines holds its employees to the highest level of ethical standards. Employees who violate these standards are subject to disciplinary action, which may include immediate termination.” Feinstein said the company is cooperating with law enforcement. 
 
 Howland is listed in several footnotes of The 9/11 Commission report, published in July 2004. At the time of the terror attacks, he was a manager in American's system operations control center and on the phone with employees who were speaking with flight attendants on Flight 11 during the harrowing, chaotic minutes between the plane's hijacking and its crash into the North Tower of the World Trade Center. 
 
 Megan Guza is a Trib Total Media staff writer. Reach her at 412-380-8519. 
 
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 PITTSBURGH (AP) — An American Airlines operations manager who was among the few people to learn of the first 9/11 hijacking before the jet struck the World Trade Center has been arrested near Pittsburgh in an online child-sex sting. 
 
 Ray Howland is charged with arranging a sexual encounter with a woman and a 10-year-old girl and sent explicit messages after posting online that he was "looking for a family or a couple of girls" for sex while in town on business. 
 
 Howland, 55, of Arlington, Texas, was actually communicating with an undercover agent from the Pennsylvania attorney general's office, prosecutors said. 
 
 He was arrested Friday in Moon Township, about 13 miles northwest of downtown Pittsburgh, and charged with criminal attempt to commit rape of a child, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse and other offenses. 
 
 He remained jailed Monday on $150,000 bail pending a July 7 preliminary hearing. Online court records didn't list a lawyer to comment on the charges. 
 
 American Airlines said it is cooperating fully with law enforcement and would not comment on Howland's case. In a statement, the airline said it holds employees to the "highest level of ethical standards." 
 
 "Employees who violate these standards are subject to disciplinary action, which may include immediate termination," the airline said. 
 
 Howland has worked in aircraft operations for more than 30 years and is a licensed private pilot, according to his LinkedIn page. He has been with American Airlines since 1989, moving from flight dispatcher to various supervisory roles to senior manager for integrated operations control in 2008. 
 
 As a front-line supervisor at American's system operations control center in Fort Worth, Texas, Howland received some of the first panicked calls from employees at Logan International Airport in Boston reporting the hijacking of Flight 11 on Sept. 11, 2001. The calls are mentioned in the notes section of the 9/11 Commission report. 
 
 Transcripts show Howland telling Logan employees to keep the hijacking to themselves minutes before the Los Angeles-bound Boeing 767 hit the World Trade Center's North Tower. 
 
 "We don't want this getting out," Howland says, according to the transcripts. "We're aware of the situation. We're dealing with it right now. So let us deal with it." 

 An American Airlines operations manager who was among the few people to learn of the first 9/11 hijacking before the jet struck the World Trade Center has been arrested near Pittsburgh in an online child-sex sting. 
 
 New photos: Allegheny County's 20 most wanted fugitives The men and women on this list are deemed "Most Wanted" by the sheriff. He says they should be considered armed and dangerous. Can you help find anyone? Call 412-350-4714. More 
 
 VIDEO: Watch Laurie Penco's report 
 
 Ray Howland is charged with arranging a sexual encounter with a woman and a 10-year-old girl and sent explicit messages after posing online that he was "looking for a family or a couple of girls" for sex while in town on business. 
 
 "I'd love to find a mother/daughter pair (or more) of sisters, or a couple of young women interested in getting together for some fun tonight," the post said. 
 
 Howland, 55, of Arlington, Texas, was actually communicating with an undercover agent from the Pennsylvania attorney general's office, prosecutors said. 
 
 The criminal complaint details emails and texts exchanged between the agent and Howland who said he was staying in a motel along University Boulevard in Moon Township. 
 
 He was arrested Friday at a Moon Township convenience store and charged with criminal attempt to commit rape of a child, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse and other offenses. 
 
 
 
 Online court records didn't list a lawyer to comment on the charges. 
 
 
 
 American Airlines said it is cooperating fully with law enforcement and would not comment on Howland's case. In a statement, the airline said it holds employees to the "highest level of ethical standards." 
 
 
 
 "Employees who violate these standards are subject to disciplinary action, which may include immediate termination," the airline said. 
 
 
 
 Howland has worked in aircraft operations for more than 30 years and is a licensed private pilot, according to his LinkedIn page. He has been with American Airlines since 1989, moving from flight dispatcher to various supervisory roles to senior manager for integrated operations control in 2008. 
 
 
 
 As a front-line supervisor at American's system operations control center in Fort Worth, Texas, Howland received some of the first panicked calls from employees at Logan International Airport in Boston reporting the hijacking of Flight 11 on Sept. 11, 2001. The calls are mentioned in the notes section of the 9/11 Commission report. 
 
 
 
 Transcripts show Howland telling Logan employees to keep the hijacking to themselves minutes before the Los Angeles-bound Boeing 767 hit the World Trade Center's North Tower. 
 
 
 
 "We don't want this getting out," Howland says, according to the transcripts. "We're aware of the situation. We're dealing with it right now. So let us deal with it." 
 
 Howland posted $150,000 bond at the Allegheny County Jail. The State Attorney General's office says it's investigating to see if there are any more victims. 
 
 Howland is scheduled for a July 7 preliminary hearing.
– Police arrested an American Airlines executive on Friday for allegedly planning sexual exploits with a mother and her 10-year-old daughter, who were in fact one person: an undercover agent. A criminal complaint says Ray Howland, 55, placed an online ad looking for "a family or a couple of girls" in Pennsylvania and texted with the agent, who worked for the state attorney general, WTAE reports. "He explained in detail, through email and text messages, the sexual acts he hoped to engage in," says state Attorney General Kathleen Kane. Police say he also texted directly with the "child" about sexual matters, TribLive.com reports. An IT manager for American Airlines in Arlington, Texas, Howland allegedly explained in his ad that he was traveling to Pennsylvania on business. When he arrived at a gas station in Moon Township, Pa., on Friday night to meet the mom and daughter, Howland was promptly arrested, the complaint says. He's been held on $150,000 and hit with charges including one count each of criminal attempt to commit rape of a child, unlawful contact with a minor, involuntary sexual intercourse, and criminal attempt to commit indecent assault, CBS News reports. Police say he confessed to setting up the meeting, and admitted to arranging a similar rendezvous with a Texas man and his 12-year-old daughter. Strangely enough, Howland was working as a front-line supervisor for American when 9/11 happened, and he received some of the first frantic phone calls about Flight 11 being hijacked, the AP reports.