John Ogonowski went to secondary school at Keith Academy, Lowell, Massachusetts. He attended Lowell Technological Institute (now the University of Massachusetts Lowell), where he was a member of the Pi Lambda Phi fraternity. He graduated in 1972 with a bachelor of science degree in Nuclear Engineering. Ogonowski was a pilot in the U. S. Air Force during the Vietnam War, assigned to the Air Force base in Charleston, South Carolina, and ferry equipment to Asia and sometimes transporting the bodies of fallen in C-141 transport aircraft. He retired from the military with the rank of captain. John Ogonowski became a commercial pilot in 1978. For 23 years, he flew airplanes for American Airlines, and was a member of the Allied Pilot Association. During the course of his commercial piloting career, he met Margaret, a flight attendant who went by the nickname “Peggy”, whom he later married. John Ogonowski was killed on September 11, 2001, while at the controls during the hijacking of American Airlines Flight 11. Following his murder, his airplane was crashed into the World Trade Center. It is believed that he was stabbed to death in order for the hijacker pilot Mohamed Atta to take control of the plane and crash it into the North Tower of the World Trade Center. Before dying, Ogonowski managed to engage the aircraft’s radio system to allow air traffic control to listen to the terrorists’ conversations in the aircraft’s cabin. His body was never found.

John Ogonowski was survived by his wife Margaret and daughters Laura, Caroline, and Mary Catherine. His younger brother, Jim Ogonowski, who is also an agricultural activist, made an unsuccessful run for the United States House of Representatives in 2007. A remote controlled model aircraft flying field in nearby Tewksbury, Massachusetts, has been dedicated to Captain Ogonowski. The University of Massachusetts Lowell, Ogonowski was posthumously presented an honorary doctorate at the 2003 commencement ceremony at Tsongas Arena. The USAID Farmer to Farmer program was renamed the “John Ogonowski and Doug Bereuter FTF Program” as part of the 2008 Farm Bill. At the National 9/11 Memorial, Ogonowski is memorialized at the North Pool, on Panel N-74 adjacent to the name of Kathleen A Nicosia, a friend and flight attendant also killed on board American Airlines Flight 11 that day.