9/11, This is powerful footage to watch.



I was off work, and was simply flicking through channels on telly, just not really watching anything in particular. Settled on BBC One for a moment, smoke was coming the first tower. I have to say, my first reaction was to think that I was watching a disaster film, then the second plane hit. I just sat there, in disbelief and shock.

Might have mentioned this before, but a few weeks later at work, we heard that a former colleague who left to work in America at the WTC, was caught up in it that day, his family and friends couldn’t get hold of him for about 24 hours, so thought he’d been inside one of the towers.

Turns out he was going into work that day later, because he had an early dentist appointment, he lived just a short distance from the WTC, he was in his apartment when the towers fell, the building lost electric power, the tremors from the collapse had jammed his door closed and he was trapped there until to leave, and with all the phone networks being down, he couldn’t let anybody know where he was until power had been restored.
 
I was in Junior school at the time and had heard what had happened but didn't really understand fully. Got home and me mam had the news on, both planes had already hit. Don't think I left the sitting room for the rest of the day
 
I had just got in from school, can remember going into my room and my nana rang and told me to put the news on, second plane hit just as I turned it on. Can remember it line it was yesterday. Went to ground zero last year and it was a completely surreal experience.
 
I was on the afternoon shift, which quickly turned into measuring taxiway widths and Load Category Group diagrams, getting ready to take civil aircraft turned back from the Atlantic, while also figuring out how the newly reconstituted QRA was going to work. In those days there was just one at Leuchars and that's too far away from London.
 
In a North Vietnam back end of nowhere village where the new hotel had let us set up a darts board and pool table in their foyer. Sinking plenty of beer with the Aussies, Kiwis, few Canadians. There was a git big TV in the corner, and someone spotted the news, so few by few wandered across and watched, even saw the second one go in live, some who came over late thought it was a film. Most went back to drinking, pool and darts, when they collapsed, was another WTF moments. TBF most of us were well oiled, it wasn't till the morning it kind of sank in.

True story, a service eng on our job buggered off down Saigon with a tart, when he was meant to be flying home. 9/11 happened and his company (wife included) wanted his whereabouts, we tried to cover him, but got to senior management, and we spilled the beans as we were in the shit if not. Lost his job and his missus filed for divorce before he had even stepped foot back on US soil.
 
I was doing emails in my office alone at the time and had an AOL account. The news popped up on the screen shortly before I had a call from my missus to tell me what was going on.

Will always remember the strange feeling watching the news come in on line. It’s commonplace now but was something new at the time.
 
I bunked off school coincidently, can't remember what time it happend in the UK but I remember watching it all unfold on the TV, mad as fuck

Its still surreal watching it now.
 
I was working in one of the labs, helping install a bit of kit. One of my colleagues came in and said “Some idiot has flown a plane into the WTC”. All of us did a “FFS... how stupid was the pilot?” type expression and carried on.

The BBC News website was clogged and Ito didn’t help that everybody on site (6,000 people) were trying to access the same websites to get information. This meant nobody really knew what had happened. Then the emails started trickling in from colleagues in New Jersey who could see the smoke from Manhattan and the seriousness started to dawn on us.

Got back home and just stood in front of the TV in disbelief, incredible sorrow and the knowledge that the world would never be the same place again.
 
I had no idea anything happened at all until I went to work the next day. I'd had the day off and spent the afternoon picking my kid up from school and put BBC Choice (the forerunner of CBeebies) on.

I briefly switched onto BBC1 just to see what was on and saw one of the towers was smoking I thought it was one of those made-for-tv disaster films they sometimes put on during weekday afternoons so thought nothing on it and turned the tv back over to Bodger & Badger.

It was only when I rolled into work the following afternoon that I had any idea something at all had gone on, let alone the scale of it.
 
tunstall birdman said:
I have seen clips from this footage but never the whole thing. When you get the chance, watch this in its entirety. It is still hard to grasp that such a thing happened.
I remember at the time I was giving a lecture to new students in the lecture theatre and when I finished and walked of stage, a colleague told me the news that a plane has been reported to have crashed into one of the Twin Towers. At that point, little did I know of what was to come.
In the staffroom, we kept an eye on the news and what further developed, shocked us all greatly.
The whole matrix of the world shifted greatly that day.


What was the happenings of your day like, when you heard the news coming through?
Click to expand...
Just come in from school & my mam had it on the telly. She said it'd interrupted one of her programmes; I was just asking what was going on when the second plane piled in.

Just stood in the doorway with my jaw on the floor.
 
Coming back from work stuff and changing trains at Sheffield when my Mrs at the time rang and told me two planes had crashed into WTC. I remember people on the following train trying to ring friends / relatives for updates but hardly anyone could get through so it wasn't until she picked me up at Durham that the full horror became apparent.
 
Good Bloke Fairly said:
Had just came home from school. I was only in reception so didn't comprehend it all til years later but I can vividly remember my mam, nana and grandad being absolutely star struck and shit scared.
Click to expand...
your username has got that song stuck in me head now !!

anyway back on topic - I was on a late (4-midnight) shift and was driving from sunderland to north Tyneside, via chester le street as was going to view a car on way to work

got stuck in traffic just past shiney row and it came on radio so I texted the mrs to tell her - neither of us realising the enormity of the situation she replied "be careful I heard the tyne tunnel could be next" - a comment she regretted as soon as we both saw the news and realised how bad it was. Got very little work done that night, got home about 0030 and just sat up all night with some cans watching the news over and over again
 

Back
Top