I was in the dark having an eye test and from outside the room I heard someone say the plane crashed into the building. As I tried to listen I'm sure I gave wrong answers to where the light was in my vision. 9/11
Nickolas Owen the newsreader on ITV was the person who confirmed Diana death after my wife shouted down from upstairs She had been in a car crash. That was a bigger shock to hear she had died at 36 than the Queen at 96.
Ed Chamberlain said we wish her majesty well on ITV racing at 1.30pm I believe, while the BBC were going into the rehearsed protocols when the end was near or had already been passed as the official time of Royal deaths have always been problematical to dovetail with where the family are. In transit then they wait until it's appropriate to announce to the nation. I had BBC red button on watching Athletics and just as the gun went for a race at about 6.30pm they cut to an announcement which if anyone had been paying attention that afternoon knew what Hugh Edwards was going to say. Both Hugh Edwards and Prince Charles have practised for this day for so long that no wonder they were word perfect. They both did well on such a sad occasion.
My birthday is 11 Sept. On the day itself I was 36, at work, and thinking about buying Bob Dylan’s Love and Theft LP (released that day) in my lunch hour.
Felt to me that the world changed that day. A truly horrific atrocity.
My birthday is the 10th Sept, so yeah weird couple of days for me too.
9/11 i was working in the offices at Stansted Airport. It was pretty scary as rumours were that planes were hijacked in the UK. All the news sites crashed so we were following events via the Blackpool message board. Never to be forgotten day.
I was 3 hours into a flight to NY. Captain said over the radio that an incident had happened and that’s all he knew. Then he said we had a choice to turn back and to return to Gatwick or carry on and head to Canada or Caribbean, guess which one we did!!
I was in a room having an eye test with a young blond women close to me asking were the blue or red lights clearer. I could here a voice from the waiting room saying two planes have gone straight into the building. I knew not where but I lost my concentration and wasn't sure if the voice was talking about London ?
9/11 is now synonymous with terror and how 19 men with pen knifes struck at the heart of the American Psyche not seen since Pearl Harbour. 15 from Saudi Arabia, 2 from UAE, 1 from Egypt and 1 from Lebanon.
The chilling words from a flight trainer at the course in South Florida where half a dozen terrorists went to said they didn't finish the course on how to land a plane.
Shocking event which changed the western world and how it deals with security.
First day at home after the dot com I worked for went bust. Feeling a bit down. Heard on the radio about a small (so they thought at the time) plane hitting one of the towers. Was quite interested as I'd been up them the year before. Switched on the TV, tuned to CNN, saw the second plane hit...didn't move for 8 hours. Was terrifying and fascinating in equal measure.
My dot com company was making lots of redundancies. i was in a room being told i made the cut and was part of the future. The MD came in and told us to come and look at her TV in her office. Just as we got there the 2nd plane went in live on telly. Bloody weird how something so far away made you feel so unsafe immediately. .
My dot com company was making lots of redundancies. i was in a room being told i made the cut and was part of the future. The MD came in and told us to come and look at her TV in her office. Just as we got there the 2nd plane went in live on telly. Bloody weird how something so far away made you feel so unsafe immediately. .
And just how quickly and how much the world can just change.
I was at work in the farm shop I used to manage,we had a small tv and watched the events unfolding,truly horrific .I had visited New York a few years earlier and had gone up the trade centre building.I thought,as I saw them come down,that the wreckage could take years to clean up,and that many thousands would have died.Tragic though it was less than 3000 people lost their lives,that could easily have been double.That they managed to clean it all up in less than a year was quite remarkable.
I visited the 9/11 museum in NYC earlier this year. Truly sobering experience, but one I’d recommend to anybody who visits the city.
I’ve been there a couple of times and both times the idiots outside grinning and taking selfies in-front of the memorial pools drove me mad. Not sure I could visit again for fear of being nicked by NYPD for lamping one of them.
I was in my first Mayfair restaurant Che on St James's Street . . we were full for lunch with many Bankers and Hedge Fund guys who all of a sudden started screaming for their bills with some regulars just running for the door. . . We had guests who know people who were in the Trade Centre buildings and sadly did not make it out
I was In door's watching it as it happened couldn't believe what I was seeing Some of the footage I have seen Still sticks with me like the sound of the bodies hitting the ground after jumping from the towers that thud as they landed is something you never forget
i was on a plane to new york with work friends for an afternoon meeting in the wtc.
the pilot announced that american airspace was closed and that we had to land in the first available airport which was to be stephenville (similar to biggin hill)in newfoundland.he was unable to give any other details at that point.the plane had credit card phones so was able to ring home and hear the news from my wife who was frantic with worry.
we were kept on the runway for 18 hours while all the other planes were looked after and eventually we were taken off last as our plane had the most spare seats for us and then processed by the canadian red cross who were brilliant and we were given small necessities.wasn't till we were in cornerbrook another few hours after getting off the plane that we saw for the first time the horror of what the rest of the world had been watching continuously for the previous 24 hours.
being an american airline, it had to return to their own u.s. airport once the skies were open,so we had to stay in newfie till saturday where we were really well looked after until newark was opened again.managed to get on a virgin plane home,and from the terminal you could see new york's skyline,but with billowing smoke replacing the twin towers.
security was cranked to the max,nearly had to write an essay on why i should be allowed on the flight back home,and once sitting down, everyone was looking to see who was on the plane with them.if anyone made the slightest move,then the whole plane was ready to take them down.
Our boy will be born today and by god are we glad he clinged on for a day longer!
I was 14 when it happened, didn’t have a clue what the World Trade Center was until I came home to my mum in floods of tears in the living room! Even as a child with a wild imagination, I still remember being completely shocked at seeing what was unfolding before us on live TV.
Visited the memorial earlier this year and all I could think about when I looked up to the top of the building was the poor souls who saw no better option but to jump. It still haunts me to this day!
To everyone involved, you will be forever in our hearts!
I recommend the TV series The Looming Tower. I watched it a few years ago and thought it was one of the best series I'd ever watched. 9/11 was a preventable tragedy.
I recommend the TV series The Looming Tower. I watched it a few years ago and thought it was one of the best series I'd ever watched. 9/11 was a preventable tragedy.
I think that it was preventable made the whole experience much more intense.
The disbelief on display was two fold.
Standing with probably 60 others, in silence, in the companies restaurant / cafeteria area in Dallas the sense of disbelief and confusion anybody could hate them so much to commit such an atrocity was nearly matched by the bewilderment it was allowed to happen.
That the US security, intelligence and certain Military functions were evidently so inept displayed a fragility nobody had considered.
Dallas is the home of American Airlines. My employers were a recently separated sister company.
My daughter lives in New York. I have over the years spent more than a few moments at the Memorials. I am not sure my daughter who was 8 at the time quite understands why. Though memories fade over time such total disbelief, such bewilderment, such deep and extended silence broken only by the cries & sobs is worthy of moments of reflection.
It was of course a bewilderment reflected on the face of the President in that school house as he heard the news. Seldom can a face of any President have looked so lost.
I had further cause to reflect because ultimately though I stayed stateside for nigh on a further decade the impetus of what I had been recruited to do was lost. Ultimately it cost me, like 750k others in the US Leisure industry, my job …and personally a more permanent stay in the US.
Such is, was and always will be corporate America ….but then I already knew that.
To counter it was the privilege of seeing local communities pull down (perhaps all too briefly) the facades of wealth, race, religion to work for the common good of local communities and those directly impacted.
This is an interesting thread and a beautiful illustration that demonstrates how someone who fell down the rabbit hole of conspiracy theories managed to extricate themselves.
Our boy will be born today and by god are we glad he clinged on for a day longer!
I was 14 when it happened, didn’t have a clue what the World Trade Center was until I came home to my mum in floods of tears in the living room! Even as a child with a wild imagination, I still remember being completely shocked at seeing what was unfolding before us on live TV.
Visited the memorial earlier this year and all I could think about when I looked up to the top of the building was the poor souls who saw no better option but to jump. It still haunts me to this day!
To everyone involved, you will be forever in our hearts!
hope everything went well and that you are now proud parents to a little Addick.
I was on the 34th Floor of Citypoint, Moorgate watching it unfold on the TV's in the dealing room. Not normally allowed in it was rammed with about 80 people watching aghast in absolute silence. Being on the 34th floor was a little disconcerting.
For Diana's death we were at a little restaurant at Agios Geogios near Paphos. The pictures were on TV but the sound was down so didn't know what was happening. Only found out when we returned to our hotel a couple of hours later.
We were in Dartford arranging the mortgage for our house move - left our 2 small children with Mother and Father in law - didn’t know anything about it until we went to pick the kids up, Mother in law opened the door in floods of tears - we went into their living room to see the footage on the TV - to say I was stunned was an understatement - we sat there watching for a bit, but after a little while I didn’t want to watch anymore, so we took the kids to the play park
At work in Hartlepool when I was living in Yarm at the time. I was gazing out of our portacabin window at the distant nuclear power station when a colleague said something was going on, mentioning that a plane had crashed into the trade centre. Had no idea of the scale of it at first, thinking it was an accident involving a by plane. What unfolded after we all now know.
Just checked and this is a thread I’ve not posted on before, not sure why not. Working in the City, that afternoon I’d got a call from a mate at another bank to say there was a report that a light aircraft had crashed into one of the Towers but that was all he’d heard so I went into the kitchen at work and put the TV on. Didn’t take long for others to join me and just stand there watching it. A few things that the day always reminds me of were of being in the WTC a few times, even having lunch there, feeling uneasy 5-7 years earlier at the prospect of going up to the top (or as high as visitors could do go) and deciding not to because there was basically a dirty great hole in the side of one of the Towers where terrorists had driven a van full of explosives into the basement and detonated it; another thing that I always think about was a hastily arranged (Question Time type ?) programme on the BBC a day or two after 9/11 which had the US Ambassador and an audience of what seemed to be loaded with anti-Americans, anti-West, basically saying it was all the fault of the US. I felt ashamed of the BBC that night, now I guess it’s no longer a surprise when the audiences seem to get loaded that way and ; and on a flight to Tampa flying above NY and even at about 30,000 feet, looking down and the Twin Towers just being the first landmark you’d instantly notice.
I was 3 hours into a flight to NY. Captain said over the radio that an incident had happened and that’s all he knew. Then he said we had a choice to turn back and to return to Gatwick or carry on and head to Canada or Caribbean, guess which one we did!!
Comments
Happy belated birthday by the way!
Amazing to think plenty of our fanbase (and probably a number on here) were not even born.
I was in a room having an eye test with a young blond women close to me asking were the blue or red lights clearer. I could here a voice from the waiting room saying two planes have gone straight into the building. I knew not where but I lost my concentration and wasn't sure if the voice was talking about London ?
9/11 is now synonymous with terror and how 19 men with pen knifes struck at the heart of the American Psyche not seen since Pearl Harbour.
15 from Saudi Arabia, 2 from UAE, 1
from Egypt and 1 from Lebanon.
The chilling words from a flight trainer at the course in South Florida where half a dozen terrorists went to said they didn't finish the course on how to land a plane.
Shocking event which changed the western world and how it deals with security.
22 years ago but still so vivid in my mind.
Just came out of the shower and my travelling buddy was sitting glued to the 📺 a real shock to the system that it could happen here in America.
Some of the footage I have seen Still sticks with me like the sound of the bodies hitting the ground after jumping from the towers that thud as they landed is something you never forget
Does that day feel 22 years ago now?
I was 14 when it happened, didn’t have a clue what the World Trade Center was until I came home to my mum in floods of tears in the living room! Even as a child with a wild imagination, I still remember being completely shocked at seeing what was unfolding before us on live TV.
The disbelief on display was two fold.
Standing with probably 60 others, in silence, in the companies restaurant / cafeteria area in Dallas the sense of disbelief and confusion anybody could hate them so much to commit such an atrocity was nearly matched by the bewilderment it was allowed to happen.
That the US security, intelligence and certain Military functions were evidently so inept displayed a fragility nobody had considered.
Dallas is the home of American Airlines. My employers were a recently separated sister company.
My daughter lives in New York. I have over the years spent more than a few moments at the Memorials. I am not sure my daughter who was 8 at the time quite understands why. Though memories fade over time such total disbelief, such bewilderment, such deep and extended silence broken only by the cries & sobs is worthy of moments of reflection.
It was of course a bewilderment reflected on the face of the President in that school house as he heard the news. Seldom can a face of any President have looked so lost.
I had further cause to reflect because ultimately though I stayed stateside for nigh on a further decade the impetus of what I had been recruited to do was lost. Ultimately it cost me, like 750k others in the US Leisure industry, my job …and personally a more permanent stay in the US.
Such is, was and always will be corporate America ….but then I already knew that.
To counter it was the privilege of seeing local communities pull down (perhaps all too briefly) the facades of wealth, race, religion to work for the common good of local communities and those directly impacted.
For Diana's death we were at a little restaurant at Agios Geogios near Paphos. The pictures were on TV but the sound was down so didn't know what was happening. Only found out when we returned to our hotel a couple of hours later.
Just awful