13 Years ago this day -

[chopper2004]

It was my final year of uni, I had to go in pre semester to do a Solid Works Modelling test and there were a few of us in deep concentration - ....one of my mates started to email funny stuff across and I thought don't need the distraction at first thought it was a wind up as she was in the Learning Resources Centre having a coffee....then her emails changed to Oh My God This Is Horrible ....

I thought no need for a wind up but out of curiosity, I opened my internal uni email - and there it was one plane had smacked into the Twin Towers and then another .....on the news ...did not take a semi genius of a final wear aero and mech student like my good self to figure out something was way not right.....

There were murmurings and muttering so throughout rest of the afternoon from those not comatose and those in semi comatose from nights out down the SU Bar and in Londoninium ....


I figured I get the train home and ironically enough the peeps , the City commuters were not talking much about anything bar the usual BS the atmosphere was not much the same as every day...

Left the station but then got dragged back into our rock club by a mate who spied me walking in his direction ......and there was some chatter chatter but not much about the news...the clubs two wall mounted TVA where they used to play everything from porn movies to MTV vids were off...

By 2300 hours went into my folks house and my cousins and my mom were glued to the TV as the Pentagon had been hit and then other airliner which was in the Penn countryside....

So I like to pay tribute and homage to my mates on both sides of the pond - both air and ground crew and doing who are serving, have served in the war fighting the bad guys both on land and bit sea, more importantly , let us remember the victims of this day , 2001 and those who haVg given the ultimate sacrifice.

So take care and all the best and stay safe so many happy landings .


Chopper2004

[Wrathmonk]

Watched the whole thing unfold in the bunker at PJHQ. There were an awful lot of "so what do we do now" and "where did that come from" faces that day.

Visited Ground Zero about a month ago. Very moving and humbling (and in some ways slightly surreal) experience. The museum is a fantastic memorial to those lost in 2001 - some of the exhibits are quite 'hard hitting' to say the least.

[Bigpants]

Arrived home from an early at BHX and watched it unfold. Next day had to operate a BA A319 from BHX to FRA with no guidance on securing the flight deck.

We had three passengers who had booked a Muslim Approved breakfast, turned out to be businessmen from the Far East who were as scared as the rest of us.

The BA Magazine had a picture of NY and the Towers on the front cover. They were skipped, wish I had kept a few dozen as I suspect they would now be quite collectable.

Picked up a change yesterday and find myself flying to Tel Aviv in an Orange Airbus. Lovely day, what could possibly go wrong?

[Wokkafans]

In the Tel Aviv Hilton.

Bored from reading materials in preparation for a meeting I was channel hopping and caught the first reports on the news. I called my American colleague to watch and just after he turned on his TV, and while we were still talking on the phone, the second plane hit.

About 30 mins later we had to head off to our meeting - at the end we were told by another colleague that both Towers were gone and a further two aircraft had crashed - we just couldn't believe it.

As we thought it inadvisable to go outside, due to the British Embassy being just across the road, we headed up to the Business Lounge to get some food and watch the news coverage. In there were five or six people from Cantor Fitzgerald, a company based in the WTC, who had watched it all unfold on the TV knowing their colleagues were in the building :sad:

Later, during a quick call home to the wife, she told me her London office was trying to contact employees in a subsidiary of theirs based in the towers - with little success. She'd been over to visit them a few months earlier and so knew several of the staff working there.

A horrible, horrible and sort of sureal day.

[minigundiplomat]

Spent the day in a field on the Great Dividing Range with a CH47 with an Aft Xsmn Chip.... several hours leading up to a successful drain and flush and we headed for Tamworth (now dark). Watched events on the TV in the motel.

Next day was very strange - probably the only people flying in Australia as we transited to Amberly.

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

Second week teaching in a girls' school in UK, some of whose parents were in the military and international finance - two were in New York, but fortunately not the Towers. Caught the second tower going down on a TV in a classroom at lunchtime. Spent the next 3 days explaining to staff and students what had happened, everything from air defence and US pilot schools to tower structures, as everyone was desperate for knowledge. Impossible to teach normally.

[goudie]

A friend phoned me to say 'watch the tv, something is happening and I can't believe it'. After watching it (in utter dis-belief) I recall saying to myself 'the world will never be the same again!'

[Agaricus bisporus]

I uncharacteristically switched the TV on in the middle of the day and watched the replay of the first strike, initially thought it was Towering Inferno or similar until a horrible realisation that this wasn't Hollywood crept in. At the second strike I said out loud to the TV, "Now there's going to be a War".

[Evalu8ter]

Was at home, mowing the lawn as the CH47 National Standby Captain...came in to see the first tower already alight and watched the second aircraft hit. Star-jumped into my grow bag, went to work and spent the rest of the day hoping we wouldn't be needed......

[Agaricus bisporus]

I uncharacteristically switched the TV on in the middle of the day and watched the replay of the first strike, initially thought it was Towering Inferno or similar until a horrible realisation that this wasn't Hollywood crept in. At the second strike I said out loud to the TV, "Now there's going to be a War".

That was the day the fun went out of flying. Then they locked the flight deck door and that sealed it for me.

[t43562]

Colleagues in our Wall Street office started to say strange things on our internet chatrooms and it took a while to work out what they were going on about. Most news websites were down. All sorts of strange and unbelievable stories were flying about the office as our people in Putney talked to our people in the States. When I eventually worked out what was going on I ran out of the office and used a stack of coins in the nearest phone booth to call my father and brother in South Africa and tell them. I'm not sure why I did that other than the feeling of having to tell someone. We got TV images later.

[Selatar]

QRA sqn at Leeming and a very surreal hectic day as events unfolded as I recall. Two AD sqns were in Oman and two more were swapping out in Saudi leaving just one full sqn on home soil. UK was a little light on AD that week.

Det to France cancelled and a herc ride further east 3 weeks later for the response. Been camping ever since.

[pax britanica]

As pax en route to Bermuda I spent this day orbiting lands End at FL330 for 7 hours until we returned to Gatwick . None of us knew anything more than US Airspace had been closed and that we had to hold (as we had full fuel) until all the return transats were safely back on the ground.
Surreal, had lunch and later tea and just like the normal 7 hours to BDA but we went absolutely know here and arrived back to a very shaken and shocked Gatwick and TV monitors filled with smoke and talking heads.
Not a day I will forget that's for sure

R I P to all the victims, especially those innocents who died on the day and who died since then in the idiotic Bush Blair war on terror-we have all now seen where that lead us haven't we.
V Sad

[MPN11]

I'm currently in the USA where, unsurprisingly, there is a lot of TV coverage of the events of that terrible day.

We were at home (in normal retirement mode) when a friend telephoned to tell ys to watch BBC news. The OH and I sat in the study watching events unfold in almost complete silence for several hours. I did put a tape in the video recorder and switch it on, but that tape has never been touched since the moment I removed it after it rewound itself at the end.

There are no words for the enormity of the events of that day, nor any way of forgetting what happened. RIP to the thousands who died.

[langleybaston]

My only comparable period of disbelief was the Concorde Paris crash.

I am a worldly wise old cynic, believing "if it can happen, it will happen" but nevertheless ...............

We were all Americans that day round here.

[junior.VH-LFA]

I was getting ready for school, I would have been 9 at the time in Australia when my parents were kind of sitting around like stunned mullets infront of the TV. I had a pretty good idea at the time what was going to happen as a result, even then.

Certainly something that has stuck with me, unlike anything else from that age range.

Now I'm in the military, watching what ISIL is doing in the Middle East.

[radar101]

I was teaching a bespoke radar course for 2 Saudi Sqn Ldr engineers at the Koledge of Nowledge. When it had sunk in we all agreed that someone was going to get hell for this - but never thought it would be Iraq who had zilch to do with it.

[tdracer]

On vacation, staying at my mom's house. My mom woke me up saying my sister had called and to turn on the TV - a plane had hit the World Trade Center.
My half awake mind was thinking this had better be good, and it was probably a Cessna or something like that. Turned on the TV just in time to see the second airplane hit :eek:.

I remember telling my wife "We are at war, we just don't know who with yet".

[Proudlion]

I had just landed from an SCT Tutor trip and was told by the eng team that an aircraft had flown into the WTC. I imagined it must have been an errant light aircraft but by the time I reached the crew room the second 767 had hit and all were glued to the TV. The shock when the first tower collapsed was physical. Then it was announced that one of the jets was an American Airlines 767, my sister was a pilot with AA flying 767s so I rushed home to make a call to the USA to find all my family over there worried sick as she had a trip that morning and since then nothing was heard. An hour or so later she phoned from Huston, where her aircraft had landed after all US air traffic was ordered to the ground! She had taken off about the same time as the hi-jacked jets but her route was from Miami to SFX. All the family were relieved that she was safe but if I had had access to a big red button that day then certain cities in the middle east might have been glassed that night!:(

[MAINJAFAD]

Was on a long leave at my parents house in between a posting from Saxa vord to Tidytoilet. Both my parents were at work and normally I would have switched the old analog sat TV on to CNN just to see what was going on while doing other things. On that day however I decided to sort out all of my stuff that I had in storage in their loft, so it wasn't until My mother got home from work at around 4.30PM UK time and told me that everybody in Woolworths were talking about a major terrorist attack on New York, that we turned the TV on and just happened to catch a recap of the events from just before the second impact happened. When my mother asked me 'who do you think did it', my reply...

1. A bunch of Islamists known as Al-Qaeda...
2. .....lead by a guy called Osama Bin Laden...
3. ....And there is going to be a major war in Afghanistan, which the UK will be involved in'.

20 days later arrived on the bus at Tidytoilet to see a mission statement on the entrance sign saying 'The role of this station is train Aerospace System Operators for deployed operations'. I turned around to a RAAF Sgt who I'd met at Saxa while he was up there as part of 'Longlook' and said, 'that sign will be changing to defend UK airspace in very short order', which it in fact it did.

[PapaDolmio]

In the Ops Room at Skopje airport Fyrom on Op Essential Harvest. OC Task Force Harvest just said 'I know where we're going next then'
Next day some wag had put a quote from Kipling on the notice board

'When you're wounded and left on Afghanistans Plains,
And the women come out to cut up what remains,
Just roll to your rifle and blow out your brains,
And go to your gawd like a soldier'

[Brian W May]

On Standby for Airtours DC10 at Manchester when a colleague who shared my house (and that crew standby) called me through to watch TV.

Twenty minutes in, the second aircraft hit. Like so many, I was absolutely stunned, it did seem so surreal.

**** happens, but that day was one that truly 'changed the world'.

[brickhistory]

Worked in opposite side of Pentagon from impact. Only felt a rumble in the chest as in a movie-theater type explosion, no noise from the impact, or concussion that far away in that large and solid a structure.

Ran bravely away some hours later and I had a first hand look at how a modern city will collapse - Mad Max-like traffic free for all, overwhelmed infrastructure, etc.

Incredibly quiet in the DC suburbs; not a sound of air traffic when that is normally a non-stop background noise.

Poignant in later days to see the normally ceremonial Old Guard outfitted in biohazard suits and going through the piles of rubbish looking for DNA material.

[TrakBall]

Thirteen years ago today was my longest day since I had to set up and manage the American Airlines emergency media facility. My good friends in AA Corporate Communications were in shock and mourning but still incredibly professional.

The thing is, they were not allowed to say anything to the media. No statements, no press conferences - nothing. As much as anything, what affected them most was they could not show their grief and anger at the events that unfolded. I know it hurt them a lot.

One other thing. For the most part, the media I dealt with was uncharacteristically reserved and polite. They generally did not try and ambush AA employees as they came and went for meaningless soundbites. It was plain what everyone was feeling at AA's headquarters and for once, the reporters let it be.

Still, thirteen years later, I will be stopping by the memorial to the crew that lost their lives on that faithful morning to pay my respects to them and the passengers and bystanders that perished that day.

TB

[cokecan]

we were on a 10 day exercise at SENTA - about half firing the 105's and half infantry work, i was on the gun line doing nothing and one of the blokes had Radio 1 on. we heard a newsflash and told the OC - he rang range control, HQ29 and HQ160 for instructions, of which there were none. we ceased our ex and went to stand-to for a couple of hours.

the OC and BSM legged it down to Sennybridge, they saw the pictures on the tv down there and when they came back they were grey. BSM reckoned the US was going to go nuclear, OC held the same view.

that week we fired about 8 times as much 105 ammunition as we'd planned to, and untold quantities of 5.56...

[smujsmith]

I worked as a technical adviser to a company supplying electrical and electronic spares to Sellafield. In one corner we had a TV doing Sky TV, I watched, horrified as the day developed. Much noise from the ladies who processed orders (who I shared the office with). About whether "they" might close the bars early in Whitehaven. For myself a serious dose of "crikey, this could be trouble" ! Little realising how Bliar would hijack it to justify invading Iraq. I know the terrorists achieved their aim that day, they terrorised a lot of people. Until we take the gloves off these people will always have the upper hand.

Smudge

[Hangarshuffle]

I was one of a team that had just helped disembark an Air Group from a Naval Vessel, we were preparing for Swift Sword 2, were in the Eastern Med and getting ready for a run ashore alongside in an allied country. Like most I watched it on the nearest TV, was then called up to do a weapons handling test (L85A1, British rubbish-quality weapon at the time I thought then and still do now) to keep in date for the SPO, went back to the mess and drank quite a lot of beer (with no aircraft embarked I felt relatively safe in doing that). I argued with my friends long into the night about how we had got here, where the world was going wrong. I knew even then that night it (the future) was going to be disastrous for many people in the world, and so it proved. I had a sad, very cold feeling about it all, despite the alcohol taking effect.

[nimbev]

Manning a stand at the London International Defence Exhibition. The US guys on our stand and the US companies were getting sitreps on their mobiles. Amazing how quickly things went from 'its just a light aircraft accident' to a realisation of the real situation. Over the following days there was naturally great consternation on the US stands - the guys couldnt fly home and had no idea when the airspace would reopen. The Lockheed stand was particularly affected as they had lost a group of their collegues on the aircraft that flew into the Pentagon.

One of my most abiding memories was after the Al-Qaeda connection had been made. Our Egyptian agent, an excellent and honourable man, took me aside and was close to tears as he said things will never be the same again, the West will never forgive the Arab world.

[Megaton]

On a BA flight to Boston and then an AA flight from Boston thereafter. My wife watched an AA aircraft slam into one of the Towers and for several hours thought I was dead.

[fergineer]

Had landed at Lisbon having flown back from yep NY and was standing in front of the towers the day before it happened, knew nothing about it till I went round to a mates for lunch, think that was one of my lives used up

[54Phan]

I was off work that morning because Canadian federal government employees were on strike. I was flipping down the channels on the television when I passed CNN, saw the building smoking and then an airliner fly into it, or so it seemed. I thought at first it was a replay, then realized that it was the second tower being hit. I watched in horror for a few minutes, then ran out of my house. My next door neighbour ran out of his at the same time. I remember we just looked at each other, speechless.

Our union told the government that as we would be needed, we would go back into work.

The next few days were very eerie indeed.

I also remember the plane crash in New York City in November 2001, and some people being almost happy that that event hadn't been a terrorist attack.

[Wander00]

Secretary of a large yacht club on the south coast, I had a very strained phone call from one of the boatmen in the workshop -"would I come and look at something". Went to the workshop and the TV was on and they were just showing the second Tower being hit. Totally speechless, but now cannot hear Star Spangled Banner without tears in my eyes, and it being played at the Changing of the Guard at Buck House - that was an inspired decision.


I did not believe in "six degrees of separation" until I heard that a fellow member of the RNLI committee on which I served had lost his son in law of 3 months in one of the Towers.

[Cows getting bigger]

In stn ops dealing with a complete w-anchor SLOps. TV in the corner looked a bit more interesting so I ignored him even more. Trogged back over the airfield and started to pack my kit, thinking that the Norwegian shirts and thermal long johns wouldn't be necessary (how wrong was I!). Managed a swift few in the bar that night where some of us really thought that Bush Junior would probably press the Nuke Button if he could quickly find someone to blame.

Not too long later having leapfrogged through Saif Sareea II and 'forward deploying' with a lot of their kit :) I found myself on Op Veritas in Afghanistan almost exactly ten years after I had done something similar on the way to GW1. Happy Xmas. :sad:

[billynospares]

Was working on a queens flight 125 on a trial next to the airfield fire station when the firemen shouted over " you had better come see this" watched it all unfold on their big TV then had to leave so they could have an emergency brief. Pushed the 125 into a HAS and awaited an influx of airliners which luckily didn't arrive.

[flash8]

Returned the evening before from a Sim check in Vancouver so was sleeping in when a mate climbed the wall of my apartment block (I was on the first floor) and banged on the Window outside my bedroom waking me up with (I'll never forget) the phrase "World War III's just started buddy".

Foe the first time ever saw a police car that evening driving at the back of my apartments... that was really unusual.... the Vic Police Dept were I imagine in *full* overdrive.. well done lads... was appreciated.

[Lima Juliet]

I was an AD OCU instructor having just walked into the crewroom from a 2v1 ACT sortie to get a coke from the fridge. Some guys were watching the gogglebox and said 'hey, come and see this!'. As I wandered over I could see that an airliner had hit the WTC. My immediate thought was 'I wonder if that is anything to do with FM immunity and an ILS approach' (if I recall correctly the FM immune ILS recievers were mandated by 1 Jan 01?). Anyway, as I was thinking about it, a second airliner flew into the other tower. 'I guess not', I thought!

Halfway through debriefing my student I was summoned from the debrief as the only crypto borrower and custodian on the OCU staff that day. As I went to collect the crypto the engineers were collecting Skyflash and Sidewinder from the bomb dump. So began 'UK Southern Q' again without a Q shed and we slept on the floor in the 5(AC) Sqn crewroom (what no PS2 or XBox! :{)

Having moaned about the Death Star in the Falklands, the Hotel Svevo in Gioia and the air conditioned splendour of the new-builds in Al's Garage, little did I know what luxury they were compared to the next 13 years!

It certainly changed my life and also the direction my career took following that day.

LJ

[Danny42C]

Had just come in from mowing the lawn, Mrs D. said "Look at this !" It was unbelievable - I thought: " This can't be happening, it must be a spoof (like the famous pre-war "War of the Worlds" radio programme in the US". Not so.

Unrelated subject: I wonder, if you went out tomorrow and asked the first fifty people in the street "What's special about Monday's date", how many would answer correctly ? (or even more to the point, fifty schoolchildren).

D.

[54Phan]

Good point, Danny.

[Exascot]

Was working on a queens flight 125 The 'Queen's' Flight was disbanded then and never had HS125s in the first place.

Please could we also count the number of innocent civilians killed in Northern Ireland with sponsorship from Noraid. But when it happens on your own door step guys it is a completely different matter :ugh:

[longer ron]

I was sat on a Jumbo at Heathrow (en route to Reno Air Races) - we had just felt the slight jolt of the Tug attaching when we were told about a delay but fortunately somebody had a personal radio on so we did hear a little about the attack.
We also visualised an accident at first - eventually we were offloaded into a chaotic Airport and I just got a taxi home - couldn't face the huge queues for public transport !
Felt absolutely gutted for the victims/families - the footage really was bizarre/surreal !
I went back to work for a few days and flew out on the sunday to a very different holiday than originally planned - even managed to get a ride with the late Larry Stoffel in his 1928 Travel Air Biplane out over Tillamook Bay (the Lord only knows how he kept flying when [almost ?] all civvy a/c had been grounded).



http://i695.photobucket.com/albums/vv316/volvosmoker/img042_zpsb4003a15.jpg

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

A note to remember the citizens of Gander, NL (pop. 10,000) which accepted over 6,500 passengers on 38 flights in a few hours.

Striking school bus drivers laid down their picket signs to drive the unexpected guests around. Pharmacists filled prescriptions for free. Shop owners declined payment. The arena at the Gander Community Centre became a giant walk-in fridge for food donations.

Passengers stranded on 9-11 plan return to Gander | CTV News (http://www.ctvnews.ca/passengers-stranded-on-9-11-plan-return-to-gander-1.690689)

"As the passengers were leaving ... many people said that they had lost all faith in mankind," Elliott recalled. "But they said: 'After five days here in Gander, you've restored that faith in me.' And I think if there's one legacy that we'll be known for, it's that there are still good people left in the world."

[longer ron]

Yes indeed - we were very lucky not to have gone anywhere !
I really felt for those people who were diverted !

[billynospares]

Well I am sorry it's was a red and white RAF 125 and it was on a trial with us :ugh:

[54Phan]

Thank you, Fox3 for mentioning the hospitality shown by Canadians to those who were stranded. It made me even prouder to be a Canadian.

[Fox3WheresMyBanana]

Even more passengers (8,000+) were diverted to Moncton and Halifax, with similar responses, but Gander generally gets the most of the credit (rightly I feel) due to the relative size of population / pax. I was in Newfoundland last month; they are all lovely!