9/11 - 20 years ago. Where were you?

[a.twiddler]

I took the kids to school after a night shift. When I got up later I put the TV on for the news while I went to make something to eat. There was a picture of a burning skyscraper on the New York skyline and at first I thought there had been a major fire. As I watched there was a tremendous screaming and people were running everywhere as an aircraft flew into the tower next to it. It was a horrific moment. I saw that it flew into the building, but very little of it came out. It and all on board must have been instantly fragmented. My wife came home from work soon afterwards and we watched things unfold. Hijacked aircraft, an attack on the Pentagon, US airspace shut down, for all we knew impending attacks on US allies worldwide. Then in due course the towers collapsed one after the other. We had a new bogeyman to focus on -Al Quaeda. It wasn't very reassuring that the approach for Manchester Airport passed over our house, and we had good views of aircraft turning for the runway.

Nothing happens in isolation, and intended and unintended consequences followed on. One was that unofficial US support and funding for organisations such as the IRA dwindled away once the consequences of the type of thing they were paying for struck home and probably had a major effect on bringing about the peace process. Western involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan with consequences such as the rise of Isis that still rumble on today. The Arab Dawn, the civil war in Syria. But it all probably had its roots centuries before in the age of colonialism, and through the cold war years.

Where was I when Kennedy was assassinated? The Americans supposedly produced their home grown assassin for that event. I was living at a RAF base in the Cotswolds then, aged 10. It must have happened the day before (Friday) but only got on the news that evening after I went to bed. I got up on Saturday, made myself some cereal, and turned on the old Roberts Wireless and heard the news. Only the previous year, my family and I would have been in a prime location for instant vaporization had the Cuban Missile Crisis gone differently, and not been dealt with effectively by the same president.

 

[marzjennings]

I remember sitting in an office in the UK chatting through the internal messaging system with colleagues in New York about what they were witnessing, while at same time listening to the news on the TV. They were watching things unfold from an office window a couple miles from the Twin Towers and were answering questions from teams around the globe. Then they went silent, no replies to anyone, and folks began to fear that another plane had hit their building. After about 30 mins we got a message that everyone was ok and that they had been asked to evacuate the building just in case.
My yet to be wife was stuck in Dubai trying to find out if and how she could get back to London and worried that the US was going to launch an immediate counter strike on the entire middle east. She managed to get out on one of the last flights out of Dubai before everything was shut down for a while.

 

[MichaelW2]

I heard about it on the BBC news website at work. Pretty stunned at the time.

 

[CharlesF]

I was over from Durban for my son's army passing out parade a few days early. We were walking down Tottenham Court Road past an electronics shops and paused to watch what we thought was a disaster movie; until someone cam out the shop and told us. It was an unreal moment made made poignant as a crowd gathered and were totally silent.

I flew home two days later and the BA cabin staff where burly males who did the bare minimum, slamming down a meal in from of you, no booze and only coffee or tea. The normal metal cutlery was replaced with very flimsy plastic spoon and fork.

 

[Milzy]

I was on the toilet at work & I heard the the store man shout “They’re gonna nuke some F’er for this!”
I remember when getting home watching all the live news on the PC over the internet as the speeds were just about getting good enough to stream properly.

 

[KnittyNorah]

I was in New Zealand on a night shift as one of the scanners had been down with a problem, just got back up and needed certain checks before going back into full-on work mode first thing in the morning, so it made sense for me to do my stuff overnight and hand over to the radiographers in the morning. I took a little portable TV with me but had left it in the car, and I went to sit in the A & E staff room with a coffee while something routine was running.
One of the on-duty medics - or maybe it was the A & E nurse in charge, I can't remember - got a very confused and confusing phone call from her sister in the US, so I went and got my wee portable TV out of my car, switched it on and we all took turns watching it. After about an hour or so we just took it out into the main A & E area because the few patients there were asking us what was going on. It was a quiet night in A & E and instantly became even quieter, except for the constant news reports.
Going home that morning, I would normally have been seeing all the seafront cafes opening up - and gone for breakfast in one - but that morning everything was closed, and the biggest crowd was outside the US consulate, a heavy police presence watching closely over people leaving bunches of flowers and hand-written notes.
After I'd had a sleep, I got up and went over to my neighbour Linda, who was a hotel manager and who I knew was night duty manager that week and would probably have had an overnight experience something like mine. We opened a bottle of wine and sat in front of her big TV watching the horrendous replay in the warm New Zealand spring weather, birds singing like billy-oh and everything coming into flower, the skies so very silent and even the ships on the docks not moving. So far away, yet so very close. Unforgettable.

 

[Rusty Nails]

In a hospital ward visitors room where we had just been given some devastating news from a neurology consultant about a family member's cancer, and the TV was on in the background. At that moment in time I was quite detached from the footage, although the horror did sink in over the next few days.
9/11 was a very sad day which continues to haunt me every year for a different reason.

 

[raleighnut]

Got home from a nightshift and was watching TV for a change when adverts came on I switched to a News channel and saw the first tower in flames and then a plane appeared in the picture and just as I thought 'that's a bit close' ............whoomp into the 2nd tower. Truly horrifying.

As for JFK I was a baby but my Dad was an RAF Radio Operator on RAF Gan, basically an Island with a Runway and refuelling depot in the middle of the ocean and he was one of the guys who relayed the news of the killing around the world

https://www.bing.com/maps?&ty=18&q=raf gan website&satid=id.sid:1cc46f65-b98c-4493-a0db-4ae6dd0e43d8&ppois=-0.6913899779319763_73.15611267089844_raf gan website_~&cp=-0.69139~73.156113&lvl=16&v=2&sV=1&FORM=SNAPST

 

[Ming the Merciless]

Nothing happens in isolation, and intended and unintended consequences followed on. One was that unofficial US support and funding for organisations such as the IRA dwindled away once the consequences of the type of thing they were paying for struck home and probably had a major effect on bringing about the peace process.

The Good Friday agreement was signed in April 1998, 3.5 years earlier. I’d say the peace process was already well underway.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

I was mountain biking across Tibet at the time. I’d have to look at my log book to give whereabouts I was that day. I found out about 9/11 in October 2001, when I went to an Internet cafe in Thames, Kathmandu , Nepal to pick up my email.

A couple of days later I then went off trekking in the Langtang and Gossainkund regions of Nepal. Out of contact again. The villages were eerily empty with many tourists staying away. Often I might be the only westerner in a village setup with enough tea houses for many many more.

 

[Paulus]

I was at work, and as my relieving driver took me off he said it was nice knowing me.
I didn't know what was happening until I got into the messroom , just as the second plane hit the tower.

 

[PK99]

I was sat where I am now.

Different desk/chair/computer. Same room.

Then it was Home Design Studio cum office. Now it's a Study.

Picked up a news stream as soon as it hit the airwaves. Can't recall if it was Radio or Interweb. Went next door, and switched on the TV.

Watched it unfold in real-time.

Then went to pick up 6yr old DD1 from school.

Made tea for DD1 & DD2.

 

[Bromptonaut]

Working in a government department at at the sunsetting stage of a project. Internet at the desk was still a year or so away so no news tickers or anything like that. Project manager's wife rang him to say there'd been a plane crash into the twin towers. We though light plane/little serious damage like the one that flew into the Empire State Building years ago.

Gradually more news seeped in and somebody got a radio on.

Left office at 17:00 as usual to find crowds around the window of Berry's Electricals shop in Kingsway watching the blazing blocks on the TV in the window. Similar gaggles around pubs with TV.

A colleague was actually en-route for a holiday in the US and ended up grounded at Gander for half a week.

 

[yello]

It was also my first wedding anniversary.

As I said, I was in Corsica with my brother, cycle touring. It was our final day and we were in Bastia for the ferry to Nice the following day. We went in a cycle shop and they were all watching the news footage on the tele, glued to it. So we got a hotel room and watched TV there for hours.

We weren't sure whether we would be able to fly out of Nice, as everything was locked down. I think, from memory, we did. Our flights were maybe on the 13th or 14th and planes had taken to the air again. Security was tight though, as you'd expect.

 

[mybike]

I wasn’t around when JFK was shot, but I remember where I was when the planes hit.

I was on a business visit to an insurance office in Chelmsford. We were all watching TV so saw the second plane hit the towers live and people around me knew staff from Marsh Insurance Brokers who had a head office in the twin towers. They lost around 100 staff that day.
I lived in dock lands at the time and it was so eerie driving home with the empty roads, the huge towers above and no planes flying from city airport.
20 years has gone fast, but the world has changed hugely

First case, I was at school & a shocked teacher came and told us.

Second, I was on Cannon Street underground on the way back to the office from a support call, a middle eastern looking guy was agitatedly walking up & down the platform saying "they've done it". Told my colleague about it & we switched on the TV when I got back to base.