9/11

[Richey Edwards]

21 years ago today, the world was shocked by this atrocious terrorist attack.

Where were you on September 11th 2001? What were you doing?

I was living in Woolwich, London at the time and had not long started at Secondary School in Blackheath. I heard about the attack when I got home from school. 

Even at 11 years old, I still remember the sense of horror at the footage on the TV screen and that the world would never be the same again.

[D Angelo Barksdale]

[Leith Green]

I was working for an investment company and was visiting one of our sales offices in the midlands.

A mate texted me (on my works Nokia 3310 !) that a plane had hit the twin towers. I assumed he was at it, or it was a light plane, genuine accident etc.

I went out for a fag (as I was an unhealthy bugger then) and when I came back in everyone was in the conf room watching the rolling coverage on the telly - horrible stuff and suffice to say no work got done from then on.

I think when the 2nd tower fell, I decided it was time to get back to edinburgh.

Have to say it was probably the quietest flight I have ever been on, every one was shiting themselves.

[Michael W]

First year in High School and was completely oblivious as to what had happened until around 4pm, when I was able to see it on TV, being replayed over and over.  

I remember being absolutely stunned at what I was seeing. I knew wars and things happened and was also aware of some IRA activity in the 90s (nail bombs etc) what it was this event that drove home just how fucked up some people can be. 

[pozbaird]

Was working in Hamilton when a work colleague who was in a part of the place that had a radio on, came up to me and said ‘You’re going to New York next week aren’t you. Radio says a plane has just flown into the WTC. We both thought it was a Cessna or something, piloted by someone who had flipped for some reason. Turned out it wasn’t, and I didn’t go to NYC. Then me & Mrs P learned that someone we knew in the FDNY died. We subsequently learned that they were on the street, and died when a tower collapsed and the ‘inverted shock wave’ blew them and many of their colleagues right across the street and into another building. In 2016 we located his name etched into the memorial and took a photo from the spot. RIP Pete Ganci Jr.

 

[Richey Edwards]

4 minutes ago, Michael W said:

First year in High School and was completely oblivious as to what had happened until around 4pm, when I was able to see it on TV, being replayed over and over.  

I remember being absolutely stunned at what I was seeing. I knew wars and things happened and was also aware of some IRA activity in the 90s (nail bombs etc) what it was this event that drove home just how fucked up some people can be. 

I think I had quite a naive and oversimplified view of wars etc. Obviously I was aware of them, but the likes of WW2 were mythologised and glorified by the countless films, books and video games that portray such conflicts as a good vs evil struggle. The actual human cost did not occur to me.

It was also the first time I realised how fucking horrible human beings can be to other human beings. Thousands of people like you and I went to work one day, or took a flight. They had no way of knowing that that day would be their last, and they would die in an unimaginably awful way.

[Oystercatcher]

I worked in a shop at the time. I had just came back from Belgium where Scotland had been pumped out of qualification for the world cup.

My mate phoned me at the shop to tell me what was happening, I left the shop and walked to the co-op dept store in EK where I joined a small crowd watching it all unfold on all the display TVs .

[stevieKTID]

I had just relocated to The Netherlands and was working in a factory in a small town mid-way between Amsterdam and Haarlem, my co-workers in the department were mostly from Turkey and Morocco, as I was tidying my workspace I noticed a crowd gathering around the radio and they were laughing and cheering - I didn't speak any Dutch at the time some asked one of them what was happening and they said a plane had crashed into a building in NYC didn't think much of it at the time but on the bus journey home I couldn't help but wonder why the folk I worked with were so happy about it, turned on the TV when I got back to my apartment and didn't move for hours I was in complete shock at the scale of what was happening.

I had visited NYC for the first time in 1999 and went up to the south tower observation deck, had a Nathans hotdog and took in the view I still have the photos somewhere in my parents loft, what happened on 9/11 is probably one of the most shocking events I can recall in my lifetime it was all rather surreal, I was watching a documentary about it last night and I'll admit I got a bit teary.

Edited September 11, 2022 by stevieKTID

[Jacksgranda]

I was at work in Belfast. Our office was in a former hotel (we had half the top floor) and the entrance lobby was the former foyer, (there used to be a bar on the ground floor), the general factotum had a TV on in the lobby even when he was away doing whatever general factotums do. I came in from a meeting/site visit and saw footage of planes crashing into skyscrapers  (don't know whether it was live or recorded) and when I got upstairs casually mentioned it, something along the lines of "skyscrapers in New York being attacked". The junior partner when down to see what I was rambling on about and spent the rest of the afternoon downstairs, as I recall.

Edited September 11, 2022 by Jacksgranda
Typo

[Dunfermline Don]

I had driven down overnight to West Sussex to visit my in-laws with my wife and kids. 
I had gone for a nap and thought that I was having a very vivid dream until I realised that it was the TV news on downstairs. 
I then remember a total shock as the news unfolded. I had previously worked on the QE2 and the twin towers had been a major landmark when we sailed into New York and held many memories.

A few days later I was up in London with my father in law at the football and watching planes flying towards the London airports seemed rather creepy after the images on the News a few days before. 

[Flybhoy]

I was working on a small new build housing site in Tullibody, the houses that now stand where the old 'Top Club' was for anyone familiar with the village. 

Think I was fitting radiators when one of the Joiners walked into the house I was working in and said a plane had crashed into the Empire state building in NY, slightly inaccurate but didn't think much of it till I got a text from a pal telling me to get to a TV or radio immediately, jumped in the car and couldn't believe what I was hearing so fucked off home an hour early to watch the unfolding carnage on TV.

It happened on a Tuesday and I remember that nights champions league matches going ahead but with a very weird, subdued atmosphere, the Celtic v Rosenberg game I was going to the following night was postponed though along with the rest of that nights fixtures, I also recall the Ryder Cup, due a week or two later was postponed to the following year as the American golfers understandably didn't want to fly. 

 

[throbber]

Never forget 

 

[Flybhoy]

2 minutes ago, throbber said:

Never forget 

 

Is that the 'adult' bouncy castle from the fun day episode of Phoenix Nights?

[falkirktheinvincible]

"snake eggs"

[throbber]

Just now, Flybhoy said:

Is that the 'adult' bouncy castle from the fun day episode of Phoenix Nights?

I have no idea what you are talking about. Are you aware you got in trouble on Twitter?

[Flybhoy]

Just now, throbber said:

I have no idea what you are talking about. Are you aware you got in trouble on Twitter?

Yep...!

[throbber]

Just now, Flybhoy said:

Yep...!

 

[Flybhoy]

2 minutes ago, badgerthewitness said:

"snake eggs"

"It's not what it looks like Brian"

"Not what it looks like? It's a twenty foot cock and balls man, it don't look like anything else "

 

[TxRover]

Asleep. Had just worked the overnight shift as an Air Traffic Controller in Fort Worth, TX. Got a call to turn on TV as the second plane hit, checked if they needed me to come in (they didn’t), and spent the next three days watching TV and wondering what would happen to people with aviation related jobs since everything was grounded. Drove through DFW, which was then the third busiest airport in the world in operations, and it was absolutely quiet and deserted, very unsettling.

[Aladdin]

On a plane to Amsterdam. Got there, dropped the bags off at the hotel and straight out with my girlfriend at the time.

Didn't realise it had happened until the following day.