9/11

[OTB]

My wife and I were just taking off in an American Airlines flight from Minneapolis to Baltimore (we had spent the weekend on a lake in northern Minnesota with my mom and brother and his family) when the first plane hit, about the time we were over central Wisconsin the second plane hit (we didn't know it at the time), but the captain came on the intercom and said that there was a national emergency and that they were being directed to land "immediately" at O'hare, and that as more info came in that he would relay it to us.

Immediately and O'hare don't follow in the best of times; we circled for several hours till we got landed, and then sat on the tarmac next to the control tower (which we could see was being evacuated by lots of cops) for another hour and a half till they could find an open gate. Meanwhile, passengers are calling family and cell phones are going off everywhere...rumors are flying around and there is a growing sense of panic in the plane as cells are on overload and everyone is getting busy signals....

I spent 15 years in the airline industry and went through O'hare MANY times. When we finally got to a gate and off-loaded, it was eeiirie.... everything was closed (about 11 am in the morning) and, as we were one of the last flights in, the place was EMPTY... till we got to the airline counters/transportation counters....pandemonium,thirty people deep.

I knew that it was going to be days, if not weeks, before we'd be flying home ( a shutdown of one or two large airports for weather issues could snarl up airline traffic for DAYS....this was gonna be a major goatfuck) and that all the hotel rooms for 50 miles were going to be full. I knew that we HAD to get out of Chicago NOW if we weren't going to get stuck sleeping in a school lunchroom somewhere.

We only had carry-ons so luggage was no issue, but getting out of Chicago was going to be. The rental car companies were NOT letting any cars out-of-state (in fact many were pulling down the steel shutters over their counters). I sent my wife over to another set of transport counters and I told here I'd meet her down in the Hilton's Business Center (they had free internet down there). I got online, reserved a car at Midway Airport, called Midway to make sure they still had cars and were letting them go out, grabbed my wife who had a new friend in tow and we grabbed a cab for Midway.

In the cab my wife introduced us to our new friend, a professor of engineering from U of WV who was flying back from the WC to Morgantown. She had a cell phone and was willing to share expenses to get home. About half way to Midway, the radio in the cab came on and the dispatcher told the cabbie that Midway was closed to traffic and that we couldn't go there.

We stopped at two car rental agencies on the street and they weren't letting ANY cars out. As we pondered our choices, we passed a U-haul shop...I yelled at the cabbie to pull in; I ran up to the counter and asked if they had any trucks and they had one 10 footer... so I threw them my credit card and grabbed my wife and our new friend from the cab.

We tossed our three pieces of luggage in the back of the truck and we took off. traffic was so snarled it took us three hours to get out of Chicago, but then it was like something out of "The Day the Earth Stood Still". We were on US 80 and there was NO traffic......I drove pretty much non-stop for 800 miles and I don't think we saw 100 cars going either way... and not one trooper.

After dropping out friend off in Morgantown we got home early Wednesday AM.. and when we turned the TV on was when we saw the mayhem for the first time.... and were appalled.

[azoomm]

I was home, my mother called me screaming and crying. I turned on the news, and thought it was a show about making a movie with special effects ... it didn't seem real.

[Apoc]

Originally Posted by azoomm

I was home, my mother called me screaming and crying. I turned on the news, and thought it was a show about making a movie with special effects ... it didn't seem real.

You know what, thats what I saw too. Got up and turned on the TV, and immediately seen video of the first plane hitting. At this time I knew nothing about it, and I was thinking, 'Damn, thats pretty cool, I wonder what movie this is?'

Then I found out it wasnt a movie.

[Trip]

Originally Posted by Apoc

You know what, thats what I saw too. Got up and turned on the TV, and immediately seen video of the first plane hitting. At this time I knew nothing about it, and I was thinking, 'Damn, thats pretty cool, I wonder what movie this is?'

Then I found out it wasnt a movie.

I am pretty sure they didn't have video of the first plane strike til many hours after the towers fell because the French guy shooting the video was still in the first tower hit with the NYFD when the second tower fell. It was footage from a documentary about NYFD rookies. The documentary it ended up becoming is a very good one.

[Krabill]

I had just gotten to work when my phone rang. It was my wife telling me a plane flew into the wtc. I assumed it was a small plane with some idiot behind the controls and didn't think much about it. When my boss got to the office he went in the back room to turn on the tv and grabbed me to come watch. We're both pilots and he knew more about the situation than my wife did. We were both watching when the second plane hit.

My phone rang again. This time my wife was asking me what I thought and I told her it had to be terrorists. She asked me what kind of airline pilot would let a terrorist talk him into running into a building. I said "a dead one". I knew the instant the second plane hit what was going on. The pilots had been killed and the terrorists themselves were flying the planes.

Being a pilot and always noticing planes and contrails it was pretty freaky to not see any in the sky for the next few days.

Now they want to build a mosque at ground zero. Really? Makes my blood boil.

[goof2]

One of my roommates woke me up (I was still sleeping, one of the benefits of being a student) and told me the WTC was under attack from suicide airplanes. That made zero sense in my first waking up haze.

I went downstairs and started watching the coverage. At different times they reported that practically every federal building in DC had been hit by airplanes or bombs. The sister of one of my roommates was a Secret Service Agent in DC so he was pretty freaked out. He and his family couldn't get a hold of her until that evening and fortunately she was fine.

Watching the towers fall was the most surreal thing I have ever seen. I knew there would be a massive amount of lives lost, but listening to the different commentators work the math on the number of potential victims and hearing the numbers they were coming up with (50k+ if I'm remembering correctly) was more horrible than I could have imagined.

I have always been interested in airplanes and it was strange to see practically none in the sky. At the time I didn't live too far from DC so the planes I did see were all military. It was also strange driving around and seeing virtually no traffic.

I don't know if I really came out of my haze from just waking up for a week or so. Everything about it seemed so strange. I remember that there really wasn't anything on any channel on TV except coverage. Even HBO was running coverage from news channels. That was all that was on the radio and the internet too. Of course I understand why, but it is still strange something happened of such magnitude that for a week or more there was nothing else to talk about. My roommates and I really did nothing for a full week except sit in front of the TV and the computer.

[Mudpuppy]

I was in an external audit to get ISO 14001 certification. It was the opening meeting of the 3 day audit. The General Manager was sitting there staring out the window (which is usually the extent of his usefulness - don't get me wrong super intelligent just maybe too much so) and he looks at me and says that's strange that plane just made {insert whatever maneuver or technical term he said} that is only when they are being grounded or forced to land for an emergency. 2 seconds later the receptionist busted in and said a plane hit a building in new york. Meeting over, everyone sent home. Turned on the tv and it was almost too surreal like wtf that can't be real, especially when the towers collapsed. It was actually the day I had a revelation and completely abandoned the organized religion's version of faith and kind of set my own beliefs in concrete. I went to church where everyone was gathered and I felt (and still whenever I go inside a church) completely empty and void. Like the god who wasn't there.

[z06boy]

I was the Hangar Mgr. for the company I work for that houses the corporate aircraft. It was a TRIP !! I was at my desk and could hear the tv in the passenger lounge area and stood up and looked around the corner so I could see the images and thought it was a small private aircraft that had hit the building as they had stated on the air.

I called the chief pilot and maintenance chief to see if they had heard anything and they said no. These guys along with a few pilots and mechanics started showing up in the lounge area and as we were all standing there the second airliner slammed into the other tower !!

The phone started ringing shortly after that and it was the FAA wanting to know how many aircraft we had in the air and where they were and to get them all on the ground immediately at the nearest FBO.

It was weird to look at the screen on my computer and see all of the aircraft that resemble a bunch of ants usually start thinning out and then go pretty much blank. As most...I'll never forget that time.