9/11

[RogueLeader]

I was working on a farm in the north panhandle of West Virginia- a few miles from United 93  flew overhead.  I was helping my boss construct a Barbed Wire Fence around a pasture.  No radios or anything.  It was about 11 am when we finished, and went back to the shop where a good friend of our was waiting.  My boss was always known for being able to be taken for a ride, so he didn't believe it until we heard it on the radio.

[dougsnow]

I had just pulled in and parked at my work location - American Eagle Airlines Flight Dispatch at the AA Flight Academy, near DFW airport, I dispatched the Caribbean operation from Dallas.

I was listening to the Bob and Tom show when right before going into a break, Kristie (news girl) came on and said that a plane, type yet unknown, had crashed into one of the towers.

I figured 172, low clouds, no gyro, and bounced off the side.

When I got into the sector, the normal amount of room hubbub was going on. After signing on to my sector, the first thing I did was SLS*LGA/ALL - which is the computer command for all LaGuardia weather - sequence, forecast, pireps, AA field conditions, etc - it was 10 and clear. I pulled some other airports in the area, and they were all 10 and clear.

I pulled up the New England satellite image from AA Metro, and lo and behold, not a cloud around anywhere.

How in the hell cant a pilot see the towers and be able to avoid them - and none of the JFK, LGA, nor EWR landing patterns fly near southern Manhattan.

I still thought about how in the hell as I was setting up my operation; about that time, a friend of the early morning dispatcher, the friend was from AA mainline, came thru our dispatch and talked to Rocky - who was working the early Carib operation. Right before leaving, almost as an afterthought, he asked Rocky if he could pull the flight information on AA11, and said that he heard some hubbub about it as he was walking out (remember that one of the AA attendants on 11 was able to talk to AA system manager while still inflight and gave out some incredible details as to what was happening onboard).

The data on 11 was already locked out - no one except someone with a God code in AA DECS system could retrieve it.

I had been eavesdropping when I asked where 11 went to; the AA dude responded "its a BOS LAX 57"

I said "that's strange"

"What" he asked.

I told him what I had heard on B&T coming into the flight academy. He went into the Conf room and turned the TV on, and the picture was locked onto the towers, 1 smoking, with a 757 sized hole in it. UAL175 (the flight the world got to watch crash) hadnt impacted the 2nd tower yet.

About that time, Reid R, the Eagle System Operations Control manager came in for the day, and we reported what I had heard on the radio, and what we were seeing on TV.  He ran upstairs to AA mainline dispatch, and within a few minutes, ordered us to start setting airplanes down, or prohibiting any planes from departing - long before the Feds made it mandatory.

We knew that, with the absolutely perfect weather, and a perfect airplane (that particular 757 had nothing broken or inoperative on it), and a high-time crew, that there could only be one excuse to the big 757 sized hole in the building.

Driving to my Arlington crashpad that day, after confirming that all Eagle planes were down and accounted for was errie - the winds were slightly from the north, so they wouldve been landing to the north at DFW - and there were no planes at all in the sky.

Until some dirtbag in a Cherokee took off from a grassstrip east of Dallas and the F16s flying in a Combat Air Patrol pattern broke Mach 1 over my crashpad to intercept.  Oops.

I still have the printer messages from the ATC System Command Center shutting the airspace system down that day.

Oh - we had Ft Worth SWAT Police, in Full Riot Gear and loaded M16s outside our office door in about an hour.

[Stonewall]

Most people wouldnt even mention this because they are afraid of being politically incorrect. But I am not. I agree that 9/11 was a tragedy, but i dont think it was the worst tragedy to happen in our history. Pearl harbor, slavery, the Civil War. This country has been through worse things than 9/11 which is why I dont get al the hoop la over it. I guess because it happened in our lifetime and not just something we read about in thehistory books.

I don't think it's politically incorrect.  You're absolutely right.  Pearl Harbor, as I studied in high school and college, is a known tragedy, but not one I experienced.  Same with slavery and the Civil War.  Studied that a lot, going to college in Virginia in Fairfax and Manassas.  However, as you stated, 9/11 happened during our lifetime.  Not to discredit previous tragedies, but we discuss like it was yesterday because it was.

[jimmydeanno]

What about Oklahoma City?

[Stonewall]

A tragedy, yes.  I won't take anything away from OKC, but it was a "home job" by one our own.  Doesn't make it better or acceptable by any means.  9/11 was an attack on our soil by someone other than an American whack job.  168 people died in OKC, a tragedy of course.  2,900 on 9/11, a tragedy with a bigger body count.  OKC didn't send us to war either.

[A.Member]

Most people wouldnt even mention this because they are afraid of being politically incorrect. But I am not. I agree that 9/11 was a tragedy, but i dont think it was the worst tragedy to happen in our history. Pearl harbor, slavery, the Civil War. This country has been through worse things than 9/11 which is why I dont get al the hoop la over it. I guess because it happened in our lifetime and not just something we read about in thehistory books.

Were you alive for and/or witness to those other tragedies?  Oh yeah, this is CAP, perhaps you were.    As you eluded to, this is one difference.  That must also be combined with the fact the attack was witnessed in real time or near real time by so many.  The simple fact is that 9/11 is the largest single event/attack and loss of life this country has seen in the last 100+ years.  In addition, slavery and the Civil War are not at all comparable types of situations/events.  Nonetheless, one tragedy does not lessen the impact or significance of another.  That said, you certainly have the right to your viewpoint.

BTW, more lives were lost on 9/11 than in the attack on Pearl Harbor and nearly all were were civilians. 

[alamrcn]

I was the morning Master Control opperator at the NBC affiliate in Southern Minnesota.

I had a small black and white monitor with a spare feed on it... don't even recall who was sending the signal now. However, someone had left it on a channel that started feeding a "security camera" from another building in Manhatten and showing the twin towers on fire. There wasn't any describing captions or audio, just raw video feed. Sadly, up to 9/11 I couldn't even identify what those two big buildings in New York were. I was lucky to even have glanced at that little monitor, because it was usually repeating B-roll video for national stories, which at the time was all about the missing intern Chandra Levy and Rep Gary Condit - remember that being the BIG deal?

NBC Today Show (in New York) was in progress, but on an hour delay for the Central time zone feed - so they were "before" it happened. MSNBC didn't even have text crawlers going yet about it. I called into the newsroom to tell them about it, and somehow they got some VERY preliminary information - can't even remember if there was word of a plane at that point, or just a fire.

At 8:55 CST, our station went on-air during a normally scheduled local "cut-in" during the hour-delayed Today Show with the breaking news and live feed from the security camera that I found. As far as I know, the first the public had heard about it within our tri-state area. In the next five minutes, we received word from NBC that they were going to feed the Today Show live on all time zones starting at 9:00 CST.

From that moment, we continued to air NBC News non-stop for about the next five days, which made my job at the station pretty simple!

-Ace

[trekkindave]

Woke up to my mother telling me that a plane had just hit the twin towers, (thought it was a general aviation type)  and went off to my first class of the day at the college... The professor kicked us all out after like 10 mins and gave us all the information he had... next thing i knew the county dispatch was broadcasting a "signal 1" (disaster; clear the air for instructions).   All local fire houses were on stand-by with some sending crews into ground zero for relief of crews on scene.   Spend the next 3 days living at the fire house.  Still remember the massive smoke cloud on the horrizon 60 miles to the west... and how erie it was to NOT hear any aircraft traffic.   

[Nomex Maximus]

I remember going to work the next day and seeing a pickup truck driving slowly down the road flying a full size American flag... from my redneck part of New Hampshire, you knew that that meant war. And I remember how many nations took time out and stood with us the day of the memorial services. Canadians, Brits, Russians. And I remember scanning the channels and seeing that even on the spanish channels Sabado Gigante had an American patriotic special on.

[addo1]

   I was working on school in my kitchen (I was homeschooled then) when my Dad called from work, and said to turn on the TV and that something very important was happening.  So, we did and we watched as both towers fell to the ground.  I also remember all the millions of half-staff flags flying in the weeks to follow and the hundreds of grieving people across our country.  That is about all I remember, but those parts I will ALWAYS remember.  I will also remember all the thousands of men and women that have gave their lives for our wonderful country.

[dougsnow]

I remember when later in that week, when CNN actually stopped broadcasting news for a COMMERCIAL!

It was like they broadcast news for 72 hrs straight with no commercials; you were just exhausted.

And yeah, who was Gary Condit and Chaundra Levy

[addo1]

   Whrere was CAP during all this? http://www.caphistory.org/museum_exh_7.html

[JayT]

Flying photo recon missions out of Long Island Group Headquarters at MacAruther Airport.

http://lig.nywg.cap.gov/wtc.html

I actually did my scanner rating rides in that plane.

[♠SARKID♠]

I was in 7th grade math class.  We were doing work by ourselves and our principal came on the intercom and told us "There has been a terrorist attack in New York."

Budweiser ran a commercial to honor 9/11 a while back.  They only aired it once so as not to benefit financially from it – they just wanted to acknowledge the tragic event.  I think it was a superbowl commercial.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJxEZF-PPts