Reply With QuoteYou might want to watch the documentary on BBC iPlayer: '9/11: Inside the President's War Room.' You may have a different viewpoint following that.Originally Posted by Weirdfish
I was working in an office near Hyde Park Corner.
As events unfolded I remember many vehicles booting it quite quickly around the roundabout with sirens going and it was that that caused us to turn up the office TV. We knew something was wrong.
You might want to watch the documentary on BBC iPlayer: '9/11: Inside the President's War Room.' You may have a different viewpoint following that.
I was on a Media Ops course prior to deploying to Kosovo as a UN Media spokesman and undertaking a practise TV interview when we were called in to watch the TV, just in time to see the second aircraft go in. The shock in the room was incredible and this was a room full of senior, seasoned military officers.
Last edited by Skier; 11th September 2021 at 23:46.
Definitely worth a watch. And all the more depressing to be reminded at the end that the legacy was the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
I was in the workshop when one of the salesmen came running in saying something had hit the tower and it was live on TV. It was strange how the entire workforce of 45 plus people just assembled around the telly in the showroom and started watching it in disbelief with all our customers.
Very strange few days where even after you’d watched it a hundred times on the telly you still couldn’t comprehend what had happened.
Last edited by Franky Four Fingers; 9th September 2021 at 22:01.
Just finished it. Wow, what an achievement!
I was working as an insurance broker in the City at the time and it was lunchtime in the office when someone came in saying that a plane had hit the first tower. We thought it was going to be a light/small plane of sorts. Went to Lloyd's shortly afterwards where and when the enormity of the events were beginning to become known. No business was placed that afternoon, and for some days afterwards, whilst syndicates tried to calculate their exposures and deem whether they were still a going concern able to write business going forward or not. There were also lots of rumours about further attacks and it didn't take long for me, and a couple of underwriters, to find the nearest pub which was underground where we watched the second tower collapse. I also remember the train home that evening when a standing room only carriage was completely silent for the entire journey.
I've watched most, if not all, of the recent TV programmes and it still shocks me what happened that day.
Was on holiday in Stoupa, Greece. Watched it unfold on TV in the 'Five Brothers' taverna.
Can thoroughly recommend the Netflix documentary.
I sincerely hope the families chasing the House Of Saud through the US courts, someday see justice.
Thanks just watched it last night. Was nicely made.
I will watch a few more of these shows over the next couple of days.
I watched that and have a lot more respect for Bush having seen it.
Started out with nothing. Still have most of it left.
I was helping a friend pack up his flat to move, his mum phoned about to tell him to turn on the TV and watch the news. We were watching them trying to make senes of what was happening when the second plane went it, after that it was just sitting among the packing boxes in a stunned state watching it unfold.
Dave E
Skating away on the thin ice of a new day
I had just moved into my first renovation project and had dismantled a sash window to repair and repaint. Had TV on in the background, and became glued to it as the events unfolded.
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Bush came across extremely well and that was something of a surprise.
I was at work when news came in & one of the senior officers dragged out a small portable & we were glued to the unfolding story.
Later I discovered the story of Cornish legend Rick Rescorla - he came from a small town around 5 miles from my hometown, moved to the US after service in the Parachute Regiment, joined the US Army, fought in Vietnam as a platoon commander in the 101st Airborne Div (read "We were soldiers once & young". Don't watch the film as that clown Gibson left him out), then became security head at Morgan Stanley. He is credited with saving over 3,000 lives as he drilled his people in evacuation & thus they all exited smoothly when it counted. He was last seen heading back into the building to look for stragglers, his body was never found. There is a statue of him at the US Infantry School at Fort Benning.
Not bad for a boy from Hayle. Kernow bys vyken.
I thought it was the 7th Cavalry, not the Screaming Eagles, that fought in Na Drang under Hal Moore, whom Gibson played in the film.
I have checked & you are quite correct, thanks for pointing it out (note to self, don't do things from memory, always check).
I was working in Saudi. I remember watching the news and saw the second plane crash into the tower. Next day many of my students were quite happy, some very quiet and some explaining that, 'Now America knows what it's like'. We had 24hr security for a while and it all felt very odd.
I was out on the forecourt cleaning windscreens to pass the time when I heard a report on the radio a light aircraft crashed into one of the towers, put the tv on and sat in disbelief at what was unfolding, a customer came in later to collect their new car and we sat for a couple of hours watching before I thought of the job in hand. It’s like when Kennedy was shot, do you remember where you were, what were you doing.
20 years already.
Why so much news coverage today (and probably all week) that it’s the anniversary tomorrow. Leave it until then.
Pickburn Arms that’s a blast from the past, I use to go there
I was in my office on the BAE site at Farnborough, writing a proposal completely oblivious to what was happening until I got a call from my wife which went something like this
Me “hello”
Wife “ it’s terrible, the second tower had come down”
Me “what second tower? What are you talking about?”
She told me, so I walked out of my office to see people huddled around a TV in the Conference Room.
A day that shook the world. A tragic lost of life for no gain. Very sad.
Whoever does not know how to hit the nail on the head should be asked not to hit it at all.
Friedrich Nietzsche
I was walking to my Shop from the train station. I stopped in my tracks on the pavement to watch the events unfolding on a bank of TVs at a high street electrical store. I watched live as the second plane flew into the WTC. It will remain with me forever.
https://apple.news/A-pmlGeuRS8OZQZz5i93OTQ
Worth a read. (Wall Street Journal).
I’m not religious generally but I will say a prayer tonight for all that were affected by this atrocity.
I remember exactly where I was and what I was doing.
Then as now, I was working for a Global Bank.
The attack on the Twin Towers was an attack on the financial global market, a test of the West's ability to function during and after a catastrophic disruption at the heart of its financial institutions.
Those who worked in banking always understood that the world of Global finance was a primary target for terrorism, the IRA had for a long time had their sights on disrupting the UK financial banking business. If anyone on this site knows where the BACS clearing centre is and has even possibly visited it in the last 30 years, you will know how much of a threat physical terrorism has posed to financial markets and how seriously that threat is taken by financial organisations.
Back to 9-11 the day, I was a Group Major Incident Manager (MIM), the primary aspect of my role was technical ownership and recovery from major IT disruptions, the secondary part of my role was to manage any threat or catastrophe that could impact reputation, share price, market position, this covered things such as major criminal activity, terrorism and major environmental impact etc. On 9-11 I was the primary on-call MIM, that meant all Global issues for the next 6 days would come directly to me as the first point of escalation.
That morning I had been working offsite with a colleague, our work there finished earlier than expected (about 1.15 - 1.30pm) and I remember us chatting in the car park as we were about to get in our cars, discussing if we would go back to the office or go home instead.
The week had been very busy up to that point ( I would always have at least 1 crisis a day to manage and a 12 hour day would be considered short) I had worked 18 hours of the last 24 so I said to my colleague I was off home to rest up before the next callout. I vividly remember saying to him "what's the worst that could happen huh?"
9-11 events unfolded as you all know, for me as duty MIM it started with a 1 on 1 telephone conversation with the CEO (that had never happened before as a 1 on 1) the call was very brief, I would say no more than 2 minutes and he made it extremely clear to me that as a Global bank we must -
* remain open for business
*settle all our international business on time (especially between the UK and the USA)
* ensure no UK disruption of clearing and cash warehouses
*restore all failed technology in Manhattan before start of day tomorrow (major IT, Power and Network impact was felt by all who had a business presence in the vicinity of the TT's)
*and finally that we must above all else, put on a public display that the financial markets will not be disrupted by terrorism, our doors will remain open as normal. So that was my agenda for the next 16 hours minimum.
As a foot note I now work in Technology Resilience in Banking , so a similar field still with crisis management at its core, but now I'm focused on threat preparation and avoidance instead of threat response and recovery. And one interesting and significant change I have seen in recent times is that the terrorism threat in banking and most business is now cyber terrorism rather than physical violent terrorism, yeah we still plan and prepare for a plane crashing in to a building, but really that threat is pretty low on the scale of risk and impact.
It's hard to grasp the terror and audacity of that attack and the pain it still causes to families who lost loved ones to this day.
It was just a normal day for me at my business. I switched on the TV's as this was happening in total shock and disbelief.
At the time I rented out some offices to a friend's company who are chartered structural engineers and quality control engineers (he closed the Glasgow bridge when tension wires broke and ordered a 300 mtr exclusion zone).
We both watched the attack unfolding.
He looked at his watch and said those towers will come down in 20 minutes
and sure enough they did.
An event I won't forget. RIP to all who died.
It was my dad's 65th birthday and his last day at work as he officially retired that day. You can imagine how strange his office leaving do was with everyone glued to any available television.
He's 85 today and we are taking him out for a trip on the river and a meal afterwards, another bittersweet milestone as we buried my mother last week.
Sorry to hear that news of your mother Duncan - condolences..
My son’s partner’s birthday today and strangely his is on 7/7.
Still remember it like yesterday, on our way to my best mates fathers funeral, on the way to the cremation place we heard about a plane going into the towers. As the day progressed it got worse and then at the end of the wake the Towers had come down.
All sat there in disbelief trying to send off my mates dad at the wake but trying to understand and comprehend what was unfolding.
Next day at work a lad who I worked with of Muslim heritage said the USA would use this event as an excuse to invade Iraq and we said no chance, how wrong we were.
20 years later and Afghanistan is still run by the Taliban despise the lives lost and billions thrown at it.
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Just caught some news showing the commemorations with current and former presidents in attendance - did I miss something or was Trump absent?
He was noticeable by his absence. Let's hope he was either not invited or literally told to stay away. Shame Bruce Springsteen hadn't stayed away - what a truly awful performance.
Have American Airlines Flight 77 which hit the Pentagon & United Airline Flight 93 been air-brushed from history? I haven't seen a mention of either.
______
Jim.
A very valid point actually, let’s not forget about those as well.
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They were not forgotten, I believe George W Bush attended one of these sites. I also caught part of a moving ceremony broadcast on BBC news 24 from the field where Flight 93 crashed.
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