9/11 20th Anniversary.

oxonfox

Roofer
Still horrific 20 yrs on, why build a building so high that fire brigade run out oxygen before they get any where near top floors, Mad. 🤔
 
Still horrific 20 yrs on, why build a building so high that fire brigade run out oxygen before they get any where near top floors, Mad. 🤔

I was there that day. The whole thing was beyond belief. There’s a great series on Netflix at the moment. Well worth watching and talks and shows stuff not see before.
 
I was there that day. The whole thing was beyond belief. There’s a great series on Netflix at the moment. Well worth watching and talks and shows stuff not see before.
Did it not effect you mentally? I've seen footage since and it still affects me just seeing people's filmed accounts and people jumping.
 
If I spoke freely on 9/11 I’d probably end up getting this thread moved into the conspiracies section so I’ll spare anyone that.
Awful tragedy though and a dark day for humanity. Has changed/shaped the way the world is today I think.
Look forward to reading what you have to say on it LG. Must have been a deeply unsettling experience.
 
I remember on 9/11, I was a ForFoxSake guy. I checked out The Fox for some reason and Jackie dropped a bomb of a gag and just got piled on. I pissed myself laughing and thought, OK - I need to post on THAT board.
 
Ok here goes.
Firstly for those on here that don’t know I used to work as aircrew for BA before retirement. We were on a 6 day trip to New York, what we called a back/back. Arrive from London on Friday early evening, leaving NY Saturday evening, arrive London Sunday morning, and then repeat eventually landing back home on Wednesday morning. 114hrs total from start to finish.
We were to be the first flight out of JFK on the 11th at 5.00pm. We had a particularly nice crew that trip. We stayed in upper Manhattan at a converted apartment block, turned hotel, owned by the Irish Fitzpatrick group. They were wonderful to us, we were the only guests totalling over 150 each night. On the Monday they gave a free drinks/snacks evening as they did every month on the second Monday each month. We’d had a few but it was a good night.
On the Tuesday, as was customary, a few of us were meeting at 0900 for breakfast.
As I was getting ready I looked out of the window. My room was 3/4 glass so afforded a great view even on the 8th floor. I remember thinking it really was THE most beautiful day. You could see for miles. I was half watching the tv, a local station not the big ones like CNN or ABC. Suddenly they announced that the north tower was on fire. Small plane. I walked to the window and said to myself ‘only in the USA could some fruitcake fly into the tower on the clearest day ever!’
They asked people to phone in as witnesses. Remember I’m watching local tv. It’s raw live tv with, especially on this day, no filtering whatsoever.
Guy phoned saying he lived in a loft apartment looking over the Marriott hotel. 40/50/60 bodies on the roof. The studio guy didn’t believe him. Are you sure. Are sure. Of course I’m fucking sure. He was cut off and they were more concerned that someone had cursed on breakfast tv. Me too. Oooh you can’t say that here! Next guy said he’d seen the aircraft from his balcony apartment and it was a commercial jet. Are you sure. Are you sure. More fruity language but you could hear the shock in the witnesses voice. They then suddenly had a reporter right outside the burning tower. It was just before 9.00. It was chaos. Suddenly boom boom boom. Broken glass and thuds. Was this falling masonry the reporter was asked. No. They were bodies. One landed a few feet away from him. It was horrible. The cameraman automatically turned the camera on the body. Just two seconds and it was cut. The studio was raw. All over the place. Crossed lines live as the director screamed camera 7 no camera 8 NOW. Then at the poor guy in the studio to say something. For Christ’s sake anything. SPEAK he shouted. He was understandably shocked at what we’d just witnessed. I now pulled a chair up to the tv screen. There were shots all over the place from traffic helicopters, it was like a mini Apocalypse Now with them all going to the tower. They were obviously all nicking video off each other. Suddenly the 2nd one went in. The shot I was watching was where the plane clearly flew in from the right and behind the North Tower. Boom. I clearly remember thinking that’s such bad luck that an aircraft was flying behind the burning tower and it then exploded taking the aircraft out. Terrorism? No. Then we saw the famous shot of it carving at a angle from a camera looking directly up. That was the moment. For some strange reason it hadn’t dawned on me that I was just over a mile from all this. Just 30 blocks. Everyone on the planet was watching from 1000’s of miles away but I was very close. I quickly but calmly picked up my small document bag with ID, passport, money etc and walked downstairs to our lounge area where there was a huge ( by 2001 standards) tv. A few of my crew and others were watching. We sat there in complete silence for the next 2hrs watching the mayhem, occasionally interspersed with OMG and the lovely female Irish assistant manager who started to cry when the towers came down.
A small group of us then decided to go downstairs to get something to eat as we’d missed breakfast. The streets were chaos. No cars apart from emergency vehicles and everyone just walking north away from the towers. All shops had shut completely. We eventually found a diner a few blocks away which was busy. And here’s the weird thing. It was typically New York. Loud, the waitresses shouting orders etc.
Hi guys. How you doing today?
Er er well not good.
Oh no but hey, life goes on. Now the specials today are ………. Bizarre. Totally bizarre.
We then went to Central park via 5th avenue where you could clearly still see the smoke from the collapsed towers. We were obviously going nowhere as all flights had been grounded in less than 150 mins. Over 4000 flights. Unbelievable.
We stayed until we flew back on Saturday morning. The 2nd BA flight to leave. The worst thing on those days that followed, were the 100’s of small posters/cards etc with names, messages and photos pasted on every lamppost and wall of loved ones missing. It was both humbling and sad to read. ( this was way before Twitter Facebook Instagram etc).
The security at the airport was manic. We ( respectfully) laughed at the difference from when we’d left less than one week earlier when it was as lax as anywhere in the world. The flight was full ( 1000’s trying to get back with 4 full days flights cancelled). It was one of the strangest flights in my 40 years at BA. Total silence for 7hrs. Nobody barely moved. Everyone speaking in hushed tones.
In fact so quiet I spent 20 mins on the flight deck listening to the BBC world service on the radio to hear the only good news of the week. ( or so I thought). We’d beaten the sheep 3-2 at their place, our first win of the season after that awful home 5-0 defeat on the first day. It had been a hell of week but even more so for me.
As a personal subplot my girlfriend ( now wife) was 12 weeks pregnant. We were going to the scan on Wednesday afternoon after I’d landed back home. Obviously that didn’t happen. She went with a girlfriend instead. You couldn’t speak or text anywhere for over 24+hrs. All lines were down. I had got a message out to my girlfriend via another crew member saying I was safe but that was it. Around 30+ hrs after the mayhem we finally spoke. How was the scan. Oh fine fine but you’d better sit down. Now she was nearly 40 so we were concerned about the usual problems. I felt sick not for the first time that week. It’s ok. We’re not having one baby but two she calmly said.
Now I’m looking at a print in my room. The Twin Towers. Twins. Twins? Are you serious. Yes. Definitely? . So I make the fatal mistake as a man and say - Twins, Twin Towers. Very funny. Not. What is it you really want to say? Er no I’m serious. Oh wow. What a week this is. We’d just bought a new house, both worked for BA, having twins and the BA share price fell off a cliff. Great !! As they say my bucket was full.
But it all turned out ok in the end on a personal level but the airline world was never the same again and never will be.
 
There were many subplots that went on that week. The Vice President of BA sales came down from the New York office to the room where we were watching it all unfold. He asked the CSD’s ( in charge crew members) to account for our crew if we could. (16 crew). Fortunately for me as we were on the first flight that evening and leaving the hotel at 3.00pm pretty much everyone was found quite quickly. For others it wasn’t so easy. The doormen of the hotel literally counted people in one by one listing them and passing in the info. By 1.00pm only 2 girls were unaccounted for. Right next to the Towers was Century 21, a department store often frequented by crew.
So there was genuine concern. They both turned up at 3.00pm safely but with a number of shopping bags. This was interesting as I said earlier all shops at least in upper Manhattan including Bloomingdales were shut by 1100. They’d somehow mysteriously not only shopped but had had lunch and had little idea what had happened. No idea! Bizarre.
That night after a conference call with London, and myself getting the crew together to cascade the info we went off for a well earned drink. At 8.00 four of us went out for a pizza and on the way back noticed a bar open. ( pretty much everything was closed). We couldn’t face going back to the hotel bar which was all BA. There were only around 10 people in our bar. Very quiet. Two older boys were chatting in the corner contemplating how ‘we should kick their
A rab (their pronunciation) asses. Their was enormous animosity understandably.
3 other guys stood at the bar. Late 30’s dressed immaculately, they were talking about it all. They noticed our accents and we got into a conversation. The old boys had gone thankfully. The guys then basically said they weren’t surprised what had happened. The USA poking their noses into everyone’s business. They knew we’d understand as we were used to terrorism in Europe. We had a very adult, surprising given what had happened, constructive conversation. One of them had an Irish background. 6th generation. He’d told us his uncle and dad, both living in New York had opposing views of the troubles in NI.
His dad said the uncle had no idea what he was doing when the time box went round the Irish American bars in the 70/80’s and he’d throw in a $5 bill ( a lot in those days) to assist NORAID. He only stopped when they bombed Harrods in 1983 and killed an American citizen. As his nephew said to us on that night ‘my dad said only when the USA gets hit on its home soil will Americans get it. And one day it’ll come and come big’. How right he sadly was.
I remember myself going into Irish American bars in the early 80’s and if you had a British accent it could get a bit tasty sometimes although most of them knew jack shit about it or what accent was what. I asked one particularly obnoxious twat whether he could put Belfast, Cork and Dublin in the right north to south order. He put Belfast in the middle. Er that’ll be in Southern Ireland then!!
Yes all in all that was one interesting day. From the first moments of the north tower being hit to 12 hrs later talking sensibly to 3 worldly Americans, something you don’t find often.
 
Thanks, watching it now.
The two BBC documentaries are well worth a watch.

Yes I’ve watched the BBC ones. V good. What I liked about the Netflix ones ( I’ve only seen the first two) is that is gives the viewer a clear history of how this happened and of course the spooky correlation of what just happened in Afghanistan in the last few weeks on the 20th anniversary of 9/11.
 
I can remember the day. I was working at home writing (advertising) copy and emailing it into the office for amendments and approval.

My brain is pretty linear, I don't really multi task so I do not like any distractions and work best when everything is quiet. Early afternoon my boss rings, quite unusual as most work related matters are dealt with by email, and tells me to put the TV on.

So that is what I do, up comes the now famous images and I find myself asking if this was real, it was now mid afternoon and events were already an hour or two in, but my boss had been watching it unfold.

Be interesting to see a decent documentary to see how well my memory holds up, might try the Netflix thing.
 
I can remember the day. I was working at home writing (advertising) copy and emailing it into the office for amendments and approval.

My brain is pretty linear, I don't really multi task so I do not like any distractions and work best when everything is quiet. Early afternoon my boss rings, quite unusual as most work related matters are dealt with by email, and tells me to put the TV on.

So that is what I do, up comes the now famous images and I find myself asking if this was real, it was now mid afternoon and events were already an hour or two in, but my boss had been watching it unfold.

Be interesting to see a decent documentary to see how well my memory holds up, might try the Netflix thing.
Both Netflix and the BBC documentaries are worth a watch. Not easy viewing though.
 
Both Netflix and the BBC documentaries are worth a watch. Not easy viewing though.

They’re both brilliant Dorset. Its not just the usual stuff. There are a lot of subplots surrounding it. For an American based programme it’s very well done and not dramatic at all
 
Apparently the orange traitor is hosting a has beens boxing match in Florida today rather than attending the 9/11 memorial with the other past presidents . Using the opportunity to attack Biden . Me me me
Scumbag
 
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Remarkable recounting of that day LG Fox
I read a book I think called' 102 minutes that changed America'' I am not a great reader of books but that one had me gripped. Simple things that decided people's fate on the day. There were 2 people who decided to descend the tower for whatever reason before the plane hit, one of them after descending about 20 floors remembered that they had forgot something they needed. The two people separated, one to leave the tower whilst the other went back up to a floor above the impact site. When the person reached the floor to retrieve their belongings, the plane struck and that was that. No way down and ultimately a life needlessly lost.
A tragic day that will be remembered like Pearl Harbour. An event that will always be remembered for Centuries to come
 
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