9/11 20th anniversary

cena

20 years on and this is still tough to hear what happened

Atlantic Dawn

Hindsight is great but you wonder how the cockpits were all pretty much insecure up to this date, any randomer with mental health or dodgy intentions could have taken a plane over with little effort. For decades before this bus drivers had secure cabins blocking access from the general public, just seems mad that wasn't law for all passenger jets.

martingriff

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117874420#Comment_117874420

Never happened so was never thought of. Highjackers normally get airplane to fly somewhere. Unfortunately most safety aspects normally come after an incident. That or I watch too much aircraft accident programs

Howard Stern's live coverage is some of the most gripping radio in history.

To this day Stern can't listen back to it and as far as I know makes copyright claims when it pops up online.

Dr. Bre

It’s mad the hijackers still hit the twin towers even tho they were big buildings. the planes could have easily missed going at the speed they travelling at. Those hijackers wouldn’t have flown passenger jets

JP Liz V1

All those lives lost

RIP

Atlantic Dawn

BBC had a documentary on during the week all about what was going on behind the scenes with Bush trying to control the situation.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000z8p5/911-inside-the-presidents-war-room

passatman86

I remember watching the tv at me nannies on lunch from secondary school the day it happened . Id say its our generations " you know what you were doing" moments

OU812

I'm just after finishing a show on Nat Geo (Disney+) about the firehouse closest & absolute first responders. Absolutely harrowing. Talking about having to drive over bodies & body parts in the street to get to the towers, mere minutes after the first impact. Stuff that never occurred to me before. It's so tough watching it. Extremely high definition footage too.

Also, anyone who has the ABC7 app, they've got a segment "as it happenned" which is their broadcast from the morning. very low standard def, 4:3 display, but seeing the reactions "live" in the studio as they struggle to broadcast.

Also, anyone into podcasts, there's a show called 9/12 which focuses on the people who had to go to work the day after & how it affected them.

BobHopeless

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117874490#Comment_117874490

They'd a decent aim in fairness to them.

Zirconia

The hijackers had been doing commercial pilot training in the US in the months before the attack. Hitting the buildings wasn't too difficult for them given some basic training on aircraft systems and control

banie01

The Smithsonian Channel's The Heartland Tapes is a great docu IMO. No talk, no commentary, just news reports of that morning interspersed with ATC and emergency services radio.

I lived in Lanzarote when it happened and was sitting at home watching BBC News when they broke their coverage. Shots of the smoking 1st tower and then the 2nd plane hitting.

I remember initial death toll estimates of up to 50k! If nothing else, the fact that the planes impacted before the work day fully started, saved an awful lot of lives.

The mood in the bar that night and for the next few days was like nothing I've ever experienced. We opened but cancelled live music and kept as much news on as we could. It's not something I think of often, but I'll always remember where I was when it happened. My wife was stranded back in Ireland too as she was home on holidays and was meant to fly back out on the afternoon of 9/11. Her flight that day still took off, but she didn't make it to Dublin and fair play to Iberia, they looked after her and rescheduled the flight for her even tho it was her own fault (and Sky news') that she missed it in the 1st place.

Kermit.de.frog

There'll be loads of documentaries. This one was on the BBC a few years back recalling stories of those inside the WTC.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QzXp9IZo59U&list=PL28B8B91120D97B18&ab_channel=xXazdesertboyXx

Strumms

the world is multiple times more dangerous now.. it will get worse...Despite trillions being spent... Aviation is multiple times safer yes... but what fûcking use is safeguarding aircraft and airports.... when these scumbags can just blow up trains, train stations, trams... walk down a main street or into a shopping center with an automatic weapon or IED ...

fûck all use spending billions on aviation security when what should have happened is quite simply the EU to have the fûckin cop on to halt, limit non EU citizens from certain locations from arriving... safeguarding us in the air and on the streets, in our homes, in shopping centers...

no Islamic terrorist gives a rats about ETD, ionscan detectors, backscatter technology or the latest X-ray machine...

quite simply the clock is ticking, it’s happening here...

you would find it multiple times easier to kill / injure more people by just walking into a shopping center with an automatic weapon / grenades...

10th of December, if Liffey Valley, Blanchardstown, Jervis St, Charlestown, Mahon Point, Eyre Square Center are attacked by people with automatic weapons and improvised explosives, you’d be seeing similar casualties to 9/11....

my own view is that it’s at some point in the future going to happen... could be one year or twenty away.

if you invite trouble it will arrive.

No point in thinking if we learn from 9/11 and make the skies safer when we as a society have done that very thing but inviting problems on the street, shopping areas, public transportation...

nj27

I think it was a body blow to white supremacy. Make of that what you will.

PsychoPete

I was only 7 or 8 in 3rd class when it happened, I remember the teacher turned on the tv so we could watch what was happening. At that age all I cared about was pokemon cards and capri suns so seeing the news reports meant nothing to me. Was only many years later watching documentaries about it, realised the affect it had on American

Itssoeasy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117874475#Comment_117874475

I’ve listened to it a few times a couple of years ago when it was on YouTube and it started out as a normal show but yes I agree the whole team stepped up the plate once it becomes apparent that this was a serious event.

There was a thread for the 15th anniversary and I gave my recollections then of being on 4th year in secondary school being told by a passing teacher that “ a plane had crashed into the world trade centre” which I said five years ago I only knew what the WTC was because the Simpson episode. 102 minutes that changed America IMO is the best documentary of the events twenty years ago because there are no talking heads, it’s just footage that ordinary people filmed on the day. There’s been a few 9/11 documentaries added to Disney plus which I’ve never seen a plan to watch this weekend.

Two moments I’ve remembered in the five years are one on September 10th, 2001 I was in cork airport collecting a family member and we were in the old terminal and it was like any other time at the airport. Little did we know that the airport experience would change drastically less than 24 hours later. The second is sky news and their coverage, which I can remember turning on before school in the weeks after and it was static camera pointing at ground zero with these massive spot lights shining on the site.

For those of us in our thirties 9/11 was a “where were where you moment” and IMO has defined our generation.

Be right back

^^ I was also collecting a couple of family members from Cork airport on the 10th of September. I remember thinking it was small planes at first and I didn't know what the WTC was..

Itssoeasy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117874673#Comment_117874673

Didn’t the plane that hit the second tower have to bank sharply to hit the south tower and because of that it hit it straight on.

Kermit.de.frog

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117875106#Comment_117875106

Was that before or after that imbecile was taking about Pamela Anderson's jet? I really struggle to understand when they took it seriously without being dicks? And I know it's low brow and all the rest but, surely, there is a point where all that goes out the window? Because I also listened to it throughout and it's really not quite as you paint it imho.

HerrKapitan

RIP all those who lost their lives. I remember vividly when a classmate told us "6000 people are dead in America" while waiting for our schoolbus. Thought he was joking and laughed at him.

Terrible that a country can do such a thing to its own people.

Itssoeasy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117875143#Comment_117875143

The Pamela Anderson talk was going on when the first plane hit and did continue until the second plane hit.

Kermit.de.frog

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117875146#Comment_117875146

We've a live one here

AllForIt

There was an interview on LBC's Andrew Pierce show today, with a woman who on 9/11 started her FIRST day at work there. What a first day at work, how surreal. Didn't get to listen to it but it just shows there are so many untold stories around this terrible day in history.

AllForIt

As for documentaries, there were many docs available on YouTube but have been pulled. Maybe it's a bit morbid to watch them anyway. Some of the personal stories will stay will me forever and sometimes I wish I didn't know. It's the real life stories that kill me more than the visuals of it.

One in particularly; about a woman who took her mother to the top restaurant on her birthday. She's worked in the towers and apparently loved working there. Who wouldn't. They both perished. So so sad.

JupiterKid

2001 was a landmark year for me as I met my current OH in February of that year. 💕

My sister had my nephew, the first of a new generation of the family, later that year.

And then 9/11 happened. It shattered, in an instant, what had been a happy and positive year for me. My sister phoned me at work to tell me that an airplane had hit the World Trade Centre. I thought it might be a light aircraft she meant, but I went down to the common student area of the university I worked in where staff were gathering around the TV screens - and was stunned to see a second aircraft hitting the second tower. It was utterly surreal.

When I heard the Pentagon had been hit, I really thought this might be the end, the beginning of an end of days. I went into town to meet some American friends over in Ireland for a wedding and everyone was just stunned and numb.

The images of desperate people jumping off the towers will stay with me until the day I draw my last breath.

Zak Flaps

On that day I was on my lunch break at work. I'll never ever forget seeing the live footage of the second plane hitting the second tower. Shocking!

Atlantic Dawn

I remember myself on the day hearing on the radio a plane had hit the first tower, at the time there was no real sense of the scale of the collision, assumption was a Cesna type plane hitting in some kind of navigation error, once you heard the 2nd tower was hit I knew it was terrorists. The internet wasn't able to cope with the news across the world, ISDN was only being implemented and most homes didn't have this, multiple websites completely collapsed with the traffic for the day, BBC, Sky, CNN, ABC etc, as did phonelines between Ireland and US. There was a fear in our office that European targets could be next, got off early in work, going home in the car my mind was wondering what in the jaysus had just happened and how it could be responded to so it didn't happen again.

Tell me how

Woke up at 5pm Irish time after working night shift the night before and turned on The Last Word where they had live commentary on it. I thought it was similar to the 'War of the Worlds' broadcast in 1938 where people tuned in late to a drama broadcast and thought the Planet earth was being attacked. I actually thought it was a drama or mocumentary type piece for several minutes until I went and turned on Sky News. Was before smart phones and the immediacy all that brought.

Like others, I'll never forget the rest of that day but its a somber thought to realise that on the back of what happened that day, America went to war in 2 countries for 20 years, which saw trillions of dollars spent and millions of lives lost or displaced.

Oh, and that right now in America, more than twice the number of people who died on 9/11 are still dying every week from Covid and circa 40% of the population refuse to take a vaccine to help prevent such deaths and some states are preventing schools from wearing masks to protect staff and students.

In the year 3125 history books where they cover the early 21st century, they will think we were very slow in acting in our own best interests (jokes on them, climate change inaction might mean there's no one left to read those books. lol)

Avon8

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117874736#Comment_117874736

Hitting a 60m wide target at 500 mph is absolutely difficult. Didn't the official report exclude all systems and conclude it was manual? Even more difficult when you consider the pentagon, a mere 5 stories from the ground. All logic there though would suggest they were attempting to plow straight into the roof from above and somehow managed to hit the very narrow strip between the ground and roof at that speed

Atlantic Dawn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117875335#Comment_117875335

Seemed easy enough, 2 planes, 2 complete direct hits.

bb12

was living in california and working in silicon valley when it happened. my radio alarm clock went off at 6am californian time and i heard reports of a plane hitting the world trade centre. like everyone else i just presumed it was a light aircraft because i think one had hit the white house the year previously if i remember correctly...anyone, next thing the announcers say they suspected it was a jetliner...i jumped out of bed and ran to turn the tv on. the second plane had hit at that stage...so i ran around the house waking up all my housemates...we all sat there stunned at 6.30 am in the morning...there was so much confusion going on...it seemed there might be hijacked aircraft everywhere...we immediately thought silicon valley might be a target as it was the middle of the dot com boom and the place was literally the technological capital of the world at that point so we thought it would be an obvious target.

san fran evacuated all its high rise buildings and shut down all the bridges across the bay...and because we were 3 hours behind new york, we all thought we were gonna get attacked at 9am our time...i stayed and watched until the towers crumbled and then decided i better go to work...the drive up the 101 freeway was one of the most memorable moments for me...normally for a 4 lane freeway each way, it was nuts on there in rush hour each morning..but that morning it seemed like everyone was driving at 30mph...no overtaking and you could really feel how the other drivers were all stunned and shocked...on the way to work there was one overpass where someone had hung up a homemade sign "god bless america"...by the time i was driving back home that evening, every single bridge over the freeway was completed covered with signs and american flags. i lived near an air force base and in the days afterwards the house would shake with the fighter jets taking off and landing all the time and the most eery part for me was lying in bed at night and hearing those jets in the distance flying up and down the coast on guard...for the first time i knew what it really felt like to be living in a non-neutral country.

Avon8

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117875342#Comment_117875342

"Threading the eye of a needle" was the immediate reports by aviation experts, backed up thereafter by the official report. And obviously they missed their target at the much much larger target of the Pentagon, hitting it at the wrong place

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2001-09-13-0109130331-story,amp.html

Motivator

I remember being on holidays in America in August 2001 and flew from Orlando to New York and New York to Dublin. The flight from New York home was delayed a few hours and we were stuck on the plane. Me and my brother were brought up to the cockpit by an air hostess and we got the lowdown off the pilots. Mad how that was the norm back then. My sister took an unbelievable photo of the skyline under the setting sun from the plane. Despite it not being the highest quality, it was blown up and sits on her wall in her house now. Probably my favourite photo I’ve ever seen taken from the runway looking over at the towers.

I was in 6th class in school the day of 9/11 and our teacher didn’t say a word about what happened which I always found odd. She disappeared out of the classroom and left us there for the rest of the day. The bell went at the end of the day and I remember all the parents were out talking to one another. I went home and watched the tv until about 2 o clock in the morning and the house phone was ringing all night with cousins and friends of the family in New York reporting in that they were all ok.

It was an awful day, remember it well. Thoughts to all those who died, especially the Irish victims.

Ger Roe

I was flying back to Dublin from the UK, when the first plane hit. I knew nothing about it until I got out of the terminal building and turned on the car radio for the drive home. The first reports were coming in of a plane.... perhaps a light aircraft, having crashed into one of the towers. The radio prog carried on with the music, promising to update soon. The story then developed into a passenger plane accident. I stopped off to pick up some grocery shopping and by the time I was back in the car, the second plane had hit and radio coverage was constant. I got home and rushed in to turn the TV on, just as the first tower fell and reports were also (or soon) talking of a crash at the pentagon and another plane flying without air traffic control contact and heading for Washington. It was like the world was ending.

I was involved in Dublin pirate radio at the time and using the still developing internet, I used to record US stations, on my dial up modem. This was in the days where you had to know the stream URL or else go to the few radio websites that existed at the time. I logged on to a few I knew of in the NY area and sat stunned as my mini disc recorder captured the developing incidents, live.

I listened and recorded for as long as I could before the local NY radio stations went off air due to either power failure or loss of transmission facilities - some had their relay and link equipment located on the towers. Some of the bigger NYC stations came back on air in the following few days using backup and borrowed transmission equipment, before The Empire State building was then kitted out as the main radio relay location for the NYC area, just as it had been, before the taller Twin Towers were built.

It was a surreal few days. I remember our government then declaring a national day of mourning for the victims, giving everyone a day off to contemplate. It was a strange time as I was working for a company that had strong American connections and they were fighting on, no day of mourning declared there - they were still in the middle of trying to cope. As a sign of solidarity with our colleagues, some of us stayed working on the day so that they could carry on and interact with us as normal. We never told them that Ireland had shut down to think about their pain, while they were determined to carry on and not be beaten.

A year or so later, I attended a talk given in a Dublin hotel by four NYC Firefighters that had been involved on the day. Three were on duty on the day, one was retired due to previous injuries received. All four were right in the heart of the madness and suffered additional physical injuries on the day. One had survived being trapped in the collapse of the North Tower. They give their time free and were going around the world to tell their story and experiences, the admission fee for the event was donated to the burns unit in Crumlin Children's hospital. They were using local fire service contacts wherever they went, for accommodation and to organise the venues for their talks.

I asked them why they were doing the lectures .... they all said that they still didn't sleep at night and wanted to do something positive to highlight the better aspects of humanity that they experienced on the day and since. The motivational speeches they gave were stunning, in recalling the horror of their direct experiences, they found light and wanted to get that message across. It was strange to see hope for humanity coming from people who had seen so much hate and horror on the day that changed the world.

It is hard to believe that twenty years have now passed.

El_Duderino 09

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117874451#Comment_117874451

When safety measures are taken in advance of a big event, its called "health and safety gone mad". There's no prize for the safety measure when a tragedy never happens.

On 9/11 I always think there are 2 separate sides to it. There's the obvious tragedy obvious tragedy the pain and suffering from the lives lost and injuries sustained. And on the other side There's the fact that Americans seem completely uncurious about the cause of the tragedy and what they could to do anticipate future attacks, and realise that future attacks are likely baked in when they invade countries (like Afghanistan and Iraq).

They are two completely separate sides of the situation and it doesn't take from the tragedy. But the fact that they aren't even slightly honest about what lead to the attack means more attacks are far more likely to happen again.

BrianD3

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117875357#Comment_117875357

The Pentagon is much larger but only 7 stories, hitting it anywhere would be more akin to a targeted crash landing so not surprising that the hijackers nearly undershot. Hitting the WTC was more of a flying than a landing exercise. Great visibility on the day and two huge towers, one hit much lower than the other but similar result. Options to go around or hit something else if you miss.

PokeHerKing

I remember leaving school and a friend coming over to a group of us saying terrorists were attacking America. It was an absolute rasper of a day as well. Went home and don't think sky news was off the TV for the rest of the week . The whole family eating dinner watching it everynight.

Mad to think that now we'd all have known the minute it happened with app notifications.

Had tickets to see Pantera the following week but they got cancelled and replaced by Slayer. They never toured again and then Dimebag Darrell was shot dead by a crazed fan a few years later.

Strumms

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117875959#Comment_117875959

In terms of terrorism it isn’t. Globally...

In 2008 approximately 8000 people were killed due to terrorism.

in 2014 approximately 45,000 people on the planet were killed due to terrorist activities.

in 2017 approximately 28,000 people on the planet were killed due to terrorist activities.

Al Qaeda have attacked and killed in dozens of country’s in almost every continent.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117876252#Comment_117876252

Where did these figures come from?

I grew up in the 70s and 80s and I remember many bombings, terrorist attacks and plane hijacking. I don't believe we are in anymore danger then back then, in fact, we were in more danger in the 70s. My own mother was caught in O Connell at in the bombings

gormdubhgorm

I was in the WTC in 1999 getting a tour. To give an idea of the height your ears pop a few times going up the lift.

Saddest part in hindsight (given what happened two years later) tour guide said in the event of an emergency all people go to top of tower to be airlifted by helicopters. Which was obviously the worst thing to do when the towers were hit.

BrianD3

Some sporting events were cancelled/postponed afterwards including the 2001 Ryder Cup. An event that did go ahead a few days after 9/11 was the indycar race in Germany, was renamed the American Memorial. A horrific crash happened at it with Alex Zanardi losing both his legs on the track, photos of the crash captured bits of his legs flying through the air.

BobHopeless

The saddest thing about 9/11 is America using it as a cover to invade Iraq and kill hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. That act was as evil as anything Bin Laden did.

billyhead

I was doing a course that morning where some of the students in the college were over from America including New York studying. We were watching the events unfold on a TV in the lobby of the college. The shear disbelief and shock on their faces was horrible. Some of the American students were frantically trying to ring home and one of the students had a relative working in the trade center. Such an awful cowardly action from the perpetrators.

martingriff

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/117876275#Comment_117876275

I remember reading a book there a few year ago. Can't remember exactly all I can remember is that they landed the plane at some airport and all were left in an airport terminal and Mosad went in. However one bit I do remember is how going to certain countries airports even Greece was seen by some as a hijacking happening

Dempo1

I remember it vividly and at the exact time I was going to view a very rural cottage to purchase (now my home).

I recall getting lost, literally hadn't a clue were I was, listening to live line and the news Broke. It was the most surreal experience, in a car, middle of nowhere, lost , crap mobile signal and listening to this on the car Radio. It honestly felt like war had broken out.

I went on to work in America 2006/2009 and even many years later I could sense the affect it had on America.

Rest in Peace.

Itssoeasy

Christ even after twenty years hearing people reading the names out is rough and especially when they get to their relatives and talk about them.

Wanderer78

hearing stories and seeing footage, is still disturbing, some humans are truly fcuked up

nullzero

Hard to believe it's exactly twenty years since I watched the second plane hit live on TV.

bnt

I was on a lunch break on a work-related training course, arrived back in the office, and tried to check my email. The internet was quickly overwhelmed and the news came in through TV and radio. We left early that day and could only watch events on TV.

I didn't know any of the victims personally, but today they have already read out the names of some people I'd heard of: David & Lynn Angell. David had been a senior writer on two of my favourite TV shows, Cheers and Frasier, winning 8 Emmy awards for his work on both.