9/11 20th anniversary

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

It does show how bad it was in the towers that jumping out of the towers to your death was the “better” option for those people.

I had turned on the TV when it was reported on the radio that a cessna had hit one of the towers. It would have been just before 14.00 Irish time. When the second plane hit it was initially thought it was an explosion, it was only on replays that the second plane was identified.

That was the thing about it, so much confusion, nobody knew what was happening and as stated before when it became clear that people were falling out of the towers the gravity of the situation really sank in, it was an unbelievable experience to watch it in real time.

i was on a 6-2 shift, so theres not a hope i seen either live, still very serial though

The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark A. Milley, is giving a speech at the Pentagon ceremony now. He sounds angry, and I don't blame him. He's made several direct references to recent events in Afghanistan, and I think his speech will raise a few eyebrows in the press.

Not too difficult for anyone with a bit of experience. They took someone with about the same level of experience as the hijacker on flight 77 and he was able to hit the Pentagon 3 out of 3 times on a proper Boeing simulator.