re: 9/11 - 15 Years Later

Worked nights and my wife called and woke me up telling me a plane hit one of the towers. I turned on the TV just in time to see the second plane hit. I was on vacation starting that day and I feel like I watched news for a week straight.

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Just listened to the whole FAA/NORAD tape.

That frickin mayday call from United 93 is a miserable thing to listen to.

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Me too. Those faa folks sounded ridiculously calm. But I can't imagine what they were going through that day.

ATC folks are incredibly calm. The type of people they recruit are a special breed.

News anchors have to stay calm and report things through a lens but a lot of average joes on the street in the videos were speculating about terrorism after the first plane hit. The anchors were going with the accident angle until the second plane hits which might be the most frightening thing ever shown on live TV.

For those who don't know much about planes.. two 767s hit the WTC. A 767 is a huge fricking plane.

Before 9/11 the SOP during a hijacking was to allow the hijackers to what they wanted to do then bring in the negotiators once the plane was back on the ground. No one had ever flown a commercial plane into a building before so that wasn't even a thought. Mohamed Atta who was the hijacking pilot on AA flight 11 kept broadcasting for everyone to remain calm and that they were going back to the airport with their demands.

Notice how it wasn't until United flight 93 that the passengers fought back and kept the hijackers from reaching their target. The passengers heard through phone calls that flights were flown into the WTC and they knew they were headed somewhere like that unless they did something.

Cockpit doors are locked tight after 9/11 so it's extremely difficult to hijack a commercial airplane now.

One thing that really pisses me off about decisions made on 9/11 is after the plane hit the north tower people began evacuating the south tower pretty quickly. After the 93 bombing everyone knew the towers were a symbolic target and they'd be after them again. People knew this wasn't an accident. At this point most people thought it was a bomb because you didn't know it was a plane unless you were on the north side of the north tower and the south tower tenants couldn't see that obviously.

People began to evacuate the south tower and when they reached the lobby security made them return to their offices so people wouldn't get in the way of the north tower rescue operation. They then began playing over the building wide intercom that the south tower was secure and to return to your offices. Well a lot of people who died and who would be alive return to their offices way upstairs and the second plane hit a few minutes later.

The images of people stacked on top of each other in the broken windows above the impact zone are so heartbreaking. People were in such a desperate situation and couldn't think of anything else to do. One man tied together a bunch of suit jackets and things and tried to climb down the side of the tower.

Various documentaries, newspaper photos. People in the windows on 9/11 were pretty widespread pictures and news clips that day.

Great links.

Watching 102 minutes that changed america now. Honestly I think it's the greatest piece of television I've ever watched.

Thanks.