On the day, the first reports said that it was a light aircraft. I was listening to Radio 5 then switched on the TV shortly after 2pm, thinking that if it was serious enough the BBC would provide rolling coverage. Even with the live pictures, the "anchors" carried on saying it was a light aircraft for some time.
I must've got annoyed with the TV people and carried on listening to Radio 5, because I recall Steve Evans filing reports by phone. Then he went quiet and it was days before he resurfaced. IIRC, he'd taken cover in a phonebox. He was the nearest to a personal connection to the event: one of Auntie Beeb's trusted voices. Later I heard that a writer for Frasier was on one of the planes.
A friend told me he was videoconferencing with colleagues in Italy, who must've had a TV alongside their monitor and suddenly got very agitated.
The Police presence was noticeable on a visit to my local small town.
A couple of months later I was on a rail journey, trying to snatch bits of info from my Walkman's radio when there was the Airbus crash over Queens.