Where were you on Sept 11th 2001

i was on holiday in Alanya turkey, having a drink in a cafe, when all the waiters went outside to watch the news in a shop next door, we followed and stood there totally shocked
 
I had a day of work and was reading. The TV was on with the sound off and I caught the first tower being hit out of the corner of my eye.

My first thought was "What movie's this?" Then the shock that it was real. Spent the rest of the day watching.
 
I was at work as usual. One of the senior Publishers phoned his (New York born and bred) PA and told her that a plane had gone into one of the towers. We got onto the Internet and realised that it wasn't a tiny one either. Needless to say there was a lot of discussion.

Then a plane hit the other tower! Terrifying - utterly terrifying! Nobody worked for the rest of the day and there were frantic phonecalls to locate staff/families/friends who were in the USA.

The tv and Internet kept showing, on an almost-continuous loop, what I call the second plane striking the other tower; you all probably know that footage as it seems to get replayed regularly.

We didn't know until the following day that two employees of the company I worked for then (and still do) were on that second plane! I still cannot bear to watch that footage or look at the pictures as I feel that I am witnessing the murder of two colleagues.

My friend Debbie called me and she was numb. She'd been in a conference phone call with her opposite numbers in New York, Hong Kong etc... Early on in the call there was an almighty mixture of noise and screams. Eventually one of the stunned NY people said that a plane had gone into the other tower and could the call be rescheduled? Of course we all know what happened 18 or so minutes later and Debbie lost 39 of her work colleagues! The irony is that her colleagues died after the plane carrying my work colleagues went into the exact floor where her work colleagues were based!

And it didn't end there: a friend who shared my passion for motorsport discovered that his partner had been killed when one of the towers collapsed. Her remains were found in April 2002.

And then there was the Pentagon and also those extraordinarily brave passengers and crew who tried to fight their tyrants and came to rest in a field rather than embedded in yet-another building. Don't forget them either.
 
I was in the middle of basic training for the Army! We didn't have much access to TV's and stuff so just caught a glimpse of it, didn't really comprehend just how bad it really was at first as we were getting limited information.

It did send the base (and I'm sure all others) into security overdrive and from that night until I left shortly after we never got a full nights sleep as we had to be on patrol as they were worried about getting attacked in the UK.
 
I had a day of work and was fitting a carpet in one of the bedrooms, i had the radio on and heard it on the news, i went downstairs and watched it on TV, it was like a horror movie and somehow unbelievable, we watched it all day, hardly moving.
 
I was on the sick at home having had an ankle operation on the first. My mum came in from work and shouted up the stairs "The world trade centre has been hit by a plane" I hobbled on crutches down the stairs into the living room just as the second plane hit.

Like so many other have said, I simply sat and watched the coverage from that point on. A Day I will never forget.
 
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At the time I was working in a pro lab printing wedding photos, and everybody crowded around one of the speakers dotted around listing to the radio. Nobody said a word for about 20 minutes and even one of our regular customers who had dropped some film of stayed to listen. By the time I had finished my day the towers had gone, it was that quick. On one hand some couples were having the best day of their life while for others it would end in tragedy.
I went to see the World Trade Centre last month and if anybody should be thinking of going, take the time to see the Ground Zero Museum first,it's a couple of stops by subway from the site and was started by Gary Suson who was the only photographer allowed on site to photograph the recovery of the fallen. He was taking some pictures from over the river as the towers were hit and the museum is in his old office.The photos and artefacts are really moving and all money goes into a fund for the families. It's pre booked tickets only but be warned, take some tissues.
 
Like most people I was at work beavering away when the news broke. Having family living across in the US who travel with their jobs, I had to email straight away to make sure that they weren't travelling that day. Took awhile to get hold of them and thankfully, both my brother-in-law and sister where still in Colorado Springs. However, had the attack of taken place later on in the week, my sister would have been in the Pentagon working!

Di
 
I was out in the woods by a lake building an otter holt with a bunch of volunteers - we had no phone signal or radio so we didnt know anything about it

as I remember the first thing we knew about it was when we got back to base and found an email from the boss that said " the palestinians have just started WW3, its been nice knowing you" and thought WTF before checking tinterweb to find out what the hell she was on about.
 
I was at work, working on a city trading floor. We heard very quickly what happened, I rang my sister (whose birthday is 9/11) who lives about 20 blocks from the World Trade Centre....I was on the phone to her when the second plane crashed into the towers. She obviously heard it whilst I was on the phone to her....I was glad I spoke to her then as the phones went dead shortly after and we couldn't speak for two or three days.

Many of my colleagues and friends knew people that died that day.
 
I was at home watching TV all day with various neighbours coming in to talk about what we were watching. Quiet day at work so I was at home "working"
 
I was sitting a test to become a driving instructor (passed it but didn't follow it up) Returned to work to find everybody on the web and the radio on. What I remember about that day was people just deciding to go home early to be with their families. There was a feeling that something was about to happen.
 
I was at a training centre in Gloucester, was actually having my portfolio checked to see if I'd done everything I needed for an NVQ. We had the radio on a I heard the news pretty much as it broke.

There wasn't a telly or any internet access there, I remember taking a detour on the way to the bus stop so I could look in Curry's windows. There was actually a crowd outside the shop watching.
 
i was in one of our offices - 3rd floor call centre for Ford Insure part of a JV bettween what was then Norwich Union and Ford.........

Heard a few things - first reports were that a small plane - i.e. a Cessna 152 or 172 had hit a tower.......... we went into the boardroom to hook up to sky news.......... first pics we saw was smoke billowing out of the first tower........... and the guy (f'wit) next to me saying... "Bloody hell, I hope nobody was injured."

To say he got told in the most basic vernacular English that he was somewhat a few shillings short of a pound..........

All I remember of that evening was my girlfriend (and me) then, now my lovely wife, just sitting there watching the same thing over and over and over again on the news in disbelief..
 
Interestingly in the telegraph this saturday they ran a "where were you on 9/11"

One guy was the commander of the ISS....

"We were going across Canada at 5 miles a second"..."We saw the smoke, (which turned out to be South tower collapse) as we flew over the eastern seaboard"... "next time around we were over Chicago and could see all the way down to Houston, the only smoke we could see was from DC"

Then a few days later..........

"Passing over Afghanistan, lots of bright flares and smoke"


I paraphrase but you get the jist of it.
 
I was in Nottingham with a few mates buying bits and bobs as we were all off to uni a few days later. I remember hearing it on the radio in MaccyD's the whole place went silent, it was very odd.

Didn't think much more of it, as it was just the one plane at the time, until on the bus home i rang my mum to see what had happened and the second had hit by then. By the time I got home the first tower was down and just spent the rest of the day watching news24.
 
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