[Closed] The ten years ago today thread

I was sitting in an office of the Spanish college of elite pilots (RAF equivalent) when some guy came in the office with the news, I then went home and watched it unfold. It all felt a bit distant. The Madrid bombs on the other hand. 🙁
Got very frustrated at the reporters constantly talking about a return to 'normalcy', the word is normality you imbeciles!

I'd skived off College early, other half was in bed on nights. Popped to the supermarket after watching some of the earlier footage and not really taking a lot of notice. Came home and started watching it I think just as the second tower went down. I have to be honest, I really didn't know what the 2 towers were back then but every channel (all 4/5 of them!) seemed to be covering it so I went and woke the other half up and he was mortified. Parents were in france in the middle of nowhere so didn't know anything about it until 3 days after.

I was half-way through coding the tele-commanding functions for the Rosetta and Mars Express mission, and having my first mid-life crisis.

We all stopped work to watch the news unfold. Shocking day.

I was on the edge of the quantocks(3 yrs before starting mountain biking) doing some building work. The client came down and announced the news and I had to ask wtf is the twin towers, I then retreated back into my bumpkin life of misery and strife.

I was at the office. My wife was at home on maternity leave, our first child having been born in June. I remember thinking what the world my daughter would grow up in would be like after that attack and inevitable reprisals.

I was just getting off a flight from Barcelona.

I'd woken early with not much to do that day at all other than wait in for someone who was visiting to arrive..

Strangely for me I had spent much of that time sat in front of the BBC news channel drinking tea and watching 'normal' news.. my guest arrived just as the first reports started coming in so we watched transfixed as it all panned out..

A few hours later after it had started to sink in a bit we walked through town to visit the local pub.. I distinctly remember walking past one bar where there was a great deal of cheering and celebrating going on.. even with the anti-capitalist sentiment taken into account it still seemed a little brutal..

we speculated Jihad and the beginning of the end..

I had my best day's fishing ever and then got home to what I thought at first was a movie on the telly...

I was just getting on a flight from Lyon.

I was working on the Skycoaster in Ayia Napa, just collecting some food from the bar next door and saw in the 2nd plane hit. Bit crazy knowing what was happening and dealing with drunk happy tourists. Wednesday was change over day, all the tourists left an no one arrived. We had 3 very quiet weeks before people started coming back.

Wife and I were working in the same company next to Heathrow airport and the main rest room for the crews had a TV and we watched the day unfold on that. It was strange how the information trickled through at first around the office through word-of-mouth...first the news was talk of Cessnas hitting the towers and we all got back on with our work then the news came in that it wasn't small aircraft at all and that's when we sought out a TV

Was living in Ibiza, people had called me to get down to my mates bar which was packed out with people watching the tv in stunned silence.

I'd been in a meeting on the 25th floor of 1CS for 3 hours. Came out to see everyone watching a bad film on their laptops. Only it wasn't. At that point they thought there was a plane on it's way to London - and what was the tallest building? Then it was suggested that all non critical staff would like to make their way home. Halfway their the closed down the network so I walked home to Twickenham from South Kensington.
7/7 I was on my way into Canary Wharf for a meeting. That was rather more worrying.

I was in the Namib desert. And therefore oblivious to what was happening.

I was working on a building site and when the first plane hit there was the usual builders humor about how could the pilot not see the twin towers. When the second one hit there was silence.

I was half-way through coding the tele-commanding functions for the Rosetta and Mars Express mission

We flew back to Netherlands just for the weekend, which was a bit creepy... specially the planes flying over the apartment... I'm sure they seemed lower then normal.

I was sat by a pool in Spain watching pretty ladies in bikinis and drinking sangria. Someone came out from the bar and i thought i overheard them say a plane had hit the Whitehouse. Assuming they were talking pish or it was part of a bad joke I went to get a pint & saw the towers collapse on TV.

Was due to fly home that night which proved to be a struggle.

Was sat at work trying hard to contact staff members in NYC. All accounted for eventually. Not fun though.

I was watching live on the TV on the gatwick express while trying to convince the future Mrs Stoner that having been evacuated from the 35th floor of 1 Canada Sq, mustering at the foot of the building wasnt the smartest of ideas, and she'd be better off heading for the nearest pub....

i was driving all day so did not see any of it.
i do remember thinking that we (britain) will be next.

Thought 'we'll be busy now', went home, packed a bag and went back to work expecting the unexpected. A very strange day indeed. Never been the same since for many reasons.

I was in China, Tienanmen Square in fact looking at pictures of the burning towers in a Chinese paper. Not speaking Chinese at all i had no idea what was happening but it looked pretty serious!

The sale of our flat had just fallen through so feeling pretty down
headed out to a country park with my wife and oldest (2 at that time)
while getting something to eat in the Cafe around 2pm..ish heard a breaking news report of a light aircraft hitting 1 of the twin towers no reports of any casualties at that time, when we eventually got home just sat stunned at the images on TV think i sat up till the early hours as more and more footage appeared

Was surfing in France. We heard about it that evening, lying on the forest floor in the campsite at camping le foret in seignosse, my mate had a wind up radio and was translating from french. Next day we struggled to find an english speaking newspaper but the photos blew my mind. I phone dhome and my Dad was convinced Bush was going to nuke, Iran/Iraq/Afhghanistan/****stan.

i was at school/sixthform, in a music class. the teacher came and told us he was late because he was watching the news: "a plane has hit a skyscraper in NYC"

to which i ASSUMED a hang glider or small one man plane had bumped into some random building and was lying in a heap on top of a taxi, in a comedy kind of way.
my response was "[chuckle], whoops" or similar

i got thrown out of the class :s

went home, and watched the events unfold on telly.

I was working in a book shop in Portsmouth. A guy came in asking if there was a bar with a TV nearby because a plane had hit a building. He bought a book and paid with a £50 note so we wondered if he was trying to distract us from a counterfeit. Then went back to student house and watched it unfold.

Does anyone else not really care anymore? It was a horrific attack and I feel very sorry for everyone who lost their lives and who were/are affected by it, but why oh why the constant documentaries and news coverage; many many worse things have happened since and are still happening.

Was the day after a big car crash... All I could do was sit and watch the telly, however I did wonder what drugs they had given me 😯

50/50 as to whether anything happens today imo.

they reckon Osama had plans for the anniversary, but most countries at risk, are on Godzilla degrees of alert because of this.

if it gets to midnight without anything kicking off, I will agree vanilla, but until then the jury is out.

I was on a beach in Roses, Catalunya. Went into a cafe to use los servicios & saw it all unfolding.

later we drove back to our base in Santa Pau & tried to listen to the BBC World Service to hear what was going on (no TV in the apartment) & it sounded like the end of the world was indeed nigh.

next day, back at Roses, the air raid sirens went off 😯

day after that, Barcelona airport was very very very busy with army blokes & armed police

i was walking back from uni when i saw the footage on some tvs in an electronics shop. i chuckled to myself thinking "another minor disaster at a power station, when will they learn!". then i got to my house and my american housemate told me the story

but why oh why the constant documentaries and news coverage

because it changed the entire world

I was manager of a record shop, a customer told us but he didn't mention the planes, then another customer proclaimed it was the Chineese government and told us planes were flown into the towers. Town went quiet so we closed early, I hadn't seen any images at that point, I put TV on as one of the towers collapsed.

I got in from working a 0600-1400hrs shift,wife was home at start of her maternity leave for our first child (born 2 weeks later) , i looked at the telly and said "whats this crap on?" thinking it was an afternoon film as what i was watching was a burning skyscraper.......how wrong was i 😕 . Watched the news the rest of that day utterly shocked. At the time i worked for an american firm, next day the flags outside work were removed (USA,British,Euro) so as not to attract attention and all domestic/foreign travel was halted in the company temporarily and gates locked at night with a security guard hired also.

Thinking about it i can't beleive my daughter soon to be 10 years old is as old as the war in Afghanistan , has it really been that long.

Sat at work pishing about in IRC with some mates, was the 1st to hear about it on our floor and they all thought I was taking the piss.

Very worrying as the last email we had from my brother in law was telling us how awesome NYC was and he was going check out the view from the WTC the next morning, turned out he was sat in a dinner having breakfast right next to the towers when the it all kicked off....another 60 mins and he'd have been at the top of the towers. Was a very long 24 hrs waiting to hear from him.

Posted in wrong thread...somehow!

I was at Maastricht airport flying home. It was playing on all the monitors and it was the quietest airport I've ever been in. We got as far as Amsterdam and had to wait a few hours there as UK airspace was closed.

And today I'll be flying to Lisbon.

I was working my summer job as a data input monkey. I overheard the managers discussing some sort of major disaster unfolding and deciding not to tell the staff about it...

So I wandered back into the office and stuck the radio onto Radio five and we all listened to it unfold. Managment weren't happy with me, but for some reason it didn't seem that important, cretins.

early shift that day. Got home and wife said plane had crashed into scyscraper.
Assumed it was an accident ... Went to pick my boy up from after school rugby.

Got called into the front room by a housemate in our houseshare in Camden, wibbling on about some plane crash or something. All I remember really is being sat in front of the telly in utter disbelief as the second plane hit and just sat there staring at the TV for the following hours with my chin on the floor, as my housemates seemed to carry on nonplussed with their usual day, and me trying to explain to them the signifigance of what was proceeding.

About to deploy on my first exercise with my regiment after pass-out. The Boss came round & gave us the news, suddenly everything became very ****in real..

Working in a small Engineering firm, always had national radio on in office & first heard it when the did Breaking news bulletin.

Initial shock was quickly replaced with concern for one of the older Engineers who had only a couple of days earlier gone on holiday to New York & he had highlighted the world trade centre as one of his first planned trip< he was a great guy & there was real genuine concern for him through the company, luckily we later got word he had been up to the observation deck the day before, a day early! unbelievable luck!

I went home after work & it was a surreal feeling watching the TV footage for 3 hours as no family had come home & usually they were all in before me! Probably the most memorable day in my 29 years, at the time, it was truly unbelievable!

I was in the office, people were talking about it and seemingly in shock, I couldn't understand why everyone was reacting to it that way when The Rwandan genocide and the Bhopal disaster barely raised a flicker of emotion, and I still don't get the over reaction.

Watching the footage of the second plane going into the tower was almost film like, it was hard to connect it with reality. Watching the guy leap to escape the flames, the way he tumbled as he fell, that was very very real and shocking.

just finished the school sponsored walk.

ran home - had a phone call almost instantly the second i got in the door , my mate just said "turn the tv on terry" i asked why and was told "just do it" . turned it on and i dont think either of us said a word for 10 minutes

definantly one of those moments you instantly remember as soon as anyone talks about it

It was my first day at college that day. I was late and got done for speeding. That misfortune was very much put into perspective by the end of the day!

I was in hospital getting my hand x-rayed. Certainly helped pass the time. I remember I made totally the opposite phone call to the one everyone else did, my mum was at my grandparents' so I phoned and said "Don't turn on the TV, you'll never get away if you do".

I had just got into the car to go between a couple of schools. Turned the radio on at 2.15 which is the time the afternoon play starts on Radio 4. It was 5 or so minutes before I realised it wasn't a story like Orson Wells did with the War of the Worlds. All the traffic started going noticably slower. When I got to the next school nobody had heard about it and one of the office staff asked if I had been sick cause I was apparently so white.

Just started year 6, and was quite excited to get my first guitar. It was on Newsround, and I seem to remember my mum and dad watching the news constantly

I was arriving of the Venice to Rome train with gf and saw it unfolding on a TV in the hotel foyer. We thought it was a film and had to call home to confirm it was real.
Later on went to Vatican Square and there was so few people there..very eerie.

Was at work like so many others, when we heard the first of the radio news broadcasts. My workmate and i assumed (again, like many others) that a light aircraft had collided with one of the towers.
Soon after the music was interrupted with the news that a 2nd aircraft had gone in. We went horribly, horribly quiet and looked at each other and knew it was a deliberate strike.

Got home at 16.45 and saw the towers collapsing. I remember just sitting there in shock that this could happen.

I was working in a record shop, had a radio through the back when we heard that the first tower had been hit by a light aircraft. The bitchy slag of the shop who had to disagree with everyone about everything kept turning the radio off. Next thing my mate phoned the shop to say "get some petrol on the way home, the price is going to rocket because we're going to war"

Drove home (after filling the tank) thinking "it can't be that bad" to be met with this on a never ending news loop when I walked into my parents living room

[img] http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQqDfOrDJZeAK58lqiQ-pCgML9jPG3UdFRXGTQxTfY9lXxjlnq4 [/img]

At that point everything changed

Does anyone else not really care anymore?

I'd point out the obvious, but I can't tell if you're trolling or just plain stupid

Came home from college and was ironing my Halfrauds shirt for evening shift while chatting to Dad and drooling at a woman in my college.

While doing the ironing to Sky news and bam, me and my Dad are stunned to see what is going on.

I was in Wakefield Prison.

Working as an IT contractor for EDS, they had mislaid a prisoner so for our own safety we were locked in a staff room, with a telly, at about 8am, while they did a recount, saw it all happen live from the very beginning.

Oh and if you want to check out Jarvis Cockers Sunday Service on 6 Music on iPlayer later, he replayed a story by/read by Laurie Anderson about 9/11 called Lolabell, about an hour 1/4 in, good.

Planes? World Trade Centre?

WTF! Have I missed something 😳

I was at school and heard about it as I was about to get on the bus to get home. I had no idea what the twin towers were. All I remember is endless news coverage about it. Someone else said "does anyone else not care any more" and I sort of agree but in a less harsh way.. it's obviously a terrible thing to happen but it's not something I ever think about or have any great feelings about. I'm a bad person.

I was in Peru, went to the hotel reception to take a flight over the [url= http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazca_Lines ]Nasca Lines[/url] and was greeted with the whole sheebang played out live on the hotel reception TVs. We didn't fly over the lines that day, not due to 9/11 but because the locals were rioting over a trans-Peruvian road *not* being built through their town and were stoning the planes we were due to use. 😯

I'd flown out to Peru on 7th Sept and had changed planes in NY, remember peering out of the window and seeing the twin towers.

At work, telly on in 'C' and 'D' bays, Hexworthy ward, Derriford Hospital. (before the days of 'patientline' tellys on each bed: we had an old 14" telly on a knackered bedside cabinet at the end of each bay).

Of course I had lots of sick patients to look after too, but we had the telly on all afternoon just watching it all unfold as I went from bed to bed. Perhaps unsuprisingly, the patients were a little bit more stoic and err, 'patient' in their own illnesses that day. It's ten years now but if you'd asked me five years ago I could have named all twelve old folk I looked after that day (very high turnover of patients usually). I remember all sorts of more trivial/mundane details about the day, what i had in my sandwich, where in the staff car park i was parked and so on: like your own wedding day or something...

One of the many odd things I remember thinking was "thank goodness no-one on our ward died today" (typically we lost three or four a week) because having seen all those people lose their lives at once on live telly, I don't know how we (and I include the other patients too) would have coped.

I was acting as link officer between a HMC&E surveillance team and armed police / SO19 gunships and was in one of the SO19 cars all day. We started off in the Harlseden area and I remember seeing it on tv in a Police canteen, a bit later I was speaking to my colleagues saying we might loose the SO19 teams and they'd been so busy they'd not heard about the attacks. At one point during the day we did a very fast run to Clapham through central London and were getting a few looks.

I was a student at the time. I was doing an additional shift at Tesco, in the garage - I didn't normally work Tuesdays. Shortly after my shift started, the first customer came in saying that the Trade Centre had been hit by a plane. More came in talking about it, then one said, 'it's two planes'. Then the first tower fell, then the second. I didn't get home until about 6, and obviously it was on pretty much every channel. Even having it described throughout the day didn't prepare me for what I saw, it was so surreal and unlike anything I'd seen outside of a movie.

My mom said, "This is your JFK, something massive that you'll always remember". My brother was panicking, terrified about what would happen - he was scared because Bush was US president, and was fully expecting him to break out the nukes. :/

I first found out about it from a thread on Bikemagic 😳 IIRC there were some very (in retrospect) tasteless jokes posted about it, before the seriousness of the situation became fully apparent.

Went in early to work, on my bike, for my evening kitchen portering job and watched the second tower collapse. Plenty of beers were drunk after that shift as we all stayed late discussing it and whodunnit.

My dad got back from his job as a tram driver at a museum, oblivious to what had happened. Princess Anne had visited the place that day, and the museum had been preparing for months; the TV cameras were going to be there. Her visit didn't make the news.

I was visiting a supplier with my boss to sign of some injection moulding tooling. My bosses son rang as we left and said a light aircraft had hit the WTC. I speculated it was some anti capitalist nutter. By the time we got to the supplier the other plane had hit and it was clear that something major was happening. We were at the supplier for a few hours and the meeting was quite normal and we didn't hear anymore news. When we got back in the car the news that the towers had collapsed was shocking and we drove back as fast a possible to get to a TV. Once back at work it was strange, most of the office had spent the day watching the news and were shocked.
I can't believe it was 10 years ago, lots of things have changed, for me all for the better, for the world - partly due to America's subsequent reaction - generally for the worse.

I was in the control room of HMP Durham, came out for something & the 2 guys who ran legal visits told us a plane had crashed into a building, they could only listen on the little radio they had. It wasn't till after lunch I found out what was going on.
My Mrs's brother works for Sky & he rang her & asked if she had the tv on, which she hadn't. He said 'put the bloody telly on' & she asked what channel, he said 'It doesn't matter, just put the telly on!'

I'd just made myself some lunch and switched the telly on, there was the trade centre on fire. For some reason i didnt think that much of it, so i switched channels and the same thing was on all of them, so i suddenly stopped chewing my sandwich. I was thinking 'wheres Bruce Willis' and who directed this film just as the second plane came into view on live TV and slam into the second tower. Time kind of stood still and the bloke on the news just kind of stuttered a bit lost for words.
When news came of the Pentagon and another load of hijacked planes, i just thought World War 3 was starting....

I was in Cardiff Museum at a history of flight exhibition. A Uni friend (we were doing Aeronautical Engineering) texted me to tell me to get to a TV. We rushed to Dixons on the high street and saw the buildings on fire. Then moved onto Debenhams where I stood at watched on the TVs in the sports clothing section as people were jumping to their death and then both towers fell down. Before they fell I was just standing there thinking "why are they not all running out" but I guess the best way to describe what the inside of those building was like is simply Hell.

A friend that I was at College with has just posted onto facebook a radio interview with his big brother - who was the pilot of Air Force One that day.

I was working with an American colleague and was watching the news online after someone text him to tell him what was going on. When the first tower collapsed this American lad shouted "Oh no, there goes my favourite restaurant!"

Actually, once I got home from work, I found that my dad (who works night shifts) hadn't turned on the TV, I stuck it on, saw the second plane hit and we both just stood there instunned silence for about 10 minutes...

i worked as the IT geek in Dublin for a big financial firm, i remember messing about by the dealing desk and a big newsflash came over the reuters newsdesk i was told to run into the boardroom and set the big TV up ....

the next hour myself and about 30 people were just glued to the screen.... one of the dealing desk guys said he knew a few lads who work in goldman sachs and hope they get out ok, this will sound made up but as he finsihed his sentence the helicopter camera zoomed in and the tower started to fall... the feeling in that room was terrible and people started to leave.....

I was at work, and had to spend the day explaining gently that to a fair few people across the world, America was not associated with Disneyland and Britney Spears, but was seen as an oppressive foreign aggressor.

I think a lot of people woke up that day, and started to see the world in a new way.

I was in Philadelphia doing a postdoc at the time, and was flying back to the UK for an interview at Edinburgh on the day of 9/11. The enormity of it sort of washed over me, the way major tragedies can do when you're running round like a blue-ersed fly in your own little world.
I flew back the next week (I have 9/11 in my head as a Thursday but see that it was actually a Tuesday) and actually got the position - recall the security at the airport being all over the place, really soft compared to the circus we have to go through these days.

The thing that really made me feel like 'ladies and gentlemen, we have lost cabin pressure' was the anthrax attacks in the post that happened shortly after. That really felt like things were falling apart, but speaking to people back here and it apparently didn't make a major impression in the news.

I was in Singapore, last-leg of a round-the-world trip. We were just about to go out for a meal then go to the night-safari at the zoo and I switched on the TV to catch the news while my other half finished getting ready. Ended up glued to the TV all night, never left the room.

We flew back to Glasgow the following day, changing planes at Heathrow. It was total chaos as everything was on maximum security and no luggage transfer between terminals was happening (you had to shift your own luggage!). We had already missed 2 flights up to Glasgow and were expecting to spend the whole day stood in an enormous queue when, for reasons I still don't understand, some member of airport staff picked us out of the queue and walked us to the front!

Remember the internet pretty much coming to a standstill as a bunch of us updated each other mainly through texts and calls. Was very surreal. Spent much of the afternoon in a pub garden (forget the name, but near Canary Wharf) with some workmates. Remember hearing about flights being diverted away from the tower and half-expected one to just fly into it. Eventually went home to the missus who was surprisingly emotional about the whole episode and decided we should spend the evening in the local.

I was working in security and intelligence. As you can imagine I was quite busy. I'd just flown back from somewhere and got home very late, have never watched night TV but sat down with a dram to relax and got a message about it. Then another, then a call and flicked TV on. Insane feeling. Went back to work.

In a Manhattan hotel room sleeping off the rather excellent meal and too many cocktails consumed the night before in the Windows on the World Restaurant / Best Bar in the World within the North Tower of the WTC. We had discussed going back the following morning to experience the view in daylight. Very very glad we slept in.

I’d heard confusing Chinese Whispers type stuff all day. “A plane has hit one of the towers at the World Trade Centre and a news helicopter has hit the other one… There’s 10 hijacked planes… The USAF are shooting down airliners that are not responding to radio calls…” etc. The internet at work got overloaded and went down so the only news was coming via somebody who had found an old B&W TV from somewhere.

Things started to sink in listening to 5LIVE on the way to the gym after work. When I got there the TV in the changing room was showing looped footage of the planes hitting and there were a dozen or so blokes staring in disbelief at it.

I was finishing off our Accounts, came back from Lunch to be bombarded by Radio and TV footage of the WTC attacks. I'd not been in the job very long and thought the story was some sort of spoof, if simply didn't sink in, it wasn't sureal, I just couldn't comprehend what exactly was going on..

Two of my team had to go home due to being far too upset, I sat watching the TV in some kind of memory blockage/thought banished few hours whilst it all unfolded.

I'm not too sure if it's had some profound affect on me or whether I've become a little blase about the whole event. But for sure at the time I was as moved by the event as everyone around me. But the feeling of being detached numbed the feelings, I seemed to be able to step out of the chaos and media spin quite easily, whether I chose to block it out I can't remember TBH, but I simply carried on working and chasing the £'s as all my mates did at that time..

In Spain on holiday. I had no idea what had been going on as we had spent the day on the beach then went out for a meal. I was trying to watch the Arsenal match in the Champion's League and kept looking at a telly in the bar we were in. My girlfriend kept having a go at me for paying more attention to the TV than her. Then we went somewhere else and I looked at the TV in that bar and she said something else to me and I said 'it's okay - the football isn't on in here, just some programme about demolitions'.

When we got back to the hotel the main reception was rammed with people watching the TV, watching it all unfold.

Security was pretty strict trying to fly home after that.