Remembering September 11, 2001, through real-time video timelines
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Viewing events as they happened 25 years ago—playing out in real time on the news—may be the best way to memorialize the day.
It’s been an almost surreal, PTSD-like experience researching and reviewing old videos of that “severe clear” Tuesday 25 years ago. Many media outlets eventually stopped routinely showing videos of that day’s events, so the footage largely gets proper attention only on anniversaries.
With that in mind, this post is primarily for those under a certain age. September 11, 2001, is merely a historical date for anyone under 25, while even those who were toddlers at the time were too young to understand what was happening. Most people under 35 probably remember little, if anything, about those terrible events as they unfolded.
Those of us who are old enough vividly remember them in a horrible sequence that means more than a mere collection of facts. The way events unfolded gave the day an emotional dimension that may not be apparent to someone who reads about them on a page or watches a short video summary stripped of the day’s real-time uncertainty and drama.
Those of us who began that bright, clear CAVU (ceiling and visibility unlimited) Tuesday morning thought it would be a normal day, little knowing the world would change drastically over the next few hours.
Except for those aboard the airliners and in Air Traffic Control (ATC), no one knew anything was wrong until 8:46 that morning. ATC initially considered the problem a communications failure and then a conventional hijacking, unaware that it would become a terrorist attack unlike anything America had experienced. For everyone else, the first indication that something was terribly wrong came when the first plane struck the North Tower of the World Trade Center.
We had been busy with other tasks early that morning, so we began watching around the time the second plane hit the South Tower. Watching breaking-news footage after the first crash into the North Tower brought it all back. At that point, no one knew what was happening. No video of the actual impact existed yet, and initial speculation suggested that perhaps a small plane had accidentally struck the building.
Only after everyone saw the second plane deliberately fly into the South Tower did we instantly understand that these were large airliners and that America was under terrorist attack. Raw footage from street level shows the realization spreading among the thousands witnessing it in person and the millions watching live on television.
Ironically, at the time, our aircraft was at another airport having its transponder replaced—the electronic device that responds with an identifying code when swept by Air Traffic Control radar. The hijackers had turned off the transponders aboard the aircraft they controlled, leaving the planes visible to radar only as primary targets.
The FAA then took the unprecedented step of ordering all aircraft in U.S. airspace to land at the nearest suitable airport. We listened to ATC as pilots scrambled to understand the extraordinary order and find airports that could accommodate their aircraft.