AIBU to judge passengers complaining about grounded flights on 9/11?

My parents did not hear about it until later.

My dad went out for something, possibly to get something from the car and a neighbour asked if he had heard about the attacks. She told him planes had hit the twin towers and the pentagon.

Dad came in and told mum who said, "Don't be ridiculous, the pentagon is miles away from New York".

I think that was when they put the TV or radio on.

I had a mobile phone but they didn't at the time and I don't know if I knew about texting to a landline.

Lol nope, texting wasn’t rare in 2001, it was just more expensive and less constant than it is now. I was 11 in '01 and had a phone, and plenty of adults had them years before that. People absolutely texted. The fact that you weren’t firing off 300 messages a day because each one cost 10p doesn’t somehow mean texting was unusual.

Ok, but that doesn’t mean texts were rare.

I had loads of friends at that time, but from recollection texts cost 10p each and we were all uni students working in summer jobs or travelling so we definitely didnt spam each other with texts all the time.

To be fair to @Thismoment it was me that said that. And I did then explain what I meant to say was "internet connected" mobile phones. Yes I could get a text and I could play snakes, but I couldn't get the news in real time just by pressing my screen.

I didn't know about anything till many hours later - and I had been serving customers in a busy shop all day.

But you didn’t say that though?
You said, Quote “People didn’t have mobile phones back then.” Un quote.
You didn’t mention any thing about smart phones, and yes I realise not ‘everybody’ had a mobile phone.

Texts were definitely not rare in 2001. You not receiving any texts about 9/11 isn’t indicative of everyone. Perhaps you had less contacts.

edited to add quote

👏

I agree.

I was at my DC’s primary school that afternoon helping Year 2 with reading.

I had my phone with me and got a text from my BIL asking if I’d heard what had happened - this must have been at about 2.30pm. My then DH was from NY and I had lived in the US hence the text.

By the time I finished and was outside at the school gates at 3.10 most people seemed to know something had happened, even if the details were confused.

I got home in time to see the second tower collapse on TV.

What a day. My exH’s cousin was a fireman who died there that day. His best friend was in a nearby building and luckily safe.

There are always a few people who behave disgustingly. Then as now there are those who act entitled and appear to have no compassion.

I was in my 20s then and fully understood the scale of what was happening as I was watching. No hindsight needed. Just don’t be a cunt.

What the hell kind of argument is “the rest of the world isn’t America”? Okay, great, nobody ever suggested that it was, but 9/11 is unarguably the single biggest international breaking-news events in modern history. People across Europe were watching it unfold live on television that day, not discovering it over breakfast on September 12 because apparently the Atlantic had swallowed every television signal, radio broadcast, newspaper office and internet connection. My husband is Irish and he somehow managed to learn about 9/11 while it was actually happening as did plenty of people in the UK as this very thread proves. Your personal experience of not hearing about it immediately is not evidence that an entire country didn’t know anything.

And this is genuinely hilarious coming from someone who is lecturing Americans for supposedly knowing nothing outside their own borders. I literally never said anyone outside America experienced 9/11 the same way Americans did … obviously they didn’t, but your bizarre claim that people generally didn’t even know it happened until the next day is complete and utter BS. Also, dragging 7/7 into it makes your argument worse. Of course 7/7 was especially significant to the UK but yes, Americans also heard about it the day it happened because major international news does in fact exist. You started out by accusing Americans of being insular and knowing nothing beyond their own country and then somehow ended up arguing that something outside Britain apparently wasn’t major news because you personally weren’t paying attention to it. You’ve confused “I didn’t know” with “nobody knew,” while demonstrating the exact insularity you were trying to mock Americans for. Your lack of self-awareness is honestly fucking embarrassing so maybe sit this one out, yea??

Back then TV and radio was the only way they would have found out, unless you got a text but that was rare with the phones we had. I didn't get a single text about 9/11. It's not like it is today

I’ve just watched the Airline episode - and even just after 9/11 happened (within a day) and easyJet airport staff were suspicious of someone they still admitted they hadn’t checked their ID properly 🤦🏽‍♀️

There were certainly security checks going airside in the US pre 9/11, even AFAIK on domestics.

Problem was as was demonstrated it was lax as hell, so you are probably right that it came as a shock when it all got tightened up and radical measures were enforced such as people without boarding cards not being allowed airside....🤔

Nowadays mumsnetters would be competing to see if they could be the first to post a threadabout it within minutes of it happening

You've seen the footage so often that you've forgotten that that's not how it happened at the time - there was little immediate footage. It was hours before there was a shot if the first plane hitting the tower. It was the next day before there was film of the second plane.

(I don't know if this has already had a response but this isn't true - in the UK anyway.)

I was off work and heard about the first plane on the radio - initially it was thought to be a small plane - an accident.

My sister rang as she'd heard about it too and we both put our TVs on and watched "together". We saw the second plane hit live, people jumping from the towers - nothing was being edited at that point - and the chaos and then the towers falling live.

It shows how fragile memories actually are as we get further from the events.

Indeed 🙂

I wasn’t assuming everyone was watching Tv.

In the US there are so many internal flights people use them almost like buses, suddenly not being able to fly or having to go through security checks was a culture shock.

Not everyone watched TV /listened to the radio all the time though. I lived in a house where we rarely watched TV or radio. We got our news from newspapers so it was quite possible to not know about a big even till the next morning

DH lived in a house with the TV on all the time and I can understand that in a household like that people would have known as soon as they got home from work but it's strange to assume everyone lived (or even lives) like that

I was driving for 6 hours yesterday and listened to an audiobook the whole way. A major global news event could have happened and I wouldn't have had a clue

Good question. I’ve no idea.

I probably only really tuned in to 7/7 as I knew my dad was due to travel to London that day. I was working when the news hit and it came on the news.

9/11 same - saw it on the news and registered quickly as I worked in the tourist industry.

We were in Cyprus when this happened and due to fly back next day.
Our flights were delayed but not much and noone was causing a fuss.
My sister was in America in Florida and they had to stay an extra week before they could fly back. She said it was very scary.

@ColdAsAWitches ,

‘There's a fascinating study in the US where they ask the same survivors of 9/11 of their memories of the day, every year. There are now huge differences between what they 'remember' now and what they initially saw. They have obviously seen the footage and now remember things they never saw, things are out of order, they saw things happen in places they had never been. It shows how fragile memories actually are as we get further from the events.’

As you have so admirably demonstrated by a combination of being sure and being wrong!

But, my memories of that day are crystal clear, and I don’t have a particularly good memory. But, working in the city, and two people whom I had been speaking to in the twin towers less than an hour before the first plane hit, who died, will ‘anchor’ your memory.

I think catching a flight home, though, would be a natural instinct. Anyone who flew away from home either didn’t know (which I find unlikely) or was pretty crazy.

I seem to remember that all major airports had streaming tickers of headline news and stock prices at that time, but I am less sure about that.

That was me. I was in Illinois due to fly home 2 days later. Luckily we had family there that let us stay with them for extra days.

Eventually airports opened and we were told to go but expect a long wait while they sorted out planes for everyone. Think we waited about 12 hours which wasn’t too bad considering we were told could have been a couple of days waiting at airport.

I thought I would be too scared to get on a plane, but when it came to it I just wanted to get home so much I was ok. I couldn’t sleep the entire flight though (night flight), I was so anxious. I was amazed at the majority of people who could sleep on that flight.

When we got back my boss just waived the extra days we’d been away saying it couldn’t be helped. My mum’s boss insisted she took them out of her holiday allowance.

I was living in London for 7/7 and would normally have been on my way to work on the Piccadilly Line train that exploded (but my brother was visiting so I'd taken the morning off). One of my regular commuter-buddies (in the sense that we'd say hello daily as we usually got on the same train at the same station but had never had a conversation) was killed, though obviously I didn't know that till later. DH had gone in early and was at work in Covent Garden, and after his workplace shut, had to start walking home until he managed to pick up a taxi after several miles.

Everyone, despite being well aware of the deaths, was also trying to figure out how to get home without public transport. Smartphones were still rare and expensive, so no Google maps. People were going into newsagents and buying A-Zs, and women wearing impractical shoes were going into shoeshops and buying flat shoes they could walk in. That's what I remember most -- you noticed the sound of footsteps because there was so little traffic and so many people walking out of central London.

My point is that it's possible to be cognizant of a tragedy and still be concerned about how you are going to get home, whether that's getting on a plane to Chicago/Kuala Lumpur, or how to get from Charing Cross Road to Ponders End with no public transport.