9/11 - what sticks with you the most?

[KenAdams]

I remember what I thought was them replaying footage of the attack. It was in fact the second plane hitting the second tower

It was a while before people realised it was a passenger jet. I remember telling someone a “small plane” had hit the first tower. It seemed unbelievable it could be a jet.

A friend of mine her mother worked near the top of the second tower. She ignored tannoy announcements to stay at her desk and left before the second tower was hit. She was ok, her colleagues died.

People choosing to jump out of the building. You can’t imagine having to make that choice. The image of the Falling Man.

The people jumping. That will stay with me forever.

Yep. The Falling Man. Did you see the documentary about how they found out who he was?

Both the jumping people and then the fact that the media stopped talking about it or showing the pictures like it never happened.

The thing that sticks in my memory is footage of the first tower collapsing and hearing someone in the background screaming 'No! Oh my God, No!

Like @SleepyKat, I first heard a 'jet plane' and I thought of a small military plane and was shocked to hear it was a passenger jet

The falling/jumping people. Those images will haunt me for the rest of my life. It added a new dimension of horror to the most horrific day.

Just the sheer shock at what we were seeing on tv, the horror of it, seeing how massive the towers were and knowing deep down that there must be thousands of people in there.

I remember the feeling on the bus that day and in the days afterwards, everyone subdued but with a gentle friendliness to each other, it was like people needed to express a connection with one another.

Listening to it on the radio thinking it was an accident then the second plane hit and the realisation it was deliberate, I was 26 at the time and had always felt safe until then.

I remember the camera zooming in on an arm hanging out a window with some kind of white material being waved in desperation. I remember a hot tear running down my cheek. Horrific.

The tapes of people calling their loved ones from the planes. Heartbreaking

Kateandthegirls

the second plane flying into the tower. I’ve seen it many times and it’s always shocking.

Thankfully I was at work, there were no TVs and we couldn't get onto the internet either so I was spared a lot of the details unfolding. Do remember being let home early as there was talk of partner attacks in London / the city. There was a sense even then if it changing everything. And my, how it did.

Does anyone remember the television footage of Middle Eastern women, dancing around cheering, it was shown a lot at the time, but never seen it since, probably to politically incorrect to show again

@Accountant222 there’s plenty of racism in this country already, without inciting more. Political incorrectness is a bollocks phrase used by bigots.

It’s the people leaping from the windows that I remember.

@Frith2013 I'm not inciting racism, it was shown widely on television

The fact that apparently everyone knew where they were when it happened. I don’t.

I was at the older end of primary school when 9/11 happened, and I really clearly remember the news flash coming on TV and going into the kitchen to tell my mum what was happening, and her not really understanding how serious it was.

I remember the image of the plane crashing into the tower and the whole thing crumbling very vividly.

I don't think I fully made the connection with how many people would die, but I do remember being really shocked and the TV images are really clear in my memory. I don't think I can recall anything else on a screen from that time in my life.

I don't think I've ever rewatched the footage, and I've always avoided documentaries about it.

I remember getting into my car, being none the wiser, R4 coming on and it dawning on me, with complete shock, that I was listening to current events being described, rather than a dramatisation of War of the Worlds which I thought I'd tuned in to at first.

I remember two things. On the day the second plane hitting and the realisation that some bastards had planned this. and three days later my friends 6 year old coming home in tears for being bullied for being a Muslim.
Having grown up in a house with Polish parents I had thought about motivations if evil. I remember talking with my friend about why they had done it: She didn't agree with me until a few years later. In my opinion the act was meant to create division. They wanted the West to retaliate so that moderate Muslims were vilified and hated. They knew these wpuld result in making it easier to attract some young Muslims to their sick cause. It very sadly has worked. It has also allowed the rise of the right wing (This obviously benefits the terrorists as the more racism there is, the more division, and the more young people to sign up to fight).
I often wonder if Isis and the BNP etc sit down together to plan it all. They definitely boost each other's supporters.

The answer phone messages saying goodbye :( and then the aftermath - the desperate search - so many people gone and the years of painstaking research to give families closure. That and just the sense of disbelief that the twin towers were just not there - I still get a pang when I see old movies or tv shows - they were just so iconic.

I was very young when it happened but I remember my mothers face. She’d perched herself on the coffee table right in front of the tv crying. My father was stood behind her very quiet and very still. It was the most ‘together’ I’d ever seen them. It didn’t click at the time that there were people inside the buildings.

The two people who jumped holding hands.

I remember going to the newsagents after school to buy sweets and the man who owned the shop and a few others crowded round the radio - I realised something important was going on when he said to just leave the money on the counter; didn’t know what and didn’t really understand it for a while.