Today is the 25th anniversary of 9/11 do you remember what you were doing when you saw the news?

[Shmoigel]

I remember every single bit of that day like it was yesterday. I had only visited the WTC 3 months earlier too. Thinking about the families and survivors and emergency workers today.

At home, sleep deprived with my newborn, who’s obviously now 25.

But they are saying the footage didn't come out at the time of live broadcast/collapse. So nobody at that time saw the first plane hit on television.

The only footage being shown was the building on fire.

We were sat around a patient(dental surgery) and another patient came had turned up and mentioned it. We did not know what exactly had gone on, until the news went on!

I’m probably the only person old enough who has never actually seen the footage. I had a baby possibly old enough to pick up the emotional vibes, so didn’t watch it live, and by the time he was safely asleep the constant repeating made it seem a bit prurient. And I have deliberately not seen it since. Read plenty, though. Not wilfully ignorant.

I was working in Turkey, we watched on a tv at work. I was living with some American coworkers who were frantically trying to get hold of family in NY.
It was very odd. In the streets some people were burning the American flag and there were supportive crowds chanting 'death to America ' a definitely weird experience.

Second day in a new job and trying to keep up with the news via dial-up internet

I was having coffee with colleagues in a cosy cafe bar in Portugal. It was on the news on the tv there, we just couldn't believe it. We were allowed to go home early I think. I remember going home and sitting in my little apartment watching it repeated on my small tv

I think I was in year 9. Came home from school and turned on the TV. I think I remember seeing the second plane hit - people jumping - the towers collapse. It's kind of hard to recall what I saw in real time and what I saw after, in the following days. But the overriding image for me is of those people falling through the air. Such a desperate choice.

We were coming back from the West Coast of Scotland by train after a walking holiday. The second leg of our journey home was a flight from Glasgow to Stansted. Hopped into a black cab style taxi at the railway station in Glasgow to transfer to the airport. The very heavily accented driver announced whilst driving and through the connecting window from the drivers seat that 'the towel heads had bombed the twin towers' and then turned on the radio news channel.

At the airport we checked in our regular baggage plus rucksacks and everything except for money, cards and meds. I negotiated a sanitary towel spare and one of my two asthmatic inhalers was permitted. We were delayed by 5 hours and the airport was effectively operating a news blackout by showing any non news tv. I recall watching some sort of Hollyoakes 'lates'.

Was in year 9, science class and I remember our teacher told us about the first tower because his wife had messaged him. Didn’t hear anything after, I went straight to town after school to get some school supplies and when I got home my mum had the news on and that’s when I learned about the rest.

I had gone into the staff kitchen to get a coffee and saw the smoke billowing out from the first tower. Thought it was a movie trailer but was told it was real and then saw the second plane hit. It was such a surreal moment as I realised that I had just seen lots of people die but it didn’t feel real as I just couldn’t process what I had seen.

Went back to my office and colleagues were asking what was up and I tried to explain what I had just witnessed. We all went to the kitchen and it was by then, full of people.

We were allowed to go home early and I remember sitting on the bus just in complete shock. Still feels as difficult now to think about as it did then.

How do you avoid it on the news?

I was with my daughter who was a year old at the time when my partner rang me to turn the telly on which I did. I distinctly remember him saying that the world would change forever after this.

It was just so unbelievable when the second plane hit and those poor people having to jump. Awful just awful.

I've just watched the new one on Sky History, it is the first time I've had any real insight to how absolutely terrifying and distressing it was for those inside, although I could never know really how it must have been. It was a literal reconstruction and many of the survivors unbelievably bravely shared their stories. I will say no more other than how it has left me truly, truly feeling just how precious our lives and our love ones are and how horrendous it must be to have your life shattered in so short a time.

Apologies, I was only aware of the Naudet Brothers footage. It’s still factually accurate to say no footage of the first impact was broadcast live though, so no one will have sen it on tv. Most likely they will have either seen the second impact live, or on replay.

Agreed.

If you listen to/watch any of the recordings of coverage on the day in the minutes after the first impact there's always a great deal of discussion about what aircraft was involved.. talk from witnesses of "twin prop commuter" or "light aircraft", only one or two observers got close with twin jet.......there was simply no TV coverage available to the broadcasters that could be quickly rewound to get a handle on the first impact.

Of course after that first impact lots of broadcast news cameras started looking at the towers so the second impact was seen live on TV.

I was on my pc with the tv on, my kids were at school and I was about to get ready to collect them. The news flash came up with the first tower being hit. I remember emailing my best friend and asking her if she saw what was happening. We were just so shocked, only to see the second plane hit. I remember seeing it and thinking it was about to fly past and then...

I was at a newish job in the City of London. The two Facilities team members were a married couple, and they had two huge TV screens in their office.

I was just back from lunch, and saw some colleagues congregating around those screens in the early afternoon, and, curious, a few of us joined them. And then we saw what was going on. Horrified doesn't begin to describe it. I just went cold and numb. The entire floor in dead silence, watching the screens together, all of us with our hands over our mouths.

I've never to this day forgotten those people who jumped.

And we lost a few colleagues, too. I'll never forget how their email addresses just disappeared from the system.

I was 11 in middle school. The caretaker had the news on on the TV on wheels in one of the science rooms. I don't remember why I was still in school, after school club or I'd forgotten something maybe. I didn't really grasp the gravity of the situation but remember making an offhand comment to my mum on the way home about it

I was teaching in London and on my way out of the building when a colleague told me about it. I listened to Radio 4 all the way home.
It was probably the day after, but felt like the same day, when a structural engineer was asked on Radio 4 why the towers collapsed, rather in the manner of its being unusual. The slight hesitation before he went on to explain the effects of a shitload of aviation fuel + plane inside a building + impacts was one I interpreted as "WTAF? Are you kidding me?".

I still have a drawing my DD did of the towers with planes flying into it. What is unbearably moving is the children playing on the ground beneath. She did it of her own accord, was always drawing something. I just hadn't considered the effects on her, how she would see it in her own mind. She was 5 at the time.

I was working in Germany and the sales manager came to the staff room and said some idiot has flown his small plane in to the WTC, we went to watch the tiny TV in his office and saw that wasn’t it and all the rest happen. My cousin was late for work that day and should have been in the WTC but wasn’t. Another cousin missed the London 7/7 bombings as he was late too. They both lost colleagues/ friends / loved ones. May they rest in peace

DH was deployed in the gulf. I was at work and a client mentioned a plane had crashed into the twin towers, then later I heard about the second plane
I will never forget watching the TV footage that night. Its probably one if the most vivid memories of my life. I had been in NY a couple of years previously, and just could not believe the twin towers were gone, and the images I saw
I was back in NY last year and went to the 9/11 memorial. So emotional, but also inspirational. They came back. The things people did to help other people that day...it helps to remember that

I was 16, living in a homeless hostel on my own and had just woken up (2pm!) My parents were on their flight to Canada for a holiday. I switched the TV on and panicked, before realising that it wasn’t the airline my parents had used.

It was 2pm in the uk.

Yeah. But I didn’t see the news first. I was in a bakery with my 2 and a half year old dd1 buying her a gingerbread man and the news was on the radio. It was kind of hard to visualise even though everyone knew what the twin towers looked like. I remember saying to the girl serving us that there would have been 1000s of people working in the towers so that was going to be very bad.