What's the worst thing you have ever witnessed first-hand happen on live tv?

[MyCheeryPearlTraybake]

For me it would have to be Christian Eriksson collapsing at the euros in 2021

Yeah sorry I realised a while ago but it wouldn't let me edit my post.

9/11. The second plane hitting the tower was bad but made me say no shit Sherlock when the reporter said they didn't think it was an accident. The towers coming down so quickly after each other, but the very worst was noticing that what I was seeing falling wasn't debris but people.

Friend and I had booked to see Moulin Rouge at the cinema and we couldn't wait to get there and get away from the horror.

Hillsborough. The moment it was clear that people were being crushed to death.

Most of what people mentioned before, but (not live) i also recall a clip from F1 decades ago of a car on fire and another driver stopped and was pleading with stewards to extinguish the flames. He looked incensed and desperate that nobody was doing anything.

I remember this so well because of the brutality of it.

I remember this too. Was totally unprepared for it

David Purley, Dutch Grand Prix, 1973. Incredible bravery.

Like so many others. 9/11. Literally unfolding in front of our eyes. Seeing the 2nd plan crash. Seeing bodies dropping from the towers.

Most of the other things that haunted me, have been 'watching the News after getting in from work / elsewhere' but the scenes were very raw.

Lockerbie

Dunblane (Happened when I was pregnant, and I was teaching Primary children) - I remember the footage of parents being taken into the school.

Bradford Fire - I had been at a football match and listening on my transistor radio as it unfolded.

Hillsborough

Grenfell. I turned the TV on in the morning, and knowing it was still going on and there were people trapped inside...

Hillsborough
9/11
Iranian Embassy Siege in London
And I was in a taxi when I saw Canary Wharf blew up, these scenes will stick with me forever more.

I agree, it was completely shocking and I still think about it a lot. He collapsed, they showed that IIRC, and then it was a live to camera saying he had just died.

The recent excellent BBC documentary showed it was only about 4 minutes from the fire first being noticed, to it being engulfed. So very quick, and no wonder people didn’t get out. Awful.

I thought it was early afternoon it started - somewhere round 1-2 pm.

US office came on-line around then and often slowed internet down in afternoon and it also meant contact with various collegues started up and we started watching mainly due various people in USA telling us something was going on and to watch the news - different staff were getting phone calls form US offices and parents US company as well as other offices in Europe.

I don't remember when the towers fell just watching news and suddenly second plane hitting - the shock and realisation this was deliberate.

Not sure if it counts as it wasn’t shown on the news, but human beings burnt alive in Palestine on my phone 😔 Seen this more than once now. And also, grenfell 💔

A news report of the murder of a taxi driver. It was my best friend's dad's taxi. I ran to her house. That news report was how she and her family found out too.

Given that the Liverpool incident didnt happen until just about the time the OP posted, and wasnt reported on until after the OP posted, I would put this down to coincidence.

I didn't see 9/11 live as I was on an aeroplane myself.

Mine are all sports events.
Ayrton Senna.
Also that Dutch female cyclist at the Rio Olympics who had the most horrific crash, I truly thought they'd filmed her death.
And a diver who slipped, cracked his head on the board and plummeted unconscious in to the pool. I can't remember who it was. I was quite young.

Greg Louganis. 84?

went on to win gold. Came out later he was HIV+ which back then was quite the panic.

9/11

YYY to Grenfell.

Watching the Berlin Wall coming down in 1989. I woke my 4 year old up to watch this momentous moment in history.

My dad had done the same to me with the first moon landing in 1969. Although I don't remember.

The Boxing Day Tsunami.

9/11.

Why do you rank the Belin Wall coming down as one of the worst things to have witnessed ?

That was memorable but exciting and a very happy time IMO.

I don't think so, the one I remember was from a platform rather than a springboard.

The Berlin Wall coming down was the worst thing you’ve ever witnessed on tv?

Why?

How are you expecting people to reply here when 9/11 happened in our lifetimes and there was enough time between the first and second plane hitting for us to turn on our tvs?

LA riots were really scary to watch as a kid, I was about 10 and the news claiming the unrest would spread to the UK