Have you forgotten?

[91100 100 set]

I was in the Hampton Inn in BUF. Scheduling had tried to reschedule me and my crew to fly early that morning, but they were unsuccessful in reaching all of us, so we got to sleep in. I woke and turned on the TV shortly after the towers fell. My company overnighted 20-25 crewmembers in BUF at this time, and we all started to gather in the hotel lobby, talking, discussing, and generally grieving. Somebody asked another guy what he was gonna do for the rest of the day, and he said "I guess there's nothing to do but go drink...". I'm still not sure why, but this really bothered me. I didn't know what else to do, but it seemed like he was treating the unexpected time off as an opportunity to go party. But everybody was in some state of shock and was reacting in their own way.

Over the next 24 hours or so, the company kept telling us to basically stand by, as they were trying to come up with a plan of action once the airspace was reopened. By 3pm on the 12th, they were releasing people and telling them to get themselves home however they could. Get a rental car on your own and we'll reimburse you later. So I rented a car and drove home to Syracuse with three other people. I ended up getting home two hours earlier than my original trip.

I did my next trip the next Sunday (I think). Everything was very strange. Everybody moved at half speed. The planes were empty. The memos came at us faster than we could read them. And it's never been quite the same since.

 

[landlover]

was in in brooklyn, watched them both fall live from the brooklyn promanade right across the river. less then 3 miles away. I love NY more then ever! went to my moms house after called my two uncles that are FDNY, called my grandpa who was an Ironworker, worked on the WTC start to finish. tried to coem to terms with my skyline being ruined. I still looks wrong 6 years later.

 

[BushwickBill]

I was living on the S/V Alvei. We were on a small island near Va'Vau, Tonga when the towers fell.

I had lived and worked on Alvei for about 8 months and was feeling pretty good. After being out of the country for about 2 years I had forgotten many worries from home. I think at one point I forgot what month it was. We had just compleated an easy passage from Western Samoa to Tonga and were enjoying our time on V'Vau greatly. We would spend a few days in the main port at anchor and then go to an outer island for a couple of days. After three days of swiming, diving and even a session swiming with humpback whales we sailed back to Va'Vau.

Upon our arrival in Va'Vau one of the locals rowed up to us and was very upset about something. Usually they try and sell you stuff. But this guy was standing in his skiff waving his arms and shouting. I was on the fordeck making sure the anchor set but I caught what he was saying. "The airplanes are flying into the big house!" It didn't make any sense but as soon as things were set the entire crew went ashore. We all went down to the paradise hotel. It was the only place with satalite T.V. we had missed the second tower hit by almost 48 hours.

We all just stood there shocked. The whole weight of the world just hit me like a ton of bricks. I was really angry too.

Later during out passage to Fiji I was listening to the news on the shortwave radio that I normally only used to get the time for navigation. We were are fairly convinced that things were going to get like WW3 bad. I guess it was a lack of perspective but a lot of us were convinced that it would get a whole lot worse. There was a lot of hysteria. One megyacht crew was keeping full tanks at all times regarless of cost. I guess the owner wanted to use the yacht for a sanctuary incase it was time to leave the northern hemisphere for a while.

Strange days....

 

[Jack Mehoff]

i'm thinking of the scene in Little Nicky where hitler gets his daily punishment of a HUGE pineapple shoved up his a-hole.

One can only hope something similar has played out for those murdering cowards.

 

[John Pennekamp]

tried to coem to terms with my skyline being ruined. I still looks wrong 6 years later.

Agreed! I used to stand on the roof of the TWA hangar at Kennedy and watch the sun come up and the light move across the Manhattan skyline. I always loved how the Twin Towers shined as the morning sun hit them. The skyline looks like a kid who lost a tooth now.

 

[belchfire]

I had gone to the west coast to see my folks after the end of my sequence on the east coast. Bleary-eyed from my 4 days of commuer pilot sequence hell, a night of travel and only 4 hours of sleep I entered the living room as one of the endless replays of the first tower collapsing started, viewing at the TV nearly edgewise. I said something to the effect of "They botched that implosion-hell, that didn't look old enough to need to come down...where is it?"

Mom-as only a mom could command-said "you need to shut up and sit down and see this."

Aw, holy ********************!!!

 

[30West]

And now, we have the TSA.....

 

[atrdriver]

Was waiting for a CRM class to start right next to the ATL airport. ASA refused to release us from the class until well after 1pm, which was after all the planes had returned to ATL that were going to. When we walked outside the airport was dead quiet. Even the DAL TOC was silent. It was the most eerie thing I have experienced, having ATL being totally silent.

Always remember where you were and how you felt that day. For about 3 months we actually came together as a country. Look at us now. That almost makes me as sad as what happened that beautiful morning.

 

[Slim]

I was at home, waiting to start IOE. My wife called from work telling me to turn on the news and hung up. I saw the second plane hit and the towers fall. Then, I heard about AA 77 hitting the Pentagon.

I recognized the flight number and was afraid some of my former coworkers were on that flight. Two days later, I found out I was right.

Capt. Chic Burlingame and F/A Michelle Heidenberger were on that flight. I went to Burlingame's funeral at Arlington National Cemetery in November, 2001. I don't ever want to attend a full military honors funeral at ANC again, for someone I know.

I remember seeing this on a bumper sticker a long time ago..."Fergit? HE11 NO, I aint never goin' to fergit!"

 

[COOPERVANE]

I was cleared for takeoff with my first student of the day. At about 30 kts, the tower told us to abort. I'll never forget my students face cause I used to tell him that you won't get an abort unless something was REALLY wrong with your airplane (fire/missing wing) We were told to go back to the ramp.

We all just wanted to escape after watching hours of coverage so we went out and got real drunk. Never wanted to nuke somebody so much in my life

 

[Harmattan96]

I was in NAS OCEANA assigned as a Tomcat plane captain with VF-101. That day, and for the first time, I was removing the safety lock pins of live phoenix missiles on the hot pad, those planes were headed for NYC and D.C.
I lived out of the seat shop for three days, as the base was on tactical lock out.
I had never seen that much ammunition, and missiles before this very day.