email277.xml

email277.xml

born-digital

email

unknown

yes

2002-08-19

As I am sure you have heard, four commercial aircraft were hijacked this
morning. Two were deliberately flown into the World Trade Center, the third
into the Pentagon and the fourth crashing into woodland near Pittsburgh.
The first two impacts left obviously plane shaped holes at first in the
towers of the World Trade Center as both aircraft were swallowed up and
exploded. Both towers completely collapsed within two hours. Virtually none
of the 110 storeys remain. Part of the Pentagon was on fire most of the day
but is now mostly out. A third smaller World Trade Center building next to
the towers has now collapsed. The World Trade Center was hit at 8:45 am and
9:03 am EDT in the morning by two of the planes. This was still early
enough that not all of the people who worked in the buildings would have
been there. Never-the-less 50,000 people were known to have worked in the
towers. The best estimate is that around 20,000 may have been there at the
time. About 4,000 are known to have evacuated. So far about 100 people
have been taken to hospitals around Washington from the Pentagon. No word
on fatalities yet from there.

Two of the four hijacked flights were American Airlines flights and the
others were United Airlines. A total of 266 passengers were on these
flights with a total crew of about 40. One flight from each airline was on
route from Boston to LA and was re-routed to New York. An American flight
from Dulles to San Francisco was re-routed to Washington. The remaining
United flight was from Newark to LA and was re-routed possibly to Camp David
in western Maryland but ended up crashing south east of Pittsburgh. Cell
phone calls from several passengers indicated that they knew they had been
hijacked and were going down. One indicated the seat in which one of the
hijackers was sitting thus we should be able to identify one name. A TWA
flight taking off from JFK in New York had to avoid one of the incoming
aircraft to avoid a mid-air collision. The FAA ordered all domestic flights
to land at the nearest airport to clear the skies. All arriving
international flights were diverted to Canada. All other domestic flights
have now been accounted for. No aircraft except military flights and the
President will be flying until at least noon tomorrow.

All federal and state government bodies are at the highest state of alert
and are involved in the rescue and/or investigation. A state of emergency
has been declared in all the states immediately surrounding Washington and
probably New York. All government offices and virtually all commercial
businesses in and around Washington closed and everybody went home early.
People were walking on foot across bridges and along roads out of Washington
and New York since they had no other form of travel. All roads in to
Washington were closed and made outbound only. All phone and cell phone
lines were jammed for hours. The only reliable source of information was
television and radio. There has been nothing on any of the television
channels all day except coverage of the disasters. Channels normally
dedicated to sports, home shopping, and education are now just carrying news
feeds.

My wife and I live less than 20 miles from Dulles and there is usually a lot
of flights landing in the evening. Tonight the skies are silent. The roads
are empty. I heard that flights in Canada and England were also suspended or
restricted today.

Timing wise, a cold front had passed over the east coast yesterday ending
several days of overcast grey humid conditions. The sunset last night was a
deep red. Today it was a clear blue sky up and down the east coast. Clear
enough for the World Trade Center and the Pentagon to be used to send a
signal. Apparently tomorrow Osama bin Laden was scheduled to be sentenced in
absentia by a federal court for being involved in the World Trade Center
bombing in 1993. Today was the eleventh of September - 9/11. 911 is the
equivalent to [the emergency telephone number] 999 in the UK.

The shock that Americans are now in has been variously compared to
Challenger, Oklahoma City and Pearl Harbor. The President is about to give
his third address of the day. We hear that Kabul in Afganistan has been hit
with rocket attacks. The US is denying involvement in this. At least
officially they still not sure who instigated the attacks here.

If there was ever a time when the democratic nations of the world could pull
together to work on solving the international terrorist problem, the next
days and months are it.

I thought you would want to know what it was like here today.

Tuesday, September 11, 2001 8:52 PM EDT

News from the US