The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of 9/11

Somerset County emergency workers responded to the call that a plane was down near Lambertsville. Ambulances and firefighting crews were dispatched. Those approaching the scene, such as Rick King, the assistant chief of the Shanksville Volunteer Fire Company, had an ominous sense that the crash that they were approaching was somehow linked to the other events of the day.

The fire, which was burning in a large hole in a field, was intense. Letters and papers fell from the sky. Responders quickly realized that there would be no one to save. The air was filled with the pungent smell of burning fuel and human flesh. First responders found some items in the woods around the hole that belonged to those aboard the plane, including children’s luggage and photographs. The family members of Flight 93 passengers learned that their loved ones had been killed.

Many students at H-B Woodlawn School in Arlington, Virginia, had family members and friends working at the Pentagon. Teachers struggled to manage distressed students and to field students’ questions. A principal learned that her husband was on Flight 77, which hit the Pentagon.

President Bush remained in the air in Air Force One for much of the day; US Secret Service became particularly worried about his safety when the Pentagon was hit. Plans to go to Camp David in Maryland were abandoned when misinformation suggested that Flight 93 was headed there.

Communication was challenging; the team struggled to make phone calls and to see the news. President Bush talked to Vice President Cheney on the phone, authorizing hijacked commercial planes to be shot down. Bush reflected to Chief of Staff Andy Card that he used to be an Air National Guard pilot and could not imagine getting that order.

Because there was some fear of an inside threat, an armed guard was set up outside Bush’s office on Air Force One. He was frustrated and angry to be prevented from returning to Washington, DC, but those charged with his safety did not allow it. Air Force One landed at Barksdale Air Force Base, accompanied by fighter jets. The president and his team of Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) advisors worked to ascertain who was responsible for the attacks; The Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine claimed responsibility but was dismissed as a possibility given the scale of the attack.

On NBC news, Paul Bremer, a counterterrorism expert, speculated that al-Qaeda was behind the attack. The al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden had been on the FBI’s 10 most wanted list since 1999, after his role in 1998 US embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, and in a 1999 attack on the USS Cole in Yemen.

In June 2001, the intelligence community issued a warning about an al-Qaeda attack in the coming weeks or months, but it was thought to be more likely that this would be an international attack, rather than an attack in the US.

John O’Niell, who had led the FBI al-Qaeda task force, continued to advocate for the nation’s attention on the threat of al-Qaeda. Ironically, O’Niell was killed in 9/11, having taken a new post as security director at the WTC. He was last seen in the South Tower shortly before the collapse.

Personnel at the Pentagon bravely reentered, responding to screams for help they heard around the crash site. Emergency workers arrived and helped free trapped individuals, such as a woman pinned by a safe that fell on her. People had horrific burns from the gallons of burning jet fuel in hallways.

One floor above the plane collision site, Lieutenant Colonel Rob Grunewald left the office he was sitting in as the room filled with smoke and fire. Coincidentally, he decided to turn left; colleagues who went right perished in the fire. Louise Rogers climbed from the window of her office. Sheila Denise Moody was saved by a firefighter who heard her clapping her hands. Dennis Smith, using a breathing apparatus, did a sweep through the site looking for survivors. He saw body parts and incinerated bodies but no survivors. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld insisted that helicopters be used to evacuate the injured rather than for himself.

Some firefighters heard the order to leave the North Tower; others did not or refused it, continuing up the stairs of the tower or remaining with victims. Captain Paddy Brown refused to leave, even when radioed by name, explaining that he was with burn victims whom he could not leave.

Captain Jay Jonas was leaving with his team of firefighters when they encountered Josephine Harris, a Port Authority bookkeeper who was exhausted and overwhelmed. They helped her down, significantly slowing their progress.

Dan Potter, on the ground near the base, carried out his duties as a firefighter, while also thinking desperately of his wife, who worked in the North Tower. John Napolitano, father of FDNY firefighter John Napolitano, went to his daughter-in-law’s home, desperately worried about his son. The North Tower began to collapse. For Jay Jonas and Billy Butler, firefighters in the stairwell, everything went black.

At 10:29 am, the North Tower collapsed. Bill Space and Joe Graziano made it out of the tower just in time and ran for cover as it began to collapse. On the 22nd floor of the tower, Pasquale Buzzelli curled up in a ball.

FDNY chaplain Monsignor John Delendick reassured NYPD’s James Luongo as they ran from the collapse that he could give everyone general absolution. People ran for their lives or sheltered under cars or in buildings as a second wave of thick, debris-filled smoke filled the streets.

Richard Eichen dug in his mouth and throat with his fingers to clear a passage to breathe through. Sharon Miller tried to find her PAPD colleagues. She later learned that they were all killed.

Firefighter Jeff Johnson helped Frank Razzano escape from the rubble of the Marriot. William Jimeno, Dominick Pezzulo, and Sergeant McLoughlin heard and felt the building collapsing above them and assumed that they would die. Jay Jonas and Mickey Kross, who were evacuating Josephine Harris, also assumed that they would die.

Jimeno was shocked to find that he was alive once the rubble settled. Pezzulo, trapped under concrete that was crushing him, died, firing his gun into the space above their position as he did. Genelle Guzman and Pasquale Buzzelli were shocked to find that they were alive and relatively unhurt.

People who had been sheltering emerged, disorientated, into the dust- and debris-filled streets. Deli owners yelled to survivors to come into their deli, where they had a hose. The streets were filled with the beeps and whoops of alarms, such as the Personal Alert Safety System (PASS) alarm, which signals that a firefighter is down and motionless. Jeff Johnson was shocked to see that the towers were gone. He was directed toward the water.