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

by Garrett M. Graff

What began as an ordinary day became the deadliest terrorist attack in world history and the deadliest attack on the United States since Pearl Harbor, shocking and terrifying the global community, exposing us to unimaginable tragedy and evil, while also reminding us of the strength, bravery, and power of the human spirit. Heroes quite literally emerged from the ashes, and the hours and decisions that followed defined not just a generation but our modern era.

The 9/11 Memorial and Museum in New York City honors a precise tally of 2,983 casualties, including six killed in 1993, when the World Trade Center was attacked for the first time by the forerunners of the terror group that would ultimately bring these buildings down in just 102 minutes eight years later. The 9/11 victims represented not merely Americans but citizens of more than 90 nations.

Today, that new generation Dillard mentions barely remembers the day itself; 2018 marked the first year military recruits born after 9/11 were deployed to war zones in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the fall of 2019 will mark the entrance of the first college class born after the attacks. That passage of time makes remembering 9/11 all the more important.

I called the ground, and my flight surgeon Steve Hart came on. I said, “Hey Steve, how’s it going?” He said, “Well, Frank, we’re not having a very good day down here on Earth.”

One of the most startling effects was that within about two orbits, all the contrails normally crisscrossing the United States had disappeared because they had grounded all the airplanes and there was nobody else flying in U.S. airspace except for one airplane that was leaving a contrail from the central U.S. toward Washington. That was Air Force One heading back to D.C. with President Bush.

You do what God has called you to do. You show up. You put one foot in front of another. You get on the rig and you go out and you do the job.

Tom Brokaw, anchor, NBC News: I’d been off most of the summer. A friend called up to ask how it was to be back. I said, “I’m doing fine, but there’s no news. It’s hard to get cranked back up.”

Monica O’Leary, Cantor Fitzgerald, North Tower, 105th floor: On September 10th, in the afternoon—my guess is around two o’clock—I was laid off.

He called me at around five o’clock and said there had been a fire in Newark, and he didn’t feel like arriving in California at two in the morning. He decided to go home, get a good night’s sleep, and catch the first flight out Tuesday morning.

In Washington, D.C., FBI Director Robert Mueller—who had started in his new post just one week earlier, on September 4—was scheduled to appear at 8:00 a.m. for his first briefing on the FBI’s unfolding investigation of a terror group known as al-Qaeda and its bombing of the USS Cole the previous fall.

They wanted to do a big press conference and introduce this new Rescue Hero to the world. I was scratching my head with the executives, and I said, “9-1-1 is the emergency phone number in New York City. Why don’t we have a 9-1-1 Day in New York?” So on 9/11 at nine o’clock in the morning, every TV station in New York City was waiting for me at Rockefeller Center to introduce this new Rescue Hero.

Andy Card, White House chief of staff: The president was in a great mood. He had that George W. Bush strut that morning. B. Alexander “Sandy” Kress, senior education adviser, White House: Those were probably the last carefree moments he had in his term. Andy Card: I remember literally telling him, “It should be an easy day.” Those were the words. “It should be an easy day.”

The World Trade Center had the two tallest buildings in New York City, iconic fixtures on the skyline for nearly 40 years. Reaching more than 1,300 feet into the sky, the 110-story twin buildings—the North Tower, known as One World Trade, and the South Tower, known as Two World Trade—anchored a 16-acre complex of seven buildings in the heart of Lower Manhattan’s financial sector. Nestled between them was Three World Trade, which held a 22-story Marriott Hotel. Four other buildings surrounded the site: Four World Trade, a nine-story building occupied primarily by Deutsche Bank; Five World Trade, also a nine-story office building; Six World Trade, an eight-story building occupied by the U.S. Customs House for New York and other government agencies; and Seven World Trade, a 47-story building that included New York’s Office of Emergency Management.

Michael Lomonaco, executive chef, Windows on the World, North Tower, 106th floor: My usual hours were from 8:30 in the morning until 10:00, 10:30 at night. That morning my wife and I got up a little bit early because we were voting in the primaries. There was no one at the polls. It wasn’t that busy. My reading glasses were in need of repair. When I hit the street in front of Tower Two, I thought, Wow, it’s really early. It’s not even 8:15. I bet I can get the optometrist to see me, and I can have my glasses this afternoon. I made a detour to the Trade Center Concourse level and I went straight for LensCrafters.

Jared Kotz: I got up to the 106th floor and was greeted by some of my colleagues. Paul Bristow walked up to me and said, “Jared, I was here early. I saw the magazines, so I pulled them out of the boxes and set them up on a display rack. Is this what you wanted?” I said, “Yeah, this is great! Paul, thanks very much.” If Paul hadn’t been there early and set up the magazines, I probably would have still been there when the plane hit. Then I realized of all the things that had arrived, we were missing one of our titles. I offered to go back to our office and pick up some copies. I bid farewell to everyone and thought I would see them in an hour or less. I headed down the elevator. The elevator stopped at the floor below the Windows on the World. It was Cantor Fitzgerald’s office. One gentleman got on the elevator, another stood there in the hallway, discussing something with him. I’ll never forget his face.

David Kravette: I had a meeting at eight o’clock. They’re running late. At 8:40, I get a call from the [ground-floor] lobby: “Your visitors are here.” One of the guys came without a wallet, no ID at all. Someone had to go down and sign for him. There was a girl who sat behind me, a desk assistant who was very helpful, but she was eight-and-a-half-months pregnant. I said to myself, I’m not going to make her go down. I went downstairs. I see my client. I go, “Which one of you knuckleheads forgot your ID?”

My colleague Elaine Greenberg was there. We sat and had breakfast, and we went over some changes to the slides. She said that she had gone to a vacation home in Massachusetts, and while she was there she saw a tie and bought it for me. It was a stunning tie. I said, “This is such a nice gesture—I’m going to put this on.” She said, “Well, not with that shirt. You’re not going to put on a red and blue tie with a green shirt.” As we left the restaurant at the Marriott, I said, “I’m going to go back and change and put on that white shirt. It will look better with this tie. Go on ahead without me.”