Anyone on the AT on 9-11-01?

[RockyTrail]

Talking about how things changed that day, does anybody remember what happened in New York City in August 2001?

Just weeks before 9/11, an idiot (for lack of a better description) flew a motorized parachute very close around the Statue of Liberty and got hung on the torch. Rescue personnel carefully extracted him and his flying machine and he was charged with a crime (probably a misdemeanor?). The whole incident was treated in the media as a humorous stunt. Illegal yes, but no malice was intended and no one was hurt.

But today...oh my...can you imagine?

That guy would be toast
before he even got out of the toaster

[RockyTrail]

Update: It was Aug 23, 2001, about 2 weeks before 9/11.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/1506206.stm

[Sly]

Nope, not on the trail, watching TV as the networks picked it up. When the 2nd plane hit, I was 99.9% sure it was a terrorist attack. Five years later that .1% uncertainly remains. Too many unanswered questions...

http://www.911pressfortruth.com/

[bfitz]

What? Don't tell me your one of the consiracy theorists! Sly, I knew it was bin laden in the frst 5 seconds.

[ed bell]

.1% is mighty slim. I wouldn't call him a conspiracy theorist. 99.9% sure is as sure as I can feel without being there.

[bfitz]

Okay, I was 99.9341615..........................percent sure it was bin laden. But in a situation like that everyone usually rounds up. When he said too many unanswered questions I got a little nervous....

[prozac]

Headed out on a weeklong trip on 9/13/01. The more I listened to the radio the more freaked out I got and the less I felt like hiking. Just seemed too surreal and somehow felt wrong to be hiking. Came off the trail around Tuxedo NY and caught a bus into NYC. Wound up getting stuck in NYC for three days as there were constant alerts which kept shutting down the bridges and tunnels. Finally decided to walk down to lower Manhattan and was just blown away by all the missing picture displays. Personalized the fact that these were real people with real families. The one incident that really sticks out in my mind was when you first get a view of the rubble. You walk for blocks and blocks and see dust and debris but really not much else. Finally you hit a cross street that runs into the WTC and your just stunned. I literally was speechless. Having been in the WTC a couple of times it just seemed unimaginable they were gone. Finally wound up just sitting on a mailbox for hours watching other peoples reaction as they also got their first real view at that intersection. People would come down the street carrying on like they were at Disneyland and then see the rubble pile. Their reactions were incredible. Some just stood in the intersection and cried. Probably the most moving event I've ever witnessed. Hope to never repeat it.

[Programbo]

Not to take away from the WTC, but as I was watching another special tonight on 9-11, I kept wondering why the Pentagon attack was getting zero coverage. From the pictures I saw back when, could it be that a plane did not hit the Pentagon? I've heard the theory and have tried to dimiss it, but the silence is speaking.

Most likely because the attack in NY was actually filmed from so many angles and the actual collapse was so long in coming...By the time anyone even turned around the Pentagon attack and destruction was basically over so I guess it`s not as a spectacular event witnessed by so many as it happened....There can be NO doubt that an American Airlines jet hit the Pentagon as it was witnessed by 100`s of people as it crossed a 10 lane highway which was jammed with cars basically at a stand still during rush hour

[little bear]

I was in Basic Law Enforcement Training at the time and heard about it on a break while sitting in my truck smoking a cig. My mother was a flight attendent with Midway and she was flying from Raleigh NC to Boston MA that day, so I was scared to death when I could not get in touch with her, Found out she was fine. My prayers still go out to the family of loved ones.

[Nean]

Check out this article:http://www.popularmechanics.com/scie...tml?page=6&c=y

Popular Mechanics, now we're talkin'

Thank goodness for a piece of metal that looks like it could fit in my/someones trunk. Yep, that's all the "proof" I need!

I'm so silly.

[JoeHiker]

Yes, you are.

[ed bell]

Popular Mechanics, now we're talkin'

Thank goodness for a piece of metal that looks like it could fit in my/someones trunk. Yep, that's all the "proof" I need!

I'm so silly.

You only looked at the pictures?

[Skyline]

Not on a hike, but after spending much of the day glued to the tube I needed to get out in the woods. Hiked up to do some routine maintenance at Pass Mt. Hut in SNP, not far from home.

There were three SOBOs there who somehow hadn't heard. When I told them they refused to believe me. Then a family out for a couple days, who had just started a mile south of the hut, came in and told the same news I had. Other SOBOs then came in who had heard the news earlier while taking a break at Elkwallow.

There was quiet, followed by anger. The register, which now resides at PATC HQ, would undoubtedly be filled with their thoughts.

Though some of the SOBOs needed to use their cell phones or get down to the payphone at Thornton Gap, no one talked about getting off the Trail. It seemed like the wisest, most friendly, perhaps safest place to be right then.

[MOWGLI]

I was at work for Verizon in Pearl River, NY. They sent me home so I could come back and cover the night shift that night - since all the bridges & tunnels were closed (employees in Westchester, NYC and Long Island couldn't get to Rockland). Later that evening - 7 WTC fell on a major Verizon building (140 West Street) where my Grandfather worked for 40 years - and where many of my friends worked. Some of my friends saw things that day that they still refuse to talk about.

I'll never forget the plume of smoke that I could see from 25 miles away as I drove to my daughter's house to be with my wife & kids. Our eldest had reservations at Windows on the World for 6 PM that night!

I'll also never forget that the view from Bearfort Ridge (near where I lived and grew up) is forever changed. The whole experience was the death blow for the corporate world for me. It totally re-ordered my priorities. A year later I bought a home in Tennessee - and here I sit.

[bigben]

9/11/01 was the first night of my first class in the fire academy. Seriously. I had quit my high paying sales job, got a 40 hour 9-5 to pay the bills while I was in fire and EMT school at night and that was day #1. I got home and my wife just said to me "OK, WHAT are you going to be doing for the rest of your career?" 5 years later and 5 years into the job and it still blows my mind.

[erichlf]

I was not hiking that day. I lived in Reno, NV at the time, so it was early morning when the phone rang. I was still asleep, and decided that if it was important they would call back. AS couple seconds later the phone rang again. This time I thought to myself, "if it is really important they will call back." The phone began to ring again. This time I got up thinking "okay this is important." I answered the phone and it was my mom crying. I didn't even really understand what she was trying to tell me. Something about NYC and being attacked and to watch the news. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. It was very heart wrenching.

[jaywalke]

I wasn't hiking that day, but had a big trip on 9/20 to the Tetons that a bunch of buddies and I had been planning for a year. We went back and forth about whether or not to cancel. Some folks dropped out but a dozen of us still went, since sitting home in anguish sure wasn't doing any good.

It was eerie flying. O'Hare was empty except for the FBI and the National Guard.

We stood at Old Faithful on a beautiful September Saturday morning with about twenty people total, a place that would have been shoulder-to-shoulder any other year.

One guy in our group had an office in the Pentagon. The plane went right through it. He was elsewhere because his suite was being remodeled and was behind schedule.

We walked seventy miles through the Tetons and saw four people aside from our group. The mountains stood uncaring and unchanged. The skies were quiet, and being there helped me.

[scope]

I may try to "forget" the "conspiracy", which I never claim there was.

But why "forget" the 184 and the terrror of those at the Pentagon.

Seems like you are saying because the Pentagon didn't have the numbers or loss of structure(s), that it isn't as impotant? If all those died on the same day of the same cause, why rank them lower? Numbers you say...

I'm not sure I follow your response to Teatime. I don't think he was suggesting we forget those that died, or qualify the significance of their deaths. Perhaps he was searching for some logic in why there would be such a theory as something other than a plane hitting the Pentagon.

I just learned of that theory on Monday when some co-workers were discussing 9/11 events and told me they thought this theory was true. I about ripped their throats out I was so disgusted. Hello!?! Then where are the folks that were on the plane?!!?? They're not here anymore! Talk about forgetting about the people that died there.

www.whatreallyhappened.com

Anyway, back to the actual thread topic...

[Nean]

I'm not sure I follow your response to Teatime. I don't think he was suggesting we forget those that died, or qualify the significance of their deaths. Perhaps he was searching for some logic in why there would be such a theory as something other than a plane hitting the Pentagon.

I just learned of that theory on Monday when some co-workers were discussing 9/11 events and told me they thought this theory was true. I about ripped their throats out I was so disgusted. Hello!?! Then where are the folks that were on the plane?!!?? They're not here anymore! Talk about forgetting about the people that died there.

www.whatreallyhappened.com

Anyway, back to the actual thread topic...

Fair enough.

Like you, I've heard the theory. (Didn't I say that?) I agree we should not be forgetting the people who died there, which was my point BTW, and couldn't help but to wonder why the all the media I saw -would.

Unlike you, I didn't about ripped anyones throat out. You sound violent.

[SavageLlama]

I would have very much liked to have been on the trail... I was living in lower Manhattan, just a couple blocks away from the towers in Sept of 2001.