On September 11, 2001, two jetliners deliberately crashed
into the World Trade Center Twin Towers in what is now
known as the biggest terrorist attack on United States
soil.
In the ensuing aftermath, true heroes, the men and woman
of the New York Fire Department, New York Police
Department, and Port Authority Police Department bravely
ventured into the chaos, calamity, and danger while
citizens ran for their lives.
One the morning of 9/11, I was in the final
stages of editing my book, “Inside the World of Police
Scanners”. While working, I would always have my TV on CNN
News with the volume low and I would periodically look up at
the TV to see what was being discussed.
That morning, I recall
typing and then hearing "This just in...we have
unconfirmed reports this morning that a plane has crashed into
one of the towers of the World Trade Center". I remember
looking up at the TV screen and seeing “Breaking News – World Trade Center Disaster” across the bottom screen and one of
the twin towers smoking heavily. I immediately turned up the
volume. At the time, I had a habit of videotaping major
breaking news stories and this was no different so I popped in
a VCR tape and hit record. (I still have about 80 hours of
news coverage on VCR tape)
After I began recording, I went to a list of live
scanner feed I had bookmarked and went to a live New
York City fire department feed to listen to rescue operations.
I had been listening for about 5-minutes when
out of nowhere the second plane hit the second tower. I
remember saying to myself “OH SH*T!"
- this is intentional. As events unfolded, I sat with the TV volume
low listening to rescue operations on the live scanner feed
and then watched in horror as the first tower collapsed, then
later, the second tower.
In my 28+ years of listening to
police and fire communications, I have heard many things that
would make the average person cringe, but *nothing* compares
to what I heard live over the air that day as I simultaneously
watched it unfold on TV and what the firefighters and police
officers went through following the collapse of the first
tower, then the second.
The Towers
Collapse
After the first tower collapsed, there were
many calls for help from trapped firefighters and other
fire-rescue units responding to those calls for help. After
the second tower collapsed, there was just silence and the
dispatcher trying to raise someone on the air, but there was no one
left to respond - it was very chilling to hear and then not
hear anything.
The one transmission that I will never forget
was from someone who identified himself as a fire chief over
the air yelling for help and that he was trapped under a fire
engine with a police sergeant and that both were badly injured
and could barely breathe. After several minutes of the
dispatcher trying to get his location to get help to him, the
radio went quiet on the other end. It was then that I knew
that he did not make it.
On another channel, I heard a civilian also
get on the air panicked and yelling for help and that he was
inside a fire truck - the dispatcher telling him that help was
on the way and to clear the radio traffic for emergency personnel.
Throughout the day and in the days and months
following 9/11, police and fire traffic here is Southern California
was on high alert with all sorts of activity from bomb threats
to a sighting of Osama
Bin Laden at a Walgreens in Redlands, CA. (Click
here to listen to the actual dispatch recording.)
9/11 Audio
Recordings As It Happened
I have put this page together not only as a
tribute to the police officers and firefighters that lost
their lives that day, but also so that you can experience what
I heard that day. Below are official radio transmissions from
the New York fire Department and New York Port Authority Police as they
occurred that morning.
The audio recordings are 10-minutes each and
cover the time frame from 8:46am to 9:34am ET and from 9:34am
to 10:22am ET (after first tower collapse). Note: Some of the
voices you will hear are from some of the fallen firefighters.
Special thanks to Dave46563’s YouTube
Channel for making these available. See below for a link to
Dave46563’s Channel that has full news coverage videos from
CNN, NBC, Fox News, ABC, BBC and other news networks as it
happened.
9/11 Full
News Coverage Videos
As mentioned above, I was watching CNN when
coverage started. Below is the actual news coverage that I was
watching as it happened. (Note: footage of 9/11 starts at 1:31
of the video)
To view more full coverage new footage, visit the
following YouTube channel:
On September 11, 2001, two jetliners deliberately crashed
into the World Trade Center Twin Towers in what is now
known as the biggest terrorist attack on United States
soil. 
