The Only Plane in the Sky

by Garrett M Graff

  Frank Lombardi, chief engineer, Port Authority, North Tower: I saw the antenna of Tower One slowly starting to fall, as if a missile was going back into its silo.

  Dan Potter, firefighter, Ladder 10, FDNY: A police officer came running down the street, and said, “North Tower’s coming down now, any second now, any second.” Just as he passed, we heard the same crumbling.

  Jean Potter, Bank of America, North Tower: I was in Chinatown when I heard the North Tower collapse.

  Dan Potter: It sounded like a freight train, like rumbling thunder. We laid in front of Deutsche Bank because we figured you couldn’t outrun this field of stuff coming down. If it clocks you, you’re out—you’re done.

  Andrew Kirtzman, reporter, NY1: There was this massive, massive boom, and a huge plume of smoke. As the building fell like a pancake, that smoke and soot and fire, it went north. It started to chase us, and we went running for our lives.

  Lt. Terri Tobin, NYPD: People are screaming, “The second one’s coming down. Get out of here.” The best thing was to run toward the water, so I started to run. I took a hard hit to my back, and it knocked me from my feet right down to my knees. I turned around and saw the black cloud coming, approaching very quickly.

  Rudy Giuliani, mayor, New York City: I feel somebody grab me and start running me, like you’d run an animal or a horse, like, “LET’S GO!” And we must have run about a third of a block. I didn’t even know what was going on.

  Andrew Kirtzman: Giuliani’s bodyguard threw his arm around Giuliani and started running. We all bolted and we were being followed by this mushroom cloud.

  Rudy Giuliani: He’s running me, and I said, “STOP.” We turned around and I could see this tremendous cloud coming up through the canyon. It really looked like a nuclear attack.

  Tracy Donahoo, transit officer, NYPD: All of the sudden this black smoke came flying around the corner like a monster you would see in a movie. It whipped around and came up Broadway.

  Richard Eichen, consultant, Pass Consulting Group, North Tower, 90th floor: I was running up Fulton Street, and the guy in front of me was walking, and I pushed him to the side. Another guy ran in front of me, and I swept him away. He stumbled, and I hope I didn’t seal his fate doing that. I jumped over the hood of a car—which is hilarious if you know me—and continued.

  Joe Esposito, chief of department, NYPD: We were pushing people into any open doorway, any building they could get into. You watched it roll toward you like a tidal wave.

  Richard Eichen: The whole morning seemed like one calamity—biblical-level calamity—after another. An hour before, I was eating a bagel, reading the newspaper, and worrying about my country club food—and now I’m in the middle of some biblical [devastation].

  Charles Christophe, attorney, Broadway: We’re totally covered with dust. It’s unbelievable—like you’re in a movie and science fiction. It’s not reality. You don’t know what’s going on. I didn’t have anything with me except my cell phone. I was trying to reach my wife, Kirsten, all the time.

  Ian Oldaker, staff, Ellis Island: We got to South Street Seaport pretty quickly. We went to a bar, which was full. We got some juice and water. As we were watching it on CNN, we could actually see the Towers through this glass window. The TV was right in front of us, and we could see the Towers to our left. We could see the second one starting to fall. You saw the whole bar turn their heads to look through the window. As the second tower fell past the point where you couldn’t see it anymore, everyone turned back to the TV and watched it fall all the way.

  Monica O’Leary, former employee, Cantor Fitzgerald, North Tower: I was in my neighbor’s apartment when our building fell. I remember falling to the ground and screaming, “They didn’t have enough time! They didn’t have enough time to get out!” I laid on the ground screaming. I knew they were gone.

  Robert De Niro, actor, New York City: I lived about nine blocks north of the World Trade Center. I had my big-screen television to my left, and I had the big picture window in front of me. When I saw the North Tower start to go down, I had to look at my television to confirm what I was seeing with my own eyes. It was unreal.

  * * *

  Roger Parrino, lieutenant commander of detectives, NYPD: I have no memory of any noise. I didn’t hear anything landing near me. I could see shit landing near me, but I couldn’t believe I wasn’t being hit. I saw stuff hit. I saw a car flip. All of sudden I felt like I was covered in blankets. That’s the only way to describe it. It was really super soft and basically very comfortable. I felt like it was 20 blankets. Then, in one split second, I began to suffocate.

  David Norman: That’s when also the wave of concrete dust—it was so thick—overwhelmed us. I couldn’t breathe. It’s almost as if you took the blown-in insulation—that powdery insulation—and you started trying to breathe through it and you couldn’t.

  Dan Potter: I remember swallowing the smoke and it was like those gray woolen socks. I felt like I could almost eat it.

  Stanley Trojanowski, firefighter, Engine 238, FDNY: You’re choking, trying to breathe, your eyes are full of debris, you can’t see anything.

  Richard Eichen: I realize my mouth is packed with this debris—the dust. I dug my mouth out with two fingers—putting them in and digging my mouth out. Then I realized I still couldn’t breathe, so I stuck my finger down my throat and I was able to open a breathing passage.

  Dan Potter: We don’t know where we are. I scratched the street, and I could see the blacktop, and I said, “We’re on the street, we’re on the street!”

  Gary Smiley, paramedic, FDNY: Every time I’d breathe in, it was as if my head was stuck in sand.

  Bill Spade: I had to reach in my mouth to take clumps of stuff out. When I breathed it hurt. It seemed like I was inhaling glass. I looked around. There were only four of us left—me and three other firemen. We lost the police officer and all those in that alleyway.

  Sharon Miller, officer, PAPD: I got separated from my partners somehow. I stopped and looked to see where everybody else was—the captain, chief, everybody. I couldn’t find anybody. I don’t know how far I ran; I ran until I saw Inspector [Lawrence] Fields and a police officer. They were standing around the corner. I ran over to them and told them who I couldn’t find. They were looking at me like I was crazy. They said, “What are you talking about?” I said, “I went in the building with Chief [James] Romito, Captain [Kathy] Mazza, Lieutenant [Robert] Cirri, Richie Rodriguez, Jimmy Nelson, Jimmy Parham, Steve Huczko.” I said, “I got separated from them.” I never saw them again. They never found them. They were all killed.

  “I thought I was dead until I started to cough”

  * * *

  Trapped in the Ruins

  By the time the second tower collapsed, more than 2,600 people would be dead in the rubble around the World Trade Center, including 343 New York City firefighters, 37 members of the PAPD, 23 members of the NYPD, and a dozen other government agents and first responders, as well as former FBI agent John O’Neill.

  A lucky few would survive the collapse, either inside the Marriott Hotel or buried amid the wreckage of the North and South Towers.

  Jeff Johnson, firefighter, Engine 74, FDNY: When we got into the banquet room, we were trying to find our way around and get our bearings. That’s when the second collapse happened.

  Frank Razzano, guest, Marriott Hotel: Jeff obviously knew what it was because he said, “Hit the ground.” We got buried under more rubble.

  Jeff Johnson: Same thing: complete black, couldn’t breathe, stifling. You couldn’t breathe. You couldn’t open your eyes.

  Frank Razzano: I remember saying to myself, “This can’t be happening to me twice in one day. This is impossible.” I’m thinking to myself, You can’t be lucky enough to survive it twice. I started to pray.

  Jeff Johnson: I was so mad. I said, “Don’t let me go.” I was praying. I didn’t think I was going to make it.

  Frank Razzano: Every breath you took you breathed in soot and ash
. It was like drowning.

  Jeff Johnson: I yelled, “Is everybody okay?” I heard, “I’m okay.” “I’m okay.” “I’m okay.” But I didn’t hear the fourth “I’m okay.” I go, “Who’s okay?” They yelled out their names, but none of them was Pat. I started screaming for Pat Carey now.

  Frank Razzano: Jeff started to look for a way out. He was frantically looking around to figure out how we were going to get out of here, and found a very small opening in a wall on the West Street side of the building. He said, “This is our way out. We are going to climb down.”

  Jeff Johnson: We took the drapes, and we put it out of the hole so that we could back out. I went last, the civilians went first. They put their butts and their legs out first and crawled out. The first guy went out, then the next guy went, and then Frank went, and then I backed out.

  Frank Razzano: I saw the banquet manager of the hotel. He went down the drapes and he made it. I figured, if he could do it, I could do it.

  Jeff Johnson: They just left. I didn’t know who Frank was until a year later. I still don’t know the names of the other two. Those three guys disappeared, basically walked into the rubble.

  Frank Razzano: I can’t call it a street because it wasn’t a street. There was nothing recognizable as a street—it was a debris field. The first thing I remember seeing, as I looked up, was that grill work from the World Trade Center stuck in the debris.

  William Jimeno, officer, PAPD: Again, we had no idea that Building Two had come down at that point. We heard another explosion, Boom! Same as the first one. I remember Dominick [Pezzulo] backing up a little bit, and I said to him, “This is it. It’s over.” It sounded like a humongous locomotive coming at us. All I could think was, I’m gonna die. One of the things I’ve always done with my girls—Allison and Bianca—was I would make the sign-language sign for “I love you.” I made the “I love you” sign—and I crossed them over my chest. I figured if I was going to die and they found me, they would at least tell my wife that I was crossed like that, so she would know I was thinking of her.

  I could hear Sergeant McLoughlin yelling. Dominick gets sat down like a rag doll with a piece of concrete that came through this little void. I was getting hit more. I was yelling. Just like the first collapse, it seemed to take forever, but it happened quick.

  * * *

  The collapse also caught the firefighters coming down Stairwell B with their injured civilian, Josephine Harris, and a PAPD officer evacuating with them, David Lim.

  Capt. Jay Jonas, Ladder 6, FDNY: All the air that was in the building was being compressed, creating tornado-like winds in the stairway. We kept getting battered by debris. It was like 30 people were punching you at the same time. It’s industrial-strength dust. We covered up and waited for what we thought was going to be our demise. But for us, it didn’t come.

  Lt. Mickey Kross, Engine 16, FDNY: It was a tremendous roar. Then the wind—very, very fierce wind. It started lifting me up off the ground.

  Capt. Jay Jonas: That scary feeling, that anxiety that I had between the two collapses? Once the collapse started, it went away. I felt very much at peace. Whatever was going to happen is—it’s on its way.

  Lt. Mickey Kross: I crouched down and got to the corner of the staircase by the railing, and I got as small as I could possibly get. I guess the best way to describe it is that I tried to crawl into my fire helmet.

  Capt. Jay Jonas: Then, just before it got to us, it stopped.

  Lt. Mickey Kross: Debris was hitting me, and it went dark. The next thing was total silence. Nothing. No wind, no noise, no light. Nothing.

  * * *

  Joe Esposito, chief of department, NYPD: I said to my sergeant, “We just lost a lot of people.” I remember saying, “If we lost under a hundred, it’ll be a miracle.” It was a miracle. We lost 23, which is still an outrageous number, but that’s a miracle.

  William Jimeno, officer, PAPD: When everything was settled, I looked over to my right, and I could see Dominick. The concrete had crushed him. He said, “Willy, I’m dying.” Sergeant McLoughlin was yelling, in a lot of pain. I was also in a lot of pain, but I was fighting, trying to talk to Dominick. I said, “Hold on, Dominick, hold on.”

  Those last couple of minutes, Dominick said to Sergeant McLoughlin, “Can I have a 3-8?,” which is a break for a Port Authority Police officer. In the midst of pain, he was finding humor. Sergeant McLoughlin, even though he was yelling, said, “Yeah, you can take 3-8.” Dominick said, “Willy, don’t forget I died trying to save you guys.” His last minutes, he struggled to take his firearm out of his holster. He pointed it up toward that hole in the rubble far over our heads. We had been yelling, “PAPD officers down!,” hoping someone would hear us. He pointed his firearm up in the air, to that hole, and fired his gun as a last-ditch effort for someone to hear us. Then, he slumped over and died.

  I was really, really lost, mentally. We had not only lost our first two officers—Christopher [Amoroso] and Antonio [Rodrigues]—but now I watched Dominick pass. It was very, very tough. I said, “Sarge. Dominick’s gone.” Sarge said, “Hold on. Hold on. I know.” This went on for a while, trying to talk each other back and forth. I said, “Sarge, what do we do? What training do we have?” He said, “Will, this is beyond any training anybody has ever had.”

  Sgt. John McLoughlin, PAPD: Nobody trained for this.

  Lt. Mickey Kross, Engine 16, FDNY: I was encapsulated in the debris. I couldn’t move much, and I realized I didn’t feel like I was injured. I got my wits about me. I said, “Okay. Let me see what I have, what equipment I have.” I was feeling around. I still had a light. All the other equipment I was carrying was gone.

  Billy Butler, firefighter, Ladder 6, FDNY: Immediately, you look at yourself to make sure all the fingers are there, the toes are there, and you wiggle them to make sure that nothing is broken. I was beat up, but I was okay. I was trying to extricate myself, and pick these large pieces of drywall off myself, when Josephine suddenly came up out of the dust, like the Blob coming out of the swamp. She scared the shit out of me.

  Lt. Mickey Kross: I couldn’t see clearly, and I thought I was blinded. I’m thinking, Oh, Jesus, I’m trapped in the World Trade Center and now I’m blind—is this going to get any worse? I was feeling my eyes, and I felt this crust. It was like a quarter inch of dirt encrusted, like concrete. I tried peeling it off, and it wasn’t going. I was able to take my glove off, and I stuck my pinky in my mouth. I was trying to wet my finger and peel this crust off my eyes. Eventually, I got most of it off, and I opened my eyes and I was able to at least see this little tiny area I was in. I wasn’t blind; I had my eyesight.

  Capt. Jay Jonas: My first thoughts were: Who do I still have? Who’s still alive? I gave out a roll call, and all my people answered. I didn’t know Josephine’s name yet. I called her “the woman” and said, “Do we still have the woman with us?” They said, “Yeah, she’s still here.”

  Josephine Harris, bookkeeper, Port Authority, North Tower, 73rd floor: Somebody was watching over us that day. We had no broken bones. We have no scars.

  Capt. Jay Jonas: In my mind, okay, things are looking good. All right, let’s dust ourselves off and get out of here. It didn’t quite happen that fast.

  Genelle Guzman, office assistant, Port Authority, North Tower, 64th floor: When it finally stopped, there was total dead silence. I thought I was dreaming. I shut my eyes, hoping that when I opened them, it would be all a bad dream. I realized it was not. I couldn’t move. I tried to get up. I was pinned. I was laying sideways, feet crisscrossed. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t see anything. The dust—everything—was in my mouth. It was complete dark. I realized that this was actually happening.

  Pasquale Buzzelli, engineer, Port Authority, North Tower, 64th floor: I had some bumps on my head when I woke up. I was numb. I looked up, and I could see clear sky—a blue sky. For that one instant, I thought I was dead because I felt no pain. I thought I was dead until I started to cough. Then I started to feel pai
n in my leg, and that’s when I realized, Oh, my God! I can’t believe I actually survived this. I’m alive.

  “Such calm and peace”

  * * *

  After the Collapse

  The collapse of both towers carpeted Lower Manhattan with debris and dust; as survivors emerged from the clouds, they found a city tragically transformed and a once-familiar urban landscape rendered almost unrecognizable. Scores of first responders and civilians were buried in the debris and trapped in nearby buildings where they had sought refuge from the collapse.

  James Luongo, inspector, NYPD: It was like that hush afterwards—I don’t know what the explanation for it was—but there’s that hush that comes over the city with a major snowfall.

  David Norman, officer, Emergency Service Unit, Truck 1, NYPD: When you walk outside in a snowstorm and it’s such calm and peace—that’s what was moments later.

  Sharon Miller, officer, PAPD: It was very quiet, almost like cotton was all over the place, like marshmallows or something.

  Richard Eichen, consultant, Pass Consulting Group, North Tower: The street, it was like being on a beach. Your feet would sink into it, and every time you took a step there was like more puffs of smoke. People—we were all the same color.

  David Norman: We were literally caked. We were all gray. Although we had navy blue uniforms on, we were all white-ash gray with debris.

  Al Kim, vice president of operations, TransCare Ambulance: We were like zombies for a few minutes or hours—I couldn’t tell you.

  Det. David Brink, Emergency Service Unit, Truck 3, NYPD: There were some vehicles that were on fire and the tires were exploding from the fire. I was like, “Where the hell’s the fire department? Why aren’t they putting these fires out?” Then I looked over. I saw one of the fire trucks on fire, and it sent me back to reality, “Oh, yeah. Now I know why.”

  Bill Spade, firefighter, Rescue 5, FDNY: This room seemed to be filled up right to the top with debris. We couldn’t get out. I looked around. One of the firemen asked, “What are we going to do now?” One was a lieutenant there and he said, “We breathe the air off the floor. We clear away the stuff and we stay low and try to breathe the oxygen low.” I said, “I ain’t staying in here.” One of the guys said, “We can call for help.” I said, “Nobody’s coming here and getting us.”