The Only Plane in the Sky

by Garrett M Graff

  Scott Strauss: A firefighter comes over to us. He says, “Hey, I got a couple of guys that are hurt on the other side.” So we started running over in that direction. We’re climbing over this twisted steel—some were very, very hot—jumping from one to the other. We’re slipping on the dust. It was a very treacherous trek. Through the dust and through the smoke, I saw a guy waving a flashlight, I went over to him. I said, “What do you got?” He goes, “You got two guys, two cops down in this hole.” So I look, and there’s this hole a little bit bigger than the size of a manhole. I dropped down into it, about six to eight feet. It was like a very, very tiny closet. Paddy McGee, an Emergency Service police officer with me, also jumped in the hole, as did this civilian, Chuck Sereika, a former paramedic.

  William Jimeno: Truck 1 came up. They hooked up with another civilian named Chuck Sereika, a paramedic.

  Paddy McGee, officer, Emergency Service Unit, Truck 1, NYPD: The race was on.

  Scott Strauss: We came down on an angle about 20 to 30 feet, crawling headfirst around I-beams, through these tiny crevices, pulling ourselves through. We got down to this little open area, and we turned left and we came upon Dominick [Pezzulo]. About 10 feet back was Will Jimeno. The only thing we could see of Will was his head, his right arm, and part of his right side. The rest of it—it looks like he was poured out of a dump truck.

  William Jimeno: He said, “What’s your name?” and I said “Jimeno.” He goes, “Scott Strauss NYPD ESU Truck 1.” I said, “Jimeno, Bus Terminal. Port Authority Police,” and he said, “Listen, you got to hold on—you can’t give up now.”

  Scott Strauss: I crawled in, and I had to crawl in on my side, and with my hands above my head. I was crawling in, pulling myself in, and I was literally using my hands to scratch away at the rubble. As I free up some debris I’m pushing it down along my chest to get it back out to Paddy and Chuck, and they took it and were throwing it down the elevator shaft, digging their way out.

  William Jimeno: They could barely move in there. All I could see was their bald heads.

  Scott Strauss: We were dry heaving. We were choking on the smoke. The firemen were yelling from up above us, “Get out of there.” Will says, “You’re not leaving me, are you?” I go, “No. We’re not leaving you, Will.” Did I want to go? You better believe I wanted to get out of there, but I couldn’t. It had nothing to do with any macho stuff. It had to do with self-preservation. I don’t think I could have left him, gone home to my kids, and known I left him there to die. So the three of us—Chuck, Paddy, and I—stayed.

  William Jimeno: For the next three hours they worked on me, and it was very, very painful. They were able to free my right leg, and then it took a long time for them to try to get me from under this wall.

  Scott Strauss: Chuck, Paddy, and I, we were exhausted. We were incredibly tired. We were in a bad way, in a bad environment.

  William Jimeno: I remember saying, “I have a partner, he’s here,” and they thought it was Dominick. Sergeant McLoughlin kept quiet back there. I think what happened was that when they first started on me, I yelled once really hard—when they touched my leg, it was really painful. I saw that Scott backed away. I remember thinking to myself, You need to shut up and eat the pain, and that’s what I did. I think Sergeant McLoughlin heard that as not to disrupt these guys—the best thing to do is to try to get us out of here faster.

  Scott Strauss: All the time Will is talking about his partner. We don’t know—the only person that’s talking to us in this hole is Will. Dominick Pezzulo’s dead. Will’s talking about his partner: “You’ve got to get to my partner first. You got to get him out.” I’m like, He doesn’t know he’s dead, thinking “he” is Dominick.

  William Jimeno: It was a nightmare that night.

  Scott Strauss: He’s like, “Hurry up! Hurry! You’ve got to get to him. He’s going to die if you don’t get to him.” I said, “Will, we got to do our job. We got to get you out, and then we’ll get him out.” We’re scratching away, scratching away, and then we hear Sergeant McLoughlin’s voice, and he goes, “Hey, how are you guys doing?” I’m like, “Who’s that?” Will’s like, “That’s my partner,” like, You idiots. What do you think I’ve been talking about? So we’re like, “We thought he was your partner.” He said, “No, that’s Dominick. He’s dead.” I’m like, Oh, my God! Now we have another rescue that we have to do.

  Det. Steven Stefanakos, Emergency Service Unit, Truck 10, NYPD: The two rescue sites started for the two Port Authority police officers that were trapped. Truck 1 guys, from their team, were working on that extrication. The rest of us walked around to any particular area where you might find a void that you could crawl into. Every single building in a perfect square around the Trade Center was completely demolished or damaged. The buildings were on fire still. You looked up and you said, “At any given time any one of these buildings could fall.”

  Scott Strauss: Will’s screaming in pain and Sergeant McLoughlin is fading in and out this whole time. We’re talking to McLoughlin and Paddy McGee—can’t get any more Irish than him, he was born on St. Patrick’s Day, he’s in the police department pipe band—and John McLoughlin, another Irishman, and Paddy’s like, “Hey, Irish eyes, are you still with us?” Sometimes he would answer, sometimes he wouldn’t. When he didn’t answer, Will would get worked up. “John, Sarge, come on, Sarge, hold on, Sarge!” Then you’d hear him in a groggy voice say, “I’m here. I’m here.”

  William Jimeno: They were able to put me on a gurney, and I remember telling the Sarge, “Hold on, Sarge.”

  Scott Strauss: We get him onto the Stokes basket and we send him out—up topside.

  William Jimeno: As they started pulling me out on the gurney, up this hole, I remember looking around, and I said, “Where is everything?” Because I could see the moon, and I could see smoke, but I couldn’t see the buildings. That’s when a firefighter said, “It’s all gone, kid.” That’s the first time I cried that evening.

  Omar Olayan, officer, NYPD: We heard people, some excitement—coming up the line was a basket with a body in it, one of the Port Authority officers they rescued. We pulled him out. It was exciting—a great moment. All day you’ve been there and there was nothing.

  Scott Strauss: I crawl back down this hole. I’m physically shot. It’s now like 11:00 at night, 11:30 at night. “John, I can’t do any more. They’re sending a fresh team in. You’ll be fine. These guys are going to get you out.” He’s like, “Thanks, Scott. I appreciate it. I’ll see you up top.” I said, “Absolutely.” Another emergency cop, Steve Clifford, comes in the hole—and I don’t know why I said this to him—but I stopped him and I go, “Steve, personal friend. Make sure you get him out.”

  William Jimeno: My sergeant came out the next day, at 7:00 a.m.

  Scott Strauss: The rescue workers, cops, firemen from all over the place—all of Nassau County, Connecticut, New Jersey, everywhere—Con Ed workers, construction workers are lining this path and they’re helping me get down, helping the three of us get down.

  William Jimeno: I remember as we got to the hospital, I’m thinking there’s going to be thousands of people in there. That’s the second time I cried. As they pulled me off the ambulance, I see these doctors standing around and nurses. I said, “Where is everybody?” They’re like, “You’re it.” They’re telling me there’s nobody else.

  PAPD Sgt. John McLoughlin is rescued from Ground Zero.

  “I wondered, ‘Did they get out?’ ”

  * * *

  The Day Ends

  As night descended on a country transformed and the calendar flipped from 9/11 to 9/12, lawmakers, first responders, government officials, and stricken families tried to make sense of the day they’d just experienced. Fear and uncertainty permeated everything, and across the country many faced a sleepless night. In Washington, the fires at the Pentagon illuminated the night sky, an ominous sign of a nation newly at war.

  Jackie Maguire, special agent, FBI Joint Terrorism Task
Force, New York: That night we started to relocate and put our command center up in an automobile and maintenance garage. It was well organized. It was amazing—they emptied all the cars out and the technical people set up the phone lines. Within the next day or two, we had a full-blown, fully operational command post. We identified the hijackers pretty quickly. Then they made the case squad. They made what was known as the PENTTBOM team. The FBI’s code name for terrorism cases usually end with -bom; b-o-m. The first Trade Center was TRADEBOM, the East Africa Embassy cases were KENBOM for Kenya, and TANBOM for Tanzania, so they formed the PENTTBOM team.

  Keith Custer, firefighter, Shanksville Volunteer Fire Company: Later on that night in Shanksville, we got called back for numerous brush fires. You couldn’t put the fire out because the ground was so saturated with jet fuel. You’d put out as much as you could, and then it would burn underground for a while, and then it would spring up somewhere else.

  Laurence Kesterson, staff photographer, Philadelphia Inquirer: I felt so removed from everything else. They kept talking on the news about something happening in Shanksville or western Pennsylvania. No one was getting the name right the first day. Clearly everybody was focused on New York. In the evening, I stayed at a Holiday Inn in Johnstown. I watched the TV—they were all reporting from New York. We were so fearful as to what was going to happen. I really wanted to get home to my family.

  Peter M. “Mike” Drewecki, photographer, WPXI-TV, Pittsburgh: I think I slept an hour. I turned on CNN, and I remember there was a doctor who was outside the Trade Centers when they went down. CNN was running the videos of people actually jumping out of the windows, and after what I saw, I couldn’t sleep. Who could? It was to the point where you were so agitated, you were so strung out on what you went through that sleep wasn’t an option.

  Bruno Dellinger, principal, Quint Amasis North America, North Tower: When I got home, the first thing I did was take my suit off, and—don’t ask me why, I think it may be unconsciously because I thought there might be some human remains in those ashes—I collected them, put them into a small box. I was never able to ever wear that suit again, or the tie, or the shoes. For some reason I was inspired to collect that dust and keep it, and I still have it in a small box with the only thing that’s left of my office: a set of keys.

  Brian Pearl, resident, Greenpoint, Brooklyn: That night, a bunch of our friends got together at Enid’s, a popular bar in the neighborhood. It felt good to be amongst friends if for no other reason than to remind me that I wasn’t the only person who had no idea what to think, feel, or do.

  Richard Grasso, chairman and CEO, New York Stock Exchange: I was having dinner on the Upper East Side at the only restaurant that was open. What sticks in my mind was on Second Avenue and 75th Street were these enormous dump trucks that were heading south. You knew where they were going. I got back in my truck about 10:30, and I’ll never forget it—the city was so empty.

  Rick Schoenlank, president, United New Jersey Sandy Hook Pilots Benevolent Association: Probably around 11:00 or 12:00, myself and seven or eight other pilots decided to go and see it for ourselves. We got off the boat, and we walked through the dust—like six inches of dust—that was covering everything. There were bulldozers slapping chains on the wrecks of firetrucks, police cars, ambulances, just dragging them down the street. You couldn’t even tell what they were anymore.

  There were searchlights centered on the pile. There were hundreds of people crawling all over it. Looking around on the perimeter of the whole site, it looked like a giant animal had taken a giant claw and taken swipes out of all the buildings. There were chunks of the buildings missing. All the windows were broken. Drapes and papers were flying around in the air. Fire and flame was coming out of some of the windows. It was a scene of total destruction.

  Lt. Michael Day, U.S. Coast Guard: I walked into Ground Zero and I could remember there were body parts everywhere. I remember thinking, This is a war. I looked down and saw a foot in a shoe. I was fixating on it for a few minutes. It was like a siege, looking around and seeing National Guard guys with M-16s going through the streets of Manhattan. All the power was out around the area, and a lot of other buildings were on fire, and there was this eerie gray-like snow everywhere.

  Rick Schoenlank: I was standing there, and I noticed after a while there was a very tall guy standing right next to me and with a full particle mask on. I looked at him once, and I looked at him twice, and I said, “Governor, is that you?” It was Governor Pataki—just happened to be standing right there.

  Chuck Cake, firefighter and EMT, Arlington County Fire Department: Around 1:00 a.m., the fire was still burning on the Pentagon roof—you could see it glowing—it was decided to suspend operations until morning, and then try again.

  Sgt. Anthony Lisi, Emergency Service Unit, Truck 6, NYPD: By the end of the night we were exhausted. It was about two, three o’clock in the morning, and our vehicle that we had driven had been destroyed. NYPD boats picked us up to take us back to Truck 6, which is in Bay Ridge. As we were driving up with the boat, there was cars waiting for us with their lights on, a guy standing by each vehicle. It was amazing. They knew what we went through, and they were waiting for us to take us back to the truck, take us home.

  Jared Kotz, Risk Waters Group: In the middle of the night, or maybe three or four o’clock in the morning, I was awakened by a loud clap of thunder followed by a brief rainstorm. At that moment I realized it wasn’t a dream, that I certainly had lived through an incredible day. First thing, my thoughts turned to my colleagues and I wondered, Did they get out? I didn’t know.

  Sunny Mindel, communications director for the mayor of the City of New York, Rudy Giuliani: I came home at three in the morning, four in the morning, to shower. I got into my apartment and stood at the threshold and thought, What do I do with my clothes? I don’t know what’s on my clothes. I got a plastic bag to put my clothes in.

  I had to go back to work obviously very shortly after—all I wanted to do was shower, lay down for a few minutes. I fell asleep, and as I did I felt like the buildings were in my nose—there was all this cement—and I woke up screaming having a nightmare, hearing the sounds in this dream.

  Tom Brokaw, anchor, NBC News: I got home at 2:00 a.m., sat down, and was staring out the window. I had a big stiff drink of scotch. I was curiously contained and controlled. I was doing this out-of-body examination and asking myself, Why am I not melting down? I had a second drink. I went to sleep. I slept for four hours. I felt rested. Then a phone call came—a very close friend of mine died of congestive heart failure the night before. It released something in me. For half an hour, all the emotion I’d bottled up came out. I sobbed.

  Mike Walter, senior correspondent, USA Today Live: The last interview I did on 9/11 was with a colleague of mine—Lance, the photographer who was shooting for me that day. He said, “Let me turn the camera on you as a friend, talk to you about what we saw.” We did the interview and he said, “Is there anything else you want to say?” My response was, “I’m so thankful this day is over.” Lance started laughing. He’s like, “Mike, this isn’t over, this will never be over for you. There will always be the six-month anniversary, the one-year anniversary, the five-year anniversary, the 10-year anniversary. You’ll be talking about this for the rest of your life.”

  Beverly Eckert, wife of Sean Rooney, VP of risk management, Aon Corporation, South Tower, 98th floor: We met when we were only 16, at a high school dance. When he died, we were 50. I remember how I didn’t want that day to end, terrible as it was. I didn’t want to go to sleep because as long as I was awake, it was still a day that I shared with Sean. He kissed me goodbye before leaving for work. I could still say that was just a little while ago. That was only this morning.

  Epilogue

  WEDNESDAY

  As September 12th began, the entire nation tried to make sense of the previous day’s attacks and the tragic losses. At the Pentagon, the fires from 9/11 had flared up and again threaten
ed the building. All told, thousands of Pentagon workers had been displaced and more than two million square feet of office space—the equivalent of the entire Empire State Building—had been damaged.

  Lt. Col. Ted Anderson, legislative liaison officer, U.S. Army, Pentagon: I slept for a couple of hours, woke up, and thought it was all a bad dream. I popped on the news and, of course, I couldn’t get away from the story. This was about two in the morning and I decided to get up and go to work. I put on my battle dress uniform, my fatigues, and my boots.

  I got in a car and drove, and as soon as I turned onto 395, I could see the orange glow in the distance. I remember very distinctly—at about 3:10 in the morning—parking my car, seeing this building on fire, and people going into work. Ten thousand people showed up to work at the Pentagon that morning. It made me extremely proud.

  Lt. Comm. David Tarantino, physician, U.S. Navy: We all went back to work the next day in a building that was still burning to start planning our nation’s response.

  William Haynes, general counsel, Department of Defense: I remember driving in at 5:00 or 6:00 the next morning, seeing a soldier on a street corner in downtown D.C., and thinking, This is something.

  Mike Walter, senior correspondent, USA Today Live: Washington, D.C., is such a beautiful, magnificent city, and here were all these people with weapons—the National Guard’s out there in their vehicles. It seemed like you were in a banana republic.