2021/106: The Only Plane in the Sky -- Garrett M Graff

I saw glass—lots of glass—in the sky. It was really bright out, and it was reflecting off the glass and the sky. Light shimmering everywhere. [loc. 711]

What I remember most about September 11, 2001, is how incredibly alone I felt. I lived alone; I couldn't get in touch with any of my friends; I didn't have TV, and this was years before Twitter, so I sat at the computer hitting refresh on the BBC website, nauseated by the photos and the reports, aware that the world was changing. As it turned out, it was several years before I saw film of the planes crashing into the towers.

I bought and read this book because I wanted to disentangle the facts, the lived experience, from my own emotional response. The Only Plane in the Sky is entirely composed of first-person accounts from hundreds of people: an astronaut on the ISS; a high-school student whose yearbook photo was taken just after she heard the news; the mayor's communications director ('I was facing what I thought would be an easy day'); a USAF pilot who was preparing to ram the hijacked planes, because she didn't have weapons; an office worker who survived in the rubble for 27 hours; many, many firefighters. I was struck by the immediacy, the subjectivity and the sheer randomness of what people focussed on. There is heroism here, and tremendous tragedy, suffering, death: but there are also surreal moments, vivid images that have stuck in memory: the aeroplane engine come to rest in a jacuzzi, the rhythmic sound of girders snapping as the plane crashed into the tower, the motion-sensor doors whooshing open and closed as debris (and worse) fell.

It was oddly cathartic to read this on the twentieth anniversary of the attacks. Now, of course, everything's there online: news footage, the 9/11 Commission Report, a number of films ... Still, I remember my own misery that night, and wish I had not endured it alone.

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. [loc. 6353]