Yeah I was 9 when this happened and I noticed it seem like months I didn't see any planes in the sky. No contrails and no plans landing at our local airport for months it was just quiet.
@@growingup15my dad worked near Love Field airport in Dallas at the time and he told me how eerie it was in the absence of sound from planes arriving and departing
I was 10 at the time, and remembered how terrified I was when I saw a commercial jet overhead, just 4-5 days after 9/11, and thinking "isn't that too soon?" My scared little kid brain thought it could be another terror attack. And anytime in the successive 10-15 years, seeing a plane fly over a city always gave me anxiety. Fun times growing up a kid in the post-9/11 era.
Thank you for posting this historical video. About a month after 9/11, in October 2001, I flew from Los Angeles to Boston, the reverse route of 2 of the hijacked planes, and the entire cross country flight was still eerily quiet and mostly empty. 😢 I hadn’t realized the FAA had reopened America’s skies to commercial flights only 5 days after September 11th.
Yes I know there were 4 planes hijacked on 9/11, I was saying 2 of the planes that day were Boston- Los Angeles and the other 2 were bound for the West Coast from Dulles outside DC and Newark- San Francisco (Flight 93)
I didn't know they were resumed that fast either heck I was really young I'm now only starting to understand the gravity of it all. At that point when they opened back up I guess they figured the initial threat was over and began implementing some of the security strategies we see today
I didn't see a lot of comments mentioning this but that is super brave of the flight attendants and pilots to still be going in to work and making sure people can still get where they need to go even though im sure they were on edge.
I agree with the original comment! The passengers were brave too. I was scheduled to fly San Jose to Phoenix on the afternoon of the 11th. Needless to say we did not. Back then 5 days was a long time not to see a plane in the air. Back then there was a sense of defiance: We are not going to back down to terrorists! In today's weenie environment it probably would have taken 6 months to get the planes back up, although I will admit I was in no hurry to fly again.
@@jankrygier1607 God you boomers can't find enough opportunities to put the younger generation down, can you? "Today's weenie environment," like we're not already tougher than you on priciple of the fact we work more.
It feels weird seeing this. From the outside, you see blinding city lights, everyday life, routine airport movement, etc. And then you see smoke in the distance, and knowing firefighters are working 24/7 to clear the rubble and rescue people.
Only 20 people were pulled alive from the pile after the collapse. The last survivor came out after 27 hours. Must have been so hard for the people working down to keep motivated after they were finding body after body and no survivors. 😞😞
@@rych7852and they didn’t even find that many bodies - people were literally pulverized in the collapse and fire. Something like the remains of 40% of the victims have never been identified, and often when they did ID someone it was DNA testing of very small remains.
@@SashazurI remember reading an article able rescue workers letting themselves be found by the search dogs to keep them happy and able to work. My eyes are stinging just thinking about it.
Clearing rubble, yes. Rescuing people, no. As has been stated here already there were very, very few people rescued after the collapse...and those were within the first few hours. By the time this video was taken they were WAY past recovery ops.
September 12 was always the creepiest day for me. We lived very close to a nuclear plant and 2 large cities. Every morning waiting for the school bus I'd see all the jets going to and from Chicago etc. That morning I just saw two F-15s that were flying racetrack patterns over the nuclear plant and cities. That was the first time I saw a military plane outside of an airshow and it was definitely a strange feeling.
i live in a similar area, south of detroit has a nuke plant and between toledo/detroit is a small city that also had the third largest coal plant in the country and 2 other smaller coal plants, it must've been buzzing especially being directly south of detroit metro airport
I live in the dc region and am a military kid. It was only weird when there weren’t jets or helos for me. Made me happy knowing that for once they were armed. They should always be armed.
This reminds me of our September 15th 2001 trip to Disneyland. We were one group of only a handful of people that were willing to attend so close after the attacks. I have a plethora of eerie snapshots in my mind. Walking down an empty Mainstreet, meeting every character that we came across with no wait, walking right through an empty zig-zag line divider for It’s a Small World, riding Space Mountain again and again and again, buying ears from a deserted gift shop. We were treated like visiting royalty by cast members, and as a child I missed the undertones that my mother has shared with me more recently. She says that there was an air of understanding, of shared anxiety and a small measure of guilt. Cast members probably had very mixed feeling about working at the time, but they still came through to give us children the experience of a lifetime. My heart goes out to all employees of places that were assumed to be potential targets for further attack in the days after 9/11. It also makes my heart go out to those that still have to show up to work in war zones and countries with heightened terrorist activity. Even having to work in malls and theaters during this time of constant mass shootings gives this same feeling of not wanting to think about it, but thinking about it constantly anyway in unconscious ways. Looking for exits, ready to jump at noises, watching people closely. Some are more sensitive than others, but in situations such as in this video, I’m sure it must be almost overwhelming for all involved.
@andsorrowsend I grew up in Orlando and we went to the parks during the same exact time bc we had annual passes. I dont remember it being THAT empty but it was the least crowded I ever saw it. We might have seen eachother, so weird.
@@seanslawns I’m sure Disney World was similar, but we actually were at Disney Land in Anaheim CA. If I had to guess why attendance could have been different between the two parks, I’d say Orlando probably gets more international visitors and it’s a more popular park in general
Side note, its rather interesting to see that 22 years later the little script American Airlines flight attendants give just after takeoff has remained almost exactly the same.
This could very likely be the earliest "home video" aerial footage of the NYC skyline after 9/11. Anything filmed from the air before this would have been for the news or government operations.
'Government Operations' about right. Operation Northwoods, Operation Suzanna, Chile Coup on 9/11. Tall buildings blown up Moscow - September 1999, exactly 2 years earlier (by the secret services). John Lennon and the 2 gunmen, shot in the front inside the building - before Reagan/Bush sworn in; Reagan shot 3 months later.
I was almost 11 years old but I'd done a lot of travel with my folks as a kid, and the difference before and after 9/11 was insane. The massive homeland security and TSA changes they made changed air travel in ways people who never experienced it before 9/11 can't comprehend. Flying was a relatively relaxing experience. You could walk right up to the gate. The pilots would let kids come into the cockpit (there's a photo of me in there about a year or two before 9/11 with the pilots posing for a picture). It was just a different era. The optimism of the late-90s and new millennium changed overnight as well. Even as a kid I felt it. Everyone was so excited for a new century. The internet was taking off. Hell I even felt it in video games (the jump to 3D had pretty much just gone mainstream). There was a very real feeling that after the Cold War we were entering a new era of peace and prosperity on the wings of innovations in technology and communications. And then 9/11 happened, and we entered an era of paranoia, where kids like me spent most of their lives (nearly 2/3!!!) with the white noise of war in the middle east blaring in the background. I knew a guy who saw the premier of Band of Brothers on HBO, saw the towers fall a week later, and enlisted in the US Army to be a paratrooper. Dude was deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq twice. It was just a different time but it also informed the world we live in now, where people just seem more paranoid, more angry, more distrustful, and generally more divided.
I traveled with my family a lot as well, and I also remember being able to visit the cockpit. I got my set of plastic wings to pin on my shirt the first time I got to go in the cockpit. After 9/11 everything was different. Even if you were too young to comprehend all the politics at play, you knew the world wasn't the same one you had woken up in the day before.
Thank you for posting this. I’m somewhat obsessed with 9/11 (not the conspiratorial nonsense) and the time period surrounding it because it really did shift most Americans’ attitudes. All that late 90s optimism evaporated in a single day.
I've talked to my friends about the 90's optimism and how it evaporated that day, we agree. It is real. The 90's were a wonderful , and in retrospect, naive time to be an American.
What are you talking about? Happy slumber in Britain. You had Mi6 and the CIA carrying out the "troubles " in Northern Ireland just a few years prior. I suppose the 1998 treaty was handy as they wanted the British troops over in Afghanistan by 2001/2. That's just a coincidence though or is it..
@@jessicahitchens6926ah yes, that happy timing coincidence of, errr, a three and a half year gap (for something we could not have joined but would have happened anyway).
😂😂😂😂 no it didn't. We got even more patriotic and went to war. I remember seeing American flags lined up and down our block in the months that followed. Obama was the star of the decline. Prior to '08, we were angry and supported each other, especially those of us in the FD/EMS communities.
I was employed in the airline industry. In fact, I brought in the very first flight after 9/11. We anticipated a full flight with a ton of bags. Instead, when we opened the bin doors, there were 3 bags and nothing else. I knew I was about to get a layoff notice. A week later, I got my layoff notice. Such a terrible time for me. But! I never complained, because I knew thousands of families lost someone on 9/11. Fast forward 22 years later, and I am back in the airlines. Another thing I remember was how quiet the airport was for 3 or so days. Not a single engine running. 😢
Incredibly incredibly beautiful looking footage. Stunning really. The lighting, the mood, the silhouette of the buildings, the smoke, it's just all a very strangely beautiful and surreal scene.
@@tremontaramahow do you remember feeling during that time? I was only 9 but I remember the country being shook: Shocked and deeply sad, but angry too and ready for a fight.
Yes the two scams are eerily similar. And look how free everyone was before Sept 2001 and look at it now... Yeah fun times erasing our rights and spying on everyone. I feel so much safer...🤡
Quite similar indeed, just the only thing different was everyone's Peace of Mind was shattered and broken. It's like the world stopped turning and it feels like it still hasn't begun...
I had to fly September 2020. I don't think it was quite as empty as this airport, but it was pretty noticable. When i did the same flight about a year or two later i was upset at how busy the airport was again.
I remember the weeks immediately after Covid shut everything down, Chicago highways were so empty you could get from the suburbs into the city in under 10 minutes. There were almost no cars out there anywhere. Those were some crazy times indeed.
I was 23 years old when 9/11/2001 happened, and lived near Philadelphia. It was remarkable how quiet things were outside because so many flights were cancelled in the days following the attacks. I hadn’t realized how accustomed I’d become to constant ambient sound from commercial planes.
I grew up in Reading, PA and Delaware County. Western Mass for college. Last 10 years in the San Francisco Bay Area, then moved to Cincinnati Ohio a few months ago for graduate school.@@jhendy9167
Also in the days after the attacks, in NYC the skies were insanely clear since there were no contrails or cirrus clouds formed by them in the sky at all.
I was born about a year after 9/11, so this is a very unique perspective on something I didn't have to live through. The closest comparison to shutting down air travel I have now is the lockdowns. Glad it'll be immortalized on the internet for future generations to see the impacts of this disaster.
From someone who was alive, but pretty young for 9/11, it was so surreal. Looking back now, it's insane how much 9/11 and the ensuing events shaped our childhoods and the world... I remember waking up that morning to my mother crying in front of the TV. A lot of the rest of my childhood was spent watching her watch the coverage of the war in the Middle East, worldwide terrorism, and Islamophobia in just absolute horror.
@@iiiSK8orDI3iii There's a very small window of years that someone could have been born, probably 1989-1997, to be able to remember 9/11, but not yet be old enough to "understand" it. I'm in that group, and it hurts as an adult to look back and realize it was the defining moment of my childhood. From that day on I was no longer an innocent child in a peaceful world. We were mentally conscripted into war - our culture was saturated with the rhetoric of the war on terror and dogmatic support for our interference in the middle east. 9/11 was as much a part of the social condition as Pokemon or Spongebob.
Everyone says this, but you really do know where you were when it happened. I was in English class, and I remember getting a landline phone call as soon as I got home to tell me to turn on the TV news.
@@apollofell3925I agree. I was born in 1989. I remember This like yesterday. Heading to school and my father was shocked because it was all coming through the radio stations. I remember being confused asking what the World Trade Center was. Then within an hour of being at school getting picked up and seeing it all play out on the news. I never knew how much impact this was being only 12-13 years old
I remember the next trip my parents and I took after 9/11 to visit relatives in Florida, we opted to take the train instead. This is some really fascinating footage. Toward the end you can almost see the house I grew up in on the west side of the Hudson. I was probably in that video frame somewhere, playing video games on a tiny, tiny screen amongst all those lights.
My grandmother was a flight attendant for United. She dropped me off at school that morning prepared to go to work. She was even in her uniform to catch her commuter flight from Memphis to Chicago. They had the news playing on the tv at school and I remember how it felt. I cant remember when she returned to work, but she had to retire or she would have lost her pension due to United filing for bankruptcy. She had flown with them for 40 years. Also fun fact. She still has her old key to the cockpit. My kids play pretend pilot with it. She forgot to give it back. She flew purser. She’s 80 now and misses flying so much. It was an extremely fulfilling job for her.
@travismaguire1349 "The terrorists shot their wad on 911" was the main voice in my head on the two flights I took right after the attack. The other thought was "if anyone f-s around I will go after them."
Thanks for posting. I flew over the site coming into NY around mid-October of 2001 and it was STILL smoldering. Hard to believe. As I remember it, our flight was nearly empty as well. On that trip, my brother and I walked down Church Street, all the way to Liberty before a cop stopped us. I remember passing the old cemetery at St. Paul's Chapel and seeing a several inches of ash covering the yard.
I went to school right around the corner from the World Trade Center. It was burning for months. I'm not sure why we were allowed back in the area so soon. It smelled terrible, and there was debris that looked like snow all over.
It was. It was unbelievable. I never thought that could happen in the United States. But that’s how I thought on September 10, 2001. Since then I realize that it could happen. But all those years before September 11 I lived in a naïve world.
Thanks for posting. I remember days after 9/11 I saw many NJ/NY license plates in California. I just assumed they all drove over for business. Definitely a surreal time.
Wow! I'm sure many people moved away from the tri state area being traumatized by everything that had just happened. Nothing like a nice road trip to ease the mind.
I traveled to New York September 10th as I went to a boarding school in the upstate area. These attacks happened maybe three hours from where I was. I remember the headmaster somberly explaining to the entire school what had occurred during breakfast. I remember how the airport experience changed so quickly. I remember being able to say goodbye to my parents at the gate. When I flew home for the holidays, there were armed soldiers in the terminal. I knew that nothing would ever be the same again. Thank you for sharing this!
I was in college in Upstate NY during the attacks. Coming home to NYC was surreal. Armed soldiers in every subway station. My sister still in high school saw fighter jets flying overhead on her way home with my dad). The world indeed has never been the same
It just hurts to watch this. I remember getting on a short flight a year or two after 9/11 as a young kid to visit family down in NYC. There was a guy in a turban directly across from me. I was terrified. He ended up noticing me and smiling, then giving me a piece of candy he brought from India. It was a Sikh, but man the second he smiled I felt safe again. God bless our diverse nation, and God bless everyone who lives here. I hope the devil makes them pay for the fear they instilled in all of us.
@@laurenanderson7330you’re correct that “hijab” is the word for the head covering that many Muslim women wear, but OP is referring to a man wearing a turban, who was Sikh as opposed to Muslim. But there’s lack of understanding of other cultures among some Americans, so someone might have simply seen “brown man in a religious headdress” and assumed that this meant he was Muslim. I’ve heard of a lot of Sikh men in particular being targets of anti-Muslim bigotry in the US because of this sort of assumption.
Pretty cool. Historic footage. Not many people were traveling to and from nyc at the time unless they had too. That is a big part of why airport was so empty too.
You have a piece of very historic video here. Thanks so much for sharing. As you were leaving New York, the skyline just didn't look "right", did it? Something immeasurably tragic had happened that changed America forever, and you got a birds eye view of there it all started. Be well, and many happy(ier) flights to come!
No, it did not look right. And it was very upsetting. Very much wanted to take up arms and protect my homeland. But was very aware that it was asymmetric warfare, and it needed to be done right. Yes, and it did change America and the world. IMO. Hopefully not forever.
@@tremontaramaThank you for posting this video with full historical meaning. The empty airport really reminds me of the empty terminal during lockdown caused by COVID-19, another tragedy that change the world forever like 9/11.
I flew into LaGuardia on my first trip to NYC in 2016, and I realized how surreal it is to be coming up on all those tall buildings. It was eery thinking about how easy of a target those buildings were just sticking out on the island. I definitely took a moment to let that set in and kinda give the victims a moment of silence as we were descending.
I was lucky enough to visit the Twin Towers when I was 5, about a month before 9/11. My memories of it are broken, but it is something I’ll remember forever. Thank you for sharing this piece of history
I flew on a flight from ATL to BUF on 09/21/01 and it was fairly full. The Atlanta airport was very busy and full of military and law enforcement, and it seemed like everyone was getting patted down. When I was going to my seat, the sight of me (then a 24 year old male of Indian descent) clearly distressed an older couple. They looked like they both were about to cry and were clearly considering whether to get off. The crew were visibly sad but polite and did their jobs. Otherwise things were pretty much the same although people were extra quiet and talking in hushed voices.
A few months ago, my family flew out to Maine on vacation for a week. When we were coming back home we’d be landing in Newark later in the evening. Before touching down, our pilot did a pass around the airport and one of the flight attendants pointed out over the intercom the two beacons shining from the memorial in Manhattan. They shined brighter than the buildings next to them, it was quite the sight
Thanks for posting this, it seems like yesterday. I was 17 at the time and we'd been on holiday in Florida and had been due to fly home on the 13th of September from Orlando. That obviously didn't happen and we stayed until the 16th. As we were travelling home to Scotland with a UK airline we were put up in a hotel for the extra 3 nights (and I remember central Florida was lashed by a tropical storm in those immediate days after 9/11). On the evening of the 15th, we got the call to go to the airport the next day as airspace had been reopened to "foreign" aircraft. The airline told us we would be going to the airport very early in the morning of the 16th. The airlines were flying in empty planes from the UK to take passengers home. We were told we'd get a seat on a flight to somewhere but it probably wouldn't be our intended destination. (We ended up flying into Manchester, which was definitely not our intended destination). We were at the airport in Orlando for something like 06.30 and joined the most enormous queue I'd seen until then. People, luggage and bags everywhere. We were at the airport for 11 hours. Checking in, going through security multiple times. There was no hand luggage at all allowed. Everything had to be checked in apart from "eyeglasses, wallets/purses and medication" Not even keys were allowed. On the flight home, we passed nearby New York in the early evening, I remember the pilot telling us this. There was nothing really to see at 38,000ft but it was a clear evening. It was a flight experience I won't forget in a hurry. Whilst the flight was completely full, no-one wanted to be there in that moment and everyone just wanted to get home as quickly as possible. No one complained, everyone was grateful and we just did what we were told to do.
I remember landing in Melbourne from athens a few hours prior to 9/11 and going from holiday mode and the feeling of the relaxed and easy going vibe the world had prior to that day, to being glued to the TV watching chaos unfold. Also was creepy because I was in the air only a few hours prior and what if it was my plane noone felt safe flying after that day.
That’s so sad how tons of people died in this terrible tragedy and this is just crazy. What an unbelievable piece of history. Thanks for sharing this. ❤
@@doszl no we dont accept you as a european. the idea of europe, even up to its naming, has always been friendliness and welcomeness. i hope one day you need to migrate under pressure of war and experience what millions of others endure
Apparently my family went on a weekend trip to Disney World and stayed at the Polynesian because the hotel was SUPER discounted after 9/11. I was only 3 so I don’t really remember it, but I always found it funny how opportunistic my parents were about this lol
Holy moly. I’ve always wondered what the airports looked like when they first opened back up after 9/11. I didn’t go on my first flight until 2003 when I was almost 10. And it was pretty packed but the TSA blew my mind with how invasive they were and they blew my parents’ minds too because they had flown way before 9/11, so it was new to them. It’s still uncomfortable but we know what to expect now so it’s not so bad, but I know I wouldn’t want to fly right after 9/11 if I were a cognitive adult and not a child like I was… And my parents didn’t even wanna fly by 2003. My dad was terrified to fly and he was also terrified to stay in a high rise hotel but we did it anyway.
I grew up in northern NJ, like 15 miles from NYC. You could see those lingering long black clouds for days, maybe a week after the attacks. It was horrific. The smell of burning and the ash in the air. I'll remember it always.
I was young when 9/11 happened. Id flown from Vegas to Newark in August 2001, just a few weeks before it happened, and i distincity remember seeing the Twin Towers as we walked back to our car at the airport, the last time i would ever see them. After 9/11, i didnt have the courage to fly again for many years. It wasnt until 2019 that i flew again, 18 years later. I fly several times a year now, but its crazy to think how much this moment changed the world from the large scale to the small scale. I probably missed out on a lot for being afraid to fly for so long.
My parents grew up in East Elmhurst, where LaGuardia Airport is. When I was little I'd go to visit my grandparents, and then we moved in with my paternal grandma when I was 11- that house is still "home base" today, although I spend most of my time in Philadelphia going to school. The sound of planes taking off and landing is constant, and it's so eerie to think about it just... stopping. I was a one-year-old baby in a small town 40 miles north of Manhattan. I've grown up in the shadow of 9/11, always fascinated by it to an unusual degree... searching for some sort of closure that I know I can never get. Thank you for sharing this.
Yes, I grew up and still live between the two airports. And after resumption of flights, I remember noticing the sound of planes and looking up for the first time in my life. Everyone else I knew said the same thing at that time
So eerie. I was only 6 when the towers were hit, and living in Hawaii, but I still think about this event almost every day. My father was military so we had to travel frequently, and after 9/11 we felt such a dramatic shift with everything. The 1990s was such a beautiful time and I don’t think the people of that time quite understand the dreary world kids are growing up in these days, or maybe they do.
This absolutely breaks my heart in the most surreal way. Thank you for posting this and god bless you, the rescue effort and all those people who died on September 11th, 2001.
This footage is so amazing, watching it leaves a sad and somber feeling seeing how empty everything is, I wasnt alive when 9/11 happened, and I always wish I was so that I could actually feel how important this event really was, I just simply do not have the full in depth understanding like older people do
March 2020. It’s not quite the same thing but the sense of a before and after is almost the same. The thing is you KNEW the second the plane hit the WTC that the world as you knew it was over
Thank you for posting this. I was born a few hours before the first plane hit the towers and as a kid I never quite understood the gravity of the reaction I’d get when I told adults when my birthday was. Now that I’m an adult, I like to learn as much as I can about it and I’d like to eventually visit the museum and memorial site. A nurse rolled a TV into the hospital room for my parents while I was being cleaned up and when they saw what was happening, they thought WW3 was about to go down. It’s interesting to read about how many changes it spawned in our society, not just in security.
How eerie that must have been. I was only a freshman in high school & remember my mom waking me up around 6am to watch the TV that morning. Which is very out of character for her, but that whole day in classes, our teachers let us watch the news. We were witnessing a historic tragedy that would change the world forever. I don’t think my 14 year old self would’ve been on a plane 5 days after this. I’m glad you uploaded this. Thanks 🙏🏻 🤍
Exactly the same here. I was 14 and my mom woke me up to watch the news. I went in late to school and every class was dark and watching tv and my friend Amanda was walking down the hallway crying.
I think the Filmer's for even thinking of capturing this I think they may have known they were capturing history. A once in a lifetime scene. And my thoughts were that the rubble and debris are still amass in the heart of NYC. Also for the damn near crystal clear images recorded on this camera and the beautiful climb out. My most prominent thought is that I am now a flight attendant again (thank God). And the PA of the Purser on this flight sounded so professional and obviously they can't show emotion to what just happened FIVE days ago. The same people in her line of work were making the same PA after takeoff before getting hijacked. Surreal. But it's just amazing how aviation was functioning after the most significant aviation safety related event in the worlds history. 1 PAX on an aircraft. A dead airport. And an incomprehensible takeover and suicide smash of a multiple commercial airline flight just DAYS before. On a lighter note God bless y'all and Merry Christmas. Be safe and thank you for this video
My grandmother used to live north of one of the busiest runways of DTW (Detroit Metro) which was the primary runway for the widebody’s including the majestic 747 at the time. The noise was often loud enough that conversations had to be paused or repeated whenever a big bird flew by. I tell you the eeriest time at her house was the time between when the last flight landing and the national airspace reopening after 9/11. It was so quiet you could hear a pin drop. The only other time that could have compared were the weeks that followed when Covid-19 started to take hold.
I was 11 at this time. My family had a planned trip to NYC in November 2001 that we decided to still take. I don't remember the flights, but I do remember the city. A kind of forced back to normal, if you will. I live in NYC now and have for almost 15 years, and find videos like this fascinating. I wish we could have seen more around the airport and the empty plane. Thanks for sharing!
I remember flying in the summer of 2001, and the winter of 2001. LAX . Man… the change in airport security was insane. Winter School vacation was different that year! A lot of people forget that prior to 9/11 you could have non flying family members go to the gate with you. After 9/11, you no longer could…
Right? I am 39 now so I was 17- a senior in hs-at the time of the attack. And growing up in Hawaii (from ages 5-12), we flew A TON; going back to the mainland to visit family in Chicago a couple times a year. And of course close friends and relatives living on the mainland were constantly flying in for a visit and we’d always met them at the airport/went with them for departure (not to mention my parents always dragging us to the airport every year when the ProBowl players were arriving 🙄)- ALWAYS going to the actual gate to welcome/send off our guests. And same for when we would travel- everyone would come to the gate when we’d arrive. My point being that despite my extensive airport experience prior to 9/11, it’s still MIND-BLOWING to me that TSA was entirely NONEXISTENT until this happened. And, during the pre-TSA days, just how ridiculously vulnerable we all were during air travel for all those years. Like, if i just think about traveling via air/airports, it feels like TSA has always been an existing entity. Nope!
Bravo to the pilots and flight attendants being brave enough to continue flying and serving passengers in the precarious days immediately following 9/11. How sad though to see that awful residual smoke hovering over lower Manhattan. Knowing what it's composed of just brings tears to my eyes.
This is what TH-cam is for. I was born in 96, so was only 5 when this happened. I can only remember coming from from P1, or first grade I suppose , and we all sat round a tv. I went away to play my Sega Mega Drive (Genesis) , no idea or appreciation for what was happening. It’s such a scary thing to imagine, and well done for boarding, I’m not sure I’d be brave enough. That shot of the skyline with the smoke from ground zero is so shocking. This is certainly interesting footage. Thanks for sharing. Love from Scotland.
This was literally 5 days after I didn't know people were flying immediately afterwards but that all makes sense as how else would many get back home or to their destinations. Every flight in the American airspace was grounded that fateful day. Your anxiety must've been high but I totally understand needing to get to where you're going. I'm also wondering how quick of a turnaround they had in terms of implementing new security strategies for flying.
Whom are these people you talk about? You do know America goes around bullying the rest of the world it isn't the other way round sunshine. And I thought the Eastern Seaboard had the most secure airspace in the world before 2001.
@thejacka24 yes! I was 17 at the time (an American) and I actually remember thinking along these lines as well. As this same sentiment was being tossed around in all sorts of places and circles. This event ushered in the thee most intense and rigidly overboard time period there had ever been (and ever was) in regards to commercial air travel.
Thank you for posting this! For young people like myself who grew up in a world changed by 9/11 but have no memory of the actual events, this sort of video really puts it all into context.
You know watching movies, tv shows, family videos that were filmed before 9/11 have a different feel to them. Everything after 9/11 feels more modern, like its the new world. The one i grew up in. (Born in 1999)
I never realized how little airports changed over 20 years. I mean, of course TSA security is WAY more thorough (as it should be) but the physical construction and design appearance of the airport looks exactly the same as it does today, which is mildly surprising, considering the technological difference.
That had to take a lot of bravery… I was 9 years old when 9/11 happened and I remember my parents telling me that flying will never be safe again. It took 20 years for me to get on a plane and to get over my fear of flying.
I’m 29 and was at Christmas dinner explaining to my under 21 year old cousins about how life was like right after attacks from the perspective of an 8 year old. I guess my phone heard me and recommend this video
I was only 10 or so when this happened and didn’t realize how tragic this actually was absolutely mind blown seeing a NYC airport empty actually surprised they flew any planes at all
I flew Houston to Atlanta on the evening of September 9, 2001 as a 10 year old kid. 36 hours later and the rest is history. I haven’t flown since then. Horrible phobia for me now.
@@JohnBrad-zg3qsYeah but Also Stop the BS That’s Already STILL going on at the Very Site Today with All the Damned Disgracing of the original complex ! And F)&($ People Treating it like it’s There own Backyard
This is creepy. Brings back horrible memories of a time I’d wish to forget if not for the way our country came together against one common enemy. I can’t remember the last time our country was that united…..and can’t imagine ever being that unified again.
I remember flying outta Chicago to Mexico in December and we were told to arrive 5 hours prior to take off. EVERYONE and EVERYTHING got body checked and scanned! It feels like it was yesterday. I will never forget.
My mom flew on a flight a couple weeks after 9/11 and I remember her saying there were about 10 people and they all got to lay down in entire rows or sit wherever they wanted and were served all the first class food
I flew back to NY this same day from London where we waited to return to the US after being in Istanbul on 9/11. Our flight from Istanbul to London on the 13th on British Air had massive male flight attendants. Pretty sure they were on loan from the military.
It almost feels illegal to see an airport THAT empty especially in a big city. Never actually thought about how airports would’ve been like right after 9/11. Great video. Thanks to whoever recorded it and gave us a glimps of how life was in those moments.
What an unbelievable piece of historic footage. In my head an an 8 year old at the time it felt like planes were out of the sky longer than 5 days.
An empty airport 2 decades ago looks like the airport during the peak of COVID-19 lockdown….
yeah most air traffic was gone for 2 weeks. Pretty crazy for the U.S.
Yeah I was 9 when this happened and I noticed it seem like months I didn't see any planes in the sky. No contrails and no plans landing at our local airport for months it was just quiet.
@@growingup15my dad worked near Love Field airport in Dallas at the time and he told me how eerie it was in the absence of sound from planes arriving and departing
I was 10 at the time, and remembered how terrified I was when I saw a commercial jet overhead, just 4-5 days after 9/11, and thinking "isn't that too soon?" My scared little kid brain thought it could be another terror attack. And anytime in the successive 10-15 years, seeing a plane fly over a city always gave me anxiety. Fun times growing up a kid in the post-9/11 era.
Thank you for posting this historical video. About a month after 9/11, in October 2001, I flew from Los Angeles to Boston, the reverse route of 2 of the hijacked planes, and the entire cross country flight was still eerily quiet and mostly empty. 😢 I hadn’t realized the FAA had reopened America’s skies to commercial flights only 5 days after September 11th.
There was four hijacked planes flight 93 flight 11 flight 77 flight 175
Yes I know there were 4 planes hijacked on 9/11, I was saying 2 of the planes that day were Boston- Los Angeles and the other 2 were bound for the West Coast from Dulles outside DC and Newark- San Francisco (Flight 93)
The flights had resumed as early as the 13th
I didn't know they were resumed that fast either heck I was really young I'm now only starting to understand the gravity of it all. At that point when they opened back up I guess they figured the initial threat was over and began implementing some of the security strategies we see today
Flights resumed the 13th, but mostly flights continuing to their destination that were diverted on 9/11
I didn't see a lot of comments mentioning this but that is super brave of the flight attendants and pilots to still be going in to work and making sure people can still get where they need to go even though im sure they were on edge.
The rent don't pay itself.
Buddy money doesn’t make itself
Can't pay your family's bills when you're dead either
I agree with the original comment! The passengers were brave too. I was scheduled to fly San Jose to Phoenix on the afternoon of the 11th. Needless to say we did not. Back then 5 days was a long time not to see a plane in the air. Back then there was a sense of defiance: We are not going to back down to terrorists! In today's weenie environment it probably would have taken 6 months to get the planes back up, although I will admit I was in no hurry to fly again.
@@jankrygier1607 God you boomers can't find enough opportunities to put the younger generation down, can you? "Today's weenie environment," like we're not already tougher than you on priciple of the fact we work more.
It feels weird seeing this. From the outside, you see blinding city lights, everyday life, routine airport movement, etc. And then you see smoke in the distance, and knowing firefighters are working 24/7 to clear the rubble and rescue people.
Only 20 people were pulled alive from the pile after the collapse. The last survivor came out after 27 hours. Must have been so hard for the people working down to keep motivated after they were finding body after body and no survivors. 😞😞
@@rych7852and they didn’t even find that many bodies - people were literally pulverized in the collapse and fire. Something like the remains of 40% of the victims have never been identified, and often when they did ID someone it was DNA testing of very small remains.
@@SashazurI remember reading an article able rescue workers letting themselves be found by the search dogs to keep them happy and able to work. My eyes are stinging just thinking about it.
Rescue was well overwith by this point. It was recovery operations.
Clearing rubble, yes. Rescuing people, no. As has been stated here already there were very, very few people rescued after the collapse...and those were within the first few hours. By the time this video was taken they were WAY past recovery ops.
September 12 was always the creepiest day for me. We lived very close to a nuclear plant and 2 large cities. Every morning waiting for the school bus I'd see all the jets going to and from Chicago etc. That morning I just saw two F-15s that were flying racetrack patterns over the nuclear plant and cities. That was the first time I saw a military plane outside of an airshow and it was definitely a strange feeling.
Understandable, you just know those two F15s were loaded for bear, unlike when you see them at an airshow
i live in a similar area, south of detroit has a nuke plant and between toledo/detroit is a small city that also had the third largest coal plant in the country and 2 other smaller coal plants, it must've been buzzing especially being directly south of detroit metro airport
My birthday is on the 12th and I lived 50 miles away from NYC at the time. It was definitely the strangest birthday of my life.
I live in the dc region and am a military kid. It was only weird when there weren’t jets or helos for me. Made me happy knowing that for once they were armed. They should always be armed.
I grew up next to a major air force base. Fighter jets and other military planes fly overhead all the time, lol
This reminds me of our September 15th 2001 trip to Disneyland. We were one group of only a handful of people that were willing to attend so close after the attacks. I have a plethora of eerie snapshots in my mind. Walking down an empty Mainstreet, meeting every character that we came across with no wait, walking right through an empty zig-zag line divider for It’s a Small World, riding Space Mountain again and again and again, buying ears from a deserted gift shop. We were treated like visiting royalty by cast members, and as a child I missed the undertones that my mother has shared with me more recently. She says that there was an air of understanding, of shared anxiety and a small measure of guilt. Cast members probably had very mixed feeling about working at the time, but they still came through to give us children the experience of a lifetime. My heart goes out to all employees of places that were assumed to be potential targets for further attack in the days after 9/11. It also makes my heart go out to those that still have to show up to work in war zones and countries with heightened terrorist activity. Even having to work in malls and theaters during this time of constant mass shootings gives this same feeling of not wanting to think about it, but thinking about it constantly anyway in unconscious ways. Looking for exits, ready to jump at noises, watching people closely. Some are more sensitive than others, but in situations such as in this video, I’m sure it must be almost overwhelming for all involved.
@andsorrowsend I grew up in Orlando and we went to the parks during the same exact time bc we had annual passes. I dont remember it being THAT empty but it was the least crowded I ever saw it. We might have seen eachother, so weird.
@@seanslawns I’m sure Disney World was similar, but we actually were at Disney Land in Anaheim CA. If I had to guess why attendance could have been different between the two parks, I’d say Orlando probably gets more international visitors and it’s a more popular park in general
@@AndSorrowsEndoh yeah I’ve never been to LAND, I heard it’s smaller but has better rides
I wonder if any of those employees saw your comment. Wonder what they’re thinking…
@@AndSorrowsEndalso Floridians tend to care less about social causes than Californians.
Side note, its rather interesting to see that 22 years later the little script American Airlines flight attendants give just after takeoff has remained almost exactly the same.
i want to read the award winning magazine
Yeah, the only changes are with the times/whatever new feature they have added that they are advertising.
@@adog3129 you can find a cop in the Stargazer Lounge
This could very likely be the earliest "home video" aerial footage of the NYC skyline after 9/11. Anything filmed from the air before this would have been for the news or government operations.
'Government Operations' about right. Operation Northwoods, Operation Suzanna, Chile Coup on 9/11. Tall buildings blown up Moscow - September 1999, exactly 2 years earlier (by the secret services). John Lennon and the 2 gunmen, shot in the front inside the building - before Reagan/Bush sworn in; Reagan shot 3 months later.
I was almost 11 years old but I'd done a lot of travel with my folks as a kid, and the difference before and after 9/11 was insane. The massive homeland security and TSA changes they made changed air travel in ways people who never experienced it before 9/11 can't comprehend. Flying was a relatively relaxing experience. You could walk right up to the gate. The pilots would let kids come into the cockpit (there's a photo of me in there about a year or two before 9/11 with the pilots posing for a picture). It was just a different era.
The optimism of the late-90s and new millennium changed overnight as well. Even as a kid I felt it. Everyone was so excited for a new century. The internet was taking off. Hell I even felt it in video games (the jump to 3D had pretty much just gone mainstream). There was a very real feeling that after the Cold War we were entering a new era of peace and prosperity on the wings of innovations in technology and communications. And then 9/11 happened, and we entered an era of paranoia, where kids like me spent most of their lives (nearly 2/3!!!) with the white noise of war in the middle east blaring in the background. I knew a guy who saw the premier of Band of Brothers on HBO, saw the towers fall a week later, and enlisted in the US Army to be a paratrooper. Dude was deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq twice. It was just a different time but it also informed the world we live in now, where people just seem more paranoid, more angry, more distrustful, and generally more divided.
I traveled with my family a lot as well, and I also remember being able to visit the cockpit. I got my set of plastic wings to pin on my shirt the first time I got to go in the cockpit. After 9/11 everything was different. Even if you were too young to comprehend all the politics at play, you knew the world wasn't the same one you had woken up in the day before.
Government can’t let a good crisis go to waste..
It's exactly what the tyrants in power wanted, just like they did with COVID19 and like they will with the 2030 agenda it's all planned brother
@NotYourAverageTwenty What?
@NotYourAverageTwenty Yeah, I know how to read the date. Why are you telling people to stop talking about it?
Thank you for posting this. I’m somewhat obsessed with 9/11 (not the conspiratorial nonsense) and the time period surrounding it because it really did shift most Americans’ attitudes. All that late 90s optimism evaporated in a single day.
I've talked to my friends about the 90's optimism and how it evaporated that day, we agree. It is real. The 90's were a wonderful , and in retrospect, naive time to be an American.
What are you talking about? Happy slumber in Britain. You had Mi6 and the CIA carrying out the "troubles " in Northern Ireland just a few years prior. I suppose the 1998 treaty was handy as they wanted the British troops over in Afghanistan by 2001/2. That's just a coincidence though or is it..
@@jessicahitchens6926ah yes, that happy timing coincidence of, errr, a three and a half year gap (for something we could not have joined but would have happened anyway).
😂😂😂😂 no it didn't. We got even more patriotic and went to war. I remember seeing American flags lined up and down our block in the months that followed. Obama was the star of the decline. Prior to '08, we were angry and supported each other, especially those of us in the FD/EMS communities.
@@throttleblipsntwistedgrips1992The American empire has been declining since the 1970s, at the latest.
I was employed in the airline industry. In fact, I brought in the very first flight after 9/11. We anticipated a full flight with a ton of bags. Instead, when we opened the bin doors, there were 3 bags and nothing else. I knew I was about to get a layoff notice. A week later, I got my layoff notice. Such a terrible time for me. But! I never complained, because I knew thousands of families lost someone on 9/11. Fast forward 22 years later, and I am back in the airlines.
Another thing I remember was how quiet the airport was for 3 or so days. Not a single engine running. 😢
I remember in October 2001 when flights from California to New York were on $30 dollars.
@totoroidyou’ve misunderstood and are repeating a boring old joke. Enjoy your substandard IQ life
Nobody cares
@@adamwilliams9487 i doooo
@@adamwilliams9487I care
@@adamwilliams9487everyone watching cares
Incredibly incredibly beautiful looking footage. Stunning really. The lighting, the mood, the silhouette of the buildings, the smoke, it's just all a very strangely beautiful and surreal scene.
My wife shot the video looking out the plane window. I was too paranoid to use the camera. There were no more than 10 passengers on the flight.
@@tremontaramawow, must've been a really quiet flight. I'm sure the quietness and emptiness just added to the surreal mood.
@@tremontaramahow do you remember feeling during that time? I was only 9 but I remember the country being shook: Shocked and deeply sad, but angry too and ready for a fight.
@@dcnats92 yes I felt all of that.
Wow. The emptiness reminds me of the COVID outbreak when everyone was at home and no one went outside. Eerie scene
Yes the two scams are eerily similar. And look how free everyone was before Sept 2001 and look at it now... Yeah fun times erasing our rights and spying on everyone. I feel so much safer...🤡
Except for going for a walk and other essential stuff.
Quite similar indeed, just the only thing different was everyone's Peace of Mind was shattered and broken. It's like the world stopped turning and it feels like it still hasn't begun...
I had to fly September 2020. I don't think it was quite as empty as this airport, but it was pretty noticable. When i did the same flight about a year or two later i was upset at how busy the airport was again.
I remember the weeks immediately after Covid shut everything down, Chicago highways were so empty you could get from the suburbs into the city in under 10 minutes. There were almost no cars out there anywhere. Those were some crazy times indeed.
I was 23 years old when 9/11/2001 happened, and lived near Philadelphia. It was remarkable how quiet things were outside because so many flights were cancelled in the days following the attacks. I hadn’t realized how accustomed I’d become to constant ambient sound from commercial planes.
@artscollab me too. I was 22 and grew up in Bucks County. Where are you from?
I grew up in Reading, PA and Delaware County. Western Mass for college. Last 10 years in the San Francisco Bay Area, then moved to Cincinnati Ohio a few months ago for graduate school.@@jhendy9167
I'm 24 now and grew up in bucks county!@@jhendy9167 what was it like there during that week or so?
Also in the days after the attacks, in NYC the skies were insanely clear since there were no contrails or cirrus clouds formed by them in the sky at all.
Nobody cares
Many people stayed away from flying out of fear. I’m glad you were among those who didn’t let the terrorists dictate your life
@@F-Manit is!
Yeah well terrorists always win because they cant be defeated. They change our behavior.
@@F-ManNow’s not the time for that dude
You mean holograms and explosives.
@@Simplyjapan. it was*
I was born about a year after 9/11, so this is a very unique perspective on something I didn't have to live through. The closest comparison to shutting down air travel I have now is the lockdowns. Glad it'll be immortalized on the internet for future generations to see the impacts of this disaster.
From someone who was alive, but pretty young for 9/11, it was so surreal. Looking back now, it's insane how much 9/11 and the ensuing events shaped our childhoods and the world... I remember waking up that morning to my mother crying in front of the TV. A lot of the rest of my childhood was spent watching her watch the coverage of the war in the Middle East, worldwide terrorism, and Islamophobia in just absolute horror.
@@iiiSK8orDI3iii There's a very small window of years that someone could have been born, probably 1989-1997, to be able to remember 9/11, but not yet be old enough to "understand" it. I'm in that group, and it hurts as an adult to look back and realize it was the defining moment of my childhood. From that day on I was no longer an innocent child in a peaceful world. We were mentally conscripted into war - our culture was saturated with the rhetoric of the war on terror and dogmatic support for our interference in the middle east. 9/11 was as much a part of the social condition as Pokemon or Spongebob.
Everyone says this, but you really do know where you were when it happened. I was in English class, and I remember getting a landline phone call as soon as I got home to tell me to turn on the TV news.
@@JaidenJimenez86 Wait did you find out in English class or when you got home?
@@apollofell3925I agree. I was born in 1989. I remember This like yesterday. Heading to school and my father was shocked because it was all coming through the radio stations. I remember being confused asking what the World Trade Center was. Then within an hour of being at school getting picked up and seeing it all play out on the news. I never knew how much impact this was being only 12-13 years old
I remember the next trip my parents and I took after 9/11 to visit relatives in Florida, we opted to take the train instead. This is some really fascinating footage. Toward the end you can almost see the house I grew up in on the west side of the Hudson. I was probably in that video frame somewhere, playing video games on a tiny, tiny screen amongst all those lights.
Shit you lived in Brooklyn ma G
Nobody cares
I'm current flight attendant. I genuinely think I would call out sick for as long as I could after that. It can't be easy operating just 5 days after.
My grandmother was a flight attendant for United.
She dropped me off at school that morning prepared to go to work. She was even in her uniform to catch her commuter flight from Memphis to Chicago.
They had the news playing on the tv at school and I remember how it felt. I cant remember when she returned to work, but she had to retire or she would have lost her pension due to United filing for bankruptcy. She had flown with them for 40 years.
Also fun fact. She still has her old key to the cockpit. My kids play pretend pilot with it. She forgot to give it back. She flew purser. She’s 80 now and misses flying so much. It was an extremely fulfilling job for her.
@travismaguire1349 I'm not so worried that it's going to happen again, more so just that I would need a break cause that would be traumatic.
@travismaguire1349 "The terrorists shot their wad on 911" was the main voice in my head on the two flights I took right after the attack. The other thought was "if anyone f-s around I will go after them."
@@tremontaramaI know you would!
the flight attendant voice felt broken, like she was about to cry, that absolutely moved me
Thanks for posting. I flew over the site coming into NY around mid-October of 2001 and it was STILL smoldering. Hard to believe. As I remember it, our flight was nearly empty as well. On that trip, my brother and I walked down Church Street, all the way to Liberty before a cop stopped us. I remember passing the old cemetery at St. Paul's Chapel and seeing a several inches of ash covering the yard.
Here's more video I have of the smoldering skyline. th-cam.com/video/OVtVm-SPNWo/w-d-xo.html
I went to school right around the corner from the World Trade Center. It was burning for months. I'm not sure why we were allowed back in the area so soon. It smelled terrible, and there was debris that looked like snow all over.
wow people live in Minnesota still??
Seeing the smoke rising from lower Manhattan is just sad
It was. It was unbelievable. I never thought that could happen in the United States. But that’s how I thought on September 10, 2001. Since then I realize that it could happen. But all those years before September 11 I lived in a naïve world.
@@tremontaramawhat was the feeling seeing the NY skyline without WTC 1, 2 and 7 there anymore?
@@tripwire3992 it was unbelievable. I wanted to enlist in the army.
Thanks for posting. I remember days after 9/11 I saw many NJ/NY license plates in California. I just assumed they all drove over for business. Definitely a surreal time.
Wow! I'm sure many people moved away from the tri state area being traumatized by everything that had just happened. Nothing like a nice road trip to ease the mind.
I traveled to New York September 10th as I went to a boarding school in the upstate area. These attacks happened maybe three hours from where I was. I remember the headmaster somberly explaining to the entire school what had occurred during breakfast. I remember how the airport experience changed so quickly. I remember being able to say goodbye to my parents at the gate. When I flew home for the holidays, there were armed soldiers in the terminal. I knew that nothing would ever be the same again. Thank you for sharing this!
I was in college in Upstate NY during the attacks. Coming home to NYC was surreal. Armed soldiers in every subway station. My sister still in high school saw fighter jets flying overhead on her way home with my dad). The world indeed has never been the same
It just hurts to watch this. I remember getting on a short flight a year or two after 9/11 as a young kid to visit family down in NYC. There was a guy in a turban directly across from me. I was terrified. He ended up noticing me and smiling, then giving me a piece of candy he brought from India. It was a Sikh, but man the second he smiled I felt safe again. God bless our diverse nation, and God bless everyone who lives here. I hope the devil makes them pay for the fear they instilled in all of us.
Turban? A hijab is what Muslim women wear
This is such a touching comment 🥹❤️
Muslim people are usually really nice
@@laurenanderson7330you’re correct that “hijab” is the word for the head covering that many Muslim women wear, but OP is referring to a man wearing a turban, who was Sikh as opposed to Muslim. But there’s lack of understanding of other cultures among some Americans, so someone might have simply seen “brown man in a religious headdress” and assumed that this meant he was Muslim. I’ve heard of a lot of Sikh men in particular being targets of anti-Muslim bigotry in the US because of this sort of assumption.
@@MechBlank they edited their comment
Pretty cool. Historic footage. Not many people were traveling to and from nyc at the time unless they had too. That is a big part of why airport was so empty too.
You have a piece of very historic video here. Thanks so much for sharing. As you were leaving New York, the skyline just didn't look "right", did it? Something immeasurably tragic had happened that changed America forever, and you got a birds eye view of there it all started.
Be well, and many happy(ier) flights to come!
No, it did not look right. And it was very upsetting. Very much wanted to take up arms and protect my homeland. But was very aware that it was asymmetric warfare, and it needed to be done right. Yes, and it did change America and the world. IMO. Hopefully not forever.
@@tremontaramaThank you for posting this video with full historical meaning. The empty airport really reminds me of the empty terminal during lockdown caused by COVID-19, another tragedy that change the world forever like 9/11.
I flew into LaGuardia on my first trip to NYC in 2016, and I realized how surreal it is to be coming up on all those tall buildings. It was eery thinking about how easy of a target those buildings were just sticking out on the island. I definitely took a moment to let that set in and kinda give the victims a moment of silence as we were descending.
Sad seeing the smoke still coming from the towers
You mean rubble of the towers.
Timestamp?
@@jo5hua0680around the middle of the vid
@@T37746Is that it at 3:28 or is that clouds?
@@T37746I know that at 2:00 you can see where they used to stand.
I was lucky enough to visit the Twin Towers when I was 5, about a month before 9/11. My memories of it are broken, but it is something I’ll remember forever. Thank you for sharing this piece of history
I flew on a flight from ATL to BUF on 09/21/01 and it was fairly full. The Atlanta airport was very busy and full of military and law enforcement, and it seemed like everyone was getting patted down. When I was going to my seat, the sight of me (then a 24 year old male of Indian descent) clearly distressed an older couple. They looked like they both were about to cry and were clearly considering whether to get off. The crew were visibly sad but polite and did their jobs. Otherwise things were pretty much the same although people were extra quiet and talking in hushed voices.
A few months ago, my family flew out to Maine on vacation for a week. When we were coming back home we’d be landing in Newark later in the evening. Before touching down, our pilot did a pass around the airport and one of the flight attendants pointed out over the intercom the two beacons shining from the memorial in Manhattan. They shined brighter than the buildings next to them, it was quite the sight
Thanks for posting this, it seems like yesterday. I was 17 at the time and we'd been on holiday in Florida and had been due to fly home on the 13th of September from Orlando. That obviously didn't happen and we stayed until the 16th. As we were travelling home to Scotland with a UK airline we were put up in a hotel for the extra 3 nights (and I remember central Florida was lashed by a tropical storm in those immediate days after 9/11).
On the evening of the 15th, we got the call to go to the airport the next day as airspace had been reopened to "foreign" aircraft. The airline told us we would be going to the airport very early in the morning of the 16th. The airlines were flying in empty planes from the UK to take passengers home. We were told we'd get a seat on a flight to somewhere but it probably wouldn't be our intended destination. (We ended up flying into Manchester, which was definitely not our intended destination).
We were at the airport in Orlando for something like 06.30 and joined the most enormous queue I'd seen until then. People, luggage and bags everywhere. We were at the airport for 11 hours. Checking in, going through security multiple times. There was no hand luggage at all allowed. Everything had to be checked in apart from "eyeglasses, wallets/purses and medication" Not even keys were allowed.
On the flight home, we passed nearby New York in the early evening, I remember the pilot telling us this. There was nothing really to see at 38,000ft but it was a clear evening. It was a flight experience I won't forget in a hurry. Whilst the flight was completely full, no-one wanted to be there in that moment and everyone just wanted to get home as quickly as possible. No one complained, everyone was grateful and we just did what we were told to do.
This is an incredible video of what it was like just after 9/11, The fact LGA is totally empty is a shock to me.
I remember landing in Melbourne from athens a few hours prior to 9/11 and going from holiday mode and the feeling of the relaxed and easy going vibe the world had prior to that day, to being glued to the TV watching chaos unfold. Also was creepy because I was in the air only a few hours prior and what if it was my plane noone felt safe flying after that day.
That’s so sad how tons of people died in this terrible tragedy and this is just crazy. What an unbelievable piece of history. Thanks for sharing this. ❤
You can thank the religion of peace for this, here in Europe our politicians are letting them in on the daily...
@@doszl take your xenophobia somewhere else
average youtube comment section@@zavtparticles6828
@@doszl no we dont accept you as a european. the idea of europe, even up to its naming, has always been friendliness and welcomeness. i hope one day you need to migrate under pressure of war and experience what millions of others endure
@zavtparticles6828 yes, Muslims are bigoted, and they need to go somewhere else. Glad we agree.
The frame at 2:01 / 2:02 where the towers should be is incredibly sad.
Apparently my family went on a weekend trip to Disney World and stayed at the Polynesian because the hotel was SUPER discounted after 9/11. I was only 3 so I don’t really remember it, but I always found it funny how opportunistic my parents were about this lol
Holy moly. I’ve always wondered what the airports looked like when they first opened back up after 9/11. I didn’t go on my first flight until 2003 when I was almost 10. And it was pretty packed but the TSA blew my mind with how invasive they were and they blew my parents’ minds too because they had flown way before 9/11, so it was new to them. It’s still uncomfortable but we know what to expect now so it’s not so bad, but I know I wouldn’t want to fly right after 9/11 if I were a cognitive adult and not a child like I was… And my parents didn’t even wanna fly by 2003. My dad was terrified to fly and he was also terrified to stay in a high rise hotel but we did it anyway.
I grew up in northern NJ, like 15 miles from NYC. You could see those lingering long black clouds for days, maybe a week after the attacks. It was horrific. The smell of burning and the ash in the air. I'll remember it always.
I was young when 9/11 happened. Id flown from Vegas to Newark in August 2001, just a few weeks before it happened, and i distincity remember seeing the Twin Towers as we walked back to our car at the airport, the last time i would ever see them. After 9/11, i didnt have the courage to fly again for many years. It wasnt until 2019 that i flew again, 18 years later. I fly several times a year now, but its crazy to think how much this moment changed the world from the large scale to the small scale. I probably missed out on a lot for being afraid to fly for so long.
Thanks for posting the footage. This is an incredible piece of history right here.
My parents grew up in East Elmhurst, where LaGuardia Airport is. When I was little I'd go to visit my grandparents, and then we moved in with my paternal grandma when I was 11- that house is still "home base" today, although I spend most of my time in Philadelphia going to school. The sound of planes taking off and landing is constant, and it's so eerie to think about it just... stopping. I was a one-year-old baby in a small town 40 miles north of Manhattan. I've grown up in the shadow of 9/11, always fascinated by it to an unusual degree... searching for some sort of closure that I know I can never get.
Thank you for sharing this.
Yes, I grew up and still live between the two airports. And after resumption of flights, I remember noticing the sound of planes and looking up for the first time in my life. Everyone else I knew said the same thing at that time
“Searching for some kind of closure I’ll never get..”
Aren’t we all? Excellent comment
So eerie. I was only 6 when the towers were hit, and living in Hawaii, but I still think about this event almost every day. My father was military so we had to travel frequently, and after 9/11 we felt such a dramatic shift with everything. The 1990s was such a beautiful time and I don’t think the people of that time quite understand the dreary world kids are growing up in these days, or maybe they do.
5 days after the attacks 😢 i would be so scared to fly 5 days after the attacks. RIP to all of those who died that day 💔 🙏
We talked about it and figured the assholes had shot their wad.
Yeah actually more chance of safety at that time after the fact
@@tremontaramabrave snd thoughtful
Just 5 days after the attack, you guys are brave enough to fly in an airplane, bravo!
It's honestly a really powerful act of defiance towards Al Qaeda, proving that these people weren't letting the terrorists dictate how they lived
@jemimallah2591not really, people were rightfully scared and shocked. Eventually it went back to normal
This absolutely breaks my heart in the most surreal way. Thank you for posting this and god bless you, the rescue effort and all those people who died on September 11th, 2001.
You can still see the smoke lifting up from where the towers were. Very eerie feeling.
Here's more video I have of the smoldering skyline. th-cam.com/video/OVtVm-SPNWo/w-d-xo.html
Incredible.
Thank you both for filming and sharing this historic footage.
Surreal.
Here's more video I have of the smoldering skyline. th-cam.com/video/OVtVm-SPNWo/w-d-xo.html
This footage is so amazing, watching it leaves a sad and somber feeling seeing how empty everything is, I wasnt alive when 9/11 happened, and I always wish I was so that I could actually feel how important this event really was, I just simply do not have the full in depth understanding like older people do
March 2020. It’s not quite the same thing but the sense of a before and after is almost the same. The thing is you KNEW the second the plane hit the WTC that the world as you knew it was over
Thank you for posting this. I was born a few hours before the first plane hit the towers and as a kid I never quite understood the gravity of the reaction I’d get when I told adults when my birthday was. Now that I’m an adult, I like to learn as much as I can about it and I’d like to eventually visit the museum and memorial site.
A nurse rolled a TV into the hospital room for my parents while I was being cleaned up and when they saw what was happening, they thought WW3 was about to go down. It’s interesting to read about how many changes it spawned in our society, not just in security.
So many videos coming out even to this day!
How eerie that must have been. I was only a freshman in high school & remember my mom waking me up around 6am to watch the TV that morning. Which is very out of character for her, but that whole day in classes, our teachers let us watch the news. We were witnessing a historic tragedy that would change the world forever. I don’t think my 14 year old self would’ve been on a plane 5 days after this. I’m glad you uploaded this. Thanks 🙏🏻 🤍
Exactly the same here. I was 14 and my mom woke me up to watch the news. I went in late to school and every class was dark and watching tv and my friend Amanda was walking down the hallway crying.
@@Arizona_Raven oh so youre an ‘87 baby as well 😎 yea this was indescribable as a teenager, but I’m glad I was old enough to understand it.
Also playing Deus Ex (2000) on PC at the exact same time that September 11th happened.@@TightyWhiteyTrash
I think the Filmer's for even thinking of capturing this I think they may have known they were capturing history. A once in a lifetime scene. And my thoughts were that the rubble and debris are still amass in the heart of NYC. Also for the damn near crystal clear images recorded on this camera and the beautiful climb out.
My most prominent thought is that I am now a flight attendant again (thank God). And the PA of the Purser on this flight sounded so professional and obviously they can't show emotion to what just happened FIVE days ago.
The same people in her line of work were making the same PA after takeoff before getting hijacked. Surreal. But it's just amazing how aviation was functioning after the most significant aviation safety related event in the worlds history.
1 PAX on an aircraft. A dead airport. And an incomprehensible takeover and suicide smash of a multiple commercial airline flight just DAYS before.
On a lighter note God bless y'all and Merry Christmas. Be safe and thank you for this video
Wow great historical record of the moment!
My grandmother used to live north of one of the busiest runways of DTW (Detroit Metro) which was the primary runway for the widebody’s including the majestic 747 at the time. The noise was often loud enough that conversations had to be paused or repeated whenever a big bird flew by.
I tell you the eeriest time at her house was the time between when the last flight landing and the national airspace reopening after 9/11. It was so quiet you could hear a pin drop. The only other time that could have compared were the weeks that followed when Covid-19 started to take hold.
I was 11 at this time. My family had a planned trip to NYC in November 2001 that we decided to still take. I don't remember the flights, but I do remember the city. A kind of forced back to normal, if you will. I live in NYC now and have for almost 15 years, and find videos like this fascinating. I wish we could have seen more around the airport and the empty plane. Thanks for sharing!
I remember flying in the summer of 2001, and the winter of 2001. LAX . Man… the change in airport security was insane. Winter School vacation was different that year! A lot of people forget that prior to 9/11 you could have non flying family members go to the gate with you. After 9/11, you no longer could…
Right? I am 39 now so I was 17- a senior in hs-at the time of the attack. And growing up in Hawaii (from ages 5-12), we flew A TON; going back to the mainland to visit family in Chicago a couple times a year. And of course close friends and relatives living on the mainland were constantly flying in for a visit and we’d always met them at the airport/went with them for departure (not to mention my parents always dragging us to the airport every year when the ProBowl players were arriving 🙄)- ALWAYS going to the actual gate to welcome/send off our guests. And same for when we would travel- everyone would come to the gate when we’d arrive.
My point being that despite my extensive airport experience prior to 9/11, it’s still MIND-BLOWING to me that TSA was entirely NONEXISTENT until this happened. And, during the pre-TSA days, just how ridiculously vulnerable we all were during air travel for all those years. Like, if i just think about traveling via air/airports, it feels like TSA has always been an existing entity. Nope!
Bravo to the pilots and flight attendants being brave enough to continue flying and serving passengers in the precarious days immediately following 9/11. How sad though to see that awful residual smoke hovering over lower Manhattan. Knowing what it's composed of just brings tears to my eyes.
This is what TH-cam is for.
I was born in 96, so was only 5 when this happened. I can only remember coming from from P1, or first grade I suppose , and we all sat round a tv. I went away to play my Sega Mega Drive (Genesis) , no idea or appreciation for what was happening. It’s such a scary thing to imagine, and well done for boarding, I’m not sure I’d be brave enough.
That shot of the skyline with the smoke from ground zero is so shocking. This is certainly interesting footage. Thanks for sharing. Love from Scotland.
Wow very haunting. Thx for sharing your video. Totally amazing.
Here's more video I have of the smoldering skyline. th-cam.com/video/OVtVm-SPNWo/w-d-xo.html
Man, looking at the skyline without the Twin Towers under a week since 9/11 right before taking off in a plane? Just surreal.
I love that hum of the engine noise at the 2 minute mark. I felt like it’s more prominent on these older jets. Nice to have it in archives lol
Same
This was literally 5 days after I didn't know people were flying immediately afterwards but that all makes sense as how else would many get back home or to their destinations. Every flight in the American airspace was grounded that fateful day. Your anxiety must've been high but I totally understand needing to get to where you're going. I'm also wondering how quick of a turnaround they had in terms of implementing new security strategies for flying.
The new security strategies took at least a year or six months or somewhere in that ballpark.
their*
This was honestly probably the safest time to fly. No one should dare try anything with the country on high alert like it was.
Whom are these people you talk about? You do know America goes around bullying the rest of the world it isn't the other way round sunshine. And I thought the Eastern Seaboard had the most secure airspace in the world before 2001.
@thejacka24 yes! I was 17 at the time (an American) and I actually remember thinking along these lines as well. As this same sentiment was being tossed around in all sorts of places and circles. This event ushered in the thee most intense and rigidly overboard time period there had ever been (and ever was) in regards to commercial air travel.
I was 9 when 9/11 happened. I really at the time hadn’t grasped the concept of the aftermath in smaller ways like this. How eerie.
Wow! Thank you so much for capturing , and sharing, such a monumental moment.
This is an incredible piece of history. The calm after the storm. So eerie.
Seeing the airport completely empty is chilling.
I can imagine the fear and horror among everyone there. Thank you for this video.
This was bravery during that week. Cheers to you for not allowing it to change your life during that time.
I was only 1 years old but this is crazy to even think about. Thank you so much for sharing this video and piece of history
This is genuinely historic footage and I am so blessed to see it, even after all these years. An often undocumented side of 9/11.
Seeing that skyline without the towers is f*cking heartbreaking there is no better word for it. This is truly a historic piece of footage.
9/11 happened in september 11, 2001. andjust to think, 5 days earlier there were explosions and shit?
@@potato7617 yeah
Thank you for posting this! For young people like myself who grew up in a world changed by 9/11 but have no memory of the actual events, this sort of video really puts it all into context.
Oh please you weren't even born when 911 happened so spare us the B.S.
Wow. You could hear the sadness in the pilot's voice
You know watching movies, tv shows, family videos that were filmed before 9/11 have a different feel to them. Everything after 9/11 feels more modern, like its the new world. The one i grew up in. (Born in 1999)
being born in 2002 I cannot imagine a world without the effects of 9/11. thanks for the video.
I never realized how little airports changed over 20 years. I mean, of course TSA security is WAY more thorough (as it should be) but the physical construction and design appearance of the airport looks exactly the same as it does today, which is mildly surprising, considering the technological difference.
not at all, lagurdia has been completly remodled since then
That had to take a lot of bravery… I was 9 years old when 9/11 happened and I remember my parents telling me that flying will never be safe again. It took 20 years for me to get on a plane and to get over my fear of flying.
9/11 happened in september 11, 2001. andjust to think, 5 days earlier there were explosions and shit?
What a footage of remembrance. Never forget the ones lost during the attacks. Cool that you recorded this five days after the attacks. Keep it coming.
Oh how everything changed… Thank you for this video ❤
Very incredible footage. Very eerie how empty the airport is.
Here's more video I have of the smoldering skyline. th-cam.com/video/OVtVm-SPNWo/w-d-xo.html
I’m 29 and was at Christmas dinner explaining to my under 21 year old cousins about how life was like right after attacks from the perspective of an 8 year old. I guess my phone heard me and recommend this video
Thank you for sharing. Absolutely stunning footage
I was only 10 or so when this happened and didn’t realize how tragic this actually was absolutely mind blown seeing a NYC airport empty actually surprised they flew any planes at all
I was born three years after the tragedy, but my heart still drops whenever I see footage of this ill-fated day.
I flew Houston to Atlanta on the evening of September 9, 2001 as a 10 year old kid. 36 hours later and the rest is history. I haven’t flown since then. Horrible phobia for me now.
This is a really cool vid. Deserves more than 8.4k views. Thanks for sharing 👍
I swore flights were down for weeks & I was 21 at the time. It's crazy how your memory works. Only 5 days! Wow.
Wish I could have Visited the WTC, I tire of missing them 😔❤️
Wow !
Historical footage, god bless .
It truly is sad what happened. You just wish something could’ve been done to stop it from
Happening
@@GregoryAlanBaileygamereviewsBe quiet
@@JohnBrad-zg3qsYeah but Also Stop the BS That’s Already STILL going on at the Very Site Today with All the Damned Disgracing of the original complex !
And F)&($ People Treating it like it’s There own Backyard
@@mrandrossguy9871 It’s crazy how light passenger counts were during that time! 😮
today is 30/06/2024 and I am watching this video from Brazil. Hope you are having a good life. amazing video!
We’re good, thanks.
This is creepy. Brings back horrible memories of a time I’d wish to forget if not for the way our country came together against one common enemy. I can’t remember the last time our country was that united…..and can’t imagine ever being that unified again.
I remember flying outta Chicago to Mexico in December and we were told to arrive 5 hours prior to take off. EVERYONE and EVERYTHING got body checked and scanned! It feels like it was yesterday. I will never forget.
My mom flew on a flight a couple weeks after 9/11 and I remember her saying there were about 10 people and they all got to lay down in entire rows or sit wherever they wanted and were served all the first class food
My mom and I flew in October of 2001. Tense is the way to describe it that’s for sure.
9/11 happened in september 11, 2001. andjust to think, 5 days earlier there were explosions and shit?
I flew back to NY this same day from London where we waited to return to the US after being in Istanbul on 9/11. Our flight from Istanbul to London on the 13th on British Air had massive male flight attendants. Pretty sure they were on loan from the military.
Wow. What a fascinating piece of historical video. Thanks for sharing.
Couple Days After 9/11 "RIP" 😔🙏🏻🕊
So surreal
It almost feels illegal to see an airport THAT empty especially in a big city. Never actually thought about how airports would’ve been like right after 9/11. Great video. Thanks to whoever recorded it and gave us a glimps of how life was in those moments.
I remember all of the Amtrak trains were full the whole week afterwards