The Only Plane in the Sky

by Garrett M Graff

  Rick Rescorla, in a phone call to his wife, Susan: I don’t want you to cry. I have to evacuate my people now. If something happens to me, I want you to know that you made my life.

  Ultimately, only eleven Morgan Stanley staff—out of more than 2,700 in the South Tower—died on September 11th. Rescorla and two of his fellow security personnel were among those eleven.

  * * *

  Richard Eichen, consultant, Pass Consulting Group, North Tower: As you got lower and lower you got into more and more people. I was afraid that it was getting congested—I wasn’t afraid of the buildings falling. I was afraid of panic.

  Vanessa Lawrence, artist, North Tower: If the flow stopped for too long, people shouted out, “Don’t worry! People congestion!”

  Bruno Dellinger, principal, Quint Amasis North America, North Tower: It taught me something about human beings in distress. We were receiving from everywhere around us warning signs that this was a very, very dangerous situation. The moment we got those messages something inside—a defense mechanism—kicked in and stopped us from panicking.

  Robert Small, office manager, Morgan Stanley, South Tower: As we’re into maybe the 20s we came across two women—one helping the other. The one doing all the help was also burdened with bags. She was helping a woman who she said was four months pregnant. “Okay. Let us help you. Let us carry the bags.” She let us carry the bags, but now the pregnant woman wanted to stop. We gave her some water. She says she’s hot. I took some water out, I made a little rag, sponging her back and her neck, making her feel a little bit better. She was finally ready to go. No sooner did we get a couple of floors down than she wanted to stop. Like football coaching—when you tell a kid to do a push-up, you always try to get one more out of them—I told her, “Give me one more floor, then we’ll stop. I’ll give you water. Give me one more floor.” And we did.

  Constance Labetti, accountant, Aon Corporation, South Tower, 99th floor: I would start to cry, and I’d start to tremble, and I heard my father’s voice. My father had been dead since 1985—and I heard his voice, clear as day, telling me that I was not going to die in this building. I straightened up and kept walking down the steps. A few minutes later, I heard my uncle—who kind of took over being my dad when my dad passed away. My uncle passed away in ’99, and he used to call me “Kiddo.” I heard my uncle’s voice in my left ear telling me, “Kiddo, just take one step at a time.” And I did.

  Richard Eichen, consultant, Pass Consulting Group, North Tower, 90th floor: When we finally got down to the 20s, we saw our first firefighter coming up. At this point Lucy was lying on a landing. She pretty much passed out. The firefighter said, “We’ve set up a station a couple of floors down.” We carried her spread-eagle. I carried her legs. He carried her under her armpits. The two of us carried her down the stairwell maybe two floors. When we got to the aid station, they asked me if I was okay and I said, “Yeah, I’m fine.” I met Lt. Glenn Wilkerson—who unfortunately didn’t make it out. We were about three feet from each other, and he said, “What’s it like up there?” I told them what it was like.

  Robert Small: We got down to the fifth floor. Everything’s fine. The ladies are fine. All of a sudden we heard, “New York City Police. Anybody here?” So we called out. It was a female officer and—I’m assuming—a male detective, because he was in a suit. She and the detective wanted to help us out. I was very adamant, saying, “Don’t need your help.” I said, “I’ve been coming down since 72. I got this far—five more flights.” We told them about the gentleman upstairs and Rick on the 44th floor and they headed up. You could hear them floor by floor—opening doors, screaming out if anyone needed assistance, and then slamming the doors and going up to the next level. I know she didn’t make it. It always bothered me that she didn’t make it, because if she did help us, would that have kept her out?

  Richard Eichen: They had given Lucy some oxygen. She was coming around and she was feeling better and at some point she said, “All right, I’m ready.” “Lucy, are you sure?” “Yeah. I’m ready.” “Okay.” So we got up, I took her hand. We go back in the stairwell. We continued going down.

  Lt. Mickey Kross, Engine 16, FDNY: We encountered a group of people who were nonambulatory. We started to assist these people, trying to get them down. Me and Andy [from Engine 1] had somebody between us—a woman—and she was going very slowly, one step at a time. I wanted to get out of that building. It was like time was standing still.

  Frank Lombardi, chief engineer, Port Authority, North Tower: Water was starting to run into the stairwells—the sprinkler systems must have been turned on—and we had to watch our footing to make sure that we wouldn’t slip.

  Richard Eichen: It was pretty deep water—mid-calf to below the knee. All the water had gone down and collected there. It’s like, Wow, this is like a sinking ship. What the hell? Finally, a few more stairs, and we got into the lobby.

  Linda Krouner, senior vice president, Fiduciary Trust, South Tower: We got to the ground level. We got out of the elevator and looked out at the plaza area. My first thought was, This is Britain during the Blitz, because that’s really what it looked like.

  Robert Small: We got down to the main level. We were being escorted. It was like Hansel and Gretel with the breadcrumbs—a human line of police and rescue and you name it. They said, “Come this way. Exit to the north.”

  Constance Labetti, accountant, Aon Corporation, South Tower, 99th floor: We got to the lobby and my coworker Jules and I had to rest for a moment because we were perspiring terribly. We had walked down 100 flights of steps. People were coming up to me, hugging me, and telling me, “Thank you, thank you,” and hugging me as they walked by me, and I said to Jules, “What? Why? What are they doing that for?” She said, “Connie, you don’t know what you were saying? You were saying, ‘We’re not going to die in this building. Just take it one step at a time.’ ” I was repeating what my father and my uncle were telling me, and I didn’t even know it.

  * * *

  At the High School for Leadership and Public Service—a block south of the South Tower—students and teachers tried to figure out an evacuation plan. Eventually, the occupants of the school and its neighbor, the High School of Economics and Finance, fled four blocks south, along with thousands of other people in Lower Manhattan, to Battery Park, at the tip of Manhattan.

  Robert Rosado, student, HSLPS: Ms. Ordover asked us to write about what we thought had happened while she went online.

  Heather Ordover, English teacher, HSLPS: The lead photo on CNN’s web page was what we couldn’t see from my classroom: the north side of the North Tower with an enormous gaping hole.

  Ada Dolch, principal, HSLPS: Panic was beginning to set in. People were streaming into our lobby. Parents started coming in, “I want my child.” I stood up on the table in the lobby and said, “Ladies and gentlemen, I am the principal of the school.” I said, “No one is allowed to go upstairs.” There was this sense of, I got to take care of my chickadees, and all my kitties were upstairs safe.

  Razvan Hotaranu, student, HSLPS: I knew that whatever happened I needed to get home fast. I knew my mom must’ve been very worried for me.

  Ada Dolch: When the second tower was hit, our building really shook—a piece of the plane fell in front of our school building. Debris was falling on our rooftop. We could see flying paper on fire.

  Keturah Bostick, student, HSLPS: I knew I was going to die. It seemed like there was no hope in the world. I found some friends, we all prayed and told each other that we loved each other. Next I pulled out a paper and started to write a letter to my family members telling them how much I loved them.

  Ada Dolch: Where would we go? Where can you congregate with a lot of children? I said, “Oh, I know where we’re going. We’re going to Battery Park.” We initiated an evacuation plan. I had my assistant principals go floor by floor and evacuate all the students. I stood at the outside door and simply said to them, “Hold each other’s hands. Stay together.” I would
say to them, “You should pray. This is a good time to be praying, and to ask God for mercy that we will be safe.”

  Rosmaris Fernandez, student, HSLPS: I led the group to Battery Park.

  Keturah Bostick: We ran, thinking that the worst was over, and after that nothing else could go wrong.

  Tim Seto, student, HSLPS: We walked toward Battery Park. There was all this debris on the ground—newspapers, ashes, and burned stuff. The Towers looked like two smoldering cigarettes, pointed upward.

  Heather Ordover: A student and I picked up pieces of honeycomb insulation. I picked up someone’s insurance policy, burnt in half and charred around the edges.

  Ada Dolch: The kids were in total shock. They were very scared. They were catatonic.

  Heather Ordover: We hustled them down to the edge of Battery Park. I stood, on a bench, with Liz Collins, a math teacher. The kids rallied around us.

  * * *

  Dan Potter, firefighter, Ladder 10, FDNY: As I get off the Verrazzano Bridge, there was a bus lane and police vehicles were shooting through it. I got right behind them. A cop was standing right in front of me, so I held my badge out the window, and he flagged me through. We were in a convoy of police vehicles, doing about 70 miles an hour, between two barriers all the way through.

  Jean Potter, Bank of America, North Tower: We were going down, but, again, there was smoke. Everything was lit. The staircase was lit. Smoke in the air, the smell of jet fuel. We were making our way down pretty quickly, and then it started to bottleneck a little bit. We started seeing firemen come up in the 20s. That’s when I saw [FDNY Capt.] Vinnie Giammona. I grabbed his arm and said, “Vinnie, be safe.” I knew that he was not going to make it out.

  Dan Potter: I didn’t think that these towers were going to collapse. This was the massive, biggest fire I’ve ever seen, but as you’re calculating, you don’t really know the extent of the damage. I was convinced that we’ll get up there and put it out.

  Jean Potter: We’re getting down to like 11, 10, and on like 8, I started yelling at people to move. I don’t ordinarily yell—I’m a very soft-spoken individual—but I started screaming at people, “Move it! Move it! We’re almost out of here! Move it! Move it!” The lobby was completely devastated. There was glass all over.

  Dan Potter: When I got up West Street, just about Rector Street, I noticed police starting to put some barriers out. I noticed body parts in the street. There were big pieces and smaller pieces. I looked up at the Trade Center and I could see the flames, see the firemen. I wondered, Where is she? Where could she possibly be? I thought, She’s got to be up on the roof. I was convinced at this point that she’s up on the roof. I was going to do the best I could to get a team together and get up there.

  Jean Potter: They took us down into the Concourse. I’m so grateful I kept my shoes on because the water was ankle deep and there was broken glass all over. There was a human chain of emergency workers yelling at us, “Run! Run! Ruuuun!” When do they tell you to run in an emergency? It was so horrifying.

  * * *

  Richard Eichen: When we got into the lobby it was really scary. It looked like someone dumped a barbecue on it—it was covered in ash. I remember hearing the water dripping, dripping, dripping.

  Jeannine Ali, controller, Morgan Stanley, South Tower: They were directing people out, up through Borders and out toward Five World Trade. There was a fireman—he couldn’t have been more than 19 years old—with a hose on his shoulder. I remember looking at him and saying to him, “There is nothing you can do. Don’t go in there.” He said, “Lady, it’s my job. I have to do it.”

  Linda Krouner, senior vice president, Fiduciary Trust, South Tower: I got out and crossed the street. The first thing that hit me was the sounds. There were so many sounds. There were sirens and people screaming. It was like you were in the middle of one of those action movies with everything coming apart at the same time—fire engines, the ambulances, the police, and people shouting.

  Richard Eichen: As we got closer to the door, there were security guards helping guide people out. I think they were some of the bravest people—unsung heroes of 9/11—because they could have run away. This was way beyond their pay grade. But they stayed.

  Ralph Blasi, director of security, Brookfield Properties, owner of the World Financial Center and 1 Liberty Plaza: I have the greatest admiration for the private security officers, guys who are only making about $25,000 a year. We had often asked security guards, prior to 9/11, what they would do if a bomb went off and they saw a couple dead bodies. The consensus was always that they would run. But on September 11th, I had 60 guards working with me and not one ran. With the two towers burning, standing with bullhorns, keeping people moving out of the Towers, they never blinked.

  “The sun was shining on them”

  * * *

  Jumping

  Amid the catastrophe at the World Trade Center, no sight left as powerful an impression on rescuers, officials, and evacuees as the developing tragedy of victims—trapped without escape on the Towers’ upper floors, caught amid rising, unbearable temperatures and deadly smoke—who fell or chose to jump.

  Wesley Wong, assistant special agent in charge, FBI New York: This fireman said something to me that I didn’t understand—he said, “Watch out for the falling bodies.” I remember crossing West Street and thinking, What did he say about falling bodies? I said, “It’s a fire.” As I got close to the building this fireman from behind yelled, “Run! Here comes one!” I froze and I looked up over my right shoulder, up into that beautiful bright blue sky. I saw a fellow spread-eagle, coming out of the sky. He had on navy blue dress pants, a white shirt, and a tie. Dark hair. I couldn’t believe what I saw.

  Det. David Brink, Emergency Service Unit, Truck 3, NYPD: There were a lot of bodies that were coming down. I saw daisy chains of four people holding hands, just leaping out of the buildings. I kept looking up, saying, “I want to help you guys. Hold on. Please hold on,” but I knew there was nothing I could do. I felt so helpless and powerless.

  Dr. Charles Hirsch, chief medical examiner, City of New York: It was a sight and sound that I’ll never forget. The awful sound of people impacting.

  Gregory Fried, executive chief surgeon, NYPD: You’d hear this whoosh, and then it would go crash, and then all of a sudden you’d hear a splat. One of the cops said to me, “What was that?” I looked at him and said, “That was a person.”

  Quentin DeMarco, officer, PAPD: The clothes of the jumpers sounded like a flag or a sail in a windstorm.

  Bill Spade, firefighter, Rescue 5, FDNY: There were motion-detector doors that opened up into the North Tower. These doors kept opening and closing with the bodies that were coming down.

  Peter Moog, officer, NYPD: I did see one jumper actually hit a fireman on the corner near Vesey and West. I later found out that the fireman was Danny Suhr. He played for the fire department football team. I coach our team, and I’ve played, so I knew Danny. He was one of the first firemen to get killed.

  William Jimeno, officer, PAPD: The one that struck me the most—it’s almost like my eyes could zoom in up to him—it was a blond gentleman wearing a pair of khakis and a light pink shirt, collared shirt, and when he jumped, he jumped almost like he was on a cross, like Jesus. He jumped, looking up in the air, and he went down.

  Stanley Trojanowski, firefighter, Engine 238, FDNY: I must’ve blessed myself between 40 and 50 times, once for each jumper.

  Bill Spade: We’ve seen death at other things, but this time it was something different. There were so many, so many.

  Sgt. Mike McGovern, aide to the chief, NYPD: I had blood splatter on the cuffs of my pants from the people jumping and landing on the ground.

  Rudy Giuliani, mayor, New York City: All of a sudden I saw a man at a window, must have been the 100th floor, 101st, 102nd floor, North Tower. He threw himself out the window. I froze, stopped, and watched him come all the way down. It was a totally shocking experience, unlike any I’ve ever had before. I leane
d over to the police commissioner and said, “This is much worse than we thought. It’s off the charts.” We had practiced a lot of things—anthrax, sarin gas, airplane crashes, building collapses, hostage situations, derailed trains, West Nile virus. I was pretty confident that we were the most prepared place in the United States for any emergency—maybe in the world. This was beyond anything that anybody had imagined.

  Bernie Kerik, NYPD commissioner: I’ve been in this business 26 years, and I’ve done everything under the sun. I’ve been involved in gun battles. I’ve had partners who were killed. But I’ve never felt as helpless as I did on that morning. You couldn’t yell to these people and ask them to stop, or make them stop.

  Melinda Murphy, traffic reporter, WPIX TV, airborne over New York Harbor: Our camera’s pretty strong. I said, “What’s that dripping off the building?” It looked like something was dripping. Chet’s like, “I don’t know.” So we zoom in and we could see people jumping. We were on live TV and I remember going, “OK, that’s it, zoom out, zoom out.” I didn’t want anybody to see it.

  Sunny Mindel, communications director for the mayor of the City of New York, Rudy Giuliani: I remember seeing colleagues from the police department’s press operation surrounded by television cameras with their lenses trained upward on people jumping. The first thing you learn when you do what I do is you never obscure the lens of a camera. That’s a violation of the First Amendment—to interfere with the press. I was so riveted to this moment of people making this decision to jump that my gut instinct was: This is an invasion of the most intimate moment ever. My hands started to go up to block the lenses. But then I thought, No, this has got to be recorded for history. I just stood there.