Definitely the biggest world-changing events since I've been alive. For most people, it changed our lives.

To those reading this, where were you when 911 occured? And how did you react?

I remember my experience distinctly.


It was a very quiet night in Melbourne. I very ordinary night. I just finished watching Rove Live and was about to go to bed early, as I had to wake up for a high school excursion the next day. I was still excited that Lleyton Hewitt had won the US Open against Pete Sampras (In New York city). Ironically, they had just introduced a TV show called 'The Street' that very night, based on Wall Street.  

So after watching Rove McManus's standard unfunny ending, I decided to keep watching the box to see if there were updates on the news about Llleyton Hewitt's celebrations. Sandra Sully appeared on the screen, looking as calm as ever, talking about some boring news-story (I forgot what it was), when she suddenly says, "Breaking news, a plane has crashed into the world trade centres."

Little did I know, I was about to witness history.

At first, I was like... 'big deal, a small aircraft crashed into the tower' but when they went to the live feed, the image looked amazing. Smoke bellowing out of the tower frantically. I was wondering, "how could a pilot be stupid enough to crash a plane into the World Trade Centres (I still thought it was a light aircraft). Sandra Sully took it to a commercial break, so I quickly changed it over to CNN.

In strong American accents, as the flames blazed away, the anchors pondered who could possibly have done this, when in the background, a plane comes into the screen and plows into the second tower setting off an inferno. WOOSH.

The news-reporters didn't know what to say, accept, "We've just confirmed, a second plane has just hit the north tower."

I couldn't believe what I was seeing, it was like a movie. I then flicked through every available TV station: SBS, ABC, channel 7,9, 10, Skynews, --every station was broadcasting it. I decided to stick with CNN.

For the next 4 hours, I was hooked watching CNN. I had NEVER seen anything like it.

Anyway, you can picture what happened next. Plane crashed into pentagon, plane crashes in a field in pennsylvania, two towers fall. Nothing big.  


And for the next week or two, there was nothing else on TV accept investigations into the crash, and the steps leading up to the invasion of Afghanistan. Suddenly, the Tampa crisis and Llyeton winning didn't seem such big news after all, and it was quickly forgotton.  

In all honesty, I thought we were on the brink of WWIII.

So there you have it, my story. Feel free to share yours.

I got up at 3.30am in Alice Springs as i am a long distance truckie and i was going to Adelaide that day.My family were all asleep and i went to the loungeroom/kitchen to get dressed,make some coffee and make some sandwiches to take with me.I flicked on the telly and the first image i saw was a tailwing sticking out of the world trade centre.The kettle boiled so i went over to the servery to turn it off,thinking it was a movie on TV.As i was making my sandwiches i heard the bloke on the telly repeating what i had heard 5 minutes beforehand.Strange i thought,they must have got the tapes mixed up again(common occurence on Imparja at that time).I looked up and realised i was watching CNN not Imparja and it hit me,it had happened thru the night and this was a replay.A cold shiver went thru me then because as you know Pine Gap is located 20 kays away from Town and i was thinking if someone has the balls to do this will they try and knock out the main US spy base on earth.I then thought that they will be on full alert and the Aussies have Air Force bases all around our country so it would probably be the safest place to be.
It has changed the world forever and i hope and pray we never see another incident like that

eta Its a funny thing but whenever this topic comes up everyone i have spoken to about it can remember what they were doing at the time.A shocking thing

Freediver-- I can't believe you missed it. 

Dirtysanta-- Great story.  Woulda been kinda shocking seeing as how you were so close to pine gap. It really was like a movie, hey?

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It's funny cause it's true. And for some reason everyone remembers where they were when Princess Diana died, but I didn't. 


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Join the club mate.  How long did you stay up for that night?

September 1997 sometime. I remember because of the AFL finals.

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What the? Where the heck is that? 

i was asleep and was woken up by my brother saying that some planes had flown into the World Trade Centre. i got up watched the news for the next couple of hours. then i went back to sleep.

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No, i wouldn't say that, but do u remember how the news was on that day. it was 24 news coverage on each channel, with updates every 15 minutes that were the same thing over and over. i only need to watch a news story once to understand it.

thank god channel 10 cut-off their news coverage early and started playing normal programs. if it wasn't for that, then i would have been bored out of my mind.

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really!!
it didn't really change from the morning that much, two hours into it was enough for me.