1:45 British Time, 11th September 2001 Was When the Unthinkable Happened Essay

1:45 British time, 11th September 2001 was when the unthinkable happened. One of the tallest buildings in the world was hit by a passenger jet. The people on the streets of New York could only watch in shock, horror and disbelief as the low-flying aircraft headed straight for the northern tower of the world trade centre. The jet headed for roughly the 65th to 70th floor of the tower. In a split second, the jet disappeared into the side of the tower, exploding as it did so. Only ten minutes later, when television crews had been alerted to the scene by the first incident, another low-flying aircraft was spotted. Live on US television, the jet banked left and disappeared into the southern tower, exploding as the first one had. As I stated in the first sentence, this all happened at about a quarter to two in the afternoon. On arriving home from school, I still wasn’t aware of what had happened a couple of hours ago. I went down to the newsagents down the road to buy a magazine. I noticed that the shop assistants were paying very close attention to the radio, yet it still didn’t come to me that something was up. At around half past four I turned on the television and couldn’t believe what I saw. There were images of the disaster, being shown over and over again. It didn’t come to me immediately how serious the incident was. As I carried on watching, I began to understand more clearly the significance of the disaster. And seeing images of people coming out of the buildings with blood all over them made me wonder who on earth would want to do a thing like that. The slow motion replays of the crashes showed how the jets simply tore through the walls of the towers like cardboard, and exploding as they went through the walls. It was painful to watch, and sickening to think of all the people on board the plane and inside the buildings. These terrorist attacks had been extremely well planned. Both of the jets were on domestic flights, where the security is not as tight as international flights are. It would be easy, experts say, to take a knife on board. In addition to this, both the flights would have been 6 hours long had the disaster not happened, so there was a lot of fuel on board which would have aided the fire spreading down through the building. It really hit home to me how dreadful it must have been inside the buildings as television pictures showed numerous people jumping to their death from the towers. How desperate must the situation inside have been to jump from 80 floors up? I dread to think. Soon the situation worsened. I gasped with horror as pictures of one of the towers collapsing to the ground were broadcasted by the English stations. It was simply horrible to see, and the dust created was so thick that some of the pictures showed nothing because of the dust in front of the camera. A few minutes later the other tower disappeared from that famous New York skyline as well, and the terrorists had fully succeeded. The terrorists must have also been able to fly the aircrafts. Surly no American pilot (or any nationality pilot for that matter) would fly an aircraft into the Twin Towers, whether threatened with a knife or not. I can’t believe that American Airlines would be so careless, as the crime rate in America is extremely high anyway. Of course I am not saying that any normal American would want to fly a plane into a major building in their own country, but if there was a mentally disabled person who got on a plane with a knife you never know what they might do. If security on these flights had been tighter none of this would have happened, surly. The disbelief was still around for many days after the disaster actually happened, and fire fighters were still searching through the rubble, hoping to find a few survivors among the mess. A few days after the crashes, it was thought that the person responsible was Asuma Bin Laden. As time went on it became more and more certain that Bin Laden was responsible, and eventually the man himself admitted as much on Afghan television. He is now the most sought after person in the world, with George W. Bush offering a $25,000,000 reward for anyone who can tell the USA where Bin Laden is hidden. Even thought I’m not American, everytime I see Bin Laden on the news, anger builds up inside me. How could someone do what he did? He doesn’t look like someone who has killed thousands, but he has, and he’s possibly the most hated man in the world. Having been to New York, (and incidentally, opting to go up the Empire State Building rather than one of the Twin Towers, which I now slightly regret), I feel that I can relate more to what has happened than I would have been able to otherwise. The photos I have of the skyline of New York obviously include the Twin Towers, and I can imagine how wrong the skyline now looks. When I look back on the photos, it makes me wonder why those buildings, which fitted into the skyline so well, are nolonger there. Why did Bin Laden do this? In conclusion, my feelings now, compared to my feelings right after it happened haven’t really changed. Having found out who was responsible, I now know what direction to put my hate towards, and the initial shock has faded, gradually. But when September 11th is mentioned, I still spare a thought for the people in the buildings and on the aircrafts and their families. I dearly hope that nothing of this nature ever happens again. And to finish I think that it is worth asking the question: If God does exist, where on earth was he on September 11th?