The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of 9/11

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Adm. Richard Mies: We went directly into the command center. That really caught his attention. All these soldiers, they’re all in battle dress. CNN was prominently displayed—a lot of footage of the two towers. We had four to six TV screens, all energized. I sat him down where I normally sit, and walked him through what he was seeing, so he had an awareness.

Commander Frank Culbertson, astronaut, NASA: On September the 11th, 2001, I called the ground, and my flight surgeon Steve Hart came on. I said, “Hey Steve, how’s it going?” He said, “Well, Frank, we’re not having a very good day down here on Earth.” He began to describe to me what was happening in New York—the airplanes flown into the World Trade Center, another airplane flown into the Pentagon. He said, “We just lost another airplane somewhere in Pennsylvania. We don’t know where or what’s happening.” Was there any additional research that you did to understand the broader picture of 9/11? Were any books, documentaries, or other resources particularly helpful in your understanding of how to depict the day and the aftermath?Take turns within the group sharing each person’s experience and memory of 9/11. If everyone is comfortable, collect and record those memories to create your own oral history of the day. Col. Mark Tillman: We let the president out through the bottom stairs, because you want that low vantage point in case there’s a sniper. A captain tapped me on the shoulder and said, “Sir, we just had an aircraft hit the World Trade Center.” I started to correct him, saying, “When you have an exercise input you have to start by saying, ‘I have an exercise input.’ That way it doesn’t get confused with the real world.” Then he just pointed me to the TV screens in the command center. You could see smoke pouring out of the building. Like everyone else in aviation that day, I thought, “How in a clear-and-a-million day could someone hit the World Trade Center?”

Gary Walters , chief usher, White House: It was a little bit before 9 a.m. when Mrs. Bush came downstairs—I met her at the elevator. As we were walking out, I remember we were talking about Christmas decorations. Col. Mark Tillman: I took us up to 45,000 feet. That’s about as high as a 747 can go. I figured I wanted to be above all the other air traffic, especially since everyone was descending to land. Photo Credits: Photos inside the bunker (David Bohrer/U.S. National Archives via Getty Images). Pentagon (Alex Wong/Getty Images). Fighter jet (Alex Wong/Getty Images). Flight 93 victims (AP). Andy Card: By the time we’re coming from STRATCOM, it was kind of skeleton crew aboard. The closer we got to Washington, the more the president wandered. Col. Dr. Richard Tubb: As we’re coming in on final [approach], Dan Bartlett comes into my office and says, “Thanks, I took all those pills. Anything else I need?” I said, “What?! Absolutely not! That was supposed to be a week’s worth!” I’m flipping through the Physician’s Desk Reference, that huge book, trying to figure out what the toxic level of Cipro is.Woven together, each piece assembles into a fresco/tapestry with great evocative power, one that gives readers the feeling of reliving - minute by minute - a tragic day on which nearly 3,000 people of 90 different nationalities were killed and 6,000 were injured. But The only plane in the sky wouldn’t be the gem is it without Garrett Graff’s masterful editing and his sense of rhythm; it allows a closeness with the event as it was experienced – and still is today – by those who lived through it. For this reason, this exceptional document must also be read as a brilliant work of immediate history that reports on the upheavals of the world precisely where they happen: at the heart of the human experience." — Le Monde Sonya Ross: As we left, they didn’t know how long we’d be gone. They told us that they’d arrange accommodations if we had to be gone a day or two. I told my bureau chief, “I don’t know where we’re going and I don’t know how long I’ll be gone.” Dave Wilkinson: Colonel Tillman took us to a height where if an aircraft was coming towards us, we’d know it was no mistake. Talking to him, I was confident we were safer in the air than we were anywhere on the ground. On August 12, 2001, NASA astronaut Frank Culbertson arrived at the International Space Station aboard the Space Shuttle Discovery. He would live and work aboard the Space Station for 125 days. On September 11, 2001, he was the only American off the planet. Maj. Scott Crogg: I was thinking—I’ve done these Combat Air Patrols over southern Iraq for hundreds of hours, enforcing the no-fly zone, and now I’m doing it over the United States. It was really strange. No one else was airborne. It just felt so serious. We had all this resolve that day.

Dave Wilkinson: The motorcade left there and in a very aggressive fashion we got to the aircraft. Intelligence information is always sketchy. When we’re riding is the first time that we hear that’s there’s something vague about a threat to the president. That ratcheted things up. President George W. Bush participates in a reading demonstration the morning of Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2001, at Emma E. Booker Elementary School in Sarasota, Florida. | George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum We didn’t know that he was coming to Offutt until about 15 minutes before. There wasn’t much communication with Air Force One at all. There wasn’t going to be any pomp and circumstance. I had my driver and a Secret Service agent who we had, and the three of us went out to the runway to greet Air Force One. It was just a plain Chrysler. A truly riveting book, at once tragic and thrilling, and a testament to the power of memory.” —Tim Weiner, author of Legacy of AshesMaster Sgt. Dana Lark: We had limited communications, that’s for sure, but the president and Air Force One were never without secure communications. We just had two lines—one for the president and one for the mil aide. We were never out of touch entirely. All the other staff or the other Secret Service agent, we just couldn’t provide them the calls they needed. There were a couple times when the vice president wasn’t available, but we never lost communications with the ground. Andy Card : We kneeled on the benches to look outside, you could see the fighter jets came up pretty close to Air Force One. You just don’t see that on Air Force One. Gordon Johndroe: [Air Force One] was the safest and most dangerous place in the world at the exact same time. Col. Mark Tillman: Going into Barksdale, there’s this plane that appears. The initial fighters were with us. I still remember the F-16s starting in on this guy. Bearing, range, altitude, distance. You see the F-16 rolls off, they ask, “Hey, who has shoot-down authority?” I say, “You do.” That was a big moment. It turned out just to be a crop duster, some civilian flyer who didn’t get the word.