Rutgers Review Retrospective

The lead article in today’s New York Times, “The Whole Building Just Came Apart,” provides a retrospective of 9/11 based on a new multimedia document, containing 114 recordings, to be published by the Rutgers Law Review later this week.

The recording provide a stunning real-time view of events as they unfolded and contradicts some commonly held descriptions of the day, often promulgated by senior officials.

For example, many have portrayed fighter jets chasing down the hijacked airlines, with the pilots waiting for a heart-rendering decision by the President to shoot them down. In reality, fighter jets were sent out over the Atlantic to chase a plane that had already crashed into the World Trade Center. In fact, the fighter pilots only knew about one potential crash nine minutes in advance; the others were all learned about after they had hit the ground.

The recordings paint a picture of confusion more than anything else. Not everyone at the FAA was up to speed with the rapidly developing situation, and the coordination between the military and the FAA was abysmal.

The recordings, if nothing else, seem to drive home the horror of living through the day. One controller just looked out the window and saw the second jet about to hit the second tower. His amazement at the occurrence, “the whole building just fell apart,” is a chilling account of the event.