Memories haunt victims, witnesses and families 20 years since 9/11

On this day, twenty years ago, the world was rocked by unprecedented terrorist attacks that would forever leave a mark of sadness and sorrow on the lives of survivors, witnesses and those who lost their loved ones, in the tragedy that would be known as 9/11.

On September 11, 2001, Al Qaeda terrorists (banned in Russia) seized four passenger planes, crashing two of them on the World Trade Center in New York and one on the Pentagon. The fourth jet fell in a field in Pennsylvania after initially being directed towards Washington.

The attacks took place in the early morning hours of Tuesday. At 8.46am local time (3.45pm GMT), an American Airlines (AA) Boeing 767 with 81 passengers and 11 crew on board en route from Boston to Los Angeles crashed into the WTC North Tower in Manhattan between the 93rd and 99th floors. At 9:03 a.m., a United Airlines (UA)-operated Boeing 767 with 56 passengers, including five terrorists and nine crew members, en route from Boston to Los Angeles crashed into the South Tower between the 77th and 85th floors. .

About thirty minutes later, at 9:37 a.m., an AA-operated Boeing 757 with 58 passengers, including five terrorists and six crew members on board, en route from Washington to Los Angeles, crashed into the Pentagon. And at 10:03 a.m., a UA-operated Boeing 757 with 37 passengers, including four terrorists and seven crew members, en route from Newark, New Jersey, to San Francisco crashed in a field in southwestern Pennsylvania outside of Shanksville, 200 kilometers (124 miles) from Washington.

The news of the 9/11 attacks came as a shock to millions of people around the world, including those who were in the air at the time, such as Alexander Shedrinsky, professor at Long Island University and consultant at the University of Long Island. New York Museum of Modern Art. News of the attack found Shedrinsky over Greenland, when a flight attendant asked if anyone could translate from English to Russian. Shedrinsky volunteered to translate a message from the pilot, who relayed the news to the passengers.

“And after translating all this text, I suddenly realized what I was translating exactly. It was something, “Shedrinsky told Sputnik, adding that hysteria had taken hold of the plane as” people started screaming because it turned out that many had someone working. in these towers “.

Shedrinsky noted the swift response from the flight attendants, who rolled alcohol carts down the aisles, offering people a drink to calm them down.

“And I, not a drinker, said I would like brandy when they made me roll the cart. When they asked how much, I said – to the brim. The pilot said we were turning around, [that] US airspace has been closed, ”added Shedrinsky.

The professor was only able to travel to New York, where he had a wife and a child, on September 30, a month after the tragedy.

A WAVE BROUGHT EVERYTHING

A more devastating picture was seen by those close to the tragedy, such as Dmitry Lisovetsky, who worked near the site. He explained that he was about two miles from the Twin Towers.

“We noticed planes flying and crashing into the towers, the first, then the second. Nobody understood anything, ”he told Sputnik.

He remembered a cloud of dust, as after a huge explosion, and saw police all white with dust lining the scene. He immediately got into his car and started to leave. He saw many flee as the panic spread.

“The wave took everything in its path, we fled, it was approaching,” he recalls.

I HOPED MY DAUGHTER HAD TIME TO ESCAPE

Almost 3,000 people from 90 countries have lost their lives in the terrorist attacks. In September 2006, President George W. Bush said the damage amounted to at least $ 500 billion, but the exact number is unknown. September 11 is a day of personal tragedy for Roman, a Russian from New York. He lost his daughter in the Twin Towers attacks.

“It was a normal working day. I was sitting at the desk and my wife called. She said our daughter was not calling at the usual time and that worried her. She called him every day, ”he told Sputnik.

Roman quickly found out what had happened, while working near the Twin Towers. When he looked out the window, the blood froze in his veins.

“I ran, I headed for Manhattan, I called my wife, I called my daughter. I continued to walk there and I prayed to God that she was not there, ”he recalls.

But the police wouldn’t let him enter the area.

“I just sat down, people were walking by, gave me water. I was sure no one would get out of there. Still, I was hoping my daughter had time to escape, maybe she was on the lower floors, ”he said.

He and his wife searched hospitals for their daughter, but their attempts were unsuccessful. They never found her.

Along with Russian-speaking New Yorkers who lost loved ones in the tragedy, he became part of the 9/11 family. He and his wife planted a weeping willow in Asser Levy Park to honor their daughter.

In 2011, on the tenth anniversary of the tragedy, authorities founded the National September 11 Memorial and Museum on the site of the destroyed Twin Towers in New York City. The memorial is a park with over 400 white oak trees that surround two swimming pools with waterfalls. The names of nearly 3,000 victims of the attacks are inscribed on the bronze parapets surrounding the Memorial’s twin pools.

In 2002, September 11 was dubbed Patriot Day in the United States. Since 2009, following the approval of Law 111-13 of the General Law of the United States, this date has been called National Day of Service and Remembrance.

It was total chaos

The long-term effects of the 9/11 tragedy are still being felt by survivors, even among those who lived in New York City but were not directly present at the site of the attacks. About 400,000 people were exposed to toxic dust. John Mormando, who worked as a trader at the New York Mercantile Exchange, located just a few blocks from the World Trade Center, was one of them.

When the towers fell, he was at home. However, he was fired for work five or six days later.

“We returned to work in the middle of a war zone with burning and still buildings and smoke everywhere. And you know, it was total chaos there, but we had to open up because we were commodities and they needed to open it. So we got back to work. And the EPA [the Environmental Protection Agency] , you know, said all the tests were done and the air quality was good but unfortunately they were wrong or something happened because a lot of people got sick including me- even, ”he told Sputnik.

Seventeen years later, Mormando was diagnosed with male breast cancer. He went into remission in 2019 and in 2020 he battled COVID-19.

“Unfortunately I had to go to the hospital and was in really bad shape for about two weeks and then recovered. And then this year, I was able to continue my journey to do an Ironman and I just finished it in Lake Placid, New York. I completed an Ironman triathlon, ”he said.

For the wife of Earl Rasmussen, vice president of the Eurasia Center, September could have been fatal, as she usually worked in Crystal City, Arlington, Virginia, about two miles from the Pentagon. However, Tuesday’s meeting was postponed.

“If I remember correctly, she was supposed to have a meeting that morning at the Pentagon with the Army Budget Office. Due to scheduling conflicts, the meeting with the director of the budget office was postponed at the last minute from the Pentagon to her office in Arlington, ”he told Sputnik.

She didn’t go, and it turned out that this postponed meeting saved her life.

“Almost all of the Army Budget Office staff were reportedly killed that day when the plane crashed directly into the side of the Pentagon where they were,” he said.

AN INTERNATIONAL THING

Retired Arson and Explosions Squad Detective Bill Ryan, who was working on site during the 9/11 tragedy, recalled that the day it happened, they got no response on what that had happened. Ryan worked at the World Trade Center during the 1993 bombing. In this incident, a truck bomb exploded under the North Tower, killing six people and injuring about a thousand.

“When I worked on the 1993 bombing, I spent so much time at the Trade Center that I made friendships with many people who worked there…. And everyone I knew died. It’s terribly sad, ”admitted Ryan, addressing Sputnik.

Yet he said there was no similarity between the September 11 attacks and the one in 1993.

“[in 1993] There was structural damage but it was inside. In 27 days, it was over, we finished the investigation, made arrests. It was very fast; the city is back to normal. With September 11, I don’t think it will ever return to normal…. It was an international thing, ”he added.

In 2002, an independent commission to investigate the September 11 attacks (September 11 Commission) was created in the United States. In 2004, the commission published a final report on the circumstances of the tragedy. One of the main conclusions of the 600-page document was the recognition that the authors took advantage of the “deep administrative failings” of the US government.

The American families of the victims of the 9/11 attacks have long pushed the American government to declassify information related to the links that Saudi Arabia may have had with the terrorists who carried out the attacks.

Earlier in September, US President Joe Biden issued an executive order initiating an interagency review to possibly declassify certain documents related to the September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States within six months. Biden said in a copy of the executive order that information relating to the 9/11 attacks should not be kept confidential when the public interest outweighs any damage to national security that could reasonably be expected from the disclosure of classified documents.