Transcripts For FBC Cavuto 20140914

Event in a small classroom and larger speech at a crowded gym about education. Welcome aboard. Its ffox friends, 2 00 afr 8 in the east. 2 after 5 00 in the west. I starred with a fashion shoot. She has something extra. President bush was in florida encouraging reading programs. The california grand jury decided against investigating ga gary. Were nuts about nuts i was in the battle cap. We were starting a yard exercise. We have a couple of those a year. Also, because of the exercise, we had the fighters on alert with a little extra gas, more website on board than they normally would. On the morning of the 11th, i received a call from a person i assumed was the exercise coordinator asking if we had got an notification of a highjacked situation approaching from the northeas northeast. Im number 3 on flight 11. Okay. The cockpit was not answering their phone. Our number 1 got stabbed. Our purser is stabbed. Nobody knows who stabbed who. We cant get up to Business Class right now because nobody can breathe. Youre doing a great job, just stay calm, okay . Just stay quiet and you will be kay. We are returning to the airport. Whats going on . We contacted air traffic control. They are going to handle this. He turned the transponder off so we dont have a definitive altitude for him but they seem to think he is defending. A note was handed to me just as we came out of the teleconference. Boston secenter has a suspected hijacker. I put the f15s at the Otis Air National guard base at battle stati stations. I said, scramble them, well hold them over the water until we get permission necessary. Hijacked airplane, we dont know nothing about it at all. No idea where it is. Whats going on, betty . Betty, talk to me. Betty, are you there . We just had a plane crashed into the upper floor of the World Trade Center. The World Trade Center tower number one is on fire. The whole outside of the building. We have a very tragic alert for you right now. An incredible plane crash into the World Trade Center at the lower tip of manhattan. Its believed the 737 crashed into it. Speculation at this point. At least three floors taken out. Joining us right now one of the producers with the fox report. Owen on the scene. What do you see . Im on the roof of my building five blocks to the south of the World Trade Center. Im looking at the World Trade Center. Theres a massive gaping hole on the second tower, about 15 stories from the roof. Its unbelievable to look at. Theres a massive hole. Fire department 408. Wheres the fire . Hi. Im on the 106th floor of the World Trade Center. We just had an explosion up here. 106th floor. What building are you in, one or two . One world trade. See the smoke coming from outside the windows . Okay. Just sit tight. Just sit tight, were on the way. All right. Hurry. The plane obviously went in on one side and came out the other. This is horrible. Right now, lets hand it over to jon scott. You can see the smoke, the smoke tower is growing. There is quite a bit of flame inside the building. I was just walking into the studio that day. I wear this little wireless ifp we call it. I heard this very urgent voice get in my ear and say, jon scott, studio b, now it was just a minute or two later we got the pictures up on the fox5 helicopter. What could you say . The two towers are home at least during the day to upwards of 50,000 workers on 120 floors. We have a number of floors on fire. It looked like the plane was aiming towards the building. I was on the 67th floor when the first plane hit. And it took me a second or two to catch my breath. So im walking on b floor going towards the parking lots. All of a sudden the whole floor, the whole building just rocked. It just rocked and threw you and just threw you. You didnt know what happened. At 8 46, when, boom, theres this loud explosion noise somewhere, i didnt know exactly where, all i saw right up against the glass was fire, flames, just a big fireball. Im looking at something thats steel and all of a sudden, its ripped like its paper because of whatever just passed through there. This big heat comes blowing through the corridor that im in. Th then, then theres silence. For no apparent reason, i just turned looking toward jersey over the hudson and i see fireballs falling down from this side. I dont know whats happening, whats going on. These are coming to you live now. Debris reigning down from 110 floors up. As you can see, this is a Clear Blue Sky day in manhattan. If this was an accident, it would be a needle in a haystack kind of accident. [ sirens ]. I was actually in new york in my office, like everyone else. Like most other people, i thought, my god, how could this possibly happen but never suspected the magnitude of what it was. I was in my office with my speechwriter. The secretary called in to say that a plane had hit the trade center. I turned on the television and sat there wondering how can an airplane hit the World Trade Center . Its clear sky, no weather problems, how do you account for this . Its one of those normal tuesday mornings. I was standing at my desk getting ready for my staff meeting downstairs with my senior people. My executive assistant walked in and said a plane had hit the World Trade Center. Immediately my mind went to perhaps a twin engine plane of some kind. I said, thats a terrible accident. I was leaving the motorcade i got a page saying the World Trade Center had been hit by a plane and karl rove got to the president and told him the plane had been hit the plane had hit the World Trade Center. I said thats a strange accident and would call him back when we had more information. I called mayor gillian neright away and got ahold of him right after i got ahold of rudy and the president was in an educational conference and i was able to get him out of the conference and urge him to shut down the airspace over new york. The walkdown was very calm. People in the staircase were very calm, occasionally somebody would become anxious and somebody in the stairwell would put their arm around them and say, its okay, were doing fine. We got around the mid 20s we began to see firemen walking up the stairs. For the people walking down, the sight of the firemen was a very calming experience. When i got to the lobby a the damage there the full impact was really beginning to dawn. Now, you hear silence and its a dead calm of dust and smoke and all of a sudden you hear people slowly somebody starts screaming, someone starts yelling, someone starts saying, youre hearing help, youre hearing please. One at a time, youre hearing it. It just started and all of a sudden everybody started screaming, coming out, what happened . What happened . What happened . As one of the volunteer fire marshals on my floor, jumped up, grabbed my clash light out of the credenza and put a whistle around my neck and walked into the office and said, come on, everybody, lets go. Theres an explosion upstairs, we have to move. We were on the ground floor now about to get to the turn style. The Security Guard asked us where are you going . I saw fireballs come, were getting out of here. No. Go back to your office. Your building is secure. It is safe. There was an announcement. Somebody from strobe lights flashed normally and secure announcement building two is secure. That took a little pressure off. I went for a walk to the east floor which is where our Trading Floor is and walked up to the north wall. There were a lot of our people against the glass looking up to their left. You could see the north tower. Very sadly at that moment what they were looking at was people jumping. It was all smoke and fire and the walls were caved in. You couldnt even see the exit. You couldnt see the exit getting into tower one. You couldnt get back into tower one. Im saying, lets go. Looks like a clear shot home, whoever can make it, lets go. Do you know who he is . We dont know who he is. Just picking him up now. Headsup. Looks like another one. Stace, its craig. Are you there . Im hearing news reports a plane crashed into the other tower of the World Trade Center, actually right near us. We can see it clear. Its right on our level, too. I had two messages left on my answering machine, one saying stace, its me, pick up because we screened our calls all the time at 8 49 and then at 54 letting me know i would hear on the news the other tower had been hit. Its kind of pandemonium because we dont know what the heck happened there. Give me a call when you get this, okay . Bye. He was eyelevel with tower one and watching people jump to their death. Then to know he is about to die when his tower was hit. Theres pain and suffering. Smoke is all over the top of the building. Just stepped off the elev e elevator on 78 and two steps and the plane hit. No idea what it was. A lot of the wall just disintegrated. The elevator doors blew out and flames shot out. A few minutes after this happened it was obvious it was something a lot worse than i originally thought it was. On the way up now. Report a fire on the 78th floor. I worked my way over to what i guess was the main exit stairwell. It was probably in the middle of the building, somewhere in the middle of the tower. I started going down straig78 f. We heard another noise and the building shook again, not as much as the first time. It had to be the plane hitting the other tower. Somewhere in the 30s and 40s, Police American started coming up. I finally made it down to the ground floor. We came out right in front of this plaza, the area in front of the two towers where the fountain is. That was horrible, a war scene, fires, debris falling from both towers. I saw dead bodies out there right in front of the window, a body strapped to an airplane sea seat. There was another one. We just saw we just saw another one. We just saw another one, apparently go, another plane just flew into the second tower. This raises this has to be deliberate, folks. We just saw on Live Television as a second plane flew into the second tower of the World Trade Center. Now, given what has been going on around the world, some of the key suspects come to mind, osama bin laden. My first instinct was, what is going on . How many planes are there . Where are they coming from . Who are they . And who do i call for air support . Im the Police Commissioner and i have 41,000 uniformed members, 55,000 people work for me. Were prepared for anything you could imagine. This was something you couldnt imagine. Walked back down the hallway, back to my desk and the phone is ringing again. This time its a young lady from chicago, one of our rep offices. Says, are you okay . Im fine. For no apparent reason in midsentence just happened to raise my hand looking towards the statute of liberty. What im seeing here is a big giant aircraft, gray with red letter on the wing and tail comes straight eye contact eyelevel towards me. The next thing i knew, i dove under my desk, huddled in a fetal position screaming crying and the plane crashed in the building. The plane was coming straight towards me and the bottom wing is wedged in my office door 20 feet from where i was under the desk. I know whatever blew up in the building, a lot came down the shafts and blew out everything. Elevator capabilities snapped. When you hear a 10,000 pound, 40,000 pound elevator coming down the shaft, hearing people screaming, all of a sudden you dont hear them screaming know they just died. Whatever was over there just died and just silence. You have a second plane into the other tower of the trade center and a massive fire. At 9 03, whatever time it was when apparently the second plane hit, boom, boom, a double explosion, i learned later it was the plane hitting the building and then it exploding. For the next 10 seconds, i was terrified. The impact was so great and the sound that it made was so loud i got temporarily deaf. I couldnt hear anything. It looked like a demolition crew came in and just knocked everything over. The building just continued to move left, left, left, toward the hudson river, a long long way. It felt like yards, whether it was or not, i dont know. The sensation was we are going too far. Were going to fall over. Something is happening. I also knew in an instant it was terrorism. The room just fell apart on that second explosion. Be advised you have a second plane that crashed into the second tower about twothirds of the way up. Recommend you transit a fifth alarm for that tower as well. Walls tore in jagged angles. Some door frames fell out of the walls. It was a mess. It was as if somebody had opened up a concrete sack and waved it in the air. There was yellow white dust everywhere. Im crying and im saying, lord, i dont want to die. I dont want to die here, i have two little children. Please, lord, send somebody, anybody to help me. The building swayed forever one way and then came back to vertical and then i sort of snapped out of it, sobered up, turned on my flashlight. Were in a small tier event in the classroom i got a second page telling me the second tower had been hit. Right away, i knew it was terrorism. Shortly after i got that page, andy card got here and at the president s right ear and said the second tower has been hit, were under attack. I wrote on the back of my legal pad, dont say anything yet and held it up for the president to see. Wendell go ler is with the white house, traveling with the president. Whats the reaction from the president . Reporter john, the president is here promoting a Reading Initiative of a second day on a 2day trip to florida just finished reading to children at the emma Booker School and asked if he was aware of it and said he would have something to say about it later. No, no, no. Im going to die. Maam, say your prayers. Were going to think positive. You have to help each other get off the floor. Stay calm, stay calm. Please, god. Youre doing a good job, maam. Its so hot, im burning up. Jumpers. Be advised there are jumpers from the World Trade Center. It is beyond belief, both towers of the World Trade Center are burning. Both have apparently been hit by aircraf aircraft. My first reaction was to get down to the scene as fast as i could. As i was drive iing down, emergy vehicles were going obviously flying down to the scene. I jumped behind a police car and drafted it all the way down and pretty much got two blocks from the scene. The very first thing we did was got establishing shots. I got close to the tower and shooting it but it was so tall i had to keep backing up to get a better shot. When i got the first tight shots, i realized what was happening up at the top of the towers. I look up and people start shouting, theyre jumping. I look up just in time to see someone leap from what must have been the 108th floor. I cannot believe this is happening. Ridiculous. Theyre jumping. They really must have felt like they had no other choice. That decision that they made remains for me the most horrifying part of the whole tragedy. I realized there were jumpers and people lining up in the window wells and i shot the first two that i saw and then turned off my camera because i was overcome with emotion, actually. Youre conscious of whats happening but sort of looking through the viewfinder is sort of an insulator. Its black and white. Its not color. The number 2 World Trade Center on the 88 and 84 floors, trapped. I think they knew early on they couldnt put the fire out. They wanted to get rescuers up as high as possible, not concerned about the fire at that point. I heard a banging and voice screaming for help. Help, help, im buried, is anybody there . I cant breathe, help. This is stan from the loan department. Please dont leave me to die. Somebody help me. A strangers voice kept directing me, no, this way. Even though he was responding i couldnt hear. I i tried to get up from the desk and realized i was covered up to my shoulder in debris. The bottom wing starts to burn. My greatest concern was this flame was going to ignite the fuel tame and explode and i was fog to die. I crawled the entire length of the loans department through the lounge to the customer room to the communication room. I couldnt go further because there was one track wall which was blocking myself. He says, jump over and will grab you. I got up from that prayer and i started punching, kicking as hard as i can until a little hole appeared in the sheetrock. He said, i see your hand. I said when you see my head, just yank me through. I jumped and grabbed and reached through. Nothing happened. Said you must do this and up he jumped again and i grabbed his arm or something and lifted him up over this barrier and we fell on a heap on the floor. To this man, he just gave me a headlock. With all his might he just pulled and just yanked me right through that wall. Like a superman, yanked me and i fell on top of him. I gave him a big hug and kiss and said you are my guardian angel. My lord sent you to save me. We started down the stairs, the inner wall of the fire stairs had blown in. We could looking through the cracks and you could see flames licking up the other side of the wall as we went down through this area. We stopped at a floor because i couldnt breathe properly, i couldnt walk down. I was cut, i was bloodied, bruised. The leg wound was opening up. We went as low as the 44th floor. I know that as a sky lobby, like empty hotel lobby until a Security Guard manning his booth looked at us wide eyed rather surprised to see us quickly said have you got telephone. My phones dont work but ill stay with this man if youll get me help. The man was lying, his back was broken covered with blood. Please tell my wife and baby i love them but send somebody up for me. But the Security Guard stood like a hawk guarding that man. That man sacrificed his lifeguarding this man. While we were going down, no ems worker came down. Stanley called his wife at his office and left messages he was fine. I called 911. After some difficulty, it took me three or four minutes to really get the message across, there was somebody down on the 44th floor. I know they were overwhelmed. Stanley and i went back to the stairs all the way to the plaza level without seeing a soul, nobody. On the plaza level we stared in ah at the plaza where the fountain is normally flowing and people coming and going. We know nothing about hijacked airplanes, about the pentagon, none of this. Were ignorant of all these fact facts. We got down to the ground floor and only cops and firefighters and ems workers were there. Debris was flowing down. Looked like confetti in a ticker day parade. They were telling us to run, just go, run, run. They stayed back, sacrificing themselves so that brian and i could live. Attention all units. By order of the citywide tour commander all offduty firefighters are recalled. All offduty firefighters and all offduty officers are hereby ord order and hereby recalled. President bush at an empt school in florida at what was supposed to be a joyous event. Ladies and gentlemen, this is a difficult moment for america. I unfortunately will be going back to washington after my remarks. Secretary ron page and the lieutenantgovernor will take the podium to discuss education. I do want to thank the folks at the Booker Elementary School for their hospitality. Today, weve had a national tragedy. Two airplanes have crashed into the World Trade Center in an pare apparent terrorist attack on our country. I have spoken to the Vice President , to the governor of new york, to the directs of the fthe director of the fbi and ordered the full resources of the federal government go to help the victim and their families and to conduct a fullscale investigation to hunt down and to find those folks who committed this act. Terrorism against our nation will not stand. And now if you join me in a moment of silence. May god bless the victims, their families and america. Thank you very much. You saw the second airplane fly into the World Trade Center so we decided to scramble the f16s out of Langley Air Force base. Traffic is crawling along. Actually looking at the radio talking about how washington d. C. Is on high alert status because they think that might be the next target. I walked into the hall of states building. A group of people sitting around the Television Ready for meetings. After the rush hour normally would have ended and i ended up getting stuck in rush hour light traffic just to the west of the pentagon. We that American Airline 77 was a potential hijacked aircraft. As we sat down to have meeting for this client, one of the people said, well wrskswrsk well, Barbara Olson wont be here because shes on plane to california. I had been in my office at the department of justice. One of the gals in my office came in and said barbaras on known. I was at first relieved to hear barbara on the telephone because panic strikes immediately and the next words out of her mouth were that, ted, my planes been hijacked. Were watching all these aircraft in the system and trying to determine where they are. Well put them back direct st. Louis and they can put them where they want to. Screaming. Mayday. Thats america 1070. United 93 verified 350. United 1523, did you hear some interference on the frequency here a couple minutes ago . Screaming . Yes, i did 797. We couldnt tell what it was either. Okay. United 93 cleveland if youre he here, identify in. Ladies and gentlemen, here the captain, please sit down keep remaining seating. We have a bomb on board so sit. Say it again slowly. Did you hear he said they have a bomb on board. Say it again. It was unreasonable. Sounded like someone said they had a bomb on board. Thats what we thought we didnt get it clear. The pilot announced the plane had been hijacked. She said it had been hijacked shortly after takeoff. By this time the plane had been in the air over an hour. She imsupplied they had been circling around for a while. She and the other passengers had been herded to the back of the airplane. I asked if they the hijackers knew she was calling. She said, no, they dont know. She indicated they had used knives and box cutters to take over the plane. At some point we got cut off. I immediately called the command center of the department of justice to let them know my wife was on plane that had been hijacked. I notice this plane come in really fast and really low. I notice its silver, American Airlines jetliner, passenger plane, pretty big one. I told her in the first conversation the two hijacked planes had hit the World Trade Center. Her instance was what shall i tell the pilot . What can i do . I asked her where she was and she tried to tell me where she was and what she could do. Flight 77 made a left turn after it was hijacked. They came back over washington fairly high and then he did a left descending turn, which gave him good visual visibility of the pentagon. I heard it before i saw it. I looked up and directly in front of my field of vision, parallel to the ground, i saw a jet airplane with the silver paint job, with the red, white and blue stripes underneath the windows. It was clearly an American Airlines passenger jet come roaring by. We did not know where that aircraft was. Just moments later, that aircraft hit the pentagon. Of course, our aircraft headed towards washington d. C. Are well south of there at that time. They were not yet over washington d. C. It didnt veer from its course at all. It was like a missile, right into the side of the pentagon. Then a huge fireball popped comes up in the air. Theres all kinds of smoke coming out. I could feel the actual impact of the explosion because the ground really shook. Even though my windows were up in the car, i could feel the heat from the fireball. David is joining us from fox central. John, we are hearing right now of another explosion has taken place at the pentagon. We have the heart of the financial district of america being attacked. Now, we understand that there is an explosion, there has been an explosion in the pentagon. I began to hear reports of the explosion at the pentagon. I knew in my heart that was that aircraf aircraft. We just had an airplane crash, American Airlines plane headed east down over the pike and pentagon. There is visible smoke. High visible smoke. It was instantaneous, just a very loud noise. The lights went out. Everything was black, very heavy smoke, debris piled on top of me so im penned in my chair at my desk. As i came in to focuses a little closer this pile of debris i saw looked like a face, couldnt possibly be a live person and then i thought i saw it wink or blink. I yelled for help and from outside came Lieutenant Commander dave serentino. It felt like a furniace in there and couldnt believe anybody was alive and saw cant thomas trying to pull debris and i looked to my side and saw mr. Henson about 10 feet away in this cave of debris. Already, my uniform is starting to melt, my shoes are starting to melt. Im really eager for him to get out of there and go. He says he cant budge. Out of desperation, i laid on my back underneath him and put my feet on the debris over his hand and leg pressed as hard as i could. With me pushing with my back against this pile and him pushing up with his legs he managed to get most of the debris up far enough to extricate himself from this huge pile of rubble that pinned him to his desk. I think the total thing took about 30 minutes. I didnt think i had very much time left when the rescue team came in. Was still up in there. We couldnt get everybody out. My boss didnt make it. The general didnt make it. I think there were five of under the circumstances were 5 of us that survived. Emergency plan requires all offduty personnel to report back to the duty stations immediately. Theyre trying evacuate the white house. The white house is being evacuated. That comes to us from one of our fox producers in washington. The white house is being evacuated. The pentagon as well. You have to pack up and go. What . A plane was hijacked 20 minutes south of here and headed to the capitol. Jim angle, are you with us . The streets were blocked seconds ago around the white house. There are emergency vehicles almost every block around the white house. As you know, the white house is being evacuated. Federal employees standing on street corners in and around the white house having left the building for fear of another attack. Get back get back as they brought me out, i could see people running, people were crying, hurry up and get these people out because theres another one right behind. They must have had input on the pennsylvania airplane. By now were firmly over washington d. C. And were watching united 93 now start very gradually to take up a flight path flight towards washington d. C. We were very concerned at that tim time. Heres the captain. I would like to tell you our demands. We are greg back to the airport. United 93 calling . United 93 understand you have a bomb on board. Go ahead. Executive 956, did you understand that transmission . Affirmative. He said there was a bomb on board. As we had f16s over washington d. C. , i was probably energized to start moving those flighters towards that aircraft. We decided it would be wiser to keep the f16s over washington d. C. In case another aircraft was coming in from a different quad ron that we didnt see yet. My agent came beside me and said we have to leave now. To the chance for debate and propelled me out of the office down to the underground. We got down to the place, tunnel thats protected. When i got down into the tunnel, we saw the pentagon had been hit. That was on television. I called the president again. He was headed for the airport in florida and urged him not to return to washington because washington was now under attack. Flight 93 was the only aircraft that we could see on our radar at that particular time. It was either slightly before or right around the time that the American Airline 77 had hit the pentagon. We could see this aircraft flying around up in the ohio and pennsylvania area. United airlines called me and told me todd had made a phone call to an operator. He had initially called to report a hijacking. He felt at that time this was a normal sort of situation the hijackers would return them to the airport and a demand made. I heard his voice im on a flight from newark to san francisco. There are three guys on board who have taken over the plane and say they have a bomb. Im calling you from the air phone. Then there was a long pause, mom, you believe me, dont you . Yes, mark, i believe you. Who are these guys . There was another long pause. Then marks voice came back on the line and he said, you believe me, dont you, mom, i said, yes, mark, i believe you. Who are those guys . Then we were disconnected. You reached the mobile phone voice mail. Mark, this is your mom. The news is its been hijacked by terrorists. They are planning to probably use the plane as a target to hit some site on the ground. I would say do everything you can to overpower them because theyre hell bent. Ill try to call me back if you can. He told me immediately he was on plane that had been hijacked. He gave me a few details of what was going on and told me to call the authorities. And he hung up. I said, do you know whos flying the airplane . She said, no, i dont, weve all been herded to the back. He knew there were a few people in the front that were hurt and pulled the curtain to first class so he couldnt see what was going on at that point. On the second phone call i told him the towers had been t hit. He paused and he was alarmed and said, my god, its a suicide mission. The plane turned around and started to dip as they changed their course back to washington. The third phone call, i told him about the pentagon. He told me at that point that he was putting a plan together to take back the airplane. And i asked who was helping him. He said, theres a group of us. Were back here getting hot water together to throw on them. Do you have any other ideas for us . They were going to rush this hijacker with the bomb and attempt to get into the cockpit. He said, its what we have to do. It wasnt long after that, that she heard him say, asked the men around him, are you ready . Were all running to first class, ive got to go, by. Said, lets roll. Thats the last i heard. We know that the passengers made a rush on the cockpit and thwarteded the hijackers. We know that because the cockpit voice recording, they knew there was a movement afoot in the back and that their moments were numbered up front and we hea heardsomeone heard on the cockpit voice recording, theyre coming, theyre coming. There was a tremendous thrashing around of dishes and carts back and forth. This plane was at least 30 degrees, if not a little more and rapidly go to 45 degrees the other way and rocking back and forth. I guess there was a fight going on and the airplane was rolling from the right to left, right to left. We heard blood screams happening more than once. I dont believe it was the passengers screaming. They were rolling violently, rolling back and forth. The hijackers were panicked, talking with each other, do you want me to end it now . I believe that that was their signal that, hey, were going to crash now because were about to lose control of this airplane. I am absolutely convinced that fourth plane would have hit the capitol but for those heroes in pennsylvania. United 933, have you got information on that yet . Yeah. Hes down. Hes down . Yes. When did he land . He did not land. Oh, hes down . Yeah. Somewhere northeast of camp david. Authorities at the Somerset County airport confirm a large plane crash about 80 miles southeast of pittsburgh. Youve got to assume that its related to all of these goes on. I told brian, i said, this is the lords doing and im going to trinity church. He said, look, im coming with you. And together we grabbed each others hand and we just started to run. Surprising enough not even one piece of confetti or broken glass touched us. The next thing i know we bumped into a priest. Thats where stanley broke down and he looked at me and he said, this man saved my life. And i said to stanley, i think maybe you saved my life, too. He said, you know, i think that tower could go down. I said, theres no way. Thats steel. Thats a steel structure. I didnt finish the sentence. We started to run. We heard a strange sound like steel bending and creaking. And the building started to implode. It kail down like a pancake effect. Major collapse in one of the towers. Which tower . Tower two. Tower two. Oh, my god oh, my god we set up to do live within a minute or two after he got the camera hooked up reporting in the street thats when the first tower fell. You heard the rumbling thunder, wasnt as loud as i expected it to be. What shot of it . My god, look, dude, look, look, point that way. Oh, my god just as i was about to come up, as i was going up the stairwell on the building started shaking going down. A fireman at the top said, hit the deck. Were on church street. Were not sure what happened. Theres been a huge explosion, everyones running for their lives literally, police, media. I see a woman pushing a baby carriage. Here comes the smoke. I couldnt see anything because of all the dust, all the lights were out. After the south tower fell, that was the first time the panic set in because realizing the south tower was hit second and fell first. Now, you really had to worry about getting people out of the north tower as quickly as possible. I pushed up and out and realized i was still alive. I didnt even know if i was alive or not. 92 my god, its the whole towe tower. Holy they knocked the whole fricking thing out. Here comes the smoke. Its unclear what happened, if the tower collapsed or what. I think we better get out of this mess. I think we better get out of this. We jumped in the trunk with the camera and 11th about an inch or two crack in the door with the cable. Oh, my god. Me must get out of here together, you and me. You all right . We were in the dark literally. It was frightening. It was a frightening moment to have no connection to the outside world and have no idea what was going to happen next. We shouldnt be here, should we . Everybody else ran, cops, everybody. I dont know what to do. Its danger, bro. John, one of the two towers literally collapsed. I was making my way to the foot of the World Trade Center, suddenly, came up to an officer and showed my press credentials and a long explosion and looked up and the building literally began to collapse before us. There was debris threequarters the height of the building and people, literally, myself, running 4 our lives. This is debris from one of the planes that hit one of the towers in the World Trade Center. The fbi was here, had roped this area off taking photographs, securing this area, just prior to that huge explosion we all heard. Everything just imploded. I ran as fast as i could. All of a sudden the building started filling up with smoke. We couldnt get out of the building because everything was locked up. I came out and everything was filled with ash. Can anybody hear me . Im a civilian. Im trapped inside one of your fire trucks underneath. Stand by. Theres people close to you. I cant breathe much longer. Save me. Im in the cab of your truck. I can barely breathe. Please send somebody. What happened . You were right there at the building . Yes. You all right . A lot of people trapped. Emt. This guy needs help. Can you talk us to a minute to tell us what you saw and heard . How you feel . You all right . Naw, not at all. I feel bad approaching these people, i mean, theyre covered. Theyre obviously in pain. Lets go f in the place where that plane hit, the outer wall of the building, that building, as you know, is a series of concentric rings so when you hit the outer ball wall of the building youre only affecting that part of it. The walls are down and you can see the gutted area. The whole place blew. Everything came down. Couldnt see, couldnt breathe. Terrible. Ive never seen nothing like it. I went through vietnam and never seen anything like this. Can they go in, based on the conditions of the building . Somebody is going to have to. Thats what we get paid for. As soon as we heard the explosion, we ran out of the New York State Supreme Court and jumped on our jury bus. Here we go again. Here we go again. I dont know whats going on but this second building is collapsing, i believe. Coming down . I dont know. I dont know. This happened before. Back up. Come over this way, pat. Fine, we will. We can see the top of the building from here. Oh, yeah. It there goes, there it goes there it goes f we do need to put it down now. Everybodys running from there. You think you died three times and then people are screaming the buildings coming down and all of a sudden you feel the rumbling of the floor down the west side highway. You just think it its somethings going to fall on you. You just think you are going to die. We need the army in manhattan. Every floor i was trying to be the last man, do a sweep to make sure no one was left behind. An experienced firefighter had to have an awful lot of beer and concern going into that building. Thats what makes it lot of fear going into that building. Thats what just makes it such a heroic act. I got to the sixth floor. All of a sudden this tremendous noise started, went black, the building was shaking. It was rocking and rolling. We were getting tossed around. I knew that the building was collapsing. I thought it was just a matter of seconds before we were dead. Weve got numerous people trapped here from the previous collapse. Im about four feet under. I really dont know. Blackness and deathly silent. This is marine 6. Im on the west side highway. Im pinned. I cant seem to get out. Okay. I was covered by six inches of debris. The first few seconds i thought i was dead. Saw nothing, heard nothing. I was covered. So i just called for maydays, calling for help. It is my understanding that all of the bridges and tunnels in the city are closed. This has a signature of osama bin laden. Hes got pilots on his payroll. I hate to say thats what happened here but this seems to indicate that would have that signature. The fire continues to burn out of control at this hour. At this point, no estimates from pentagon officials on the number of dead. I felt the shock of the airplane hitting the building, went through the building and then out into the area and they were bringing bodies out that had been injured. You dont like people hurt. Thats the operational rule here is focused on if anybody cried out or was hurt. The people were almost like a still life. They were in tact. It was very different, especially because i had already found a bunch of people who were all burned up. There was this young woman there. She was in civilian clothes. She was very nicely dressed. Her clothes werent burned, her name tag she was the easiest i. D. I ever did because it was still around a chain around her neck and it was angela. And it was just like being hit by a hammer. Here was a real person. This is a beautiful, young woman. She obviously was going to leave that evening or that morning or something and go out to her life and she wasnt ever going to do that. A lot of volunteers were doing a terrific job helping to bring them out of the buildings. The president flew directly here from florida. He is all right. We flew a couple of hours on air force one. We were not told where we would land until the time came. There were fighters accompanying the president s airplane. Make no mistake, the United States will hunt down and punish those responsible for these cowardly acts. By the time that the president had gotten to Offut Air Force base, nobody was going to tell the president that he couldnt come back. The first thing he said when he got on the teleconference is, im coming back tonight. The city of new york and the United States of america is much stronger than any group of barbaric terrorists that are democracy and rule of law, that our strength and our willingness to defend ourselves will ultimately prevail. Today was supposed to be an election day at least a primary runoff day in manhattan for those who would succeed the mayor. It was the hardest thing i had to do, to try to maintain composure. Im not trying to sound macho but i thought if i breakdown and cry, which i was close to doing a couple of times that day, its not going to help anybody at home process the information that were trying to bring them. So i just i said a little silent prayer and just tried to keep going. I hate to wonder how many of your people were there around the base of the twin towers when they ended up collapsing. I am very worried about them and i saw some of them rush in and go in and was with them. We were in a building that was trapped for a while. Thank god that im safe. I feel terrible for the people that we lost, some of whom i talked to just 15 minutes before we lost them and the city is going to survive. Were going to get through it. The only thing you could see from where we were was a big gouge in the earth and broken trees. Nothing that you could distinguish that a plane had crashed there. Just a few moments ago world center trade building number 7 had collapsed. Earlier we had been warned that the building was in danger of collapse and engineers were on the scene. They said the building was structurally very weak. A lot of innocent have died. All they did was a simple thing. All they did was come to work that morning. They didnt come to do battle. The people that went to vietnam knew what they were doing, they trained for that. You dont expect that just going to work at the pentagon and an office. It was already very focused and very calm. It was remarkable to me. He was not shaken in that sense. The one moment that i could see the horror in his face and in his eyes was when that famous picture of andy cart telling him what had happened. He had remarkable composure through this whole period. In fact, was rallying other people. Terrorist attacks can shake the foundations of our biggest buildings but they cannot touch the foundation of america. These acts shattered steel but they cannot dent the steel of american resolve. None of us will ever forget this day yet we go forward to defend freedom and all that is good and just in our world. What it did was reaffirm to me that this is a country worth living in and these are people worth defending and that there are things in this world that hu to be willing to die for. I look back and see all of these firefighters and these cops who sacrificed their lives because of me and i pick up the paper and im looking back and im seeing the Memorial Service and the kids are in tears and i tell myself, that could have been me. We shared such a powerful experience and depended on each other that day perhaps for survival. Well always be in touch. The people who knocked these buildings down. Usa usa [ applause ] its a very special day. Everybodys proud of what weve accomplished. If it had been more than a job for these guys. Its a mission. Theyve been passionate and working day and night as a tribute to the victims of 9 11 in thi