'My stomach sank': Royal Mile visitors recall their memories of 9/11 terror attacks on 25th anniversary
'It hits you how massive it was': Public share memories of 9/11 on 25th anniversary of attacks
Twenty-five years ago today the world witnessed one of the most defining moments of the 21st century.
On September 11, 2001, terror attacks by the al-Qaeda group were orchestrated across the United States.
Planes were hijacked by suicide bombers with the first plane hitting the North Tower of the World Trade Centre at 8:46am local time in New York City. Minutes later a second plane hit the South Tower, with both collapsing soon after. A hijacked plane was also flown into the Pentagon building in Virginia. Another aircraft crashed into a field in Pennsylvania after passengers attempted to overrun the hijackers.
It is the enduring image of the Twin Towers engulfed by flames and smoke lives the in the memory of people across the world.
Marking the 25th anniversary of the attacks on Edinburgh’s Royal Mile, we asked members of the public their memories of where they were when the tragedy unfolded.
Married couple Kevin and Helen from London both remember their whereabouts when news broke that the first plane crashed into the North Tower at the World Trade Centre.
Former pilot Kevin was at Heathrow Airport when word came through about the attacks. He said: “I was doing part of a captain preparation course. It was two days of lectures about things like the economic situation, the transatlantic traffic.
“Then somebody walked into the lecture and said ‘the Twin Towers have gone down’, the course is cancelled because nothing we’re telling you is going to mean anything from now on. We all spoke to the chief boss who told us at that point that one tower was down and the other was going, and to go home and put our phones on to help the company any way we could.”
Helen, an aeronautical engineer, added: “I was at home and I remember getting phone calls from some of the guys I worked with at Heathrow Airport. I also got phone calls from some of the guys who were working abroad and watching on telly and asking ‘what’s going on?’. I had no idea, I was doing my washing and ironing.
“I turned on the telly and saw everything and everyone was told get to work and we’ll see what we can do because all the aircrafts were where they shouldn’t be.”
Cecil Taylor, 70 from Elgin, was in a John Lewis department store in Aberdeen when all the television sets in the technology department turned channel to show the harrowing images of the initial crash.
He said: “I was heading back and I was just about home when I heard the news broadcast on the radio about how bad it was and that really hit me.
“I knew that there could’ve been 30,000 people in those towers. Luckily it was earlier in the day in New York but still thousands of people. My stomach just sank.”
Shannon and Sue, a mother and daughter from Pennsylvania, were at home in the States when the news came through.
Shannon, who was 24 at the time, was running a summer camp at the time. She said: “We were in the office. We didn’t have phones like we do now and I got an email saying that we should put the news on. We turned it on just after the first plan had hit. Then you see the second tower being hit, and then Washington DC and Pennsylvania and we realised this wasn’t an accident.
Shannon said: “The camp was near a church and we all ended up going there, trying our best to get updates. It was really emotional. We have family from New York and so you start worrying, fortunately no one was injured but it felt like everyone knew someone who was impacted.
“I get quite emotional looking back at it, it hits every once and a while just how massive it was.”