The Patrick Madrid Show: September 11, 2026 - Hour 1

0:00Hi Patrick Madrid here. Thanks for listening. Check out charity mobile and prayerfully consider making them your wireless carrier. Mention offer code Patrick and get a free phone. Go to charity mobile.com. Man, Z152. Something weird is going on. The world trade center is on fire. Oh my goodness. Seriously, the top of the building, we're trying to get information. That'll make the top level of one of the world's 70th news to unfold from New York's crime. Okay, crashed. Just. Okay, and I hope she's okay. I got a room to New York. Oh my gosh, complete the end of all. Okay, first of all, calm down. We're. There's raining papers and the air shows in. Second airplane. A second plane is now flown in with the world's

1:05explosion at the Pentagon. Third location. I don't have words to describe what I'm witnessing right now. Freedom itself was attacked this morning by faceless coward. Oh my god. All right, so now we look back up to the TV. One of the world's train towers has collapsed and fallen. I don't have seen anything like this.

2:06Oh my god. Look at the skyline without the towers. It is Tuesday, September 11th, 2001. And one of the most adacious attacks ever, terrorist hijacked two airliners, crashed them into the World Trade Center in a coordinated series of blows today that brought down the twin 110 story towers. Thousands may be dead, 58,000 people work at the World Trade Center. One plane, United Flight 93, crashed north of Somerset County Airport,

3:12a small airport 80 miles southeast of Pittsburgh. United said that flight, falling 757. Let's do it. It's all gone. I need to be fine. It's going to be a good day. It's just a dull day. We'll have to fall. We will not turn. It is old as the script is. We will not falter. And is as clear and we will not fail as the American country to have rolled. That is the news of this day, September 11th, 2001. Good morning. Today is the 25th anniversary of September 11th. And I'd like to begin by grateful acknowledging Glenn Beck as the source for that audio montage. We play that every year on September 11th, at least when September 11th falls on a weekday, and we're live on the air. And I got to tell you, Cyrus, it doesn't get any easier no matter how much time has gone by.

4:16It's been 25 years. And it's just hard to listen to that. But we have to. Yeah, it's hard. It's really hard. And listening to the phone calls and revisiting the pain that all of these people went through and the children that grew up without their moms and their dads, it hits every year. And this, I can't believe it's been 25 years. I know. I know. I mean, it's tried to say, but it's true. I mean, for so many people listening right now who are alive and adults at that time, I remember it like it was yesterday. And I know it sounds tried, but I don't know what else to say. I mean, the memories of it are so vivid. We don't celebrate those memories. They're horrible. But we have to commemorate them. We have to remember what happened and why it happened. And who perpetrated it? So that not only that we won't forget, but hopefully our children's generation will not forget.

5:23And hopefully it will never happen again. Please God, we have some audio today, quite a bit of audio as a matter of fact. To go back through some of the details, perhaps some you've heard, some maybe you haven't heard before. Let's begin with, let's go to audio clip number two, Cyrus. This is a compilation of 9-11 footage and audio as the terrible attacks were unfolding on September 11, 2001. The second plane had struck the South Tower at 902-54A, just 16 minutes after the first plane went in. By then, the first teams of firemen and rescue workers had already arrived at the foot of the North Tower, where they were greeted by a scene of horror and devastation that defied the imagination. On the Austin-Toban Plaza, there were corpses everywhere. The mangled bodies of men and women who had already jumped or fallen from the upper floors of the building. And the chart remains of passengers from flight 11, some still built it into their seats.

6:31Far above, meanwhile, in the upper reaches of the towers themselves, the gaping black holes where the planes had gone in marked a stark divide by, between life and death. In the North Tower, the plane struck at the center and also struck much higher up, and because it struck at the center, the fuel immediately went down the shafts and created a much broader fire. The flames were much more intense. The number of floors that were available to move up and down were many fewer. So what happened was people were breaking windows in the North Tower, desperate to get air, and there was no place to go because there were no stairwells that were open up and down. People were stacked four or five on top of each other at the broken windows, desperate to breathe, and other people were hanging on to each other across the steel columns from window to window, hanging out of the windows desperate to breathe, and just grasping each other to keep hold of the building. One of the most horrific scenes in the history of the nation took place a thousand feet above

7:39Laura Manhattan, and it took the lives of people who were staring down at safety, you know, at the most popular city in the nation, civilization at its peak, but they didn't have anywhere to get there, and there's really there's really few words to describe how terrible that must have been. By 930, ordinary life had all but ceased across the city, as millions of New Yorkers had hundreds of millions more around the world, looked on in shock and disbelief, and the night marriage images unfolding in real time on TV. You usually can engage things, you know, within a few minutes, you know, so that they may start getting worse, but at one time you say, well, this is what they are, but this was something that

8:39started getting worse and worse and worse and worse and worse and worse. At 938, word came that terrorists had come and dared a third jetliner and crashed it into the Pentagon, killing everyone on board. You know, that by the way is a montage courtesy of a social media person, Anna D West, she goes by the handle Slim Wiggy, and so I want to give due attribution to the sources that we're getting that we've gotten these audios from. I don't need to comment on that to explain it. It doesn't require explanation. The memories that I have, I think all of us, if we sat around a table, we could share you know, terrible memories of where we were and what we were doing when 911 began unfolding. I'll share in a moment some of my memories, but we can't forget in the midst of all this,

9:40the toll of human life, the people, nearly 3,000 of them who were murdered, wantonly by these Islamic jihadist terrorists. And just as we, standing in front of our televisions, or those listening to the radio, or those who happened to be in lower Manhattan and were actually watching in real time these attacks unfold, we didn't really understand, I certainly didn't understand at first what was happening. I couldn't make sense out of it. I, if it had been an accident, maybe a plane got off course, something happened, and it winds up hitting the World Trade Center, what a horrible thing. Then of course, when the second plane went in, we realized instantly this is an attack, this is coordinated, this is clearly not an accident, and everything that followed. But in the midst of all of that, you had the people in the planes, you had the people in the towers, you had the people in the Pentagon, you had the people whose lives were about to end suddenly. And they didn't know what was going on. You know,

10:45one of the things that really gals me, Cyrus says, I think, back on it. And it can't, you know, can't necessarily be blamed on anybody, because I think people were so shocked and stunned that they maybe were sleepwalking through what they thought was the right thing to do. But many of the people in the towers who died when they collapsed, may well have gotten out and lived, had they not been told to go back up to your office and wait until you get the all clear, which never came. Things like that, you know, that just, you look back and say, if only this hadn't happened, or that person hadn't done this, or they had done this, maybe more people could have survived. But what a slaughter it was. So there's so many stories of people that that did get out. And of there's a story of a priest, I should have written down his name. I didn't. I'm a shame. Oh, what's his name? Father Michael Judge. Was he one of the first? He was a chaplain

11:45for the New York Fire Department, and he was hit and killed by some falling debris. That's exactly who I'm talking about. Yeah. Yeah. Just what a marvelous man. Like, just absolutely. He was putting God first, and he's there helping people. Yeah. And I think he's, is he the first confirmed casualty from 9-11? I have heard people say that. And of course, I mean, the first casualties, of course, were the people in the plains, flight 11, American flight 11 is the one that hit the first tower. My apologies. No, no, don't apologize. I understood what you meant. I wasn't trying to, you know, correct or anything like that. That's not what I mean. But just in terms of the sequence of events, of the passengers and crew of flight 11, and that includes those who weren't murdered. I think the cockpit crew was murdered before the jihadist terrorists had been able to fully come into the plane. So they all died. The people in the tower who died instantly, hopefully,

12:52instantly, were shortly thereafter. And then, of course, as everything began to cascade, and people on the ground below, maybe were in danger of being struck by the debris and killed, certainly, Father Michael Judge was one of them. He may have been the first one. I think I remember hearing them report it that way. And seeing, there's that iconic picture of him being carried, he's sort of ghost white appears to be dead and limp being carried in the arms of the firefighters who were, you know, helping to get him out of that area. But I believe it was some big piece of debris that came down, even though he was wearing a fire department hardhat and killed him on the spot. So many pictures, so many terrible memories of that. And you might say, well, why are you dwelling on it like this? Well, I'd say for the same reason that we commemorate D-Day so that we don't forget what happened there. That was a terrible thing. So many people died that day. We commemorate a lot of things that are painful and difficult, but we commemorate them

13:57not only to honor the honorable people who were involved in those historical events, but also as a way to retain our collective memory about what actually happened. And so that we can think about not only what happened, but why it happened, how it happened, and how do we prevent these things from happening again? Everybody's got a story. I mean, you and I have talked about this before Cyrus, where we've compared notes. And I'll say in a minute where I wasn't what I was doing. Why don't you go first, though, Cyrus? Any any quick thoughts? I know we have a break coming, but any memories that come back to you? Oddly enough, a memory of being in maybe junior high, maybe a freshman in high school learning about Pearl Harbor and not understanding what really happened. Not the impact of what that meant to the United States. I didn't understand.

14:57It didn't hit me in that gut punch that 9-11 does. Would it be fair to say that it, sorry, didn't I have to? Would it be fair to say it was abstract to you? Because it is abstract to me. Pearl Harbor happened. I know about it historically, but I have no emotional punch in the gut feeling about that. I think that's right. And so I wonder if children like my kids, I don't know that they can really understand what happened and how the United States changed in a moment. And we've never gone back to being what we were before 9-11. I think it's so true. And I don't blame them because it's not their fault. They weren't alive. We weren't alive when when Pearl Harbor happened. So we don't have any living memory of it. We don't have any kind of emotional context. It's just an abstract thing. It's an historical event like you know, the Battle of Gettysburg. You read about it. You think about it. You imagine what it might

16:00have been like, but you can't enter into the emotional reality of what it must have been like for the people who survived it. And this is why I say we don't blame anybody. Of course, it'd be ridiculous to blame anybody. It just is what it is. But that I do believe the point you just made, Cyrus, is why it's so important for us as a nation to stop and reflect on this painful memory that we would much rather forget if we could, but we can't so we won't. So that future generations will that this will not be lost to them so that they will have contact in some meaningful way with an event that drastically wounded and harmed at this country, physically, economically, psychologically, emotionally, politically. I mean, the collateral damage goes very far in every direction. Look at how we've, look at, I mean, just it was weird because

17:07you remember, Cyrus, where people kind of came together for a week or two. Churches were full. People were praying again. Many of them anyway. And people just had a sense of mortality and we need to ask God to help us. And that lasted for a time, not very long. And then the polarization and the recriminations and the political divide seemed to begin in earnest to grow deeper. We don't want that. That's for sure. Let's learn from this. There's more to talk about on this 24th anniversary, excuse me, of 9-11. I'll be back with more right after this. Hi, Patrick Madrid here. Thanks for listening to my podcast. In today's crazy world,

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19:40That was the voice of Brooke Jackman. It was her last voicemail to her family. You could hear her choking. Hanging on for dear life, she was trapped above the impact levels in one of the towers and that was her last message. A lot of people were calling from the airplanes, from the buildings. Not sure exactly what was going on but hoping against hope that help could come and save them and for many of them it never came. Let's listen to audio 4 some of the 9-11 calls that were unfolding that morning.

21:06You don't know what to tell people. You couldn't even say help is on the way because it wasn't. I don't know. Imagine you're the guy, you're the dispatcher person and you just don't know what to say. I wonder especially as the morning wore on how many of the dispatches 9-11 dispatches. I mean isn't it strange now how 9-11 we have to be careful how we say each one to make sure were you distinguishing between the two but how that 9-11 dispatcher probably realized that

22:09what he was telling her was not true. Nobody's coming for you. Nobody can get to you. They didn't know the buildings were going to collapse. They didn't know. So what do you tell somebody who's frantic and desperate and near death because of the smoke? 88 9-1-4 9-1-4-9 that's the number to call to be on the air. We have a lot to talk about on the program today. It doesn't have to be all 9-11 but I do want to do justice to the topic before we press on to other matters just because of the gravity of the university that we're celebrating today and what it means for all of us. Let's go to Jeff in Maine. Good morning Jeff. Welcome. Good morning Patrick. Good morning Cyrus. I just have a small comment for you. There are two things that I'd like us to remember on this 25th anniversary was a fourth plane that was supposedly

23:09headed for the White House. How the people on board subdued the terrorists in a crash in Pennsylvania. And the other comment is about this. Yeah and the city of Monkton, Canada. You see when they closed the airways there were over 400 flights headed into the United States. All of them had to be diverted and the people in Monkton housed and fed the people for three days until they could get the airways cleared and in fact the United States is erected a plaque at the airport in Monkton in honor of that. Yes. It was tremendously generous of them to reach out the way they did. I remember reading about that, hearing about that. We can't talk enough about those things to keep them fresh in our memories. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, thank you for doing what you're doing. Thank you Jeff. I appreciate that. Do you have any memories you want to share

24:11of where you were and what you remember about 9-11? I was headed to my uncle's house to help him cut firewood and when I walked into the very said I don't plan it to turn it so another system bought the farm and he said no no no no this was a 737 and I had left the fire service four years before and I know what jet fuel does. And as we were watching the TV we saw the second plane hit there and I said I've got to go because my kids were in Catholic school and right across the street was a federal building and we got noticed because we didn't have all the cell phones and all that sort of stuff from mass notification. We were just told come get your kids. They're going to be at the local public school half a mile away. We're going to walk them all over there to make sure they're safe and and then the as Cyrus said that got punching feeling that that you're helpless without direction and I agree with you the church is filled up for all about a month, month and a half

25:14ecumenical things were going on. All kinds of prayer services people were coming together the rigged cross had more blood drives and the country responded like it should but maybe we should be ready for that at any time. So yeah God forbid we have to go through that again but God only knows what hazards lie ahead but I'm glad that you're called in Jeff and I'm glad that you're sharing from your own perspective because as I say collectively we need to remember this we who live through it is one thing but we'll be gone soon enough and the people the younger people who didn't live through it for whom it's just an abstraction hopefully these efforts at telling the story will stick with them in a way that will help them. Thank you Jeff I appreciate that 88 914 9149 CC Liles was a flight attendant on flight 93 United 93 and we have some audio of her

26:18phone call from the plane during the hijacking. 2 day 9.7 am. Hi baby I'm baby you have the richness in your head please I'm on a plane that's in high tract I'm on the plane I'm calling from the plane I want to tell you I love you please tell my children that I love them very much and I'm so sorry they I hope to be your face again baby I love you. What do you do Cyrus if you're the husband or the wife for the you know the significant other and you missed the call and you only hear it after the fact I thought about that many times how how would I live with it how would I process that how would I could I mean not that I would have done anything wrong these people didn't do anything wrong but how do you forgive yourself for not answering the phone

27:19when your wife or your husband is making that final fatal phone call and all you've got left after that is a voicemail unthinkable it is unthinkable and I'm sure they played it 100 times or more and yeah I can't imagine the the the loss I can't imagine it I don't know I don't know what it feels like yeah I feel the same way it's I mean you know we have a we have some other audio Katrina Mario and she was she she was with her husband so her husband came I think he even he was a fireman he was a fireman and he might even had the engine with him when he I remember this one right yeah if I could jump in so she's talking she's remembering that morning when they were up early she had the kids and he was either at work or going to go to work and they had well I'll let her explain it but you talk about audio eight

28:22yes sir yeah let's play that on that morning Katrina Moreno stopped by to switch cars with her husband so well let me stop by there I'll trade them an event for the car we'll see Kenny it'll be nice she was with their two children and arrived just before nine so he came out and then he brought the kids in and put them on the fire truck and they were just happy as pie you know to be there in his look I'm crying on Kenny's face when he's with his children it's just he adores them but as she was leaving she felt something he went to each car door and said just leaning over and kissing Tyler he went around open the door gave him big kiss and a hug and same with Carson and then same with me driving away the former flight attendant then heard something big ear thing went overhead at the time oh what's the airplane that was really close you know not thinking that whatever crash always looks worried Tim coming home you didn't yeah he was one of those hundreds of the

29:27New York Fire Department firemen and in others as well as the NYPD cops and other first responders who gathered at the base of the buildings that were going to be coming down soon enough and they didn't know it staging their their equipment and and their tactics and what their battle plan would be to rescue the people on the higher floors and so many of them hundreds of them went up into the towers to help people survive and they themselves were killed when the towers collapsed I'm so glad that we've got these memories of people and some of them quite frankly Cyrus that I myself year after year I find myself surprising how did I never hear this one before how can I never saw that video clip before because I thought I'd seen them all I heard them all but more and more keep coming out how about this one this is audio seven and this is Patricia Smith she's

30:28she was only a child when her mother who is a an NYPD officer her her mother's name was Moira Smith her mother Moira was killed helping get people out of the South Tower on 9-11 and Patricia Smith again who was only a child a baby at the time she reflects back on that I had to listen to the voice recording of my mom's last transmission and basically her last words and her calling out for help over the police radio and obviously that's my mom and that's really hard to hear and it's really hard for my family to hear you know I brought it to my dad and I was like I had no idea that this was a thing did you know it was a thing and he was like I knew it was a thing but I didn't want you to hear it no one wants to remember their loved one in the in the manner that that that voice transmission

31:31describes her as as hard as that is for us and how traumatic that is to hear I think it's important that people do because you don't understand it until you're really faced with you know how terrible it was that day and we all said 25 years ago we would never forget but it's been difficult to see that it seems to kind of have started to slip away a little bit it hasn't it just so I'd like to return to that thought from moments I was who you mentioned your kids earlier that you know they didn't really understand it my kids were released the older kids were they had stayed out kind of a camp out and they were in our in our yard overnight so the September 10th they got permission to get their sleeping bags and they camped out in a fort that's built you know it's one of these

32:31forts that is above a swing set and it's pretty big so like I don't know five or six of them with their sleeping bags they camped out overnight and that next morning September 11th at Don Brighton Beautiful beautiful cloudless blue sky it seems like that's one memory that everybody shares about the morning before the attacks began just how beautiful it was and the the cloudless blue sky and so as the kids are coming in from their sleep out or sleep or camp out rubbing their eyes and hungry and they're coming inside Nancy's getting them breakfast and whatnot and I'm in my home office because I was working from home in those days so I'm in my home office and I was at my desk answering emails sipping some coffee while I was waiting to go on the Bob Dornan radio program I was a national program and I was to be interviewed on who knows what now I don't remember but I think I was if not the first guest I was one of the earliest guests so quarter till nine

33:33somewhere in there the producer told me to call this number so that we could establish the phone connection and then I would wait till the host called me on to do the interview something I've done many times didn't give it a second thought so the kids are coming in from outside Nancy's fixing breakfast I'm sitting you know 20 feet away in my office answering email everything is utterly normal and one of my sisters in law she and my brother and their kids at the time lived in northern New Jersey she calls Nancy picks up I'm oblivious to all of that I'm just answering emails and she she tells Nancy quick turn on the TV Nancy says why what's going on she's some and she didn't really know but she said something really bad has happened in Manhattan something is going on there was some kind of explosion or something involving the the world trade center you got to turn

34:34the TV on it's happening right now so Nancy comes to me she hangs up he comes to me she says hey this is what Lisa said so we get up we go to the TV room and I had been told by the producer of this radio program I was holding to go on to hang tight because there was something he said the same thing just before our sister-in-law called he said there's something going on in Manhattan and we're not really sure what's going on but we may have to delay your interview for a while so can you hold indefinitely I said sure no problem not giving it a second thought and then my sister-in-law calls and so then Nancy and I we go to the TV and like countless other people in the eastern time zone who you know would have been awake at that time we turn on the TV and we can't even believe what we're seeing with the gaping gash in the side of the world trade center tower that had been hit first in the smoke and you know in the cameras pull back and you realize the the staggering

35:37scale of this building I'd only ever seen it from the street I never went in it but I'd seen it from the streets unthinkably huge and so as we're standing there the first few minutes or so and I don't know to this day whether we've we watched it live or whether this was a replay but we saw that second plane go straight into the building and of course the horrified reaction of the media people who saw it you know and oh my gosh this is an attack and all the things that you would naturally say and we we just watched it with our mouths open what on earth is happening here how can this be happening what is happening we didn't know nobody knew you so I was glued to the TV for the rest of that day I did nothing for the rest of that day but sit there and watch to see what was happening and the more I saw the worse it was

36:43so we remember on this 25th anniversary of September 11th 2001 what happened and the lives that were lost in the meaning of this terrible wound that was inflicted upon us where do we go from here we'll talk about that today we'd like to thank Mark who's listening in Rhode Island for donating his 2019 BMW X3 built for the out of bond used for Walmart you can join thousands of other listeners in donating old vehicles trucks boats and RVs by visiting relevant radio dot com slash car that's relevant radio dot com slash car talking about September 11th 2001 and its lasting impact the reverberations continue not everybody remembers it if you were one of those who was old enough to remember 911 25 years ago

37:50but boy how does time go by I'd love to hear from you your thoughts lessons learned we're talking about that and my number is 888 914 9149 we'll start with Ann Marie and Indiana hi Ann Marie hey thanks for taking my call happy to um we were living in New York near the city on that morning and I had worked all night and it was most beautiful morning it had been raining for 40 days and 40 nights everyone talked about building an arc because it was just everything was flooding from one state to another and and New York was no exception and that morning when I walked out of work I nearly got my face smashed into the tarmac because I went to kiss the ground because I couldn't believe how warm and beautiful it was I get home and my husband wakes me saying hey we're under attack and we were at

38:52West Point at the time my husband's a a lifer in the military at the time and I was like who I was so tired I was like who's attacking us so I jumped in my Wrangler and I drove up to the top of Stronking Mountain and I'm a bird watcher so I always carry binoculars and what I saw I could I still to this day cannot believe and I have never forgotten well I watched people jump into their death one after another and you're talking about on the television you saw this on the TV no no I saw this with my own eyes it threw binoculars oh wow where so you were you were close enough to yeah right across the river yes okay got it and and you could you could not believe the the size of the hole and as I was there was only one plane at the time that it hit one tower and when I got up to the top of the storm king mountain

39:55um there was another plane and we couldn't believe it the ones that were up there and a lot of them were foreigners that were up at the top of Stronking Mountain because they were there to watch the hawks yeah because there was some kind of migration of the hawks and it was just unbelievable people in their broken language I believe a lot of them were Japanese were asking what what's going on what's going on and I said I don't know I were under some kind of attack and they were in their foreign languages were saying oh no oh no and I can imagine yeah and I was in the twin towers Friday before 9-11 on that a faithful morning that eating that windows in the world the most delicious cup of coffee and a slice of pie and one of the gals that was with me her son worked up at windows in the world and he that morning did not he lost his life and there was so

41:01many neighbors that their husband was on a flight to go to some other state lost their life one of my girlfriend here in indiana her mother and father were on their forget what anniversary it was probably 30th anniversary 30 maybe 35th and they were flying and they had to divert to Canada and their story after I got home for a visit telling me that what how Canada welcomed them and people took these people into their own homes yeah you're right in fact a caller earlier in the show today he mentioned the same thing I believe it was monked and if I'm not mistaken and he talked about how the citizens of that town were so generous and welcomed the stranded Americans into their homes it's a beautiful thing well thank you for sharing that with the San Marie what an amazing experience horrible let's go to Val and Dayton good morning Val

42:01good morning I'm so glad you're doing this for everyone to remember that that day yes I want what do you remember no well my son was an air traffic controller that day where he said that went he was down in Miami international and president Bush was down there at the at the school with the children and he had gotten orders to get out of there and so my son was telling your son got orders to get out or you talk about the president who left you after that the president yeah the president he was on the move that day that's true yeah he sure was and my son he was an air traffic controller at Miami international they got orders that all planes were to be diverted to to the nearest airport they wanted those planes down at the airports because they didn't know

43:04if there was another one that was going to be causing harm which there was at Shaw at the Shanksville but they didn't know it yet and my son said that he was watching his screen and he said you could see the planes going to the nearest airport okay right and he said eventually all the screens were blank he said it was like they were dead there was no action no you know no planes and he said he just couldn't believe it he you know his screen was blank he had never seen that before I think very few people had ever seen anything like that before so the timeline of which your son was witnessing there is at about 942 and this is shortly after the third plane that that was crashed into a building this was the one that hit the Pentagon again you know going by the official story we'll just leave it at that the first step was that FAA national operations

44:11manager Ben Sliny he ordered all FAA facilities to instruct all the aircraft in US Airspace to land immediately at whatever the nearest airport was that they could practically land at and that apparently had never happened before there had never been in the history of US aviation and thank you for your phone call that kind of stopping of all the airports a closing of all the airspace I think it was in the neighborhood of four or five thousand aircraft that were grounded effectively then secretary Norman Meneta he was the secretary of transportation he later on said that he's the one who ordered the system to stop and then others said yeah it was actually Norman Meneta who made that that order but it wasn't all at once so the first one turns out was the FAA making that national ground stop and then and that was around 9 930ish and then by 945ish

45:18within the first hour of the beginning of the attacks the this is where all all aircraft of any kind were forbidden from being in the air so the entire US civilian airspace this of course doesn't count military aircraft or other government aircraft that needed to fly but all commercial aviation all general aviation came to a halt and the airspace over the United States was completely empty minus those other planes here's a memory I have Cyrus toward the end of the day and in the lady who called Val she mentioned that you know El Presidente was moving from Florida to I think you want to Louisiana and then you went to Minnesota and then it was being reported on the news that he was heading back to Washington DC and it was weird you may remember this it was weird because we many times that day we'd go outside and normally you'd see contrails and planes flying high overhead

46:21that kind of thing and it was just the weirdest thing not to see any of that because of the ground stoppage and yet late in the day it wasn't sundown yet but late in the day I went out there and I could see very high up a jet flying from the northwest toward the southeast of where I was standing and I figured that's got to be Air Force One because there were four distinct contrails four engines and very few commercial airliners anymore at least at that time had four engines they were phasing out a lot of the 747s so I figured I that's got to be him it's got to be Air Force One and I tried to take a picture of it but the primitive camera I forget now whether it was on a cell phone or if it was just a camera but it it simply couldn't focus it couldn't take a picture of it because it couldn't focus on it and I think that was him heading back to Washington DC did you look up

47:22in this guy that day I remember not seeing any planes but what I really remember what stuck with me is the fear that what's next yeah what's getting as L.A. getting hit next is it going to be was there be nukes will be my right is it going to be nukes I mean there was a there was a real fear and I still had to go to work and so I was waiting tables and so I went to my job and what was the mood like oh it was what were people doing or saying were they all shell shocked we were shell yes there were zero customers zero and so the the few of us that showed up to work and not everyone did we sat around the TV and we just we just watched the news the entire and I'm sure we left I don't really remember the the specific details of when I left but I'm sure there was a point where it's like I'm going home like I you I'm not finishing my shift today like there's no reason to be here it let's lock the doors the parking lot was empty right

48:22and I'm going to go be with my family and I remember like do we need to go to the hills do we need to get out we need to get out of the city we need to get out and that was just this overwhelming fear yeah I boy can I relate to that I I spent my day it well into the night I don't think I dragged myself to bed till 10 11 o'clock because I couldn't tear myself away from I I couldn't stop watching as much as I hated what I was seeing and horrified by what I was seeing I couldn't stop watching it and I too I think most people had a similar feeling you know what else is going to happen you know we were hearing about sleeper cells and there are other other planes that you know did you ever see those like documentaries about the so-called two or three other planes that were not able to take off that they think had hijackers on those planes waiting to do the same thing with other targets but when everything was grounded they got off the

49:25planes and just faded into the woodwork I remember that no I I thought I knew every conspiracy theory and I hadn't heard that one oh yeah and in fact I remember it mainly from that day and then you of course you know how it is with with news reports when some tragedy or some disaster or something is unfolding a lot of the initial details are incorrect and later on they get corrected like how many people said it was a 737 that crashed into the twin towers it wasn't they were both 767s and that's a you might think of minor detail except the 767 is significantly larger but that was reported widely a 737 head crash into the tower because that's what somebody said so they kind of ran with it but the more we watched and the more things unfolded not only did something's not really add up but the whole the whole picture was such a kaleidoscope

50:26of details horrifying details that it was hard to well for me at least it was hard to process it all but it was also hard to shut it off I just felt compelled I had to keep watching it I don't think I regret that it wasn't pleasant but I don't regret it yeah it's just hard to hard to impart those feelings to people who didn't experience them imagine the people in Hawaii who were still fast asleep and would be for many hours to come before they would wake up and hear about the events that unfolded in the 9-11 attacks we were seeing it in real time because we were in that time zone let's not forget what happened we're talking about that for a while here on the Patrick Woodridge show and a lot of you are sending me emails I'll be reading some of those as well my number is 88-914-9149

51:34you