On the morning of 9/11 I was heading to work at an office on 11th avenue in West Chelsea. I exited the 23rd ST C train station at about 9:00 AM. I immediately heard the incredibly loud sound of a jet plane directly overhead. This was not the sound of a jet plane passing overhead at cruising altitude. This was the sound you hear when driving into an airport terminal with planes taking off and landing right above your car. I turned and saw a twin-engine jet plane flying south over 8th avenue. It was so low that it was practically buzzing the two-story buildings on the east side of the block. The plane appeared to be descending slowly and smoothly. The first thought that went trough my mind was that it was going to land in the middle of the street. My next thought was "what the hell kind of plane is this?"It was roughly the same size and shape as a 747 but there were no windows along the fuselage. It was painted flat gray like a battle ship. There were no logos, no stripe across the fuselage, no writing, no bright splash of color on the tail. Just flat gray. The only discernible marking was a light blue "bulls eye" nose on the nose of the cockpit. When the plane flew beyond my field of vision I wanted to stick around but I was late for a staff meeting. I boarded the M23 bus hoping that it might be a few minutes faster than walking. A few minutes later I heard a smashing sound so loud that it nearly burst my ear drums. My brain knew it was the plane but my heart wanted to believe otherwise. I knew my worst fears were confirmed when I heard the bus driver's CB radio. The dispatcher was instructing the drivers to suspend service after dropping off their passengers. The voice on the CB tried to assure the drivers who were downtown. "we'll get you out of there as soon as possible!" As I exited the bus at the last stop the Driver said "Folks be careful, they just bombed the World Trade Center!" Here's my question, did you see what I saw? Can you explain what I saw?
Something doesn't make sense. You saw this plane flying low and then "a few minutes later" you heard the impact? So the plane was circling around Manhattan a few hundred feet above the ground for minutes?
@dang that's unfortunate. This was the one place that I thought a group of intelligent and objective people might have a dialog about this. I guess it's easier to believe the official version of events.
Please forgive the lack of formatting. I had to cut this down to 2000 characters. Feel free to ask me questions of you want to know more details about my experience. Again, this is not a joke. I have been living with this for 13 years. I need to get this off my chest and I want some answers.<p>@refurb I don't know what the plane did after it flew beyond my field of vision; I couldn't see it. What I know is that I was on 23rd and 8th when I saw the plane. I walked to 23rd and 9th where I got on the M23. I heard the crash almost immediately after boarding the bus.