This 90-minute documentary revisits September 11, 2001 - the day that changed the history of the modern world when two airliners slammed into the World Trade Center in New York and another into the Pentagon in Washington - to tell the personal stories of those who lived through the events and recorded them as they experienced them in the moment. With the narrative driven exclusively by audio and footage from the day, without any interviews, the programme aims to paint a vivid portrait of events as they unfolded with new, compelling and profoundly moving accounts.
Featuring previously unseen footage and images along with unheard audio from those involved on the ground, the programme pieces together the story of how the authorities reacted, coped and tried to regain some semblance of control over events. It also uses footage taken by members of the public to relay the claustrophobic atmosphere in lower Manhattan as the horror unfolded and people tried to escape first falling debris, then the tumbling towers as they crashed down.
Recordings taken from military command centres, frontline emergency services, air traffic control, commercial airlines, private phone calls and public broadcasts allow the audience to hear the confusion, the anger and the incredulity first-hand.
The programme includes initial urgent communications between emergency services and civilians on the ground at the World Trade Center and calls from the Fire Department and NYPD switchboards, a barely-mined audio archive, highlighting the confusion, bravery and chaos that marked the events of that day.
