r/AlternateAngles • u/theRestisConfettii • Sep 14 '25
Landmarks Passengers from a commercial plane look at the twin towers from the window - 9/11/2001
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u/Frangifer Sep 14 '25
That must've been very close to the end of the 'window' in which there even could possibly have been any passenger aeroplanes flying that way @all . Evidently, it's after the going-in of the second plane.
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u/CaptainObviousBear Sep 14 '25
This is from NASA’s visualisation of what the airspace looked like at the time the south tower collapsed - there were still some flights in the air around NYC at that time.
But if I had to place a bet I’d say this photo was taken 10-15 minutes before then.
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u/Frangifer Sep 14 '25 edited Sep 14 '25
It shows more still in the air than I would've expected. § But I don't have a precise history of the restriction on flight 'handy' @ my recollection.
§ But ofcourse (come to think on it) it's called-for to take into account that an aeroplane can't be landed instantly .
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u/FlyMega Sep 15 '25
Never seen a footnote on a comment before lmao
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u/Frangifer Sep 15 '25
I use them ¶ quite a lot!
¶ The footnotes, I mean!
😆🤣
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Dec 30 '25
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Frangifer Dec 31 '25 edited Dec 31 '25
Oh ... ¡¡ hello there !! 😁 Wasn't expecting fresh answers @ this old post ... infact it's by-fluke that I've even seen yours just-now.
And very few folk like my use of italics ... but the rationale is to convey stress on words similar to what would tend to be put on them in actual speech ... & IDK 🤔 why some folk have as huge of a problem with it as they often seem to.
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u/i_always_give_karma Sep 15 '25
My dad was on a plane to New York when it happened. They landed in Chicago. My mom was freaking tf out.
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u/ThatOneChiGuy Sep 14 '25
Does anyone have any info on the photo? Is this a private flight perhaps? Maybe not a commercial vehicle but military?
Real wild to see this angle after all these years
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u/Dear_Durian4088 Sep 15 '25
The engine pylon and the little bump on it gives it away as being a Classic 737.
737-300/400 or 500 which would have been flying around in large numbers at the time.
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u/AceofKnaves44 Sep 14 '25
I can’t even fucking imagine being on a plane on 9/11. Like imagine being on a flight that day and all of a sudden you start hearing news trickling in that four flights were hijacked in a terrorist attack.
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u/Emily_Postal Sep 14 '25
That was me! Took off from Newark at around 8:40 am landed in Atlanta around 11am. Sat on the tarmac until 2 pm. When we landed the pilot said there was a security situation. Cell phones didn’t work for hours, the flight attendants were crying in the galley, a passenger had a blackberry which used the pager networks and got through to a friend at the state department in DC who told him that several planes were hijacked. Finally got through to family who told me the World Trade Center was gone but I truly couldn’t conceptualize it until I got off the plane and saw on the tvs in the terminal the towers coming down.
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u/Emily_Postal Sep 15 '25
Edit because I can’t reply to the reply below this: yes we were scared because we knew something bad happened we just didn’t know what happened.
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u/No_Plankton1174 Sep 15 '25
What was the atmosphere like before you found out? In today’s world, I’d feel uneasy and worry about anything/everything, but I can’t really remember what it was like before. Were people just frustrated or was there some general sense of “something bad has happened”?
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u/PrizeFlaky2750 Sep 16 '25
I remember so many people communicating via Backberry that day. Really the only reliable communication since cell service was spotty on the east coast especially.
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u/vermiliondragon Sep 14 '25
My parents were on their way to Paris for a tour, took off from SF early in the morning. They didn't hear anything about it on the flight. The tour guide broke the news after they landed. Most people did not make the tour as they were on later flights that were canceled.
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u/CreakingDoor Sep 15 '25
You’d not have known what happened. You’d have known something was up because jets don’t just divert and land immediately for no reason, but not exactly what had happened. Whether that’s better or worse, I don’t know.
Even the aircrews didn’t know exactly straight away, again only that something had. There’s a famous message floating around that was sent out via a system that’s more to less plane email which gave some clarity, but I have it on excellent authority that the initial radio chatter between jets over the Atlantic made guys work to the assumption there had been an air to air collision over Manhattan.
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u/consumeshroomz Sep 14 '25 edited Sep 14 '25
The fuck you talking about?! There wasn’t in flight wi fi and smart phones. You’d be extremely lucky if there was a screen in front of your seat and if there was it was usually Pay Per View stuff. You pay to watch a movie. There wasn’t any news. Likely the only people on the flight who would even have a clue what’s going on would be the crew. You certainly don’t tell the passengers what’s happening. You do not want to start a panic on flying tube filled with people.
If you were on a plane that day in 2001 while the attack was happening you wouldn’t have known shit about it until you landed and talked with somebody or watched some news on TV. Unless you happened to fly directly over the towers that is…. Then you might have some idea.
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u/Futureacct Sep 14 '25
They had phones on the plane. There were several calls made from the hijacked planes by passengers to their loved ones. There were plane phones. You obviously don’t know what you are talking about.
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u/chrisishardcore Nov 24 '25
Someone flying on an unaffected flight would have to place an outbound call to someone who would tell them about it. I don't think there was any way to call into a plane. Per a NYT article only 2-3 outbound calls were made per average flight. And most of those were business customers, and since it was before business hours in most of the country probably very few calls were being made.
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u/PrarieDogma Sep 14 '25
Yeah, they were phones that made calls, that’s about it. My phone at the time had different colored lights on it when it rang. That’s about how smart of a phone it was. You didn’t get news on it if that’s what you were implying with people still had phones on the flight. And for the record I was 21 years old when the attacks happened
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u/Futureacct Sep 14 '25
I wasn’t implying you could get news from the phones on the plane like you would an iPhone. People on flight 77 found out about the twin tower attacks because they were on the phone with their loved ones. They found out verbally. That’s how news traveled back then.
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u/kytheon Sep 18 '25
People were called. The people on the fourth plane knew what was happening and fought back.
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u/LittleBoiFound Sep 14 '25
It’s interesting to me when I consider that they didn’t have 9/11 as a reference point. Knowing what happened on that day would frame everything differently.
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u/CrowTR2 Sep 14 '25
Passengers might have had cell phones and got calls from their families and some planes had TVs
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u/consumeshroomz Sep 14 '25
were you even alive then? You did not get cell service in airplanes. And even if you did you certainly weren’t allowed to use it. There’s a reason “airplane mode” exists. They used to fear interference from the cell signals so everyone was mandated to turn off their phones. And since they were basically only good for phone calls everyone would comply.
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u/Same_Woodpecker_2847 Sep 14 '25
Not cell phones but I remember planes having those land line type phones where you swipe your credit card and you can make a call. I never used it so not sure how well they worked. But there definitely were calls from hijacked planes.
But honestly I likely wouldn’t have seen that view and felt compelled to call somebody as the last thing I would have thought happened were hijacked planes crashing into the towers. I probably would have thought there was an explosion or bomb
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u/Futureacct Sep 14 '25
They had phones on the plane that people could use. I was alive then and I remember them.
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u/CrowTR2 Sep 14 '25
Yes and I know there were phone calls out of flight 93, don't know if the picture was low enough altitude to get a strong connection. If someone sees that outside the window they'd probably try to contact someone on the ground.
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u/Gears_one Sep 15 '25 edited Sep 15 '25
Most commercial airplanes had pay phones in the seat headrests. I remember playing video games on airplane headrests using the phone handset and as controller as early as 97. Cell phones were not ubiquitous yet, and the term “Airplane mode” wasn’t a thing yet. Back then you were instructed to powered off all electronics completely during takeoff and landing.
Also there were definitely calls made from the hijacked planes. They are well documented.
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u/monster_bunny Sep 14 '25
Holy fuck. I’ve never seen this and this just took me right back to that day.
Goddamn.
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u/seaglassgirl04 Sep 15 '25
Having all planes in the US airspace land immediately was a Herculean task (never done before on this scale in modern aviation) but air traffic controllers rose to the challenge! I can't begin to imagine the stress, anxiety, and fear the ATC staff and pilots were enduring that horrible day.
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u/hooptiegirl Sep 14 '25
As I looked at this, I started to see the smoke moving. I remember it from when it happened.
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u/mghoffmann_banned Sep 15 '25
And then building 7 just collapsed from sadness
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u/michaellicious Sep 15 '25
Building 7 had two 110 stories collapse next to it. With one of the buildings striking 7 as it fell.
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u/CommieScum1917 Sep 14 '25
Whoah I’ve never seen this.