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1)....A little 9/11 thread for you from my own personal perspective, and an example of how the effects were felt everywhere. 19yrs ago today I was working as an Electrical/Avionics tech' for @VirginAtlantic in Terminal 3 at Heathrow, looking after our mixed Boeing/Airbus fleet.
2)...We used to work a great "4 on - 4 off" shift pattern that fluctuated between earlies (6am> 14:30hrs) or lates (14:30> 22:30). A good job, good hours, good pay, good company to work for, and one I envisaged would go on for quite some time.
3) Unfortunately, I was on shift on the day that the world turned on its head. A shift that started normally at 6am with the HK overnight flight landing around 05:50, followed by the usual rhythm of overnight US flights that needed a quick turnaround to launch again before lunch
4)...Nothing out of the ordinary, nothing to raise an eyebrow, just another shift. 2pm, I'm back in the office, catching up on some sign-offs & paperwork from jobs I'd done that morning, one eye on the clock as I was 30mins away from shift change, one eye on the arriving pm shift
5)...Our crewroom was full of TV screens showing departures, arrivals, LHR met' info and rolling news. One screen had switched to rolling news from New York and was reporting that a 'light aircraft' had collided with one of the Twin Towers.
6)...If anything, this raised a laugh..."Haha, what an idiot, that's his flying licence permanently withdrawn !!" 12-15mins later everything changed when reports of a second crash into the other tower filtered through.
"One's unlucky, TWO is no accident".
"One's unlucky, TWO is no accident".
7)...Minutes later the FAA shutdown US airspace and our disaster plan kicked in immediately - shift change was cancelled and off we went. At this stage we had 5-6 flights outbound to the US, all looking for a diversion airfield, all too full of fuel to actually land
8)...Naturally this wasn't just us at VAA, every single outbound flight to the US from LHR, LGW, MCR and every Euro-hub was now in the same boat. All dumping fuel like crazy over the 'Alley O' and the Western Approaches - utter, utter chaos.
9)...Outbound flights from LHR were briefly halted to everywhere, not just the US. Taxiways rapidly filled up and became a massive traffic jam. Nothing came in, nothing flew out. A few hours later, when it became apparent that just the US was at risk, outbounds continued
10)..We now had a fleet spread out across the North Atlantic - jets (mainly our 747 fleet) were in Shannon, the Azores, Kef' in Iceland and Gander in Newfoundland. All full of pax, all with no idea what to do next. Some made it back to T3 but had no taxi stand to disembark at
11)...I think I eventually got home at 4am - two days later. Even had a brief trip to recover an A340 from Newcastle Airport that couldn't get into LHR. No shift pattern, we all just got on with it. US airspace reopened on the 13th and it took over a week to return to 'normal'
12) Repercussions
13)...A month later and I've pocketed a nice redundancy cheque and I'm working as an electrical engineer for Eurostar with an old RAF mate who got me in the door. The rail industry was actively recruiting aircraft techs and I got lucky.
14) ....Even now, nearly two decades later, I still find old newsreel of the attacks almost impossible to believe. Everything changed that day, and with the Afghan war still rumbling on, we're still feeling the after effects.
Religion - just don't bother, it's not worth it
Religion - just don't bother, it's not worth it
