A group of high school students experienced a chilling moment when they discovered the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, a moment captured on film.
On September 11, 2001, four coordinated terrorist attacks were executed by the Islamist extremist group al-Qaeda.
Two planes were flown into the North and South Towers – the Twin Towers – of the World Trade Center complex in New York. A third plane crashed into the Pentagon, and a fourth plane came down in a field in western Pennsylvania, resulting in the deaths of 2,977 people.
At the time of the attacks, some students at a high school in Virginia were in the middle of filming a class project. The mood in the classroom shifted dramatically as they learned about 9/11, watching the horrific events unfold live on television.
In the footage, the students are initially seen joking around. However, when the news broadcast begins detailing the attacks, a heavy silence falls over the classroom.
One student exclaims, ‘Oh my gosh,’ while another places his head in his hands.
The attack on the Twin Towers, now 22 years old, remains one of the deadliest terrorist attacks in history.
In 2001, most people found out about the devastating news together, unlike today when breaking news alerts are sent directly to our smartphones. This is part of what makes the clip of the shocked students even more poignant.
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One viewer of the footage commented that they were not yet born at the time, writing: “I can’t imagine what it would [have] been like seeing it on TV.”
“The chills. This isn’t something you can forget,” remarked another, while a third person wrote: “It felt like the world was ending!”
A fourth person added: “I was in high school at that time too and remember how school ended and we were all glued to the TV. Crazy to see this.”
In a similar vein, another student filmed her roommate’s reaction from their apartment in New York as they watched the terrifying events unfold.
Caroline Dries and her friend Megan were awakened by the first explosion, initially thinking it was a bomb that had gone off at the top of the building.
Moments later, panic set in as they witnessed the second plane crashing into the adjacent tower.
In a 2011 interview with CNN, Caroline – now a successful TV writer and producer – recalled: “We were kids, like we were so vulnerable and so naïve.”
“My reaction was ‘there’s no way people are going to be jumping to their death’. [I] just couldn’t go there.”
“I just remember feeling like I don’t know what to do, that feeling of being so vulnerable, so overwhelming,” she continued.
“We ran out of the apartment, took the elevator down to the street and it was just kind of pandemonium on the street with no one knowing what was happening.”
Reflecting on the significance of capturing the moment on film, she remarked: “Sometimes I think you know it would be nice to have not filmed it. To just have run and let time kind of erase all of the details and just move on a little faster.”