Touching History is a book written by a former pilot and airline instructor, Lynn Spencer. It tells the story of 9/11 mainly from the perspective of the air traffic controllers and military personnel, starting at the time air traffic control lost contact with flight 11 and ending with the military patrols that were flying over all the major cities in the days after the 9/11 attacks. Therefore, the book does not focus much on what was happening in any of the buildings or even a ton about what was happening on the planes aside from talking about some of the things that were relayed from passengers or flight attendants to the airlines. She did not even focus much on the known discussions and messages left by passengers to their loved ones (with a few exceptions).
The main takeaway from the book is just how unprepared everyone from air traffic control to the airlines, to the military, was for an attack like this. As anyone who grew up in the 1970s or 1980s remembers, when planes were hijacked they would force the pilots to land somewhere and have a list of demands they wanted to be met as they negotiated with authorities. There was almost never collateral damage on the ground, and planes were never used as missiles. So, it seemed that very few people had any real idea of what was actually going on even after American 11 hit the first tower, really until Flight 77 hit the Pentagon. The book also details experiences of other flights, some of which were considered to be hijacks even after they landed safely, and details one flight that was very likely a 5th plane that would have been hijacked (that was never mentioned in the 9/11 report) had it got in the air (it was caught up in the ground stop) that had 4 or 5 Arab men sitting in first class who ditched their luggage when the plane went back to the terminal in which box cutters and Al-Queda documents were found. It also details the chaos both from the FAA standpoint and pilots in the air when the ground-stop order was issued and trying to land all of the planes currently in the air or coming to the US from overseas.
Overall, the book is very well written and has a lot of detail that has not been widely revealed to the public. It is more of a just presenting the facts kind of book, but the author does a great job conveying the emotion that the various people involved had while the events were unfolding. She also does a great job conveying the inability of the FAA and air traffic control to effectively communicate with the military because they were all using different systems and different lingo, and how even the different branches of the military had a hard time communicating with each other. I would consider this a must-read for anyone who is into history or just researching, or interested in learning about, the events of 9/11.
No comments:
Post a Comment