25 years ago today, to the hour I walked out to the flight line at the PNE airport under crystal clear skies.
I was a CFI heading out to do commercial maneuvers with my student; @stojanmarion, who was busy preflighting the Grumman AA-1C.
We departed around 8:15A flew up to the practice area just northeast of Trenton NJ and began working on lazy 8’s. As the nose of the trainer sliced through the skyline of Manhattan on the horizon, I remember saying, is that smoke? Or a cloud over the city? Stojan said: if it’s a cloud it’s the ONLY one within 100 miles.
We decided to pause the maneuvers and fly further north to get a better look. As we approached Old Bridge, it became obvious that it was smoke and it was coming from the twin towers. “Holy shit man!” We both said… I decided to dial up NY Approach and inquire.
The controller said, something along the lines of “uhh you guys better head back to your home airport” so we complied.
Within 20 mins we were touching down back in Northeast Philly, and upon returning to the flight school office, we found everyone gathered around the TVs. Information was slowly coming in - airplanes had flown into the towers.
Not long after, we watched the towers crumble on live TV. I went outside and smoked about 4 cigarettes end to end while I contemplated what the future was going to look like. It was surreal, and I remember being glued to the TV for probably 2 weeks.
My CFI days were coming to an end after 2 years of it on 9/10/01, but the next day that all changed. Everything changed for everybody - especially the families of the 2,977 souls that left us that September morning.
#NeverForget 🇺🇸