USA Today (not my usual news source) has an absolutely bone-chilling story here and here of life in air traffic control the morning of September 11, 2001.
"We have some planes," he says through an open mike. "Just stay quiet and you will be OK." Could more hijackers be out there? In the FAA's command center in Herndon, Ben Sliney learns of the radio transmission. The words will haunt him all morning. "We have some planes." Some? How many?.................As Marquis, 45, considers what he can do, air traffic controllers at the FAA's Boston Center reach the same conclusion. Flight 11 has stopped talking. Its pilots don't respond to calls; its transponder signal has disappeared. Worse, controllers report hearing a man with a strange accent in the cockpit.
