In the early afternoon of September 9, 2001, a 36-year-old Piers Morgan was sitting at home on leave from his job as Editor of the Daily Mirror when he was informed that planes had smashed into the World Trade Center in New York.
It was an event that rocked the British press and one which led to British forces joining the US in the war on terror that lasted for over a decade.
Now, on the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, an excerpt from Piers' best-selling book The Insider provides a first-hand account of the moment he was informed of the tragedy and a breakdown of how the subsequent days unfolded in real time.
On the 20th anniversary of the infamous 9/11 attacks, an excerpt from Piers' best-selling book The Insider provides a first-hand account of the moment he was informed of the tragedy and a breakdown of how the subsequent days unfolded in real-time
'Terrorists have bombed the World Trade Center with hijacked planes,' I said, hardly able to believe what was happening'
TUESDAY, 11 SEPTEMBER, 2001
I’m recovering at my Sussex village home from back surgery – I had a slipped disc removed two weeks ago - and engineers arrived this morning to fix my TV for tonight’s big Arsenal match.
Just after 2pm, the Mirror newsdesk called and said the World Trade Center in New York had been hit by a plane. I switched on Sky News and saw a smallish plume of smoke coming out of one of the twin towers. Just seemed like a tragic accident. ‘Keep an eye on it, but it looks like a light aircraft to me, which is a tragedy but not a huge story over here.’
I carried on watching and about twenty minutes later the presenter Kay Burley said we were watching footage of the plane actually hitting the tower from Fox News.
Only we weren’t. She very quickly realised this was live, and we had just seen a second plane hit the other tower.
Stunned, I scrabbled to phone the newsdesk.
‘We saw it we saw it! That was a big plane, this isn’t an accident, it can’t be.’
I looked back at the screen. A huge ball of flame was coming out of the second tower, and Sky were already speculating about terrorism.
Dad came in to see how I was (my parents live in the other half of my house).
‘Terrorists have bombed the World Trade Center with hijacked planes,’ I said, hardly able to believe what was happening.
We both watched in utter horror.
Then one of the engineers asked if he could switch channels to test the football output.
‘No, no, can’t you see the twin towers have been hit?!!’ I exclaimed furiously. ‘Thousands of people work in there!’
The guy turned, said, ‘Oh yeah, right,’ then calmly got back to his work.
My phone started to ring and then carried on doing so every 30 seconds.
‘This is Osama bin Laden,’ I told me father. ‘It has to be. He’s tried to take those towers out before.’
I conveyed my thoughts to the newsdesk, and they said others were saying the same thing on TV.
It seemed that Al Qaeda, Bin Laden’s terrorist organisation, had struck the big one.
My grandmother arrived with a pizza for my lunch. ‘Sorry, I’ve got to go,’ I said, and hobbled slowly upstairs to find a suit.
Then I stumbled to the car and drove at high speed to Canary Wharf with the in-car TV on with live reports.
The newsdesk called again. ‘The Pentagon’s been hit by another plane.’
‘F*ck, what’s happening here?’ I shouted. ‘Is this f*cking Armageddon?’
Nobody had an answer; this was an ongoing news event of epically awful proportions and none of us knew how it would end.
I got lost three times on my journey, the last time when the newsdesk called and said, ‘The towers are collapsing.’ At one stage I was actually driving the wrong way round the M25 towards Heathrow, not east London.
I stopped the car so I could see the TV pictures, and there they were, those famous symbols of American economic power, disintegrating before my eyes.
It was appalling to watch.
The phone rang. It was my mother, incensed that I might cause further injury to my back.
‘What are you doing, Piers? You shouldn’t be driving,’ she shouted.
‘Mum, this is the biggest news story of my lifetime, I’m not missing this.’
‘Well, it’s ridiculous to risk permanently harming yourself like this, just stupid.’
My mother doesn’t get angry very often, but she had a point.
‘Look, it’s OK, I’ll sit down when I get to the office.’
‘You’re going to Canary Wharf? What if they attack that too?’
I hadn’t thought of that. I worked halfway up the UK equivalent of the World Trade Center. And this incident was obviously far from over.
I put the phone down and called the newsdesk.
‘Are we being evacuated?’
‘No, the TV are saying we are, but we’re not yet.’
Since the IRA bombed the Wharf, we’ve had a proper plan in place for producing the paper in the event of evacuation, and I actioned it. I finally got to the office about 4pm to find controlled mayhem.
I called an immediate conference and went through everything we knew.
Three planes had crashed, two into the towers and one into the Pentagon. A fourth had crashed into a Pennsylvania field with American military jets in hot pursuit.
Did President Bush order it to be shot down as some are suggesting?
It seems unconscionable that he would even consider that but apparently the plane was
