The 18th anniversary of September 11, 2001 is being remembered with memorials and speeches.
Yet, perhaps nothing captures the true horror of 9/11 like the live news broadcasts from that day. See CNN’s live coverage above. It runs from 8:50 a.m. through 11:50 a.m. “I just witnessed a plane,” one eyewitness begins before revealing that he saw a jet crash into one of the Twin Towers.
You can watch (or rewatch) the live news coverage from other networks of the September 11 terrorist attacks below. The anchors for the various United States’ television networks only slowly grasped the scope of the terrorist attacks, with many at first thinking only a small plane had struck one of the towers.
At 8:52 a.m. in New York, Bryant Gumbel of CBS News says, “We understand that there has been a plane crash on the southern tip of Manhattan You’re looking at the World Trade Center. We understand that a plane has crashed into the World Trade Center. We don’t know anything more than that. We don’t know if it was a commercial aircraft. We don’t know if it was a private aircraft…” As he speaks, smoke plumes swirl out of one of the buildings. The first eyewitness he spoke to said he thought it was a “smaller plane” that wasn’t commercial.
However, the footage captures the anchors’ increasing horror as another plane strikes one of the Twin Towers and, eventually, both towers collapse.
The video below is from Fox News. As with the other newscasts from that day, it starts out with typical morning coverage and then segues into the first reports of a plane crashing into the World Trade Center (that starts at about 9 minutes in).
9/11 News CBS Sept. 11, 2001 8 31 am – 9 12 am CBS 9, Washington, D.C.September 11 2001 News from CBS 9, Washington, D.C. Date: 2001-09-11 12:31:09 UTC Air Time: 2001-09-11 08:31:09 EDT Length: 0:41:412011-06-04T07:10:07.000Z
And here:
Live Coverage – CBS 9 Washington (08:52am-11:17am) – September 11th 2001Live coverage from CBS 9 Washington. 2nd plane attack, Pentagon & both collapses. 1st plane attack: 8:46am 2nd plane attack: 9:03am Pentagon: 9:37 Collapse 1: 9:59-10:00am Flight 93: 10:03am Collapse 2: 10:28am2013-12-18T08:38:11.000Z
This video of NBC’s coverage from that day also starts with the regular coverage. Anchor Matt Lauer breaks into that coverage with the first news of the attacks.
Today Show 9-11-01 – Live on NBC as Tragedy OccurredThis is the live 9/11/01 footage from The Today Show on NBC as the tragedy unfolded on air.2019-05-27T03:58:54.000Z
Here is ABC7’s live coverage out of Washington D.C.:
Live Coverage – ABC 7 Washington (08:51am-11:18am) – September 11th 2001Live coverage from ABC 7 Washington. 2nd plane attack, Pentagon & both collapses. 1st plane attack: 8:46am 2nd plane attack: 9:03am Pentagon: 9:37 Collapse 1: 9:59-10:00am Flight 93: 10:03am Collapse 2: 10:28am2013-12-18T07:51:08.000Z
