PETALING JAYA: It was 8.46am in the United States; 8.46pm in Malaysia on Sept 11, 2001 – and the world was frozen in stunned horror.
Millions of people, regardless of their time zones, were glued to their screens as live images of what infamously came to be known as 9/11 were screened on televisions everywhere.
In what has been called the deadliest terrorist attack on the United States ever, commercial aircraft Flight 11 was hijacked by international militant network Al-Qaeda. And the plane was deliberately crashed into floors 93 to 99 of the North Tower of the World Trade Centre in Manhattan, New York.
As live images of the burning building collapsing, and people falling to their deaths filled television screens, millions watched while trying to make sense of what had just happened.
About 15,000km away, The Star’s newsroom was already in full swing, piecing together reports and visuals for the next day’s front page.
Then came the moment that changed everything.
“We were already shocked when the first plane hit. Everyone was hard at work, preparing the stories and looking for pictures for our cover the next day.
“I remember speaking to one of the editors at the time and suddenly, I saw another plane hit,” said Tung Eng Hwa, now an executive editor for content design at The Star.
Tung, who was the editorial artist on night duty at the time, said this left everyone in the newsroom wondering if this was happening live.
“It was only when we saw the smoke already there that it sank in,” he said.
“When the first plane hit, we thought it was an accident,” said senior production editor K. Senthilnathan.
“We were planning a front page story on the plane crash. Then, the second plane hit and we realised it was something much, much bigger.”
The Star editors then made a decision to switch from its usual tabloid format to a vertical broadsheet, doubling its size to capture the magnitude of the story.
The foreign news pages that had been prepared were all thrown away, clearing space for the reports trickling in from the US.
“The editors worked feverishly putting together the various reports, many unconfirmed, that were coming in, and the paper went to bed very late, past 2am,” said Senthilnathan, who incidentally was celebrating his birthday on Sept 11.
The next day, The Star’s cover featured the iconic image of the second plane hitting the South Tower Centre, as well as pictures of both towers collapsing, accompanied by plumes of white smoke and fire following the attack.
The second plane – Flight 175 which crashed into floors 77 to 85 of the South Tower of the World Trade Centre – was one of the four planes hijacked by Al-Qaeda.
Within 90 minutes, the twin 110-storey towers collapsed in a thunderous roar, sending massive clouds of debris across lower Manhattan.
When the towers were struck, between 16,400 and 18,000 people were in the World Trade Centre complex.
The vast majority evacuated, and as they rushed out, first responders rushed in trying to save those still trapped or injured.
That however, was not the end.
Another plane was deliberately crashed by hijackers into the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia.
Passengers in the fourth plane, Flight 93, fought back against the hijackers after learning what happened, with the plane eventually crashing into an empty field in western Pennsylvania about 20 minutes by air from Washington.
When the dust settled, almost 3,000 people from across 90 countries were killed in the attacks – 2,753 were in New York, 184 in the Pentagon and 40 on Flight 93.
Three Malaysians – Vijayashanker Paramsothy, Khoo Sei Lai and Ang Siew Nya – were among those killed. The three worked in the same building but were on different floors.
The next day, then US President George W. Bush committed the US to a “monumental struggle of good versus evil” as rescue workers dug through the rubble for survivors and fought fires in the worst attack on the country since Pearl Harbour on Dec 7, 1941.
Within a month of the attacks, America declared war on Afghanistan, which was believed to be sheltering Al-Qaeda, and invaded the country.
On Sept 11, 2011, the 9/11 memorial was officially opened where the World Trade Centre once stood, with a memorial museum later opened in 2014.
In Malaysia, the US Embassy here also remembered the three Malaysians who fell during the incident
While 25 years have passed since 9/11 took place, memories of the incident continue to leave a scar on the global stage.
As the events unfolded halfway across the world, The Star’s newsroom worked through the night to document a moment that would forever change the global landscape – capturing history as it happened.
