eight years on..
it's a story i rarely recount.
somewhat unbelievably, i ended up on the first international flight to land on american soil following 911. this, after a harrowing three days exiled at heathrow, in what had become a refugee camp of in-transit passengers not able to make their journey's end (i was already airborne from casablanca to new york when the tragic event occurred). part of the security measures to embark included no meals, magazines or any sort of carry-on effects. no one was in the mood for snacks or flipping the pages of vogue in any case. as an added safeguard, the flight was phantom-numbered (meaning, it never 'existed') and chaperoned by two heavily-armed US marshalls. once we were seated, all runway and in-cabin lights turned off posthaste and the half-empty british airways 747 took off under the complete cover of darkness amid some very tense feelings onboard.
it's difficult to forget the sight of manhattan's smouldering skyline before touching down early morning at kennedy airport on september 14th, and the shock that this image symbolises remains unfathomable. later that day i got as close as was possible to 'ground zero' (without official clearance). there wasn't much to witness through the smog of the aftermath (and hard to breathe without a face-mask), but just around the corner from tower 1, i snapped this image of men praying for their lost colleagues which best expresses my experience of the cataclysm.
'sept 14, 2001' • world trade center, NYC
© MARC MONTEBELLO • ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
