Witness to 9/11 attacks recounts his story 20 years later

JACKSON, Tenn. — On Sept. 10, John McCaskill and his coworker traveled from Jackson to New York City for a business trip.

But before handling business, they decided to do some sightseeing.

“We ran into someone that told us that if we went to the Statue of Liberty first, that we had a better chance of getting all the way up and get to the crown of the statue, and then we can come back and do the World Trade Center any time,” McCaskill said.

Ten minutes after McCaskill and his coworker made the decision to go to the Statue of Liberty, the first World Trade Center was hit.

“We first heard this little boom, and it wasn’t that loud. People were kind of looking around, wondering what was going on, and I saw a little bit of smoke in the air and saw lot’s of paper,” he said.

Without realizing the severity of the event, McCaskill and his coworker continued to take a ferry to the Statue of Liberty.

“There’s nothing we can do to help the situation, so that’s what we did. Got on that boat, and then we saw the other plane. Since I didn’t know the first explosion was due to a plane, it was not making any sense to me. So I was watching this plane. I said, ‘I wonder why that plane is coming in so low.’ And it just goes over our head and crashes into the other tower,” McCaskill said.

McCaskill and his coworker made the decision to get off of the ferry. When trying to make it to safety, McCaskill was stuck in a crowd of thousands of people trying to run.

“Just so happens within about five minutes of us getting around the towers, when the tower that got hit second went down first,” McCaskill said.

McCaskill was hearing there would be another attack, so in preparation, the group picked out places they would hide or barricade themselves.

“When the first tower went down, we actually thought it was a third airplane that hit it, and we thought it might’ve had taken part of the tower or part of it broke away. We could see the debris, we could see the clouds, but did not realize the whole tower had came down until we got passed it a little ways. Then we watched the next tower come down,” McCaskill said.

After witnessing one of America’s biggest tragedies, McCaskill and his coworker went to their hotel room and watched the news as more of the events of that day unfolded.

“We seriously don’t need to forget. We now have a whole generation of people that are growing up and weren’t there. They can’t say where they were on 9/11 because they either weren’t or were too young to remember. It was a big deal,” McCaskill said.

McCaskill and his coworker had plans to visit the World Trade Center Memorial this year, but due to COVID-19, the two were unable to.

Saturday marks the 20th anniversary of that devastating day.