In this first‑person video, Tom Guarriello recounts his experience on September 11, 2001 while aboard a Gulfstream G4 corporate jet that had departed Teterboro Airport for a fashion‑industry trip to Paris. Mid‑flight the pilot informs the passengers that a plane has struck the World Trade Center, and shortly after a second plane has hit. The crew learns that the destination is unsafe and, after a period of uncertainty, the flight is diverted to Amsterdam. In Amsterdam the group witnesses a continent‑wide moment of silence, during which Tom feels profound empathy from locals. He later describes the complex return journey—Toronto, a bus to Buffalo, a flight to White Plains, and finally home—while noting that general‑aviation aircraft were the last to be cleared to re‑enter U.S. airspace. Throughout, Tom emphasizes the emotional weight of being airborne during the attacks, the difficulty of contacting loved ones, and the moving solidarity he encountered abroad.
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Oi, guys, it's Tom. It's 9/11, and of course there are a lot of 9/11 videos on YouTube, and one of them was from Gimme a Break Man asking, "Where were you on 9/11?" So on 9/11, let me tell you my story. On 9/11, I was leaving on a shopping trip with a group of designers from a client company, and we were taking a corporate jet. Gulfstream G4, leaving from Teterboro Airport in New Jersey on that morning. Our flight— it was a beautiful morning, of course, as we all know, and our flight left Teterboro at 7:00 AM. And when you fly out of Teterboro, which is a private what's called general aviation airport, meaning, you know, corporate planes and private planes fly out of there. When you fly out of Teterboro, you fly right over Manhattan. You fly over lower Manhattan. And I remember flying over Manhattan and seeing the World Trade Center, the Twin Towers, and, you know, off we went. On our way to Paris. Our first stop was to be Paris and then Milan and then London. About a 10-day trip. We were about 2 hours out over the Atlantic when the pilot, who we knew well, you know, he was a pilot who had been on This group of designers traveled a lot, and this pilot had been our pilot before. He came back and he said, "A plane has crashed into the World Trade Center." We were stunned, of course, and we thought, "Wow, what a terrible accident." that a plane crashed into the World Trade Center. We were disturbed that such a thing had happened, but we went back to the kind of stuff— this is a very interesting, fun group of people. We went back to talking about, "Oh my God, that happened, and oh, okay, well, we're doing this, we're doing that." It was an accident that it happened. And then, of course, a few minutes later, the pilot came back again and said that a second plane had hit the World Trade Center. And God's honest truth here, the first thing that came to my mind was Osama bin Laden. I said, "Wow, Osama bin Laden did this." I had been reading about Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda ever since the— well, for a long time. And so now here we were, over the Atlantic, 2.5 hours out of New York, on our way to Paris. There was a satellite phone on the plane. But so everybody started— these are all New Yorkers, you know, we all live in the metro New York area. So people started trying to call their homes and nobody could get through. So I said, let me try. I'll try to call Karen, see if I can get a hold of her. And so I called. And because we live in Connecticut and not in the city, Apparently our phone lines worked where other people's didn't. So I got Karen and we proceeded to then relay information to Karen to relay to other people to make phone calls when and if she could to contact other people and to find out if everybody was okay, first of all. And just in general, you know, the most important thing at that moment was connecting with anybody. And so we were trying to connect with people. Now, I don't know when this happened, but it was probably about, maybe about an hour after we had found out about the attacks. The pilot came back and said that he had been talking to corporate security and that we were not going to Paris. Paris was deemed to be too dangerous for us to go to, and that we were going somewhere else, but we didn't know where. So now we're flying, and, you know, everybody has a unique experience about 9/11, and mine was being in an airplane and not being able to see anything. We didn't see any images. We didn't All we knew was, well, that the towers had been hit, and then later that they had collapsed. So we're still flying. Now it's getting late, it's getting to be evening, and we still don't know where we're going. We know we're continuing to head east, we're heading somewhere to Europe, but we don't know where. Finally, the captain comes back and says, well, um, They've told us that the safest place they can think of us to go and the best place for us to go is Amsterdam. And so that's what we did. We went to Amsterdam. They— this was a— this is a big corporation and corporate travel had gotten us rooms at a hotel and there were other people from the same corporation on corporate jets this was a— this time of year is a big travel time because of fashion shows and new lines being released in, in the stores in Europe in particular. That— so there were a lot— there's always a lot of, of fashion people traveling around at this time of year. So there were other— there were a couple of other jets full of people from the same corporation that also were redirected to Amsterdam. And that was on Tuesday. Now, of course, when we got to Amsterdam, we got to the hotel, we had CNN, and so we finally got to see what it was that had happened. Of course, you know, like everyone— remember, this is a design group. Our offices, the offices of this group that I was very closely— worked very, very closely with We're in down— we're in lower Manhattan. We were on 21st and Broadway. So, you know, we were a mile and a half, 2 miles from Ground Zero. And a lot of people lived in the area. And so we still were unable to get a hold of anybody. And, you know, finally Karen got through to a few people and finally other people got through. To their relatives and, you know, found out the extent of what had happened. And of course CNN was on 24/7 and we were finding out everything we could about the attacks. And so the next day in Amsterdam, there was a memorial. If you remember, I'm not sure if it was the next day or the day after. I have a feeling it was the day after, like Thursday, that there was a moment of silence throughout all of Europe for the victims of the attack. And I'll put some photographs that I took that day in the, the palace square. I'm sorry, I don't remember the exact name of it. In Amsterdam, during that moment of silence, which was probably one of the most moving moments of my life. I went alone. None of my colleagues really wanted to go, but I really had to go. So I went alone and stood in this square, and I had my camera just because I wanted to, of course, take pictures of this moment. And the people made me for an American pretty quickly. And it was a moment that, of course, I'll never forget. People coming up to me and hugging me and telling me how sorry they were. There were flowers everywhere throughout this, this square. And I was there for this moment of silence, which was profound and extraordinarily difficult and moving all at the same time. We didn't know how long we were going to be in Amsterdam. As it turned out, if you recall, General Aviation, which is this private and corporate jet category of aviation was the last category of aviation to be given permission to fly into U.S. airspace. And so by Saturday— this was— 9/11 was a Tuesday, right? So by Saturday, we still didn't know what was happening, and we learned finally that we were going to fly to Toronto, and then we were going to take a bus from Toronto over to Buffalo, and then from Buffalo we were gonna get on a plane and fly to White Plains Airport, and then, you know, we'd be home. So that's what we did, and I'll end this video with a picture of all of us getting off the plane in Toronto after having made this journey and finally on our way back home. So again, like all of us, we all have unique 9/11 experiences, and mine was in the air over the Atlantic on my way to Paris. So take care, we'll see you soon. Bye.
