Touching History: The Untold Story of the Drama That Unfolded in the Skies Over America on 9/11 by Lynn Spencer

Touching History: The Untold Story of the Drama That Unfolded in the Skies Over America on 9/11 Reviews

• 
  Jill Meyer

  Lynn Spencer's book on 9/11, "Touching History", is not a new book. It was originally published in 2008, and then republished in 2018. Spencer covers the response of the American air system - commercial, general, and governmental - to the attacks on 9/11.
  
  Most people reading this review will remember "that day"; the skies were so blue almost everywhere in the country that they were termed by flyers as "severe clear". It was into those skies that three wide-bodied airplanes were flown into buildings and another went into the ground in rural Pennsylvania. But what of the other commercial airplanes in the air that day? Lynn Spencer interviewed pilots - both commercial and military - and airline and government officials as the skies were cleared. Spencer is a very good writer and the book is very interesting.
  
  By the way, there's a fantastic graphic on You Tube. I can't link but if you put in "September 11th 2001 Airspace Shutdown (With Timeline) "
• 
  Cropredy

  To anyone who lived through 9-11, you know what happened and many of the minute-by-minute details are very familiar. Yet, this book, written in 2008, provided me a fresh perspective on that fateful day.
  
  The story is told from three vantage points, all tightly woven in chronological sequence:
  
  * The FAA and Air traffic controllers
  * The air defense system, especially Air National Guard units
  * Flight crew of airliners
  
  The story is gripping and puts you smack down into ready rooms, cockpits, and command centers. Disbelief yields into frenzied orders under uncertain information. Communication systems don’t interoperate between the military and civilian spheres. Leaders are forced to make decisions without waiting on the chain of command. You can’t help but admire the operational leaders.
  
  Along with “102 Minutes” (the story as told from the WTC vantage), I highly recommend Lynne Spencer’s book. You will have a hard time putting it down.
• 
  Kristen Clifton

  I heard about this book after reading “The Only Plane in the Sky” and it was so incredibly interesting. It’s amazing how nothing was streamlined (because it didn’t have a reason to be) before this day and what a true miracle happened by grounding so many aircrafts while deploying military personnel and planes all from different branches. I would recommend this as an audio book because the narrator is fantastic
• 
  Mary

  This book offers a really interesting perspective for the events of 9/11 that I had not previously seen or even thought about.
• 
  Erik Graff

  Although author Spencer, herself a pilot, has no previous writing experience she has done a creditable job with this book, the result of three years research on events in the air over North America during 9/11. The book is a suspenseful page-turner.
  
  While critical of the 9/ll Commission Report for errors and omissions, this book does not address all of the outstanding issues from that day. It does not address, for instance, Richard Clarke's critiques, nor the questions pertaining to the ability of the downed planes to effect the damage they did on the ground. It doesn't even mention the flights of Arabs, including members of Osama bin Laden's family, in USA airspace that occurred after global no-fly orders were given.
  
  Such sins of omission notwithstanding, this appears to be a valuable contribution to the on-going debate about 9/11 and the political uses to which it has been put.
• 
  Lina

  Oh, my - I guess this is what happens when you check out books without looking at the subtitle.
  
  I thought this was going to be something about history, but it's actually a very dry, fairly technical book about aviation on September 11. The author is herself a pilot, and reading the book almost gives you the sensation of being a flight controller - she throws out about eight billion events and facts, and you just run out of time for any "drama in the skies." This was dreadfully boring.
• 
  E.J. Cullen

  How the aviation industry/military handled the 9/11 crisis. Stories of many commercial pilots and military pilots on that fateful day, and how they reacted to the unprecedented situation. Confusion reigns.
• 
  Stephen

  When the brilliant blue skies over the continental United States became a place of confusion, dread, loss, and death, it was the men and women of air traffic control who knew it first – and when everyone else had begun to etch Tuesday, September 11 into the history books, for the men of the Air Force the day’s work was just getting started. Touching History tells the story of 9/11 through the eyes and ears of air traffic control. Written by a pilot, it offers a rare perspective and level of detail unavailable elsewhere. Although its amount of technical detail might frustrate the most casual of readers, for others that same detail is an open door into the increidbly crucial role played by air traffic control – not just on that day, but every day.
  
  Touching History draws on three pools of witnesses; the air traffic controllers themselves; pilots, aviation administrators, and others connected to the airlines; and the US military, who scrambled to defend American cities in a way they hadn’t needed since the darkest days of the Cold War. We experience through them the day as it happened – the first inklings that something was amiss when American 11 suddenly stopped responding, and even more strangely turned off its transponder — the scattered reports that came in from hijacked airlines, phone calls whose information took precious minutes to percolate into place, confused reports as authorities realized there were multiple atypical hijackings happening simultaneously – and then the horror as airliners were turned into missiles. Bit by bit, the military’s airmen take a greater and greater role in the narrative – as the airlines do their damndest to get every plane in the sky on the ground, safely, NORAD and various levels of air defense were trying to get their men up, establishing command of the air in large metros with possible targets.
  
  Experiencing 9/11 in this way is most unusual; most sources put us on the ground, close to the flames, smoke, and destruction. The immediate and sensational overwhelm us. Here, though, the horror is more removed and abstracted, but the overall effect is greater as the scope of the challenge is realized. Somehow, some party has taken control over multiple airplanes at once. How are they doing it? How many more potential missiles are up there? When will it end? The book makes plain how utterly unprecedented the events of the day were: hijackings had happened before, but they followed a pattern. Nothing today fit that pattern. Even if terrorists were taking over planes, how were they making the pilots steer into buildings? Even with a gun to his head, no pilot would willingly allow his craft to to take life on the ground. Although ultimately there were only four planes – unless there were five – NORAD and the airlines actively believed several other planes had been hijacked, and one flight was grounded in the belief that it was carrying a bomb. The day became saturated with fear – fighters dogged civilian airliners, and air crews recruited passengers to help them stand guard outside the cockpit. Spencer also shares information no one reading a traditional 9/11 history would get – like the strong possibility of a fifth target. United 23, a planned morning flight, was delayed by the initial news and later canceled. Left behind in its unclaimed baggage were “al-Queda documents and box cutters”, very likely belonging to four Arab passengers who, sitting together in first class, had quickly vanished into the crowd when it became obvious they weren’t going anywhere.
  
  Touching History is one of the better 9/11 histories out there, in a class with The Only Plane in the Sky and The Looming Tower. While its level of detail into air defense and flight control operations might scare some, for me that additional look into air infrastructure made it all the more appealing.
• 
  Glenda

  "With nearly 5,000 planes in the sky during peak hours and approximately 50,000 flights operating on any given day, the work of the Command Center keeps nearly 50 specialists intensely busy at their posts, around the clock, planning and monitoring the flow of air traffic over the United States."
  
  Most of us think about the heroic efforts of the police and firefighters on 9/11 who responded to the tragedy, but I admit I had given little thought to the heroes in air traffic control on that day. The morning of September 11, there was almost 3,000 flights airborne when the first plane was highjacked. This book does a phenomenal (albeit pilot technical jargon at times) job depicting the confusion and chaos that ensued in the wake of the hijackings and the amazing, heroic job the folks in air traffic control and pilots in flight did to land planes safely once the realization hit that any of them could be hijacked targets and the order was given that US airspace be closed and all flights grounded.
  
  I had not realized the extent at which the national guard played in escorting planes still in flight that morning, or the number of military planes in the air that were deployed to ensure no other buildings in New York and Washington were targeted. And yes, there was the discussion that a civilian airliner may have to be shot down.
  
  It's a bit of an intense read, but it's told in such a way you almost feel like you there as it unfolds. (There = various air traffic control locations). It does jump around location wise which can be a little confusing, and there are plenty of acronyms to keep straight.
  
  Definitely recommend for 9/11 history and/or flying buffs.
• 
  Mike Courson

  Book 57 of 2021 (audiobook)
  One of the more interesting parts about 9/11, to me, was air-traffic control and how things were handled in the first moments of a god-awful day. Ms. Spencer was one of the people talking on a show I watched on the 20th anniversary and I learned of her book. Precisely what I would want to read on the subject!
  
  Spencer does not disappoint and the audiobook reader is great. You really get an in-depth examination of how air traffic controllers worked that morning from the first hijacking to the shutdown of the skies. Really the entire book covers just a few hours of time from many different perspectives.
  
  I'm fascinated by many of the stories: the first victims on the planes who never knew how big this thing was going to be. The people who also flew that day and had to wonder if they were ever going to land safely. Air-traffic controllers and pilots who were trained to deal with hijackers one way, only to learn 9/11 presented a never-before-seen challenge of suicidal hijackers willing to use the planes as weapons.
  
  So there are tens of thousands of stories about that day that are never told. I don't think I'd ever heard about the pilots who began safeguarding their cockpits as they maneuvered around the country looking for safe places to land. They were grabbing axes and extinguishers in the cock pit and stationing people outside the door. Pretty interesting stuff in a crazy-wild time.
• 
  Edie

  I knew some of the drama that unfolded in the air, but only what involved the FAA. This book tells all that unfolded in the skies that day. Not only was the FAA trying to figure out which planes were highjacked but NORAD, DC Air National Guard, Secret Service and regular control towers were all trying to protect the US from an internal, unknown attack. There was utter chaos with all of these divisions giving orders to fighter jets at once. Also there were multiple jets deployed not knowing other jets were sent out from different commands. Looking back I am surprised no one accidentally got shot down. I am also incredibly impressed with the fighter pilots and their cool, quick thinking and self sacrificing measures. Everyone knows how US air space was shut down, but hearing testimony from pilots again amazes me how all planes landed safely.
• 
  Katy

  Breathtaking account of all that unfolded among those airborne on 9/11. It seemed like the author projected many of her own emotions and/or assumptions onto some of the participants though. I was very interested to read more about what happened to the flights over the Pacific - haven’t seen this much in other 9/11 books.
• 
  Greg Kerr

  A must read for history and aviation buffs. I read “The Day the World Came to Town” which really tweaked my interest to some of the side stories for 9/11. This book delivers. There is great suspense and appropriate humor as we witness the human-will adapt to chaos, fear and fatigue while continuing to overcome unbelievable odds.
• 
  Jason Pickels

  Assuredly, this will be a regurgitated "history" of maudlin sentimental trash and soft "patriotic" nonsense but alas, I cannot be bothered to read it now. I dare give it a "pre-rating" of one star and am bookmarking it for later more intensive abuses if I can find it in the online rubbish pile somewhere for free.
• 
  Karen West

  This book details what was happening in the skies on 9/11. From the suspected hijackings, to the confusion, getting fighter pilots in the air, confusion, communication between air traffic controllers and the military, confusion, to clearing the air space around the United States. A fascinating and informative read.
• 
  Kim Raccoon

  People don't really think about what happened in the skies this day beyond the planes crashing and everything being grounded. There is so much more to that story and while not as emotional as stories of people directly in the line of fire, this is still a very charged book that is worth a read.
• 
  Marc

  Gripping, fast-paced, difficult to put down. The author's background as a pilot is a huge asset but a closer edit would have been welcome. The switching between tenses is jarring and the repeated use of "headquarter's" is mind-boggling.
• 
  Niloofar Razi Howe

  Gripping account of the skies over the US during 9/11.
• 
  Tippi

  I picked up this book after I heard the author do a reading from it at Barnes & Noble a couple of months ago. She wanted to share how 9/11 was experienced by combat and commercial pilots.
  
  The beginning of the book is full of procedures and acronyms. While she does explain everything in layman's terms, it comes across as a bit clinical. Of course, once the attacks actually start, things get more "exciting" (if you could call it that).
  
  Even though I watched the events of that day unfolding on CNN, this book does not recount the day I remember. I guess I couldn't really wrap my mind around it, but at the time I just thought those four (!) attacks were isolated incidents.
  
  Reading about it from the pilots' perspective is like reading a Tom Clancy novel. Most of them have military experience; as a result, their first reaction is, "We're at war." When I heard that all flights had been grounded, it seemed like a natural response to the crisis. When they heard that order, it had so many more connotations. They were now viewed as threats by the jets that had been deployed and by their own air controllers, and viewed everyone else on their planes and in the skies as a threat. The book comes across as Pearl Harbor meets Thirteen Days, in that there is a catastrophic attack on the U.S., which might lead to the next World War.
  
  Overall I tend to stay away from 9/11-themed movies or books, because I feel like they're trying to capitalize on people's emotions. This one won me over on that count, but there really wasn't that much new information. It's meant to be a defense of the military response and demonstrate that terrorists using planes as suicide bombs was never even considered a possibility, which is why they got away with it. I still think what I always thought: we were overwhelmed and unprepared, and did the best we could under those circumstances.
  
  So if you're a 9/11 junkie, this one's for you. Otherwise, you already know the story.
• 
  Tom

  I read this book because I've been fascinated with the way that the air traffic control system in the United States managed, in about three hours, to entirely clear its airspace of all non-military or non-essential airtraffic, a function never contemplated for the ATC system. The improvisation and professionalism required to do this is pretty amazing, and, while one cannot say it went really smoothly, it worked about as well as anyone could possibly expect, with no serious mishaps despite the number of airplanes that came down.
  
  The author is both a commercial pilot and a military pilot, so her interests sort of swing back and forth between what's going on in the cockpits of planes that were not hijacked, as well as on the jet fighters that were ultimately authorized to bring down any further airplanes threatening urban targets. I would have liked the book better had it focused on the ATC system itself--how it works, how controllers and pilots worked together to bring the planes down, how the airports managed to gather up and park planes that really didn't belong at some airports, and so on. This book is a good overview for the casual reader, but I would like to have seen the details. The writer is, of course, writing for a lay audience. The writing is workmanlike, but not particularly florid. But it's also a page turner, and I learned a lot.