The past two years have not been easy. A lot changed in the world when American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175 were turned into flying bombs and crashed into the World Trade Centre - especially for those of us who were there.
I felt the brush of death that day. But for a matter of hours and a few city blocks, I would have been among the 2,792 people who died. At 8.48am, when the first plane hit, I was on my way to a press conference in Lower Manhattan, on assignment for this newspaper. When the aircraft exploded, I was close enough to see the smoke and flames and to hear the muffled sound of the impact.
Flight 11 hit between the 97th and 103rd floors. A day earlier, I had been on the 106th floor of the same building, admiring the New York City skyline from the Windows on the World restaurant.
By the time the second tower was hit by Flight 175 at 9.03am, I was already running towards the base of the World Trade Centre, notebook in hand. My decision to head to ground zero was really more of a reflex and I did not give any thought to what I might find when I arrived.
With the benefit of hindsight, I may have joined the rest of the crowd and headed to safety. But at that moment, I had to be there to cover what I already knew was going to be a story of epic proportions. What I had not counted on was how ground zero would affect me as a human being.
It was a scene of chaos: the buildings were in flames and thousands of people poured on to the streets. As fire consumed the buildings, people who had jumped or fallen from the top floors of the towers began slamming into the ground. The crowd screamed and pointed every time another body appeared and began to fall. I started taking notes and interviewing people, but soon found myself staring into the sky with everyone else.
There was an acrid stench of burned electrical wiring. Police sirens wailed and more and more firefighters appeared. People were milling about in confusion. A man listening to radio reports of the attack on the Pentagon was yelling that the US had been invaded.
