September 11 attacks anniversary: how a Londoner survived from the South Tower’s 84th floor

A Londoner remembers how she miraculously survived the September 11 attacks 20 years on, despite being on the 84th floor of the South Tower when the first plane hit.

Janice Brooks was trying to escape when the second jet hit her building, however somehow she made it out alive in the rubble.

The 61-year-old devastatingly recalls how she got out of the tower, she heard the sound of people jumping to deaths from the upper floors.

Ms Brooks, of east London, was speaking on the 20th anniversary of the attacks, which claimed almost 3,000 lives.

Terrorist group Al-Qaeda, led by Osama Bin Laden, had hijacked four commercial planes.

Two of them crashed into both buildings of the World Trade Center, bringing the two sky scrapers crashing to the ground.

One other jet smashed into the Pentagon, in Washington DC, while on the final plane United Airlines flight 93 passengers rushed the terrorists making the plane crash in the countryside.

On September 11, Ms Brooks had just arrived at work on the 84th floor of the World Trade Center’s South Tower, in New York City.

“I remember picking up the telephone to dial London, and I heard a loud bang,” she recalled.

“My PC screen flickered, the lights flashed on and off, and I saw paper and dust floating through the office window opposite where I sat.

“It was like an American ‘ticker tape’ parade, as the paper swirled and danced in the air.”

The first plane American Airlines Flight 11 had struck the North Tower of the World Trade Centre, the one adjacent to where Ms Brooks was working.

Although she and her colleagues heard the noise of the first strike, they were unaware that a plane strike was the cause.

It was only by phoning the London office that she was informed of the gravity of the situation, by her colleague who was watching the attack live across the Atlantic who told her to “get the hell out of there.”

“The urgency in his voice made me move,” she said.

“I don’t remember saying goodbye nor putting down the phone, I just grabbed my bag and ran.

“I vaguely remember smelling what I now know to be airline fuel as I ran.”

When Ms Brooks arrived at the 72nd floor, there was an announcement from building security assuring them that the building was secure and that emergency services had requested they not evacuate the building as they were preventing the evacuation of the North Tower.

They were asked to return to their offices.

At 9.03am the second hijacked plane hit the South Tower, as she and her colleagues were in the process of evacuating.

“I felt a dull thud, the building shook for about five seconds, and I fell back against the wall,” she said.

“I also remember the ceiling coming down behind me, and smoke or dust filling the air.

“I remember a man with a white shirt running back and forth.

“He tried both the door that we had just come through and the door in front of us….both were blocked with fallen debris and rubble.”

“Then I heard a woman’s blood curdling, high pitch scream, and I remember a man’s voice shouting for help and some frantic banging.

“One of the men said that he had heard a loud hissing sound, looked up and saw a huge fireball coming towards them from the direction of the other building.

“The windows were all blown in on them as they ran back to the door. 

“My initial thought was that Tower One had fallen on us.”

Ms Brooks and her colleagues then made the terrifying descent to safety, clambering through rubble and concrete on the way down.

When they were finally evacuated they were met with chaos on the streets.

"When I reached the area outside the building I could hear this thwacking sound," she said.

"I later found out it was the sound of people jumping from the building and hitting the ground.

“I looked up at the World Trade Center.

“I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.

“”here our floor should have been there was a huge gaping hole, and I could see smoke and flames.

“I could taste sick in my mouth as a wave of nausea swept over me, and I stood in a trance.”

Although Ms Brooks managed to escape, 61 of her colleagues did not survive the attack.

Ms Brooks has since returned to the UK and is currently working in London in the financial sector.

She now works closely with an educational charity Since 9/11, sharing her story with groups of young people.

Almost 3,000 people were killed in the 9/11 attacks, at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon building and on board United Airlines flight 93.