The Only Plane in the Sky

"Incredibly evocative and compelling." - The Washington Post "The most moving and chilling oral history you will read." - The Times "Astonishing. I read it in one sitting & was utterly gripped from start to finish." - Piers Morgan ** Updated 25th Anniversary edition with additional content ** The Only Plane in the Sky is the first comprehensive oral history of 9/11, deftly woven and told in the voices of ordinary people grappling with extraordinary events.It begins predawn, where we meet airport staff who unknowingly usher terrorists onto their flights. From a secret bunker beneath the White House, Dick Cheney and Condoleezza Rice watch for incoming planes on radar. At the Pentagon, officials feel a violent tremor as they come under attack. We hear the stories of the father and son working on separate floors in the North Tower; the firefighter who rushes there to search for his wife; the phone operator who keeps her promise to share a passenger's last words with his family; the chaplain who stays on the scene to perform last rites, losing his own life when the Twin Towers collapse. In New York, first responders confront a scene of unimaginable chaos. At the Pentagon generals break down and weep when they are barred from rushing into the burning building to try and rescue their colleagues.Drawing on never-before-published transcripts, declassified documents and interviews from nearly five hundred people, award-winning historian Garrett Graff skilfully tells the story of the day that changed all of our lives - as it was lived.The Only Plane in the Sky is a unique, profound, and searing exploration of humanity on a day that changed the course of history, and all of our lives, 25 years ago.