The Only Plane in the Sky (Revised and Expanded Edition for the 25th Anniversary) : An Oral History of 9/11

Now with additional reflections and writing for the 25th anniversary of 9/11.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

This is history at its most immediate and movingA marvelous and memorable book. Jon Meacham

RemarkableA priceless civic giftOn page after page, a reader will encounter words that startle, or make him angry, or heartbroken. The Wall Street Journal

Had me turning each page with my heart in my throatTheres been a lot written about 9/11, but nothing like this. I urge you to read it. Katie Couric

A modern classic of American history: The first comprehensive oral history of September 11, 2001a panoramic narrative woven from voices on the front lines of an unprecedented national trauma.

Over the past twenty-five years, monumental literature has been published about 9/11, from Lawrence Wrights The Looming Tower to The 9/11 Commission Report. But one perspective has been missing up to this pointa 360-degree account of the day told through the voices of the people who experienced it.

Now, in The Only Plane in the Sky, Garrett Graff tells the story of the day as it was livedin the words of those who lived it. Drawing on never-before-published transcripts, declassified documents, original interviews, and oral histories from nearly five hundred government officials, first responders, witnesses, survivors, friends, and family members, he paints the most vivid and human portrait of the September 11 attacks yet.

Beginning in the predawn hours of airports in the Northeast, we meet the ticket agents who unknowingly usher terrorists onto their flights, and the flight attendants inside the hijacked planes. In New York, first responders confront a scene of unimaginable horror at the Twin Towers. From a secret bunker under the White House, officials watch for incoming planes on radar. Aboard unarmed fi