Latest / KIIS Breakfast / 💔 Sandra Sully remembers breaking the news of 9/11...

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💔 Sandra Sully remembers breaking the news of 9/11... · KIIS Breakfast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: This is Kiss Breakfast.
• 0:02
  Speaker 2: It is the 25th anniversary since September 11 and Sandra
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: is joining us right now. Good morning.
• 0:09
  Speaker 3: Good morning team. How are we?
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: Wow. I mean, so just to paint the picture, I
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: remember I was in bed, I was a year 11
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: or something. I was watching you on TV.
• 0:17
  Speaker 3: Thanks for reminding me how old I am.
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: And I still remember that. And then I ran down
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: to my dad and I said, I'll put the news on.
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: And we put you on and we watched the whole
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: thing with you. Can you tell us what that moment
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: was like? It was just an ordinary late news kind
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: of night, right?
• 0:35
  Speaker 3: An ordinary day. And news by its very nature is unpredictable, right?
• 0:39
  Speaker 3: It happens without warning. I just didn't expect it to
• 0:41
  Speaker 3: be as significant as it was that night. So, you know,
• 0:44
  Speaker 3: typically I'd essentially put Australia to sleep with my news
• 0:48
  Speaker 3: and everyone was winding down.
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: Were you the only one doing late news then? Yeah. Yeah.
• 0:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah. And, you know, we'd started news as per usual
• 0:56
  Speaker 3: and we were in a commercial break and we were
• 0:58
  Speaker 3: told that, like, A small plane had gone into the
• 1:01
  Speaker 3: World Trade Center. And I said, have we got the pictures?
• 1:03
  Speaker 3: And they said, yes. I said, all right, let's have
• 1:05
  Speaker 3: a look at them. And I went, guys, that's not
• 1:07
  Speaker 3: a light plane. That's a jetliner. Let's turn that around.
• 1:11
  Speaker 3: So seven minutes after it happened, we got it to air.
• 1:14
  Speaker 3: And then within that seven-minute window, America was in shock.
• 1:19
  Speaker 3: Most of your broadcasters in America were literally lost for words.
• 1:24
  Speaker 3: They couldn't believe what was actually happening because it was
• 1:26
  Speaker 3: happening to them. The majority of your mainstream media in
• 1:29
  Speaker 3: the US was East Coast based. So they were under
• 1:32
  Speaker 3: attack and they were in shock. International wires went dead.
• 1:36
  Speaker 3: So we had turned it around in seven minutes, but
• 1:39
  Speaker 3: in 17 minutes from woe to go, which is another
• 1:41
  Speaker 3: 10 minutes later, we knew that we needed to stay
• 1:44
  Speaker 3: with the pictures because things were unfolding ever so rapidly.
• 1:48
  Speaker 3: And then while we were on air, we watched the
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: second plane go in.
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: So you saw it as we saw it. I remember
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: watching it.
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  Speaker 3: As it happened.
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  Speaker 2: And then you knew you were like, this is a
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: terrorist attack.
• 1:59
  Speaker 3: Correct. Yeah, because it was two jetliners. It wasn't mechanical failure.
• 2:03
  Speaker 3: It wasn't a navigational error. This was a deliberate act.
• 2:06
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: And did you have like people in your ear? Like,
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: was it just crazy in the moment?
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: No, the newsroom was virtually empty. Yeah, well, of course,
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: we were late at night. And I think we were
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: on a bit later. It was always Rove's fault, you know,
• 2:18
  Speaker 3: because he kept us up.
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: The Rove days, yes.
• 2:21
  Speaker 3: And we were never on at a set time. It
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: was always sort of a moving beast. And I think
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: it was about quarter to 11 or something. So the
• 2:30
  Speaker 3: newsroom had emptied and there was just Sports Tonight. Tim
• 2:33
  Speaker 3: Webster was, you know, getting ready to go on after
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: me and I think two producers. I had one producer.
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: Michael Reed, and he ran out of the control room
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: and I looked at him as if to say, where
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: are you going? And he went, keep talking. I went, okay,
• 2:49
  Speaker 3: because he went in to ring the troops and also
• 2:52
  Speaker 3: to track down, we had two reporters on the ground.
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: So we had Michelle Stone, who was our LA correspondent.
• 2:57
  Speaker 3: We'd flown her to New York for the US Open
• 3:00
  Speaker 3: late and he would have just won the US Open.
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: She was on the ground. So he said, he didn't
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: tell me what he was doing. He just went, keep talking.
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: Well, we've got a moment. Shall we have a listen?
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: So I think this is when the second plane hit,
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: but I think you can tell you don't really know
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: what's happening. Let's have a listen.
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  Speaker 1: We can now confirm a second plane has crashed into
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: the second tower of the World Trade Center. As you
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: can see, the pictures there, these details are literally, you know,
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: the events are unfolding as we speak. Again, no confirmation
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: of casualties or cause. The World Trade Centre in New
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: York is, of course, the scene of a terrorist bombing
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: back in 1993 in February.
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: That killed six people.
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  Speaker 1: There is no speculation or confirmation at the moment that
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: terrorism is to play in this incident.
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: But nevertheless, it cannot be discounted.
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: Do you remember that moment?
• 3:51
  Speaker 3: Absolutely, because as random as these things are, life can be.
• 3:55
  Speaker 3: I was an exchange student back in the day in
• 3:57
  Speaker 3: America and I was on the East Coast in Pennsylvania
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: and a friend of mine Through that experience, her father
• 4:04
  Speaker 3: was rescued from the World Trade Center in 1993 by
• 4:08
  Speaker 3: Fari's ladders in the street. And why would I know that?
• 4:13
  Speaker 3: But I randomly did. It was sort of a back
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: pocket moment where I yelled out to Tim Webster and
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: the producer at Sports Tonight, because why is it frozen?
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  Speaker 3: I had no other information other than I had knowledge.
• 4:26
  Speaker 3: that the World Trade Center had been hit by a
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: terrorist attack in 1993. I mean, how random. I said,
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: get me everything you got on that. And the guys
• 4:34
  Speaker 3: just gave me some detail. And then I asked the
• 4:38
  Speaker 3: producer to put CNN in my ear and I just
• 4:40
  Speaker 3: had a pen and paper.
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 4:43
  Speaker 4: Even listening back to you 25 years ago, I mean,
• 4:47
  Speaker 4: I was asleep when it happened, but I remember the
• 4:49
  Speaker 4: next day like that feeling of like heaviness, right? Does
• 4:54
  Speaker 4: it conjure up some feelings for you when you hear
• 4:56
  Speaker 4: yourself back?
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, of course.
• 4:58
  Speaker 4: Like does it bring up some emotion?
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think, look, it was, you know, there's been
• 5:04
  Speaker 3: world wars and I'm not going to sort of rank
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: us where it fits. Of course. But no one. to
• 5:09
  Speaker 3: this day I believe, had watched what they thought was
• 5:12
  Speaker 3: the beginning of World War III unfold. It was unprecedented scenes,
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: an unprecedented moment of that magnitude, watching it unfold. Imagine
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: watching Pearl Harbor live. Imagine watching, you know, all of
• 5:27
  Speaker 3: these other significant global events live. This was the first time. And,
• 5:32
  Speaker 3: you know, 25 years ago, you know, there were no smartphones,
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: no social media, no Twitter, Facebook. These days you're drowning
• 5:39
  Speaker 3: in information. Then there was a dearth of information. So
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  Speaker 3: I felt like everyone who watched it with me actually
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: lived the horror and the drama of it because it
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: was in real time. And initially you worry that it
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: was surreal. Did you think it.
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: Might have been fake?
• 5:59
  Speaker 3: For a second.
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 6:01
  Speaker 3: For about 10 or 15 seconds we– I had that sinking,
• 6:04
  Speaker 3: sick feeling that what if someone's playing a horrendous joke?
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: And we quickly sort of determined that it wasn't. But,
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: I mean, I was ill for a second thinking it
• 6:13
  Speaker 3: could be. Once we determined it wasn't, then we had
• 6:16
  Speaker 3: to go with it. And, of course, there were no
• 6:18
  Speaker 3: facts other than what was unfolding.
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: Because these days you'd go, oh, it's just AI or something.
• 6:23
  Speaker 4: Of course.
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: Well, even then, AI didn't exist. But it still could
• 6:28
  Speaker 3: have been generated to some degree. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know,
• 6:30
  Speaker 3: some sort of prank. Yeah. But we quickly determined it wasn't. Yeah. But, yeah,
• 6:34
  Speaker 3: of course, like there's almost– it was surreal and seismic
• 6:39
  Speaker 3: and galvanising and, you know, I still at times feel
• 6:44
  Speaker 3: lost for words to actually fully explain what it does
• 6:47
  Speaker 3: to me. There's always a visceral– visceral reaction and an
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: overwhelming sense of sadness because we watched so many people die.
• 6:55
  Speaker 3: I was just watching the vision of the falling man.
• 6:59
  Speaker 3: Do you remember the image of the falling man?
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: So this is the man that would have jumped out
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: of the window and they never quite knew who he was.
• 7:04
  Speaker 3: They found out.
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  Speaker 4: They did.
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  Speaker 3: There was a journalist in New York who wrote a
• 7:08
  Speaker 3: story called The Falling Man and they identified who he was.
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: He was a chef at the restaurant at the top
• 7:14
  Speaker 3: of the World Trade Centre and the family, that's.
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: That picture there. And you were watching all that too.
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: I'm guessing, well, you got the CNN feed, but you
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: would have been seeing things that people didn't necessarily see
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: at the same time?
• 7:27
  Speaker 3: Absolutely. If you were with me that night, we saw
• 7:30
  Speaker 3: images that no one ever saw again after about five
• 7:34
  Speaker 3: or six in the morning and just as well because
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: they were too horrific and horrendous. But I think Seeing
• 7:41
  Speaker 3: people above where the planes went in and on window ledges,
• 7:45
  Speaker 3: waving flags and clothing, desperately trying to alert authorities that
• 7:49
  Speaker 3: they were there and please come and save us. And
• 7:52
  Speaker 3: everybody knew that they were going to die.
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: And it was about three and a half thousand people
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: that had died. But I hear they're talking about it
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: a lot today. The aftermath, because all that concrete and
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: asbestos and everything, there are many victims now.
• 8:04
  Speaker 3: There are three times the number of victims that have
• 8:08
  Speaker 3: been living with Toxicity in New York. And just in
• 8:11
  Speaker 3: the last 24 hours, they're now accusing New York officials
• 8:15
  Speaker 3: of lying to them for 25 years of the toxicity
• 8:18
  Speaker 3: that they were living with in their apartments. And New
• 8:22
  Speaker 3: York officials allegedly deliberately deceived them and denied what they
• 8:27
  Speaker 3: were trying to do was protect the city from liability.
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: Well, the whole world changed that day. Sandra Sully, you
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: were part of history here in Australia.
• 8:34
  Speaker 3: Unfortunately.
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.
• 8:36
  Speaker 3: It's always worth remembering what happened and we're still living
• 8:40
  Speaker 3: in the shadow of September 11 and it's worth remembering
• 8:42
  Speaker 3: everyone who lost their lives then and as a consequence.
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: Thanks so much for coming in. You can catch Sandra
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: on 10 News First weeknights at 5 on 10 and
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: 10 Play. Thank you, Sandra.
• 8:54
  Speaker 3: Thanks for having me.