Why No Rooftop Rescues on Sept. 11?
Nov. 8 -- Just minutes after the first plane slammed into the World Trade Center, Officer Timothy Hayes, a pilot for the New York Police Department's aviation unit, was in the first helicopter to reach the tragic scene.
"The smoke had covered 90 percent of the entire roof, so I couldn't even see the roof to make an evaluation of where we could go," he said. "We were looking at probably 15 to 20 stories burning simultaneously. Probably well over 1,000 degrees, you know, if not more."
Hayes' recollection helps answer the question that many Americans have asked: Why couldn't helicopters rescue people from the top of the World Trade Center before the towers crumbled?
'The Worst of All Possible Situations'
Though helicopter rescues have flown hundreds of people to safety in other instances, aerial rescues would not have worked on Sept. 11, according to authorities.
"Well, there's high-rise fires and then there's the 11th," said Lt. Glen Daley, a pilot for the NYPD's aviation unit. Whereas a typical high-rise fire involves tremendous heat and smoke, he said, "add to that scenario hundreds of thousands of pounds of jet fuel as an accelerant to the fire. Multiply the heat factor … now you've got the worst of all possible situations playing themselves out."
Daley, who was at the command center during the World Trade Center attacks, added: "People may have in their mind's eye a view of this pristine roof, salvation … Those roofs were totally compromised and with thick, acrid, black smoke, intense heat coming up from the fire."
Even if helicopters had been able to carry out a rescue mission, officials said, nobody was able to make it to the roof.
Above a Towering Inferno
"One of the first calls I got was the people on the ground calling us to immediately check the roof," said Hayes.
At first he thought he saw a clear corner, "but it was still covered in smoke and there was numerous obstructions," he said. "I said, 'Captain, this is impossible. This is undoable. I can't see the roof.'"
