Twenty-five years after the September 11 attacks, a return to New York becomes a deeply personal journey of memory, friendship and loss for journalist SCOTT MAYMAN, who lived in the US at the time and lost colleagues and friends hat day.

There is a sombre quiet about returning to New York at this time of year.

September 11 has never been simply an anniversary for me. I was living in the US when the attacks happened and lost colleagues that day.

Every year since, I have stopped to remember them and the thousands of others who died.

But the 25th anniversary felt different.

Instead of returning to New York primarily as a journalist to cover another commemoration, this trip was a personal one — a chance to reflect and catch up with friends and former colleagues from my aviation and broadcasting days.

A quarter of a century has passed, yet the anniversary still leaves a hollow feeling in my stomach.

For my former broadcasting colleague Brian Lowe, now living in California with his wife, the memories remain remarkably vivid.

“My wife and I had been in our new home for only about a month,” he recalls.

They turned on the television as they were getting ready for work and saw that an aircraft had struck the World Trade Center.

“At that stage one plane had flown into one of the buildings, but it hadn’t come down yet. We saw replays of the plane fly into the tower and looked at each other, not really knowing what was going on.”

At first, Brian wondered whether it had been a light aircraft.

Then the second passenger jet hit.

“As we were trying to get our heads around it, the second plane flew into the second tower,” he says.

“Then, as we watched, the towers started to come crashing down. It was mind boggling.”

The images of people trapped in the towers made the enormity of what was happening suddenly real.

Brian remembers driving to work that morning, listening to the radio as more information emerged.

Other motorists appeared to be doing the same.

“The expressions on their faces showed they couldn’t get their heads around what had happened either,” he says.

“We all nodded to each other and gave each other the thumbs up. The country was united, albeit in sadness.”

At work, an office normally filled with noise was unusually quiet.

“No one could actually believe what we’d seen on TV that morning. We were all in shock.”

For those working in aviation, the consequences were immediate.

Before journalism, I had worked in the airline industry in the US. A good friend from those days, whom I will call Drew, was rostered off on the Tuesday morning of the attacks.

“I was off and at my parents’ home,” he recalls. “I got instant messages from a bunch of people saying the World Trade Center had been attacked.”

The destruction of the towers also disrupted television broadcasting in New York because transmitters were located at the World Trade Center. Drew remembers being left with only a weak CBS signal, which was being transmitted from the Empire State Building.

Then came the unprecedented shutdown of America’s airline system.

“I had to call each day to find out if I was needed at work,” Drew says. “I was eventually recalled to the airport on the following Sunday.”

His parents were stranded in California by the shutdown. At the same time, another reality was beginning to emerge much closer to home: people from his own neighbourhood had been killed.

Twenty-five years later, Drew remains angry about what he sees as a fading memory of the attacks in the city.

“I feel the city has completely forgotten what happened,” he says.

For me, forgetting has never been possible.

The attacks transformed aviation, reshaped security and changed the world in ways that were difficult to comprehend as we watched events unfold that morning.

But the broader historical consequences are only part of what September 11 means to those who had a personal connection to that day.

For the families and friends of those who died, 25 years does not erase the loss.

My own experience cannot compare with the suffering of those who lost their closest loved ones. But every September, the memories return.

That is why this journey back to New York was different.

It was about old friends, former colleagues and remembering people who never came home.

Twenty-five years have passed.

September 11 is still a hard day.

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