9/11 audios reveal chilling glimpse of air horror

Newly released audios in the run-up to 10th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States offer a chilling glimpse of just how unprepared the country was for the air tragedy.

A chronicle of responses by civil and military aviation to the 9/11 hijackings have now been published and include 114 recordings of air traffic controllers, military aviation officers, airline and fighter jet pilots, as well as two of the hijackers, covering two hours of the morning of September 11, 2001.

The audio recordings had been prepared by investigators for the 9/11 commission, but were never completed or released, a report in the New York Times said.

In a recording made just after 9 am, 16 minutes after the first plane had hit the north tower of the World Trade Centre, a radio transmission to the New York air traffic control radar centre noted: "Hey, can you look out your window right now," the caller asked.

"Yeah," the radar control manager said.

"Can you, can you see a guy at about 4,000 feet, about 5 east of the airport right now," asked the caller.  

"Yeah, I see him," the manager said.

"Do you see that guy, look, is he descending into the building also," the caller asked.

"He's descending really quick too, yeah," the manager said.

"Forty-five hundred right now, he just dropped 800 feet in like, like one, one sweep." "What kind of airplane is that, can you guys tell?"

"I don't know, I'll read it out in a minute," the manager said.

But soon in the background were heard voices of people shouting, "Another one just hit the building. Wow. Another one just hit it hard. Another one just hit the World Trade."

"The whole building just came apart," the manager said.

The complete document with recordings is being published for the first time by the Rutgers Law Review.