On September 11, 2001, George Shea was riding in a car in south Manhattan when the first airliner crashed into the World Trade Center. He called into the local cable news channel NY1 and reported hearing multiple explosions and that an airplane tire fell near his vehicle. NY1’s full morning telecast is available on youtube, George Shea’s call begins’s at 21:30 (Tip: Rob Guy)
Segment transcript follows:


21:33 George Shea is on the telephone George tell me uh what your Vantage Point is and what you know about this place I'm
21:40 on um West Street right out of the uh Brooklyn Battery Tunnel and I was driving in and I heard an enormous
21:48 explosion then I heard another enormous explosion and it scared me I looked out the window and an enormous Tire what
21:55 appeared to be a tire smashed down on the street in front of me and I looked out and there was an enormous amount of
22:02 debris and we were about two or three or four blocks down from the World Trade Center if this is the the northern
22:10 building in the World Trade Center there was an enormous amount of De debris and I yelled to the guy in the car let me out and I ran back uh a gentleman next
22:18 to me had been hit by debris and it appears to be about 20 stories from uh
22:25 the top on the west side of the uh of of the northern World Trade building and it appears that an entire floor or two have
22:34 been blown out um and it was just it was the most it was the scariest thing I've ever seen so so George what's your location now I mean what what can you
22:43 see at this moment I'm on West Street facing north about four or five blocks below the World Trade towers and um I
22:52 ran further down um and there's an enormous amount of smoke pouring out of the building it appears to be on the west west and south sides of the uh
23:01 world trade tower as I said about 20 or 30 stories um down I don't know how many stories are in the building but about uh
23:09 8 5 or 90% up the building and if anybody was up there it's going to be very very scary because enormous amount of damage
23:17 George I want you to stay on the line with me because this is some important information for us but I'm just getting word from our assignment desk that we have information that a plane has
23:25 crashed into the side of the World Trade Center and and I do not know anymore about what type of airplane it is or or
23:33 show this happened George sh again a witness who's been in the area and heard this explosion George would would that
23:40 be consistent with uh with what you heard it would only be speculation but it would it would explain why a wheel
23:48 crashed on West Street about 15 or 20 feet from the car that I was in um otherwise where would that wheel have come from because this is not anywhere
23:57 near the ground this is very very far up in the air so if if that's true it would appear that the wheel um was thrown
24:05 about four blocks um South and it's it's uh you know from my uh position I can
24:13 see on the south and west side of the building that there appears to be damage and perhaps it actually struck the south
24:21 portion of that building again if you're just joining us uh I'm on the phone with George Shea who was uh traveling on the ground just out of the Battery Tunnel uh
24:29 in the area of the World Trade Center when he heard an explosion and uh uh George has been kind enough to call us with some of the information about this
24:38 incident as we look at live pictures of the World Trade Center an airplane crashing into the side of the World Trade Center uh this happening uh as far
24:47 as I can tell about 10 minutes ago and uh live pictures from the scene George again tell me you you you saw a wheel
24:55 drop uh to the street in front of you uh it was it was just it was absolutely shocking you can imagine everybody was
25:02 just sort of uh driving north on West Street below um you know up into Manhattan and it was very sort of
25:10 typical moderate traffic and then suddenly there was an enormous explosion and it it appeared another explosion if I recall correctly and then literally I
25:19 looked out I I wasn't certain what it was and a wheel crashed onto the street um about 10 or 15 ft from my uh the C
25:28 that I was in and it it scared it scared me to death and I uh I jumped out of the car everybody else was jumping out of
25:35 cars and running South away from it and there was additional debris sort of raining down and it was very confusing and I think everybody immediately
25:44 assumed it was a bomb um and it I couldn't reconcile why there would have been a wheel unless for some you know it
25:51 made no sense um but but I did see a wheel and uh now the police um have sort
25:58 of blocked off the entire area and uh people are you know standing well away from the building but immediately
26:05 following um the explosion people were just running South um fearing that there'd be additional you know explosions
26:13 George and and and again if you can tell me your location and and are they now moving people out of the area is there some sort of evacuation in that area
26:21 well you know you know the the police responded immediately was astounding but I mean I they are now doing that they've moved the cars out
26:28 and I'm at you know right um sort of almost down to the bottom of Battery Park City I can't see the street but it's right where the it's right where
26:36 the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel empties out onto West Street um and it's about um it's about five blocks down from the uh
26:46 World Trade Center George Shea I I appreciate you calling us this morning with this information I I'm going to let you go and speak to somebody else I'd
26:53 appreciate it though if you'd uh just uh stay on the line or give our producers a call back and let us know how we can can stay in touch with you if we do need some more information from uh from your
27:01 location very good thank you very much for calling us also on the line for us this morning


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