Doing my normal morning routine at the time...a 3 mile bicycle ride to Ft. Lowell Park, for a walk/run around the exercise course. On the way back to the house there was almost no traffic...like a Sunday morning. Odd for a busy Tuesday.
Came in the house and there was one message on the answering machine from my Mom in Kentucky. All she had said was "Oh my God...are you watching this? I think I'm going to be sick." Turned on the t.v. and every station was news, talking heads speculating. When they finally came back to the live shot of the smoking WTC 1 and 2. In a few minutes the first building collapsed.
Announcing that all air traffic had been grounded except CAPs, I knew my flight training for the day (shooting ILS approaches) was toast.
That evening, instead of riding my bicycle out to the airport, I rode the Beemer. Almost the whole class was spent discussing the "What next" possibilities.
We ended up being grounded for the next 2 1/2 weeks, even though regular air travel had resumed. During that time 85,000 or so ATP rated pilots were laid off...right at a point in my training where I was going to borrow $50k to complete the training. Being broke and unemployed was the better option over being hugely in debt and unemployed.
What were you doing?