'The plane was feet from the tower – I could see people in the cockpit'

Survivors

Stories of miraculous escape and incredible luck were told as survivors recalled their experiences in the World Trade Centre.

Among the most remarkable were those of a British-born architect and a Scottish art student who were both working on the 91st floor of the World Trade Centre's north tower just before it was hit by the first aircraft.

George Sleigh, 63, was close enough to see the figures in the cockpit of the hijacked jet seconds before it smashed into the skyscraper.

After the impact, a few floors above his office, Mr Sleigh dived under his desk to protect himself from the falling debris and then began the arduous journey down a fire escape that led to safety.

He said: "I was at my desk looking forward to a normal day when I heard this loud noise. I looked up out of the window and just a few feet away from the building was this huge jet plane. The wheels were down and I could see the people in the cockpit. I thought to myself, 'This guy is low in the air' but I still thought it would clear us.

"But then it smashed into the tower a few floors above me. I couldn't believe it, even now it seems insane that anyone would do that, even a crazed terrorist. When I close my eyes and picture that airline coming towards me and the people in the cockpit it is like a dream."

Mr Sleigh, who was born in Gateshead, emigrated to Canada in 1962 and moved to America four years later. For 15 years he has worked in the World Trade Centre for the American Bureau of Shipping.

He passed dozens of injured office workers during his 40-minute escape from the crippled building. But just as he reached the ground floor he was caught in another explosion. He was finally dragged clear by a policeman and taken away by ambulance just minutes before the south tower collapsed.

Vanessa Lawrence, a Scottish art student, had arrived at her studio on the 91st floor at 6am because she wanted to paint the New York sunrise.

She was returning to her studio after making a phone call from the ground floor lobby when she heard an explosion and felt the building shudder. She said: "If I had made the phone call earlier, when I intended to, I would have been in my studio when the plane hit and I would be dead."

The studio was on the side of the building where American Airlines flight 11 from Boston to Los Angeles hit the tower.

Ms Lawrence, 26, said: "I've no phone in the studio so I took the lift down to the ground floor lobby and after the short call, I took it back up to the 91st."

As she stepped out of the lift, the plane struck the opposite side of the building. "There was this horrendous bang and the whole building shuddered. I couldn't believe what had happened and I had no idea what it was. I think people thought it was a bomb or something."

Her mother, Veronica, who feared for her daughter's life when she saw the scenes of the disaster unfolding on television, said: "She must have had a guardian angel."

Ms Lawrence took more than 50 minutes to scramble through scenes of carnage down the stairs, and like Mr Sleigh, reached the ground floor just minutes before the south tower collapsed, showering her in rubble and dust.

During her descent she said she had to ignore screams for help as fires broke out all around her. "A few of us just made for the emergency doors and started running down the stairs as fast as we could," she recalled. "The stairs were very slippery because the sprinklers had come on and sprayed everything with water."

On the 20th floor she was met by the firemen coming up.

"They were absolutely exhausted because they had run up all those flights of stairs trying to get people out. They were smiling and trying to reassure us. I suppose now they are dead because they just kept going up."

Although many firemen did perish in their attempt to get to workers on the upper floors, two who were feared to have died did manage to survive. Mike Kehoe and Sergeant John Sheehan had been photographed in the north tower by fleeing office workers and were believed to have been killed with hundreds of their colleagues.

A Briton who escaped from the north tower said staff had been told there was no need to evacuate the building. Mike Shillaker, who was meeting a client on the 72nd floor when the plane struck, said he heard a bang and then saw "debris flying" off the building. "The American client that we were seeing screamed, 'It's a bomb, it's a bomb – get out'. So we did."

Mr Shillaker said they ran for the stairs rather than the lifts. "We started walking down the stairs. A message came out of the Tannoy when we were on about floor 50 that there was an isolated fire in the first building and there was actually no need to proceed down the stairs any further if we didn't want to. There was no need to evacuate.

"We got down to about floor 40 and I think that is when the second plane hit ... The rumours were that a small plane had maybe hit the first building and that the second bang was an aftershock or something like that," he told Radio 4's Today programme yesterday.

Other Britons caught up in the attack included the film director Anthony Minghella, who was close to the World Trade Centre when the first jet struck. His mother, Gloria, who lives on the Isle of Wight, was e-mailed by her son to say he was safe. Mr Minghella had been in New York looking for locations for his new film. Mrs Minghella said he was still in severe shock.

Kirsty Hulme, 25, a British model, and her husband, Dominic Leitch, were in their Manhattan apartment taking part in the New York Fashion Week when they heard the second jet strike. She was close enough to see the fireball that engulfed the tower, said a family member who confirmed she was safe.