Fire department station manager shares 9/11 memories Published Sept. 12, 2011 100th Air Refueling Wing Public Affairs RAF MILDENHALL, England -- Station Manager Chris Rhodes, 100th Civil Engineer Squadron Fire Department, remembers the day the world stood still ... I was working at London Air Traffic Control Centre at West Drayton, about five miles from RAF Uxbridge. At the time, we were on a Ministry of Defence contract with National Air Traffic Services, to provide fire cover until 2002. I was there from July 2000 to April 2002, and worked for the Defence Fire Service. It was an unremarkable day until the afternoon when I drove up from West Drayton to RAF Uxbridge. I was on my way to see the fire officer there, and walked into his office, when he immediately said for me to come and look what was happening on TV. At that stage, the first of the twin towers had just been struck, and you could see lots of smoke. Then the second aircraft stuck the second tower. We were both very surprised - neither of us had ever seen anything like that before! The only time I'd ever seen anything actually developing on the TV like that, was when the Bradford football stadium burnt down in May 1985. Air travel and security immediately got a lot tighter, and I think they closed down all air travel to the States for a while. After finding out that it was a result of terrorist attacks, we knew it was always possible that we could get attacked - especially as we were the main air traffic control centre. If you took out a national air traffic control centre, or blew up one of the sub stations, you've got disasters in the air, and you can't do anything. Editor's note: This story is the personal recollection of the events of Sept. 11, 2001, based on interviews with the subject. It is compiled and written by Karen Abeyasekere, 100th Air Refueling Wing Public Affairs.