Shortly After 9:03 a.m. September 11, 2001: FBI Bomb Technicians Are Away from New York for Training When the WTC Is Attacked

All but one of the bomb technicians from the FBI’s New York field office are away from New York and therefore avoid getting involved with the immediate response to the attacks on the World Trade Center. They are attending in-service training at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia, along with bomb technicians from other FBI offices. They learn what has happened in New York when Supervisory Special Agent James Clemente, who has been teaching a course in the room next to theirs, comes into their classroom after seeing the second crash on television and realizing it was a terrorist attack. “I ran in there and I told them that both World Trade Towers had been hit by jumbo jets, they were both in flames, this is a terrorist attack,” Clemente will later recall. The bomb technicians are initially skeptical, thinking Clemente’s announcement is a joke or some kind of class exercise. But their pagers start going off and they then realize that a major event is indeed taking place. The bomb technicians from New York will promptly leave the FBI Academy and head back to their city. They are apparently fortunate to be away from their field office this morning. One bomb technician from each office that is receiving the training in Quantico has stayed behind, in case an emergency should occur. [Graff, 2011, pp. 380; Rothco Press, 2015] The bomb technician who stayed behind in New York, Special Agent Leonard Hatton, heads into the WTC to help evacuate people sometime after the second crash and he will tragically be killed when the Twin Towers collapse. [Federal Bureau of Investigation, 9/29/2001; Bergen Record, 8/15/2011] “It wasn’t lost on the bomb techs [from New York] that but for the serendipitous timing of the training, many of them would probably be dead along with Hatton,” journalist and author Garrett Graff will write. [Graff, 2011, pp. 380] “All the other bomb techs from the New York office would have likely died that day but for that training,” Clemente will comment. [Rothco Press, 2015]