Andrew Feldman, Jacques Heinrich and Warrent Ratis photographed damage from the 9/11 attacks from above the following day. (Warren Ratis) Sept. 12, 2001 was a somber if not sobering day for our nation. The crisis from the day prior was still ongoing. Emergency Services volunteers and employees had converged at the site during the night. Still, it was difficult to assess the fullness of the situation. Ariel photography was necessary. The Civil Air Patrol rose to the challenge. On orders from Gov. Pataki to photograph the smoldering World Trade Center from above, a three-man aircrew boarded their Cessna 172 XP. It would be the first non-military flight allowed following the attack. Their craft was nearly alone that morning. Planes had been grounded across the nation. They were briefly challenged by a NYPD helicopter, though it left them be after receiving word that the mission was indeed authorized. The aircrew continued their sortie. It wasn't difficult to spot their target. The smoke heralded the grim situation beneath it. CAP trains hard. The reward doesn't always consist of sunshine and roses. Still, there's a potent feeling that rolls through an aircrews' chests whenever we spot the bright orange of a lost hunter's jacket or find a group of people clustered on a rooftop during a flood. We taste sorrow when we find the scattered debris of a downed aircraft. Sometimes we return to base without any news, and we pray that the CAP ground teams or other emergency services agencies were more successful. Nothing could have prepared our aircrew for what they saw as they reached their target. Lt. Col. Warren Ratis, Lt. Col. Jacques Heinrich, and Lt. Col. Andrew Feldman were among the first to see the devastation from above. Their sortie lasted for hours as they snapped photos of the horrific scene. These images would be utilized by FEMA and the state government to assess the scope of the disaster in order to plan a recovery mission. "There were huge amounts of smoke emanating from where the buildings collapsed and we had to steer away from it," Ratis said. "It was stunning how spread out all of the debris actually was -- like a quarter-mile or a half-mile. There was so much powdery debris, it was like it snowed on lower Manhattan." "It was very somber but our mission came first," said Heinrich. "We knew we had a job to do. It didn't really hit us until later what we saw." "You never forget what you see, obviously," added Ratis, who used to work in the World Trade Center and knew eighteen people who were killed. "But it's still hard to believe." Seventeen years have passed. Tomorrow, the nation will once again pause to remember the tragedy - a tragedy that occurred before some of our youngest cadets had even been born. To these future leaders, the event is framed in history text books. They know it occurred but they are incapable of understanding what it was truly like to experience it. The same could be said of many of our senior members too young to remember World War II or the sentiment behind the "sweating plane" patch.
The Civil Air Patrol continues to rise to the challenges laid out by the U.S. Air Force and government agencies such as FEMA. Threats to our native soil, terrorists attacks, natural disaster damage assessment - this is what we train for. It is how we - volunteers from all walks of life - can best serve our community, state, and nation. We are following in the footsteps of those that came before us. Our cadets will follow in ours someday. Seventeen years have passed since that fateful day in New York City. The events are seared in our minds. As we pause to pay respect to the lives lost on 9/11, we should also celebrate the lives saved due, in part, to the determination of Lt. Col. Warren Ratis, Lt. Col. Jacques Heinrich, and Lt. Col. Andrew Feldman. Strive on with diligence.
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