THE ONLY PLANE IN THE SKY

Garrett Grath

Narrated by a full cast, Neela among them.

2020 Audie Award Winner in two categories: Audiobook of the Year; and Best Multi-Voiced Performance

The award-winning journalist and author of Raven Rock shares the first comprehensive oral history of September 11, 2001 - a panoramic narrative woven from hundreds of interviews with government officials, first responders, survivors, friends, and family members.

Over the last 18 years, much has been written and said about the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 and the profound impact they had on America and the world. But those names, stories, and memories have never before been collected in one place to tell the full, 360-degree story of what happened that day and in the days after. 

In The Only Plane in the Sky, award-winning journalist and author Garrett Graff draws on never-before-published transcripts, recently declassified documents, and original interviews and stories from nearly 500 government officials, first responders, witnesses, survivors, friends, and family members to paint the most comprehensive, minute-by-minute account of the September 11 attacks yet, all told in the words of those who experienced that dramatic and tragic day. From the firefighters who streamed into the smoke-filled stairwells of the Twin Towers to the fighter pilots scrambled from air bases across the Northeast with orders to shoot down any hijacked commercial aircraft; from the teachers who held their fear at bay while evacuating terrified children from schools mere blocks from the World Trade Center; to the stricken family members trapped helplessly on the ground, hearing their loved ones’ final words from aboard a hijacked plane or within a burning building, Graff weaves together the unforgettable testimonies of the men and women who found themselves caught at the center of an unprecedented human drama. The result is a unique, profound, and searing exploration of humanity on a day that changed the course of history and all of our lives.

Critic Reviews

"The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of 9/11 is a book exquisitely suited to audio format, a detailed cataloging of hundreds of personal stories, read by actors and culled from 5,000 oral histories conducted and archived around the country.... We hear from first responders, office workers in the twin towers, people traumatized by witnessing falling bodies.... Unlike many works of history, The Only Plane in the Sky, a mountain of indelible anecdotes, does not feel like a novel. It feels, instead, like dozens that ought to be written." (The New York Times Book Review)