9/11 Airspace Shutdown: A Pilot Remembers

Hour 4 (9.11) At 6:45 a.m. our time, the FAA shut American airspace for the first time in history — more than 4,500 planes in the air, all of them ordered down. Police helicopters were one of the only exceptions.

9:05 — A massive American flag unfurled down the Pentagon wall in the rain at sunrise, the same thing first responders did on September 12, 2001. It's an emotional hour. It should be.

9:20 — Twenty-five years on, everybody still knows exactly where they were standing. The hour opens up for the memories and what the day did to people who watched it from three time zones away.

9:35 — LADOT's Sunset Blvd/Cesar Chavez plan cuts car lanes and street parking through Echo Park and Silver Lake for dedicated bus lanes and protected bike lanes; merchants say they'll lose access and push traffic onto residential streets. Then the Fork Reporter's Mexican picks, and the theory that top-shelf Mexican food requires "Crazy" or "Loco" in the name.

9:50 — Tim Lynn spent 30 years in law enforcement and flew for the Huntington Beach PD Air Unit before he became KTLA's Sky5 pilot-reporter. On 9/11 the FAA grounded everything civilian in the country and left the sky to military, police and medical flights. He remembers what Southern California looked like from up there with nothing else flying, LAPD running pursuits below, and CHP working the coordination.

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