Mark, can you hear me?

Mr. MARK OBENHAUS: I do indeed, Peter.

JENNINGS: Go ahead.

Mr. OBENHAUS: Well, I was leaving my house to go to work and I walked down the street to go to the subway. I was at the corner of Franklin and West Broadway, and as I was approaching the subway, a tremendous roar went over my head and--and I looked up immediately, and it was a plane much lower than I've ever seen a plane in lower Manhattan, and it was a large plane. I couldn't identify it as anything specific except that it was a commercial jet certainly. And it--it--my eyes followed it because this is approximately 15 blocks from the World Trade Center, and it--it just slammed right into it and was completely engulfed by the--by the building. It was extraordinary. No--no wings flew off, nothing like that. It just went directly in, creating this sort of cavern-like hole and--and suddenly, then, big, big flames started protruding from it and then, of course, smoke. And--and then debris started just catapulting and, of course, the area that we're in, there's a great deal of foot traffic and people are just approaching and beginning to just gasp at--at just the sight of the building itself, even if they hadn't seen the actual incident, the actual impact, just the sight of this huge building engulfed in flame with this massive, cavernous hole in the side of it.

And we stood there--I can't tell you the amount of time, I would estimate about 15 minutes, and--and, of course, there's all kinds of services coming down, fire department and so forth, and then suddenly, from my vantage point, which would be north of the building, the sec--the far tower suddenly explodes in flames. Yet again, a similar kind of event and, as you now see, I've run down the street to my home where I've had the television on and I saw that that, too, was another airplane. It--from our vantage point you couldn't tell what exactly it was that hit the--hit the--hit the second tower, but it was a similar, seemingly almost bomb blast and with flames and debris protruding wildly from--from the building.

JENNINGS: Mark, let me ask you a couple of more specific questions. You now, confirm for us, I think, that it was the first attack on the tower that you saw.

Mr. OBENHAUS: Yes.

JENNINGS: What direction was the aircraft coming from?

Mr. OBENHAUS: It was coming from the north.

JENNINGS: It was coming from the north down over Manhattan itself?

Mr. OBENHAUS: Yes. Well, it would have been flying, roughly, over the west side. I'm--I'm on, as I say, west Broadway, which is probably a quarter mile from the river, so it was a direct path north--from the north into the--into the north tower.

JENNINGS: Do you remember whether it had two engines, three engines, or four engines?

Mr. OBENHAUS: I do not. It was very quick. It struck me, you know, the profile--the body of the plane was of such scale that I immediately identified it as a commercial jet. I didn't--I couldn't--it happened so quickly I couldn't tell whether it had windows on the side or what, but it could very well have been some sort of a--a transport plane. But it was a large, large plane, as opposed to, occasionally down here you do see smaller, prop planes or smaller aviation stuff that flies around here sometimes, doing movies and things like that. But in all my years down here, and I've lived down here for about 20 years within walking distance easily of the building, I've never heard anything like this, and that's what--that's why I--I just immediately glanced up, and I just followed the track of this sound and this huge plane that was swooping over my head.

JENNINGS: Could you see any markings on it whatsoever?

Mr. OBENHAUS: No. I did not. It was too--too quick. I--I--I can't give you any kind of identifying help on--on what it was.

JENNINGS: Do you remember what color it was? Was it...

Mr. OBENHAUS: I--my impression was--was that it had a tan coloration to it However, the sun, it was very low in the horizon, and I think kind of orange, and it may have been simply the color of the sun reflecting off a silver exterior. I--I really am not sure of that.

JENNINGS: OK, Mark. Anything else? What's the--what's the--the--what's the mood and the environment down there at the moment, if it's not hard to imagine.

SAWYER: And am I right? Are you a pilot?

DAHLER: Well, I have flown. I do not have a pilot's license, but I--I grew up on military bases. and I know the sounds of jets. And--and I've been in war zones and--and heard those kinds of different sounds. So, again, not to cause any kind of undue speculation but the sound itself was not of a prop plane. It was perhaps a jet. But it could have been a missile as well.

GIBSON: Can you give me--was it--was it a whining sound, Don, or what?