(WBIR) The years go by. The memories never die.
Fourteen years ago Friday, al Qaeda extremists hijacked four U.S. passenger jets, from Boston, Washington and Newark, N.J.
Three planes crashed into iconic buildings - the World Trade Center Towers and the Pentagon, home of the U.S. Defense Department. A fourth jet appeared headed for Washington until passengers overcame the hijackers and forced the plane down in a field near Shanksville, Pa.
Among those who responded to the Twin Towers collapse site in Manhattan within hours of the Sept. 11 attacks were Steve Tinder and Art Bohanan of the Knoxville Police Department. They went to help with forensic work.
Crime veterans who have since retired from the department, they still were astonished by what they saw.
"To this day, I can't explain what I felt," Tinder told 10News.
Tinder took photos of his time at Ground Zero. 10News prepared a gallery for you to review.
Bohanan, who gained notoriety for developing a novel technique involving Super Glue that picks up fingerprints, recalled being up at night down at the site in lower Manhattan.
"My first time was at night walking around in the rubble and I could see a huge crane ...slowly going over the rubble trying to find anyone that was living," said Bohanan, who spent eight weeks in lower Manhattan.
The shock was palpable across the globe. The attacks killed nearly 3,000 people, many of whom were citizens working here but born outside the United States.
Locally, support poured in for New York authorities, including a fundraising effort involving a partnership between 10News and the News Sentinel to raise money for the "Freedom Engine," which was donated and used by the New York City Fire Department.
On Friday morning, a memorial service is planned downtown outside the City County Building on Main Street. It begins at 8:30 a.m.
