"I thought I wasn’t going to make it."
By: Steve Rauscher
WEST WINDSOR Eight hours before Osman Altan stepped off a NJ Transit commuter train and onto the platform at Princeton Junction, he had been convinced he would never make it home again.
The day had begun ordinarily enough. The West Windsor resident arrived in Manhattan around 8 a.m. and made his way to his office on the 73rd floor of the World Trade Center, where he worked as a civil engineer for the Port Authority of New York-New Jersey for 11 years.
But his tenure at the twin towers came to an end less than an hour later, when a hijacked Boeing 767 slammed into the side of the 110-story building, in the opening salvo of an attack that would see both towers plummet to ground within hours.
"I was there in ’93 (when a truck bomb exploded in the parking garage of the building) and I knew immediately this was much worse," he said, "because the impact was just tremendous.
"There was glass shattering, debris falling," Mr. Altan said, speaking slowly in a shell- shocked monotone.
"I couldn’t see. Everybody rushed to the emergency exits, and it took us a while, going down from the 73rd floor. It took us an hour, an hour and 20 minutes to get down. There were so many people. … People were screaming, and crying. And there wasn’t enough air.
"I thought I wasn’t going to make it," he said. "That’s for sure. I was thinking about my family. … I saw bodies lying everywhere."
Mr. Altan reached the street 30 minutes before the building collapsed.
"A lot of people didn’t make it out," he said.
"I never felt happy that I escaped. Because I keep thinking about all those people. We were coming down, and all the firemen were going up. I don’t think they made it down again."

