Yahoo News Simon Mayo looks back at covering 9/11 live on air: 'I was starting to unravel'
Simon Mayo has described covering the 9/11 terror attacks just a few months into his career on BBC Radio 5 Live, saying he was 'carried by the momentum' of reporting events as they unfolded while bosses watched on 'gobsmacked'.
The presenter took up a role on the talk radio show in May 2001 after leaving Radio 1, where he had worked on the breakfast show and other slots since 1986.
Speaking to Kate Thornton on White Wine Question Time, he explained that the day of the terror attack, when planes were flown into the New York's Twin Towers and nearly 3,000 people died, was his daughter's eighth birthday and he was expecting to go home for her birthday party after his show.
He said: "It was one of those few moments, the whole of the network stops what it's doing and works towards whoever's on air.
"So there aren't a whole bunch of different programmes. There's just one programme. And suddenly, you realise that everybody's realised what's happening. And so everything was feeding into your show."
WATCH: Simon Mayo on being live on air during the 9/11 attacks
He said he had to keep telling the story, explaining what he was seeing on monitors, and talking to reporters as they were available. He had also told Thornton in the episode about learning a whole new skill set for talk radio.
Mayo explained that he saw the station controller Bob Shennan alongside the head of radio, Jenny Abramsky, and the BBC's director general Greg Dyke through the studio glass as he approached the end of his show.
Read more: Mayo reflects on 'traumatic' Radio 1 departure
He said: "They were all sort of gobsmacked, staring at the monitors, listening to the output. The last couple of minutes, I think were a shambles because I was starting to unwind... or unravel, I think is a better word.
"But for the most part, you're carried on by the momentum of saying what's happening, explaining as far as you can, repeating what's happening, talking to the experts when they come on.
"So that actually you were telling one story, it was a complicated story, but it had its own momentum."
The broadcasting legend, who this month announced the end of his 21-year movie show with Mark Kermode on 5 Live, compared reporting on 9/11 to the Potters Bar train crash, calling the 2002 Hertfordshire train crash 'the most difficult programme' he did, because of not having much information to go on at the time.
He said he had to go between interviewing actor Sean Pertwee about his latest horror film, to the 'real life horror of the Potters Bar train crash', all while watching his editor in the room next door having a stand up argument with his boss about whether there was enough information to roll with the story of the train crash, in which seven people died.
Mayo told Thornton: "As a result of that, we flip flopped between one and the other, and that was really challenging.
"But that's the nature of talk radio. You have your guests, you have your features, you do live news, and you do live sports, so [it's] challenging and rewarding."
The presenter, who now has a show on Greatest Hits Radio, explained the importance of not speculating when covering live news as well, saying he'd had it 'drummed into him' to only report the facts. He recalled another plane crash which happened in New York just two months after 9/11 when all 260 people on board were killed.
He said: "The temptation to speculate was incredibly strong because 9/11 was so vivid in everybody's minds.
"But it would have been entirely inappropriate because it turned out it had nothing to do with terrorism. It was just it was just a plane crash. So you just rely on those instincts which you've developed and when those moments come along, sometimes you think: 'This might be interesting'.
"But then sometimes breaking news happens, and you have to just roll with the punches."
WATCH: Simon Mayo on imposter syndrome, his big audition for Radio 1, and his most difficult broadcasts
