I was in the office as usual at about 8.30 a.m. on September 11th and went through the daily newspapers with the programme's other staff, Nuala O'Neill, Ann-Marie Power and Michelle Browne. We then held a meeting and discussed other RT╔ programmes that had gone out that day to see what issues had already been covered. Calls to the programme from the previous day were gone through and tasks for the day divided up.

We had done a story on Travellers the previous day and were going to continue with a reaction piece. There was also a big story on attacks on a Nigerian-owned shop in Cork, involving 40 people, which we had decided to open the show with. As Joe chatted with the owner of the shop, I received a call from Sean O'Rourke in the RT╔ newsroom, saying there was a story breaking in New York. On the News Star wire service there was just one line saying a plane had hit the World Trade Centre and it was a matter of trying to get someone to go on the programme to talk about it.

I was in the control room so Liveline staff upstairs decided to ring Niall O'Dowd, editor of the Irish Voice newspaper in New York. We had Conor O'Clery's number in New York, but couldn't get through.

Suddenly the second plane went into the second tower and Niall was live on air trying to grapple with it. He was saying it was a clear day and unusual for accidents and that up to 1,000 people could have been injured. As he went on, he started speculating about a possible suicide bombing.

We cut to a feed from CNN which had reaction from President Bush. I had presumed it was an accident, but when I heard the CNN feed I realised it wasn't from the panic in everyone's voices.

We went back to the Nigerian story, although we would have ideally liked to stay with the news from New York - but we couldn't get any more information. We then got Marion McKeone on the line from the Sunday Tribune newspaper. She was able to clarify information and tell us about tunnels and bridges being closed, financial trading being shut down and the assumption that it was a terrorist attack.

Then we got news that there was a fire in the Pentagon. Although it could have been unrelated, there was complete panic. We cut to a feed from Senator Ted Kennedy saying the Pentagon and the White House were being evacuated.

We were coming to the end of the programme and there was a dilemma as to whether we should stay on air or not, but by now there was a lot of difficulty getting through to the United States. It was decided that while we would come off air, we would go back on later in the day.

We went upstairs and started receiving calls. There were a lot of people ringing with reaction to the attacks and about flights being suspended.

I thought there might be other planes going down and wondered where they might hit and what cities. I have family in New York and was also thinking about them.

We went on air again later at 6 p.m. and tried to provide a new angle by broadcasting personal reactions. It seems strange, but it wasn't until I got home at about 9 p.m. that I saw, for the first time, the pictures of the attacks. During the day I had just been in the studio or upstairs in the research area with the other staff with our heads down.

When I finally saw the pictures I wanted to cry, but couldn't - I was so numbed. Exhaustion had taken over at that point and I was shelving my emotions. I just didn't have a chance to express my emotions when it was happening. Two or three days later, I still wasn't able to eat.

In an interview with Judith Crosbie