A regional journalist who witnessed the September 11 terror attacks in New York has recalled the tragedy 15 years on.

Richard Irvine, multimedia desk editor at the Liverpool Echo, was on the third day of a trip to the USA in 2001 with his brother when he saw the twin towers of the World Trade Centre fall in front of his eyes.

Richard was working at the Chester Chronicle at the time and emailed first-hand accounts of his experiences back to the newspaper’s former Commonhall Street office.

In a piece for his old paper marking the 15th anniversary of the attacks, Richard, pictured below, recalled heading towards the towers to “have a look” after first hearing of a fire at one of the buildings.

He wrote: “By the time we got outside, the other tower was on fire. The general impression at this time was that it was a tragic accident, a small plane had suffered a mishap and had flown into the tower.

“Everyone was still going to work, meetings and the shops. Business as usual. We decided to walk down and made it to Fifth Avenue and 1st Street to where there was a police cordon, camera crews and onlookers. The situation was now very different.

“We could see the size of the hole in both towers. News outlets were reporting it was a suspected terrorist attack and we could see objects falling from the towers. Later, we realised these were people.

“I said ‘let’s get back, that one wobbled, if they fall, they’ll hit us’ and just as my brother said ‘they’re built not to fall’, the first tower collapsed in on itself.”

Within minutes, he had also seen the second tower collapse.

Richard added: “There was a collective realisation that thousands of people had just died. I turned to my brother and said ‘let’s get back to the hotel’. There were a lot of people crying but a lot of anger too.

“By the time we reached the hotel, the jets were flying overhead, the army were moving into position and the city was in lockdown.

“We spent the next few hours watching the full horror unfold on the television in the hotel lobby. Eventually, we got out of New York but not for another five days.”