Iron Maiden’s Bruce Dickinson Recalls Being in New York City During 9/11 Attacks

Today marks the 14th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks. Millions watched the Twin Towers fall that day, one of whom was Iron Maiden vocalist Bruce Dickinson, who happened to be in New York City. The heavy metal legend described the experience of being there while speaking with producer Katherine Turman prior to his interview with Nights With Alice Cooper.

Iron Maiden were in New York City on Sept. 11, 2001, and Bruce Dickinson had just acquired his training to become an airline pilot. As he was flipping through a Boeing 757 airline manual, he was approached by a lady asking if anyone had heard about a plane crashing into the World Trade Center.

"Airliners don't crash into buildings, the World Trade Center, by mistake," says Dickinson. "I'm thinking, 'Oh, this is some bad s--t.' I couldn't see anything because we were too far away and we were too low down, so I just went down to my room and turned the TV on and one tower had just gone down." Thinking cell phone reception would soon go down in the city, Bruce called England to relay a message to his family that he was fine.

"I wandered around the next day and I thought, 'I don't know what to do now. I'll go and give some blood.' So I had a wander around and found some way to go and give blood," Bruce describes. "And it was queuing around the block. And all they were doing was the guy was coming around saying, 'Okay, here you go. Come back tomorrow. We don't need any blood. There are no survivors.' So I went and wrote a piece of paper saying, 'If we need your blood, we'll give you a call.'"

Watch the full footage of Bruce Dickinson talking about his 9/11 experience in the clip above.

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