Onlookers salute a Landstar convoy hauling remains of the World Trade Center’s steel “trees” from a hangar at JFK International Airport to their final display site in a museum in Coatesville, Pa., in 2010.

Events of 9/11 altered many truckers’ lives and prompted numerous changes in the trucking industry

Where were you on 9/11?

Florida-based owner-operator Tim Philmon was sitting in his 2001 Mack Vision at a shipper near the Miami airport. He and several other drivers he knew were waiting to load when they heard the first plane had flown into the World Trade Center’s North Tower that morning.

“One of the guys had a TV in his truck,” Philmon says, “and we were watching, trying to figure out what was going on,” when the second plane flew into the South Tower. Soon, Philmon noticed a dearth of planes in the sky.