A Second Plane Has Just Hit Meme Template
The underlying event is a real, devastating terrorist attack that killed nearly 3,000 people; use the reference with care and do not make the victims, deaths, or attacks the joke. On September 11, 2001, while Bush was at Emma E. Booker Elementary School in Sarasota, Andrew Card told him at 9:05 a.m., “A second plane hit the second tower. America is under attack.” The exact app image is a still photograph by AFP photographer Paul J. Richards, not live footage. The image became a reaction meme; from 2019–2020 onward, captions reframed the whispered announcement as other alarming news. A related phrase template, “A Second Plane Has Hit The X,” substitutes a different object or event into the line. That later meme use is distinct from the historical photograph and event.
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How to use this meme template
What the A Second Plane Has Just Hit meme means
The underlying event is a real, devastating terrorist attack that killed nearly 3,000 people; use the reference with care and do not make the victims, deaths, or attacks the joke. On September 11, 2001, while Bush was at Emma E. Booker Elementary School in Sarasota, Andrew Card told him at 9:05 a.m., “A second plane hit the second tower. America is under attack.” The exact app image is a still photograph by AFP photographer Paul J. Richards, not live footage. The image became a reaction meme; from 2019–2020 onward, captions reframed the whispered announcement as other alarming news. A related phrase template, “A Second Plane Has Hit The X,” substitutes a different object or event into the line. That later meme use is distinct from the historical photograph and event.
A square photograph shows White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card leaning close to President George W. Bush in a classroom, while Bush faces forward with a grave expression. The two caption regions are above and below the photograph.
How the joke works
Use the upper caption as a short, serious-sounding announcement addressed to a leader or decision-maker. Use the lower caption as the immediate reaction or consequence, making the escalation legible. The humor, when appropriate, comes from solemn delivery applied to a genuinely consequential but non-tragic organizational setback; do not imitate or minimize 9/11, name victims, or use the attacks as a punchline. Keep both lines concise and causally connected.
- Top caption: concise, grave-sounding announcement delivered to the person being briefed; establish the new bad news.
- Bottom caption: the recipient’s immediate reaction or resulting consequence, escalating the same situation.
Caption examples
- Sir, the failover region is down too.
- The incident bridge just lost its backup.
A second consequential failure follows from the announcement and raises the stakes without borrowing the real attack as the joke.
- Sir, a second plane has hit the tower.
- The victims are just a punchline.
It reuses the real attack as a trivial joke and directly makes victims the target.
Situations it fits
- A consequential operational failure disclosed during a leadership briefing.
- A second independent system failure that turns an incident response into a larger crisis.
- A late-breaking escalation in a fictional or workplace scenario, handled without reference to real-world mass-casualty events.
When this format does not fit
- Make the bottom caption unrelated to the news in the top caption.
- Use a mild inconvenience as the punchline in a way that mocks the gravity of the source event.
- Make both captions repeat the same announcement without adding a reaction or consequence.
