BBC Breakfast

BBC Breakfast host Sally Nugent was left baffled as her co-star disappeared live on air while presenting

BBC Breakfast suffered a live on-air blunder during Monday’s show.

The latest installment saw hosts Sally Nugent and Jon Kay on the red sofa, where they delivered the latest news, including the death of show regular and Normandy veteran Ken Hay, who survived capture just weeks after D-Day and spent years educating children about the war. He died aged 101.

As usual with BBC Breakfast, the hosts heard from weather presenter, Matt Taylor, who gave a forecast update to viewers at home.

However, on Monday’s broadcast, Matt’s feed suddenly cut out, as he disappeared live on air and it left a blank screen on air, reading: “Weather presenter editing playlist…”

Host, Sally, 55, said: “Oh, where’s he gone? Just in time. We kept a hold of him there” to which Jon, 56, added: “He’s gone, finished for shift!”

Poking fun at the technical blunder, Sally quipped: “Need another 50p in the metre!” while Jon added: “Let’s get the news, travel and weather where you are. Hopefully they’re there!”

It comes as veteran weather presenter, Carol Kirkwood, left the BBC show earlier this year after more than 25 years presenting. The BBC favourite announced her decision to step down earlier this year on the programme, revealing she wishes to dedicate more time to her husband Steve.

When Carol announced her departure at the time, she became emotional whilst discussing the difficult choice with Jon and Sally. At the time, she expressed: “It’s really hard for me to say this because I love my job.

“I love all of you guys, my weather colleagues, every department I’ve worked with, and of course, all the viewers I’ve been so engaged with for many years.

“But it’s great! I don’t want to be coming in on my zimmer frame, going, ‘I can’t reach the Northern Isles anymore!'”.

Discussing her future plans post-departure, Carol disclosed she’ll be dedicating more time to her husband Steve.

She continued: “We only got married a couple of years ago and we’re like ships that pass in the night, so I’m so looking forward to doing that.

“I’ve still got my books, I’ve got a few other bits and pieces. I want to travel as well.”

BBC Breakfast continues at 6am on BBC One and BBC iPlayer.

Today marks 25 years since the 9/11 attack on the Twin Towers in New York City

A woman who was inside one of the Twin Towers during 9/11 said she can still hear the “screams”.

On Tuesday, 11 September 2001, hijackers seized US passenger jets and crashed them into two New York skyscrapers, killing thousands of people. Two planes hit the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York, with the second strike 17 minutes after the first.

During a pre-recorded segment on BBC Breakfast, Janice Brooks shared her account of a day that she will always remember.

“I moved to New York on the 23rd of August 2001. I arrived in New York with the dog under one arm, a suitcase under the other, ready to begin the biggest adventure of my life,” Janice began in the interview.

Janice had only been in New York for a couple of weeks before the attack. She was working for a company called Euro Brokers, with offices on the 84th floor.

Recounting her steps on that day, Janice continued, “I left home at about probably 7.30am. Was at my desk by 7:45 at the latest. There was a bit of a bang, and I saw kind of like paper and dust swirling in the air. Suddenly, a man’s voice, top of his lungs, ‘Everybody out!’”

Janice didn’t know it, but a plane had just flown into the tower next to her. New York was under attack. As people looked on in horror, Janice was making her way down the steps. She’d reached the 70th floor when the second plane hit.

“I took two steps into the staircase, and there was this almighty thud,” she said. “The lights flickered on and off. Part of the ceiling came down. I was covered with dust and dirt. A couple of the girls at the front fell down to the floor. I was kind of like jostled against the wall.

“Then suddenly there was a scream-a woman screaming, one of those horror-filled screams that kind of lives in my head. ‘I can’t see! I can’t see!’ And all her eyes were covered with blood.

“She had long dark hair, and once she shook her head, glass covered everyone. Looked down at my shirt, and I had blood all over it. And I remember just standing there and pulling my shirt, looking at my shirt, and I’ve got blood on my shirt, and I started to cry.

“One of the brokers came running up, he took me by the shoulders and said, ‘It’s not your blood. We have to keep going. We have to get out of here’. I don’t even know your name. His name was Bob.”

As she finally reached the ground floor, Janice saw for the first time what had happened to the Twin Towers. “I looked up at the buildings, and where our floor should have been, there’s a big gaping hole, and I can see bits of building falling down,” Janice shared as she began to choke back tears.

“I can see flames. I can hear this awful bang-bang sound and this awful kind of twacking sound. And I just sat down and cried. Janice battled through the crowds and made it back to her apartment. She was in shock, completely traumatised.

After a little while, there was a huge bang. The whole building had collapsed. Janice added, “There was this billowing cloud going around my windows. One by one, the windows were blacked out until I was in the apartment. I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face.”

Janice eventually battled her way out of her apartment and, with help from strangers’ kindness, took the subway to a friend’s house.

As people around the world mark the 25th anniversary of the attack, Janice emotionally said, ” All those years have passed, and their faces start to blur in my memory. So I do my best to hold on to them, because 2,753 people were killed in the attack on the Twin Towers.”

BBC Breakfast airs daily at 6am on BBC One.

BBC Breakfast viewers were left distracted from the headlines by a major new format change.

BBC Breakfast viewers noticed a major change moments into the programme.

BBC Breakfast returned on Monday, August 24, with Ben Thompson joining Sally Nugent as he stepped in for Jon Kay.

Headlines of the day focused on the Middlesbrough crash on Saturday that left seven people, including two police officers, dead, as well as the return of the Premier League, with a tribute to Kevin Keegan during Newcastle’s match against Liverpool.

However, viewers were left distracted by a BBC Breakfast format change, with the graphics on screen given a major revamp.

Instead of the red timebox and headlines running at the bottom of the screen, the studio background graphics are in blue, while the taglines at the bottom of the screen are now also in a red to blue gradient, and highlighting what is coming up in the show.

“Can’t the producers decide on ONE colour for graphics?” one person fumed. Another said: “These captions are annoying, get rid, if I want captions I will turn the subtitles on.”

“Why have they tried to make the graphics look like a mobile phone? They look ridiculous,” a third seethed. Another replied: “That’s what I thought. And I don’t like it.”

Someone else said: “I can’t concentrate on two things at once so I’m either trying to read that extremely small text or watching the news report.”

“Someone been at the crayons.. what’s with the colour scheme?” yet another said, as someone else wrote: “So weird.”

Another viewer said they “hated” the change, as one person added: “Might just as well watch ITV now they’ve put this s**t on the screen and dumb down completely.”

Someone else called it “really rubbish”, as another fumed: “Ffs – get rid of these annoying captions! They are very distracting & totally unnecessary!”

One added: “#bbcbreakfast have obviously misjudged the demographic of their early morning viewers with this new format.”

This comes after the BBC Breakfast team celebrated National Television Award nominations, during an edition of the show last week.

As two nominations include heartfelt documentaries from the BBC Breakfast team, Jon shared how “honoured” they were.

Meanwhile, BBC Breakfast’s rivals Good Morning Britain have been nominated in the Daytime category alongside James Martin’s Saturday Morning, Loose Women, Scam Interceptors and This Morning.

BBC Breakfast airs daily from 6am on BBC One and iPlayer.