At 8:46AM on a clear and sunny Tuesday morning in 2001, American Airlines Flight 11, carrying ninety-two individuals (including five hijackers) and loaded with ten thousand gallons of jet fuel, crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York City at a speed of approximately 466 miles per hour. The airplane left a gaping and burning hole between the 93rd and 99th floors of the 110-story skyscraper, instantly killing hundreds of people and trapping hundreds more in the floors above the point of impact. As the evacuation of the North Tower continued, a second airplane, United Airlines Flight 175, turned sharply towards the World Trade Center and then, just sixteen minutes after the North Tower was struck, sliced into the South Tower between the 77th and 85th floors. Traveling at approximately 545 miles per hour, five more hijackers killed the other sixty individuals on board and caused an explosion which showered debris on the surrounding buildings and the streets below.
As millions nationwide watched the horror of the events unfolding on television, American Airlines Flight 77 circled over Washington, D.C. and slammed into the west side of the Pentagon at 9:37AM. Fuel from the Boeing 757 created a large inferno, causing a portion of the building to collapse. All told, 125 military personnel and civilians were killed in the Pentagon, along with all 64 individuals aboard the airplane (including six hijackers).
Less than fifteen minutes after the terrorists attacked the Pentagon, the South Tower of the World Trade Center collapsed in a massive cloud of dust and smoke. Designed to withstand winds in excess of two hundred miles per hour and a large conventional fire, could not endure the tremendous heat generated by the burning jet fuel. And then, at 10:28AM, the North Tower collapsed.
Meanwhile, a fourth and final aircraft, United Flight 93, was hijacked by four terrorists approximately forty minutes after taking off from Newark Liberty International Airport in Newark, NJ. Because the airplane's departure had been delayed, passengers on board were aware of the tragic events in New York City and Washington, D.C. through the use of cell phones and Airfones. They were, therefore, also aware of the terrible fate awaiting them so a group of passengers and flight attendants decided to revolt against the hijackers. Following the passengers' suspected attack on the hijackers in the cockpit with a fire extinguisher, the plane flipped over and sped towards the ground at close to five hundred miles per hour. Believed to be ultimately targeting, among other locations, either the White House or the United States Capitol, the airplane eventually crashed in a rural field in western Pennsylvania at 10:03AM, killing all forty-four individuals on board, including the terrorists.
Some of the nineteen terrorists had lived in the United States for more than a year and had actually taken flying lessons at American commercial flight schools. Utilizing knives and box cutters easily smuggled through security checkpoints at three airports on the East Coast, these despicable individuals commandeered the four planes shortly after takeoff on September 11 and, by doing so, transformed the ordinary commuter airplanes into guided missiles.
In total, 2,995 people died in the attacks on September 11, including 343 firefighters and paramedics, 23 New York City police officers, 37 Port Authority police officers and 8 additional emergency medical technicians and paramedics from private EMS units. Cantor Fitzgerald, an investment bank located on the 101st–105th floors of One World Trade Center, lost 658 employees, a staggering amount much higher than any other company. Almost ten thousand other individuals were treated for injuries, many of them severe.
Mr. Bush addressed the nation from the Oval Office that same evening at approximately 8:30PM, stating that "We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them". Operation Enduring Freedom, the U.S. led international effort to remove the Taliban regime in Afghanistan from power and destroy Osama bin Laden's terrorist network, began on October 7. However, fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan continues, bin Laden is still at large and it has been 2,325 days since Mr. Bush declared "Mission accomplished".
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