Timeline for day of Sept. 11 attacks

Early on the morning of Tuesday, Sept. 11, 2001, 19 hijackers took control of four commercial airliners en route to San Francisco and Los Angeles from Boston, Newark, and Washington, D.C.

Planes with long flights were intentionally selected for hijacking because they would be heavily fueled. At 8:46 a.m., American Airlines Flight 11 crashed into the World Trade Center’s North Tower, followed by United Airlines Flight 175, which hit the South Tower at 9:03 a.m.

Another group of hijackers flew American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon at 9:37 a.m. A fourth flight, United Airlines Flight 93, crashed near Shanksville, Penn. At 10:03 a.m. local time after the passengers on board engaged in a fight with the hijackers. Its ultimate target is believed to have been either the Capitol or the White House.

Flight 93’s cockpit voice recorder revealed the crew and passengers attempted to seize control of the plane from the hijackers after learning through phone calls that similarly hijacked planes had been crashed into buildings that morning.

One of the hijackers gave the order to roll the plane once it became evident that they would lose control of the plane to the passengers. Soon afterward, the aircraft crashed into a field near Shanksville.

Some passengers were able to make phone calls using the cabin air phone service and mobile phones, and provide details: the presence of several hijackers aboard each plane; that mace or other noxious chemical spray, such as tear gas or pepper spray was used; that some people aboard had been stabbed.

Reports indicated that during two of the flights, the hijackers stabbed and killed aircraft pilots, flight attendants, and in at least one case, a passenger. The 9/11 Commission established that two of the hijackers had recently purchased Leatherman multi-function hand tools.

A flight attendant on Flight 11, a passenger on Flight 175, and passengers on Flight 93 mentioned that the hijackers had bombs, but one of the passengers also said he thought the bombs were fake. The FBI found no traces of explosives at the crash sites, and the 9/11 Commission concluded the bombs were probably fake.

Three buildings in the World Trade Center Complex collapsed due to structural failure. The south tower (2 WTC) fell at approximately 9:59 a.m., after burning for 56 minutes in a fire caused by the impact of United Airlines Flight 175. The north tower (1 WTC) collapsed at 10:28 a.m., after burning for approximately 102 minutes. When the north tower collapsed, debris fell on the nearby 7 World Trade Center building (7 WTC) damaging it and starting fires.

These fires burned for hours and compromised the building’s structural integrity, which led to the crumbling of the east penthouse at 5:20 p.m. and complete collapse at 5:21 p.m.

All aircraft within the continental U.S. were grounded, and aircraft already in flight were told to land immediately. All international civilian aircraft were either turned back or redirected to airports in Canada or Mexico, and all international flights were banned from landing on U.S. soil for three days.

The attacks created widespread confusion among news organizations and air traffic controllers across the United States. Among the unconfirmed and often contradictory reports aired throughout the day by news sources, one of the most prevalent was the report that a car bomb had been detonated at the U.S. State Department’s headquarters in Washington D.C.

Another jet – Flight 1989 – was suspected of having been hijacked, but this too turned out to be false after it responded to controllers and landed safely in Cleveland, Ohio.

In a September 2002 interview, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Ramzi bin al-Shibh, who are believed to have organized the attacks, said the fourth hijacked plane was heading for the United States Capitol, not for the White House. They also said al-Qaeda initially planned to target nuclear installations rather than the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, but decided against it, fearing it could “get out of control.”

Casualties

There were a total of 2,996 deaths, including 19 hijackers and 2,977 victims. The victims were distributed as follows: 246 on the four planes (from which there were no survivors), 2,606 in New York City in the towers and on the ground, and 125 at the Pentagon. All the deaths in the attacks were civilian except for 55 military personnel killed in the attack on the Pentagon.

Deaths (including hijackers)

New York City World Trade Center-2,606

American 11-87

United 175-60

Arlington Pentagon-125

American 77-59

Shanksville United 93-40

Total-2,977

According to the 9/11 Commission, hundreds were killed instantly by the impacts, while the rest were trapped and died when the towers collapsed. Of the people who were at or above the floors of impact in the North and South Towers, at least 1,366 of those died in the North Tower, and at least 618 died in the South Tower in which evacuation had begun before the second impact.

Thus over 90 percent of the workers and visitors who died in the towers had been at or above the point of impact.

A total of 411 emergency workers who responded to the scene died as they attempted to rescue people and fight fires. The New York City Fire Department (FDNY) lost 341 firefighters and two paramedics.

The New York City Police Department lost 23 officers. The Port Authority Police Department lost 37 officers, [48] and eight additional emergency medical technicians (EMTS) and paramedics form private EMS units were killed.

At least 200 people jumped to their deaths from the burning towers, landing on the streets and rooftops of adjacent buildings hundreds of feet below.

Some of the occupants of each tower above its point of impact made their way upward toward the roof in hope of helicopter rescue, but the roof access doors were locked. No plan existed for helicopter rescues, and the thick smoke and intense heat would have prevented helicopters from conducting such rescues.

Cantor Fitzgerald L.P., an investment bank on the 101^st-105^th floors of One World Trade Center, lost 658 employees, considerably more than any other employer. Marsh Inc., located immediately below Cantor Fitzgerald on floors 93-100, lost 355 employees, and 175 employees of Aon Corporation were killed.

NIST estimated that 17,400 civilians were in the World Trade Center complex at the time of the attacks, while turnstile counts from Port Authority suggest that 14,154 people were typically in the Twin Towers by 8:45 a.m.

The vast majority of people below the impact zone safely evacuated the buildings, along with 18 people who were in the impact zone in the south tower and a number above the impact zone who used the one intact stairwell in the south tower.

After New York, New Jersey was the hardest hit state, with the city of Hoboken sustaining the most deaths. More than 70 countries lost citizens in the attacks on the World Trade Center. Two people were later added to the official death toll after dying from health conditions linked to exposure to dust from the collapse of the World Trade Center.

Weeks after the attack, death toll was estimated to be over 6,000, more than twice the number of deaths that was confirmed later. The city was only able to identify remains for about 1,600 of the World Trade Center’s victims.

The medical examiner’s office also collected “about 10,000 unidentified bone and tissue fragments that cannot be matched to the list of the dead.”

Bone fragments were still being found in 2006 as workers were preparing to demolish the damaged Deutsche Bank Building. In 2010, a team of anthropologists and archaeologists searched for human remains and personal items at the Fresh Kills Landfill, where 72 more human remains were recovered, bringing the total found to 1,845. DNA profiling continues in an attempt to identify additional victims.

As of May 2011, 1,630 victims have been identified, while 1,123 (41 percent) of the victims remained unidentified. The remains are being held in storage in Memorial Park, outside New York City Medical Examiner’s facilities.

A medical examiner will continue to try to identify remains, based on the theory that improved technology will allow them to identify other victims.