World Trade Center 9-11 Attacks

For many decades to come, the date September 11th will only mean one thing to most people: the day when terror claimed nearly 3,000 lives, shut down the nation's air transportation, and changed the lives of thousands who lost husbands, wives, sons, daughters, aunts, uncles, and best friends when the towers came down.

A Synopsis of the New York Attacks

In the early morning hours of Tuesday, September 11th, 2001, 19 hijackers boarded 4 different planes at three U.S. airports - Logan in Boston, Newark (NJ) International, and Dulles Airport in the Washington DC area. The planes, with dozens of passengers on board, would soon become human missiles in an attack that would long be remembered.

In New York, in particular, it was a warm, sunny September day but the brightness and tranquility would soon be shattered. At 8:46 am local time, American Airlines Flight 11, a Boeing 767-200, slammed into the side of the north tower of the World Trade Center complex, leaving a gaping hole in the building and starting numerous fires. Just 16 minutes later, at 9:02 am, the same kind of plane - this time United Air Lines Flight 175 - would crash into the south tower. The eerie event was televised live as hundreds of TV cameras were trained on the already burning north tower. Shortly thereafter, another plane would hit the Pentagon in Arlington (VA) and a fourth plane would go down in a field in Shanksville, PA after passengers made an attempt to thwart the hijacking.

As the towers burned, thousands tried to escape. Some had no chance, being immediately incinerated by the burning airline fuel. Others ran for the stairs. Some made it to the bottom (if they were fortunate enough to be below the point of impact) but many others didn't. Some jumped from windows in a desperate attempt to escape the burning heat.

Just before 10 am, the south tower fell to the ground, with floors collapsing upon one another like building blocks. The north tower fell 29 minutes later. Thousands in the area of the World Trade Center ran to escape falling debris. A third smaller building, World Trade Center 7, collapsed later that evening.

In and around the towers, 2,602 people died, including 343 New York City Fire Department firefighters, 23 New York City Police Department officers, and 37 Port Authority Police Department officers. About 2,000 of these individuals were at or above the impact floors when the planes hit. Most of the 16,000 people below the impact zone survived.

The city was eventually able to identify about 1,600 individuals. The rest remain unidentified, though the city is in possession of about 10,000 bone and tissue fragments that have not been matched to any of the victims.

Damage and Recovery

9/11 Attacks

In all, 25 buildings in Lower Manhattan were badly damaged including all the WTC complex buildings, the nearby Marriott Hotel, and St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church. Many buildings had to be razed. Others were repaired.

Rescue efforts began almost immediately, but on the day following the attacks, only 11 people were pulled from the rubble alive. No other survivors were found after that.

In the days after the towers collapsed, in addition to paid recovery workers, literally thousands of volunteers arrived from far and wide to assist in the recovery efforts. These included firefighters, police officers, EMTs, ironworkers, machine operators, structural engineers, masons, boilermakers, carpenters and electricians. In addition there were insulation workers, pipefitters, plumbers, sheet metal workers, steamfitters, steelworkers, and truckers. All would work together to clear more than 9,000 tons of debris by the Friday after the attacks, and another 30,000 tons by Monday, September 17th. Most of it was brought to the Fresh Kills Landfill on Staten Island.

Various government and private organizations would also play a role in the recovery efforts, including the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Army Corp of Engineers, and The Red Cross.

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Last modified: December 09 2009.