A Van Bomb Rips Open the World Trade Center

On February 26, 1993, a Ryder van packed with a 1,336-pound urea nitrate bomb exploded on the B-2 parking level beneath the North Tower of the World Trade Center at 12:18 p.m. The blast tore a crater through several sub-basements, killed six people, and injured more than a thousand others as roughly 50,000 workers and visitors evacuated down smoke-filled stairwells. The plot was organized by Ramzi Yousef, who fled the country the night of the bombing and was captured in Pakistan two years later. Four of his co-conspirators, Mohammad Salameh, Nidal Ayyad, Mahmud Abouhalima, and Ahmad Ajaj, were convicted in 1994 and sentenced to 240 years each; Yousef and driver Eyad Ismoil were convicted in 1997.