On this day in New York · September 11, 2001
The Towers Fall
Two hijacked jets turned a Tuesday morning skyline into a crime scene, and New York has been rebuilding around the hole ever since.
The facts
- First impact
- 8:46 a.m., American Airlines Flight 11, North Tower
- Second impact
- 9:03 a.m., United Airlines Flight 175, South Tower
- Collapse
- Both towers fell within an hour and forty-two minutes, destroying the complex's other five buildings
- Toll
- 2,977 killed, including 343 FDNY firefighters and 72 law enforcement officers
On the morning of September 11, 2001, hijackers flew American Airlines Flight 11 into the World Trade Center's North Tower at 8:46 a.m. Seventeen minutes later, at 9:03 a.m., United Airlines Flight 175 hit the South Tower, live on cameras that were already pointed at the smoke. Both towers came down within an hour and forty-two minutes of that first impact, taking the other five buildings in the complex with them. The attacks killed 2,977 people, including 343 firefighters and 72 law enforcement officers who went in while everyone else was trying to get out. By that night the president was on television from the Oval Office, and lower Manhattan was already a crime scene, a rescue site, and a wound the city would carry for two decades.
In their words
The day in the words of the people who were there. Every quote is verbatim, and every source links out so you can check it.
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Today, our fellow citizens, our way of life, our very freedom came under attack in a series of deliberate and deadly terrorist acts.
President George W. Bush, address to the nation, the evening of September 11, 2001
Source: George W. Bush White House Archives
Why it still matters
The attacks rewrote downtown Manhattan, airport security, and American foreign policy for two decades, and the names of the dead are still read aloud at Ground Zero every September 11th.
Sources
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