Never Forget

This is what they did.  This is why we fight. 

Tuesday, September 11, 2001  

All times, except where otherwise noted, in Eastern Daylight Time (EDT).

6:02 AM: Mohammed Atta flies Colgan Air from Portland International Jetport, Portland, Maine to Logan International Airport, Boston, Massachusetts, along with Abdulaziz al-Omari.

6:45 AM: Atta and Omari arrive at Boston’s Logan Airport.

7:59 AM: American Airlines Flight 11, a Boeing 767, departs late from Logan International Airport bound for Los Angeles, California. Five hijackers are aboard.

8:13 AM: The last radio communication is made from Flight 11. A recording of what is believed to be Atta’s voice says, “Nobody move. Everything will be OK. If you try to make any moves, you’ll endanger yourself and the airplane. Just stay quiet.” The flight path begins to stray away from the scheduled one and moves southwards.

8:14 AM: United Airlines Flight 175, another fully-fueled Boeing 767, carrying 56 passengers and nine crew members, departs from Boston Logan airport, also bound for Los Angeles. Five hijackers are aboard.

8:19 AM: Betty Ong, a flight attendant on Flight 11 [1] alerts American Airlines of a hijacking in progress via an airphone.

8:20 AM: The Federal Aviation Administration’s Boston Center flight controllers decide that Flight 11 has probably been hijacked. American Airlines Flight 77, a Boeing 757 with 58 passengers and six crew, departs from Washington Dulles International Airport in Fairfax and Loudoun Counties, Virginia, for Los Angeles. Five hijackers are aboard.

8:21 AM: Flight 11’s transponder signal is turned off but the plane remains on radar screens. (Prior to the 9/11 Commission’s report, news organizations reported this time as 8:13 or immediately thereafter.)

8:24 AM: Flight 11 makes a 100-degree turn to the south heading toward New York City. A radio transmission comes from Flight 11: “We have some planes. Just stay quiet, and you’ll be okay. We are returning to the airport.”

8:25 AM: Boston Center flight controllers alert other flight control centers regarding Flight 11; however, NORAD is not yet alerted.

8:37 AM: Flight 175 confirms sighting of hijacked Flight 11 to flight controllers, 10 miles (16 km) to its south.

8:37:52 AM: Boston Center control notifies NEADS (Northeast Air Defense Sector), the northeast sector of NORAD, of the hijacking of Flight 11, the first notification received by the military, at any level, that American 11 had been hijacked. The controller requests military help to intercept the aircraft.

8:43 AM:  FAA notified NORAD that United Airlines Flight 175 from Boston to Los Angles had also been hijacked. Two F-15 jet fighters took off from Otis Air National Guard Base in Falmouth, Massachusetts. 

8:46:26 AM:  American Airlines flight 11 (a Boeing 767) crashes with a speed of less than 490 miles per hour into the north side of the northern tower of the World Trade Center, approximately between floors 94 and 98. The aircraft enters the tower mostly intact. It plows to the building core, severing all three gypsum-encased stairwells, dragging combustibles with it. A massive shock wave travels down to the ground and up again. The combustibles and the remnants of the aircraft are ignited by the burning fuel. Since the building lacks a traditional full cage frame and depends almost entirely on the strength of a narrow structural core running up the center, the fire at the center of the impact zone is in a position to compromise the integrity of all internal columns. People below the severed stairwells in the North Tower start to evacuate; no-one above the impact zone is able to do so.

8:46 to 10:29 AM: At least 100 people (some accounts say as many as 250), primarily in the North Tower, trapped by fire and smoke in the upper floors, jump to their deaths. There is some evidence that large central portions of the floor near the impact zone in the North Tower collapsed soon after the plane hit.  One person at street level, firefighter Daniel Thomas Suhr, is hit by a jumper and dies. No form of airborne evacuation is attempted as smoke is too dense for a successful landing on the roof of either tower.

8:49:34 AM: The first news and radio organizations report an explosion or incident at the World Trade Center. CNN breaks into a commercial at 8:49. CNN headlines first read “World Trade Center disaster.” Carol Lin, who was the first anchor to break the news of the attacks, said: “Yeah. This just in. You’re looking at obviously a very disturbing live shot there. That is the World Trade Center, and we have unconfirmed reports this morning that a plane has crashed into one of the towers of the World Trade Center. CNN Center right now is just beginning to work on this story, obviously calling our sources and trying to figure out exactly what happened, but clearly something relatively devastating happening this morning there on the south end of the island of Manhattan. That is once again, a picture of one of the towers of the World Trade Center.” Later, Sean Murtagh, CNN vice-president of finance, in an on-air phone call, said from his office in the CNN New York bureau that a large passenger commercial jet hit the World Trade Center. Murtagh was the first network employee on the air. The first email bulletins of breaking news from CNN and MSNBC report “fire at tower of World Trade Center”. Both CNN and MSNBC’s websites receive such heavy traffic, that many servers collapse. BBC News’ website is active and shows a picture of the North Tower on fire. Minutes later, email news bulletins revise the reports of fire to a plane crash.

8:51 AM: A flight controller at the FAA’s New York Center notices that Flight 175 had changed its transponder code twice four minutes earlier; he tries to contact the flight.

8:51 to 8:54 AM (approx.): Hijacking begins on Flight 77.

8:53 AM: The F-15s at Otis Air Force Base are airborne. Still lacking an intercept vector to Flight 11 (and not aware that it has already been crashed), they are sent to military controlled airspace off Long Island and ordered to remain in a holding pattern until between 9:09 and 9:13.

8:54 AM: Flight 77 deviates from its assigned course to Los Angeles, turning south over Ohio. Two minutes later, its transponder is turned off.

8:55 AM (approx.): Announcements are made by officials in the still-undamaged South Tower of the World Trade Center that the building is “secure”, and that people may return to their offices, over the building-wide PA system. Some do not hear it; others ignore it and evacuate anyway; others congregate in common areas like the 78th floor sky lobby.

8:55 AM: President George W. Bush is at Emma E. Booker Elementary School in Sarasota, Florida, as part of a scheduled visit to promote education and the Bush administration education policies when Presidential Advisor Karl Rove tells him that a small, twin-engine plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. The president speaks to National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice at the White House; she reports that it was a commercial aircraft.

9:03:13 AM:  United Airlines flight 175 (another Boeing 767) crashes with a speed of about 590 miles per hour into the south side of the South Tower, banked between floors 78 and 84. By this time, several media organizations are covering the first plane crash; millions see the impact live. Parts of the plane leave the building at its east and north sides, falling to the ground six blocks away. Some mistakenly believe that a second explosion has occurred in the North Tower due to the North Tower’s obstruction of the South Tower from certain camera angles. They were unaware that a second plane had struck the South Tower. A massive evacuation begins in the South Tower below its impact zone. One of the stairwells in the South Tower remains unblocked from the top to the bottom of the tower, but filled with smoke. This led many people to mistakenly go upwards towards the roof for a rooftop rescue that never came. CNN’s headline now reads “Second plane crashes into World Trade Center.”

9:06 AM: After brief introductions to the Booker elementary students, President Bush is about to begin reading with the students when Chief of Staff Andrew Card interrupts to whisper to the president, “A second plane hit the other tower, and America’s under attack.” The president stated later that he decided to continue the lesson rather than alarm the students.

9:08 AM: The FAA bans all takeoffs nationwide for flights going to or through New York Center airspace. ABC reports later that the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the agency that runs the New York-area airports, asked the FAA for permission to close down the New York Center airspace.

9:15 AM (approximately): President Bush leaves the classroom in which he has been reading with students, and enters another, commandeered by the Secret Service. It contains a telephone, a television showing the news coverage, and several senior staff members. The president speaks to Vice President Dick Cheney, Dr. Rice, New York Governor George Pataki, and FBI Director Robert Mueller, and prepares brief remarks[2].

9:18 AM: CNN makes reference to foul play for the first time, stating the FBI was investigating a report of plane hijacking. CNN headline: “AP: Plane was hijacked before crashed”.

9:23 AM: Flight 93 receives warning message text from United Airlines flight dispatcher: “Beware any cockpit intrusion- Two a/c [aircraft] hit World Trade Center.”

9:29 AM: President Bush makes his first public statements about the attacks, in front of an audience of about 200 teachers and students at the elementary school. He states that he will be going back to Washington, that “we’ve had a national tragedy”, and leads a moment of silence. After the speech, he is bound for Sarasota-Bradenton International Airport and Air Force One.

9:33 to 9:34 AM: Tower supervisor at Reagan National Airport tells Secret Service operations center at the White House that “an aircraft [is] coming at you and not talking with us,” referring to Flight 77. The White House is about to be evacuated when the tower reports that Flight 77 has turned and is approaching Reagan International Airport.

9:37 AM: Based on a report that Flight 77 had turned again and was circling back, Vice President Cheney is evacuated from the White House to an underground tunnel leading to a security bunker.

9:37:46 AM:  American Airlines flight 77 (Boeing 757) crashes into the western side of the Pentagon and starts a violent fire. The section of the Pentagon hit consists mainly of newly renovated, unoccupied offices. Barbara K. Olson had called her husband, Solicitor General Theodore Olson at the Justice Department at 9:25 from the plane to tell him about the hijacking and to report that the passengers and pilots were held in the back of the plane. 125 people are killed.

9:41 AM: CNN’s Breaking News bulletin reads “Reports of fire at Pentagon”, its first reference to the incident at the Pentagon.

9:45 AM:  United States airspace is shut down. No civilian aircraft are allowed to take off, and all aircraft in flight are ordered to land at the nearest airport as soon as practical. All international flights headed for the U.S. are redirected to Canada. Transport Canada, the Canadian transportation agency, follows the American lead and closes down their airspace. The FAA announces that civilian flights are suspended until at least noon September 12, while Transport Canada gives similar orders, but until further notice, to take in diverted U.S.-bound international flights, launching the agency’s “Operation Yellow Ribbon.” The groundings last until September 14. Military and medical flights continue. This is the fourth time all commercial flights in the U.S. have been stopped, and the first time a suspension was unplanned. All previous suspensions were military-related (Sky Shield I-III), from 1960 to 1962. Many newspapers (including The New York Times) mistakenly print that this is the first time flights have been suspended. This was also the first time commercial flights in Canada have been stopped.

9:48 AM:  The U.S. Capitol and West Wing of the White House are evacuated.

9:57 AM: President Bush leaves Sarasota, Florida, on Air Force One. The plane reaches cruising altitude and circles for approximately 40 minutes while the destination of the plane is discussed.

9:59:04 AM:  The South Tower of the World Trade Center collapses, 55 minutes 51 seconds after the impact of Flight 175. Its destruction is viewed and heard by a vast television and radio audience. As the roar of the collapse goes silent, tremendous gray-white clouds of pulverized concrete and gypsum rush through the streets. Most observers think a new explosion or impact has produced smoke and debris that now obscures the South Tower. When the wind finally clears the immediate space, it is plain to see that the tower is gone.

10:03 AM:  United Airlines flight 93 (Boeing 757) crashes southeast of Pittsburgh in Somerset county, Pennsylvania. Some accounts say that the time was 10:06 or 10:10 AM. The first reports from the police indicate that no one on board survived. A passenger reached officials on his cell phone from the plane’s rest room, repeatedly claiming that the plane was hijacked and that the call was not a hoax. Later reports indicate that passengers speaking on cell phones had learned about the World Trade Center and Pentagon crashes and at least three were planning on resisting the hijackers. One passenger told his wife that one person had already been stabbed to death by the hijackers. It is likely that the resistance led to the plane crashing before it reached its
intended target. A black box recording , retrieved and later played to relatives of the victims, supports this scenario, and it further suggests that the passengers succeeded in entering the cockpit. 

10:10 AM:  Part of the Pentagon collapses.

10:11 AM:  Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado, home to the North American Air Defense Command (NORAD)  is sealed against attack for the first time.

10:13 AM:  Thousands are evacuated from the United Nations headquarters. 

10:10 to 10:15 AM (approximately): Vice President Cheney, unaware that Flight 93 has crashed, authorizes fighter aircraft to engage the inbound plane, reported to be 80 miles (129 km) from Washington, based not on radar (from which it has disappeared) but speed and trajectory projections.

10:28 AM:  the northern tower of the World Trade Center collapses from the top down, after burning approximately 103 minutes in a fire caused by the impact of American Airlines flight 11. The fact that the northern tower withstood much longer than the southern one is later attributed to three facts: the region of impact was higher, the speed of the airplane was lower, and the affected floors had their fire proofing upgraded.  The evacuated Saint Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church is destroyed by falling debris. The collapse is registered as a 2.3 magnitude quake on seismographs.

10:35 AM  (approximately), police are reportedly alerted about a bomb in a car outside the State Department in Washington, D.C.. Later reports claim that nothing happened at the State Department. 

10:39 AM:  another hijacked jumbo jet is claimed to be headed for Washington, D.C. F15s are scrambled and patrol the airspace above Washington, D.C. while other fighter jets sweep the airspace above New York City. According to (unconfirmed) rumors they have orders to shoot down any potentially dangerous planes that do not comply with orders given to them via radio. 

10:45 AM: CNN reports that a mass evacuation of Washington and New York has been started. The UN headquarters are already empty. A few minutes later, New York mayor Rudy Giuliani orders an evacuation of lower Manhattan.

10:50 AM: five stories of the Pentagon collapse due to the fire.

10:53 AM: New York’s primary elections are canceled.

11:16 AM:  American Airlines confirms the loss of its two airplanes.

11:17 AM:  United Airlines confirms the loss of Flight 93 and states that it is “deeply concerned” about Flight 175. 

11:53 AM:  United Airlines confirms the loss of its two airplanes. 

11:55 AM: the border between the U.S. and Mexico is on highest alert, but has not been closed. 

12:00 PM (approximately): President Bush arrives at Barksdale Air Force Base in
Louisiana. He was on a trip in Sarasota, Florida to speak about education, but is supposedly now returning to the Capital. He made a brief and informal initial statement to the effect that terrorism on U.S. soil will not be tolerated, stating that “freedom itself has been attacked and freedom will be protected.” 

12:01 PM (approx.): Fourteen people, including twelve firefighters, who were in a section of a stairwell in the North Tower that held together during the collapse, climb the stairs to the top of the Ground Zero rubble field.

12:02 PM:  the Taliban government of Afghanistan denounces the attacks. 

12:04 PM:  Los Angeles International Airport, the intended destination of American Airlines flight 11 and flight 77, as well as United Airlines flight 175, is shut down. 

12:15 PM:  San Francisco International Airport, the intended destination of United Airlines flight 93, is shut down. 

1:00 PM: approx. At the Pentagon, fire crews are still fighting fires. The early response to the attack had been coordinated from the National Military Command Center, but that had to be evacuated when it began to fill with smoke. 

1:04 PM:  President Bush puts the U.S. military on high alert worldwide. He speaks from Barksdale Air Force Base and leaves for SAC bunker in Nebraska. 

1:27 PM  Mayor Anthony A. Williams of Washington, D.C., declares a state of emergency; the National Guard arrives on site. 

2:39 PM: At a press conference New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani is asked to estimate the number of casualties at the World Trade Center. He replies, “More than any of us can bear.”

2:50 PM: President Bush arrives at Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska to convene a National Security Council teleconference via the US Statcom bunker.

3:00 PM (approx.): Pasquale Buzzelli, who lost consciousness in a North Tower stairway during the collapse, awakens to find himself lying atop the debris with only a fractured foot.

4:25 PM:  The New York Stock Exchange, NASDAQ, and the American Stock Exchange report that they will remain closed Wednesday September 12.

4:36 PM: President Bush departs Offutt Air Force Base on Air Force One to return to Washington, D.C.

5:20 PM:  7 World Trade Center, a 47-story building that had sustained what was originally thought to be light damage in the fall of the twin towers and was earlier reported on fire, collapses. The building contained New York’s emergency operations center, operated by the NYC Office of Emergency Management, originally intended to respond to disasters such as the September 11 terrorist attacks.

6:00 PM:  Explosions and tracer fire are reported in Kabul, Afghanistan, by CNN and the BBC. The Northern Alliance, involved in a civil war with the Taliban government, is later reported to have attacked Kabul’s airport with helicopter gunships.

6:00 PM: Iraq announces the attacks are the fruit of “U.S. crimes against humanity” in an official announcement on state television. 

6:00 PM: The last of the aircraft headed for the U.S. to land at a Canadian airport lands at Vancouver International, since it was over the Pacific.

6:54 PM:  President Bush arrives at the White House. 

7:30 PM:  U.S. Government denies any responsibility for reported explosions in Kabul. 

8:00 PM (approx.): Port Authority Police Officer Will Jimeno, who was in an underground corridor between the two towers, is found alive in the rubble.

8:30 PM: President Bush addresses the nation from the White House. Among his phrases: “Today, our fellow citizens, our way of life, our very freedom came under attack in a series of deliberate and deadly terrorist acts,” “Terrorist attacks can shake the foundations of our biggest buildings, but they cannot touch the foundation of America. These acts shatter steel, but they cannot dent the steel of American resolve,” and “The search is underway for those who are behind these evil acts…we will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them.”

9:00 PM: President Bush meets his full National Security Council, followed roughly half an hour later by a meeting with a smaller group of key advisers. Bush and his advisers have evidence that Osama bin Laden is behind the attacks. CIA Director Tenet says that al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan are essentially one and the same. Bush says, “Tell the Taliban we’re finished with them.”

11:00 PM:  There are reports (later proved wrong) of survivors buried in rubble in New York making cell phone calls. Only two more survivors will be pulled from the rubble on September 12.