Originally published Sept. 12, 2001 • By Mark Obmascik
In the most devastating terrorist attack in U.S. history, hijackers crashed two passenger jets Tuesday into the World Trade Center in New York City and one into the Pentagon near Washington, killing thousands and leaving the nation feeling horrified and vulnerable.
President Bush vowed retribution, saying, “We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them.”
At 8:45 a.m. EDT, the first plane, with 92 aboard, slammed into the north tower of the Trade Center in Manhattan. Eighteen minutes later, another jet, with 65 on board, erupted in a fireball midway up the south tower.
Less than an hour later, a third hijacked flight crashed into the Pentagon, killing all 64 aboard. Another 45 passengers and crew were killed shortly afterward when their hijacked plane dived into a field near Shanksville, Pa.
As hundreds of New York police officers and firefighters rushed to rescue survivors, the twin 110-story towers of the World Trade Center collapsed in a massive cloud of fire and rubble, spewing dust down Manhattan streets. Reported missing were 78 police officers and more than 300 firefighters and paramedics. The city’s fire chief was killed.
Mayor Rudolph Giuliani said the death toll would not be known for at least a day but would be “more than any of us can bear.” As many as 50,000 people worked in the two towers, which have up to 100,000 visitors a day.
There were reports Tuesday night of survivors using cellphones to call for help while buried in rubble. One trapped man reached family in Pennsylvania and gave directions on how to rescue him and two police sergeants.
Six firefighters were rescued from one collapsed building, and crews searched through the night for other victims. “We’re very hopeful there are pockets of people,” the mayor said.
Flanked by protective fighter jets, Air Force One whisked the president from his speech at a Florida elementary school to military bases in Louisiana and Nebraska before returning him to the White House.
Bush ordered investigators to “hunt down the folks who committed this act.”
In the aftermath of the suicide assaults on symbols of American business and military power, the Federal Aviation Administration closed all U.S. airports for the first time ever, until at least noon today. The White House was evacuated, and hundreds of government and business offices were shut down.
In Denver, the state Capitol was closed, and hundreds lined up to donate blood at the Bonfils center at the former Lowry Air Force Base. Friends and relatives grieved after hearing reports that United Airlines pilot Jason Dahl, a Jefferson County resident, was killed in the Pennsylvania crash.
The tragedy sent more than 1,000 patients to New York City’s 170 hospitals, with at least 150 people listed in critical condition. Makeshift triage centers were set up on streets near the World Trade Center, and hundreds of other New Yorkers lined up to donate blood.
At the World Trade Center, witnesses described heartbreak after heartbreak:
Clemant Lewin, a banker who works across the street, saw a man and woman holding hands as they plunged from the 80th floor.
Kenny Johannemann, a janitor, encountered a man on fire and extinguished the flames.
Ann Ventra saw leapers engulfed in flames.
After racing down 29 flights of stairs in the south tower, Richard Cruz paused at the 63rd floor and looked out the window.
“One side of Building 1 was engulfed in flames,” said Cruz, 32. “People were yelling: “Oh my god! They’re jumping; they’re jumping out the window.’ I looked down, and I saw a lot of debris, and I saw blood spots. I saw the horror. That’s when it hit me, and I thought to myself, “I have to get out of here.'”
He did. But on the street, dust and smoke and falling shards of glass had darkened the air. Sirens blared, and workers ran for their lives.
Cruz walked past a burnt torso.
Security experts expressed dismay that terrorists had the ability to hijack four jets departing three airports within a short time. Officials suspected that the hijackers were at the controls of the planes that hit the World Trade Center and Pentagon.
“This is perhaps the most audacious terrorist attack that’s ever taken place in the world,” said Chris Yates, an aviation expert at Jane’s Transport in London. “It takes a logistics operation from the terror group involved that is second to none. Only a very small handful of terror groups is on that list. I would name at the top of the list Osama bin Laden.”
Bin Laden is the multimillionaire Saudi exile, believed to be living in Afghanistan, who has declared war on the United States and is suspected of funding terrorist activities worldwide.
The attacks were carried out with lethal precision.
At 7:59 a.m., American Airlines Flight 11 departed from Boston for Los Angeles, carrying 92 people. Two minutes later, United Airlines Flight 93, with 45 people, took off from Newark, N.J., for San Francisco.
United Flight 175, carrying 65 people, left Boston at 8:14, headed for Los Angeles. At 9 a.m., American Flight 77 departed from Washington’s Dulles International Airport for Los Angeles, with 64 people on board.
Loaded with jet fuel for cross-country travel, each plane carried 1.2 kilotons of energy, or one-tenth the killing force of the atomic weapon dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima in 1945.
The American Airlines flight from Boston crashed first, into the north tower of the World Trade Center. While television broadcast the tragedy live, the United flight from Boston plowed into the south tower.
Fires raged inside the towers.
Rescuers converged from across New York City to help survivors. Firefighters raced up stairwells to try to reach trapped survivors. At one point, rescuers had to decide whether to continue climbing upward through smoky stairs or try evacuating stranded victims in wheelchairs.
But at 10 a.m., the top of the south tower collapsed, and the weight made the rest of the building give way.
Police and firefighters below tried to duck the plunging rubble, but dozens were killed.
At 10:29, the north tower collapsed.
Meanwhile, the American Airlines flight from Dulles turned off its path and aimed at the Pentagon.
Across the Potomac River from Washington, the jet smashed into the huge outer ring of the building and burrowed into the parklike central courtyard.
“We have been attacked like we haven’t since Pearl Harbor,” said Adm. Robert J. Natter, the commander of the Atlantic fleet, who ordered aircraft carriers and guided missile destroyers to New York and Washington. He also dispatched amphibious ships carrying Marines and sailors who could assist with security, as well as surgical teams.
Then the FAA reported another missing flight: The San Francisco-bound United flight. At 9:58 a.m., a passenger locked in a bathroom used a cellphone to dial 911 and report a hijacking underway over Pennsylvania. This was the flight that was carrying Dahl, the Colorado-based pilot.
A caller told police that hijackers with knives had stabbed flight attendants and strong-armed their way into the cockpit. Also, Alice Hoglan told KTVU-TV in San Francisco that her son, Mark Bingham, 31, called her from aboard the flight at 9:44 a.m.
“We’ve been taken over. There are three men that say they have a bomb,” Hoglan said her son told her.
About 10 a.m., the jet crashed into a wooded area in Somerset County, Pa., 80 miles southeast of Pittsburgh.
One congressman briefed by the military said he believed the terrorists were trying to attack Camp David, the presidential retreat 85 miles away in Maryland.
“The calculated, cold-blooded, cowardly taking of precious human lives in the name of religion or nationalism is beyond blasphemy,” said Roman Catholic Bishop Kenneth Angell of Vermont. “It is pure evil.”
The New York Times, Los Angeles Times and Associated Press contributed to this report.
