September 11 attacks
The September 11 attacks (also referred to as 9/11) were a series of four coordinated terrorist attacks by the Islamic terrorist group al-Qaeda against the United States on the morning of Tuesday, September 11, 2001. The attacks killed 2,996 people, injured over 6,000 others, and caused at least $10 billion in infrastructure and property damage. Additional people died of 9/11-related cancer and respiratory diseases in the months and years following the attacks.
Marriott World Trade Center
When American Airlines Flight 11 crashed into the North Tower (1 WTC) at 8:46 AM EDT, its landing gear fell on the hotel's roof. Firefighters used the lobby as a staging area, and were also in the hotel to evacuate guests that may have still been inside. Firefighters also reported human remains of entire corpses on the roof from people that had jumped or accidentally fallen from the burning towers. The collapse of the South Tower (2 WTC) at 9:59 AM EDT split the building in half (such damage can briefly be seen in the documentary film "9/11"), and the collapse of the North Tower at 10:28 AM EDT destroyed the rest of the hotel aside from a small section (as seen on the picture) that was furthest from the North Tower. Fourteen people who had been trying to evacuate the partially destroyed hotel after the first collapse managed to survive the second collapse in this small section. The section of the hotel that had managed to survive the collapse of the Twin Towers had been upgraded after the 1993 bombing.